The first part of Charlie Gibson’s interview with Sarah Palin aired tonight (no full transcript; quotes in this post come from the excerpts and my own transcription).
NO BLINKING!: “I -- I answered him yes because I have the confidence in that readiness and knowing that you can’t blink, you have to be wired in a way of being so committed to the mission, the mission that we’re on, reform of this country and victory in the war, you can’t blink. So I didn’t blink then even when asked to run as his running mate.” McCain blinks enough for both of them.
DON’T YOU HATE IT WHEN THERE’S NOTHING NEW ON TV? “We will not repeat a Cold War.”
SHE’S THE REMINDERER: “We must have good relationship with our allies, pressuring, also, helping us to remind Russia that it’s in their benefit, also, a mutually beneficial relationship for us all to be getting along.”
By the end of this meandering mish-mash of a sentence, she’s forgotten that Ukraine and Georgia are not yet members of NATO: “But NATO, I think, should include Ukraine, definitely, at this point and I think that we need to -- especially with new leadership coming in on January 20, being sworn on, on either ticket, we have got to make sure that we strengthen our allies, our ties with each one of those NATO members.”
Since she supports enlarging NATO to include Ukraine and Georgia, Gibson asks if it’s worth going to war with Russia if it invades Georgia again: “What I think is that smaller democratic countries that are invaded by a larger power is something for us to be vigilant against.” So is that a maybe?
WHAT WE’VE GOT TO KEEP ON RUSSIA: “And we’ve got to keep an eye on Russia. For Russia to have exerted such pressure in terms of invading a smaller democratic country, unprovoked, is unacceptable.” She repeated “we’ve got to keep an eye on Russia.” And she’s just the person to do it: “You can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska.”
She avoided answering whether the US should restore Georgian control of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
Said we shouldn’t “second guess” any Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear facilities.
The funniest part was when Gibson asked her if she agreed with the Bush Doctrine. Clearly stumped, she asked, “In what respect, Charlie?” To give him credit, he didn’t immediately throw her a life-line, but asked “What do you interpret it to be?” Only when she started going on about Bush’s “world view” did he help her out a little. When he finally explained the whole preemptive war thing, she was of course totally on board. But let me repeat, she had never heard of the Bush Doctrine, and her attempt at fudging it by talking in generalities also indicated that she didn’t know that presidential doctrines in foreign policy – the Monroe Doctrine, the Truman Doctrine, etc – are kind of a, you know, thing.
Oh, and we should totally invade or bomb Pakistan without its government’s permission if necessary because we must not, you guessed it, blink.
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