The Note: The Palin Comparisons

Sept. 12, 2008— -- So Gov. Sarah Palin is a God-invoking, line-memorizing, superpower-provoking, nuke-u-lar pronouncing, dangerously unprepared Bush-Cheney clone (if she even knew what the Bush Doctrine was) . . .

Or she is a Lincoln-quoting, homework-doing, Russian-scaring, regular-acting, ready-to-lead energy expert of a hockey mom (and who cares who knows what the Bush Doctrine is, anyway?).

The Palin who sat down with ABC's Charles Gibson Thursday (with more to come Friday, on "World News" and "20/20") was -- in keeping with the phenomenon that has flashed across the political landscape these past two weeks -- pretty much whatever you wanted her to be.

(Similarly, Sen. Barack Obama's planned pushback -- not the first or second or third time his campaign has signaled a new aggressiveness -- is pretty much whatever you want it to be, too.)

(And the 9/11 pause didn't spread into 9/12: New ads, with a new tone -- Obama goes both positive and negative -- with the sharper one featuring Obama saying McCain has become an out-of-touch Washington insider. John McCain pushes back hard, saying Obama folks have been "disrespectful" to Palin, even as the media declares en masse that Team McCain is not playing fair.)

On the key question, Palin, R-Alaska, didn't hesitate: "I'm ready," she said. "I answered him yes because I have the confidence in that readiness and knowing that you can't blink, you have to be wired in a way of being so committed to the mission, the mission that we're on, reform of this country and victory in the war, you can't blink."

Yet the first day of this next stage of Palin's public definition again showed how much we still don't know about the would-be No. 2 (and, perhaps, what the would-be No. 2 still doesn't know about the job) -- and how much is at stake in this phase of her public rollout.

On the question of the Bush Doctrine, no real answer: "She stopped short of saying whether she supports 'anticipatory self-defense,' leaving open the question of whether she subscribes to the Bush Doctrine," per ABC's Teddy Davis and Rigel Anderson. "Asked if Palin's bar for the use of force is higher than the one contained in the Bush Doctrine, the McCain-Palin campaign said that it was a highly conceptual question that Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., himself may have never answered."

On Pakistan, maybe a shade toward Barack Obama. "Gibson also pressed Palin three times to give a yes or no answer to the question of whether she believed that the United States has the right to launch crossborder attacks on Taliban and Al Qaeda targets inside Pakistan, a close ally of the United States, without the Pakistani government's permission," Michael Kranish and Farah Stockman write in The Boston Globe. "Earlier in the campaign McCain had ridiculed rival Barack Obama for saying that he would authorize such unilateral crossborder actions, emphasizing that cooperation with Pakistan is essential."

On the Russian-Georgian conflict, she went maybe a smidge further than McCain. (And she knows NATO's Article 5.) "If John McCain were asked, 'would we act to defend another NATO member that was invaded?' the answer would be yes," she said.

She said she would "agree to disagree" with John McCain (while trying to change his mind) on drilling in ANWR, but left herself more open to the possibility that global warming is man-made.

"I believe that man's activities certainly can be contributing to the issue of global warming, climate change," she told Gibson (choosing her words extremely carefully). "Regardless though of the reason for climate change, whether it's entirely, wholly caused by man's activities or is part of the cyclical nature of our planet -- the warming and the cooling trends -- regardless of that, John McCain and I agree that we gotta do something about it and we have to make sure that we're doing all we can to cut down on pollution."

And in her first solo appearance since her convention speech, a new round of questions is inspired:

"Gov. Sarah Palin linked the war in Iraq with the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, telling an Iraq-bound brigade of soldiers that included her son that they would 'defend the innocent from the enemies who planned and carried out and rejoiced in the death of thousands of Americans,' " Anne Kornblut writes in The Washington Post. "The idea that the Iraqi government under Saddam Hussein helped al-Qaeda plan the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, a view once promoted by Bush administration officials, has since been rejected even by the president himself."

(A blast back, from Bill Kristol, in The Weekly Standard: "Kornblut's interpretation of what Palin said is either stupid or malicious. Palin is evidently saying that American soldiers are going to Iraq to defend innocent Iraqis from al Qaeda in Iraq, a group that is related to al Qaeda, which did plan and carry out the Sept. 11 attacks."

In the first round of interviews, no huge gaffes, maybe no huge scores either: "At times visibly nervous, at others appearing to hew so closely to prepared answers that she used the exact same phrases repeatedly, Ms. Palin most visibly stumbled when she was asked by Mr. Gibson if she agreed with the Bush doctrine," Jim Rutenberg writes in The New York Times.

"By turns tense and combative, Palin, 44, used two interviews with ABC anchor Charles Gibson to display her grasp of issues central to the vice presidency," Michael Finnegan writes in the Los Angeles Times.

New York Times TV critic Alessandra Stanley found the interviews "strained and illuminating": "Ms. Palin didn't look rattled or lose her cool in her first interview with Mr. Gibson, the network anchor, on Thursday night, but she skittered through with general answers, sticking to talking points that flowed out quickly and spiritedly, a little too much by rote to satisfy her interviewer that she was giving his questions serious consideration."

"Sarah Palin showed herself as steely and supremely confident -- even when she stumbled over a question about the Bush Doctrine -- and brushed off whether it mattered that she had never met a foreign head of state in her much anticipated first network interview as John McCain's running mate," the Chicago Sun-Times' Lynn Sweet writes.

Per the AP write-up: "John McCain running mate Sarah Palin sought Thursday to defend her qualifications but struggled with foreign policy, unable to describe President Bush's doctrine of pre-emptive strikes against threatening nations and acknowledging she's never met a foreign head of state."

Howard Wolfson, at his New Republic blog: "Her answers to a fairly basic set of foreign policy questions were formulaic and unimpressive. She didn't say anything disqualifying, but it is unlikely that anyone watching would have come away sanguine about her ability to step in as President on Day One if necessary."

James Carville, a self-described "notoriously easy grader," gave Palin a C- on "Good Morning America" Friday. "For somebody who got a passport last year, I'm just being honest, I'm not surprised" she didn't know what the Bush Doctrine is, Carville said.

Torie Clarke: "Where you stand depends on where you sit."

On her assertion that it's not unusual for a vice president to have not met world leaders: "Palin was mistaken, at least where recent history is concerned," per ABC's Lisa Chinn.