The New Republic

I was excited that, since she didn't have the phonetic teleprompter in front of her, she talked about "nucular" weapons.  I wish that Charlie had asked her what her opinion was on Iran getting the nuclear ones.

- kerouac9

September 12, 2008 at 10:55am

Very fine analysis provided by a real political pro.

- lsernoff

September 12, 2008 at 11:33am

I don't think she was very good; her inexperience showed. But did she do well enough by Republican calculations? For you make a good point about for how long and how much, the other three--Biden, Obama and McCain--have been at this. So maybe the question is: if she is judged by the criterion of a week or so to get ready for this, how did she do, when set in the context of what her campaign's expectations and political calculations were?

I'm not sure by those lights she did so poorly, and I'm not sure she will not improve quickly and I'm not sure she will be as shielded as what you say.

- basman

September 12, 2008 at 11:41am

Dead on, Mr. Wolfson.  Make no mistake--this would be a C- performance in a community college poli sci course.  McCain started this morning to get us ready to not see her much from here on out, scheduled debates notwithstanding, emphasizing the "top of the ticket."  The fact that a significant portion of the voting public would accept Palin's performance as "good enough" in an era of complex and forboding international issues so thoroughly mishandled by Ms. Palin's ideoloigcal twin (GWB) is frightening indeed.  Don't forget about "eye ran!"  

- sportdoc62

September 12, 2008 at 3:15pm

no matter where you turn, talk radio, tv, print-- the supporters for palin are like a wall.  i have never seen anything like it.  the accusation of sexism, mocking and plain screaming of the same two points  always there.  no discussion ever.  they are punching away endlessly.  cant  even ask a decent question or have it answered.  where are the dems here- those that stood up for hillary.  have they abandoned the dems.  sometime i feel that it was a hillary party and not the democratic party.  a puzzling time for us out here .  to have this palin pulled out of a hat at this late date is so insulting to the public.  doesnt anyone see this?  she is not the problem , mccain is and he should be held accountable.  he is not what he says he is at all. he is a loner, a bad family man, a smug politician.  drop the bush comparison.  he is in a class by himself.  a nasty personality.

- check

September 12, 2008 at 4:12pm

Yes, there is a basic calculus: it's better to throw incomplete passes than to throw interceptions.

- rozenson

September 12, 2008 at 4:38pm

Yet one other respected commentator disagress with you on at least one point:

"Charlie Gibson's Gaffe"

By Charles Krauthammer

"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.

He asked Palin, "Do you agree with the Bush Doctrine?"

She responded, quite sensibly to a question that is ambiguous, "In what respect, Charlie?""

Later on he says:

"I know something about the subject because, as the Wikipedia entry on the Bush Doctrine notes, I was the first to use the term. In the cover essay of the June 4, 2001, issue of the Weekly Standard entitled, "The Bush Doctrine: ABM, Kyoto, and the New American Unilateralism," I suggested that the Bush administration policies of unilaterally withdrawing from the ABM treaty and rejecting the Kyoto protocol, together with others, amounted to a radical change in foreign policy that should be called the Bush Doctrine."

www.washingtonpost.com/.../AR2008091202457_pf.html

- jacksondyer

September 12, 2008 at 9:55pm

Here is a link to the Krauthammer article that works:

www.washingtonpost.com/.../AR2008091202457.html

- jacksondyer

September 12, 2008 at 10:30pm

Nice analysis. I don't think many voters are going to miss sitting through another policy analysis.

But I do think the McCain campaign needs to show her in an interactive setting (as distinct form a speech setting) in order to get the most from her personal and political gifts.

Therefore, they ought to have her do town halls with McCain and then make some ads showing her in interaction with voters. This would substitute in many ways for the absence of media interviews.

- Eos

September 12, 2008 at 10:56pm

jack you are right on with this. I have upbraided someone on another thread on the same point with the same link. I suppose great minds think alike, yours, mine, C.K'.s, and Sarah Palin's. :-)

- basman

September 12, 2008 at 11:25pm

Itzik did you see my comments on abortion on the Ed Koch thread?

- jacksondyer

September 12, 2008 at 11:53pm

Krauthammer goes to great length in his attempt to obscure the fact that Palin did not know any of the four versions of the "Bush Doctrine", as he put it. Don't rely on the transcript. Watch the video clip. Anyone can tell that she had no clue what the question was about, and she squeaked out "In which respect, Charlie?" in an attempt to buy time. My wife is both a Republican and a Palin fan in general, and she picked up on it instantly. Not only did Palin not know what Gibson was talking about, her second attempt "His worldview?" was like an unprepared student guessing.

