that too few Americans really know how to be married. Sure we know how to *get* married, but not how to *be* married.

When I first read the article, I was all ready to tear the author a new one about living up to her promises, pulling her share, etc.

Then I recalled what happened to a couple I know almost 30 years ago.

They'd gotten married pretty young but had both completed college and had good jobs in their professions. They'd know each other for almost a decade before the wedding, had dated other people, were "compatible", etc.

Not rich by any means but they had enough to be comfortable and start paying off their student loans.

They lived in a small town where living costs were low, several hours' drive from where they'd both grown up. The distance to family and old friends was about the only negative thing about the location. The other negative thing was that his job involved lots of unpredicatable overtime, but the extra money was good.

Things went so well for them that when the lease on their apartment was running out they bought their first house. They were careful not to overspend, and the house wound up costing them less per month than their former apartment.

Then an opportunity appeared to move back near the Big City where they'd grown up. A job with no overtime for him, and better opportunities for her. They jumped on it and moved, buying their second house and making money on the first in the deal.

All through this they'd managed their finances very simply: There was Her Money, His Money, and Their Money. Their Money paid for the house and all its related costs, the food and all joint purchases. Her Money and His Money paid for their individual cars, clothes, hobbies, gifts, student loans, etc.

There were three bank accounts, and they decided that an equal percentage of each paycheck would go into the joint account. That way, the financial load was evenly shared.

It worked very well, primarily because they each had similar financial burdens and saw where the money was going.

But they couldn't leave well enough alone.

Soon after moving into the new house near the Big City, she announced a desire to go back to school. He supported the idea and they planned how to pay for it.

Their cunning new plan was that he would take care of all the living expenses except her car, her clothes and gifts, while she would save up every penny she could towards going back to school. In those pre-computer days, it seemed like a good plan.

But it didn't work.

He found himself struggling to pay all the bills from his one income. Everything in the Big City cost more and there was no overtime in the new job. She was saving up lots of dough so it seemed to him that this was but a temporary phase. Once she went to graduate school they'd have to live on his income, but when she was done things would get better.

The financial pressures were completely different on the two of them. She wanted to fix up the house and go out more; he thought they couldn't afford to do anything other than bare essentials until she was through school. He alone saw all the bills and their payment deadlines; she alone decided how much of each of her paychecks was to be saved.

She ran up big long-distance phone bills, went out with her friends a lot and (in his view) spent money like water. He scrimped, saved and went around turning off lights and (in her view) never wanted to do anything fun or new.

From a distance it looks like a small, petty problem, but when a person lives with it every day, the good feelings towards the spouse get killed off one by one.

In the end she got tired of "trying to change him" and went off on her own. He managed to hold onto the house and avoided bankruptcy. Fortunately they didn't have any kids to suffer from their mistakes. Had they realized the problem early on, they would probably still be married today.

Money wasn't the only problem in their relationship; it simply acted as a catalyst for others.

Of course in retrospect they should realized very early on that their new plan wasn't working, and gone back to the old one. They should have set up a budget and stuck to it, acted like partners instead of competitors. But they didn't; neither one of them understood enough about how to be married to understand the problem, let alone fix it.

The real point of the article is this:

John McCain described Sarah Palin as the person who "knows more about energy than probably anyone else in the United States of America." Direct quote, not an interpretation.

Did McCain tell the truth when he described Palin that way? Was he mistaken? Or was he outright lying?

Palin made repeated mistakes, misleading statements and exaggerations (if not outright lies) about the US energy situation and Alaska's production. Her statements also reveal not just ignorance but a profound misunderstanding of the energy situation.

It's one thing to not know something, and to realize that. But Palin obviously thinks she knows things she doesn't. Or is trying to fool us into believing she knows them. McCain is playing the same game.

John McCain is either woefully mistaken, completely ignorant or lying in his statement about Palin's energy knowledge. That says *his* ability to make good energy policy decisions is completely absent. Gone. Nonexistent.