The important thing about the Gibson interview (transcript excerpts here) is to try to look at it through the eyes of the undecided independent voter, who doesn’t care if she can describe the Bush Doctrine or not.

(Video from Hot Air.) This election won’t be decided by foreign-policy wonks. It will be decided by ordinary people who see a mother concerned about Islamic extremism. Charlie Gibson’s “gotchas” won’t bother those people, who like Sarah Palin a lot more than they like Charlie Gibson.

I am reminded of Mike Deaver who was asked about TV coverage of Reagan’s 1984 re-election campaign and said, we don’t care what you say about Reagan, we care about you showing those pictures — the photo ops the campaign arranged. As long as America saw Reagan on TV, that was good for Reagan, because Reagan was good on TV.

A similar dynamic is in evidence with Palin. America likes her a lot, and she’s good on TV. So if ABC wants to show Sarah Palin on TV for 10 minutes, it doesn’t really matter what questions they’re asking her, and it doesn’t matter what the pundits say about her responses.

Politico says she “appears to have held her own,” but she did more than that. She won.