Krauthammer also dishonestly fails to mention that Gibson gave a specific date of September 2002 when he made his definition, which matches what Krauthammer says the "Bush Doctrine" was understood to be at that time. I say dishonestly because we know that Krauthammer is smart enough to know.

- JEFF FREY

September 13, 2008 at 12:21am

And while I am at it, I suppose I should add that Krauthammer's fourth version of the "Bush Doctrine", that of spreading democracy around the world, is a goal we have pushed to various degrees for decades (in between our support for various anti-Communist dictators). And his other three versions are all bad to disastrous policies.

- JEFF FREY

September 13, 2008 at 12:23am

JEFF FREY said:  "Krauthammer goes to great length in his attempt to obscure the fact that Palin did not know any of the four versions of the "Bush Doctrine", as he put it"

But you know what Palin knows and doesn't know. I suppose you are clairvoyant.

- jacksondyer

September 13, 2008 at 12:32am

The Bush Doctrine is a contrivance of journalists at this point in time.  When it is in the history books, like the Truman Doctrine, then we can debate it.  That will be a few years from now.  

- cal80

September 13, 2008 at 12:53am

Did you watch the video, jacksondyer? If so, feel free to reinterpret the blank look on her face and give me your version.

- JEFF FREY

September 13, 2008 at 1:03am

I saw the interview when it happened, Jeff, and I don't interpret looks on people's faces, only the words that come out of their mouths.

- jacksondyer

September 13, 2008 at 10:44am

Jack/Jeff:

The whole deer in the headlights issue is a diversion, I'd argue, from a proper understanding of the implications of that part of the interview. (And let's not get for now side tracked on the pros and cons of the Bush Doctrine.)

Let's stipulate for the sake of this argument that Palin was not when asked conversant with what knowing people would call the Bush Doctrine.

The question then arises: so what? Clearly, it would have been better if she was so, or more, conversant. Tim Pawlenty--a presumably uncontroversial choice for VP-- probably would have had some familiarity with the term. But like the three of us, I am assuming, he would have had to brief himself to put it together in a comprehensive way. Charlie Gibson, who was asking the question, regardless of whether he cited what he thought the doctrine was in 2002, had not briefed himself sufficiently to have a comprehensive understanding of it, as C.K. makes clear. And in fact even for his vaunted characterization of its 2002 version, he fucked it by  conflating pre emption, which is not controversial or internationally illegal in the face of imminence, and prevention--Israel taking out the reactor in Osirak,--when there is no issue of imminence, which is internationally illegal and certainly controversial. So Gibson screwed up the doctrine as a whole and he screwed up the question he asked even in its own terms.

So Palin, as might have been Pawlenty or some other governor who had not run for the nomination, had  been inadequately briefed. That is all this boils down to: inadequate briefing. So Palin's inexperience showed; she clearly moved through her talking points; she clearly showed the effects of a "last minute" cram. So what? She in the circumstances did serviceably well enough given about a week or less to prepare. She is clearly talented, tough and smart and she will improve. Did she do well enough to meet expectations for after a week or less of cramming? It seems so to me.

And consider her instincts: 3 or 4 times she refused to answer Gibson's repeated questions about whether America ought to violate Pakistani sovereignty to get Bin Laden if it had to. What fool running for such high office would publicly declaim as to that, and particularly for the sake of showing toughness, when America is struggling to enlist Pakistan to help it against al Qaeda? Could his name rhyme with Ollama?

All the Bush Doctrine thing at its worst oils down to is a Quayle "potatoe" moment, which transformed itself into absurd, talismanic, magical  thinking about Quayle's stupidity. I am not a student of the Quayle vice presidency, but my understanding is that his stupidity was incredibly over rated, that he was a smart and good enough senator from Indiana, who in the Senate performed at least adequately, and who when Bush 41 was sick for a spell, steered the ship of state admirably well.

So let's don't fasten on "potatoe" or on gotcha'  "deer in the headlights moments" -otherwise you degrade your politics--and let's rather, with sensitivity to context and exigencies, make a fair and realistic assessment in taking a candidate's full measure.

I think as I said overall Palin, unseasoned and untested for these major leagues did well enough IN THE CIRCUMSATNCES and will I think do better. If not, if over time she proves terribly  inadequate, so be it. If something from her past emerges so egregious that it knocks her out of the ring, so be it.

But again my plea is that we do not descend to the inanities of "potatoe" and a missed briefing as to the Bush Doctrine, which is elusive and and evolving, spread over years and different speeches and papers and the core of which I understand is still being mooted.

- basman

September 13, 2008 at 4:02pm

I'll reply tomorrow, Itzik.

- jacksondyer

September 13, 2008 at 10:11pm

JD, if you truly do not interpret the looks on people's faces and the tone and rhythm of their speech--and I think that if you're honest with yourself, you'll acknowledge that you do--you're missing out on something like half the information that's being conveyed to you through speech.  

