The American Spectator

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Let Palin Be Palin

By Philip Klein on 9.25.08 @ 8:01PM

I just watched the second installment of the Sarah Palin interview with Katie Couric, and I detect a major difference between how she comes across when she's trying to be something she's not, and when she's just being herself.

For instance, I absolutely cringed during the part when Palin tried to explain why Alaska's proximity to Russia gives her relevant foreign policy experience. But she did quite well explaining that she never got a passport before last year because she didn't come from a background that afforded her the oppourtunity to backpack around Europe after college, and spent most of her life working. Then at the end of the interview, Couric kept pressing Palin on why she said America shouldn't second guess Israel were it to bomb Iran. At first, it looked like Palin was a bit rattled, but then she put it to Couric quite simply and forcefully, not in packaged statements, but in her own words:

To be clear, this doesn't change my earlier assessment that, in my view, Palin is not ready to be a heartbeat away from the presidency. What I am saying is that Palin is in a situation in which she has to field questions on a lot of subjects that she doesn't know a lot about. Rather than try to spit out rehearsed lines over and over again, she would be better off, as much as possible, to speak in her own words, rooted in her own values, and sense of right and wrong.

topics:
Foreign Policy, Sarah Palin, Iran, Russia, Israel, Alaska