The sickening views or -- LACK OF THEM -- of Sarah Palin are astounding. Even I, an amateur, formed political opinions after honing them over decades. The opinions I maintain have been determined after much study, much interest and a HUGE amount of continuous reasoning. I did much study in college but continued that study life long. My opinions, too, required standing on the shoulders of many giants who make up authoritative thought on different sides of the political debate. How a Vice Presidential candidate could be SO ignorant and so unable to enunciate a complexity of thought or of any thought is incredible to me.

Some of the questions she was asked could have been finessed easily. She was asked what Supreme Court cases she considers important BESIDES Roe v. Wade. She could not answer. I would have thought the FIRST Supreme Court case for her could have been Bush v. Gore. This case is probably the rationale that she is running on the McCain ticket today.

How about Marbury v. Madison? Any student of government knows this was THE landmark case during the nascent years of our nation in 1803 which made possible the right of judicial review and established the Supreme Court as an interpreter of our Constitution. There are, of course, EASY ones known to high school students such as the Dred Scott Decision reinforcing our most long-lasting racial divide which lead eventually to the Civil War, one of our country's most defining moments.

I thought of the 1962 decision of Baker v. Carr which began the judicial mandate of one person one vote. I also thought of Griswold v. Connecticut establishing a right to privacy not specifically enumerated in the Constitution. Of course, one of the MOST important landmark cases Brown v. Board of Education which overturned the long standing separate but equal decision of Plessy v. Fergusson she SURELY should have known. These cases are basic to the foundation of our Republic. CERTAINLY a vice presidential candidate should know them and it is nothing less than staggering that she knew none.

MOST unbelievably, though, she could NOT name MAGAZINES when Couric asked her which ones she read. At least she COULD have said Time Magazine or Newsweek. Okay, maybe the New Yorker or the Atlantic would be too liberal or Reason Magazine, Foreign Affairs or Le Monde would be a bit cerebral. HOWEVER, Sarah Palin is a Vice Presidential candidate one heart beat away! Perhaps she could have said the conservative National Review reflecting her own alleged point of view. Maybe she does read Field and Stream. What does that magazine have to do with being a Vice Presidential candidate? It has as much to do with being a VP candidate as the foreign policy experience she said Alaska's geographical proximity to Russia gave her. I rest my case.