Sarah Palin intrigued political watchers on Friday in Des Moines, Iowa, when she told the Washington Post that was “seriously interested” in running for the Presidency in 2016. “I am. As I said yesterday, I’m really interested in the opportunity to serve at some point,” Palin said as she prepared to address conservative activists who were in Des Moines to attend the Iowa Freedom Summit.

She continued:

“It is a significant step, of course, for anyone to publicly announce that they’re interested. Who wouldn’t be interested? Who wouldn’t be interested when they have been blessed with opportunities to speak about what is important to this country and for this country?”

Here is a short clip from the speech she gave to attendees on Saturday. And, as usual, she came armed with plenty of red meat:

She also posted this intriguing image on her Facebook page:

Hmmm. Is Sarah ready to run?

Of course some left-wing progressives were quick to sneer at the former Alaskan governor’s potential run. A writer at Forward Progressives said, “Recently she went on a couple of rants while she was out promoting her reality show. In one of these rants she went off on celebrities who criticized Chris Kyle, the subject of the movie American Sniper. . .”

Hey, Jackwagon, has it ever occurred to you that the popularity of “American Sniper” is due to the desires of Americans to see a story of an American hero? Here’s a newsflash: Americans love the military, and they appreciate its supporters — like Sarah Palin — not its detractors like Michael Moore.

The liberal websites Mediate and Slate were quick to point out that on Thursday in Las Vegas, Sarah Palin posed with a naughty sign which implied a vulgarity that the Left is very quick to use on conservatives like Palin:

Ooh. And that’s not all that has the Left’s panties in a bunch. There’s those crosshairs. Mediate breathlessly wondered about the “optics” and opined, “But having been put through the ringer by the media for her infamous “crosshairs” image after the 2011 Gabrielle Giffords shooting (however unjustified), you’d think she’d be more cautious.”

What Mediate and Slate mention only briefly is that in that picture with Sarah Palin is another American hero: Medal of Honor recipient Dakota Meyer, (also very familiar with crosshairs), who posted the picture to Facebook and asked that it go viral. What both websites completely ignore is that during the visit to Vegas, Palin teamed up with the widow of Chris Kyle, Taya Kyle, for a charity reception to support the Chris Kyle Frog Foundation, which helps veterans reconnect emotionally with their families after deployment.

Sarah Palin loves America. She loves its heroes. She would serve America, not use America to serve up an agenda. But the bottom line for me is this: I’m not sure if Sarah Palin would be the best candidate to run for the Presidency in 2016. The media has so badly damaged her image I’m afraid it’s beyond repair. The elite and their media cannot tolerate the existence of this outspoken, folksy, conservative woman, despite the fact that she is more patriotic, tenacious, and courageous that the current occupant of the White House. They would see her as the low-hanging fruit to pick and serve to the low information voters who now care more about Tom Brady’s deflated balls than those of the current bunch now running the nation.