Saturday, September 13, 2008

Sarah Palin's 1st Interview - Part 2

Yesterday I posted Kristin Powers criticism of Charlie Gibson's ABC News Interview with Republican VP Candidate Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin.(Sarah Palin's 1st Interview)

Charles Krauthammer has posted his view of the Gibson Interview and finds a different Gibson Gaffe (Charlie Gibson's Gaffe). So now we have Ms. Powers, a Liberal, and Mr. Krauthammer, a Conservative, both of whom find fault with Charlie Gibson's, and ABC's presentation.

Mr. Krauthnammer starts his article with a quote from the New York Times September 12th edition.
"At times visibly nervous . . . Ms. Palin most visibly stumbled when she was asked by Mr. Gibson if she agreed with the Bush doctrine. Ms. Palin did not seem to know what he was talking about. Mr. Gibson, sounding like an impatient teacher, informed her that it meant the right of 'anticipatory self-defense.' "
To which he makes this statement.
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.
Mr. Krauthammer, it seems, is in a unique position to know about the Bush Doctrine(s).
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.
Therefore Ms. Palin was exercising good judgement when she had this exchange with Mr. Gibson.
[Mr. Gibson asked] "Do you agree with the Bush doctrine?"

She responded, quite sensibly to a question that is ambiguous, "In what respect, Charlie?"
And the reason is clear when Mr. Krauthammer points out that there have been FOUR different Bush Doctrines during the last eight years. We see the first Bush Doctrine above, as coined by Mr. Krauthammer. Here is the Second Bush Doctrine.
In his address to the joint session of Congress nine days after 9/11, President Bush declared: "Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists. From this day forward any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime." This "with us or against us" policy regarding terror -- first deployed against Pakistan when Secretary of State Colin Powell gave President Musharraf that seven-point ultimatum to end support for the Taliban and support our attack on Afghanistan -- became the essence of the Bush doctrine.
Here is Bush Doctrine three.
A year later, when the Iraq war was looming, Bush offered his major justification by enunciating a doctrine of preemptive war.
This is the Bush Doctrine Mr. Gibson expected Ms. Palin to know. It seems Ms. Palin knows more about the Bush Doctrines than Mr. Gibson does. She realized that in times of War, things change rapidly, and President Bush has had different Doctrines at different times as circumstances changed. The Fourth Bush Doctrine is the current Doctrine.
...the most sweeping formulation of the Bush approach to foreign policy and the one that most clearly and distinctively defines the Bush years: the idea that the fundamental mission of American foreign policy is to spread democracy throughout the world. It was most dramatically enunciated in Bush's second inaugural address: "The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands. The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world."
By the way, this final Bush Doctrine is a continuation of President John F. Kennedy's pledge, and incorporates part of President Harry S. Truman's doctrine, plus drawing from President Woodrow Wilson's ideas.
This declaration of a sweeping, universal American freedom agenda was consciously meant to echo John Kennedy's pledge in his inaugural address that the United States "shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty." It draws also from the Truman doctrine of March 1947 and from Wilson's 14 points.
Apparently Ms. Palin is much more informed and knowledgible than Mr. Gibson is/was.

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