I read a bunch of stuff about the interview and thought they were being rough on her. After watching it, though, I’m not sure the criticism was unfair.

I’ve said before, my bar is low. The candidate should be more comfortable talking about these issues than I am. It’s not very hard, because I don’t really study this stuff, I just read the news.

The Bush Doctrine answer was one of those ones where she really didn’t know what Gibson was talking about. That’s what worries me about her as a candidate. I know what it is and could’ve staggered to an answer better than she did.

The other thing that really surprised me was that she claimed that Russia attacked George “unprovoked” which is categorically false. Read the first paragraph of Wikipedia on the war (emphasis added):

The 2008 South Ossetia War was a land, air and sea war fought between Georgia, on one side, and the separatist regions, South Ossetia and Abkhazia, and the Russian Federation, on the other. Ongoing skirmishes escalated into war early in the morning of 8 August 2008, when Georgia launched an artillery barrage of Tskhinvali followed by an incursion of Georgian armoured troops into Georgia’s break-away region of South Ossetia.

This is basic current events, and a centerpiece of John McCain’s foreign policy stump speech. How can she get this wrong? How am I supposed to take McCain’s claims about her foreign policy chops seriously?

One other thing to keep in mind about this. While she just found out she was on the ticket a few weeks ago, her name was being thrown around for several months. That’s why those clips of her saying she doesn’t know what a VP does are floating around.

So, she’s had months to just read the newspaper every day and pay attention to the national news, perhaps hitting Wikipedia a few times to look stuff up. That’s all it would take to learn about how Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae work, or whether Georgia or Russia “started” the war in South Ossetia, or what the Bush Doctrine is.

A lot of people take their name out of consideration when they’re not interested in the job. The fact that she was interested but couldn’t be bothered to do the kind of work that governors and senators with national ticket aspirations have to do is the single greatest concern with her.

It also casts into doubt John McCain’s “Country First” slogan. If he’s willing to put someone like Palin on the ticket because they help his political chances, he’s not putting country first. He’s putting his party first and his ambition first. As much as I disagree with Joe Lieberman, I don’t doubt that he’s paying attention to the world. Doesn’t say a lot about his judgement.

You can read more reaction if you’re interested. Hilzoy’s reaction is up at the Washington Monthly, and TPM has their initial take up as well. The one closest to my incredulity, though, is Publius’s reaction at Obsidian Wings.