Sarah Palin uses many words to say few things

Sarah Palin was interviewed by Charlie Gibson, and it aired tonight:

• A nucyooler Iran is a real threat to the security of this country's people.

Supposedly many former southern politicians pronounced nuclear as nucyooler and it is included in Merriam-Webster. It is a signal though, and I'm still scared.

• You can see Russia from Alaska

You can see Bel Air from UCLA, but that hasn't made me an expert in exorbitant wealth... yet.

• McCain/Palin is for reformation of federal government
• A person with decades of Washington experience is part of the old machine

This summer I read a really cool article by Peter Atkins in this book about how time might seem to occur much faster in greater gravity, so it might be that the McCain-Palin campaign is indeed in its own spacetime. If this is the case, it could explain how such a notion differentiates McCain from Biden. It would also explain why McCain is so squat.

• She quoted Abe Lincoln's statement that war may be carrying out God's will without attribution

I see a couple problems there. First, It is a very solid and graceful thought that the defeat of slavery was a clear correction of an ungodly practice. The same argument is harder to buy about the eradication of "Islamic extremists" from Iraq when it might be that our military presence there brought more of them than there were to begin with. If the statement was specifically about Afghanistan, I'd buy it. Second, the softish interrogative technique used by Charlie Gibson only led Palin to point out that Lincoln, and she herself (maybe after thinking through her previous statement), didn't presume to know God's will (but could seemingly act based on a principled understanding of it) -- not that it isn't clear that the President of a country hosting a bunch of different definitions of God(s) can say things like that to begin with. She certainly didn't use such nuance when she said referenced the war as God's will (she also saw the Alaska pipeline as God's will). So, I presume that she believed that God's will was being carried out in Iraq -- but wasn't sure after introspection. That seems like some progress from the outgoing bullheadedness, but, generally, I hope that the leader of our country will leave the hyperbolic missions from God to people who have a clearly defined enemy.