This last presidential election marks the first time in my life when I wish I could have a do-over, to reverse my vote for the dimmest bulb in US politics in many a year: Palin Needed Scripted Answers for Debate.

The McCain group did a pretty good (but not perfect) job of keeping Sarah Palin’s lack of gravitas (not to mention brain cells) out of the media during the campaign, but stories like this one show that McCain must have known Palin was really unsuitable for the job.

In an interview with Sky News, McCain campaign manager Steve Schmidt said that Sarah Palin’s debate preparations during the 2008 presidential campaign “were going so badly in the days leading up to the debate” that the campaign was facing an “emergency” and a “crisis.”

Scmidt said he gave her scripted answers to memorize telling her, “These are the questions. Here’s what he’s going to say. Here’s what your most effective response is. That we want to be able to come out of this debate saying you were on offense.”