Let the caged bird sing

Sarah Palin does not look comfortable flakking the McCain campaign talking points on foreign policy. That's about all I can say with any confidence after watching her interview with Charles Gibson last night.

I have no idea what she thinks of the Bush Doctrine of preventive war, about what America can do to stifle Russian aggression in former Soviet republics, about whether the U.S. military should seek approval from the Pakistan government before deploying special forces in Pakistan's Northwest Frontier.

I do know she had a hard time matching the answers she was given by her handlers to the questions asked by Gibson. As a result, the interview inevitably looked like an interrogation. She stubbornly stuck to the story her lawyers told her to tell and Gibson was stuck trying to find out what she really knows - and doesn't know - by trying to knock her off script.

The sad part is that Palin went in overprepared (and thus unprepared) because her handlers don't trust her to speak for herself. They don't trust her because they don't know themselves what she thinks - and probably don't really care. She was a trooper, for sure. And she does seem to believe she's ready to lead. But does John McCain agree?

Which brings me back to a point I made right after she was picked:

But all of this works only if Palin has McCain's respect. The choice has echoes of the trophy wife/young assistant storyline. Older man picks younger companion to show he is still in the game, still "with it" culturally and socially. But that's also a choice meant to leave the older man in control. It's a relationship in which he wants to give as little of himself as possible and still get what he wants in return.