Feeling sorry for Sarah Palin

I have to confess, for all that I’ve been busting her chops, I’m feeling a little sorry for Sarah Palin.

This Couric interview, for example, is turning into a Bataan Ridicule March. I used to think that this spreading out of the Palin Saga over multiple nights was fiendishly clever of the GOP to arrange — Look, she’ll be in the headlines daily for a couple of weeks!  Now it simply brings a daily dose of Palin incoherency:

KATIE COURIC: “What happens if the goal of democracy doesn’t produce the desired outcome? In Gaza, the U.S. pushed hard for elections and Hamas won.”

SARAH PALIN: “Yeah, well especially in that region, though, we have to protect those who do seek democracy and support those who seek protections for the people who live there. What we’re seeing in the last couple of days here in New York is a President of Iran, Ahmadinejad, who would come on our soil and express such disdain for one of our closest allies and friends, Israel … and we’re hearing the evil that he speaks and if hearing him doesn’t allow Americans to commit more solidly to protecting the friends and allies that we need, especially there in the Mideast, then nothing will.”

Not only is it a matter of not knowing the answers, she doesn’t even seem to comprehend the question.

I talked about this with Margie. She’s a lot more, um, bloody-minded than I am, and notes that Palin’s career is one of bitter competition and slamming down anyone who got in her way — and, of course, that she was more than happy to take on (“without blinking”) the nomination to the second-highest executive position in the land.

And yet, it’s clear (increasingly, blindingly, budgeonly clear) that Palin not only isn’t ready for the role of VP (esp. VP to the potentially oldest president ever, someone who’s suffered from cancer and torture over the years), she isn’t even ready to realize she isn’t ready. The person(s) who chose her bear a huge responsibility — for (lack of) vetting and awareness of what she was about to be thrust into without being ready for it.

I have little doubt that Palin will manage to land on her feet from this. She is enough of a darling of some quarters that she will never lack for speaking engagements and board memberships. But for all that I am willing to be brutally honest in saying that she should never have been nominated for the position — I cannot help but feel at least a bit sorry for her. It’s clear she had no idea what she was getting into.