Reporters and commentators - for example, David Gergen on CNN last night - are falling all over themselves in an attempt to be fair about Sarah Palin's blank response to Charlie Gibson's question about the Bush Doctrine. Not just Sarah Palin has no knowledge of the Bush doctrine - so too do many reporters not know what it is.
And what relevance does the lack of knowledge of reporters or any Americans who are not candidates for Vice President have to Sarah Palin's ignorance on this important foreign policy issue? A Republican Vice Presidential candidate no less, who, if elected, will be serving under a Republican President even more gung-ho than Bush. Her ignorance of this doctrine - the view that the U.S. is entitled to take preemptive actions and start wars in response to perceived threats, just as we did in Iraq - seems pretty crucial at this juncture of our history.
Socrates and Plato criticized democracy on this very point: that an ignorant opinion in the mouth of a popular person can have more weight than an accurate view presented by an unpopular person.
Sarah Palin is popular among many Americans these days, no doubt. But does the fact that x number of Washington reporters do not know what the Bush doctrine is mean that we want this absence of knowledge in someone just a heartbeat away from a 72-year old President?
Wake up, David Gergen and political commentators - what's at stake here has nothing to do with your lack of knowledge.