Sarah Palin still has the touch, said Dan Amira in New York magazine. In her first big international speech since resigning as Alaska's governor, the former Republican vice presidential candidate proved to be as polarizing as ever. Some of the financial types at a Hong Kong investment conference lapped up Palin's screed against the federal government, which she blamed for the financial crisis. Others found the speech "awful." (read Sarah Palin's 'Thoughts from Hong Kong' on Facebook)

Try disgusting, said Alan Colmes in Liberaland. Instead of offering insights to investors, Palin used her coming-out speech to attack President Obama. "'Bashing America on foreign soil' has been a meme of the Right, which has attacked Democrats whenever an ill word was spoken overseas, so I wonder if that same principle will apply to Sarah Palin."

Some in the audience appreciated Palin's candor about the long-term danger of having taxpayers spend us out of a financial crisis, said Don Surber in the Charleston, W.V., Daily Mail. It's not big news that others didn't like the speech—which was closed to the press. "Methinks some people expected Joan of Arc while others expected Tina Fey. I think they got Sarah, a bright person from middle America who is more mainstream than the geniuses we have in Washington."

Sarah Palin scored some points by appealing to the "libertarian, small-government views commonly held by professional investors," said Vincent Fernando in The Business Insider. She did make a few gaffes—"such as warning against a one-nation Asia (as if China, Japan, and India are anywhere near this)." But it wasn't a disaster —and " anything but disaster is a victory for Mrs. Palin."