Update: Oy--this would appear to be a hoax. Apologies.
After the original report that Palin didn't know whether Africa was a country or a continent, I complained that people were being too credulous about her foibles. And then I committed the very same sin.
Martin Eisenstadt outs himself as Carl Cameron's source for some recent Palin-mockery and delivers yet more fodder (emphasis added):
As you know, I was one of the foreign policy advisers on the McCain campaign who worked with Randy Scheunemann to help prep Sarah on her debate with Joe Biden. Did we outright give her a geography quiz when we started the prep? No, of course not. But yes, in the context of the prep, it slowly became apparent that her grasp of basic geo-political knowledge had major gaps. Could she have passed a multiple choice test about South Africa or NAFTA. Probably. But it was clear that she simply didn’t have the ease of knowledge that we come to expect from a major party political candidate. Other slights came up, too: Not knowing the difference between Hezbollah and Hamas. Or the difference between the Shiites and Suni. Or when it came to international terrorist organizations, knowing that the IRA was in Northern Ireland, and ETA in Spain.
He adds this:
The real thing we had to constantly remind her was to never, ever compare herself in any way to Hillary Clinton, as she had at her announcement speech. We had it on good authority that Biden was prepping to unleash the inevitable line, “I know Hillary Clinton. Hillary Clinton is a friend of mine. And Sarah, you’re no Hillary Clinton.” Alas, Biden would have been right.
Interesting on a couple of levels, including the question of on what "good authority" they had this tip? Did Biden blab to a Senate colleague?
--Michael Crowley