It seems you haven’t recognized a standard formula for what it is.
By which I mean, one of the most common ways to to publicly criticize someone like Palin is to package the criticism in what appears to be praise.
The oldest trick in the book—talking out of two sides of one’s mouth. Progressives love to use this tactic. RINOs and the ruling class in general have also mastered it.
And one of the most common signs of a cult is the complete inability to think of anything at all that could possibly be wrong, and a knee-jerk dismissal of any comment that in any way questions the perfection that the cult perceives.
If I say “I love free republic, it’s still the best place for one-stop shopping for news and conservative commentary, although there are way too many vanity and blog posts and people repeating the same story a dozen times”, you think that I’m really trying to trash Free Republic?
Oddly, this is exactly how one describes something they really like but want to make better. We definitely need to do a better job of picking candidates in 2012. That people are upset about someone suggesting this is not a good thing.