by The Nation

In tonight's interview with Charlie Gibson on ABC, Sarah Palin seemed alarmingly ignorant of what the Bush doctrine is, much less capable of defending it. Gibson asks her: "Do you agree with the Bush doctrine?"

After an uncomfortably long moment of silence, which should have
viewers conjuring Dan Quayle's potatoe, Palin asks, "In what
respect Charlie?"

Gibson responds, "The Bush--well, what do you interpret it to be?"

Palin answers, "His world view."

Gibson presses the point, "No, the Bush Doctrine, enunciated in
September 2002, before the Iraq war," after which Palin talks about
Bush's quest to rid the world of Islamic extremism before pivoting to
the virtues of democracy and the need for change.

Sensing a weak moment, Gibson proceeds to describe the Bush doctrine
as "that we have the right to 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's response: "I agree that a President's job, when they swear in
their oath to uphold the Constitution, their top priority is to
defend the United States of America..."

Gibson keeps at it: "Do we have a right to anticipatory self defense?
Do we have a right to make a preemptive strike against another
country if we feel that country might strike us?"

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."

Palin's response has much of the liberal blogosphere and even the
mainstream media on high alert, and perhaps rightly so. It certainly
demonstrates her non-existent command of national security lingo, and
indeed, as blogger Hilzoy documents, Palin confused preventive and
preemptive war, stating in fact the doctrine of preemptive war (which
is not the neo-con doctrine that prevents war through preemption;
confusing I know!)

That said, I worry the peanut gallery is misreading the Bush doctrine
and Palin's ignorant response to Gibson. The central fact is that
coherence, clarity and rationality were not, in fact, what sold the
Bush doctrine in the first place. I don't mean to the PNAC crowd or
the national security establishment that included Condi, Colin and
most of Congress. I mean to the press and public. They were won by
lies, dissemblance and the entirely emotional appeal to USA FIRST at
all costs--that and the costs of treading against it.

So, even if Palin looked like a moose in headlights, even if she
eventually confused preventive and preemptive war--it might not
matter. Palin ultimately hit the right emotional notes--the same rah-
rah points that secured the Bush doctrine in the first place.
1) Islam=evil; 2) Defend the country at all costs. Duty before actual
security; 3) the President is right and has to be trusted and
supported.

I'm not suggesting that Palin's blinking response was some kind of
canny, planned strategery--but on a gut level, when pressed and
vulnerable, she intuitively echoed the Bush doctrine's original appeal--
even if she could not articulate it's rationale much less defend
it. Put another way, I'm not sure Bush could have succinctly
defined the Bush doctrine--it didn't matter; that's not what was
crucial to its success.

Whether Palin's response matters NOW is not dependent on her
ignorance of it, her ability to state or defend it, but rather if
enough of the country has moved past the enabling myths it told. I am
just not sure we are there yet, or if Obama has enough of a
compelling story to get us there.

The problem was the stupidity of the question.

The "Bush Doctrine" is not well defined since the term
has been used for a variety of policies as time goes on.

Read all about it here. Her answer though not great was
reasonably cautious.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/12/AR2008091202457.html