Palin had no clue there was even one definition of the Bush Doctrine. How does suggesting that there is more than one defend her?

Had she offered one of several she might have passed. She didn't. Instead she sat there during her "Moose in the headlights" moment.

Palin needs to be sent back to the PTA for remedial education.

"Post-hoc rationalizations for Palin's embarrassing ignorance don't do her any favors." But it does confuse the issue, which was their intent. Now we can have a "he said she said" "debate."

Goody.

You should go further with that idea.

I mean "in what respect, Charlie" was an obvious stall. She didn't KNOW if there was one or several, as she replied in a way that implied she thought there WAS only one, but wondered which "aspect" of it he was referring..as if it were many faceted. When he explained (wrongly...Bush doctrine does not have to have imminent threat, or even active threat...just possibility) which he meant, she replied as a 5th grader that hadn't read the book would have, in total generalities and wouldn't answer the question.

Muddling the distinction between 'pre-emptive' and 'preventative' war is not some kind of brain-fart, unless muddling the distinction between 'centuries-old right of nations, respected in treaties and the UN Charter from the days of Cicero through Grotius up till the present' and 'war crime, for which we hung people at Nuremburg less than seventy years ago' is just some kind of brain-fart.

Steve,

Think of her response in evangelical terms. When you do her response "worldview" makes sense. She's been trained to believe that doctrine is a theological term and she cannot see it any other way. Evangelicals are taught the inportance of a proper Biblical worldview (reflected in the no abortion,no gay marriage,individualistic approach to life) so she autoatcally assued that "Bush Doctrine" referred to his worldview. This is not a defense of her. It simply illustrates the remarkably narrow view that she has.

I was also struck by her anger throughout the interview. Clearly expressed in her body language and tone this anger strikes me as an expression of fear.

This "discussion" over the meaning/definition/existence of the Bush Doctrine reminds me of Republicans' use of the word conservative. As pointed out by Roy Edroso and others, conservative seems, these days, to be a synonym for "good", as in: "my wasn't that homebrew conservative" or "Conservative dog, Fido. Have a bone."

In this case, though, rather than assuming another meaning from the one typically applied to it, Republicans have decided that the Bush Doctrine can be used to describe whatever strategy Preznit Bush has adopted on a particular day. Thus, at 8:38 A.M. on December 10, 2005, when the Preznit realized he could fold toilet paper rather bunch it up after dropping the presidential kids off at the pool, that qualified as a new Bush Doctrine. That particular Bush Doctrine, however, was short-lived, as at 12:47 that afternoon, the White House chef presented Bush with a grilled ham & cheese sandwich, an insightful twist on the Preznit's usual cold sandwich fare. When the Preznit declared that, henceforth, all lunch sammiches would have to be grilled, this became the new Bush Doctrine.

I expect to see a book from Bob Woodruff tracking the development of each of the 5,432 Bush Doctrines which the country has been subject to so far.

Actually, I don't think Palin was far off on the "Bush Doctrine." The reason to label any of Bush's policies/plans/ideas as doctrine is to lend gravitas to an imbecile's worldview. Quite literally, lipstick on a pig.

But that said, the only description for any of Bush's "doctrines" is abject failure. Any other take is quite likely to be more lipstick on that pig.

Jesus H. Christ, I should proofread. Among other errors, I meant Woodward, not Woodruff.

Stay away from Krauthammer's column.

Ye gods...

.

I don't think Palin was far off on the "Bush Doctrine.

It was certainly not part of any "Bush Doctrine" that a country has the right to invade if there is "imminent danger". Bush's philosophy has always been more broad, and this level of justification has always been at the core of the debate.

So Krauthammer and the professor are saying that Charlie gave her a multiple choice, and she still got it wrong. Still an "F".

The American Idol candidate
September 11, 2008

BY ROGER EBERT Sun-Times Movie Critic
I think I might be able to explain some of Sarah Palin's appeal. She's
the "American Idol" candidate. Consider. What defines an "American
Idol" finalist? They're good-looking, work well on television, have a
sunny personality, are fierce competitors, and so talented, why,
they're darned near the real thing. There's a reason "American Idol"
gets such high ratings. People identify with the contestants. They
think, Hey, that could be me up there on that show!