Do you seriously propose that it is impossible on occasion to adduce from nonverbal cues that a person knows nothing about a question that has been asked of him?  If you do then either you're being disingenuous or you're a fool.  I don't think you're a fool, so I must assume you're being disingenuous.

- aeromonas

September 14, 2008 at 6:33am

aeromonas said:   "JD, if you truly do not interpret the looks on people's faces and the tone and rhythm of their speech--and I think that if you're honest with yourself, you'll acknowledge that you do--you're missing out on something like half the information that's being conveyed to you through speech."

I don't and if a speech is important enough for me to decipher closely I tend to listen to it on the radio. Sometime, on rare occasions, I may tape the speech and listen to it first and then watch it afterwards.

The problems with reading faces is that facial gestures are ambiguous they care many meanings often contradictory ones; besides no two people will agree on the meaning of a facial gesture.

As to “tone and rhythm” I save this for the analysis of poetry and prose fiction.

“Do you seriously propose that it is impossible on occasion to adduce from nonverbal cues that a person knows nothing about a question that has been asked of him?”

On occasion, it may be possible. This is not one of those occasions. (I’ll tell you why in a moment.)

“If you do then either you're being disingenuous or you're a fool.  I don't think you're a fool, so I must assume you're being disingenuous.”

When you start with the wrong premise, aeromonas, you will always arrive at the wrong conclusion.

In my next post I will tell you why you and other are completely off on this issue.

- jacksondyer

September 14, 2008 at 11:18am

How can you judge Palin’s interview when we are not sure the whole interview was aired? This is why it’s very important to read a transcript of the whole before starting to talk about “tone, rhythm, context,…”

   Palin's interview on ABC:

"ABC Edits Make Palin Seem Aggressive, Naive"

"Last night, Sarah Palin sat down with ABC’s Charlie Gibson in Alaska to conduct her first interview with a major news outlet. Gibson jumped right in to the foreign policy questions, pressing Palin repeatedly on key points, to the point of sounding

condescending. Palin seemed somewhat skittish and unsure, but overall did not make any major mistakes. Still, the questions posed to her were not especially difficult, and some of her answers sounded like she was trying to remember the exact words she was told to say.

Note that the interview as aired by ABC is very obviously edited, and is missing some key statements by Palin that show up on [1] ABC’s full transcript. Networks edit their interviews because of time constraints and flow, but what did not make it in can give a sense of any leanings a network may have. The cut comments show nuances and specific knowledge by Palin, and the way ABC edited it makes Palin’s answers seem simpler and disjointed.

Gibson starts by questioning her readiness to be Vice-President:"

Read the rest here:

www.theaugeanstables.com/.../print

We will be hearing a lot more about this.

These kinds of tricks will backfire. It will keep Palin in the news and it will get her more sympathy votes than she might otherwise have gotten.

Already Fox news is reprting that:

"ABC Misrepresents Palin Quote in ‘Holy War’ Question"

by FOXNews.com

elections.foxnews.com/.../abc-edits-out-palin-objection-to-holy-war-question

- jacksondyer

September 14, 2008 at 11:21am

basman said:  “Jack/Jeff:

Let's stipulate for the sake of this argument that Palin was not when asked conversant with what knowing people would call the Bush Doctrine.

The question then arises: so what? Clearly, it would have been better if she was so, or more, conversant.”

Given what we know about how ABC edited the interview the whole question is moot, Itzik.

It’s a tactic of the left to edit people’s words they are arguing against and failing that to reinterpret what they say. Interpretation is used as a weapon which is one reason why so many people tune out when they start babbling.

As to Palin the only thing she can be accused of is being nervous during the interview. Is that a sign of a lack of intelligence or understanding? She is new at this game. Obama has been at it for more than a couple of years and he is gets nervous when he is off script.

- jacksondyer

September 14, 2008 at 11:26am

"t’s a tactic of the left to edit people’s words they are arguing against and failing that to reinterpret what they say."

A tactic of the left?  Come on, it's a tactic of politically biased commentators, left and right.  See "McCain campaign, comments on Obama regarding childhood sex education"

I don't approve of this by either side of the debate, but I sure has heck won't cop to it's being a particularly left trait.

- sdemuth

September 14, 2008 at 6:51pm

Jack, if you read this, I am more certain than ever that Gibson f''d up the bush doctrine ? to Palin, having heard the replays of the sequence over the weekend. He faled on two levels:

1. he mistook one strand of one aspect of the dcotrine as constituiting the whole of it--a grievous error;

2. He conflated preemotion as a response to imminence and preemption as prevention, reducing the former to the latter, when it was the latter which was new in the 2002 NSS and the West Point speech which prededed it in June or Jully 2002--also a grievous error on the part of a wouyld be talking head who condescendingly presumed to lecture Palin about this.

