Gibson: "Do you agree with the Bush Doctrine?"

[_dartagnan]

I see that in Palin's recent interview, the liberal frenzy is going nuts over Palin's alleged ignorance over the "Bush doctrine." Here is the excerpt from the interview.

GIBSON: Do you agree with the Bush doctrine?
PALIN: In what respect, Charlie?

GIBSON: The Bush -- well, what do you -- what do you interpret it to be?

PALIN: His world view.

GIBSON: No, the Bush doctrine, enunciated September 2002, before the Iraq war.

PALIN: I believe that what President Bush has attempted to do is rid this world of Islamic extremism, terrorists who are hell bent on destroying our nation. There have been blunders along the way, though. There have been mistakes made. And with new leadership, and that's the beauty of American elections, of course, and democracy, is with new leadership comes opportunity to do things better.

GIBSON: The Bush doctrine, as I understand it, is that we have the right of anticipatory self-defense, that we have the right to a preemptive strike against any other country that we think is going to attack us. Do you agree with that?

PALIN: Charlie, 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. In fact, the president has the obligation, the duty to defend.

Here are what some of the liberal reports are saying about it. CBSnews article describes it as Palin's "inability to answer the question." The San Francisco Chronicle said she was, "entirely unfamiliar with the Bush Doctrine."

I was watching this on CNN about twenty minutes ago, and one commentator was trying to blow this out of proportion before another democrat was asked for his take. He responded, surprisingly, that he was sympathetic to Palin because he wasn't exactly sure what Gibson was referring to either, and that the "Bush Doctrine" is just a catch phrase that democrats came up with, and doesn't necessarily get that much circulation, at least to the extent that it is fully explained what it originally referred to. And I say originally because the wiki article makes it clear that the phrase began to take on additional meanings. After all, "doctrine" is a vague and broad term that can refer to any kind of principle, belief or policy.

Think of it this way: Do you agree with the Mormon Doctrine? Naturally you would ask, "The Mormon doctrine of what"? Palin wanted precision in order to answer the question with precision. What's wrong with that? I mean what's the important thing here, whether she agrees with a specific Bush policy or whether she can adapt instantaneously to vague idioms promulgated by the media?

The libs want you to believe Palin was not familiar with Bush's policy whatsoever, but she is only ignorant of political vernacular hatched by the media over the years. And again, even a democrat on CNN had to admit ignorance with respect to this catch phrase.

Palin was in agreement with Bush's position on how we should deal with terrorists and she was explaining it before Gibson interrupted her. She agrees. She answered the question. That is what matters. Even Gibson has to give his own "interpretation" of it and suggests it was laid out in National Security Strategy of Sept 2002. But that was published and is available here - http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/0920-05.htm -and nowhere does it refer to the "Bush Doctrine." So who came up with it? Did theeh President ever call it the "Bush Doctrine"?

Democracyarsenal.org tries to spin it as well:

Clearly Palin did not have the foggiest idea what Gibson meant. This is absolutely huge. The Bush doctrine of preemption and the National Security Strategy of 2002 was...

Woooah now. Gibson didn't say the "The Bush doctrine of preemption and the National Security Strategy of 2002" now did he? If he did, then Palin would have known to which doctrine he was referring. The fact that this website has to lay it all out with precision is evidence that the author didn't feel like his audience would know what the hell he was referring to either.

... the central element of debate for almost 2 years in the foreign policy community and in the country during the run up to the invasion of Iraq and in the years after. It was probably the single greatest shift in U.S. foreign policy in a generation."

And Palin is clearly aware of this. She just wasn't sure how Gibson was using the phrase "Bush Doctrine", and she kindly asked for clarification.

PS: It is funny that Gibson was trying to be a smart ass by correcting Palin, when in fact he got it wrong too. He said we had the right to a "preemptive" when it fact the doctrine he referred to says "preventive."

[_dartagnan]

Oh this just gets better and better. While Liberals at ABC, NBC and CBS are laughing their heads off over this supposed gaffe by VP candidate governor Palin, little do they realize, their Presidential candidate Barack Obama didn't know what the "Bush Doctrine" is either:

July 26, 2007

In a conference call with reporters, Obama said Clinton would continue the "Bush doctrine" of only speaking to leaders of rogue nations if they first meet conditions laid out by the United States. He went on to suggest that being "trapped by a lot of received wisdom" led members of Congress -- including Clinton -- to authorize the war in Iraq.

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar ... ton-w.html

According to ABC's Charles Gibson, that ain't the Bush Doctrine either. So where was the outrage last year when their Presidential hopeful demonstrated such an abysmal lack of knowledge?

This is turning into a tragic circus gone wrong where the liberal journalists are shooting themselves in the mouth left after right, trying to prove ignorance on Palin's part while exposing their own. It is beginning to look like a skit from The Three Stooges.

[_Angus McAwesome]

The "Bush Doctrine" can best best summarized as foreign policy that pushes for military intervention over diplomacy.

[_dartagnan]

And it continues to get better...

ABC News’ Charles Gibson, who is being credited with stumping Sarah Palin on the definition of the “Bush Doctrine,” has himself defined the nebulous phrase in a variety of ways, including one that mirrored Palin’s disputed explanation.

