God, Let Sarah Palin Find the Open Door Marked Exit to Obscurity!

In a clip that has been shown so often that we should all have it memorized by now, Sarah Palin responds to Greta Van Susteren's question about a 20012 presidential bid, "This is what I always do. I'm like, 'God, if there is an open door for me somewhere'—this is what I always pray—'don't let me miss the open door.'" Let us all hope that door is marked "egress." We can be reasonably certain that Palin, like the rubes in P.T. Barnum's museum won't know what the word means.

I am not wishing for any physical evil to befall the hapless Alaska Governor, only that the news media would stop treating her like a politician worthy of national attention. Like a polar bear trapped on a iceberg that has drifted into the open ocean, Governor Palin may have been a fierce predator at home, but in national politics, she is out of her depth.

Unfortunately, Palin's aspirations have been kept viable by a succession of superficial interviews with journalists who are either incompetent or unwilling to reveal Governor Palin's lack of intellectual depth. We, as a nation, must be grateful to Katie Couric for being the only interviewer, so far, brave enough to penetrate the barrage of gibberish Governor Palin uses rather than answers and expose the Governor's lack of substantive knowledge. Ms. Couric had the courage to press for specifics.

Take for example this interchange:

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-boundary 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: Yeah, mocked, I guess that's the word, yeah.

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 there, they are right next to our state.

Couric continues to follow-up her question until Palin's absolute lack of understanding is clear. Compare that to this excerpt from Palin's interview with Wolf Blitzer:

BLITZER: . . . you said: "This is not a man who sees America as you see it and how I see America." And then you went on to say: "Someone who sees America, it seems, as being so imperfect that he is palling around with terrorists who would target their own country."

PALIN: Well, I still am concerned about that association with Bill Ayers. And if anybody still wants to talk about it, I will, because this is an unrepentant domestic terrorist who had campaigned to blow up, to destroy our Pentagon and our U.S. Capitol. That's an association that still bothers me.

And I think it's still fair to talk about it. However, the campaign is over. That chapter is closed. Now is the time to move on and to, again, make sure that all of us are doing all that we can to progress this nation.

Keep us secure, get the economy back on the right track, and many of us do have some ideas on how to do that, and hopefully we'll be able to put all of that wisdom and experience to good use together.

BLITZER: So looking back, you don't regret that tough language during the campaign?

PALIN: No, and I do not think that it is off-base nor mean-spirited, nor negative campaigning to call someone out on their associations and on their record. And that's why I did it.

BLITZER: I just want to sort of footnote. Was that your idea, or did somebody write those lines for you?

A more Couric like follow-up would have been to ask Palin why this association is a concern. Does she believe that Barack Obama learned to have anti-American feelings about from Ayers? Does she have any evidence that they ever discussed Ayers feelings about America? Blitzer could also have asked Palin how Barack's association with Ayers is different or more damning than her relationship with the Alaska First Party. Such questions are the mark of competent, hard-edged journalism.

None of the interviewers since Couric have really pushed to find out if there is any substance behind the campaign platitudes and vague chains of words Palin passes off as responses. Any interviewer who tries to force Palin into giving specifics (like the name of some news source she reads) will, I suspect, reveal her to be like Tony the Tiger, all image and no substance.

I would further suggest that anyone who, like Governor Palin, uses "progress" as a verb, (as in "doing all that we can to progress this nation," above) is guilty of murdering the English language and should therefore immediately be disqualified from running for any further public office. Please show this lady the egress.