Maybe Sarah Palin should stick to Russian intelligence. The self-described "energy expert" stuck her foot in her proverbial pipeline yesterday when she erroneously claimed that the federal government prohibits the United States from exporting its own oil…

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, touted by GOP presidential candidate John McCain as his expert on energy, seemed to have problems Thursday explaining whether the government bans oil exports — especially from her state's North Slope fields…

"No. It's not 75 percent of our oil being exported," Palin said, suggesting some of Alaska's oil, in fact, may be going abroad but not that much.

"In fact," she added, "Congress is pretty strict on, um, export bans of oil and gas especially."

No Alaska oil has been exported since 2004, and little if any since 2000, according to the Energy Information Administration and the Congressional Research Service.

And Congress has never imposed outright bans on oil exports. Congress prohibited exports of Alaska oil in 1973 when the Alaska oil pipeline was built. But that ban was lifted in 1996 when there were large volumes of Alaska oil coming down from the North Slope and U.S. demand was soft.

This isn't the first time Palin has stumbled over the girth of her own expertise. She earlier claimed that the U.S. could be energy independent if we drilled more within our own domestic boundaries. Unfortunately, that claim was debunked by none other than the Bush Administration.

Palin also claimed Alaska produces six times more of the nation's energy than it actually does, and bragged about the creation of a natural gas pipeline that only exists on paper.

Palin's blunders bode poorly for her but even worse for the nation at large, since it turns out she's our best hope. Remember that her running mate, John McCain, has already declared that Palin "knows more about energy than probably anyone else in the United States of America."

Mr. Putin, you'll find the keys to our country under the doormat.