Oh Good Lord

McCain (probably inadvertently) implies that Venezuela is part of the Middle East; meanwhile, Palin can't name a single newspaper that she reads:

Couric: And when it comes to establishing your world view, I was curious, what newspapers and magazines did you regularly read before you were tapped for this, to stay informed and to understand the world?

Palin: I've read most of them, again with a great appreciation for the press, for the media—

Couric: But like what ones specifically? I'm curious, that you—

Palin: Um, all of 'em, any of 'em that, um, have been in front of me over all these years.

Couric: Can you name any of them?

Palin: I have a vast variety of sources where we get our news, too. Alaska isn't a foreign country, where it's kind of suggested, it seems like, "Wow, how could you keep in touch with what the rest of Washington, D.C. may be thinking and doing when you live up there in Alaska?" Believe me, Alaska is like a microcosm of America.

(Video here.)

Well, Palin gets 1,000 points for attempted misdirection, but Couric wasn't implying that Alaska was a foreign country; she just wanted to know whatthefuck newspapers and magazines Palin read to stay informed about what's going on in the world.

It wasn't a gotcha question—in fact, Palin could have thrown some red meat to their base by saying she read some conservative rag like the National Review or the Weekly Standard. She could have said something pretty innocuous like the Wall Street Journal or US News and World Report. She could have said, "I kept up with world events watching Fox News and reading the Drudge Report," or even more generically "television" and "the internet."

She could have said any one of a million things—but came up with more rambling nonsense, which suggests either that she's been reading bupkis about zilch for most of her adult life, or that she's been so tied in knots about saying the wrong thing or so totally hamstrung by the McCain campaign that she doesn't even feel like she can answer the simplest of questions forthrightly.

In which case, the claims that she's invigorating the ticket with all sorts of mavericky goodness is total bullshit.

Which we already knew anyway.

Still.