Sarah Palin – the woman who makes George Bush look open-minded and knowledgable – lept to her own defence following comments from the John McCain team which didn’t paint her in the most flattering light.

It was alleged that she thought Africa was a country rather than a continent and that she could not name the countries that made up NAFTA.  Now that is naff.

“That’s cruel. It’s mean-spirited. It’s immature. It’s unprofessional, and those guys are jerks if they came away with it, taking things out of context and then tried to spread something on national news. It’s not fair, and it’s not right.”

Let’s take a look back at some of Palin’s antics from the campaign:

– Claimed that Obama “palled around with terrorists” on the basis that he sat on a panel with William Ayres, a man who was a domestic terrorist in Obama’s childhood (ignoring the Republicans who worked with him)

– Failed (along with McCain) to denounce rally MCs who emphasised Obama’s middle name “Hussein” with the inference being that because of this he was a Muslim and, subsequently, a terrorist

– A tacit contributor to the paranoid and racist cries heard at Republican gatherings: “Treason!”, “Terrorist!”, “Kill him!” and “Off with his head!”  (Didn’t the enlightenment happen to these people?)

Commenting on her relationship with John McCain being distant she said: “This is so unfortunate and, quite honestly, sickening.  The accusations we are hearing and reading are not true.”

How ironic.

Cruel?  Mean-spirited?  Or just a small-town, small-minded woman with overt racist beliefs?