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I think one question that has yet to be addressed would be what Sarah Palin might have intended with the usage of such a term. If she did use it intentionally, it was probably a ploy to gain attention, but it may also have been an attempt to quiet her dissenters with an accusation of significant weight.
Recently, there have been a lot of critical voices over the behavior of the Israeli government, and one of the responses by officials and supporters of the government has been to call the dissenters anti-Semetic. This is clearly, imho, an incorrect use of the term, but it's intention is to falsely accuse someone of something generally considered horrific in order to bully them into silence. Could there be a similar motive behind the use of blood libel? I still think Palin herself was ignorant of the term, but it's possible (probable?) that whoever wrote the speech is a seasoned political mind.
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