Vice-Presidential candidate Sarah Palin demonstrated her lack of knowledge on foreign policy in her interview with CBS News anchor Katie Couric. Standing outside of the United Nations, Palin defended herself when Couric asked why she had just recently applied for a passport. As a working woman, she claimed to be limited in her ability to travel outside of the U.S.; instead, gaining all of her knowledge on foreign countries and policies from education, books and other various mediums. Obviously, her limited experience has stunted her mental capacity to understand any policy that does not include “values” or “Alaska.” Seeing that on those two topics, she comes across as intelligent and quite endearing at times.
Nonetheless at one question involving Alaska, she failed yet again. When Couric offered to give Palin a chance to redeem her position concerning Russia’s close proximity to Alaska giving her foreign policy experience, Palin still sang the same tune. “Our next-door neighbors are foreign countries,” Palin said. She continued to state that Alaska and Russia trade together and that Putin enters the fly space of Alaska.
When asked about the economic crisis, Palin asserted that people were waiting to see what McCain would do, not Obama. When Couric insisted that Obama’s rating with the public has increased with the current crisis, Palin balked at the poll numbers claiming instead that Americans look at track records. However, her lack of knowledge on McCain’s track record of commerce regulation left her clambering for an answer when Couric insisted on “specific examples” of McCain “pushing for more regulation” in the last 26 years. With a smile on her face Palin said, “I’ll try to find you some and I’ll bring ‘em to ya.”
Palin has done wonders for the Republican ticket, boosting poll numbers and attracting media attention. She is pretty, down-to-earth and fierce at times; even so, she is beginning to look like the caricature political cartoonists have drawn her to be. It is obvious from this interview and her “track record” that she is not ready to fill in for McCain if he were to take office and croak. Perhaps the McCain advisors and staff should begin preparing her for her next interview, or better yet for the debate on Thursday night.


The SNL parody of the interview was hilarious.