Much is being made of Sarah Palin saying - on Larry Kudlow's CNBC program - that she doesn't know what the vice president does all day. This is being misrepresented widely to suggest that she doesn't understand the role of the vice president. Check out the actual video yourself, at right. Here's my transcription of what she said:

As for that VP talk all the time, I tell you I still can't answer that question until someone answers for me: what is it exactly that the VP does every day? I'm used to being very productive and working real hard in administration. We wanna make sure that VP slot would be a fruitful type of position, especially for Alaskans and for the things we're trying to accomplish up here for the rest of the U.S.

It seems pretty obvious to me that Palin is making fun of the legendary inactivity of the vice presidency.

Does making fun of the vice presidency make her stupid? John Adams - the first VP - made an observation similar to Palin's, saying that it is "the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived." (Sure, the phrasing was more grandiose, but that's John Adams for you.) Daniel Webster declined the vice presidency because, he said, he didn't want to be buried until he was dead. Franklin Roosevelt's VP, John Nance Garner, said that being the VP wasn't worth "a warm bucket of piss."

Many smart people have questioned the role of the vice presidency. That Sarah Palin did so as well suggests that she is familiar with those arguments and better schooled in U.S. history than those criticizing her remark. Also, since Alaska has a lieutenant governor position I'm sure she gets the concept.

However, there is a literal answer to Palin's question. What the VP actually does - every day - has varied totally from administration to administration. The only person who can answer the question about the role of the vice president in a McCain administration is John McCain. So perhaps she was actually addressing McCain or his aides, and letting him or them know that she would need some responsibilities promised before she'd accept the role. And perhaps she received such a promise.