This Fox News segment, in which Carl Cameron airs some of the McCain camp's dirty laundry about Sarah Palin, has to be seen to be believed. Apparently Palin didn't know Africa was a continent -- she thought it was a country -- and was also unaware of what countries were in NAFTA. On top of that, she refused preparation before her legendarily bad interview with CBS's Katie Couric.

Meanwhile, those conservatives who see Palin as the future of the movement and of the Republican Party are not taking this sort of thing lying down. At Red State on Wednesday, Erick Erickson announced "Operation Leper":

We're tracking down all the people from the McCain campaign now whispering smears against Governor Palin to Carl Cameron and others ...

We intend to constantly remind the base about these people, monitor who they are working for, and, when 2012 rolls around, see which candidates hire them. Naturally then, you'll see us go to war against those candidates.

It is our expressed intention to make these few people political lepers.

They'll just have to be stuck at CBS with Katie's failed ratings.

P.S. - ... We are rooting for Sarah Palin. Don't make us add you to our list. Do you really want to be next to Kathleen Parker in the leper colony?

The reference to CBS is most likely an allusion to McCain aide Nicolle Wallace, who has worked there.