One more point oj Palin's poltical instincts--I noted above he pakistani ?s compared to Obama--assuming she did not know what ther Bush Doctrine was as such, boy did she ever play good defence under tremendous pressure.

- basman

September 14, 2008 at 6:56pm

Excellent comment, Itzig, I agree.

- jacksondyer

September 14, 2008 at 8:00pm

sdemuth, I agree that it's not only a tactic by the Obama campaign.

I had in mind a more extensive historical reference, but you are right to call me on that.

- jacksondyer

September 14, 2008 at 8:06pm

I just love the attempts by purportedly intelligent people to defend Palin's performance in her first and probably last unscripted appearance.  From the first "Charlie" to the last, she was breathtakingly unimpressive as she spouted talking points over and over again.  She has no interest in nor experience of the world at large having spent a lifetime total of 36 hours outside of North America.  Regardless of how many times she has seen Russia on the horizon, she is totally unqualified to be Vice President, let alone President of the United States.  Country First?  I think not.  John McCain has committed an act of dazzling irresponsibility by putting this woman in a position where she could potentially become the leader of the free world.  He did this solely to satisfy his consuming ambition.  The selection of Sarah Palin as his running mate is the most purely political decision I have ever witnessed.  His hope is that he will be elected before anyone notices that Sarah it totally out of her depth.  If he dies soon after and Sarah becomes President, well that is not his problem.  Country First? I once admired John McCain, but I am appalled by what he has become, or perhaps more likely, always was.  Let us all hope that the truth about McCain/Palin becomes apparent before it is too late.  Do we really want to end up with Sarah Palin as President.  Is this just a bad dream?  I hope so.

- DennyBoy

September 15, 2008 at 1:50am

jackson, if the words of a speech--or an interview--are all that counts, why listen to it all?  Why not just read the transcript?

And speaking of transcripts, not having watched the Palin/Gibson interview or listened to it on the radio (I'm in Australia) I just read the purportedly unedited transcript linked to from a right-wing media watchdog site.

marklevinshow.com/gibson-interview

They boldface the sections supposedly elided in the broadcast interview.  Personally, I don't think the edited bits do much to make Palin seem more or less knowledgeable or competent.  Most seemed to have been cut simply because they were redundant.  I will grant you that the edited version of the section on Russia/Georgia actually makes her seem more hawkish.  In the elided portion, she says several times that we need to cooperate with "close neighbors" such as Russia.  In fact, some might argue (teplukhin, where are you?) that this edit actually made her seem more steely and incisive.

As for whether she knew about the Bush Doctrine, I can't tell for sure from the transcript.  (I actually think its a pretty minor point and not worth losing sleep over either way.)  But to answer that question, I think you'd have to return to source of information you've called out of bounds--her tone.  Specifically the inflection with which she uttered the words "His worldview."  Was there an upward inflection at the end, connoting a question?  If so, the only reasonable interpretation is that she didn't understand what Gibson meant by "Bush doctrine" and was asking if he was referring to Bush's worldview.  If there was no such verbal question mark then maybe--and this is still a bit of a stretch--you could argue that she was opening a line of argument in which, had Gibson not interrupted her, she would have gone on to demonstrate how the Bush doctrine was consonant with his overarching worldview, whatever that is.

But it all goes to show that you're being willfully obtuse when you go after JEFF FREY for having the temerity to suggest that he could derive information as to Sarah Palin's internal state from how she looked and sounded when she answered--or failed to answer--the relevant question.

Consider the following words:

jacksondyer irrational anti-Obama zealot

Doesn't it matter with what tone and expression they are uttered?  Is the speaker making a hard assertion as to your nature?  Or is a question?  Or is the speaker employing irony and actually believe that anyone who would label jacksondyer an irrational zealot is himself guilty of a failure of rationality?  You tell me, jackson.  But don't pay attention to the tone.  Leave that for your adventures in poetry.

- aeromonas

September 15, 2008 at 7:56am

Excellent comment, itzik.

Excellent comment, jack.

Now, this time you've outdone yourself, itzik.

Oh, bravo, bravo, jack. Well said!

Hey, itzik, did you see my other excellent post on another thread?

Why yes, and it was excellent, jack.

Krauthammer is also excellent, itzik.

Yes, jack, Krauthammer--or as I like to call him, his excellency--is *always* excellent.

