The Sarah Palin Interview Part 1: Polly Wanna Cracker?

OK, we've heard the first 10 minutes of the ABC interview and she didn't do too badly. No major gaffes (like her one off script comment about Fannie and Freddie earlier this week). Nothing too radically ridiculous. And, boy, have they worked with her to get the pronunciations right. That Ahmadenijad slid right off her tongue as though she had actually said it once or twice before.

But, of course, she knew these questions were coming. She may, in fact, have had them ahead of time. That was the buzz earlier - ABC sent her the questions. But even if they didn't her handlers pretty much knew what Charlie Gibson was going to ask. No real curve balls here (except perhaps the one about the Bush doctrine. She seemed to be a bit clueless about that. Thought Gibson meant Bush's "world view," a Christian buzz word with which I am well familiar, but not what Gibson had in mind). And clearly she was well coached in what to say about the hot button issues buzzing around blogs, like her views on Israel and the God statement she made in her church about Iraq. Pretty clever of her handlers to put that bit about Abraham Lincoln into her mouth. I mean, who's going to question someone who's merely quoting one of the greatest presidents ever! Kind of a conversation stopper, don't you think?

But here's the point. We still don't have much of a clue what Governor Palin actually thinks or believes, or whether she knows enough to do the job of helping to run the government of the most powerful nation in the world. All we have so far is a well coached debate student parroting what her handlers have taught her to say. I'll reserve final judgment until I've had a chance to listen to the longer interviews later tonight and tomorrow. But right now I remain unimpressed. Not only unimpressed, but deeply concerned that all we're going to get between now and November 2nd is this kind of paint by numbers sort of response to every question put to her. So I repeat what I said in an earlier blog:

"Trained monkeys can do this."