Streetfighter Palin

When I was growing up, I spent a lot of time playing my friends in Streetfighter II for the Super Nintendo and Mortal Kombat on Genesis. For those who weren't teenage boys in the early to mid 90s, these were games where each player controled a fighter in a bout with the other player. To win, you had to master certain button combinations, understand the strengths and weaknesses of each of the fighters, and master the timing of attacks and counter-attacks.

Once in a while, I'd play somebody who had never played these games (or usually hadn't played any games) before. These players would usually flail around, and maybe figure out one attack (usually jump-kicks), and their very lack of skill playing the game would make them awfully hard to beat. Because they didn't know how to play, they didn't play by the same rules or strategies as regular players did, and that made them dangerous.

This is what makes me nervous about Palin in her debate Thursday night against Biden. He's an old hand who's done tons of debates and spent countless Sundays facing off against the Gwen Ifill's of the world. I'm worried that Palin's lack of skill and familiarity with foreign policy is going to throw Biden off his game, and that she'll find some kind of weird jump-kick of an attack and just do it over and over again until victory (or their mutual destruction, which works just as well for McCain's purposes).