Chris Rodda: Palin's "Role of the Vice President" Gaffe: A Historical Perspective

The night of the vice presidential debate, I started writing a piece about Sarah Palin's utter cluelessness about the authority given to the vice president by the Constitution, but was forced to put it aside because other things came up that I had to deal with first. By the time I had a chance to get back to the piece, the second presidential debate had already taken place, so writing about the past week's vice presidential debate seemed a bit mistimed, and I didn't bother to finish it. The substantiation of Palin's abuse of authority as governor of Alaska, however, made her inflated notion of the authority she would have as vice president seem quite pertinent to the issue of her likelihood to abuse the authority of that office. Given Palin's ignorance of the limits of the vice president's authority, and her obvious lack of... [read full story]