... began just now, on ABC. To me, she looked tightly wound and sounded talking-point-programmed, but as a Beltway pinot grigio-sipping elitist, what do I know? Maybe she came off "fierce." Charlie Gibson treated her with an air of bemused skepticism -- "I got lost in a blizzard of words there," he said, as he quizzed her on what the Bush Doctrine was.
Most of all, though, his questioning highlighted how removed Alaska, and its set of issues, is from the general national conversation. I have no doubt Palin is intelligent, but she sounded like someone who had simply never had to think about many of the things Gibson asked and had just crammed for a test. She pointedly dropped the name "Saakashvili," but then went on to complain that Russia had invaded Georgia "unprovoked" -- a flub; Georgia officially started the war. She didn't sound like she had ever heard the phrase "Bush Doctrine" before, either, at least to refer to preemptive action -- when asked "Do you agree with the Bush Doctrine?", she leaned back and retorted, "In what sense, Charlie?"
... "How would you interpret it [the Bush Doctrine]?" he went on.
She replied, "His worldview?"
--Eve Fairbanks