"So why on earth do so many American voters still find her appealing? Simple. They look beyond the sound bytes that highlight her shortcomings and they see a real person who has lived her entire life on a middle class income while shouldering her responsibilities with integrity and class."

What constitutes a middle class income? How much does the governorship of Alaska pay, in salary and benefits? How much does her husband earn?

"She is an authentic ordinary American in an age when almost every national politician is a multi millionaire. Many ordinary people appreciate that distinction, and find it more significant than anything Palin's critics can offer to suggest she is not capable of being our leader."

I'm an authentic ordinary American, too. Not a millionaire, though. And I say her education, experience and knowledge are simply inadequate for the job of vice-president, let alone president. Those jobs are exceptional jobs, they need exceptional people to do them well.

I hear her spout a lot of sound bite phrases and extreme generalities, but nothing in the way of specifics. Not even what newspapers and magazines she reads, nor Supreme Court decisions besides Roe/Wade that she disagrees with. That's not the sign of a qualified leader.

"They think that she is not perfect, but at least she is one of us, and having one of us in power in Washington is a change they feel is overdue."

Joe Biden came from humbler beginnings. His wife still teaches full-time. He's more 'one of us' than Palin. Barack Obama rose from relatively humble beginnings too.

But more important are the facts that she doesn't have a coherent plan, and that her actions do not match her words. Often she simply doesn't make sense! Most of all, she simply doesn't answer direct questions, but goes off on a tangent and burns the clock until time is up. That may work in basketball but not in real life.

For example, last night I heard her talk about "reining in spending", "cutting taxes" and "getting government out of the way". All good things! Yet at the same time she talks about war without end (which costs tens to hundreds of billions).

She doesn't even consider the enormous debt hole that's been dug by wars funded on borrowed money, or that sooner or later those loans have to be paid with tax dollars.

But after all, she found Wasilla with no debt and left it with over $18 million in loans.

She supports, and I agree with, "ramping up education", but then doesn't say how to pay for it. She's all for "building infrastructure in Alaska" - at taxpayer expense! And not Alaskan taxpayer expense, because there simply aren't enough Alaskans to pay for it.

She decries the use of lobbyists but had Wasilla hire one, because Alaska is "thousands of miles away from DC". So where's the distance line beyond which a lobbyist is OK? Is it OK for Nevada or Oregon to hire lobbyists? Hawaii? North Dakota?

She says she's for more oversight of Wall Street but doesn't admit that the "get the government out of the way" philosophy is the exact opposite.

One of the best presidents this country ever had, who led the nation through some truly terrible times, was FDR. He wasn't "one of us" yet he was an incredible leader that people loved and respected. Palin probably doesn't even know who FDR was, let alone what he did.

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The thing Americans need to remember is that a political campaign is essentially a long, drawn out job interview. The candidates are asking us to hire them for a particular job for the next 2, 4, or 6 years. But it's no ordinary job, because we give them power over us. And if they mess up, the result isn't just a failed business or lost profits but war, death, and disaster.

With such an important job on the line, it's vitally important to select the most qualified available candidate, not the one that looks the best, acts the folksiest, or is "just like us" in one way or another.

Sorry, Sarah Palin is simply Not Acceptable for the VP job. Joe Biden is the better choice, for too many reasons. He's qualified, she's not.

It's that simple.

Cary's advice is spot on. But it's incomplete.

Nobody can do a diagnosis from a single edited letter. What's needed is proper testing by professionals who know what tests to give and what to look for. Being tested doesn't mean there's anything wrong with you at all; it could just be that you're 17 and still developing certain things.

And if it turns out that you do have some condition or other, there's often a lot that can be done about it. It can be as simple as getting some help in learning some skills that most people learn "automatically".

You don't have to figure everything out by yourself.

The incompleteness I mentioned was brought up by waterbottle: Do you do any drugs (legal or not), alcohol, tobacco products? If so, they may be the cause of your problem, or make a minor problem worse. How they affect other people doesn't matter; it's how they affect YOU that matters.

Get tested and be sure.

because most of the women I know are *NOT* reluctant to ask for things, to negotiate, etc. In general, they're more likely to ask for something than men.

That's not necessarily a bad thing, just an observation.

Recall too how men are supposedly incapable of asking for directions....