About those crises

A fair point, to be sure, given that the other fella has been criticized (rightly or wrongly) as being good at reading from a teleprompter but not good without one. I haven't watched it for a while, but I'm pretty sure that it would be tough to exclude the possibility of creative editing. Which isn't to say that she hasn't given wrong answers or even bad answers in settings where editing and filtering can't be blamed - she has. But There is a wide discrepancy between how she has performed in unfiltered settings and how she's appeared to perform in recorded MSM segments, and I don't think it really amounts to a conspiracy theory to conclude that some legerdemain might be at play.

I have no doubt that she understands the same issues that you do, or I do, or Tully does, or Rafique does--or anybody that's criticizing her does-- having followed politics for a long time. As someone in politics, she needed to follow at least as much as mattered to her own job, she needed to read newspapers to see what was being said about her. When the New York Times wrote an article about Alaska, I'm sure she read it. As Governor with Alaska, she had to deal with the consequences of some US Supreme Court decisions, because the Supreme Court can decide what state governments can do and what they can't. Heck, she also had to deal with Alaskan Supreme Court decisions--like the ruling they handed down that required gay partners of state employees be given benefits.

As for foreign policy matters, she visited Kuwait to talk to commanders there and to the troops of the Alaskan national guard that were sent there. It also is true that Russia routinely flies airplanes just miles from US airspace, and US planes are forced to intercept them. It doesn't make her a foreign affairs expert--it shows she had contact with some foreign affairs issues, instead of being sheltered in small town politics and being completely clueless. I'm sure she read New York Times articles on Russia and Putin also.

I don't know everything Sarah Palin knows, and its very possible she has a lot more to learn, but I have a feeling its a lot more than people give her credit for.

I also think the hostile approach that some interviewers have directed towards her actually hurts our ability to tell what she knows and what she's capable of. When John Gibson acts condescending, or Katey Couric goes all-out to try to prove herself to be a real journalist, Palin feels like she's on the spot and has to be selectively careful in answering questions. When the interviewer is more relaxed and conversational--and not oppositional--like for instance, Carl Cameron on FOX, or even that interviewer from CNN--she's more easy in giving answers and doesn't get flummoxed as much.

What I would like to see, is a good interviewer ask questions of Sarah Palin, where-- by making her comfortable--they would draw out for the public what she actually knows and doesn't know--without making her afraid of giving a bad answer. I would like to see that, because I personally would like to see what Sarah Palin knows. And I think the public should want that also, instead of assuming what she knows, or pretending she can't know much because she didn't answer what newspapers she reads. I think the public deserves to know what Sarah Palin really understands about issues, and reporters haven't been doing their job getting us to that end. They think their job is be schoolteachers giving her pop quizzes.