Conservative Criticizes Palin's Qualifications (Daniel Drezner)

I know that transcripts of spoken remarks can sometimes look foolish in print/on the screen. ... I suspect that had Sarah Palin been given another four years to, you know, govern something, she might be a bit more up to speed on policy.

None of these caveats, however, make me feel any easier about the answers Palin gave to Sean Hannity in her latest interview. Time’s The Page blog has excerpts.

I hereby challenge readers to translate the following Palinomics quotes into something approximating standard English:

***(read full article for list of quotes)***

Like Kevin Drum, I’m going to claim absolute ignorance here: what are construction bonds, exactly? Do they have anything to do with the current financial crisis? What was she trying to say by saying “construction bonds” Do any of my readers speak Palin?
Memo to McCain campaign: I think it’s swell that you’re going to introduce Sarah Palin to a few UN folks. Let’s face it, she wasn’t terribly convincing on foreign policy in that last interview. While she’s in ...New York City, however, maybe it would be a good idea to have her sit down and chat with a few finance people as well?

What I’ve learned about Sarah Palin to date is that she doesn’t know a lot about foreign policy, doesn’t know a lot about the economy, and she sounds just as bad in friendly interview situations as she does in slightly more probing interviews. Her best skill displayed to date was delivering a speech off a teleprompter (not insignificant in politics, mind you) and she’s apparently exaggerating that skill as well.

Am I missing anything? Help me out, readers — because her current appeal seriously escapes me.

Politico’s David Paul Kuhn writes about the dog not barking among GOP foreign policy heavyweights: ....
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Having chatted with a few members of this mandarin class, I would describe the range of opinion about Palin’s foreign policy bona fides as varying from “underwhelmed” to “you gotta be f#$%ing kidding me?”

What’s really disturbing, however, is this Bob Kagan quote:


This is one of those head-scratching comments when the only question is whether Kagan is being completely cynical or whether he actually believes that expertise is irrelevant. Given the GOP attack line just three weeks ago was about Obama’s inexperience, and given that Bob goes to the trouble of writing and researching actual books, I have to go with cynical.
Question to other GOP policy wonks: is it possible to support a candidate that campaigns on the notion that expertise is simply irrelevant?

UPDATE: In the comments, I’m seeing variations on the argument that Palin has as much foreign policy experience as Clinton or Bush did when they were elected. One could quibble a bit with that, but it’s not really the point. The point is this: foreign policy issues were not terribly important in either the 1992 nor 2000 elections. Regardless of one’s views of the candidates, does anyone seriously believe that the strategic environment in either 1992 or 2000 is akin to the situation we face today?