G. Frink's

The Palin/McCain comedy of contradictions was on stage all weekend.

After failing to keep Republican Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin on a leash short enough to silence her, Republican Presidential nominee John McCain tried to retract on Sunday Palin's reversal on Saturday of his Friday debate position on unilateral strikes against terrorists inside Pakistan.

Palin's reversal of McCain came when she was questioned by a Temple University graduate student Saturday while she was buying a pair Philadephia cheesesteaks:

"How about the Pakistan situation?," asked Rovito, who said he was not a Palin supporter. "What's your thoughts about that?"

"In Pakistan?," she asked, looking surprised.

"What's going on over there, like Waziristan?"

"It's working with [Pakistani president] Zardari to make sure that we're all working together to stop the guys from coming in over the border," she told him. "And we'll go from there."

Rovito wasn't finished. "Waziristan is blowing up!," he said.

"Yeah it is," Palin said, "and the economy there is blowing up too."

"So we do cross border, like from Afghanistan to Pakistan you think?," Rovito asked.

"If that's what we have to do stop the terrorists from coming any further in, absolutely, we should," Palin responded, before moving on to greet other voters.

Palin was unperturbed by the fact that during Friday night's debate in Mississippi, McCain attacked Democratic Presidential nominee Barack Obama when Obama said similar hot pursuit was appropriate. McCain sneered:

You don't say that out loud. If you have to do things, you have to do things, and you work with the Pakistani government.

Come Sunday, after Palin did "say that out loud," ABC's George Stephanopoulos asked McCain about Palin's reversal.

McCain answered with a stumbling attempt to deny the obvious meaning of her words and to blame both the questioner and those who recorded the event:

She would not. ... she understands and has stated repeatedly that we're not going to do anything except in America's national security interest.
In all due respect, people going around and? sticking a microphone while conversations are being held, and then all of a sudden that's -- that's a person's position ...
This is a free country, but I don't think most Americans think that that's a definitive policy statement made by Governor Palin.

The simple truth is that when talking with her handlers nowhere in sight, Palin more than agreed with Obama's debate response to McCain:

If the United States has al Qaeda, bin Laden, top-level lieutenants in our sights, and Pakistan is unable or unwilling to act, then we should take them out.

Yes, Senator McCain. I took her at her word.

Back on the handlers' short leash, she may yet be compelled to deny it.

But she took the same position in her interview with ABC News' Charles Gibson, and I believe that is and will remain Governor Palin's position.

Clearly stated.

Not yours, Senator McCain.

Hers.