In her latest extreme makeover, soon-to-be former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin took to the pages the Washington Post to blast President Obama's cap-and-trade proposal soon to come to the Senate floor. Just days after her adolescent tit-for-tat with once and not future son-in-law Levi Johnston, Palin parroted the GOP "cap-and-tax" talking point while updating her "drill, baby drill" mantra. Of course, Americans can be forgiven for viewing Palin's screed as less than authoritative. After all, as she showed repeatedly during the 2008 campaign, Sarah Palin doesn't even know how much energy her own state produces.
Still, for Palin ignorance remains no barrier when it comes to the search for ersatz gravitas. Decrying as usual "the personality-driven political gossip of the day than on the gravity of these challenges," Palin's op-ed never once mentions terms like "global", "warming" and "climate" at the center of the cap-and-trade debate. Conveniently ignoring studies detailing the minimal costs to American consumers and viewing the same kinds of employment transition provisions as typically found in trade deals as some kind of smoking gun, the quittah from Wasilla goes on to praise the Alaska Way.

"American prosperity has always been driven by the steady supply of abundant, affordable energy. Particularly in Alaska, we understand the inherent link between energy and prosperity, energy and opportunity, and energy and security. Consequently, many of us in this huge, energy-rich state recognize that the president's cap-and-trade energy tax would adversely affect every aspect of the U.S. economy...
We must move in a new direction. We are ripe for economic growth and energy independence if we responsibly tap the resources that God created right underfoot on American soil."

Sadly, Alaska Sarah Palin doesn't even understand her own state's contribution to American energy production. And while she claims to know God's will, He apparently didn't enlighten her on this subject.
That became abundantly clear during the campaign. Despite John McCain's laughable claim that "She knows more about energy than probably anyone else in the United States of America," Palin repeatedly demonstrated otherwise.
As Palin made clear in her disastrous appearance with ABC's Charles Gibson last September, rumors of her energy savvy were much exaggerated. As ThinkProgress among others noted, Palin trotted her petro-state's oil production as proof of her national security credentials:

"Let me speak specifically about a credential that I do bring to this table, Charlie, and that's with the energy independence that I've been working on for these years as the governor of this state that produces nearly 20 percent of the U.S. domestic supply of energy, that I worked on as chairman of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, overseeing the oil and gas development in our state to produce more for the United States."

Sadly for Sarah Palin, her 20 per cent figure, in the words of non-partisan FactCheck.org, is "not true, not even close." FactCheck's analysis showed that Palin's basic ignorance of the American energy market is fundamental - and inescapable:

Alaska did produce 14 percent of all the oil from U.S. wells last year, but that's a far cry from all the "energy" produced in the U.S.
Alaska's share of domestic energy production was 3.5 percent, according to the official figures kept by the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
And if by "supply" Palin meant all the energy consumed in the U.S., and not just produced here, then Alaska's production accounted for only 2.4 percent.

And so its goes. The difference between a pit bull and a hockey mom, it turns out, is that the pit bull knows better than to weigh in on energy and climate change policy about which it know nothing. As for Sarah Palin's first foray into the realm of public policy thought leadership, she needs to spend more time reading those newspapers and magazines she bragged to Katie Couric about.
All of them.