Blue Collar Muse

I’ve been engaging in a debate in the comments section of a piece I cross-posted at Media Lizzy’s blog. Over there, I’ve had a great, respectful give and take with a reader named Eric. It’s the sort of exchange we all enjoy - no profanity, not snarkiness - just the excellent literary stick-and-jab that makes political blogging interesting and fun. Would that all commenters were like Eric.

I wanted to respond here to something Eric said as this likely will be longer than your usual comment. Eric, as have so many others in the last few days, has made the mistake of viewing Sarah Palin’s comments on the Bush Doctrine question from Charlie Gibson through the “Best response for the Left” lens and not the more proper “Response most grounded in Reality” lens. When I read Eric’s statement in comment #14,

However, this issue is dead now that Sarah “In what respect, Charlie?” Palin has shown how vapid her knowledge on wordly issues really is. I think independents will view this performance, and ask themselves, “Do I REALLY want this woman to be a heartbeat away from the presidency?”

my response was

I haven’t seen the entire interview yet as I’m in Phoenix for a conference. I’ll be interested to see the quote you reference. As I mentioned, the Left will be going over her remarks with a fine tooth comb hoping to find some payback.

Vapid is not likely a word I would use for Palin. It’s unlikely that anyone accomplished enough to be considered for a VP slot would be vapid.

Sure enough, it turns out the “Sarahnator” was right and Eric was wrong. Not that he’s alone in that. Charlie Gibson was wrong, too. Turns out, even Barack Obama got it wrong! From their place on the floor, laid out from where the “Sarahnator” coldcocked them, one can almost imagine Palin extending a hand to them and saying, “Come with me if you want to live!” They see her as the enemy but she may yet save them all.

On what am I basing my opinion that Palin isn’t a vapid housewife, unfit to lead should she be called on to assume the Presidency? Here are just 3 authoritative comments on Sarah’s response to Charlie Gibson’s “gotcha” on the Bush Doctrine:

First up, a humorous and snarky response to the media from Catron at Health Care BS. In ‘Dear Mediatards, Thank You!’ Catron writes

Dear MSM,

Thank you for your mean-spirited and mendacious coverage of Sarah Palin. You have accomplished what no Republican strategist, talk radio host, or blogger could have managed—-you have energized conservatives and convinced many independents that they should vote for McCain-Palin. …

Also, I will be eternally grateful to ABC for using its exclusive Palin interview to take her quotes out of context, distort facts, and do a general hatchet job on her.

And I can’t forget to thank AP for insinuating that Palin is unqualified to be VP because she was allegedly “unable to describe President Bush’s doctrine of pre-emptive strikes against threatening nations.”

On a more serious note, one of my favorite intellectual types, Joshua Trevino writes in ‘Defining the “Bush Doctrine”‘

The consequence of this exchange has been the predictable and familiar litany of hand-wringing over Palin’s purported ignorance of basic foreign policy principles, and her concurrent fitness (or lack thereof) to lead the country. See Andrew Sullivan for a succinct demonstration of the shrieking; the rest may be found via the usual suspects.

Sullivan writes: “[A]ny serious person who has followed the debates about US foreign policy knows what the Bush doctrine is.” Charlie Gibson apparently agrees. They’re both wrong. The fact is that the “Bush Doctrine” is a term which has had an evolving definition over this decade. Though it’s obvious Palin was momentarily baffled by the query, she was far closer to the truth when she interpreted the phrase as signifying the President’s “world view.” What we know as the “Bush Doctrine” has many meanings.

Josh follows this up with a lengthy list of the various ways the term has been used, complete with links so you can see for yourself.

Finally, in the WaPo online edition, Charles Krauthammer’s article Charlie Gibson’s Gaffe also shreds Eric’s contention that Palin was confused and ignorant and thus, unqualified. Krauthammer notes that he knows something about the term “Bush Doctrine” as he was the first to use it. His analysis?

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?”

Sensing his “gotcha” moment, Gibson refused to tell her. After making her fish for the answer, Gibson grudgingly explained to the moose-hunting rube that the Bush doctrine “is that we have the right of anticipatory self-defense.”

Wrong.

Sarah Palin will weather this weak and baseless criticism. The Sarahnator is stronger than ever. I can hear it now in that confident Alaska cadence that’s more T888 than pitbull, “I’ll be back!”

Blue Collar Muse

SEE ALSO:

The Klein Doctrine by Pete Wehner at Contentions Blog.

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