Palin's padded foreign policy resume

Is Sarah Palin the Queen of the padded resume? The Boston Globe provides some clarification.

The Lie.

Following her selection last month as John McCain's running mate, aides said Palin had traveled to Ireland, Germany, Kuwait, and Iraq to meet with members of the Alaska National Guard. During that trip she was said to have visited a "military outpost" inside Iraq. The campaign has since repeated that Palin's foreign travel included an excursion into the Iraq battle zone.

The truth.

But in response to queries about the details of her trip, campaign aides and National Guard officials in Alaska said by telephone yesterday that she did not venture beyond the Kuwait-Iraq border when she visited Khabari Alawazem Crossing, also known as "K-Crossing," on July 25, 2007.

Asked to clarify where she traveled in Iraq, Palin's spokeswoman, Maria Comella, confirmed that "She visited a military outpost on the other side of the Kuwait-Iraq border."

It was the second such clarification in as many weeks of the itinerary of what Palin has called "the trip of a lifetime." Earlier, the campaign acknowledged that Palin made only a refueling stop in Ireland.

So Sarah Palin's fabled (single) trip outside the U.S. that was supposed to have included Ireland, Germany, Kuwait, and Iraq actually means that she stepped over a border crossing from Kuwait into Iraq and had a refueling stop in Ireland. That eliminates half her foreign policy experience. I wonder if she bothered to speak to anyone who wasn't American any time in any of those foreign countries she "visited."

But Hey! She did at least have to get a passport for the first time in the fourth decade of her life. She sure is ready to understand and deal with foreign policy issues!

If 72 year-old repeated cancer survivor John McCain is elected President and then dies before January 20th, then according to the twentieth amendment Sara Palin will be sworn in as President. America's enemies can be expected to take advantage of her ignorance by causing trouble immediately. That is not a situation she can lie her way out of.

If that should happen, God help us all.