Things that scare me: Palin on the “Bush Doctrine.” Part 309 in a 42,006 part series
I don’t often blog about politics here. For two reasons:
- I don’t know much about politics.
- I’m more interested in other things most days.
The first reason doesn’t stop me on every other subject, and doesn’t stop everyone else on politics. I have opinions and preferences, sure. I even have beliefs and have done some campaign work in the past for candidates I wanted to support. But I’m not a political junkie, I don’t follow much of the point-by-point analysis of what’s going on in Washington, and (most years) I’m not sure I could name both my Senators.
All of this to say that it scares the crap out of me that Sarah Palin, in her interview with Charlie Gibson, didn’t know what the “Bush Doctrine” is… AND I DO.
I’m a marketing manager living in Columbus, Ohio. I teach history of advertising one night a week. I play video games and read lots of fiction as well as non-fiction books and watch cartoons with my kid. I am, as far as I can tell, a fairly “ordinary” dude. I have to look up the capitol of Afghanistan. I don’t know what the currency unit for South Africa is. I can’t ever remember if Waterloo was before or after the War of 1812. I do OK on Jeopardy stuff, but not great.
If Palin hadn’t known the difference between a “virtual world” and an “MMO,” I wouldn’t care. If she got “Star Wars” mixed up with “Star Trek,” I wouldn’t care. I wouldn’t even really care if she stumbled on a question about net neutrality or digital copyright law, even though I think those are important issues. I don’t expect every political candidate to know as much about certain things as I do. That wouldn’t be fair, and I’m a fair (as well as ordinary) guy.
Is it unfair, however, to expect a vice presidential candidate to know about one of the most controversial and influential policies enacted by her own party’s leader, the current president?
I actually yelled at my radio this morning when they played the excerpt from the interview. I’m so not that guy… especially about politics. But when I heard her response to Charlie’s question…
Gibson: “Do you agree with the ‘Bush Doctrine.’”
Palin: “In what respect, Charlie?”
Gibson: “What do you interpret it to be?”
Palin: “His world view?”
… I realized… she doesn’t know. She just doesn’t know what it is.
Cue Andy yelling at the radio.
Look back at my blog entries. There’s more stuff here about my dog than about politics. So if *I* know more about this issue than Palin…
I am afraid. Very afraid. More than I was yesterday.
4 Comments so far
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I have to disagree with you. She wasn’t being ignorant, she was being careful. There is not one standard agreed upon definition of “The Bush Doctrine.” It is a termed loosely thrown around whenever someone is referencing foreign policy.
Jacob Weisberg(http://www.newsweek.com/id/96372), in his book “The Bush Tragedy,” actually identified six Bush Doctrines: Bush Doctrine 1.0 was Unipolar Realism (3/7/99–9/10/01); Bush Doctrine 2.0 was With Us or Against Us (9/11/01–5/31/02); Bush Doctrine 3.0 was Preemption (6/1/02–11/5/03); Bush Doctrine 4.0 was Democracy in the Middle East (11/6/03–1/19/05); Bush Doctrine 5.0 was Freedom Everywhere (1/20/05– 11/7/06); and Bush Doctrine 6.0 (11/8/06 to date) is the “absence of any functioning doctrine at all.”
So to ask “Do you agree with the ‘Bush Doctrine?” is vague and unfair. I believe she was aware of this and was rightly justified to demand clarification before answering. When Gibson made it clear what -his- interpretation was, she could then answer the question he intended to ask in the first place with confidence.
“…she could then answer the question he intended to ask in the first place with confidence.”
But she didn’t. She kept waffling around like a high-school kid flailing around on the final exam after having skipped classes all year.
I’m afraid, too.
Ah, jon, wait…I’m in the PR game. What one does with a vague and clearly loaded question, if one really understands how to answer, is to question back, challenge the interviewer to be more specific, if one is actually being careful. Something along the lines of “Are you referring, Charlie, to the support for freedom and democracy abroad [ed. there's making the point for you know who] or are you asking about the Bush administration’s actions in regard to that doctrine?” This gives the knowledgable interviewee the thinking time she needs to frame an appropriately vague answer.
What I saw was a high school sophmore backpedalling mightily, hoping the class bell was going to ring before the teacher got out a follow up query.
I’m with JB and Andy. Spooked.
Russell — I agree that good debate tactics are fine. And a little hemming and hawing is to be expected, especially for someone new to the national scene. I don’t mind (as much) vague or insubstantial answers. If she was stalling for time to think of a fuzzy answer to the question, she could have gone with something like, “Do you mean what do I think of the Bush Doctrine historically? In the context of the Iraq crisis? Or do you want to discuss what it means in other, specific instances?” That would have at least shown that she knew what the Bush Doctrine was.
Political shenanigans are to be expected. Bullshit is to be expected. A VP candidate who isn’t aware of one of the most significant changes in our international policy of the last 40 years… scary.