What do you call a pit bull with lipstick? I call it animal abuse, but John McCain calls it his running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin. The McCain campaign hid Palin from the media until recently, when an interview with Katie Couric gave her the chance to flout her wide range of knowledge. We’ve known her credentials, but we haven’t understood her brilliance until now.

If McCain, 72 and twice treated for melanoma, was indeed to become president, then, in the unlikely scenario that he were to die in office, Palin would replace him.

The 44-year-old “hockey mom” of five would easily adapt to the administrative aspects of the presidency. For six years, she was mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, which is .0032 percent of the U.S. population. For two years she has been governor of Alaska — .22 percent of the U.S. population. Surely that’s sound preparation for governing the most powerful country on the planet.

Palin would bring her tremendous foreign policy experience, which lately has been so wrongly  mischaracterized by the liberal elite. She has traveled to as many as four countries — Germany and Kuwait, to visit Alaskan National Guard troops, Ireland, where her plane made a fuel stop, and (maybe) Iraq, which she may have barely crossed into while visiting Kuwait. Make it six if you count Canada and Mexico. As we learned in the Couric interview, Palin is well-versed on the complicated and often bitter relationship we’ve had with Russia. She hasn’t negotiated with them, but she can see them. If seeing is believing, and believing is deeply understanding, then Palin deeply understands Russia.

A strong faith would drive President Palin. God would help her manage the war in Iraq, which, as she said at the Wasilla Assembly of God Church, is part of “God’s plan.” I assume President Palin would have access to that plan.

Only in the saddest of circumstances would Palin need to act as president. Still, her preparedness comforts me.

Tonight, Palin debates Democratic vice-presidential nominee Sen. Joe Biden, a “Washington insider” whose 35 years in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee mean little compared to her experience.  She was, after all, in the executive branch of government. That one counts extra.

Palin will prove once again that McCain chose her because he always puts “Country First.” She was selected because she’s imminently ready to help him reform Washington, not for petty political reasons. Not because she would excite the Christian Right. Not because she is young and new. And not just because she is a woman.

Shaun Poust is a freshman journalism major. E-mail him spoust1@ithaca.edu.