It doesn't matter, itzik, that a "doctrine" is not "a worldview." Clearly Palin was just using the vernacular. She knows what "doctrine" means

Oh, you're absolutely right, jack. Probably could recite the OED if she had to, itzik.

an excellent point, jack. Look up "doctrine" in the OED and it probably quotes Krauthammer

No  doubt, you're right, itzik.

Another excellent point, jack.

- Nippers

September 16, 2008 at 12:29am

Nippers: His excellency deigns to address you:

Jealous?

- basman

September 16, 2008 at 2:35pm

Yes, Basman, I am: of your Canadian health insurance.

- Nippers

September 16, 2008 at 3:42pm

Nips, I'll argue with you some on the substance of this Palin/Gibson/Bush Doctrine issue, if you want to. Just let me know and I'll try to address the point(s) I can abstract from your unironic lauding of the Jackster and myself.

Lemme know: or maybe it's too 5 minutes ago--as you young kids say.

- basman

September 16, 2008 at 7:12pm

Honestly, Itzik? Having responded to the several other threads on this topic I didn't really have the stomach to engage yet again on the merits of the argument.  On other threads, I have responded on the one hand to Palin defenders who have excused the gaffe on the grounds that we shouldn't expect Sarah Palin to know about the Bush Doctrine because the term was arcane and outdated, and then on the other hand to defenders like you and Jack who would have us believe that her blinking attempt to take cover in vagueness was somehow a sign of sophistication.

I do not dispute that the Bush Doctrine, expertly understood, might be more complicated than Gibson's own definition acknowledged (though I think that no matter who originated the term, in the course of circulation, its meaning simplified into a doctrine of preemptive attack, as a search of the Lexis-Nexis database would show); what I argue is that Palin seemed not to know that the doctrine ever existed. She seemed never to have heard of it before. My evidence?

(1) The nonverbal cues, which of course are meaningful if *somewhat* open to interpretation. Her silence is, for such an interview, long and awkward.

(2). Her initial reply. Although it beggars belief, I suppose, absent nonverbal cues, one might be able to interpret "In what respect?" to mean "Which of the several possible meanings of 'Bush Doctrine' are you asking me about, Charlie?" But that's not all she said. Krauthammer abridged--or as Jack would say, edited--the exchange.  Let's go through it line by line.

GIBSON: Do you agree with the Bush doctrine?

PALIN: In what respect, Charlie?

GIBSON: The Bush -- well, what do you -- what do you interpret it to be?

Notice: Gibson asks her to tell him what the term means, in effect telling her, to define the term in whatever "respect" she likes. She could have chosen any one of Krauthammer's 4 definitions of the "Bush Doctrine"--(1) unilateralism, (2) with-us-or-against-us, (3) right to attack pre-emptively even without an imminent threat, (4) spread democracy.  She didn't. Instead, this is what she said:

GIBSON: The Bush -- well, what do you -- what do you interpret it to be?

PALIN: His world view.

She chose "his world view."  But not a single one of Krauthammer's varieties of Bush Doctrine could be described as a "world view." Nor for that matter could *any* doctrine be accurately described as a "world view."  

Gibson, visibly, is unsatisfied by this as answer, as he should be. And so, he leads the witness (though it seemed more like a teacher leading a student):

GIBSON: No, the Bush doctrine, enunciated September 2002, before the Iraq war.

Please, note Itzik, that crucial clue that Gibson has now given her: "enunciated September 2002, before the Iraq war." Now Krauthammer would say, not so fast, Mr. Gibson, I myself enunciated that doctrine in 2001, and back then it meant unilateralism. But Gibson has in effect clarified which of the supposedly several meanings of the Bush Doctrine he's interested in. Furthermore, he's given Palin the information she needed. Now, knowing that she's spoke to talk about Bush's argument for the Iraq war, Palin says,

PALIN: 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.

Here, she is much closer to a credible answer than she was when she said "his world view." But she still has not made clear that she knows what the Bush doctrine was in 2001 or 2007 or, most importantly, in September of 2002, which is what Gibson was asking about. Instead, she has delivered some boilerplate about the evildoers and then tried to change the subject to "new leadership."

And so Gibson goes on to define the term for her, and whatever else the Bush Doctrine has meant at various times, in September of 2002, the primary meaning was the one that Gibson gave.

Look, Itzik, we all sometimes see what we wish to see and hear what we wish to hear. You, me, all of us. I fear that for you and Jack and his Excellency, Charles Krauthammer, this was one of those times.

- Nippers

September 16, 2008 at 9:56pm

nips, thanks for your note. I''m a working stiff. So let me find a better moment to make a comment or two, without us reinventing this wheel of an issue.

- basman

September 17, 2008 at 10:30am

Working stiff here, too, though a self-employed one who has this past week fallen prey to the temptations of procrastination.