My problem is, I don't want to be up there. I don't want a vice
president who is darned near good enough. I want a vice president who
is better, wiser, well-traveled, has met world leaders, who three
months ago had an opinion on Iraq. Someone who doesn't repeat bald-
faced lies about earmarks and the Bridge to Nowhere. Someone who
doesn't appoint Alaskan politicians to "study" global warming,
because, hello! It has been studied. The returns are convincing enough
that John McCain and Barack Obama are darned near in agreement.

I would also want someone who didn't make a teeny little sneer when
referring to "people who go to the Ivy League." When I was a teen I
dreamed of going to Harvard, but my dad, an electrician, told me,
"Boy, we don't have the money. Thank your lucky stars you were born in
Urbana and can go to the University of Illinois right here in town."
So I did, very happily. Although Palin gets laughs when she mentions
the "elite" Ivy League, she sure did attend the heck out of college.

Five different schools in six years. What was that about?

And how can a politician her age have never have gone to Europe? My
dad had died, my mom was working as a book-keeper and I had a job at
the local newspaper when, at 19, I scraped together $240 for a charter
flight to Europe. I had Arthur Frommer's $5 a Day under my arm,
started in London, even rented a Vespa and drove in the traffic of
Rome. A few years later, I was able to send my mom, along with the $15
a Day book.

You don't need to be a pointy-headed elitist to travel abroad. You
need curiosity and a hunger to see the world. What kind of a person
(who has the money) arrives at the age of 44 and has only been out of
the country once, on an official tour to Iraq? Sarah Palin's travel
record is that of a provincial, not someone who is equipped to deal
with global issues.

But some people like that. She's never traveled to Europe, Asia,
Africa, South America or Down Under? That makes her like them. She
didn't go to Harvard? Good for her! There a lot of hockey moms who
haven't seen London, but most of them would probably love to, if they
had the dough. And they'd be proud if one of their kids won a
scholarship to Harvard.

I trust the American people will see through Palin, and save the
Republic in November. The most damning indictment against her is that
she considered herself a good choice to be a heartbeat away. That
shows bad judgment.

When speaking of Bush, the word 'doctrine' is synonymous with 'pablum'.

McCain has had two bad days in a row. First the Gibson interview which proves Palin isn't ready for prime time and then the View. This is the weekend and the weekend polls favor McCain anyway, but look for a movement back to Obama.

I really want Obama to unleash some hell about now to take advantage of McCain's bad days. I still like a 30 second spot based on McCain's "health care plan." McCain really wants to eliminate employer based plans and raise taxes.

What kind of journalist accepts this type of rationalization without calling bullshit?

"Clearly expressed in her body language and tone this anger strikes me as an expression of fear."

Her nostrils flair too.

OT has anyone mentioned an ad McCain's running out here in SoCal which sounds exactly like an Obama ad!

It shows some of the senior Democrats, like Schummer etc, with pooched lips, looking very old. It ends with "That's not change we can believe in. It's more of the same.". I kid you not. Nearly dropped my dentures.

PLEASE....WHEN IS THE OBAMA GOING TO RUN SOME ADS THAT SIMPLY REPLAY WHAT MCPALIN ARE SAYING..........

I just saw the Daily Show video on McCain the Maverick. It was hilarious and dead on..... the beginning showed a young Marlin Brando as a metaphor for McCain, interspersed was tapes of McCain talking...... for Roe v Wade... for this... for that... then HE changes..... and so does Marlin.... getting fatter and fatter....

I suggest Obama run an ad similar in style..... McCain against religious intolerance, then thanking Rev Falwell.... McCain against the tax cuts.... then FOR them.... Palin and her bridge to bullshit story....then showing Charlie Gibson simply state that it's a documented lie....back to McCain talking about Iraq, where we will be greeted as liberators...then cut to him saying "everyone knew it was going to be a tough fight...."

Simply close with the Obama slogan .... Change we can BELIEVE in.......

