McCain defends Palin's qualifications

John McCain tonight strongly defended his running mate Sarah Palin, in particular against the criticism of former Secretary of State Colin Powell.

In endorsing Barack Obama over McCain on Sunday, Powell said of Palin, "I don't believe she is ready to be president of the United States, which is the job of the vice president."

In an interview on NBC's "Nightly News," McCain retorted, "If General Powell had wanted to meet Governor Palin, we could have arranged that easily, number one. But number two is then obviously General Powell does not know Governor Palin's record."

He went on to list her role and record as governor of Alaska, then said that Palin shares his world view and has a son serving in Iraq.

"And that's not qualified?" he said, his voice rising. "Tell me what is qualified. I am overjoyed to have a person who's a real reformer. What Americans want right now, more than anything else, they want us to reform the way we do business in Washington and they want our economy put back on track. Here's a proven record. And so all I can say is, I see all these attacks on-- on Governor Palin. I don't live in a bubble. But those people obviously were either not paying attention to or don't care about the record of the most popular governor in the United States of America."

Palin interjected, I'm not gonna toot my own horn, but I do have more executive experience than Barack Obama even has."

Then, they both mentioned McCain's endorsements from five other former secretaries of state, plus dozens of retired military leaders.