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| Home Front: Politix |
| Charlie Gibson's Gaffe |
| 2008-09-13 |
By Charles Krauthammer"At times visibly nervous . . . Ms. Palin most visibly stumbled when she was asked by Mr. Gibson if she agreed with the Bush doctrine. Ms. Palin did not seem to know what he was talking about. Mr. Gibson, sounding like an impatient teacher, informed her that it meant the right of 'anticipatory self-defense.' " -- New York Times, Sept. 12 Informed her? Rubbish. The New York Times got it wrong. And Charlie Gibson got it wrong. There is no single meaning of the Bush doctrine. 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. He asked Palin, "Do you agree with the Bush doctrine?" She responded, quite sensibly to a question that is ambiguous, "In what respect, Charlie?" Sensing his "gotcha" moment, Gibson refused to tell her. After making her fish for the answer, Gibson grudgingly explained to the moose-hunting rube that the Bush doctrine "is that we have the right of anticipatory self-defense." Wrong. I know something about the subject because, as the Wikipedia entry on the Bush doctrine notes, I was the first to use the term. In the cover essay of the June 4, 2001, issue of the Weekly Standard entitled, "The Bush Doctrine: ABM, Kyoto, and the New American Unilateralism," I suggested that the Bush administration policies of unilaterally withdrawing from the ABM treaty and rejecting the Kyoto protocol, together with others, amounted to a radical change in foreign policy that should be called the Bush doctrine. Then came 9/11, and that notion was immediately superseded by the advent of the war on terror. In his address to the joint session of Congress nine days after 9/11, President Bush declared: "Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists. From this day forward any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime." This "with us or against us" policy regarding terror -- first deployed against Pakistan when Secretary of State Colin Powell gave President Musharraf that seven-point ultimatum to end support for the Taliban and support our attack on Afghanistan -- became the essence of the Bush doctrine. Until Iraq. A year later, when the Iraq war was looming, Bush offered his major justification by enunciating a doctrine of preemptive war. This is the one Charlie Gibson thinks is the Bush doctrine. It's not. It's the third in a series and was superseded by the fourth and current definition of the Bush doctrine, the most sweeping formulation of the Bush approach to foreign policy and the one that most clearly and distinctively defines the Bush years: the idea that the fundamental mission of American foreign policy is to spread democracy throughout the world. It was most dramatically enunciated in Bush's second inaugural address: "The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands. The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world." This declaration of a sweeping, universal American freedom agenda was consciously meant to echo John Kennedy's pledge in his inaugural address that the United States "shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty." It draws also from the Truman doctrine of March 1947 and from Wilson's 14 points. If I were in any public foreign policy debate today, and my adversary were to raise the Bush doctrine, both I and the audience would assume -- unless my interlocutor annotated the reference otherwise -- that he was speaking about the grandly proclaimed (and widely attacked) freedom agenda of the Bush administration. Not the Gibson doctrine of preemption. Not the "with us or against us" no-neutrality-is-permitted policy of the immediate post-9/11 days. Not the unilateralism that characterized the pre-9/11 first year of the Bush administration. Presidential doctrines are inherently malleable and difficult to define. The only fixed "doctrines" in American history are the Monroe and the Truman doctrines which come out of single presidential statements during administrations where there were few other contradictory or conflicting foreign policy crosscurrents. Such is not the case with the Bush doctrine. Yes, Sarah Palin didn't know what it is. But neither does Charlie Gibson. And at least she didn't pretend to know -- while he looked down his nose and over his glasses with weary disdain, sighing and "sounding like an impatient teacher," as the Times noted. In doing so, he captured perfectly the establishment snobbery and intellectual condescension that has characterized the chattering classes' reaction to the mother of five who presumes to play on their stage. |
| Posted by:Steve White |
| #17 Well, you better make sure that they don't walk off with the recordings! One guy was suspicious, and recorded the entire interview he had with Dan Rather. Dan pinched the tapes and boasted of them while holding them up on prime time. THAT is when I first suspected that the MSM wanted to be the sole purveyor of truth. |
| Posted by: Ptah 2008-09-13 21:37 |
| #16 I'm shocked, BrerRabbit, that Wiki actually got it right! "the U.S. Senate unanimously passed by a 95–0 vote the Byrd-Hagel Resolution (S. Res. 98),[67][68] which stated the sense of the Senate was that the United States should not be a signatory to any protocol that did not include binding targets and timetables for developing as well as industrialized nations or it "would result in serious harm to the economy of the United States"...The Clinton Administration never submitted the protocol to the Senate for ratification." |
