On TV, Charlie Gibson of ABC asked Sarah Palin whether she had ever met a foreign leader. It was a poor question because it was intended not to elicit important information but to embarrass the interviewee, and because both the question and any possible answer are irrelevant.

No, she said, she had not met any foreign leader. Then, unnecessarily, she added that if the same question had been asked of other VP candidates, the answer would have been the same.

Palin will have to learn not to answer more than she is asked. A "no" would have been sufficient.

ABC used her reply to make the candidate look bad, labeling her assertion as "false." A less loaded word to describe it would have been "mistaken."

ABC, which has a research staff to look up these things, showed that recent VP candidates from Walter Mondale onward had in fact met foreign leaders before they were nominated.

So? Recent vice presidents were not the only vice presidents in American history. Before Mondale there were 41 others.

At least some of those, such as Richard Nixon and Hubert Humphrey, certainly had met foreign leaders before they were nominated for VP. But did all of them? Did Hannibal Hamlin, the vice president during Lincoln's first term? Did Charles W. Fairbanks, the VP during Teddy Roosevelt's second term? Who knows, without spending a couple of days finding and then reading their biographies. But more important, who cares?

Nixon was a world traveler and met many foreign leaders during his eight years as vice president, and probably before, and what did it get us? Eventually it got us a president who misused his office and his powers and had to resign or be kicked out.

Reagan never ran for vice president, and if he had met a foreign leader before he ran for president, it would be a surprise. And yet he had a more successful presidency than most, and he's remembered as a good man.

What is supposed to be so special about meeting foreign leaders? Those people come and go, just like ours. There's plenty of time to meet some once our own government's leaders have been sworn in. (hh)