Gibson and his colleagues have been all over the map in defining the Bush Doctrine over the last seven years. In 2001, Gibson himself defined it as “a promise that all terrorists organizations with global reach will be found, stopped and defeated.”

But when Palin tried to give a similar definition on Thursday, Gibson corrected her.

“I believe that what President Bush has attempted to do is rid this world of Islamic extremism, terrorists who are hell bent on destroying our nation,” Palin said in her first interview since being nominated as the GOP’s vice presidential candidate.

Gibson countered: “The Bush doctrine, as I understand it, is that we have the right of anticipatory self-defense, that we have the right to a preemptive strike against any other country that we think is going to attack us.”

Much has been made of the fact that Palin had to ask for clarification when Gibson inquired: “Do you agree with the Bush doctrine?”

“In what respect, Charlie?” the Alaska governor said.

“The Bush — well, what do you — what do you interpret it to be?” Gibson challenged.

“His world view?” Palin queried.

“No, the Bush doctrine, enunciated September 2002, before the Iraq war,” Gibson said.

That’s when Palin talked of ridding the world of “Islamic extremism,” prompting Gibson to define the Bush Doctrine instead as preemption.

The term “Bush Doctrine” was first coined by columnist Charles Krauthammer three months before the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 and has undergone profound changes as the war against terror has evolved.

“There is no single meaning of the Bush Doctrine,” Krauthammer noted in a forthcoming column. “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.”

Richard Starr, managing editor of the Weekly Standard, agreed.

“Gibson should've course have said in the first place what he understood the Bush Doctrine to be–and specified that he was asking a question about preemption,” Starr observed. “Palin was well within bounds to have asked him to be more specific. Because, as it happens, the doctrine has no universally acknowledged single meaning.”

Starr pointed out that other ABC journalists, including George Stephanolous, George Will and the late Peter Jennings, have defined the Bush Doctrine on the air in a variety of ways.

Ben Smith of the Politico said the Bush Doctrine exchange was “not a great moment” for Palin. But he conceded that critics are unfairly “pouncing on Sarah Palin’s apparent unfamiliarity with the Bush Doctrine as last night’s gaffe.”

“This isn’t an easy question,” Smith noted. “Commentators have offered a range of meanings for the phrase, from the principle that countries that harbor terrorists are responsible for their actions to broader statements about the spread of freedom.”

Starr added: “Preemptive war; American unilateralism; the overthrow of regimes that harbor and abet terrorists–all of these things and more have been described as the ‘Bush Doctrine.’ It was a bit of a sham on Gibson’s part to have pretended that there’s such a thing as ‘the’ Bush Doctrine, much less that it was enunciated in September 2002.”

http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/09/12 ... bson-mark/

[_Angus McAwesome]

Like I said, the "Bush Doctrine" is currently best summarized as foriegn policy that pushes for military intervention before diplomacy. I'll add to that by also saying that most attempts at diplomacy under the "Bush Doctrine" take the form of ultimatums that are designed solely to provoke a response that can be used as a pretext for using military force.

Gibson is a dishonest moron, but then that was pretty much common knowledge to begin with.

[_dartagnan]

Gibson is a dishonest moron, but then that was pretty much common knowledge to begin with.

No kidding. Can there be the slightest bit of doubt that the liberal media is out to crucify Palin? I mean Gibson also did an interview with Obama last year and Edwards in 2004. He only had years of experience in public office and never once did Gibson grill him on his experience. Obama was thrown softballs to hit out of the park too, as they meandered through a boring history of his life growing up as a minority.

With palin he literally accuses her of hubris, of lying, and willfully distorts what she has said. Just check out this horse crap:

Millions of TV viewers who watched ABC News’ interview with Sarah Palin Thursday night never saw her take issue with a key question in which she was asked if she believes that the U.S. military effort in Iraq is “a task that is from God.”

The exchange between Palin and ABC’s Charlie Gibson, in which she questioned the accuracy of the quote attributed to her, was edited out of the television broadcast but included in official, unedited transcripts posted on ABC’s Web site, as well as in video posted on the Internet.

But in the version shown on television, a video clip of her original statement was inserted in place of her objection, giving a different impression of how Palin views the Iraq war.

In the interview, Gibson asked Palin: “You said recently in your old church, ‘Our national leaders are sending U.S. soldiers on a task that is from God.’ Are we fighting a Holy War?”

Palin’s response, which appears in the transcript but was edited out of the televised version, was:

“You know, I don’t know if that was my exact quote.”

“It’s exact words,” Gibson said.

But Gibson’s quote left out what Palin said before that:

“Pray for our military men and women who are striving to do what is right. Also for this country, that our leaders, our national leaders are sending them out on a task that is from God. That’s what we have to make sure that we’re praying for, that there is a plan and that that plan is God’s plan.”

The edited televised version included a partial clip of that quote, but not the whole thing.

Gibson’s characterization of Palin’s words prompted a sharp rebuke from the McCain campaign on Thursday.

“Governor Palin’s full statement was VERY different” from the way Gibson characterized it,” read a statement circulated by McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds.

