When asked about the Ninth Circuit Court's ruling concerning the words 'under God' in the Pledge of Allegiance, stated, "If it was good enough for the founding fathers, it's good enough for me." (as reported in ADN - Anchorage Daily News) The Governor seemed unaware that the pledge was written in the 1890s, and that the words "under God" were added only in 1954. Ms Palin's ignorance of history was also made clear when she referred to wildlife officers as "brown shirts", inadvertently comparing Alaska State Troopers to Hitler's Brownshirts, the Nazi paramilitary organization.

Worse than these gaffes, however, is the Governor's refusal to support an increase in the maximum family-income limit for children's health-care coverage in the SCHIP program, now set at 175% of the poverty level, one of the stingiest in the nation. This is an embarrassment for a state awash in oil money.