Here is my comment to Chris' post: icarusr makes a very good point.  I too have observed many over-confident youg lawyers come crashing down to earth when faced with the reality of law practice.  It's an over-confidence, arrogance really, not matched with knowledge or experience that Palin revealed in the interviews, something shared by the young MBAs on Wall Street whose inadequacies were, unfortunately, revealed only after all the damage had been done.  Now we know about Palin before she is elected to a position in which she too can inflict catastropic damage, so the fault will be ours if we let her do it.

Palin may or may not know what she has gotten herself into, but we definitely know what she is capable of getting us into!

My reply to Chis seems to agree with your view. It disappeared so I pasted it below:

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Confidence (security, motivation) can be the necessary edge. But the absence of skill, experience, preparation and execution will reveal how shallow courage is...Nope, when one can only rely on emotions or will to win and a great attitude, they are a disaster waiting to happen.

When "talented" (the individual or a team) is assigned before we have a quantitative measure that "talent" exists? Sure, we blame the failure on anything but the candidate or athlete who is in over their head.

I agree that younger people need to rely upon emotion because they are still developing and proving to themselves they possess the tools which or have yet to refine and perfect that which will carry them through a bad spell. Every pro has spell which is longer and more of a confidence breaker than the past week of Palin's melt. I mean severe injury, serious losing streaks, a long slump and the worst coaches don't bring down hard a earned will to win. The last two teams in the Super Bowl were run by certified pricks, bullies and confidence wreckers but for the "talent" of the players. Neither the Pats or Giants tolerated fuck-ups.

A soldier, professional athlete and VP candidate should be tested and proved durable because confidence is a result of learning from and trusting previous 'tests'. That which might destroy a novice is the reason why we use terms like battle hardened or tested by adversity. A national candidate who can be shaken or shattered by a few interviews where her answers were wrong, naive or mumbo-jumbo can't blame anyone for ruining her confidence. Her confidence was misplaced and her attitude allowed her to go where "talent" would have said, "Nope, I know better. I'm in too deep and need to shut up."

Does  Obama  know she's in too deep?

Actually, Parker does not call on McCain to dump Palin.  She asks Palin to resign from the ticket.  Parker believes that McCain can't, or won't, do it.

The column is pretty devastating.  Even more so than Brooks'.

I don't see any humility in Palin. She just called Kisinger naive, and she told Gibson, with a clenched fist, that one cannot blink.

This is not a person who gets her facts wrong. She speaks English as if it were her second language. Her syntax is jumbled; her voice inflections are all over the place, and she has virtually nothing to say apart from her memorized talking points. I am literally terrified by the idea of her serving as president. It shouldn't be allowed.

Blech, Kathleen Parker continues to revolt me even as she points out Palin's obvious lack of qualifications.

The first and previous time I read her was about five years ago when she was writing about some soldiers in Iraq.  She attributed their emotional states of mind to lack of hot showers and meals.  No, they weren't really suffering, a few creature comforts would have soothed those babies.

Now she talks about hirsute Birkenstock clad feminists as though she's giving tips on fashion and feminity.  Really, she's in the same league as Palin.  At least she's not running for V. P.

I agree with ralphnelle.  There's nothing there but self self self.  If there was, she never would have accepted the position in the first place.  I do not think she has the first clue that she is in over her head.  She seems to have the religious fanatic's sureness.  Check out her record of firing anyone who ever disagreed with her and hiring an admnistrator to do any of the real work of her job.  Is there any evidence she's capable of shame?  Let's not even talk about the compulsive lie-fest that has been her entire ouvre from Day 1,

The fact that she introduced herself to America with a remarkably mean spirited (no wonder the base loves her) attack on the only person who publicly defended her - with passion and personal investment - said everything I needed to know about her anyway.  Small town values, my arse.  

Kathleen Parker is one of the shrewder columnists around. Her book, "Save the Males!" has lost of good stuff in it. She notes that Palin has a perfect out: she can say she's stepping down to take care of her special needs child.

Which clears the deck for Romney to join McCain's ticket and campaign on a platform of reforming  the nation's financial structure-- remember, Mitt was a private equity guy engaged in building companies like Staples, not arbitrage or the carry trade.

Hey, stranger things have happened in this campaign.

I haven't read "Save the Males," what sort of good nuggets does it have?

Even Dubya had the sense to withdraw the Harriet Miers nomination.  How is this situation different?

They can't replace her, because they have NO EXCUSE for it. Unless they fake some insane family emergency for her, it's going to have to be because she's an idiot, and they can't admit she's an idiot because such idiocy was completely knowable in advance. Obviously nobody had the kind of discussion with her that Couric just had. They probably knew she was totally ignorant and just figured they'd wing it - just send some smart people in to prep her, it'll be fine. They absolutely cannot admit that, so they will double down on the decision. The way they spun McCain's campaign "suspension" shows that they can say absolutely anything with a straight face, so why not?

Today's been busy, between the bailout machinations and debate news, so we've decided to roundup