PALIN/GIBSON INTERVIEW

[crazybabyborg]

What Exactly Is the 'Bush Doctrine'?

It's being taken in some quarters as revelatory of inexperience that Sarah Palin sought clarification when ABC's Charlie Gibson asked her about the Bush Doctrine. To review, here is the passage from the transcript.


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?


Gibson should of 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. 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. Gibson himself in the past has defined the Bush Doctrine to mean "a promise that all terrorist organizations with global reach will be found, stopped and defeated"--which is remarkably close to Palin's own answer.

Consider what a diversity of views on the meaning of the Bush Doctrine can be found simply within the archives of ABC News itself:

September 20, 2001
PETER JENNINGS: . . . Claire, the president said at one point, 'From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime.' Should we be taking that as the Bush doctrine? CLAIRE SHIPMAN reporting: I think so, Peter,

September 21, 2001
CHARLIE GIBSON: The president in his speech last night, very forceful. Four out of five Americans watched it. Everybody gathered around the television set last night. The president issued a series of demands to the Taliban, already rejected. We'll get to that in a moment. He also outlined what is being called the Bush Doctrine, a promise that all terrorists organizations with global reach will be found, stopped and defeated.

September 21, 2001
CHARLIE GIBSON: Senator Daschle, let me start with you. People were looking for a Bush Doctrine. They may have found it when he said the war on terror will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped or defeated. That's pretty broad. Broader than you expected?

December 9, 2001
GEORGE WILL: The Bush doctrine holds that anyone who governs a territory is complicit in any terrorism that issues from that territory. That covers the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Second, the war on terrorism is indivisible, it's part of the Bush doctrine.

December 11, 2001
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: Two years ago, September 1999, Bush gave his first speech when he was running about terrorism. And his first--had the first explanation of the Bush doctrine, that if you harbor a terrorist, you're going to be attacked. The Bush White House is putting this out, saying it shows that Bush was very prescient, but that was only one speech given in the campaign.

January 28, 2002
BOB WOODWARD: This is now the Bush Doctrine . . . , namely that if we're attacked by terrorists, we will not just go after those terrorists but the countries or the people who harbor them.

January 29, 2002
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: It was striking and significant that the president really expanded the Bush doctrine. If a nation builds a weapon of mass destruction--Iraq, Iran or North Korea--we will reserve the right to take out those weapons even if we're not attacked or even if there's not a threat.

March 19, 2004
TERRY MORAN: That was the Bush doctrine we just heard. On this one-year anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, President Bush offered a very broad justification of American leadership in the world under him since 9/11. Not just since one year in Iraq. For American voters as an argument that the country is safer, but more as you point out, for the world, which has been divided by his leadership, that Iraq is knit, in his mind, very firmly into that war on terrorism. One omission which I believe will be noted around the world, he made no mention of the role of multilateral institutions, the UN and others, in this fight against terrorism. In his mind, it's clear it's American leadership with others following along.

May 7, 2006
GEORGE WILL: Now the argument from the right is the CIA is a rogue agent because it has not subscribed to the Bush doctrine. The Bush doctrine being that American security depends on the spread of democracy and we know how to do that. The trouble is, Negroponte, who is considered by some of these conservatives the villain here and an enemy of the Bush doctrine is the choice of Bush, which makes Bush an insufficient subscriber to the Bush doctrine.

I'll stop there, although anyone with a Nexis account can find far more where that came from. 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.

Posted by Richard Starr on September 12, 2008 02:08 AM | Permalink

http://www.weeklystandard.com/weblogs/TWSFP/2008/09/what_exactly_is_the_bush_doctr.asp

[caesu]

i continue to think Palin should have known what the Bush doctrine is.
anyone who have followed the Bush years a little bit, knows what that means.

if McCain would have vetted Palin better, he would have known she didn't know this.
and then she could have been educated on this.

[SteveDinMD]

i continue to think Palin should have known what the Bush doctrine is.
anyone who have followed the Bush years a little bit, knows what that means.

if McCain would have vetted Palin better, he would have known she didn't know this.
and then she could have been educated on this.

