You know, I was thinking this weekend about my extensive foreign policy experience. I have several Facebook friends in other countries. Also, I have enjoyed many beers of the world, giving me some diplomatic bona fides should we ever enter a cold war with Ireland or Belgium. I have even toured the EU Parliament building in Brussels — on my honeymoon! (Hey, some people find beaches romantic, others parliamentary procedure.)
By now I imagine most of you have heard about Palin’s calamitous interview with Katie Couric, and the second Fey-as-Palin SNL skit that lampooned it. Concerns about Palin’s readiness are spanning both parties. My father bet me $5 that Palin would drop out before the election, citing a need to "spend time with her family." I’m wagering that Her SpunkinessTM is staying put. My dad, incidentally, is a veteran who once guarded Air Force One during a JFK visit, and he’s very worried about a McCain-Palin White House.
Judith Warner recently wrote in the NYT about feeling a pang of unexpected sympathy for Palin. I’ll admit I felt it too — momentarily — as I watched her flub Couric’s question about how Alaska’s proximity to Russia gave her foreign policy experience. How the McCain campaign could not have prepped her with even slightly better BS is a mystery to me. Same goes for her nonsensical answer about the bailout.
Yet it only takes one thought of her divisive RNC speech, when she sneered "I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a ‘community organizer,’ except that you have actual responsibilities," or a quick read of this Salon article about her ruthless political style, for that feeling of sympathy to disappear.