Wow. Just...wow. That was even worse of an answer than I would have expected. At least she can take cold comfort that the bailout will bury this interview under a mountain of noise.

Unfortunately, the rest of us can't take any comfort that she might be a heartbeat away from the Presidency.

I'd say you summed it up pretty well.
Now cue the Palinbots and the ivory tower liberal bias MSM executive experience accomplished something bridge reform hockey glasses.

Here is the transcript, for those who can't listen right now. Remember everyone that it's not from the Onion. (And methinks I owe Zathras something of an apology...)

Katie Couric: You've cited Alaska's proximity to Russia as part of your foreign policy experience. What did you mean by that?

Sarah Palin: That Alaska has a very narrow maritime border between a foreign country, Russia, and, on our other side, the land-boundry that we have with Canada. It's funny that a comment like that was kinda made to … I don't know, you know … reporters.

Couric: Mocked?

Palin: Mocked, yeah I guess that's the word, mocked.

Couric: Well, explain to me why that enhances your foreign-policy credentials.

Palin: Well, it certainly does, because our, our next-door neighbors are foreign countries, there in the state that I am the executive of. And there…

Couric: Have you ever been involved in any negotiations, for example, with the Russians?

Palin: We have trade missions back and forth, we do. It's very important when you consider even national-security issues with Russia. As Putin rears his head and comes into the air space of the United States of America, where do they go? It's Alaska. It's just right over the border. It is from Alaska that we send those out to make sure that an eye is being kept on this very powerful nation, Russia, because they are right next to, they are right next to our state.

Here's the problem. If McCain wins, his secretary of treasury will be responsible for a nontrivial share of the bailout process. Given his decisions about key personnel (like his VP selection), his secretary of treasury is likely to be the president of the State Bank of Possum Hang Arkansas. Does that make you as nervous as it does me?

I think I finally have it figured out. Dan wants Salma Hayek to be McCain's veep!

Salma's religious, too, like Sarah, Salma explains here, so that should work well with the base:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ToQQorOYDy4

And? Maybe Drezner can explain what he doesn't understand? Seems perfectly coherent to me, but then again, I'm not an elite academic.

I'm sure that Drezner would be a lot happier of Palin talked about the things that elite academics talk about. Maybe she should have spouted out the latest APSA jargon - toss on about how the important changes in the political economy and social organization of the world including globalization, democratization, and international migration, highlight the dynamic character of the distinctions manifest in categories, and suggest a close examination of the construction, interpretation, and maintenance of categorical boundaries.

Of course, normal people don't talk that way. Meanwhile, all I know about Barack Obama is that he is from Chicago, has less than 4 years experience as a Senator, and has yet to utter a coherent sentence on foreign policy while not reading from a telepromtper. Oh, and that Drezner is going to gladly vote for Obama anyway, just like he voted for Kerry.

This is why we love Palin.

Seriously, Palin is a governor. Her state shares a maritime border with one of the BRIC countries. Surely they have to manage the fishery in the Bering sea together, cooperate with search and rescue, that sort of thing.

And Alaska is on the front line of the new great power confrontation.

I am not claiming Palin is involved in these incidents directly or even briefed on them, but I think that just by osmosis, living up there, you get a feel for what is going on in a very concrete way. Which is what her Russia from the Window remark was about.

And what is with 'the Mentalist', that's a straight up rip off of USA's 'Psyche!'

I agree with #6 and #8. Also, note Palin's scornful remark about reporters. I don't think she takes Couric seriously and I can't blame her.

At the end of the day, however, this is bad for everybody. The Bush White House didn't communicate because it did not trust reporters - and who would blame them. But the country is better off with a functioning relationship between the press and Republican politicians.

This is analogous to the situation in academic life, which is also heavily Democrat dominated and hence not taken seriously by a large section of society. That's very bad for everybody.

Two points: First, I want my president to be an elite in that I don't want an ordinary person to be president or vice president. Ordinary Americans do not have deep knowledge on policy issues -- let's argue that it is an information cost issue; I'm not arguing intelligence. Take my sister as an example; she's a fine physician, but her knowledge of other countries / foreign policy / conflict etc. is minimal, at best (as are my doctoring skills). My sister is really smart. I do not want her to be president. FWIW, I certainly do not consider myself prepared or ready to be president. And as much as I like my neighbors, I don't want them to be president either.

