“Never wear a backward baseball cap to an interview unless applying for the job of umpire”

The first rule of preparing for any job interview is to research the company and the job for which one is interviewing. It doesn’t make much sense for a mathematician to apply for a job as an orchestra leader or for an English major to apply for a job as chemist with a pharmaceutical company. Even when the applicant’s skill set is aligned with the requirements of the prospective job, it still makes sense to have at least a modicum of knowledge about the company and the skills set they are seeking.

One of the first steps in preparing to be hired is usually to read the description of the job for which one is applying. In Sarah Palin’s case, the job description is written into The Constitution of the United States.

As Chris Matthews pointed out this week, the job description for the Vice President of the United States is fairly simple. The Constitution states the job of the Vice President is as follows:

• “In Case of the Removal of the President from Office, or of his Death, Resignation, or Inability to discharge the Powers and Duties of the said Office, the same shall devolve on the Vice President…” (Article II, Section 1) and

• “The Vice President of the United States shall be President of the Senate, but shall have no Vote, unless they be equally divided.” (Article I, Section 3)

As Colin Powell succinctly stated in his endorsement of Barack Obama on Sunday, the job of the Vice President is to be “ready to be President of the United States.”

There are no other responsibilities.

Sarah Palin is currently interviewing to be the Vice President of the United States and on November 4th, We, The People, will either hire her or not.

The job description for the position is pretty simple stuff, with only two responsibilities to remember. But Sarah Palin can’t even get the requirements for the job straight.

In her debate with Joe Biden, Palin stated, “our Founding Fathers were very wise there in allowing through the Constitution much flexibility there in the office of the vice president.”

And in her interview this week with KUSA, an NBC affiliate in Colorado, Ms. Palin stated the Vice President is “…in charge of the United States Senate so if they want to they can really get in there with the senators and make a lot of good policy changes that will make life better…”

No, The Constitution does not provide much flexibility in the office of the Vice President; and, no, the Vice President is not in charge of the United States Senate. In fact, as Chris Matthews further pointed out, when Lyndon Johnson moved from being the Democratic leader of the Senate to the office of Vice President, he assumed he would continue to work with the Democratic caucus in the Senate. He quickly discovered this was not to be the case when he first attended a meeting of the caucus and was totally “shut out” by the Senate Democrats.

Governor Palin’s suggestion that, as Vice President, she might have the power to expand her role within the legislative branch — going beyond the Vice President’s constitutional role of casting the tie-breaking Senate vote and being prepared to assume the office of President in the event of the President’s inability to perform his duties - runs against the tide of modern constitutional text and history.

I would suggest someone give Governor Palin a copy of The Constitution to read, but there is some question as to whether she would actually read it (one assumes she is capable of reading it) since she was unable to provide Katie Couric the name a single newspaper or news magazine she reads.

In the Real World, Ms. Palin would be deemed unfit for the position based upon her job interview.