One last piece of evidence to consider if and when you get around to it. I myself abridged the full exchange, and the last bit of it is also important. After Palin's attempt to change the subject to "new leadership," Gibson, refusing to let the subject be changed, says,

GIBSON: 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?

Let's grant you the questionable claim that his narrow definition of the Bush Doctrine distorts the doctrine in the narrowing. If Palin is here demonstrating a sophisticated attention to detail, as Krauthammer, Jack, and you have suggested, then one would presume that she herself--rather than Krauthammer--would correct Gibson. How triumphant would she have seemed--a bit like a hustler at the pool table--if in reply to this question she had said, "Well, actually, Charlie, you're understanding of the Bush Doctrine is incorrect. The term and the doctrine were introduced in 2001, before the lead-up to the war in Iraq, and at the outset referred to the Bush Administration's embrace of unilateralism," or some such. But she gives no indication whatsoever that she disagrees with Gibson's "understanding" in the slightest. She defers to him, saying,

PALIN: Charlie, if there is legitimate and enough intelligence that tells us that a strike is imminent against American people, we have every right to defend our country. In fact, the president has the obligation, the duty to defend.

In none of its 4 permutations could the Bush Doctrine be defined as  the willingness to respond to an "imminent threat against American people." That is not any particular President's doctrine. It's been standard federal policy ever since then Secretary of State Daniel Webster coined and defined the term "imminent threat" on December 29, 1837, after Britain, having crossed the U.S. border in order to ambush an American steamer, justified its invasion on the grounds of self-defense. Webster said the invasion was unjustified because the steamer had posed no "imminent threat," which he defined as the "necessity of self-defense, instant, overwhelming, leaving no choice of means, and no moment of deliberation."

Perhaps next you'll tell me that Palin here was knowingly quoting Webster, just as, when she invoked the Will of God in her church she was actually paraphrasing Abraham Lincoln.

Back to work.

- Nippers

September 17, 2008 at 11:41am

Self employed? Me too!

Practice law, used to be in a down town firm--25 years--swimming around with all the other sharks.

Now I am a humble member or a 2 man little association trying to stay below most radars.

- basman

September 17, 2008 at 12:07pm

Nips, responding to your posts briefly (or not so briefly) and speaking only for myself and not jacksondyer:

I for one would have preferred her to have known about the Bush Doctrine, something about it, and I don’t take her “taking cover in vagueness” as a sign of sophistication. So there you misread me. Not only was it not a sign of sophistication, it was a sign of a troubling provincial unknowing. (But she knows now. And I sense she is knowing more every day and will be a handful for Biden—we’ll see.)

My point was that for someone in those circumstances hit by what was arguably—and only arguably—a gotcha’ question, and not really knowing the answer, she did a good job of not getting got and showed cool, grace under pressure, inner resilience and toughness and good political instincts.

That was my point. I contrasted those good instincts, also manifest to me in her refusal, and being asked about 3 or 4 times, to answer about violating Pakistani sovereignty to get Bin Laden as compared to Obama’s impolitic answer to this early on in the democratic debates, as well as his other impolitic answers which led, then, Hillary and Biden to say he was not ready for prime time. She should be similarly judged, I’d argue, and be given some latitude, as was he.

(And I noted, sidebar, with some malicious glee, I have to admit, that, as I have posted, Gibson f’d up the question on a couple of levels, and did not come out looking so stellar. Correct me if I’m wrong, but, about one of Gibson’s mistakes, what I was  referring to in an above post to Jacksondyer was that as I listened to repeats of Gibson’s questions last weekend, it was my clear take away that in defining the Bush Doctrine for Palin he elided prevention and spoke himself of preemption in the context of imminent attack.)

No?

So what are we left arguing about?

- basman

September 17, 2008 at 3:59pm

At one a.m., needing to sleep, I will do best to reply, Itzik. At this point, I suspect that you and I are among few readers left on this thread. I bother to reply out of respect for the tenor and content of the discussion.

As I have in numerous posts on other threads, I object to you equation of Palin and Obama. Obama won a mightily contested primary, at the start of which I was myself skeptical of his merits and his chances. My position last summer was, I want to see the Democratic platform put into practice, I'll vote for any nominee who seems likely to win. By comparison in 2000 I was a Bill Bradley man, and although I still think Bradley might be among the most deserving candidates to run, his inability to parry attacks from Gore in their one debate (in Harlem) makes clear in retrospect that the man stood no chance against the Bush/Rove juggernaut.