Second, I was willing to give Palin the benefit of the doubt for consistency reasons -- I argue that judgement / having strong advisors / etc., are reasons to vote for Obama, I'm not going to discount Palin for experience. But I have yet to hear her give a coherent answer on anything. In terms of being next door to another country, at least W. Bush could point to tangible conversations he had with Mexico and tangible issues with which he had to deal as governor (water, trade, cross border economic cooperation). Fisheries and maritime law are important to Alaska, but I haven't heard Palin go beyond the statement that it matters. Nothing else. You may not like the things Obama has said on foreign policy, but nothing coherent? Then you've either read nothing he's written or listened to any of his foreign policy addresses.

Oh, a third. Just asking. A few of my Republican friends have, after a few initial attempts, given up defending Palin as anything more than a political move. Do those here still defending her really believe she's ready for this? Fine if you still want to vote for McCain because you just don't trust Obama, but really? You think she's ready?

Mitchell Young, By osmosis? You actually typing that with a straight face? I live in Wisconsin; have I become an expert on dairy policy by osmosis? Is the mayor of Denver an astronaut because his city is closer to the moon? You're embarrassing yourself.

You don't become an expert on foreign affairs just because an uninhabited swath of your state is relatively close to an uninhabited swath of another country. You actually have to have thought about and studied the issues involved, be willing to ask experts (like ivory tower academics) for advice, weigh the costs and benefits of different policies, etc. Palin has given no sign of having done any of that and her answers on foreign and domestic policy alike are gobbledygook.

Are you conservatives really OK with the amount bull McCain-Palin is expecting you to swallow?

The McCain campaign has done such a job of gagging her, they should just distribute pictures of her with a gag in her mouth.

Does anybody really think that Obama is ready for the Presidency? The guy's foreign policy babblings are far more incoherent than Palin's are. For example:

Couric: And I really don't mean to belabor this, Senator, because I'm really, I'm trying … to figure out your position. Do you think the level of security in Iraq …

Obama: Yes.

Couric … would exist today without the surge?

Obama: Katie, I have no idea what would have happened had we applied my approach, which was to put more pressure on the Iraqis to arrive at a political reconciliation. So this is all hypotheticals. What I can say is that there's no doubt that our U.S. troops have contributed to a reduction of violence in Iraq. I said that-- not just today, not just yesterday, but I've said that-- previously. What that doesn't change is that we've got to have a different strategic approach if we're going to make America as safe as possible.

I mean, that just moronic. The surge is the most important foreign issue of Obama's tenure in the Senate, and he doesn't have the first clue about it. That's downright scary. But, let's face it, he has an Ivy League background rather than University of Idaho, and he is male rather than female. Hence, Drezner's "obsession" (his word) with the idea that Palin is less experienced than Obama, when any fair minded observer would recognize that they are both equally inexperienced.

A.S., what you're saying is simply baseless. Obama has crafted detailed policies across the whole spectrum of foreign concerns, policies which have been widely endorsed by experts and political leaders across the spectrum. Bush and the Iraqi gov't have embraced a slightly modified version of Obama's longstanding withdrawal plan from Iraq (just changing the date for removal of combat brigades from 2010 to 2011 to provide political cover for McCain). His intention to negotiate with Iran has been endorsed by every living former Sec. of State, Republicans included, and in his short time in the Senate he has passed more legislation on foreign affairs (on issues like nuclear proliferation and foreign aid) than John McCain and helped negotiate a political settlement in Kenya. Add to that the fact that he is obviously well-informed and thoughtful about foreign affairs, and has already accumulated extensive experience travelling abroad and meeting and working with foreign leaders.

Any fair minded person can see that Palin can't hold a candle to that.

Look, if Obama's positions are simply unacceptable to you, I get that, vote for McCain. But don't insult your own intelligence by pretending Palin is anyway qualified to be VP.

I really don't understand this obsession with Sarah Pailin's foreign policy interest. Am I missing something about the vice president's duties?

Suppose you had grilled vp candidate Harry Truman about foreign policy back in 1944. In all probability that high school educated small town hick would not have impressed the Daniel Drezner's of his day.

So how did Truman do as president anyway?

Harry Truman.

We seemed to get through that okay.

