When is Palin going to withdraw from the race?

Sarah Palin’s disastrous interview with Katie Couric last week has been widely criticized, and some sound bites have been played over and over again, such as Palin’s absurd statements about Putin rearing his head over Alaska, but every part of the interview revealed that she is a person who has never seriously considered any issues regarding matters outside “the great state of Alaska.” On top of that, she tries to mask her ignorance by being arrogant and condescending. Here’s one of the lesser-heard exchanges from the interview:

Couric: In preparing for this conversation, a lot of our viewers … and Internet users wanted to know why you did not get a passport until last year. And they wondered if that indicated a lack of interest and curiosity in the world.

Palin: I'm not one of those who maybe came from a background of, you know, kids who perhaps graduate college and their parents give them a passport and give them a backpack and say go off and travel the world.

No, I've worked all my life. In fact, I usually had two jobs all my life until I had kids. I was not a part of, I guess, that culture. The way that I have understood the world is through education, through books, through mediums that have provided me a lot of perspective on the world.

There were a lot of ways she could have answered this question without insulting people who actually do travel abroad. Apparently she believes that only spoiled rich kids would travel outside the U.S. and only because their parents tell them to do so. It doesn’t occur to her that there are people who have a natural curiosity to see the world, and who might work to save money so they can travel.

And look at the last sentence. This woman has a degree in journalism, and she doesn’t know that the correct plural form is “media.” Somehow she missed that snippet of information during her six years at five colleges. When you use the plural form “mediums,” you are referring to psychic people, as in the TV show “Medium.” I don’t think that’s what she meant to say.

After her performance at this interview, plus her consistently absurd answers to the few questions she has taken from reporters, I seriously believe that the McCain camp will have to let her go. They have no other choice. And it will happen before the debate on Thursday. They will find a time to announce it when it is most likely to be overshadowed by other news – which shouldn’t be too hard to find these days – and they will wait as long as possible, to give Joe Biden as little time as possible to prepare for a different opponent. But it is going to happen.