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Palin Sits Down With Karzai, Uribe
Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin made her diplomatic debut Tuesday, meeting with two heads of state who traveled to New York for the opening of the U.N. General Assembly. Palin, who met with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, engaged in small talk and policy discussions as part of her effort to augment her foreign policy credentials. Palin, who has traveled outside North America once, also met with former secretary of state Henry Kissinger at his New York office. The campaign of Sen. John McCain sought to highlight the sessions with several photo ops, though they limited the news media's access, at one point barring print reporters from observing Palin's initial exchange with Karzai. Shuttling from one meeting to another, Palin traveled across New York with the buzz of a high-profile personality. Her motorcade shut down traffic, and for a time police barred entry to her Midtown hotel. Tourists pulled out video cameras to film the Alaska governor, prompting several police vehicles to drive onto the sidewalk to protect the SUV in which she was riding. Traffic backed up, crowds gathered behind the barricades and a supporter yelled, "We love you, Sarah!" Palin also received her first national security briefing on Tuesday from the director of national intelligence, Mike McConnell, and several of his aides -- a standard practice for the two parties' nominees. In a briefing with reporters, Palin's senior foreign policy adviser, Stephen E. Biegun, said the governor did not issue policy pronouncements during the sessions with Karzai and Uribe, each of which lasted about half an hour. Biegun said her goals were "to establish a relationship and to listen." Meetings with foreign leaders, he added, "are a very important part of her being prepared on Day One." Posted by: Fred 2008-09-25 |
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