So I was not, last summer, looking for the next Bill Bradley. I was looking for a winner. I saw Obama start off shaky in comparison to both Biden and Hillary, as you suggest. But then Obama got better in the debates. And then I read his policy papers, and liked them. On the issue I know best, education, his positions were the most sympathetic to my own of any candidate who has run for President since I began voting in 1990. (There, I've dated myself as I sometimes wish we all would.) I am deeply acquainted with the education policies of right and left, and along lines similar to Paul Tough of the New York Times, I diverge from both, and here at last was my candidate. On health care, I wasn't smitten with either Clinton or Obama. I'd like a system that removes the profit motive, which neither Hillary no Obama were proposing to do. I'd certainly settle for the Canadian arrangement over the alternatives.

Then I read Obama's first book, and began to admire the man's intelligence and, more importantly, his wisdom, a wisdom born of self-criticism and reflection. And then he kept getting better in debates. And then I read more about his foreign policy, including James Traub's profile of Obama that appeared in last November's NYT Magazine, which emphasized foreign policy, and included such paragraphs as the following:

"Drill down into one of Washington’s foreign-policy hives, whether the Carnegie Endowment or the Brookings Institution or Georgetown University, and you’re bound to hit Obama supporters. Most of them served in the Clinton administration, too, and thus might be expected to support Hillary Clinton. But many of these younger and generally more liberal figures have decamped to Obama. And they are ardent. As Ivo Daalder, a former National Security Council official under President Clinton who now heads up a team advising Obama on nonproliferation issues, puts it, 'There’s a feeling that this is a guy who’s going to help us transform the way America deals with the world.' Ex-Clintonites in Obama’s inner circle also include the president’s former lawyer, Greg Craig, and Richard Danzig, his Navy secretary."

I liked what I read. I liked too, that in the next paragraph, Obama mentioned his admiration for the foreign policy realists from the first Bush administration, including Brent Scowcroft and Colin Powell, with whom he had consulted.

But could he win? Would the voters trust him on foreign policy despite his youth?  If HRC remained the strongest candidate I would have voted for her. But I began to believe, after spending months reading about him and watching him, that Obama's odds were better. Rightly or wrongly, we'll soon find out. But such were the criteria with which I made my choice in the primaries.

Now Sarah Palin has never run for national office, and the state in which she ran for Governor has a population far smaller than Chicago, so I've read. She has not proven her political skills. If she had run in the Republican primary, she would have had as high a bar to rise too as Obama--higher, in my opinion, since I find his background far more impressive than hers, but even if we deem their backgrounds comparable, that is a bar she has not met and which, against the odds, he did meet. Yes, she delivers a speech someone else wrote for her better than she delivered the sports news on Alaska's local television in her youth. You point to one of Obama's earlier, poorer performances, but at this point, in my opinion, his successful performances far outweigh his gaffes, whereas we are being asked to judge Palin on a single interview with a single journalist under conditions prescribed by her campaign. If Obama's audition were as brief and as orchestrated as Palin's, I promise you, I would never have voted for him, and I do not understand how Palin's defenders can in all honesty justify their support for a candidate about whom we know so little, who has had done so little to demonstrate her competency, and whose first and only serious interview was so poor.

Here's where we seem to differ. I don't see Gibson's Bush Doctrine question as a "gotcha" question at all. It was a substantive question on foreign policy, on a topic that matters greatly. You write, "Correct me if I’m wrong, but, about one of Gibson’s mistakes, what I was  referring to in an above post to Jacksondyer was that as I listened to repeats of Gibson’s questions last weekend, it was my clear take away that in defining the Bush Doctrine for Palin he elided prevention and spoke himself of preemption in the context of imminent attack."

Okay, I correct you. Look at the exchange I have already quoted (as it appears in the official transcript). Gibson does not mention imminent attack. He says the following: "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?"

Key words here: "anticipatory"--a synonym for "preemptive"--and "think." Not a country we know is going to attack us, which is the Daniel Webster definition of "imminent threat" but one that we anticipate, or think is going to attack us. Now you might say that this is placing great importance on semantic shades of difference between words like "preemptive," "anticipatory," and "imminent." But upon those shades of difference the future of the world depends. The Bush Doctrine exists because of the difference between "preemptive" and "imminent." Yes, Gibson introduces the third term, "anticipatory," but that if anything clarifies the meaning of "preemptive." Read the Webster quote above.

Now if Palin had come close to showing an understanding of this crucial doctrine that provided the justification for the war in Iraq that we are waging still, then I would be inclined to cut her some slack. But she didn't come close. One of our two wars--the one against Afghanistan--was justifiable even if the Bush Doctrine had never been concocted. The other one was not. It required the invention of a new doctrine. There is almost no question I can think of more important to my decision about whether Sarah Palin deserves to inherit the Presidency from a man who could well die in office than her opinion of the Bush Doctrine--which, as I believe the record shows, she knew next to nothing about.