“Gibson cut the quote — where she was clearly asking for the church TO PRAY THAT IT IS a task from God, not asserting that it is a task from God.

“Palin’s statement is an incredibly humble statement, a statement that this campaign stands by 100 percent, and a sentiment that any religious American will share,” Bounds wrote.

In the rest of the segment that aired, Palin told Gibson that she was referencing Abraham’s Lincoln’s words on how one should never presume to know God’s will. She said she does not presume to know God’s will and that she was only asking the audience to “pray that we are on God’s side.”

A promo posted on Yahoo! News Friday continued to misrepresent the exchange. It displays Palin’s image next to the words, “Iraq war a ‘holy war?’” implying that Palin — not Gibson — had called the War on Terror a holy war.

ABC News did not respond to requests for comment from FOXNews.com.

ABC’s mischaracterization of Palin’s words was not the only one in the media. The Washington Post also did some last-minute clean-up in one of its articles on Palin — a front-page story Friday with the headline “Palin Links Iraq to Sept. 11 in Talk to Troops in Alaska.”

As pointed out by The Weekly Standard’s Bill Kristol, the original version posted online used harsher language than the one that hit Beltway newsstands early Friday morning.

The original passage, written by staff writer Anne E. Kornblut, read:

“Gov. Sarah Palin linked the war in Iraq with the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, telling an Iraq-bound brigade of soldiers that included her son that they would ‘defend the innocent from the enemies who planned and carried out and rejoiced in the death of thousands of Americans.’

“The idea that the Iraqi government under Saddam Hussein helped Al Qaeda plan the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, a view once promoted by Bush administration officials, has since been rejected even by the president himself. On any other day, Palin’s statement would almost certainly have drawn a sharp rebuke from Democrats, but both parties had declared a halt to partisan activities to mark Thursday’s anniversary.”

But in the print version, and the version now appearing on the newspaper’s Web site, the article softened its claim a bit by swapping in the last line with this: “But it is widely agreed that militants allied with Al Qaeda have taken root in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion.”

[_Angus McAwesome]

No kidding. Can there be the slightest bit of doubt that the liberal media is out to crucify Palin?

I don't think it's anything to do with the "liberal" media (more on that in a moment), so much as it has to do with Mrs. Palin being a complete left-field pick for McCain's running mate and certain "journalists" out to make a name for themselves.

Let's face facts here, Dart. There are no actual "liberals" in the US, either in our media or or politics. Sure, we have Liberals, but they tend to be fringe elements that don't have any viablility as serious political or media figures. In politics we have the Mid-Right to Far-Right (that'd be the GOP) and then you have the Slightly-Left-Of-Center to Slightly-Right-Of-Center (That'd be the DNC). In the Media, the only place you see actual far-left/liberal "journalists" is in nitch spots as a ratings/readership gaining ploy (pretty much the same a Far-Right commentators and writers), with the actual stations publishers themselves being pretty much slightly-right-of-center (MSNBC/CNN) to full blown "So far right they've gone around the world twice" (FOX News). The only "liberal" or even pure centrist news being that we get from low level outlets and foreign sources like the BBC (who wouldn't tolerate Gibson's shenanigans in the first place).

[_bcspace]

The "Bush Doctrine" can best best summarized as foreign policy that pushes for military intervention over diplomacy

Incorrect. We had more than 10 years of diplomacy before resuming the Iraq war.

by the way. I agree completely with the Bush doctrine of preventive attack. Would you rather to go to war with a Caliphate run by terrorist Islam? I think not.

[_Angus McAwesome]

Incorrect. We had more than 10 years of diplomacy before resuming the Iraq war.

So I guess you're completely unable to read and understand dates, BC. George W. Bush became the 43rd President of the United States on January 20th, 2001 and Iraq was invaded on March 20th, 2003. That is not "more than 10 years".

by the way. I agree completely with the Bush doctrine of preventive attack.

Yes, because preemptively attacking other nations based on faulty or even fabricated intelligence totally doesn't make us look like a nation full of trigger happy morons. Even worse, instead of premptively attacking a nation that actually presented a threat to our allies and national interests (like the DPRK for example), we hit a country that couldn't even hit back.

Basically you're saying you want the US to become the international political equivalent of a high school bully that gets his rocks off by going over to the school for the mentally handicapped and picking on the retards because he's to much of a moron to do the right thing and to cowardly to try it with kids his own size.

Would you rather to go to war with a Caliphate run by terrorist Islam?

We did exactly that in Afghanistan, dumbass.

I think not.

Yes, it's readily apparent that you don't think at all.

[_MsJack]

I don't participate in these political threads a lot because it really just feels like the folks on the right are re-hashing what's being said on the right-wing blogs and the folks on the left are re-hashing what's being said on the left-wing blogs. And well, since I read a good mix of both sides, that's kind of dull to me.

So here's my own re-hash for the day: Hot Air had a great post contrasting the questions Charlie Gibson asked during his interviews with Obama in June 2008 and Edwards in 2004 v. the Palin interview. No, no bias there. None whatsoever.

I don't have a problem with Gibson attempting to grill Palin, I just think he ought to at least try to be consistent.