Maybe she's thinking of the other Georgia

Not surprisingly, Financial Times goes looking for the wrong debate:

Sarah Palin, the running mate of Republican presidential candidate John McCain, on Thursday said the US would be obligated to go to war with Russia if it invaded a Nato ally – a status she advocated for Georgia, which Russia invaded last month...

Her response, while technically accurate, is likely to reinforce the debate about whether the Alaska governor should be a “heartbeat away from the presidency”.

Sarah is exactly correct: if Russia invaded a NATO country, the United States would be obligated by that treaty to go to war with Russia. That's the purpose of the treaty. Period. End of story. Why understanding the consequences of the NATO treaty should "reinforce the debate*" over Palin's qualifications is beyond me. Perhaps she's only qualified if she doesn't take our nation's legal obligations seriously?

NATO was created to offset the power of the Soviet Union and its slave states in Eastern Europe. That objective being successfully completed since the Berlin Wall came down 20 freaking years ago, the US is now trying to sign those former Warsaw Pact starters to come sit on our bench. In short, we are trying to make the countries we would go to war against into countries we will go to war over. Unfortunately, Palin is herself caught up in this kind of world-saving, democratic-crusade nonsense.

The real debate that ought to be reinforced** is why - given that Georgia and Moldova and the like are NOT worth fighting over - NATO still exists at all.

* whatever that means. How does one reinforce a debate? As Obama says, "just words."

** By which I mean "started."