Biden: Palin 'smart, tough politician'

WASHINGTON, Sept. 7 (UPI) -- U.S. Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden said Sunday Republican counterpart Sarah Palin is smart, but he does not know her stand on many issues.

"Look, she's a smart, tough politician, and so I think she's going to be very formidable," he said on the NBC News program "Meet the Press."

But "eventually she's going to have to answer questions and not be sequestered. Eventually she's going to have answer questions about her record."

Palin, who was the only one of the four major candidates missing from the Sunday airwaves, will break her media silence in an interview with ABC News this week, McCain campaign manager Rick Davis told "Fox News Sunday."

Davis said her interview would take place over two days at multiple locations and have no ground rules.

Biden, a Delaware senator serving his sixth term in Congress, was asked how he would approach Palin, the Alaska governor, in their Oct. 2 debate at Washington University in St. Louis.

"I've debated an awful lot of tough, smart women," he said. "A woman who is a judge here in our Superior Court was one of my toughest opponents ever for the Senate, and there's a lot of very tough, smart women in the U.S. Senate I debate every day."