Decius wrote:

Stefanie wrote:

Jello wrote:
Obama can speak intelligently on any national topic. Palin has yet to do so whatsoever. If she can talk intelligently, she will be fine. Otherwise she'll be a laughing stock. So far there is no indication she can speak about national issues, because she hasn't yet.

Fair enough; we'll wait and see. Mayors and Governors typically lack experience in dealing with both national and international affairs, and legislators typically lack experience in general administration and law enforcement. However, if Palin does speak in an intelligent manner on those topics, all that really proves is that she can speak well.

I think she'll give a great speech tonight. Youtube confirms that she is very articulate and the Republicans cannot afford her to be anything less than stellar. One piece of intel that has floated out is that she's been spending a lot of time talking to AIPAC. An informed comment about Israel would sit in response to those who are concerned about her lack of foreign policy experience and enamor her further to the evangelical right. Of course, any hollywood actor or actress could deliver a stellar performance at a political convention with the right speech writers. Unfortunately, nothing she says from this point on will really be evidence of a capacity for independent thought about political issues, even if she came up with it on her own. You have to go back in time to before a major election was pinned on her success. And there, you find.... well, I haven't found much of anything. Let me know if you find something.

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2008/08/29/palin_iraq/

It's hard to tell what, if anything, Palin thinks or thought about the surge of troops in Iraq, or the decision to invade Iraq in the first place, for that matter. A clip search doesn't show any substantive comments from Palin about Iraq during her short term as governor of Alaska, in 2007 or 2008, or at any point prior to that. That includes instances when she was specifically asked about the war.

In an interview with Alaska Business Monthly shortly after she took office in 2007, Palin was asked about the upcoming surge. She said she hadn't thought about it. "I've been so focused on state government, I haven't really focused much on the war in Iraq," she said. "I heard on the news about the new deployments, and while I support our president, Condoleezza Rice and the administration, I want to know that we have an exit plan in place; I want assurances that we are doing all we can to keep our troops safe."

Seven months into the surge, she still either had not formed any opinion on the surge or the war or just wasn't sharing. "I'm not here to judge the idea of withdrawing, or the timeline," she said in a teleconference interview with reporters during a July 2007 visit with Alaska National Guard troops stationed in Kuwait. "I'm not going to judge even the surge. I'm here to find out what Alaskans need of me as their governor."

She has the capacity of independent non-thought. If you bury your head in the snow, it's not happening, right?

RE: The election is basically over.