It's not 1944, apologists for this moron. The environment that executives confront in 2008 is much, much more complex. The US had such a preponderance of power at the conclusion of WWII that the ability of the executive to sift through the streams of information and formulate policies was basically unimportant. Move forward 50 years and it a different ballgame entirely: the strategic environment is more complex, economic integration makes policy choices much more severe, etc etc. For the handful of readers that are not brainwashed GOP voters, can we agree that utterly moronic answers like the one given above does not indicate a very capable executive?
Gawd, a better comparison than 1944 seems to be August 1914, when Europe had a bunch of numbskull, inbred leaders that stumbled into an unnecessary war

Truman actually knew a thing or two, something Palin has yet to demonstrate. And when you're potentially a 72-year-old's heartbeat away from the presidency, you'd better know something about foreign policy.

Really Palinites, are you reading what you're typing here?

Excuse me? Harry Truman had been a U.S. Senator for 9 years at the time he became the VP candidate. His work monitoring waste in the war effort was impressive enough that he made the cover of Time magazine as a Senator in 1943. In short, he was already quite serious and knowledgeable at the time of his nomination.

Palin is no Truman.

Truman had been in the Senate for 10 years before becoming VP. He came to fame during WWII as chair of a committee looking for waste, inefficiency, and corruption in the defense industrial effort; the committee also looked ahead to how to manage the post-war reconstruction of Europe. Indeed, due to that work Truman was known nationally when FDR chose him; it was not a "Harry who?" situation. While his Senate war industry work was perhaps not high strategy, it certainly meant he knew a fair amount about the conduct of the war.

Truman also was a history buff and had read extensively on his own. Despite Truman not having attended college and Palin having a B.A., we'd also have to give the clear win to Harry when it comes to speaking in complete sentences.

I'll grant that Truman shows formal credentialling isn't essential, but Palin shows neither interest nor aptitude nor experience. Nada.

On the governor - foreign policy front. If she has such creds, why can't she come up with any examples? Ask Romney about his trade missions or international aspects of New England fisheries management and he'll probably have Powerpoint slides ready. George Bush was able to talk about interaction with Mexico -- he made quite a few official visits there as Texas gov. I'm sure governors of MI or OH have lots of Candian interaction. Googling "Pawlenty canada" pulls up plenty of news stories.

At best, the Alaska-Russia connection is tenuous. Chukotka is virtually uninhabited and still "closed" to foreigners. There are no doubt fisheries enforcement issues in the Bering Sea / Straight, mostly a national issue (NMFS, USCG) but probably some state agency involvement. Not much. I've read that Palin has actually been LESS interested in trade missions and other intl angles than previous Alaska govs.

I'd been willing to assume she had some foreign involvment; most governors do. But the fact that she _still_ can't cite anything is just bizarre.

Like I said, no Truman.

Justin,

Being from Wisconsin, you probably have a feel for the dairy industry, its importance to real folks. You probably know when it is up, when it is down. What might help it, what might hurt. More so if you held statewide office in Wisconsin.

Now, does living on the front line across from Russia make Sarah Palin an expert in international relations. No. But having governed the state during the latest Russian build up, and having grown up in the state during the Cold War, I think she has an intuitive grasp of the importance of security for *this* country. Add to that her son's service, her being at least the figurehead in charge of the Alaska national guard, her son's service, and her righteous shooting skills, and she is miles ahead of Obama in understanding -- grokking -- real security.

I guess Harry did a good job picking up on the waste going into the Manhattan project. :-)

Actually, I seem to be one of the few people unimpressed with Palin acceptance speech, and like Dan I'm not all that impressed with her interviews. When she gets attacked for cutting funding when all she did is slow the rise in the expenditure, I feel some sympathy for her. From what I can tell, she is a successful governor. Maybe that wasn't going to be difficult given the corrupt politics of Alaska. Success, however, counts for something.

My guess is that she will have very little influence on who I ultimately check on the ballot. This is the most difficult choice I've faced as a voter. I disagree with the top of both tickets on a wide number of issues. Whatever choice I make, I'm not going to be happy.

My ex-girlfriend

1) grew up during the Cold War (as did ALL americans between the ages of 35 and 85)
2) had a brother and a best friend from high school who had served in the military
3) can shoot an AR-15 way better than the average Admiral or fighter pilot (granted, infantry guys would beat her)
4) had some experience assembling circuit boards for a defense contractor

Please explain why she isn't just as qualifed to be Commander in Chief as Sarah Palin.

Why do I bother???

"This is analogous to the situation in academic life, which is also heavily Democrat dominated and hence not taken seriously by a large section of society. That’s very bad for everybody."

