As an adversary of candidate Obama on the campaign trail, former Alaska governor and VP contender Sarah Palin didn't mince words, famously accusing Obama of "palling around with terrorists" (specifically 60's radical activist Bill Ayers). Since Obama won the election, Palin's attacks have only grown more vociferous. She slammed bailouts at her speech in Hong Kong earlier this year, nodded at the "birthers," and whipped up fears about health-care death panels. So pundits and commentators were understandably shocked to see Palin joining a pack of Republican voices applauding the president's hawkish Nobel Prize acceptance speech. As reported by USA Today:

"I liked what he said," Palin told us in a phone interview. "I talked too in my book about the fallen nature of man and why war is necessary at times." For Palin, that view strikes close to home: Her eldest son, 20-year-old Track, is an Army infantry member who recently returned from a tour of duty in Iraq.

"I'm on my knees more than ever praying for his safety along with all of his fellow troops," Palin said. "Of course, war is the last thing any American, I believe, wants to have to engage in, but it's necessary. We have to stop these terrorists over there."

Of course, as the USA Today Congress Team points out, "Palin isn't going soft on Obama," as she went to say that he could take a few tips from his predecessor, President Bush.

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