NEWS >POLITICS > SARAH PALIN TO GET FIFTH GRADE GEOGRAPHY LESSON

Juneau, AK – Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin has gone on the record to defend her foreign policy experience by stating that because her state is located right next door to Russia, she is qualified in foreign relations. While Alaska is indeed right across the Bering Strait from the eastern edge of Russia, the capital of the country is quite a distance away. We’ve included a quick chart comparing the distance between Juneau (Alaska’s state capital) and other global capital cities:
City |
Country |
Distance (km²) |
Distance (m²) |
Moscow |
Russia |
7307.64 |
4540.88 |
Washington D.C. |
United States |
4556.15 |
2831.14 |
Ottawa |
Canada |
4123.32 |
2562.18 |
London |
United Kingdom |
7118.18 |
4423.16 |
Mexico City |
Mexico |
4689.70 |
2914.13 |
Havana |
Cuba |
5650.08 |
3510.89 |
Seoul |
South Korea |
6981.59 |
4338.28 |
Beijing |
China |
6928.34 |
4305.19 |
As this chart shows, Juneau is actually closer to many other world capitals than it is to Moscow. This proximity to other major world capitols would of course indicate that Palin’s foreign policy experience is actually more robust than she has previously indicated. It should be noted that the distance between Moscow and Washington is approximately 7816.53 km²/ 4857.10 m².
Much of the distance between Juneau and Moscow is of course made up by the expanse of Siberia, which unto itself takes up 77 per cent of all of Russia and 10 per cent of the global land mass. All statistics are current as of 2005.
Territory |
Area (km²) |
Population |
Capital |
Population |
Alaska |
1.7 million |
683,478 |
Juneau |
30,690 |
Siberia |
13.1 million |
42.2 million |
Novosibirsk |
1,425,508 |
Russia |
17.1 million |
142 million |
Moscow |
12,382,754 |
“Sarah Palin has totally underestimated her foreign policy credibility. Because of her state’s proximity to so many of the world’s capital’s she is obviously very in tune with foreign relations,” said Scrape TV political analyst Gabriel Kinsey. “I believe that she needs to use this as leverage in the election. Senator Biden is from Scranton, Pennsylvania which has nowhere near the diversity of proximity to foreign countries that Alaska has. There’s little doubt this is an advantage for the McCain campaign. Of course the issue for the United States is that if McCain does win the election then Palin would be further away from the Russian border. That is a question Americans need to ask themselves. Are we better with her right next door or in Washington? When push comes to shove where do the American people want her?”
Come November 4th that may be the biggest question on the minds of American voters.
“Washington is nowhere near most of these capitals and the voters need to realize that,” continued Kinsey. “With Governor Palin’s unblemished record of negotiations with the Russians needs to be taken into account and they need to decide what would be strategically the best spot to place her.
We contacted the McCain campaign for comment. A representative reiterated the proximity to Russia and the fact that John McCain wasn’t even born in the United States as evidence of the ticket’s foreign policy experience. “Obama? Look at a map. Hawaii is in the middle of the ocean. He’s got no neighbours at all.”
NEWS >POLITICS > SARAH PALIN TO GET FIFTH GRADE GEOGRAPHY LESSON