Without Borders on what someone who is not extremely familiar with a subject can offer:

France and Germany and Australia and India and China all have plenty of brilliant historians of their own, who operate with far more easy access to the archives and insider knowledge of their countries and regions than we Americans do -- so what can we offer that justifies working on their parts of the world? Outsiders' questions -- "what's the big deal?" "why do people here do this, and not that?" "why doesn't anyone ever talk about x?" -- are one of the few things, in my opinion, that we genuinely have to offer.

I actually think isn't valuing the "dumb question" enough. Palin's recent resignation from the Alaska governorship is a great example. How many people have really asked who cares about Palin now?

Let's take the outsider's view. This is a governor who wasn't that good at her job, who is clearly not that smart, and clearly more than a little mean and a little tacky. She's decided for whatever reason that she doesn't want to finish her term anymore. That's the core of the story. But then the fact that she's pretty and different than other vice presidential candidates comes into play which earns Palin's every move a bit more value in the press's eyes because it's juicy gossip disguised as politics and the public loves it. It gets readers'/viewers' attention. But does anybody in the press really think that she has a chance at the presidency? I mean really?

I've been following Palin's lifetime on the national stage since its beginning and from what I can tell, the reason people like her or like to watch her is either:

a) Because she slightly satiates that craving that everyone who has a political opinion hungers for these days: to have their own inspiring, young, smart, handsome, candidate leading that represents that party's values and tempts others to fall in line. She allows people to pretend that there's another Barack Obama out there for conservatives.

or

b) Because it's a break from the stodginess of politics. Everybody likes a little goofy-Desperate-Housewives-Real-Wives-Of-Wherever, even politicos and Washington insiders --hell, especially politicos and Washington insiders.

The questions that should be being asked now though is either Why does what Palin does now matter? or be why not actually watch The Real Wives of New Jersey instead of The Real Wife of Alaska?