Ms. Dowd,
Would you rather trust Governor Palin or Senator Obama in a head-to-head confrontation with Vladimir Putin?
My own guess is that you, like most cognitively unchallenged people, would choose Governor Palin. She clearly has the character; knowledge and experience can be gained, but character is innate.
Would she pray over her decisions, as you mock her for in your article? Indeed, she would, and I think that any serious person would. Certainly neither FDR nor Churchill shrank from public religious expression when our countries faced their greatest crises.
I hope her retirement fund isn’t New York Times stock.