Whalin' on Palin

Katha Pollitt has some questions for Sarah Palin.  Fair enough, but I can pick out at least two that I bet, before writing this article, Katha Pollitt could not have answered to my satisfaction.  Heck, five gets you ten that neither Joe Biden nor Barack Obama can correctly describe the Fed's main activities.  And the first question seems to indicate that Ms. Pollitt is not only unable to reason clearly from some fairly simple first principles, but literally incapable of imagining anyone else doing same.  Halfway through I found myself halfway seriously wondering when Ms. Pollitt had started writing for McCain/Palin '08.

I haven't watched the interview yet, but my understanding is that, as I have been predicting (privately to friends, unfortunately, rather than in public where I could take credit), she came out looking like a moron on foreign policy.  Her lack of knowledge worries me rather less than most people, since if McCain dies in office she'll probably have had at least as long to bone up on crucial foreign policy issues as Barack Obama has had.  But I don't see how you can vote for a candidate without being able to assess their foreign policy reasoning, which is a tad difficult if they have no facts to reason from.

Update  A commenter on Marginal Revolution complains that she thought Fannie and Freddie were government entities.  I think we have to give her a pass on this, given how many of the world's central bankers made the same mistake.

This article available online at:

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2008/09/whalin-apos-on-palin/4097/