Well, you can buy Griswold v. Connecticut (right to privacy, particularly with respect to marital relations) without buying Roe v. Wade as well. Griswold is the presumed "precedent" for Roe, but that's a stretch and I think that even a fair number of advocates for abortion rights will admit that Roe v. Wade has a pretty weak basis in actual law.

That said, I'm pretty sure that Palin simply does not have the mind for that kind of subtlety. And even if that's not true, I don't want a President or Vice President who struggles with foundational constitutional law to the point that the only decision she can name is Roe v. Wade, thirty-plus years in the past. As a purported economic conservative, she ought to have some pretty strong feelings on Kelo v. New London from a few years ago. As a social conservative, I'd be surprised if she didn't have a problem with this year's decision striking down the death penalty for a child rape in Louisiana. And as a candidate on a ticket trying to establish "tough on terrorism" credentials, it's a bit surprising to me that she didn't even make an oblique reference to this year's Boumediene v. Bush, to which McCain immediately objected.

Then again, I'm voting this year based on the Constitution before anything else. Obama knows the subject; he taught it at one of the best (and most conservative) law schools in the country. McCain might have some grasp on it, though I've yet to see it demonstrated. Palin has no idea at all.

I thought federalists were usually in favor of strong, centralized government, whereas anti-federalists were not?

The general public has no idea what the other court cases are about...maybe that's why they're not mentioned on the campaigning trail? I dunno..just a thought.

I did kind of geek out with that post, but the problem is that she was asked specifically in the interview to mention decisions she disagreed with. She didn't have to mention them by name either. Joe Biden didn't when he was asked the same question; he explained Morrison, the decision that struck down the Violence Against Women Act, but didn't give its name. I would have accepted "the eminent domain case" or "the child rape case" (which I don't even know the name of) or "the Guantanamo case" from Palin, but she didn't even give us that much.

The Federalist Party in the US was for strong central government and regulation as opposed to the Anti-Feds/Democrat-Republicans who wanted the power to be left to the states (which is what Palin is trying to agree with, actually), but in general the term federalism (lowercase) involves the concept of a federation which means the existence of states in the first place as opposed to one sovereign government over an entire region.

So actually, I would say that her word choice was very confusing because in saying she believes the power should be left to the states she is illustrating a classic belief that arose from the legacy of the Anti-Federalists, which means that she was sort of right ... but sort of wrong, depending on how she meant it.

"Federalist" isn't really used in the same way today that it was when it was the name of a party. Back then, the alternative to a strong central government that left some authority at the state level (the definition of federalism) was a weak or non-existent central government and almost entirely sovereign states. Today, the more likely alternative is an even stronger central government that regulates in most or all of the areas that used to be exclusively state matters. So in that sense, it's appropriate to describe someone who wants more authority given back to the states as a federalist.

Ah, I see. Makes sense.

She's still an idiot.

Oh, definitely.

She just winked at us

She's such a slut.

...how is a $5000 tax credit not costing the government anything?

Because it's budget neutral duh!

Because it's being treated like an "investment", not real money.