Palin gets media savaging after faltering interview

Palin gets media savaging after faltering interview
AFP - September 26th, 2008

WASHINGTON (AFP) — Republican running mate Sarah Palin, after again laying claim to foreign policy expertise because Alaska is near Russia, suffered a media roasting Friday with one conservative calling on her to quit.

Pro-Republican columnist Kathleen Parker, writing in the National Review, said the Alaska governor was now such an embarrassment to the party that she should step down as John McCain's vice presidential nominee.

"Palin's recent interviews with Charles Gibson (ABC News), Sean Hannity (Fox News) and now Katie Couric have all revealed an attractive, earnest, confident candidate. Who Is Clearly Out Of Her League," Parker said.

In her third session with a television interviewer, this time with CBS News anchor Couric, Palin struggled to offer examples of McCain's claim to regulatory zeal at a time when Wall Street is reeling from financial crisis.

In the interview, which aired in two parts on Wednesday and Thursday nights, Palin also said that US forces had already secured "victory" in Iraq, a bolder assertion than McCain himself has offered.

Pressed on why Alaska's geographic location enhanced her world knowledge, Palin said: "Well, it certainly does, because our, our next-door neighbors are foreign countries, there in the state that I am the executive of."

She said that when Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin "rears his head and comes into the airspace of the United States of America, where do they go? It's Alaska."

"It is from Alaska that we send those out to make sure that an eye is being kept on this very powerful nation, Russia, because they are right next to, they are right next to our state," Palin added.

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Palin gets media savaging after faltering interview