Posts Tagged Charlie Gibson

That’s it; I’m through blogging about Sarah Palin

September 25, 2008 at 4:39 pm · Filed under Politics, foreign affairs ·Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Ok, maybe not.  But I am beginning to actually feel for Governor Palin.  Something in the way Garrison Keillor just ripped the bandaid off – courageously, I might add – in his searing commentary earlier this week has affected me.  Keillor admonished Senator McCain for “exploiting a symbolic woman, an eager zealot who is so far out of her depth that it isn’t funny anymore. Anyone with a heart has to hurt for how Mr. McCain has made a fool of her.”

It’s a sort of moral dilemma.  If Palin is in over her head, do you just set down the gloves and let this thing play out?  Do I really need to say anything when these are the snippets we have to work with?

“I am honored to meet you,” Ms. Palin said [upon meeting the new Pakistani President, Ali Asif Zardari.]

“You are even more gorgeous than you are on the (inaudible),” Mr. Zardari said.

“You are so nice,” Ms. Palin replied. “Thank you.”

“Now I know why the whole of America is crazy about you,” Mr. Zardari continued. At which point an aide told the two to shake hands.

“I’m supposed to pose again,” Ms. Palin said.

“If he’s insisting,” Mr. Zardari said, “I might hug.”

This one:

Earlier Wednesday, Ms. Palin had met with Jalal Talabani, the president of Iraq, and other Iraqi officials.

As the meeting began, Ms. Palin made small talk with Hiro Ibrahim Ahmed, the first lady of Iraq. “Plenty to do here, isn’t there?” Ms. Palin remarked, presumably about New York. “Plenty to see.”

With a bit of nationalist pride, or perhaps the irritation of a spouse not thrilled about being dragged along on a business trip, the first lady replied, “I have plenty to do at home, also.”

Or this one:

COURIC: But he’s been in Congress for 26 years. He’s been chairman of the powerful Commerce Committee. And he has almost always sided with less regulation, not more.

PALIN: He’s also known as the maverick, though. Taking shots from his own party, and certainly taking shots from the other party. Trying to get people to understand what he’s been talking about — the need to reform government.

COURIC: I’m just going to ask you one more time, not to belabor the point. Specific examples in his 26 years of pushing for more regulation?

PALIN: I’ll try to find you some, and I’ll bring them to you.

This one, which you have surely heard over and over again:

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?

PALIN: His world view.

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

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.

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?

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.

The Bush administration made countless false and exaggerated claims to go into Iraq, but they never claimed there was an imminent attack.  And, Saddam Hussein was many ugly things, but he was not an ally to Islamic extremists.

And now this from Laura Bush, who is a pretty straight shooter, to her credit:

In an interview on Wednesday with CNN, the first lady, Laura Bush, was asked whether Ms. Palin had enough foreign policy experience. “Of course she doesn’t have that,” Mrs. Bush said.

“You know, that’s not been her role,” she said. “But I think she is a very quick study, and fortunately John McCain does have that sort of experience.”

If Sarah Palin, self-described hockey mom with real-life family crises just like the rest of us, had the national and international experience of Hillary Clinton and Condoleeza Rice (neither of whom I am wild about), well, she’d be a force to be reckoned with.  But Garrison Keillor is right: it is painfully obvious that Palin is out of her league.  And while she deserves a certain amount of our respect as would any other working mother (or father) in this world, I was put off that she “didn’t blink” at the VP offer from John McCain.  If she isn’t informed enough to know she isn’t informed enough to be a heartbeat away from the presidency, it either takes some hubris, or else a lack of intelligence and critical thinking.  Being a quick study does not bestow sound judgment.

I appreciate the fact that many Americans, especially women, like being able to relate to this candidate.  She seems like many of us.  But ask yourself, do you have what it takes to be president?  Does your neighbor?

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Do svidaniya, Sarah!

September 11, 2008 at 11:00 pm · Filed under Politics, foreign affairs ·Tagged , , , ,

So the first headline out on Sarah Palin’s first interview was “Exclusive: Gov. Sarah Palin warns war may be necessary if Russia invades another country.”  Well, she wasn’t that dramatic.  When asked if she favors bringing Ukraine and Georgia into NATO she said, absolutely to Ukraine, and yes as well to Georgia.  So then of course Gibson asked the question that obviously follows, so that means you’d be willing to go to war with Russia for one of them, and she said, “Well, perhaps. Yes.”  I am sure they cut the portion where Gibson says incredulously, ‘Yeah, but you can’t possibly mean you would go to war with Russia, can you?  Because, if you do, I think you might be crazy, but our ratings will go through the ROOF.’

In her defense (it’s not much of a defense) Palin responded to explain, well that’s what NATO members, pledge to defend oneanother.  True….  Which is EXACTLY why Russia wanted this escalation with Georgia, to torpedo the country’s entry into NATO at all. Because NATO would be crazy to induct a member that has a recent history and likelihood of armed conflict with Russia. Recall that Germany vetoed Ukraine’s and Georgia’s induction into NATO earlier this year.

