SARAH PALIN: She is a true phenomenon.  Both of us are amused at how the Republicans are hustling her around New York City, meeting world leaders: one half hour with Karzai, one half hour with the president of Columbia, one hour with Henry Kissinger (who?), and more today.  One wag said she was meeting leaders whose countries she could not see from her house in Alaska.  Just yesterday, Biden's office issued a list of world leaders he had met--some 150, including six prime ministers of Israel, four or five presidents and prime ministers of Russia, Pope John Paul, the Dalai Lama, and many others.  But Jay Leno recently attested to Palin's foreign experience, saying he had it on good authority that she sometimes eats at IHOP.

Governor Palin has embraced, at a very early stage in her national political career, the tactic of using the "big lie" technique, i.e., telling a lie and repeating it over and over again even though it has been proven false.  The best example of this is the infamous "bridge to nowhere".  There is irrefutable proof that she was ardently in favor of this project until it became the poster child for wasteful spending.  Yet, whenever she gives her stump speech, she says she told Congress "thanks, but no thanks, we can build our own bridge".  She has also offered some imaginative thinking when asked about her foreign travel.  She said she had visited Kuwait, Iraq and Ireland.  In reality, she did visit Alaska National Guard troops in Kuwait.  She also thought she crossed into Iraq at this time but her own National Guard people said they were pretty certain she had not.  We all know now that her visit to Ireland consisted of a refueling stop at an Irish airport.

Sarah was very sarcastic in her convention speech about Obama's past work as a community organizer, "whatever that is."  This is yet another example of Republican demeaning of poor people.  Actually, all big American cities have large numbers of poor people and all of these places also have community organizers or similar people with different titles.  Their main job is to organize the poor into a strong bloc of individuals who can themselves fight the locality for their fair share of services.  These services may include better schools, safer streets, better trash collection, etc.  One of Senator Obama's tasks in Chicago was to mobilize the poor community to demand that the city remove asbestos from city housing units.  This work is low-pay, down-in-the-trenches labor but just as meaningful and important as being mayor of Wasilla.

Some questions:  Why are her handlers keeping her away from the press?  Isn't this a rather sexist decision?  Would the Republicans adopt the same "hands-off" policy for a male vice presidential nominee? After all, Senators McCain, Obama and Biden have gone through a grueling primary season consisting of many debates, press conferences, etc.  They were subjected to intense questioning by the media.  Palin was plopped down in the middle of the Republican convention without having to go through this examination so it is only natural that people want to find out who she is.  This is especially relevant since she in next in line to the presidency after Senator McCain who, if elected, would be the oldest person to be elected president.  Our gut feeling is that she would do very well dealing with the press.

One small last point:   Sarah was not the star of her high school championship basketball team.  We recently saw an interview with her high school coach who said she was not the greatest player around, but she was scrappy and tenacious, earning the nickname of "barracuda".