To the editor:

Early in the vice presidential debate last week, Sarah Palin warned Joe Biden and moderator Gwen Ifill that she would answer questions and address issues on her “own terms.” She did that with an inappropriate boldness that went unchecked by the moderator. Her insistence on talking off the subject should not have been allowed in the debate.

Palin desperately needed to find a way to conceal the fact that she knew little or nothing about certain important subjects being debated. Hopefully, she fooled only a small number of viewers when she fell back on obviously well-rehearsed and irrelevant ramblings in response to difficult questions. Her performance was not quite as bad as interviews a few days earlier with Katie Couric and Charles Gibson in which some of her responses were shockingly incomprehensible.

She did display greater poise under the pressure of debating the more experienced Biden than many viewers expected. However, the foremost question should be what does this candidate really know about vital substantive issues, domestically and in foreign relations, that are currently so troubling to all Americans? We must move beyond shallow campaigning that relies extensively on personal cuteness and intended appeal to soccer moms and Joe six-pack types of voters.

Sarah Palin is clearly poorly prepared and too risky to be taken seriously as someone who is aspiring to the high office of vice president. John McCain’s judgment in choosing her as a running mate must be questioned.

Donald Moss,
Lawrence