Pakistani President Zardari floored by Palin at first meeting

"Gorgeous," this is how Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari described Republican Vice Presidential Candidate Sarah Palin when she met him in New York."You look so gorgeous. Now, I know why the whole of America is crazy about you," Zardari said, while receiving Palin, also the Governor of Alaska, at the Millenium  Hotel in New York."You are so nice," 44-year-old Palin, a former Miss Wasilla runner up in Alaska beauty pageant, told Zardari, husband of slain former Pakistani Premier Benazir Bhutto.An aide of Zardari then told the two to keep shaking hands for the cameras."I'm supposed to pose again," said Palin, who has energised the Republican Presidential nominee John McCain's camp."If he's (aide) insisting, I might hug," 53-year-old Zardari replied, for which Palin smiled politely in response.The conversation was captured on a camera and telecast later.

On Wednesday, McCain threw her to the wolves, keeping himself busy with the economic crisis while sending Palin to meet with various world leaders attending the UN Session in New York, including India’s prime minister Manmohan Singh and Pakistan’s president Asif Ali Zardari. All in an effort, it seemed, to get her some heavyweight foreign policy exposure.

How did it go? No one quite knows, because Palin’s minders, intent on shielding her from a predatory liberal media, provided limited photo-op look-in to the press, leading to spotty, hyperbolic accounts.

Indian officials present at the Singh’s meeting with Palin said she was an interested listener as the Prime Minister explained to her India’s position on various topics, including regional issues and energy security. Palin was originally scheduled to accompany McCain to the meeting, but the presidential candidate dropped out because of his preoccupation with the economic crisis.

After greeting Singh with a limp handshake, Palin explained his absence to the Indian leader. ''Of course, what he’s working on, the economic matters, in terms of our nation, impacts  India,'' she said gravely.

"So it is very important that he deal with those matters.'' Singh, a former economics professor himself, evidently did not mind -- McCain has been an ardent supporter of the nuclear deal -- as he launched into his tutorial.