Last night confirmed my worst fears. Sarah Palin is indeed George W. Bush - only in a dress and, admittedly, kinda hot (Sexist!). She's clueless, anti-intellectual, and embarrassingly unprepared to President of the United States. The prospect of her confronting the likes of Putin, Ahmadinejad or Chavez is absolutely terrifying. These madmen must be salivating at the thought of another Republican administration in power. It's chaos they want, and chaos they'll have.
Unfortunately, we're caught in the middle of this madness. Reckless ideologues playing a real-life game of Risk, so blinded by ideological blinkers and consumed with a fantastical ambition that reason, caution and mutual understanding is something to be ridiculed - like community organising.
In her interview last night - with a surprisingly thorough Charlie Gibson, mind you - Palin showed an incredible grace for lying, swindling and ever-so-subtle deception. But, that's not as important - for now. I expect such chicanery from a Republican. No, the real importance of last night's interview was to demonstrate that Palin is, without doubt, a novice in matters of foreign affairs and national security. At the most crucial moments, her answers were either long-winded or cringe-inducing or both. One Example:
When asked if Georgia joined NATO, whether the United States should go to war if the country was again invaded by Russia, Palin responded: "Perhaps so. I mean, that is the agreement when you are a NATO ally, is if another country is attacked, you're going to be expected to be called upon and help."
That snippet almost seems sensible (it's not), but the more you read, the worse it gets. Then this:
Gibson: Do you agree with the Bush Doctrine?
Palin: In what respect, Charlie?
Gibson: What do you interpret it to be?
Palin: His worldview.
Gibson: No, No, the Bush Doctrine. He enunciated it in September 2002, before the Iraq War.
Watch the video. If the fate of the world was not hanging in the balance, this amateurish display might be a little funny. Instead it's just tragic. She's completely out of her league and lost. It's certain she had no idea what the Bush Doctrine was and why it matters. Indeed, her efforts were superficial and glib, at best. After hammering the "national security " issue, bashing Democrats for their so called inexperience for years, Republicans are ready to hand over the keys to this person? This isn't a bad Disney movie, it's a real-life nightmare.
If McCain was a man of integrity and honesty, I might pity him. Too bad. He's been warped far beyond repair. The Palin interview highlights McCain's startling dissent into the far-right, Christianist, neo-con freak-show.
Oh, but why take my word for it?
Shafer:
Palin can't blame her muddled responses on Gibson, who treats her fairly and conducts himself professionally. Never mind about her not being ready to be president. She wasn't even ready for this interview.
Sullivan:
Never blink, never think, just go with your gut. Pure ambition. Minimal thought....If you loved the last eight years, you'll love President Palin.
Painful.
What Sarah Palin revealed is that she has not been interested enough in world affairs to become minimally conversant with the issues. Many people in our great land might have difficulty defining the "Bush Doctrine" exactly. But not to recognize the name, as obviously was the case for Palin, indicates not a failure of last-minute cramming but a lack of attention to any foreign-policy discussion whatsoever in the last seven years.
As we know, George W. Bush has outlined a doctrine that he calls “preemption” but that’s really prevention or “anticipatory self-defense.” It holds that we should attack other countries that might attack us at some future point even if we have no particular evidence of a specific or imminent plan to do so. As we also know, John McCain agrees with this doctrine. Sarah Palin doesn’t seem to know that this s what the Bush doctrine is, and, once recovered from her deer-in-the-headlights pose she outlined a different position, advancing an imminent threat standard
4 comments:
Putin a madman? Unlikely. And I doubt he wants chaos. He's a realpolitik Bismarkian sort of the worst variety - except with a little less grace, much less intelligence, and lower prospects of success. But there's little doubt he's playing the chess game of great power politics. Now the others you mentioned . . . who knows about them (although Chavez is at least following some form of misguided ideology).
Personally, I found Palin's interview with Charlie on foreign policy far less disturbing than part II: the interview on economics. That was just unbearable. Things are looking up for McCain right now . . . it could be an unbearably long 4 or 8 years. Let's hope the ship rights itself soon.
On the contrary, Putin is very much a madman. Honesty, if you're an authoritarian expansionist in this day and age, well then absolutely mad. He's bent on creating a Soviet-Tsarist Russian Empire.
How can he do this? By capitalizing on chaos and instability. Check out Francis Fukuyama's "The End of History" (http://www.wesjones.com/eoh.htm) The West could very well create a post-ideological, stable world, if only it remained cool, calm and collected.
Instead, Bush and the neo-con right have given Putin and company the perfect climate to exploit.
The sort of comment I would expect and welcome from a loyal Ukrainian. But I suppose madness depends on your definition. I view it as an inclination towards irrationality, towards action lacking all purpose. If that's your definition of madness, Putin is clearly sane.
Hand in hand with that, of course, comes another question. It is worthy to ask whether empire-building is a dated or irrational pursuit. I agree with historian H.G. Koenigsberger, who wrote that "it seems to be a fundamental characteristic of organized human societies that the stronger will tend to dominate and exploit the weaker, and that the strongest will try to establish empires as large as geographical and human circumstances will allow." You may argue that America has never attempted to establish a global empire - or at least that such ambitions have ceased - but that is a hard sell with neocons running the White House and 700 American military bases straddling the globe. Perhaps Russia's resurgence was only a matter of time; perhaps Putin is only pursuing what comes naturally to those in power.
That said, I will give you this: Putin may not be insane in trying to restore Russian power or expand Russian territory, but there is something fundamentally shortsighted in what he is doing. It seems the Russian government seeks power not as the means to an end, but as an end itself. At best there's the vague rationale of serving as counterweight to the US (clearly impossible given Russia's limited means), or of combatting American attempts at encirclement. Are such fuzzy aims and fears tantamount to madness? No. Are they as shortsighted and foolish as whatever Bush was seeking in Iraq? Probably.
I eagerly await your response.
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