I've been reading the news coverage of the interview this morning and was struck by how so much of what is being said misses the main point, which is Governor Palin's readiness or lack there of, for national office. This is a person who just a month ago said that human contribution to global warming was questionable. This is a person who said about the same time that she doesn't think much about Iraq because the problems of her role as governor of one of the smallest (population), most remote states in the union consume her. Now, after two weeks of being sequestered with policy wonks she comes out and, surprise, surprise, gets a b+ on the the professor's test (Gibson did look a bit Princeton don-ish, don't you think?) . But that's the point. It was a student regurgitating answers on a test she crammed for as opposed to someone who actually knows what she's talking about. The answers were OK. But it wasn't entirely clear that she understood their full implications.
Listen, folks, this woman is being touted for the second highest position in the most powerful country in the world. Given the age of her running mate it could easily turn into the highest position. The tests she will have to take in this position have nothing to do with regurgitating canned information. It will have to do with making decisions, sometimes snap decisions, based on a sophisticated grasp of a complex matrix of sometimes conflicting information that could have catastrophic implications for the world. Our current president exemplifies what can happen when someone doesn't have what it takes to make these decisions well.
Do we really want to make the same mistake twice?
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