Wrong again, Saunders. We can always count on you for that. Palin understood Ifill's question about the vice presidency perfectly well. What she just couldn't do was answer intelligently. And isn't it just soooo fashionable to try to pass off that gibberish as some kind of principled rejection of "Beltway speak."

The fact of the matter is that all of Ifill's questions were home run pitches for exactly the kind of simplistic, meaningless phrases Palin seems to have in such inexhaustible supply. She does have an effective public presence, no doubt about it, if you are appealing to a mentality that doesn't rise above the level of a high schooler. All she needed was to stick to the talking points drilled into her by the McCain handlers and not overuse the option of just refusing to answer the question.

Her odds of success were further guaranteed by the McCain's campaign's whining in advance about how Ifill, who is utterly pristine in her professionalism and objective journalism, would give Biden an unfair advantage because of alleged bias in favor of Obama. Of course she didn't, and now all of you babbling messengers of mediocrity are just dizzy with relief that Saturday Night Live will have to look elsewhere for material. At least this week.

One way to sum up the battle between the two campaigns as being all about the word "nuclear." Palin made sure she mispronounced it in good old Ronald Reagan, screw-the-intellectuals-and-all-they-stand-for fashion, just as McCain does, and that is still the acid test for a modern Republican candidate. Biden stuck to what he learned in school (you know...the place where we get what they call "education") as the proper way to sound out English and pronounced it correctly.

It's all about the subliminal message tied up in how the candidates say that one little word, isn't it Saunders?

Well my dear...it is a shame your column was directly below Mr. Martin's on "No Tolerance For Mediocrity" in USA TODAY because you clearly understand what is it. Lets "dumb down" Americans a little bit more! I don't want a down home gotcha babe in the Whitehouse. What a slap in the face to all of us that fought for equal rights and empowerment of women in the work place long before you were ever writing! You are where you are because of those of us that went before to pave the way...and in my own down home way...Don't you forget it! Palin is an embarassment to all intelligent hard working women whether it be at home or in the business world.
She faked her way through the debate and the media that thought she did so "wonderfully" well must have all gone to the same school of stupidness.