And conversely of course. The 'heavily Democratic' groves of academie don't take the rest of society very seriously except as a foil to feel superior to. Certainly there is little notion of service to the public who pays their wages.

Speaking of obsessions.....where's Salma Hayek been lately ......

She groks! Now we should all feel better.

an IRprof,

Is your girlfriend the governor of a state that borders Russia?

She has more political experience than Woodrow Wilson. Is Wilson up or down in the rankings these days? Or does President of some school beat mayor and community organizer in a coin-toss?

It looks like passing the test of minimum plausibility is still enough for some voters, or at least some commenters here.

It would have been interesting, just as an exercise in the study of human behavior, if Sen. McCain had chosen an authentic average American completely at random from the phone book of a community, also picked at random, to be his running mate. I'd bet good money that within a week, maybe two, this random running mate would have the same people leaping to his or her defense against criticism from elites, liberals, and all those who can't discern a resemblance between Sarah Palin on the one hand and Woodrow Wilson or Harry Truman on the other. And would their arguments track closely the arguments used to defend George W. Bush for the last decade or so? I'd bet money on that, too, as long as the random running mate brought a lot of the same things to the table that then-Gov. Bush did back in 2000.

Mitchell Young,

If Palin had actually said anything about fishery negotiations, SAR, Arctic resource exploitation and the impact that ratifying the Law of the Sea treaty would have on it, that would have been *something*. No-one is arguing that a governor of a border state like Alaska _cannot_ have an interest in or experience with foreign policy. It would have been perfectly reasonable for such a governor to have become interested in the subject because of her state's neighbors, to have "an intuitive grasp of the importance of security for this country", and to even be an expert in foreign policy. The problem is that we have no reason to believe that Gov. Palin has developed such an interest, and all the evidence seems to point in the other direction. Condi Rice, for example, is clearly an expert on the Russia/the former Soviet Union. Whether you agree with her policy proposals or not, there's no denying that when she talks about Russia, Rice really knows her stuff.

While her shooting skills may be admirable, they really don't have anything to do with Gov. Palin's foreign policy credentials. The average captain in the army probably has a good grasp of the need for security, better shooting skills, and _personal_ military service, but that doesn't mean every captain is qualified to be vice-president, does it? Perhaps some exceptional captains might be qualified, but not necessarily all of them. Similarly, a governor of Alaska _could_ have the necessary foreign policy expertise, but it's not the case that all of them do. The interview was a chance for Palin to show that she _is_ qualified, that she was one of those governors who had thought about these issues and understood them well. Unfortunately, she failed to do that.

I began writing more detailed comments about several answers in the interview, but I gave up after her ridiculous response to the Hamas question. Ok, Ahmadinejad is a Bad Guy, but that doesn't have anything to do with the question that was asked, about how the US should deal with the fact that promoting democracy risks hostile parties like Hamas coming to power. Gov. Palin could have talked about ways to deal with that issue, she could have said something moderately intelligent about the similarities and differences between the situation in Gaza and Egypt and the Muslim Brotherhood, or Turkey and the AKP. (I'm no foreign policy expert; I'm a computer science student, and I could have given a more thoughtful answer!) But she jumped straight to the talking points about Iran.

As a final example, Gov. Palin's answers about Pakistan revealed a fundamental lack of understanding of the situation there. The people in north-western Pakistan are not longing for democracy, and trying to get rid of Islamic terrorists! They're sheltering Al-Qaeda members, and the Pakistani army even fired on American helicopters today. The US is much less popular there than elements of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda.

Instead of going on and on, let me just say that she had an opportunity to prove her critics wrong, and to demonstrate an actual knowledge of foreign policy. Sadly, she didn't use it.

http://www.slate.com/id/2200937/?from=rss

The average captain in the army probably has a good grasp of the need for security, better shooting skills, and _personal_ military service, but that doesn’t mean every captain is qualified to be vice-president, does it?

I think the average captain in the Army is more qualified to be president than Obama, having shown some desire to serve his country, rather than merely his community, and having more contact with a large spectrum of real Americans -- those under his command -- than Obama has ever had.

As for Pakistan, I happen to agree with you. But Palin here is just echoing the standard neocon line that 'experts' such as Wolfowitz and Feith gave us with regard to Iraq. And its Obama that has actually suggested doubling-down on our losing hand in Afghanistan, not Palin.

Zathras, William Buckley once said he'd rather be ruled by 100 random names from the Boston phone book than the Harvard faculty. So would I.

