But claiming that he’s actually a genius, only to reverse that statement post-election? That’s just lying.

I hope you don’t mind me fixing that for you. It’s astounding to me how quickly and gleefully people will immediately confess to lying–like, oh yeah haha, I was lying. Didn’t mean a single word. But it was about an election, so it’s okay.

Come to think of it, that’s nearly exactly what McCain did after the 2000 Primary, specifically in regards to the SC state flag.

It’s nothing short of stunning that any reasonably well educated adult could watch these and feel anything but that sting of empathetic shame. This really isn’t a matter on which intelligent minds may disagree: Sarah Palin is utterly out of her depth.

The shame is that, if Barack Obama wins, many of the people now defending Palin will immediately admit that she was the drag on McCain’s ticket, and that they always thought that she was a moron. This is a particularly frustrating trait among partisan pundits (and I include bloggers here)—claiming that one thing is true until election day, and then claiming that they never really believed what they were saying. I can totally understanding saying nothing when your guy is making a fool of himself. But claiming that he’s actually a genius, only to reverse that statement post-election? That’s just weak.

I almost feel sorry for her–there’s no way she doesn’t know that she has no idea how to answer these questions.

“Don’t bother with book-smarts. Look where it got Hillary. Are you really going to eat that?”

Man, it must just suck to be a Republican, and have to watch this.

It’s like if you took some kid from a decent high school football team and said ‘here, you go be the starting quarterback in the Superbowl.’ The kid is going to get clobbered. No matter how much talent and motivation he has, you just cannot possibly cram years of experience and training and exercise into a couple of weeks and expect to win.

Don’t get me wrong – someone doesn’t have to have spent 12 years on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to become credible on foreign policy. It could just be a matter of surrounding yourself with experts for a few years and constantly talking to them. Have a long reading list that you work through. Spend a few months studying the history of Russia and the history of Islam and the evolution of policy on China. An intelligent person can do this in the matter of a few years and if they also happen to have good judgment and a sound temper, they can make a good President. Obama did this. Bill Clinton did this. Mitt Romney did this. All of them came into Presidential politics without real experience, but they had done the work to become conversant and educated about the issues. Probably Sarah Palin could do this given a few years. But not in 6 weeks.

Putin-rearing his head – did she take that line from the movie “Groundhog Day”?