There's dynamite here..... they should start using it.

Paradis said, 'Five different schools in six years. What was that about?'

She had learned all that each school could possibly teach her, so it was time to move on.

Oh...... and one more thing..... throw in that Daisy Cutter type clip from The View, where one host calls McCain's ad a LIE.......and Baba Wawa calls out McCain on HIS use of lipstick and the pig....

When she says "I won't blink," she means "I won't think."

On another point about the interview which was criticized in the press, I really don't buy the argument about Gibson taking out of context Palin's quote about our war in Iraq being part of God's plan. Whether she prefaced the quote with some wording about praying for it or not makes absolutely no difference. And her rehearsed and scripted defense by quoting Abraham Lincoln was very weak. In her church address she also made some comments about the natural gas pipeline being god's plan too which further undermines the press's criticism of Gibson on taking the earlier quote out of context.

The commenters on Krauthammer's article in the Washington Post defending Palin's are also accusing him of inserting edits yesterday into the Wikipedia entry on the Bush Doctrine to support his argument. The neocons are also trashing Charles Gibson mercilessly. These things suggest that the interview did Palin some significant damage.

she also made some comments about the natural gas pipeline being god's plan

I suspect that any god that could create the universe in seven days or less could create a natural gas pipeline without having to create Sarah Palin first.

Why doesn't somebody ask me about moose-hunting? Go ahead, ask me anything about moose-hunting - I'll tell you anything you want to know!

Shorter Peter Feaver: "It depends on what the meaning of 'is' is."

Shorter Red State Mike: "Why should a vice president know more about the foreign policy currently being championed by her own party than the average high school dropout?"

So she did not know the other Bush Doctrines as well as the big one. Makes her look more clueless than ever. The cartoonists are going to have fun with her.

SJRSM:

what is your standard for vice presidential qualifications? i would assume they are slightly higher than for the general public...after all, most americans couldn't tell you the name of a single supreme court justice, let alone the name of our secretary of state..pretty basic information....

when you accept the nomination for vice president of the united states of america, i would think you had some cursory knowledge of what's been policy for the last eight years..that includes the bush doctrine...or do we just accept that joe blow walking down the street is sufficiently qualified for the position?

With all due respect, Bush might have asserted more than one of the neo-con's doctrines, but there was only one "Bush Doctrine". This argument is ridiculous. When watching this interview, those of us familiar with the Bush Doctrine wasn't thinking..."which one is Charlie Gibson asking about?" We all knew--Palin didn't.

Even after Gibson told her what the doctrine was (anticipatory self-defense), she went blathering about "imminent strike."

Bzzzzzt!!

Sorry Sarah, "imminent threat" was the standard before Bush.

Also, note that Palin's equation of "Bush doctrine" = "Bush's worldview" suggests that she thought that they were about to talk about Bush's faith. It seems to me that she does not even know what "doctrine" means in this context -- does she know about the Truman doctrine, Carter doctrine, Reagan doctrine? Powell? Wolfowitz?

Once again, we are getting into the Republican argument that she is qualified by having stayed in a Holiday Inn Express.

Listen to that video clip again. She' makes a statement about "getting the world to a point where WAR ISN'T A FIRST OPTION. Has war ever been, or should it ever be, a first option?

That's fucking scary.

Whatever formulation you want to give to the Bush Doctrine, it was a radical break from the foreign policy of presidents Republican and Democratic going back to FDR and beyond.

That's what Sarah Palin didn't get. Because she gets all of her foreign policy knowledge from Rush Limbaugh, she thinks that the foreign policy of this country, rather than merely the rhetoric, veers from left to right every time there's a change in the White House. She doesn't understand that there was, until Bush, more consensus than conflict among the foreign policy establishment, and that the Bush administration turned its back on nearly a century's worth of hard-won wisdom, with unequivocally dire results.

It's this utter lack of awareness of the parameters of foreign policy debate that disqualifies her from being a heartbeat from the Presidency, not merely a gotcha about stating the Bush doctrine in 20 words or less.

