Good god, even I would have never thought this was as bad as it was.  From McCain aides reporting to a Fox News reporter about Sarah Palin:

Major gaps in her knowledge… real problems with basic civics, government structures, municipal, state, and federal government responsibilities. She didn’t know the nations involved in the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)… She wasn’t actually able to name all of the countries in North America… and she didn’t understand, McCain aides told me today, that Africa was a continent and not a country.

Here’s the video:

I’m with Timothy—-just as disturbing is the fact that Bill O’Reilly thinks “cramming” was an acceptable substitute for knowing before you get nominated.  This is one that will be chewed over by historians for forever.  It dismays me how many Americans think right wing nuttery is an acceptable substitute for basic knowledge.  Of course, basic knowledge is often death to right wing nuttery, so there’s that.