Grilling Sarah Palin

UPI may claim the banner of 100 years of journalistic excellence, but that estimation is immediately brought into question when you reach "no bloopers" in this article. Let us reveal the "blooper" of Palin's interview:

Not being able to identify the Bush Doctrine.

The title of the UPI interview suggests that the media's "grilling" of Sarah Palin may backfire, but I need to ask: when did the grilling ever start? Sure enough, the media has obsessed about Palin's personal life, the incogruence of letting her daughter have the choice of keeping her child of ending the pregnancy which making very clear that she wants to deny all other American women of that choice... etc. But the media have let McCain and Palin go on carte blanche long enough when it comes to the issue of being qualified enough to be within a heartbeat of the Presidency. Issues such as her ability to grasp important international matters within the context of the last eight years (see: Bush Doctrine) have been lightly touched, if at all, by the major networks prior to Gibson's interview. Issues like her lying about going to Iraq and qualifying that as her foreign policy experience (she actually was on base in Kuwait) and going to Ireland (which was waiting on the tarmac in her airplace - presumably while she was "going to Iraq") and also qualifying that as foreign policy experience have not been touched.

Forget that the campaigns closest of surrogates (Cindy McCain) implied that by living close to Russia, Sarah Palin had foreign policy experience (apparently Canada doesn't count). Forget that a hockey mom's lipstick is the only thing separating her from a pitbull. The McCain campaign has again and again tried to foist these lies about Sarah Palin on us, all with the hopes that the media won't do their job and that Americans will ignore all of the true issues which matter (the war, the economy, health care) and think rather about electing Miss Wasilla 1984 to be the first female vice-president... all the while letting the oh-so-skilled hands of John McCain and his minions toy with the levers of government... while Sarah Palin waits in the wings.

-rl