My thinking on that

Sarah Palin has turned into a folk legend in a little more than a week since McCain picked her out of a GOP gubernatorial lineup to be his running mate. We've heard about her hunting and sporting prowess, her anti-earmark stance and her foreign policy/national defense experience.  

I assume she is still a good shot with a gun or a basketball. The rest is apocryphal.

We've all heard about the infamous Bridge to Nowhere and how Governor Palin said "Thanks but no thanks". She did cancel the bridge that Alaska got between $230-270 million of our tax dollars. She also kept the money and spent it elsewhere.

She kept the spending and cut out the pork. I don't think it's supposed to work that way.

The other Palin myth is that she has foreign policy/national defense experience from commanding the Alaska National Guard. She commands it except when it's being used as a national defense asset. This includes training requirements, overseas deployments and a defense function like the 49th Missile Defense Battalion.

Those functions are within the U.S. military chain of command.