Informed her? Rubbish.
The New York Times got it wrong. And Charlie Gibson got it wrong.
There is no single meaning of the Bush doctrine. In fact, there have been four distinct meanings, each one succeeding another over the eight years of this administration — and the one Charlie Gibson cited is not the one in common usage today. It is utterly different.
And someone that had the first clue about foreign policy would’ve said exactly what Krauts said. Palin? Tried to fake it. And didn’t do a very good job of it.
She is a sad case. I feel sorry for her.
Methinks TOC didn’t actually watch the video.
Krauthammer: Yes, Sarah Palin didn’t know what [the Bush Doctrine] is. But neither does Charlie Gibson. And at least she didn’t pretend to know — while he looked down his nose and over his glasses with weary disdain, sighing and “sounding like an impatient teacher,” as the Times noted. In doing so, he captured perfectly the establishment snobbery and intellectual condescension that has characterized the chattering classes’ reaction to the mother of five who presumes to play on their stage.
Actually, I agree with Krauthammer on all of this, except for his implicit claim that he is free of the snobbery and condescension he sees so clearly in the other Serious People. He is as snobbish and condescending as the chattering classes in general. He is also devoid of common sense and decency.
The fact that Palin knew squat about the Bush Doctrine is not important. Indeed, it would be better if nobody had ever heard of it. Really all the interview tells us is that Palin is a blank page. If she becomes President her advisers will just have to fight for influence over her, like a bunch of courtiers surrounding a clueless monarch. Depending on who wins, the outcome could be catastrophic. But there’s a chance she would be better than McCain who unfortunately has a mind of his own, containing few ideas, mostly delusional. She could hardly be worse.
How Charles Gibson got to teach America what _”the Bush Doctrine”_ is and define who knows is and who doesn’t is truly amazing.
It was still a legitimate “gotcha!” though. If she had known what he was talking about she could have cut through that question and forced him to talk across her or edit her into oblivion to avoid being embarrassed. Instead she was embarrassed. She just didn’t know.
I think the best thing Sarah Palin could do is start taking foreign policy lessons from Charles Krauthammer – not to co-opt him but to learn from him.
In political terms though, I thought her performance was a pass, and as they say Ps get degrees. Her first priority was to say nothing that was off the reservation for a Republican. She did that. Her second priority was not to contradict and embarrass the boss. (And this is where the Bush Doctrine in its many versions is a nightmare question, because to oppose it in just the right way from McCain’s point of view you practically have to be McCain.) She met that requirement too. Her third priority was to present herself well. She got by there, though her hunched over nervousness was painful for me to watch. And last and least, she had to prove she knows enough to answer questions and potentially handle herself in debate. She just barely did that.
So she avoided failing.
But how Charles Gibson got to be the examining professor on this subject – and on traditional American civic Christianity, on which he seems to know nothing, not even Abraham Lincoln – is truly amazing.
When you start to reinterpret Woody Allen movies in the light of Sarah Palin – even though I think your comparison is spot-on – I think it’s time to turn off the machine, go outside, and do something relaxing. Maybe shoot a moose.
“Barack Obama”:http://thinkonthesethings.wordpress.com/2008/09/11/barack-obama-and-joe-biden-on-the-bush-doctrine-in-december-2007/ explains the Bush Doctrine, the Obama Doctrine, and why stuff is so, you know, complicated:
AL, what is the point of your post? To refute the idea that Palin had no idea what the Bush Doctrine was in any of its apparently many subtle shades of gray or complexity?
Sarah Palin has no idea about anything. She is Chauncey Gardener armed with a bunch of two dimensional, cardboard cut-out ideas of the world.
She is lost, out of her depth, and was cross-eyed with confusion when trying to come up with an answer to the Bush doctrine question. She tries to fudge it like a ten year old after finding out that there is no answer in all the information she has been recently taught to parrot.
I think the operant word in how this interview is referred to and judged is “performance”. There was not one bit of Sarah Palin in this performance only a very hollow interpretation of the character that she had been coached to play.
How could anyone honestly or seriously believe that she should be second in line for the Presidency. Personally, as far as John McCain is concerned, I cannot believe anyone, especially John McCain would have so little regard for the country that he would choose her as a VP candidate.
The party has become an amalgam of Dixiecrats and dunces.
