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September 12, 2008
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"Do you agree with the Bush Doctrine?" ABC News
interviewer Charles Gibson asked VP-wannabe Sarah Palin.
And her response affirmed every terrifying worry
Americans might have about Sarah Palin:
"In what respect, Charlie?"
Yes, the woman John McCain chose to put, should he
win, one heartbeat away from the Presidency had no idea what the
most important doctrine of this generation was.
Give Charles Gibson credit. He may not have
asked any real in depth questions or questions she had not been
spoon-fed responses to other than this one, but he didn't bail her
out as we saw Bush bailed out in the past by lesser journalists.
"The Bush..." he paused, having started to say, "The Bush Doctrine -
you must know what that is, don't you," and likely thinking,
"Christ, this woman really has no idea what I'm talking about."
But instead, Gibson stopped after just, "The Bush..." took a moment
to pause, and then, rather than filling her in, gave a nice second
chance that would make clear whether or not she was just momentarily
confused or really had no clue about the foreign policy change that
rocked - and still Iraqs - our nation:
" -- well, what do you interpret it to be?" he asked.
"His world view?" she responded, having no clue what he was talking
about.
Again, Gibson managed to not blurt out the obvious, "Are you friggin'
kidding - your son is going off to fight in Iraq, and you don't have
any knowledge, never mind an in depth perspective, about the Bush
Doctrine?" Instead, he tried again, making clear what he was
talking about in a way that left no chance, if she knew anything
about the Bush Doctrine or had followed foreign policy at all this
decade, that she wouldn't know what he was referring to.
"No," Gibson clarified, "the Bush Doctrine,
enunciated in September 2002, before the Iraq war."
Nothing. Not a clue. Palin emptily started blathering,
having no idea that she had even missed something, "I believe that
what President Bush has attempted to do is rid this world of Islamic
extremism, terrorists who are hell-bent on destroying our nation.
There have been blunders along the way, though. There have been
mistakes made. And with new leadership -- and that's the beauty of
American elections, of course, and democracy, is with new leadership
comes opportunity to do things better."
Gibson then must have felt satisfied that it was
sufficiently clear to all watching that 1) Palin had no idea
what the Bush Doctrine was; 2) He had given her more than a fair
chance to answer if she knew.
And so Gibson spoon-fed her the information.
"The Bush Doctrine, as I understand it, is that we
have the right of anticipatory self-defense; that we have the right
to a preemptive strike against any other country that we think is
going to attack us. Do you agree with that?"
The thing is, as
a brilliant article by CBS' Hilzoy points out:
"To anyone who had been following foreign policy in
even the most cursory way, but who had somehow forgotten what the
name "Bush Doctrine" referred to, Charlie Gibson's explanation
would have made it clear what big Bush administration change in
policy was under discussion. "Oh, right", such a person would
think: "that..."
There was none. It has to be thought about in
this way: not only has this been the most significant and
important political discussion of our generation, but her son has
just gone off to fight a war that only exists because of the change
brought about by this doctrine.
From Hilzoy: "The transcript doesn't really do
it justice; the video is
here,.."
For Sarah Palin to not have any knowledge of or real
perspective on the Bush Doctrine is a terrifying glimpse into just
how unqualified she is for not just President, but even a seat in
Congress.
As M/I readers know, I virtually never am fond of
non-M/I media commentary, but Hilzoy really hits the real, immense
problem with this one perfectly:
"...one of the most striking things about Palin's
response, to me, was this: in answering Gibson's question, she
seemed to think that she was accepting the Bush Doctrine, but what
she actually said just restated the old doctrine of preemption.
When, as Palin said, "there is legitimate and enough intelligence
that tells us that a strike is imminent against American people",
the claim that we have the right to preempt that strike does not
require the Bush Doctrine; it just requires the old, and much more
widely accepted, doctrine of preemption. That is: in what Palin
says here, she's not actually supporting the Bush Doctrine at
all. She's just saying what generations of American Presidents
and candidates have said: that when a country is actually about to
attack us, we don't have to wait for them to actually land a blow
before we can strike back..."
That is a heck of a point to grasp articulated
extremely well. Some people will touch lightly on what was
huge in and of itself, her having no idea what the Bush Doctrine is.
