Is it finally safe for conservatives to criticize Sarah Palin?

Among the conservatives publicly voicing opposition to the baptism comments: The Weekly Standard’s Mark Hemingway, the American Conservative’s Rod Dreher, our own Michael Brendan Dougherty, National Review’s Charles C.W. Cooke, David Freddoso of the Conservative Intelligence Briefing, and the Federalist’s Mollie Hemingway.

This is not to suggest conservatives are uniformly turning against Palin, but it is to suggest that she can no longer count on conservative opinion leaders being cowed into silent support of her antics, for fear of angering their (and her) base.

As someone who has written both favorably — and unfavorably — about Palin, I can attest to the fact that there has long been a huge disincentive to the latter.