I haven’t watched the interview yet, other than a brief excerpt, but it’s interesting how people’s views going in are amplified in their views going out. For the “we hate Palin” crowd, it was a disastrous (for Palin, they mean) interview that validated everything they already thought about her. For the “we love Palin” crowd, it was a brilliant performance that was only marred by Gibson’s gotcha questions, interrogational condescension and bad editing, that validated everything they already thought about her. It’s like you can hear the minds snapping shut the moment some event happens.
“What ABC edited out of the interview.”:http://newsbusters.org/blogs/p-j-gladnick/2008/09/13/abc-news-edited-out-key-parts-sarah-palin-interview
Yeah Glen. I’ve just been reading that.
It’s shocking what a difference the elided pieces make. She’s much, much smarter than she was allowed to look. And for me it was important that she was much less of a Russia-hater or a cold warrior type – still eager to stand up for U.S. interests, as she should be, but not somebody who should terrify people with less belligerent views.
The effect of the editing was seriously bogus.
She needs to record all her interviews herself from now on – or the next time she gets dangerously misquoted like she was with her prayer, the media may brand her with her “exact words” after destroying all the evidence to the contrary. They really are creeps.
Jeff Medcalf – I thought Charles Krauthammer was the opposite of that, and I’m trying to follow his fine example.
He thought Sarah Palin had totally inadequate qualifications. This is the opposite of what his partisan interests suggested he say, but he said it because he thought it was true. (I thought otherwise.)
The Bush Doctrine question vindicated him (and showed I had been too optimistic about her state of preparation), but he did _not_ go on a victory dance. He soberly noted her deer-in-a-headlight ignorance, and then went on to put the incident in the proper context. Other people who were making a big deal about her not getting the question also didn’t get it.
Calling things as you see them regardless of which side you are on, and putting things in the proper context rather than the context that best lets you chant “told you so!” is exactly how public intellectuals are supposed to act, but rarely do.
Yeah, I just saw the elided interviews…post is on the way.
A.L.
I’m really not seeing that Krauthammer’s article makes Palin look particularly good. It may make Gibson look bad (and I’m not even sure it does that, to the degree that Palin supporters would like) but that’s not the same as making Palin look good or even vindicating her.
For one thing, if Palin were as hyper-knowledgeable as her supporters would like to suggest, and Krauthammer were as correct as he’d like to think, she’d have ripped Gibson’s head off. She didn’t.
For another thing, while I’m sure that Krauthammer is correct on the technical merits of the evolution of the phrase “The Bush Doctrine,” I’ll go on record and say that I don’t think he’s correct in spirit. When the phrase “The Bush Doctrine” is used today, it invariably means either the doctrine of pre-emptive warfare or the active fostering of democracies… and usually the former rather than the latter.
No honest person when asked about the Bush Doctrine in late 2008 is going to have any confusion whatsoever that the questioner might be thinking back to Krauthammer’s original usage of the phrase with regard to missile defense outposts in Alaska, even if the person being asked is the governor of Alaska, even if the Russians just threatened to nuke Poland over it. Pretending otherwise is a rather Clintonian more-precocious, more-precious-than-thou tactic of trying to paper over a minor blunder or awkward moment with pointless erudition.
Krauthammer’s a really smart guy, but he’s often in danger of being too smart– and too smug– for his own damned good.
For what it is worth, this interview was not about Charles Gibson. It was about taking a look at someone who is running for the vice-presidency of the United States.
why anyone is discussing Gibson, or for that matter the bush doctrine, misses the point.
Look at the interview from the point of view that she is the Democratic nominee for VP. She is exactly where Rovian politics has taken the party. There are no ideas, just a platform that now has a plank based on the behavior of a journalist.
McCain gives a speech at the convention that essentially shafts everyone running below him on the ticket, except Sarah Palin? Where have we gotten to?
The administration has been outflanked in Georgia. The credit market are in as much trouble as I have ever seen them, we are looking at a world wide economic turndown, etc. and so forth, and the topic of discussion is whether or not Charles Gibson was to professorial or didn’t agree with Charles Krauthammer’s view of an evolving Bush Doctrine?
Hell, the person running for vice-President seeming had never even heard of the term. Which, by the way, was arguable the most radical change in foreign Policy in the history of the Republic. That is indefensible.
A.L., could you start removing random sentences from TOC’s comments for a while and see how that goes over.