Yes, Gibson got it wrong when he described the "Bush Doctrine." Bush went beyond preemption to a broad category of preventative excuses that amount to: "when we want to ..." Palin apologists are merely reinforcing their audiences' mistaken impressions about her. That the whole edifice is based on lies is apparently acceptable to the GOP base and a good part of the media.

Was at the gym last evening and O'Lielly was on the tube in front of me. He was doing his opening segment where all of his points are not only spoken by him, but put into words on the right half of the screen. Plus the closed captioning was on. LOL. So the screen was very full.

Anyway, even O'Lielly admitted that Palin didn't know what the Bush doctrine was. Then he rambled on a bit more and concluded that the interview didn't hurt Palin.

::sigh::

Thank goodness for Rachel Maddow.

For anyone interested, I wrote a post about this, including the theories her rabid supporters at RedState have given for why the dastardly Gibson asked this "unprofessional" question. Fun stuff.

The Doctrine Has No Clothes

She didn't know what the Bush Doctrine was, tried to bluff that she did--isn't bluffing a kind of .. lying?

Most of us have experienced being confronted with a question we didn't know the answer to, but thought we were supposed to, and so Palin's reaction isn't hard to interpret. Those GOP shills who blater about multiple meanings are, bluntly, full of it.

If she were a serious candidate, and their scenario were more than spin, she would have said, "Well, Charlie, there have been quite a few changes to American foreign policy theory that have been labeled as a Bush Doctrine. Personally, I think the basic theme underlying them all is defense of the American nation and people against all threats, which, of course, I agree with. Which specific Bush Doctrine did you have in mind, Charlie?"

Did we see that? No. We say something that any high school student could recognize as buying time hoping to come up with something so the teacher won't realize you haven't done the homework.

"In what respect, Charlie?" Puh-leeze.

kth,

"Whatever formulation you want to give to the Bush Doctrine, it was a radical break from the foreign policy of presidents Republican and Democratic going back to FDR and beyond.

That's what Sarah Palin didn't get."

Palin is unlikely to have been sufficiently interested in history to be able to name a President prior to Reagan when she was about age 12. As far as Palin is concerned, history (other then what is written in the Bible) started when she personally became aware of more than her own hunger and dirty diapers.

That's why she isn't too concerned with the idea of going to war with Russia over Georgia. It doesn't mean anything to her.

But it's Palin's ignorance over the Bush Doctrine that is actually allowing Republican handlers to deflect the more general ignorance she displayed over foreign affairs throughout the interview. It was clear she was not comfortable with the subject and was reciting things she had just learned, yet Republicans are spinning it that she was just tripped up over a trivia question on the specifics of the Bush Doctrine. Charles Krauthammer in the Post does exactly that today, probably trying to make amends for saying early on that the Palin pick was idiotic and reckless, which is was. Most folks would probably forgive her the flub over the Bush doctrine, which is why the focus needs to be on her obvious superficial understanding of world affairs all together.

Lets face it - it was a trick question, with no clear answer possible.

If Palin had answered "correctly" she would be criticized as being Bush-3; If she asked clarifications, she would be criticized for being 'unknowledgable'; Answering as she did was the only reasonable response to such a trick.

And, I still like her answer better than Obama's answer to the yes|no question on, "did the surge work". The guy couldn't recognize facts staring him in the face.

In addition to the Washington Post article, there was an article by Charles Krauthammer and someone on Hugh Hewitt�s site arguing the same thing. I respond in detail here.

C'mon, Bill, you've got to try harder than that. A trick question? Puh-leaze. Here's the question:

"Do you agree with the Bush Doctrine?"

What's tricky about that? First of all, there's no correct answer to a "Do you agree" question. Second, if she had sought clarification, such as, "Do you mean the current incarnation of the Bush Doctrine, or the Bush Doctrine espoused during the early days of the Iraq War?", she could have readily shown that she is knowledgeable about current affairs.

Finally, perhaps you could describe for us how the Awakening Movement, which began in September 2006 was created after-the-fact by the Surge, which began in February 2007? Perhaps it involves the Bush Doctrine of Time Travel?

Even Bush knows what the Bush Doctrine is.