But most won't have noticed the real problem, that she clearly has
missed the entire substance of the debate, that of course if someone
is about to attack us we can fight back - that has nothing to do
with the Bush Doctrine. She was clearly completely unaware of
the change, of the concept that for the first time ever we attacked
someone who wasn't about to attack but who we simply said existed as
a threat.
And the really scary part of this is that, not
knowing this distinction, she doesn't get how abnormal our invasion
of Iraq was. She has no idea what Iraq was about, what the
debate around it was, and what was wrong with the war. In
other words, she was just some distant mayor dealing with who will
pick up the city's trash, a brother-in-law who she didn't like, and
her kids, and who sent her son off to fight a war without ever
questioning the very premise it was founded on.
This is someone who would be completely new to any
foreign policy topic that comes up. Yes, for the debates she
will have either spoon-fed answers to regurgitate or enough podium
savvy to parry and avoid answering. But tonight left no
question, this woman has no qualification to be President, nor
Congressperson - heck, not even a CNN analyst - nor anything to do
with national security, foreign policy or the like.
Her answer on Russia added a terrifying glimpse into
what a complete disaster she would be with regard to diplomacy.
Her base-level regurgitation of what NATO agreements mean with the
the thoughtless, flippant response, "Perhaps so," to the question of
would she go to war with Russia over Georgia shows she's not even
ready for a high-school-level role play as a diplomat. Anyone
even baseline competent would say something strong but with more
pause.
War with Russia? "Perhaps so."
The one thing that was clear throughout what was
shown tonight was that at no point did we see a woman who was
offering a confident, in depth answer to any question.
What we saw was a woman clearly playing a game, on her toes with her
combo of pre-fed answers and duck-and-dodge guile. Her goal
was not to annunciate important policy stances, but rather, to
achieve a purely selfish end: to try and look more
knowledgeable about world affairs than she is.
For someone to be open to pulling a rouse on the
American people, to know she is talking about things she knows
nothing about - and to be comfortable still moving forward on a
possible path to the Presidency, shows such a lack of regard for her
fellow Americans, her country, and the world, and such a massive,
self-absorbed arrogance that one can't help but be terrified by her.
If someone wanted a job with a computer company, and so they
memorized some tech-speak answers to questions they thought would be
coming, only a sociopath would go ahead with the job interview
feeding the bogus answers, because any sane person would realize
they would actually have to show up and work with the computer
systems once they got there. You would have to be so selfish
and psychotic to not realize how wrong that would be and how
disastrously it would play out that one should be locked up for
doing such a thing.
But Sarah Palin isn't doing this with some small job.
She is, knowingly, playing pretend-knowledgeable with the future of
the country and the world. If she had any soul, and
conscience, she would at least be honest about her lack of knowledge
so the American people could make their choice. And, if sane,
she would decline the VP-selection, perhaps asking for a Secretary
of Energy spot or some position she has even basic knowledge about.
She sat there and lied. Again and again.
Spewing out answers she was told would work well, answers she
clearly had never considered in depth.
In time of war, we know she would do the same.
With the economy, the same. With everything, the same.
Now we know for certain, Sarah Palin's place on John
McCain's ticket is more terrifying than we even could have imagined.
NOTE: On the other side, the media likely
didn't catch today a brilliantly subtle slamming of Palin by Obama.
On CNN for a Forum on Service, Obama was asked about Palin's slam of
community service, and asked if it was fair since his camp had
belittled her time as mayor.
No, said Obama. Mayors are the best, even
better than Senators. Senators, he said, just "talk a lot."
But mayors are "where the rubber hits the road. They have to
get the potholes filled, the trees trimmed, make sure the city's
garbage is picked up."
No one caught it. It came across as a
compliment. But if you look at what he said - trimming trees,
trash pickup - he managed to turn Palin's, "It was executive
experience," on its butt.
Yeah, said Obama today, mayor is more tough than US
Senator. I'm busy wasting time just talking about how to
prevent terrorist attacks, fix the economy, and other useless stuff
like that. She had to be 'executive,' as in figure out how to
execute trash pickup and tree trimming.
He's good, that Obama. Without getting tagged
for having tagged her, he got in an important comeback to put her
irrelevant experience as small town mayor back in its
non-Presidential place.
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