Dangerously Unprepared

Oh, where does one even start...

So VP nominee Sarah Palin, after spending weeks under the radar due to what the mediacrats have been suggesting is an appalling lack of knowledge about the world, politics, or what exactly a vice president does all day, has finally emerged into the soft glow of a media night-light in the form of a softball interview with Charlie Gibson.

As has earlier been pointed out by AARON, this interview was so softball, so non-threatening, some have suggested it shouldn't even have been accepted by Gibson on the offered terms. So under her own hand-picked conditions, how badly could the interview possibly go?

Weeeell, let's begin with the part where Palin soothed the tensions between the US, its European allies, and Russia...oh wait no, that isn't at all what happens when you threaten war against the Russians, is it? In fairness to her, America's headline writers appear to have rather lost their heads- she was just applying her probably recently acquired knowledge about the structure and purpose of NATO, but international diplomacy is a subtle game, and her inexperience led her into the kind of mistake that probably moved her a few places up some Russian security hit list, and has diplomats across Europe shaking their heads and stocking up on brown paper breathing aids. Everyone knows force is an option, you don't actually say it, especially in reference to someone with a large, poorly maintained nuclear arsenal. Seriously governor- a land war in Asia?? I mean, that never goes badly for anyone...

Perhaps more unsettling, Gibson's subsequent softball question regarding the Bush Doctrine met with a complete stall, because Palin obviously didn't know what he was talking about.

After all this coaching, she didn't know what he was talking about.

John McCain may have had good political instincts on this one, but seriously - you want to put this woman, who could clearly be outmaneuvered in terms of running the government by a freshman polysci major in their second semester, in the number two slot for the US government?

In ancient Athens, they chose their leaders by lottery for a time. Took like half an hour, cost almost nothing, and you still had a chance to be led by an almost complete neophyte unqualified in most respects to run your state. Probably save us a lot of money.