Jonathan Adler:Today's Washington Post has a front-page story headlined "Many Versions of 'Bush Doctrine.'" Over on the op-ed page, Charles Krauthammer -- apparently the first pundit to coin the phrase, and a critic of Palin's nomination -- suggests there are at least four "Bush Doctrines," and the one Charles Gibson elucidated is the wrong one. For what it's worth, I don't know whether I would have identified the "right" definition of the "Bush Doctrine" if asked the same question.I'm not sure I would have either.
There are plenty of valid reasons to be concerned about Sarah Palin. I don't think this is one of them.
Here is the video so you can judge her response for yourself:
3 comments:
The problem is that Palin acted and answered as if she had never even heard of the Bush doctrine and had any inkling of an idea what it was.
It wasn't that she launched into a discussion of one aspect of the Bush doctrine and Gibson was asking about another, it's that she didn't have a clue.
It's that after all these years, she doesn't appear to have seriously thought about these issues yet. And it's fine to have not considered these issues, but not if you are running for Vice President.
Her answer to this and many other questions is reminiscent of a beauty queen contestant, who just recites canned responses with no insight, no depth.
As I've mentioned before, as a counterpoint, when Reagan became president, he had a long history of at least 2 decades of writing and speaking and thinking about the Cold War. Obama, even before becoming US Senator, had a history of writing and speaking and thinking about big foreign policy questions. One may not agree with Obama, but he is a serious thinker about the big questions.
This discussion of the finer points of the Bush doctrine is muddying the waters. John McCain is on record and on video several times commenting on the Bush doctrine. He knows what it is and very clearly.
Here's a link to a video of McCain clearly articulating the Bush doctrine.
Add to this the fact that Palin lied about the major qualifications she gave in her introduction to the nation and the world...namely her opposition to the Bridge to Nowhere and her "reform" attitude against earmarks. Now it also comes out that her claim to visiting Iraq is false, as she only visited a border crossing on the Kuwait/Iraq border, and that her claim to have visited Ireland was only a refueling stop.
I really don't know what to say...I've never seen such pathological lying in a political campaign. We all expect by now there to be some stretching of the truth by all politicians, but this is both ridiculous and an ominous warning to the country if McCain/Palin are elected.
I agree with the previous comment. There might be some reasonable disagreement on what the Bush Doctrine is, but she was confused by the question. Even a casual newspaper reader of the last 5 years would have some idea of what the Bush Doctrine is.
Here's a hypothetical: imagine if the question had been posed to McCain, Lieberman, Obama, Biden, Clinton, et al...would they have given such a vacuous answer?
I think we all know that if you had asked any of these people the exact same question, they all would have understood immediately and launched into an answer either defending or attacking the Bush doctrine.
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