With its latest ad, released Sept. 10, the McCain-Palin campaign has altered our message in a fashion we consider less than honest. The ad strives to convey the message that FactCheck.org said "completely false" attacks on Gov. Sarah Palin had come from Sen. Barack Obama. We said no such thing. We have yet to dispute any claim from the Obama campaign about Palin. (emphasis mine)
John McCain running mate Sarah Palin sought Thursday to defend her qualifications but struggled with foreign policy, unable to describe President Bush's doctrine of pre-emptive strikes against threatening nations and acknowledging she's never met a foreign head of state.
At times visibly nervous, at others appearing to hew so closely to prepared answers that she used the exact same phrases repeatedly, Ms. Palin most visibly stumbled when she was asked by Mr. Gibson if she agreed with the Bush doctrine. Ms. Palin did not seem to know what he was talking about. Mr. Gibson, sounding like an impatient teacher, informed her that it meant the right of “anticipatory self-defense.”
Still, the inevitable parsing and analysis of Palin’s answers and performance in this interview, however tempting, is almost beside the point. In this case, her actions, or non-actions, have spoken much louder than any words. She didn’t blink, she told Gibson, when McCain asked her to join his ticket. But she certainly blinked after. What sort of reform-minded politician waits two weeks before giving an interview?
Gibson asked Palin if she agreed with the Bush doctrine and Palin appeared confused, and asked for clarification. “The Bush doctrine, as I understand it, is that we have the right of anticipatory self-defense,” Gibson said.
The doctrine, however, includes several other terrorism-related foreign policy principles of the administration formed in reaction to the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.
Gibson asked he if she’s ever met a foreign head of state. “I have not,” Palin said.
He asked what insight into Russian actions “does the proximity of the state give you?”
Palin said “you can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska.”
Many questions were really left unanswered. Her religious beliefs were only briefly touched on. She clarified her earlier comments that suggested the Iraq war was ordained by God himself, talking instead about a plan for good and a reference to God-given rights. Enough not to alienate an agnostic, or to offend the evangelical vote.
In the end, this interview is unlikely to dramatically alter already strongly held perceptions.
I'm not saying that every American besides Governor Palin knows what the Bush Doctrine is. Hell, I wasn't sure I knew what it was until Charlie Gibson confirmed it for me. But then again, I'm not a Republican governor who's running for national office.
Now, if Joe Biden had said this on national TV, the election would be over. Obama would either be calling Hillary Clinton and begging her to take over the #2 slot or he'd be busy getting to work on his concession speech.
But these are the Republicans, they of vaunted attack machines and vast right-wing conspiracies. Masters of spin, purveyors of semi-libelous commercials, wizards of righteous indignation and instigators of class warfare. If Sarah Palin doesn't know what the Bush Doctrine is, well, my goodness, neither do a lot of hardworking, God-fearing hockey moms out there in the heartland. They don't have time to read those fancy city newspapers with lots of big words explaining the Bush Doctrine. They're not eggheads like Barack Obama and Joe Biden, those elitist intellectuals who sit around studying doctrines while raising taxes on hardworking Americans like you and me.
You think Governor Palin is going to waste her time reading books about the Bush Doctrine? No, she's busy with the responsibilities that come with being governor of the great state of Alaska. She's got moose to field-dress, bridges to nowhere to say "No" to, jets to sell on eBay. Maybe community organizers have the time to talk about the Bush Doctrine. But Sarah Palin's too busy trying to reform Washington. By way of Alaska.
“Give me but the liberty of the press and I will give to the minister a venal House of Peers. I will give him a corrupt and servile House of Commons. I will give him the full swing of the patronage of office. I will give him the whole host of ministerial influence. I will give him all the power that place can confer upon him to purchase up submission and overawe resistance: and yet, armed with the liberty of the press, I will go forth to meet him undismayed. I will attack the mighty fabric of that mightier engine. I will shake down from its height corruption and bury it beneath the ruins of the abuses it was meant to shelter.”
Gov. Sarah Palin used state funds in June when she traveled from Juneau to Wasilla to speak to graduating evangelical students and urge them to fan out through Alaska "to make sure God's will be done here."
"What I need to do is strike a deal with you guys as you go out throughout Alaska -- I can do my part in doing things like working really, really hard to get a natural gas pipeline." Palin said. "Pray about that also. I think God's will has to be done, in unifying people and companies to get that gas line built, so pray for that. But I can do my job there, in developing our natural resources, and doing things like getting the roads paved, making sure our troopers have their cop cars and their uniforms and their guns, and making sure our public schools are funded."But really, all of that stuff doesn't do any good if the people of Alaska's hearts isn't right with God. And that's going to be your job," [Palin] said.
While delegates milled about on the floor of the Louisiana Superdome, Mr. Quayle made the rounds of the network anchor booths in an orchestrated effort to make a good first impression on the millions of Americans who had never seen him before.
“Why would we want to throw Sarah Palin into a cycle of piranhas called the news media that have nothing better to ask questions about than her personal life and her children?” Davis said. “So until at which point in time we feel like the news media is going to treat her with some level of respect and deference, I think it would be foolhardy to put her out into that kind of environment.”
UPDATE II: Another statement from the Democratic National Convention Committee: "Stories circulating about flags at the Democratic National Convention are false. We distributed more than 125,000 American made flags at the Convention - the flags removed from Invesco field were intended for other events and taken without permission. It's disappointing that someone would take American flags without authorization and then falsely describe how they were being used. We have the utmost respect for the American flag, and it's sad to see them being used for a cheap political stunt." [emphasis mine]
CBS News found that the footage of the ‘funeral’ and soldiers is what is called ‘stock’ footage. The soldiers were actors and the funeral scene was from a one-day film shoot, produced in June. No real soldiers were used during production.
“What it does reveal is a serious lack of understanding and a lack of personal connection to the military,” said Paul Rieckhoff, Executive Director of the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America.
Rieckhoff, who is at the convention with a contingent of veterans added that a video tribute to Medal of Honor winner Michael Monsoor, a Navy Seal killed in Iraq, shown on Tuesday night, used combat video that appeared to him and several other veterans of the Iraq war to have been staged.
“[McCain] says, ‘I’m going to tell those lobbyists that their days in Washington are over.’ Who’s he going to tell? Is he going to tell his campaign chairman who’s one of the biggest corporate lobbyists in Washington? Is he going to tell all the folks who are running his campaign who are the biggest corporate lobbyists in Washington?
It has been seven days since vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin has been allowed to say anything in a public setting that is not carefully scripted or controlled. No interviews. No taking questions from the news media. Palin has read one prepared statement twice and delivered an address written by George Bush's speechwriter.
Wallace's bash-the-media exercise has its merits as a campaign tactic. It certainly rallies the base. But the base won't lift McCain to 50% in November. More importantly, in her smug dismissal of the media's role in asking questions of the candidates, Wallace was really showing contempt not for reporters, but for voters. I bet there are a lot of undecided voters out there who were intrigued by Sarah Palin last night, but who don't yet know enough about her -- what she believes, what she knows -- to be comfortable with the idea of her as vice president of the United States. It's important to them to know if Palin can handle herself in an environment that isn't controlled and sanitized by campaign image makers and message mavens. Maybe she can, maybe she can't. As far as Wallace is concerned, it's none of their -- or your -- business.
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