We were pretty tough on Sarah Palin after watching the first excerpts of her interview with Charlie Gibson on ABC News Thursday night. (Now it looks like ABC did some bad editing, she comes off better in the transcript.)

But the parts of the interview shown last night on ABC's 20/20 were much better. Palin was calm, personable, poised, and gave good answers to most of the questions posed. (Gibson remained insufferable, and many of the questions misrepresented her positions or took past statements out of context. The lead-in item they played before the interview was terrible in offering no context for any of their assertions).

She answered the "Bridge to Nowhere" question pretty effectively. Not well enough to convince those who hate her already, but good enough for the fair-minded. There seems to be an implication out there that if the state of Alaska took one dollar from the federal government, if Palin didn't wipe out all earmarks in the state in the first year of her governorship, then she can't claim to be a reformer of the earmarks process. (That's where some context from ABC would have been helpful, i.e. how much federal earmark money has Alaska received under Palin, compared to her predecessors?)

She was also effective on the "Troopergate" "scandal", noting the propriety of her inquiries into the status of a corrupt state employee.

Her strong support of 2nd Amendment rights was excellent.

Palin obviously doesn't yet have the full depth of every issue after two weeks, but all in all, she came off very well on 20/20.

Update: An interesting compare and contrast of Gibson's questions for Palin and Obama.