Not knowing what the "Bush Doctrine" is doesn't mean you're not a nice person. Neither does it mean you're unqualified to run a State Government, or even that you don't have the intelligence to pick up the
skills and knowledge required to conduct foreign policy from the Oval Office.

What it does mean is that your interest in international affairs is so limited that you haven't even come across some of the buzz words and common jargon of analysts, the press, and government officials and even lay news junkies like most of us on this board. In other words, it reveals a lack of exposure to international affairs so complete that you haven't even picked up the basic outline that most of us here have absorbed by just an occasional and casual glance at the international news.

I'll give her the benefit of a doubt and assume she simply froze at the question (I have senior moments myself, and often temporarily forget things I understand perfectly well, particularly when I'm under stress). Or perhaps she understood the question but feared an ambush and got rattled. John McCain has had a few of these out-of-context senior moments himself, like confusing Iraq and Iran and Al-Quada and the Taliban, but they are probably fatigue- and stress-induced and are exagerrated by a press eager to generate controversy and his political enemies.

But if Palin's BD lapse is not a fluke, but an indication of her depth (or lack) of outside interests and general education, then the Republican Party has done a very sloppy job of evaluating and picking a VP. If they knew about this all along and picked her anyway, relying on a cram course to bring her up to date before the election, they have a lot to answer for and we have a great deal to worry about.