I don't have the book yet - they have an insane embargo on it - but this nugget is worth chewing over:
In the days leading up to an interview with ABC News’ Charlie Gibson, aides were worried with Ms. Palin’s grasp of facts. She couldn’t explain why North and South Korea were separate nations and she did not know what the Federal Reserve did. She also said she believed Saddam Hussein attacked the United States on Sept. 11, 2001.
People ask - and some junior apparatchiks like Continetti even write books trying to understand - why liberals, independents and non-fundie conservatives "hate" Palin. The answer is: we don't hate Palin. I sure don't. I'm just mesmerized by her as the biggest freak show to be given this powerful a role in America since Michael Jackson. As the record shows, I was not predisposed against her. In fact, the idea of Palin - the feisty right-feminist who took on special interests and reformed government, while skinning caribou with her bare teeth - was as appealing to me as it obviously was to McCain. And I'm not even starbursted by her boobies.
But it became almost immediately clear that she knew nothing about anything, had a private life that you usually see hashed out on Judge Judy, covered up her total lack of governing competence with so many lies they were hard to keep track of, and had next-to-no knowledge of any domestic or foreign policy issues, including energy. Isn't that enough to regard her nomination is a total farce, the biggest insult ever delivered to voters since ... well, Dan Quayle, who was far more informed, smart and serious than Palin ever was.
The idea that this person was qualified to run a country in one of its most serious crises, economically and militarily, beggars belief. The recklessness it revealed in McCain showed that he too was simply unqualified for high office, gambling with the core security of the US for cheap tactical advantage.