Opinion: What Sarah Palin didn’t know, as reported by Fox’s Carl Cameron

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(UPDATE: See below.)

Now it can be revealed, Fox News Channel reporter Carl Cameron just told network anchor Shepard Smith.

There WAS tension between John McCain staff members and Sarah Palin (as other news outletspreviously reported), and part of it stemmed from some rather glaring gaps in what the governor of Alaska knew about the rest of the world.

Cameron, the Fox beat reporter for the Republican presidential ticket, said he had been told by unnamed sources -- and on the condition he not report the details during the campaign -- that Palin could not name all of the countries that are part of the North American Free Trade Agreement.

He did not mention which one (or ones) she whiffed on, but there are only three: Canada, the U.S. and Mexico.

Nor, according to Cameron, was Palin aware that Africa is a continent. (Perhaps she was hamstrung by the fact that no part of that land mass can be viewed from her homestate.)

Asked if she damaged the Republican ticket, Palin today expressed doubt. (See video below.)

Cameron also related that the anonymous McCain aides were frustrated that Palin blew off their suggestions that she put in a little prep time before her interview with CBS journalist Katie Couric. That sit-down in late September, it will be recalled, did not go so well for Palin.

(UPDATE: CNN has more on the dysfunction that marred the GOP presidential campaign. It reports that Randy Scheunemann, a senior foreign policy adviser to McCain who bonded with Palin while helping bring her up to speed for her debate with Joe Biden, was fired from the campaign last week for talking out of school with the media. It appears that tales of the conflict within the staff could well develop into a cottage industry.)

-- Don Frederick

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