Really, this whole debate is quite extraordinary. We are talking on the one hand, about a *Presidential* candidate whose so-called foreign policy credentials consist of a ginned up tour of triumph around the world for photo ops with foreign leaders and a Kennedy manqué speech in Germany, a man who puts his half-indonesian sister on stage to boast of her families 'diversity' i.e. having a lot of intimate foreign ties (Obama would have a hard time getting a security clearance if he wasn't an elected official) and a man who attended for 20 years a church whose pastor was, to put it mildly, antagonistic to this country and its majority population.

And you people think that somehow Palin is a risk for this nation's security?

"I think the average captain in the Army is more qualified to be president than Obama"

That's because you turned your mind off when you put on your partisan blinders.

I wonder if the obsession on Palin is a manifestation of a more general angst concerning the fitness of anyone currently in a position to lead this country to actually lead this country - especially given the perilous times. I mean you go on about Sarah, Dan, and probably for good reason, but is Obama any more qualified once you get past the fact he uses bigger words and more complex sentences when reciting talking points? He opposed the war - so did Sean Penn, and with similar justifications - I'm supposed to be reassured by that? If this was Rome Petraeus would sail across the Atlantic with a legion of Marines and put the whole stinking lot of them in their place.

Actually the average Army captain is about 30-32, so they don't qualify to be VP or Pres. Now, the average army LTC, even the 20th percentile Army LTC, would be a better pick than Obama.

My previous comment was criticism of Palin, not an endorsement of Obama, so saying "Obama's worse" doesn't really address that.

You seem to believe that Obama is more of a risk to American security than Gov. Palin, because of his foreign ties, church attendance, etc.; presumably, the concern is that he doesn't love America, or is not really tied to this country. (Similarly, people could point to Todd Palin's membership in the secessionist Alaskan Independence party.) I disagree; I don't believe either of them is a threat to American security because of a lack of love for the US. My concern is that Gov. Palin might be bad for the US because of incompetence, regardless of how much she loves her country. I don't think there are many people who doubt that President Bush sincerely loves America, but that hasn't kept him from some monumental screwups.

As for Obama's foreign-policy credentials, his trip to Iraq/Kuwait/Germany/France/Britain certainly doesn't mean anything. I agree that was a photo-op, but campaigns require photo ops sometimes; Gov. Palin had one yesterday with foreign leaders here for the the UN General Assembly meeting. The reason I believe that Obama is better on foreign policy than Palin (and McCain, for that matter) is that he was right about Iraq in the first place, and has also been right about - and ahead of the curve on - many subsequent issues. His Iraq withdrawal timetable closely matches the one Bush and the Iraqi government eventually agreed on, his call for more troops in Afghanistan predates John McCain's similar call by quite some time, and his policy of negotiation with Iran, etc., has been echoed by practically every former secretary of state. (One could hardly call Henry Kissinger naive, could one? And to head off the inevitable comment, he did not say he would sit down with Castro, Chavez, Ahmadinejad personally without preconditions and preliminary talks; he was very cautious to say that there would be lower-level contacts first, and that later meetings would be contingent on the outcomes of these.) His statement that he would go after senior Al-Qaeda members in Pakistan if we knew where they were was widely mocked at the time, but President Bush did precisely this later, and John McCain has promised to follow Osama bin Laden to the gates of hell, has he not?

Against this, John McCain has the surge, which may have been the right thing to do, but as A.S. failed to grasp, Obama points out that we don't know the answer to the counterfactual question of what would have happened if Obama's approach had been tried. Some of the positive developments (such as the Anbar awakening, for instance) predate the surge, but let's assume that McCain was right and that Obama's approach would have failed. That's a point in McCain's favor, but it seems to be cancelled out by the decision to go to war in the first place.

Beyond individual issues, Sen. Obama's writing does reveal useful information about his beliefs on foreign policy, and the role of America in the world. I certainly don't agree with Obama on all the issues (particularly trade), but of the two candidates, it seems clear that he has more sensible and well-thought-out positions.

Finally, I'd like to point out that it's somewhat offensive to assume that the people Obama's been in contact with aren't "real Americans". Are the workers from the South Side of Chicago who Obama worked with when they lost their jobs not "real Americans"? For that matter, are students and staff at the University of Chicago not "real Americans"?

Hey! Mitchell Young just promoted me to be head of the the Wisconsin Dairy Board! I need to pack up my desk and get moving. This grokking is magical stuff!