I get that Russia is flexing.  But NATO enlargement is a very complicated proposition.  It’s not a simple matter of inviting pledges into your sorority. Enlarging NATO and setting up missile defense shields in its former satellites are, for Russia, major provocations.  I’ve always thought the Bush administration was swashbuckling its way through the post-Cold War, when their cooperation is crucial to solving the major anti-proliferation (NK, Iran, loose nukes) problems we face.  As for Palin, surely she doesn’t intend to “keep an eye on Russia” by literally keeping an eye on them from the tip of Alaska, does she?

Folks, you need to watch this interview.  Palin was defensive and unsure, and above all, not ready for the job, let alone the interview.  She reacted like a deer in headlights when Gibson asked her if she agreed with the Bush Doctrine.  Even when he said it was articulated in the run up to the Iraq war, she guessed and went off on an islamic extremists riff… but in fact, that dusty ole doctrine was about pre-emptive war, and the infamous case made for that war was not about islamic radicalism (Saddam’s Iraq was highly secularized) but about weapons of mass destruction.  A vice presidential candidate following in Bush’s wake should know recent major history cold.

Palin could make up some ground on domestic issues, so no one should be uncorking champagne bottles yet.  I am sure only her opposition will nitpick in this fashion.  CNN’s Candi Crowley was a little overly impressed, for instance, that Palin correctly identified that NATO is all for one and one for all (what is an alliance if not that?), but she makes a valid point (on AC 360) that the folks who haven’t made up their mind yet are most concerned with the top of the ticket.

Oh, and,  just one more thing: it’s NU-CLEAR.

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9 questions Charlie Gibson should ask Sarah Palin

September 10, 2008 at 7:50 pm · Filed under Politics ·Tagged , , , ,

It is remarkable really that one of the four candidates for the top two offices in the land has yet to take an unscripted question from the press over the last two weeks.  Please believe me when I say I have nothing against this woman, other than that she is clearly unprepared for the job, and, okay, I disagree with her on social issues and fiscal and international policy.  I am not picking on the lipstick (the woman); I’m picking on the pig (the politician).  As E.J. Dionne writes in the New Republic,

Rick Davis, McCain’s campaign manager, gave the game away when he said on “Fox News Sunday” that she would not meet with reporters until they showed a willingness to treat her “with some level of respect and deference.”

Deference? That’s a word used in monarchies or aristocracies. Democracies don’t give “deference” to politicians. When have McCain, Obama, Biden or, for that matter, Hillary Clinton asked for deference?

….It is hugely unfortunate that the first big story about Palin — other than questions raised about whether she fired the head of the Alaska state police for refusing to dismiss her former brother-in-law — concerned her 17-year-old daughter’s pregnancy. It’s not just that Bristol Palin should be left alone, but also that the intense interest in this story gave McCain’s bullies an excuse to push aside legitimate questions about Palin’s record and knowledge.

Well, her big chance to prove more of us naysayers wrong is coming up later this week.  The McCain campaign, which has already said it will only have her do interviews when the media gives proper deference (can you IMAGINE the reaction had Obama said that at any point during this campaign), has agreed to an interview with Charlie Gibson of ABC.  She will spend two days with him, including the September 11th anniversary, when she will speak at her son Track’s Iraq deployment ceremony.

I am surely not the only one hoping this won’t just be a fluff piece, where we all marvel at the bear rug on her couch or the king crab on the table.  I hope he won’t just ask her how hard has this been for her family, and how did she make this decision and is she working really hard to just not get pummeled in the debate with Joe Biden.

Because she obviously excels at “aw shucks” and charm (Hillary fumed over Obama’s eerily similar swoon factor- when he hollers “I love you back!” to someone at a rally, Chris Matthews feels a tingle up his leg;o).  Of course she’ll sound “real”, whatever I mean by that.  But will she sound prepared, particularly, when by her own admission just one year ago, she was too focused on state issues to opine on a national issue like the Iraq war.  How will she respond to questions like:

1) Your campaign and many of its surrogates have complained that the media, and your detractors, have been suggesting that as a mother of five, you shouldn’t have accepted the job of vice president of the United States.  Do you also take umbrage with that suggestion, whoever may be making it?  And, in 2004, you declined to run for the U.S. Senate, telling the Anchorage Daily News that “How could I be the team mom if I was a U.S. senator?”  What has changed for you since you declined running for that job?

2) Do you believe Senator Obama inappropriately supported age-appropriate sex education, and specifically education against sexual predators, when he was in the Illinois Senate?  Do you stand by the McCain Palin campaign ad that aired earlier this week?

I could go on, but someone has already done a better list than I.  Read the nine questions that Charlie Gibson should ask Sarah Palin.  Wait.  Here are some even better questions from Maureen Dowd:

What kind of budget-cutter makes a show of getting rid of the state plane, then turns around and bills taxpayers for the travel of her husband and kids between Juneau and Wasilla and sticks the state with a per-diem tab to stay in her own home?

Why was Sarah for the Bridge to Nowhere before she was against the Bridge to Nowhere, and why was she for earmarks before she was against them? And doesn’t all this make her just as big a flip-flopper as John Kerry?

What kind of fiscal conservative raises taxes and increases budgets in both her jobs — as mayor and as governor?

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