Comments on: Nobody Knows Anything

By: MuteNostrilAgony

MuteNostrilAgony — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 01:34:39 +0000

"How long before someone says something like this to justify Palin's lack of knowledge?" Fear not, Dan. At least one neocon, or rather neo-neocon (I assume that makes her twice as obnoxious), already has: "After all the lady's not running for chair of the Environmental Science Department of the University of Alaska."

By: James_Nostack

James_Nostack — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 20:40:33 +0000

Actually, Palin’s ignorance, and those of her supporters, is probably grounds for intense optimism. The true definition of the Bush Doctrine–that America reserves the right to attack anyone, anywhere, who might conceivably pose a threat to us sometime in the future–apparently never occurred to her.

She naturally jumped to the idea of preemptive war, namely that we have the right to attack others when there’s credible evidence of an imminent attack. This is “preemptive war”, and it’s entirely non-controversial; it’s a long-established aspect of international law. (The Bush Doctrine is all about preventive war – easy to remember because “villainous” begins with “v.”)

There are a million wrong answers to “What is the Bush Doctrine,” but she chose to reassert the international status quo. This suggests that her moral instincts are much more sound than Bush’s. The fact that she felt so [i]righteous[/i] about it–that the right of [i]preemptive[/i] war is so obvious–indicates that she’d pause, at least momentarily, before accepting the doctrine of preventive war.

This is very small comfort, but after eight years I’ll take it where I can get it. I’m sure she’ll be brainwashed before too long. Mainly what I regret is that Gibson missed a “teachable moment” here, illustrating to the American people what the Bush Doctrine really means.

By: Johnny5

Johnny5 — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 17:54:36 +0000

I don’t care too much about how she labels her thoughts on preemptive war, but I was pretty disappointed with her thoughts on the matter. It would help, however, if people were clear about what they mean. Charlie’s definition (“we have the right to a preemptive strike against any other country that we think is going to attack us”) was a definition of something obviously immoral. Palin says: “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.” That’s pretty mild: it certainly couldn’t be used to justify the Iraq war or a war with Iran.

I thought what she said about never second guessing Israel was much worse. We should second guess everybody, including ourselves, especially if they’re wielding force. And she stood by this response twice.

By: rawshark

rawshark — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 17:45:49 +0000

‘But that being said, I am still a bit surprised and still disappointed that our potential vice president isnâ€™t up to speed with the current administrationâ€™s foreign policy nomenclature especially as it is within her own party. ‘

What I find scary is that for wingnuts it doesn’t matter. They’ll like whoever they’re told is the person who shares their values. Anyone saying otherwise is someone they’ve been trained to ignore.

BTW Daniel you sound a lot like John Cole sounded about 2 years ago. That might explain why he likes this site and linked to it.You keep talking sense like this and before you know it you will be liberal’ed by the right wing media.

By: Daniel Larison

Daniel Larison — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 17:15:09 +0000

The scary thing, Tom, is that the default position for her is to agree with it because it is the prevailing one in the GOP even before she knows what it is. By the time she finds out what it is, it will be too late for her to ponder whether it is a good idea.

By: tblain1

tblain1 — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 17:10:04 +0000

I agree. Her deer in headlights pause followed by a “digging for a clue” question to Gibson proved she didn’t know what the Bush Doctrine was. I care less whether she knows what the Bush Doctrine is, and more whether she agrees or disagrees with it or not.

But that being said, I am still a bit surprised and still disappointed that our potential vice president isn’t up to speed with the current administration’s foreign policy nomenclature especially as it is within her own party. That only leads me to wonder what else she doesn’t know.

Will this lack of information and knowledge of other countries, and policies of past administrations hold her back from being fit for the executive job? Well, at least there is precedent for this sort of thing (see Bush, George W.).