| Posted by: Minister of funny walks 2008-09-13 19:06 |
| #15 Sarah did just fine. The proof is how little media focus is being done on the interview series. NBC is doing wall to wall hurricane coverage because they recognize they are hurting this cause. |
| Posted by: regular joe 2008-09-13 15:40 |
| #14 It's time to loudly press for ABC to release the raw video footage - all of it. When they refuse, as they will, then announce that in the interest of fairness and in the spirit of the Intertubes (video wants to be free) all interview footage with the republican candidates will be posted online 3 hours after it airs on TV. And challenge Obama to do the same. |
| Posted by: lotp 2008-09-13 14:55 |
| #13 It seems like the idea is a no brainer. I would not be surprised if the McCainiacs were counting on Gibson doing a hatchet job to build his street cred with the MSM so that they could make the demand in all subsequent interviews. Gibson will always be a morning show host to me and some how I doubt Dave Garroway or Jack Lascoule would ever have the audacity or hope to think they could replace Huntley or Brinkley. Even if they brought J. Fred Muggs. |
| Posted by: Nimble Spemble 2008-09-13 13:23 |
| #12 InstaMan Glenn Reynolds has suggested a good way for Sarah and other candidates to fight the media distortions and "creative editing." Record interviews with their own equipment and post the unedited results. {I tried to link to the article from here but it only seems to work from his site. Sorry.) |
| Posted by: PBMcL 2008-09-13 13:11 |
| #11 Bingo. Follow this link to see just how badly Gibson and his editors distorted, chopped and truncated the much more sophisticated answers Palin gave on national security and foreign affairs. I am beyond pissed at this blatant attempt to sink her candidacy. |
| Posted by: lotp 2008-09-13 12:56 |
| #10 For the next one Palin should insist on having her own cameras so she can put the director's cut on You Tube. |
| Posted by: Nimble Spemble 2008-09-13 12:52 |
| #9 Folks, you have to read the full transcript especially the parts that were edited. This is a typical "60 Minutes" type hatchet job that was skillfully edited to make Charlie Gibson seem more qualified than Obama and McCain and Palin to appear unsure of herself. But in the context of the whole interview she is amazingly knowledgeable of foreign affairs and other issues that you don't sense from the TV version. |
| Posted by: Jack is Back! 2008-09-13 12:42 |
| #8 On Gibson: some on the right think Gibson was too obnoxious or rude. He might have been (it's a matter of opinion), but the real point is: Sarah Palin has to be able to handle such interviews. It's a matter of fact that Republicans are always going to be interviewed more toughly than Democrats. I thought Gov. Palin did well enough. She wasn't as crisp and assured on some questions as I would have wanted but she didn't provide the other side with any ammo for an ad. She looked a little tense on the foreign policy questions but most folks are going to let that slide. I'd give her a B+ on the interview. I'd give Charlie a C+. |
| Posted by: Steve White 2008-09-13 12:29 |
| #7 Charlie came off as a chauvinist pig at worst, and intolerant of Republicans at best. As I said before, he just swung another 10 points of women voters into Palin's camp. Good job Charlie, keep it up! |
| Posted by: DarthVader 2008-09-13 12:30 |
| #6 From Wikipedia... On 25 July 1997, before the Kyoto Protocol was finalized (although it had been fully negotiated, and a penultimate draft was finished), the U.S. Senate unanimously passed by a 95–0 vote the Byrd-Hagel Resolution (S. Res. 98),[67][68] which stated the sense of the Senate was that the United States should not be a signatory to any protocol that did not include binding targets and timetables for developing as well as industrialized nations or it "would result in serious harm to the economy of the United States". On 12 November 1998, Vice President Al Gore symbolically signed the protocol. Both Gore and Senator Joseph Lieberman indicated that the protocol would not be acted upon in the Senate until there was participation by the developing nations.[69] The Clinton Administration never submitted the protocol to the Senate for ratification. |
| Posted by: BrerRabbit 2008-09-13 08:04 |
| #5 In 2002 Bush released a National security strategy which includes most of the positions outlined by Krauthammer. It's a bit of a stretch however, to call it the Bush Doctrine, although I could be wrong. |
| Posted by: tipper 2008-09-13 03:57 |
| #4 Like the UPI review said, George Stephanopolous just glided over BO's gaffe, "my muslim faith". I say: up-Chuck. |
| Posted by: anymouse 2008-09-13 02:07 |
| #3 Clinton never actually rejected it, he just never did anything with it. |
| Posted by: Mike N. 2008-09-13 01:32 |
| #2 while he looked down his nose and over his glasses with weary disdain, sighing and "sounding like an impatient teacher," Gibson came off as a condescending prig. |
| Posted by: SteveS 2008-09-13 01:29 |
| #1 "I suggested that the Bush administration policies of unilaterally withdrawing from the ABM treaty and rejecting the Kyoto protocol, together with others, ..." I thought it was Clinton and Congress that first 'rejected' the Kyoto protocol. I do not think Pres. Bush would have acceded to Kyoto, mind you, but he was not first. As I remember it anyway. |
| Posted by: Whiskey Mike 2008-09-13 01:16 |