I think you missed the point of crazybabyborg's post -- that NO ONE can define the so-called "Bush Doctrine."  This is because THERE ISN'T ANY.  From the quotes above, it's evident that not even Palin's interviewer, Charlie Gibson, understood what he was asking about.  Gibson's own quote demonstrates that prior to the Palin interview, he interpreted the "Bush Doctrine" exactly as Sarah Palin did.  The term "doctrine" connotes an unambiguous statement of policy, which the Bush Administration has never articulated with respect to terrorism and national security.  Perhaps this has been a mistake for Bush; perhaps not -- ambiguity can sometimes be beneficial.  Now THAT would be a valid topic for political debate, but alas it was not to be.  Palin's answer was completely reasonable, and much more so than many of Obama's proposed policies (e.g. properly inflate tires to solve he energy crisis), by the way.  Rather than worrying about Sarah Palin's vetting for the Vice-Presidential nomination, I want to know:  Who vetted Barack Obama for the PRESIDENCY?  

[caesu]

those quotes, including the one from Gibson, were mainly from before September 20, 2002.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nss/2002/index.html

and Obama has been publicly vetted extensively through the democratic primary process for many months.

Palin was just picked by McCain. and he asked the convention to nominate her in less than a week.

[WhiskeyGirl]

i continue to think Palin should have known what the Bush doctrine is.
anyone who have followed the Bush years a little bit, knows what that means.

if McCain would have vetted Palin better, he would have known she didn't know this.
and then she could have been educated on this.

Someone asked me today what I thought of the Palin interview and her answer to the "Bush Doctrine" question.  I have no idea what the "Bush Doctrine" is or what it represents. 

I think it is a good thing to ask questions and not respond to buzz words or phrases that someone is unfamiliar with.  The individual (and others) asking the question could have twisted her response for their own reasons.

The "Bush Doctrine" that comes to my mind is "No New Taxes".  What I thought that meant was that there would be no new taxes, just a continuation of the existing programs.

Some time after election, IIRC, Bush indicated that it meant no BRAND NEW taxes, but that modifying, increasing, and expanding current taxes was fair game. 

If only he had come out and said he would be raising taxes and slicing and dicing existing programs to provide for more spending...

I believe Palin's response shows she was thinking and that she IS NOT a political insider, not on board with the 'same old' or 'business as usual' crowd. 

I am still waiting for the "peace dividend" suggested by the Reagan administration.

What does "tax the rich" mean?  Who determines what anyone's fair share is?  If someone cannot pay in money, how do they contribute their fair share?

[crazybabyborg]

those quotes, including the one from Gibson, were mainly from before September 20, 2002.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nss/2002/index.html

and Obama has been publicly vetted extensively through the democratic primary process for many months.

Palin was just picked by McCain. and he asked the convention to nominate her in less than a week.

Obama's public vetting coincides with how long he has been actively campaigning. Obama is the top of the democratic ticket. Biden, his VP running mate, has been subjected to public vetting approximately the same time before the Democratic convention as Palin was before the Republican convention. Prior to the conventions, both Biden and Palin have public political records that are open for investigation. Neither Obama nor McCain announced their choice for VP until just before their respective conventions.

[caesu]

difference between Biden and Palin in that respect is that Biden has been on the national stage for many years.
and he participated in presidential debates before and during the democratic primaries.
Palin was totally new on the national stage when introduced by McCain.
McCain met her only once in person before he choose her.

i think in the end this will turn out to be bad judgement by McCain.
the Palin-bounce in the polls he got is already as good as gone.

[crazybabyborg]

I don't know how typical I am, but must say that although I knew who Biden was through National News coverage of the Senate, the only thing I knew about his political career before this election was that he had been caught plagiarising. I now know that he's served on the Foreign Relations committee and something about his voting record, but I know just as much about Palin as governor. There are intrinsic differences between a Senator and a Governor and that also lends itself to useful information in terms of experience.

I'm not sure how much useful information there is in simple name recognition when determining who to vote for. Again, I'm not sure that I am typical, so my thoughts on this may not be widely applied.

I do have a differing opinion on Palin's impact. IMO, whether McCain wins or not, he'll come closer to a win due to his VP pick.

