Over at the American Conservative, Daniel Larison takes issue with Sarah Palin's record on taxes and spending:

Palin supported tax increases on oil companies, which ultimately impose costs on consumers, so that she can give away more money in Alaska and buy her extraordinarily high levels of support. While I do not consider earmarks to be the grave evil that the McCain/Palin ticket claim them to be, Alaska under Palin remains the leading recipient of per capita federal earmark funding. She embraced the bridge boondoggle until it became politically radioactive, and now she pretends that she was its mortal foe. She left Wasilla under a mountain of debt, and also bungled the management of purchasing the land where the athletic facility was to be built so badly that it has imposed additional costs on Wasilla. Spending has skyrocketed under her administration. Now for good measure she has demonstrated a woeful lack of understanding of many major national and international issues, which drives home how unprepared she is, but would anyone on the right honestly look at her record as an executive before this and say, “Yes, this is the sort of thing I want to see at the federal level”? If conservatives don’t care about this, I suppose that’s their business, but can we stop pretending that this critique is based purely on whether or not she has done well in a couple of interviews? Whether judged “superficially” or on substance, there is not much there that conservatives can find that is very encouraging.

David Brooks, a neo-conservative columnist, called Palin a "fatal cancer to the Republican Party." Like Larisan, I think that is a bit much. Larison adds, "that seems a bit rich from someone who cheered on almost every single misguided and terrible policy of the Bush administration."

Just the same though, Palin's nomination shows that Republicans do not take themselves seriously anymore as a national party. McCain's campaign has been a disaster thus far. He is perceived as being another George W. Bush. That image is largely his own doing because he refuses to end the war in Iraq and bring our troops home. He proposes another bailout at a cost of $300 billion and then runs around telling everyone, "it's my proposal, it's not Senator Obama's proposal, it's not President Bush's proposal." Congratulations, Sen. McCain. You are now running to the left of your opponent.

H/T: Below the Beltway