To further highlight the ongoing exaggeration of her foreign affairs background and inappropriateness of her status as McCain's VP, Sarah Palin got her first passport in 2006, reports the Boston Globe. Read that again. 2006. And has visited exactly 4 countries, Canada, Iraq, Kuwait, and Germany. Earlier the Alaska governor's spokesperson included Ireland in that list, a claim that was retracted yesterday by McCain's campaign spokeswoman Maria Comella who admitted that Ireland was just a refueling stop last July. What no Russia? Even though it's so close?
Same article underscores the thinness of her somehow special role as the head of the Alaska National Guard. While Alaska has a formidable military and staff presence those are under the direct command of the president, not the governor or any other state official, and "while the Alaska National Guard operates a launch site for a US anti-missile system at Fort Greely, about 100 miles south of Fairbanks, the Alaskan governor is not in the site's chain of command and has no authority over its operations, according to Maj. Gen. Craig E. Campbell, the adjutant general of the Alaska National Guard who commands the roughly 3,800 state militia members."
"The notion that she is experienced because she is commander-in-chief of the Alaska National Guard is not going to get you very far," said John Pike, a military specialist at GlobalSecurity.org, a nonpartisan think tank in Alexandria, Virginia. "It's awfully thin."
Again, she got her FIRST passport just two years ago in 2006.
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