[Tylergal]

What kind of expertise should voters look for?
Submitted by SHNS on Wed, 09/17/2008 - 15:27.

    * By CLIFF MAY, Scripps Howard News Service
    * editorials and opinion

Let's be blunt: If John McCain wins the election and drops dead during his first year in office, someone not very experienced will become president. But the same is true if Barack Obama wins the election and doesn't drop dead during his first year in office.

Truth be told, John McCain and Joseph Biden can't claim extensive experience either - not if experience is defined as spending many years making consequential decisions on tight deadlines based on insufficient information and conflicting advice. That is what presidents do for a living. It's also, to a lesser extent, what governors, mayors and many business executives do. It is not what legislators do. That's not a criticism - it's just a fact.

Of course, experience is one thing; knowledge is another. Last week, interviewing Sarah Palin, ABC's Charlie Gibson attempted to demonstrate that the Alaska governor doesn't know much about foreign policy. In the process, as Charles Krauthammer and others have made clear, he revealed his own ignorance: His grasp of the Bush Doctrine was based on spin, not substance.

Which raises this question: If I tell you someone is an expert surgeon, you know what I'm talking about. If I say someone is an expert accountant or mechanic, that's clear, too. But what does it mean to call someone a foreign policy expert?

I've been a student of foreign policy for over 30 years -- starting at Columbia University's School of International Affairs, and then as a foreign correspondent writing stories from more than two dozen countries. So I know the difference between Slovakia and Slovenia, Gambia and Zambia, Guinea-Bissau and Guinea-Conakry, Guyana and Guiana, Congo-Brazzaville and Congo-Kinshasa.

This is all very helpful when playing Foreign Policy Trivia. But I'm not sure that a president (or vice president) needs to go into office with such information stuffed into his (or her) head.

I served as one of the "experts" on the Iraq Study Group (ISG) that advised the Baker/Hamilton committee. Almost everyone within this group - which included former ambassadors and senior Foreign Service Officers, CIA operatives and professors - was certain that the conflict in Iraq could not be salvaged. They counseled a policy that's been described as "graceful defeat." Those of us who supported the Petraeus strategy, the "surge," were as rare -- and as unwelcome -- as vegetarians at a cattlemen's convention.

Harry Truman, a Democrat, and Ronald Reagan, a Republican, were hardly experts in international affairs. But they got the most important things right: Both recognized the threat posed by Communist regimes and movements, and both implemented serious policies to combat them.

So what do we need to know about what presidential and vice presidential candidates need to know? The best a voter can do is attempt to discern - amid the kabuki theater that is the modern presidential campaign -- a candidate's values, temperament and, yes, ideology - which is to say his political philosophy.

To perceive where a candidate really intends to take the country requires some probing. Reporters could help - if, instead of playing "gotcha," they'd ask the candidates how they would decide such pivotal questions as these:

Should we go along with our West European friends who are surrendering their sovereignty to the United Nations, to "world courts" and to various non-governmental organizations? Or should we zealously guard America's independence?

Should the United States continue to make the sacrifices required to remain a superpower? Or would we be better off relinquishing such burdens and embracing what Fareed Zakaria and other left-leaning foreign policy experts call a "post-American" world?

Is it imperative to reverse America's increasing dependence on foreign oil as quickly as possible? If so, we'll have to drill just about everywhere while also aggressively developing alternative energy sources. And if that means not cutting carbon dioxide emissions for the next few years (causing the eco-left to scream), and authorizing some government intervention (which will drive the libertarian right crazy) in order to break oil's monopoly as a transportation fuel, is it worth it?

Are we fighting a real war against Islamist terrorist regimes and movements - one that requires some tough and even unconventional weapons? Or is terrorism just a criminal justice problem that police, lawyers and courts are competent to handle?

Should America invest in a comprehensive missile defense system? Or is it safe to assume that our contemporary enemies can be deterred, as were the Soviets, by the prospect of "mutually assured deterrence"?

If you know where the candidates stand on these issues - and where you stand - deciding for whom to vote should not be too difficult.

(Clifford D. May is president of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, a policy institute focusing on terrorism. E-mail him at cliff(at)defenddemocracy.org)