Candidates not at their best on prime time broadcasts

San Francisco: Governor Sarah Palin, the Republican vice presidential nominee, faced criticism last week for gaffes she made during a major television interview and on radio when explaining her foreign policy credentials, her views on the environment and her assertion that she represents "everyday people".

Palin cited vigilance against Russian warplanes coming into US airspace over Alaska as one of her foreign policy credentials in her interview last week with CBS News's Katie Couric. But the US military command in charge says that has not happened in her 21 months in office.

"When you consider even national security issues with Russia, as [Prime Minister Vladimir] Putin rears his head and comes into the airspace of the United States of America, where - where do they go? It's Alaska," Palin said.

Clarification

The spokeswoman for the John McCain-Palin campaign, Maria Comella, clarified in an e-mail to reporters that when "Russian incursions near Alaskan airspace and inside the air defence identification zone have occurred ... US Air Force fighters have been scrambled repeatedly."

The air defence identification zone, almost completely over water, extends 19 kilometres past the perimeter of the United States. Most nations have similar areas.

However, no Russian military planes have been flying into even that zone, said Major Allen Herritage, a spokesman for the Alaska region of the North American Aerospace Defence Command, at Elmendorf Air Force Base.

What Palin might have been referring to was a buffer zone of airspace that extends beyond the 19-kilometre strip. Although not recognised internationally as America's to protect, the military watches it.

Global warming

Also in the CBS News interview, Palin said that global warming is "real", but stressed that it "kind of doesn't matter" whether or not humans are to blame for climate change. Human activity has "contributed to the issues that we're dealing with now with these impacts" on the earth's climate, Palin said.

"I'm not going to solely blame all of man's activities on changes in climate because the world's weather patterns are cyclical, and over history we have seen changes there.

"But it kind of doesn't matter at this point in the debate what caused it. The point is it's real, we need do something about it."

Palin's state is one of the country's largest energy producers and she supports opening a protected Alaskan wildlife refuge to oil drilling - a position pilloried by environmentalists.

As Alaska governor she has also filed a lawsuit seeking to overturn the current administration's decision to list the polar bear as threatened.

In a radio interview on Tuesday, Palin portrayed herself as a champion of everyday people while noting her family's stock portfolio took a $20,000 (Dh73,400) hit last week.

"It's time that normal Joe Six-pack American is finally represented in the position of vice presidency," Palin told radio talk show host Hugh Hewitt. "I know what Americans are going through," she said a day after a record 778-point plunge on Wall Street.