The question is, can Palin give a coherent answer?

The question is, can Palin give a coherent answer?
DAVID USBORNE - SYNDICATED COLUMNIST
September 26th, 2008

The reviews of Sarah Palin's latest television appearance tumbled in yesterday and they were ugly. In only the third major broadcast interview since she was selected by John McCain as his running mate at the end of August, she seemed at times lost for words and not all those she spoke fitted together.

The financial crisis means less attention will be paid to it than might otherwise have been the case. It could be, meanwhile, that Palin's unhappy performance will lower expectations ahead of her encounter with Sen. Joe Biden at the vice-presidential debate in St. Louis next Thursday.

It remains possible that the CBS interview will be known as the moment when the high gloss that Palin wore upon her selection before the Republican convention -- burnished by her performance in St. Paul -- began to fade.

Even as members of the American media strive to avoid appearing snobbish or elitist in their treatment of Palin, most commentators seemed unable to disguise their sheer consternation at a performance that at times seemed worthy less of a candidate for vice-president than for school president.

"Marginally responsive," was the gentle verdict of the Los Angeles Times after watching the interview of Palin by Katie Couric, the anchor of the CBS Evening News, shown on Wednesday and Thursday. The influential blogger Andrew Sullivan complained that the governor was skittering not between "talking points" but "babbling points."

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The question is, can Palin give a coherent answer?