Just You Wait, Charlie Gibson, Just You Wait

Maureen Dowd hops a plane to Wasilla, Alaska, where Sarah Palin will hold her first interview as a VP candidate this weekend. Media types might be flocking to the Last Frontier, but Palin has been sequestered from the press, brushing up for her sit-down with Charles Gibson. She's the Eliza Doolittle of the race, "pulling the political equivalent of an all-nighter."

"For the first time in American history, we have a My Fair Lady moment," writes the New York Times columnist. "Now all she has to do is also prove that she can be the leader of the free world on a moment’s notice, and field dress Putin as adeptly as she can a moose." Or not: Despite no real demonstration of knowledge,"Palin has rocketed in the polls, drawing women and men with her vapid—if vivacious and visceral—scripted cheerleading." (More Sarah Palin stories.)