"Logical rhetoric" gets you absolutely nowhere if your "fund of knowledge" gas tank is on "Empty". That has always been Sarah Palin's problem which is why she tries very hard to limit her risk by sticking to Sean Hannity and Greta Van Susteren interviews.
Sean Hannity/Sarah Palin interviews and a Greta Van Susteren/Sarah Palin interviews are like professional wrestling: The two participants agree beforehand how the entertainment will go, and then everybody is prepared for the choreographed Kabuki dance.
Where Sarah Palin falls flat on her face is when she is blindsided with any qusetion she does not expect. Even the very simple question by Katie Couric of "What magazines and newspapers, specifically, do you read?" was devastatingly effective in making Sarah Palin look like a deer in the headlights in front of a nationwide, prime time TV audience. This was the night when Sarah Palin's national standing crashed and burned like the Hindenberg.
Sarah Palin Can't Name a Newspaper She Reads
Sarah Palin could not even come up with, "Well, for example, for "inside the Beltway" newspapers, online, I look at the Washington Times when I want to see a more conservative viewpoint and the Washington Post when I want to see a more liberal viewpoint."
Sarah Palin came up with nothing but white noise and evasion to kill the time.
Sarah Palin is no Abraham Lincoln.
Even with friendly interviewers, Sarah Palin falls flat on her face when she is blindsided with a question she did not expect. This from her Christian Broadcasting Network interview.
When asked by David Brody, "What would YOU have DONE DIFFERENTLY in the Egyptian Crisis?", here is Sarah Palin's evasive, rambling answer that TOTALLY dodged the question, "What YOU would have DONE DIFFERENTLY in the Egyptian Crisis?":
“It’s a difficult situation, this is that 3 AM White House phone call and it seems for many of us trying to get that information from our leader in the White House it it seems that that call went right to um the answering machine. And nobody yet has, no body yet has explained to the American public what they know, and surely they know more than the rest of us know who it is who will be taking the place of Mubarak and I’m not real enthused about what it is that that’s being done on a national level and from DC in regards to understanding all the situation there in Egypt. And in these areas that are so volatile right now because obviously it’s not just Egypt but the other countries too where we are seeing uprisings, we know that now more than ever, we need strength and sound mind there in the White House. We need to know what it is that America stands for so we know who it is that America will stand with. And we do not have all that information yet."
If you can find something in there, among that rambling sea of white noise, that explains what Sarah Palin would have "done differently" in regards to Egypt, feel free to point it out.
Sarah Palin came up with nothing but white noise and evasion to kill the time.
The bottom line is that Sarah Palin, with her foreign policy fund of knowledge gas tank on "Empty" did not have the slightest clue what she would have "done differently in Egypt".
Sarah Palin is no Abraham Lincoln.
Do you consider a prime time interview on ABC with Barbara Walters a controlled and friendly "WWE" match for someone like Gov. Palin? If not, you might take a look at: http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/Palin/sarah-palin-talks-barbara-walters-afghanistan-policy-economy/story?id=9109226. That interview was conducted more than a year and half ago and she has since been somewhat restricted to Fox News under her lucrative contract with than network. Do you begrudge a woman with a family to support making a nice income and nest egg by supplementing the income from her and her husband's commercial fishing business?
She has also had OpEd pieces published in such "friendly" newspapers as the Washington Post, written and published two books which topped the New York Times' Best Sellers List, given countless speeches at various Conservative and Tea Party events, and her social media opinion postings have kept an obsessive press corps fixed with their daily dose of "Palin".
I would rank her international knowledge base far higher than that of someone who apparently believes there is an "Austrian Language", that Israel can purchase peace with its neighbors by returning to indefensible borders, or that it is in the vital interests of the United States to replace a defanged Qadafi with a new junta comprising elements of the Muslim Brotherhood and Al Qaeda (nor is cheaper petroleum for Italy and France what I would call a legitimate U.S. priority). I know that's a low bar for comparison, but as of Nov. 2012 it is the operative one we will have to make.
My comment was about an interview which occurred yesterday, not in 2008, and the unstated conclusion I drew is that Gov. Palin has been working very hard to bring her game up to a very high level. And regarding Lincoln, I am in the middle of re-reading a collection of his writings and speeches and just finished the section of his remarks during the debates with "Judge" Douglas. That is probably why I was so struck with the string of coherence and logic behind Gov. Palin's remarks. Reading Lincoln or almost any pre-1960's politician makes one wonder why today's versions struggle to string more than ten words together without saying something nonsensical. There was and could be only one Lincoln and my estimation of Palin (or anyone) will never rise that high.