The future gaffe machine

The Atlantic's James Fallows muses about the danger of plucking someone out of the relative obscurity of Alaska politics and dropping them right into the middle of a heated presidential campaign:

The smartest person in the world could not prepare quickly enough to know the pitfalls, and to sound confident while doing so, on all the issues she will be forced to address. This is long before she gets to a debate with Biden; it's what the press is going to start out looking for. So the prediction is: unavoidable gaffes.

Exactly. Sarah Palin has little record of dealing with foreign policy issues of any importance, and until now, has never been pressed by a press corps in the way that she will be over the coming couple of months. And she'll be virtually required to have a working knowledge of almost any question that comes here way.

To borrow a sports analogy, she's a Not-Ready-For-Primetime player thrust onto an island against Randy Moss. Maybe she won't give up a big play all game long but all it takes is a few blown coverages to lose the game.

Also, Fallows has a very keen comparison of McCain's pick of Palin: more like Clarence Thomas than Dan Quayle.

Ok, at this point, I feel like I'm beating a dead horse here. You get the point: Sarah Palin wouldn't have been my pick if my political future was on the line. More on the great day of football a little later.