What are the two most powerful words on the web?

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Philadelphia Magazine blogger Larry Mendte, in a Philly Post opinion piece, says the two most powerful words on the internet are Sarah Palin:

As Marshall McLuhan once said, “The media is the message.” And that is never truer than in the phenomena called Palin.

She has found power without the baggage of politics. She can post on her Facebook page to a million-and-a-half loyal followers and change the health-care debate to the point that the President of the United States has to answer her “death panel” claim to a joint session of Congress. She can meet thousands of adoring Americans on a record-setting book tour and not once speak with a pesky reporter. She can walk into the studio that Fox built for her in her home to talk with her friends at Fox News and never have to do one hard hitting interview with the likes of Katie Couric or Charlie Gibson.

It is interesting to note here that the Power of Palin affects almost everyone who crosses her path.

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In the end, Palin, the Queen of all media, gets the same attention and polarizing reaction as Vice Presidential candidate Palin. And again, none of it is based in the person of Palin, but the persona of Palin.

Which is why I’m convinced she’s not running for anything ever again.

Though Mendte and some others are so convinced, theirs is a minority opinion. A much larger crowd is just as convinced that she will run again just as sure as night follows day. The only point of contention among them is when she will run, and which public office she will pursue first. Many see her making a run for the presidency in 2012, just two short years away. Some, including John Ziegler, believe the former governor will challenge Alaska's junior Senator Mark Begich (D) in 2014 and then run for president in 2016. Some others think she will indeed take on Begich, but that she will serve a full Senate term and make a White House run in 2020.

But all of the political fortune tellers' crystal balls are cloudy where Sarah Palin's future plans are concerned. When even her own father says it's a mystery to him, how can anyone else say that their reading of the tea leaves doesn't come with the caveat of a very large margin of error?

We don't disagree, however, with the author on his assessment of the force of The Power of Palin, a power that her unwitting detractors have helped her to amass:

And the greatest irony to all of this is that those initial attacks after her convention speech helped to create the powerful persona of Palin.

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Sarah Palin has become rich and more powerful than ever because of it. And now she cannot be ignored. Even those in the media who loathe her understand her draw, and they talk about her whenever they can. David Letterman and Chris Matthew, two of her well known critics, both have practically begged for her to appear on their shows. Sarah Palin declined — because the biggest celebrity in America doesn’t need either of them.

Stupid? I think not. Sarah Barracuda saw an opportunity and grabbed it with both hands. When she quit as governor, she kept the perks of power sans responsibility. She gets to work a little less and make a lot more.

Sarah Palin is brilliant.

- JP