Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Poor Sarah Palin

Dennis Prager feels like Charlie Gibson was mean to Sarah Palin, and says so in his latest article. He asked her if she supported the Bush Doctrine in foreign affairs. And then poor Palin didn't know exactly what it was. I mean it's been the subject of discussion for 7 years, but apparently Palin had never been exposed to it. And neither had Dennis Prager.
When he asked Palin whether she agreed with the Bush Doctrine without defining it, he gave the game away. He lost any pretense of fairness. Asking the same unanswerable question three times had one purpose -- to humiliate the woman. That was not merely partisan. It was mean.

I couldn't answer it -- and I have been steeped in international affairs since I was a Fellow at the Columbia University School of International Affairs in the 1970s. I have since been to 82 countries, and have lectured in Russian in Russia and in Hebrew in Israel. Most Americans would consider a candidate for national office who had such a resume qualified as regards international relations. Yet I had no clue how to answer Gibson's question.
No clue how to answer it, eh? Maybe you should have paid attention when Bush defined it, or when dozens of conservatives spoke on the importance of the Bush Doctrine. A Google search on the conservative website where I read your articles reveals that the phrase "Bush Doctrine" has been used 5,290 times. The phrase has it's own wikipedia entry. But apparently the rule of the day is that the first time the phrase Bush Doctrine was used was when Charlie Gibson sprung it, trap-like, on Sarah Palin. Or that's what you can learn at Conservapedia.

Bizarre. Because I'm sure I remember conservatives taking liberals to task for failing to support the Bush Doctrine. I'll have to check my memory banks.

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