Pretty selective memory there, SA. Obama took a lot stick in February for taking an unambiguous position that we should send special forces into Pakistanagainst Al Qaeda strongholds. A position Dubya appears to agree with, as we have recently done exactly that.
It appears from your site S&I, that the “Bush Doctrine” is a name coined by a member of the media and adopted by the media to refer to certain elements of Bush’s policies in the wake of 9/11.
Admittedly, I skimmed the article as it’s getting late and I have to get to bed, but unless the Bush Administration officially adopted the use of it to describe his policies, which I saw no evidence of, it’s just a media term used mostly by those who disdain Bush.
Again, in my mind there was no pressing reason why she should have been familiar with the term, as it is probably only used in the circles Gibson travels in.
As I said above, Bush-haters abound in this place and I have no recollection of any of them ever using the term, and I’m sure they would have if the phrase had gained any sort of foothold among the population outside the media.
Wow, she’s shockingly bad.
I can’t vote cos I’m British btw, but in my opinion Palin really hasn’t a clue what’s going on. It seems to me that she memorised an international politics “cheat sheet”.
I wish Jeremy Paxman of the BBC was let loose on US politicians - that would be a lot of fun. Here’s a famous interview of Jeremy’s:
According to your own cite, Obama made that comment in a speech he gave and not as the result of repeated badgering from a journalist designed either to get him to commit to doing so or taking it off the table altogether.
I’ll withhold judgement for the time being, but it looks like media bias at work again to me.
It’s a pretty well known term if you follow foreign affairs. Pity Ms Palin never did.
Yeah, that old media bias against the uninformed. How dare they expose her foreign policy ignorance.
There are hitherto undiscovered tribes hiding in the jungles of Papua New Guinea who are familiar with this term. Either you are being completely disingenuous or you are to uninformed to express a comment on the matter.
The Whitehouse site has 71 references to it. It is absolutely common knowledge and common discourse reference to the policy of pre-emptive intervention. It has it’s own wiki page and everything.
It wsas coined by NeoCon Charles Krauthammer, who also coined the Reagan Doctrine.
The pejorative term is ‘attacking random countries on jumped-up pretexts’.
Except, of course, that her very busy career has been in politics, and so one would hope that she’d have taken greater pains to educate herself about what’s going on in the world politically than just to “listen to people bitch about George Bush”.
My seventeen year old daughter knows what the Bush Doctrine is. I don’t think it’s too much to expect from someone who claims to be qualified to lead the free world.
I will acknowledge that the administration clearly has used the term. Thank you.
Still, I’d bet not one in ten of the the board’s Pit and GD posters, if that many, could have described what was meant by the term without going to Wiki or Google.
And I’ll also say that I find the contention by posters in this thread that she should have known what it means by virtue of her nomination to be complete bullshit. No governor in the country is a foreign policy maven with regard to the Bush administration; they have plenty of battles and demands on their time as it is. And prior to one or two months ago (if even then) I doubt she had any idea she would be picked to be the vice presidential candidate.
Palin has as much foreign policy experience as Obama has, and like I’ve said in other threads, she’ll be able to learn on the job; Obamas ignorance will enter the Oval Office with him on day one.
All this brouhaha over the Bush Doctrine is just so much partisan bullshit.
Foreign policy experience is different from foreign policy awareness. She has neither.
The Bush Doctrine has meant different things at different times. As I said above, at the very beginning, it was taken to mean simply that if a country harbors terrorists, it will be treated as terrorists are treated. Later, it became a policy of pre-emptive action generally. But it’s also been linked with the policy of Democracy formation. It has mutated over time, and doesn’t mean one specific thing.
I suspect she didn’t know what it is, but I’m not positive, because Gibson’s answer to her, that it’s simply a policy of pre-emption, is simplistic and not the only definition anyway.
Gibson got himself into trouble a while ago by claiming that Obama agreed with the Bush Doctrine, based on the same simplistic definition of it he gave Palin.
But I’m really annoyed by the spin that Palin’s ‘mission from God’ quote is a statement of holy war. Doubly annoyed because Palin said, 'That’s not exactly what I said," and Gibson said, “Exact words!”. No, they weren’t the exact words. And when you look at the exact words, it’s pretty clear that it’s absolutely not what Palin meant. She said, “Pray for our soldiers, and pray that they’re being sent on a mission that is God’s mission.” In other words, I sure hope they’re not being sent to die for the wrong cause, or for a losing cause.
I’d think that’s a sentiment a lot of people here would agree with.
How many of them are running for vice president?
Like lipstick on a pig…
Well, you’d probably lose the bet. And any who failed the test are also defining themselves as too uninformed to express an opinion on the subject.
I believe Gibson was quoting the (now utterly worthless) AP, so it’s not all his fault. But yeah the church thing is weaksauce.
If she’d responded assuming he meant the harboring terrorists=terrorists definition or something, I don’t think anyone would be ragging on her. It’s pretty obvious she was totally stumped though.
Gibson should’ve followed up on her answer after he gave the definition, she seemed to be disagreeing with the BD (talked of imminent threats IIRC), which isn’t McCain’s position AFAIK. Oh for some good journalists…
The Bush Doctrine of course never meant different things at different times, but if one were to generously acccept that it had, Palin’s reaction made clear that she had no idea what any of them were.
As to the god/war thing, Gibson quoted her exactly, offered the interpretation I would have made, and she clarified what she meant. If you watch the video of what she said, then clearly Lincoln she ain’t.
I find the idea of god having wanted us to invade Iraq pretty abhorrent, but at least she doesn’t seem to be saying she’s sure she knows that to be the case.
[outrage] YA’LL ARE SEXISTS!!![/outrage]
And I agree, Dio. Those were the canned responses of a pageant veteran.
And you’re probably right. I’ll bet if went around asking random people on the street what “UCMJ” stood for they’d have to look it up. Fine. But if I ask someone wanting my job they’d better damn well know at least what it stands for.
No one here is running for VP. If they were I’d expect them to fucking know what the Bush Doctrine was. It doesn’t matter if anyof us here have to google it…we’re not up for the job of VP. Palin is.
The Bush doctrine question will, if it plays at all, play as a “gotcha”, not as anything that any up for grabs voter cares about.
And her answer to the Georgia and NATO question was reasonable enough. Yes, a risk associated with expanding NATO is that you are putting yourself a greater risk of having to get involved militarily if that NATO member gets attacked. That’s is what NATO was originally all about - extending the umbrella of American protection (nuclear included). One hopes that such an eventuality decreases the risk that a NATO member will be attacked and war is not the only option.
Not much to impress here either way. Her supporters will be content.
Anyway I heard Faye Buchanan talking and defending Palin by saying that the American public doesn’t care about her knowing things like facts and figures. They want someone who they feel understands them … and sadly enough she may be right. Facts, knowledge … those things can just get in the way sometimes of doing, y’know, God’s will.
I’m sure you’re right and when Jesus said ‘suffer the little children’ cluster-bombs and AGM-65’s were of course uppermost in his mind.
I believe his exact words were “Suffer, the little children will, hmm?”