So if Palin gets foreign policy cred for living in Alaska and shootin' guns, I guess Obama gets even more for travelling widely interantionally, working on foreign polciy in Congress, living in a cosmopolitan city like Chicago, which is far more directly plugged into global politics and economics than Alaska, and so on. Even using your own piling-up-of-biographical-tidbits approach leaves Palin lacking.

Ultimately, it's about policy. Obama is backing sensible polcies, has demonstrated extensive knowledge of the world and foreign policy, has already woprked frutifully with foreign leaders, and made the right call on Iraq. Palin is backing failed policies which she shows no sign of really understanding, and has not relevant experience. She's an embarrassment.

And Balok, what's with the dictatorial wet dream about Patraeus?

With regard to Mitchell Young's comment upthread, I need to claim a point of personal privilege, since William F. Buckley was at one time my employer and I had occasion during that period to become thoroughly familiar with his career and thinking. That famous remark about preferring to be governed by names picked from the phone book to being governed by the Harvard faculty was intended to make a point about the Harvard faculty, not about any individual's suitability for high government office.

It really is not hard to imagine what Buckley, who toward the end of his life was becoming increasingly disenchanted with the direction taken by the last Republican administration, would have thought about the ignorant woman that Sen. McCain is telling us now he wants to be Commander in Chief if something happens to him.

What an amazing piece of bad luck for McCain to have picked her just before a massive financial crisis. You can;t blame him, and I don;t think it reflects on his judgment; he made an utterly cynical and not very well thought out decision about a matter that is basically trivial (he's not going to die in office, come on), and now it might sink him. Poor chap.

Mitchell Young, I don't know who you are, but really, its not fair to mock the McCain/Palin supporters like this.

It's apparent that those responding my post were not understanding it. I wasn't comparing Truman to Pailin, I was applying the standard of foreign policy knowledge that Pailin is expected to live up to Harry Truman's knowledge of foreign policy. I suppose you all just needed to try out all those unused ACME strawman kits.

anony;
1944-45 was easily as complex and certainly more perilous than now, what with Europe shattered, Asia in turmoil and an expansionist, secretive rival that sought to dominate the world. The way events ufolded was not determined by some mythical preponderance of force that precluded any real executive input.

anIRprof;
The Truman Committee, as far as I know, investigated corruption in military contracts. It did not consider plans for post-war reconstruction of Europe for the simple fact that such plans did not exist. The first plan submitted to the president was Morgenthau plan and that was in Aug 1944 after Truman had been selected as FDR's running mate.

Truman showed little interest in foreign affairs, and during his short tenure as vice president was kept in the dark on such matters. The way he got through the perils of the post-war period was due to qualities other than foreign policy knowledge.

But had he been expected to display the level of knowledge expected of Pailin he would have been dismissed by the blogs and pundits as a lightweight. And being the vp of a sick and dying president he was much more arguably 'a hearbeat away' than Pailin.

Incidently, FDR also proposed William Douglas as vp. That's Supreme Court Justice William Douglas. How's that for foreign policy creds as a determing factor in vice presidential evaluations?

Zathras, here is Roger Kimball on the Buckley quote:

In the early 1960s, Bill Buckley famously observed that he would rather be governed by the first two thousand names in the Boston phone book than the two thousand faculty members of Harvard University. It is perhaps worth pointing out that Bill, a Yale man, was not singling out the Harvard faculty for special opprobrium. Harvard was merely a synecdoche [a reader suggests that “metonymy” would be more accurate–maybe he is right]. It was the smug, “progressive” liberal consensus that our elite academic institutions inculcated, even back then, that Bill objected to, not Harvard per se. [My emphasis]

That smugness still exists, and I can think of no better example of it than Barrack Obama.

Its not like these elites have served us particularly well. The slavish devotion to 'free trade', the an overwhelming elite consensus on the 'beneficial effects' of mass immigration, the adoption of an interventionist foreign policy, the bright idea of the two big 'Anglo-Saxon' countries to base a greater and greater proportion of their economy on shuffling pieces of paper from one institution to another, CFR type policies have been found wanting.

Do I want Palin to be better at interviews, to realize that she is not among friends or even people with honest motives when she is interviewed by the MSM? Yes. Does she need more practice with this? Yes. But frankly I trust her to put the interests of the nation first, certainly more than I trust Obama or even McCain.