- Nippers

September 18, 2008 at 2:06am

Nips, this in posting is analogous to getting the 3:00 a.m. call.

Thanks for your thoughtful comments.

I'll hit you with my best shot when some vocational dust settles.

- basman

September 18, 2008 at 12:34pm

Nips,

Some of this seems of topic, but that’s ok: I don’t, have not ever I don’t believe, equate or equated Palin with Obama. I have argued, and it’s talking points by now, that as against the charge of her inexperience, one, I,  would want to know, on the strict touchstone of experience, what experience makes Obama fit to be  president, conceding that nothing now makes Palin fit. My argument is that by this touchstone--experience-- nothing does. I beg to differ, using experience as a touchstone, from what you argue, that winning a nomination constitutes such experience. For if that counts Bush 43 was fit to be president. There is no equation between Palin and Obama because he’s #1 and she’s # 2 amongst a variety of reasons.

( Fwiw, I wanted to like Bradley, always having loved the Bradley era Knicks—I’m nothing if not superficial—but he was, speaking purely politically, a stiff, who was beaten by less of a stiff, Al Gore. I think that at the presidential level of politics, and as a matter of pure politics, both these guys were wanting, and that George Bush was a better natural politician. And politics is a mug’s game.)

I have not read the candidates’ policy positions and I take my hat off to you for having done so. I don’t even do that here. But my understanding is that in policy terms there was not much difference between Hillary and Obama. No doubt fine points emerge if you combed through their policy papers, but my sense is that for practical purposes they were pretty much as one.

I only comment on this because both my wife and I were big Hillary supporters, and while we are not Americans, we are still suffering some form post Hillary traumatic stress syndrome. I’ll note that further that my wife is a recently retired public school principal with a fanatical devotion to the virtues of the idea of public school education,. I heard nothing from Obama-admittedly short of reading his policy papers- that sounded very fresh, innovative or daring concerning educational policy, but that may be more easily me and not him.

I agree with you that a national health care system at its philosophical core needs to be not for profit, and with that core solidly in place, one can start experimenting with private enterprise innovation as an adjunct and complement. It knocks me out that 50,000,000 people in your country are uninsured and that that many who are cannot rely on the health protections they have. J. Cohn, TNR’s health policy guy, said that Sicko had it pretty accurate in documentary film terms where the American health delivery system is.

But as to disagreement: Gibson finishes off by saying—as you note— the Bush  Doctrine holds that America can preemptively strike “any nation that we think is going to attack us.” That does not sound like prevention to me. It sounds like old fashioned and hallowed preemption against imminence.  So while I invited you to correct me, I don’t stand corrected. Textually, your interpretation is strained, I think. Prevention goes to not letting dangers “gather”, to Osirak like, preventing the means of possible/probable attack coming to fruition. The emphasis is on nipping in the bud the embryo of destructive means in an asymmetrical world of weapons of mass destruction comprised by such things as dirty bombs, a valise sized thing, say, taking out a chunk of New York. Plus Gibson, and perhaps you, omits a fundamental component of what was new and challenging about Bush’s formulation of prevention. Its essence is not necessarily only“going to attack us”. Its essence also and as importantly included harbouring, and, discretely, even if not harbouring, providing to others these asymmetrical means of mass destruction.

So, I contend  that quite clearly Gibson has this all balled up and inaccurate; and if he meant to explain, and ask a question hinged on, prevention, which is giving him a large benefit of the doubt, he did, as a veteran newsman and news interviewer used to condensing for public reception complex notions, a bad job, so bad that he’s got you and me civilly at each other’s cyber throats teasing out the meanings of his inadequate words as though we were interpreting recondite passages from Gnostic texts.

I have already stipulated that Palin troublingly did not seem to know what the term Bush Doctrine referred to. So you don’t need to keep making that point.

But Nips, I have now heard both Ezra Klein and Bill Clinton on what a tremendous natural politician she is, not to be underestimated, as both Reagan and Bush 43 were underestimated. And opposed to making hay of the point I have conceded, I’d be more interested, if you care to, in you addressing my points that have so far gone unremarked by you:

1 .her political instincts in dealing as well as she did, purely politically and not substantively, in fending of Gibson when asked a question  that threw her;

2. her political instincts compared to Obama in refusing to answer about violating Pakistani sovereignty;

3. and making the same allowances for her given her recently being thrust into all this that have been given to Obama when he said politically stupid things in the course of 20 or debates and was learning on the job.

Underlying this, again, is the fact that she’s # 2 and he’s #1, but the argument seems to keep being dragged back as being between them, which I think is symptomatic of his inexperience and unreadiness for the heady office as he seeks and may well ascend to.

Cheers,

Itzik

- basman

September 19, 2008 at 12:00am