#12 from David Blue at 4:36 pm on Sep 13, 2008
At this point, isn’t she in enough of a gilded cage? I mean, if you can’t take the heat, get out of the kitchen.
All the edited interview reveals is that she has a cardboard cut out view of the world that is about as deep as a puddle.
I do not dislike Palin. I think she is fine as governor of Alaska. I am also quite fond of Police Chief Marge Gunderson, the character Frances McDormand played in Fargo, but not quite fond enough to consider her for Vice-President.
#17 from PD Shaw at 5:49 pm on Sep 13, 2008
Poorbaby, she getsedited.Howcruel.[I just couldn’t help myself…
A.L.]
I would totally support Marge Gunderson for vice-president. Why the heck not?
If you think that comparing Palin to Marge Gunderson is devastating, I invite you to devastate everything I hold dear. Go for it.
TOC, how seriously should people take your political commentary when you can’t even correctly identify which ticket Gov. Palin is running on?
Anyone who claims that the “Bush Doctrine” was a big deal (even though they never talked about it in the last 24 months) is a phony.
I challenge you to explain how Bill Clinton was NOT following what would eventually become the “Bush Doctrine”, given :
1) Clinton preemptively firing missiles at Sudan and Afghanistan.
2) Clinton preemptively bombing Saddam in 1998 on account of Saddam’s WMD programs, and passing a resolution to remove Saddam from power.
3) Clinton’s interventions in Somalia, Bosnia, and Kosovo.
So, how is it that Bill Clinton was following the “Bush Doctrine” long before he knew who would be the next President?
I think it is the “fifth column Doctrine” of the left that needs to be defended, not the Bush/Clinton doctrine of doing what any other country would do in a much more brutal manner, if it had America’s might.
#20 from Glen Wishard at 6:19 pm on Sep 13, 2008
Gunderson is one of my imaginary heroes. she was great at what she did. she did have limitations though, Don’t you think?
Chauncey Gardener was a nice enough fellow, but President?
from Shad at 7:21 pm on Sep 13, 2008
I was talking about a different point of view. Take m commentary as seriously as you like or don’t like.
#22 from GK at 11:48 pm on Sep 13, 2008
Thank you GK.
The President announced that the United States reserved the right to strike countries pre-emptively. This was the first time in history that had happened. I guess that wasn’t a big deal to you.
I do not even disagree with it. But merely not mentioning it for 24 months, makes me a phony? Give me a break.
How about the fifth column movement in the Republican Party which is sick and tired of a continually dumbing down of the Party. I am watching a campaign that is totally devoid of any ideas on the Republican (MY) side. the commercials I have seen are worthy of a teen magazine as far as their level of thought are concerned.
but I guess that is OK with you. I don’t like Rovian p[olitics and it has cost the party temendously. we may be able to hold the Presidency, but the Rove era so far has led to a steady decline in the Part’s strength across the board on a federal and state level.
TOC,
This is why I wish AL could successfully transform the Democratic Party to match his values (although I don’t think he can realistically succeed). That would not just improve the Democratic party and turn it into a net positive for society (which it presently is not), but it would also improve the GOP by forcing the GOP to compete on ideas, rather than simply win after the left reliably alienates normal people.
Thus, the left is bad for both Democrats and Republicans. Purging the left from its deathlock on the Democratic party will improve both parties.
#26 from GK at 2:50 am on Sep 14, 2008
So, you mean to tell me that the Devil made the GOP do it.
Sorry, not good enough for me. I do not like seeing the clear thinking Party falling under the hegemony of a bunch of spin-meisters. I do not think what they have wrought is very healthy for the Party or for the country.
Blame the Dems for whatever you want, but their has to be reflections on one’s own behavior no matter what the behavior of others is. I no longer see that from the party.
I sense that you know as well as I do that this Republican campaign is a travesty and is extremely detrimental to the party and the country. I also sense that you agree with me that Sarah Palin is to be polite, entirely out of her depth.
The difference between us is that you would let that slide so as not to lose this elections. My feeling is that the more that I see of this party under Rove and the Neo-Cons the more we need to spend some time in the wilderness to re-discover ourselves and our values. And, most importantly to purge ourselves of these injurious elements.
If as someone said that the Democrats had Kane as their VP candidate and he gace that interview, you would be rolling on the floor laughing.
