I don’t know about the rest of the interview, but this part is highlighted on TPM. In it, Gibson asks Palin what she thinks about the Bush Doctrine. She is obviously clueless–does not know one of the major policy stands of the current administration–and after trying to fake her way out of it, trying to trick Gibson into giving her the answer, she takes a blind stab instead of saying “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Given how she went into specifics about a few other things but failed to know such a broad, basic element of current governance shows up how she has crammed so much as of late; such rush study allows you to appear schooled until you hit a hole in your study, and the shallowness of your knowledge becomes apparent. This is not a person who is familiar and well-versed in policies and current events, this is someone who stays up late reading CliffsNotes.

Then Gibson actually pushes her to say whether or not she approves of the recent crossing of the border into Pakistan–a beautiful question, as it shows up a McCain hypocrisy, as McCain ruthlessly slammed Obama for suggesting such a thing be possible, and now Bush is carrying out such raids himself–so Palin either has to support Obama’s judgment over McCain’s, or call attention to the hypocrisy of her running mate. Pressed three times for a straight answer, Palin comes back only with bluster about “all options” being “on the table.” While a weasel answer, it effectively agrees that the decision to make the raids–thus confirming Obama was right and McCain was wrong–and shows up McCain’s hypocrisy. Plus, we get to see Palin rather blatantly trying to squirm out of giving a straight answer.

I didn’t know Gibson had it in him; I would guess that he heard all the criticism about how people would react to a fluff piece and decided it was better to risk being kicked out of the rest of the coverage than to be shown up for a shill. If the rest of the interview went like this, then Palin is in big trouble. If it was just this and the rest was fluff, then at least Gibson got a few points for not letting Palin get away scot-free.

Update: Here are a few more excerpts. Palin still acts the part of the consummate politician, dodging questions instead of answering them, and Gibson lets her get away with a lot. Palin, for example, claims that foreign policy is not important because (a) energy is more important, and (b) gosh, Charlie, lots of vice presidents had little or no experience, so I’m in good company.

By the way, did anyone else notice the inordinately high number of times she called Gibson “Charlie”? Not that she was being informal or presumptuous, but who repeats a person’s name so often in a conversation? Small point, but kinda weird.