Jack Cafferty is blasting Palin on CNN, and has been for the last hour. "It's a joke," he said. "Alaska has as many people as Austin, Texas. What does she know about inner city poverty? The war on drugs? The Middle East? You want to put her against Putin?" As the day wears on, I'm growing ever more convinced this was an insane pick. Palin isn't well vetted. McCain has only met her twice. She's not well briefed -- a month ago she didn't know McCain's position on Iraq. And she doesn't come prepared for the scrutiny. Palin isn't in a political position that exposes her to the full range of issues. She's not been running for president for two years, working with sprawling policy teams and being exposed to every concern of every voter willing to write an e-mail or grab the mic at a townhall. She's not been in office long enough to dig in on many issues, and she's not been in the sort of office where she'd have been exposed to many of them naturally. In the coming weeks, she's going to get questions on the following topics: Preexisting conditions in health care, anthropogenic global warming, prison reform, NAFTA, the Family and Medical Leave Act, the name of the president of Georgia, the construction of a fence along Mexico border, the struggle in Kadima between Tzipi Livni against Shaul Mofaz, the trade deficit with China, the Social Security trust fund, net neutrality, the correct size and composition of the army. This isn't because Palin lacks intelligence. National politics is simply different than Alaskan politics. For instance: It includes foreign policy. Most governors, before they run for president, spend years in a defined policy process. Clinton did it through the DLC and his voracious construction of ever-broader intellectual networks. Bush had Rove plan the process for him, bringing in thinkers like James Q Wilson and Marvin Olasky and convening groups of economists and international affairs experts. Fairly or not, the president is supposed to know a whole lot about a whole lot of things, and that either requires a whole lot of time in national politics, or a whole lot of preparation for your entrance into national politics. Palin has had neither. So when does she screw-up the first time? When does she forget a crucial fact, or misstate McCain's position? Will the McCain campaign have to hide her for the next three weeks in an intensive policy camp, thus losing her presence on the campaign trail? And does McCain realize that her failures will reflect on him, because his age elevates her readiness to a definitional issue? "Let's suppose that that phone rings at 3am in the morning and either Joe Biden or Sarah Palin has to answer it. You tell me," continued Cafferty. "After this pick, ask yourself again who has the better judgment, John McCain or Barack Obama."
