Spin Out of Control

In a recent interview, John McCain was asked to name a specific example of Sarah Palin's experience in terms of national security. Here's the exchange:



Yes, it's true that our energy needs do affect our national security priorites. As Alan Greenspan noted, the Iraq war was really all about oil, not illusory weapons of mass destruction. And the reason Condoleezza Rice graced Libya's Moammar Ghadafi with a state visit last week--even though she'd promised she wouldn't until Libya fulfilled its international obligation and finished paying the victims' families for its role in helping blow up Pan Am 103--was also oil. True, our friends the Saudis are, at this very moment, funding a virulently anti-American version of Wahhabism across the globe -- but, man, they have a lot of oil. All of this is true. Does that make it the case that Palin knows more about energy than any other person in the United States when it comes to energy?

And if building a natural gas pipeline and wanting to drill in Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (a position McCain himself doesn't even agree with) automatically means that you're the smartest person in the room, why does Palin still think that Iraq was responsible for the 9/11 attacks? Hell, even the president doesn't trot out that false claim anymore.