You know we might have been able to win this election on issues. John McCain might have been able to win this election without having a leash tied around his neck attached to a Rovian organ grinder, but we will never know will we?
If we lose this one, don’t forget where to lay the blame.
TOC,
“having a leash tied around his neck attached to a Rovian organ grinder,”
What? Why on earth do you think Rove is still managing the puppet strings? I think John McCain is the best Republican in a very long time.
“I also sense that you agree with me that Sarah Palin is to be polite, entirely out of her depth. ”
At this moment, perhaps. But in 3 months, much less so. She should be evaluated on her values, track record to date, and learning curve. As a VP, she does not have to act as President on day 1 (unlike Obama, who is even less qualified).
GK:
We’ll need to agree to disagree on McCain, I suspect.
Like you, I’m puzzled by what TOC seems to be claiming — that Palin is out of her depth (which is indeed possible) and, being a mere Trilby naïf, inexorably getting Svengali-d by Rove and / or his henchmen (less clear to me… are Orbital Mind Control Lasers involved?).
Do those who support Obama’s candidacy while decrying Palin’s “lack of experience” have a clue about how uproariously funny they are? (Do they have a clue about anything?)
I suspect not, but do keep those jokes coming, folks!!
As for not wanting to read/hear/think about Sarah Palin, here’s a suggestion: Don’t read/hear/think about her and maybe, just maybe, she’ll go away….
#28 from GK at 7:39 am on Sep 14, 2008
TOC,
“having a leash tied around his neck attached to a Rovian organ grinder,
What? Why on earth do you think Rove is still managing the puppet strings? I think John McCain is the best Republican in a very long time.
********************************
The Bullet is one of his chief acolytes.
Steve Schmidt, 38, is known as one of the most forceful figures among the elite of the Washington professional campaigners. He learnt the destructive arts of his trade from Karl Rove, the architect of President George W. Bush’s two electoral victories, who gave him his nickname.
London Telegragh
#29 from Nortius Maximus at 8:25 am on Sep 14, 2008
******************************************
The Minute Schmidt arrived, he immediately became McCain’s Svengali. I am sure that is clear to you. Hell, he has McCain hiding behind Palin’s apron. What is more troulbing to me is that, here is McCain, who you could always depend on to say what he thinks come hell or high water, worshipping at the alter of the wingnuts.
These are the people that you want in control of the Republican Party. From my point of view, their is not a dime’s worth of difference between Clinton’s spinmeister’s and the Rove Crowd, other than none of the Rovian’s as yet have let a hooker listen in on their conversations with the President.
I have had my fill of guys like this “the Bullet”. From my experience, and I have had a lot of these types in my life. This tough guy persona that they cultivate fades quickly when they are confronted by anyone that isn’t intimidated by them intellectually or any other way.
Maybe McCain has lost it to the point that he can’t stand up to guys like this any more. It is a shame.
bq. These are the people that you want in control of the Republican Party.
There you go again (mindreading). I don’t think you can fairly say what, if anything, I want for the Republican Party.
Permit me to also remind you that AL has asked that the term “wingnut” not be used here, along with its counterpart epithet.
#32 from Nortius Maximus at 10:16 pm on Sep 14, 2008
These are the people that you want in control of the Republican Party?
Pardon my punctuation, meant it to be a question.
I would be interested in your answer to my post at #31 not just a part of it.
I did like your Reagan reprise, but it was misplaced and, by this time, hopelessly trite and out of date
Noortius,
Especially the Svengali point.
TOC: The answer to your #34 “especially” part is that I don’t know about the truth, or depth, of the Svengali story. I’m sure that my saying so is hopelessly trite, but I’m not there, watching it happen. Are you?
What I want for the Republican party? If I thought you were serious in asking, I still probably couldn’t construct and express that in the time I have available. What I want in general from governments is a minimum of intrusion. As I’ve posted elsewhere, I think the likely outcome four years from now, no matter who gets elected, is in the direction of more intrusion and/or oppression.
This bothers me. In this specific regard, perhaps we are in agreement.
#35 from Nortius Maximus at 2:51 am on Sep 15, 2008
We are in agreement, on the intrusion and, probably the intellectual turn that the party has taken.
Where we might differ is that I think that we are at the end of a cycle for the party and being in a moribund state both the ideologically. both the party and the country could probably benefit from some time in the wilderness for reflexion. I see this whole election cycle and the ticket that we have been presented as proof of it.