Sarah, Charlie, and the Bush Doctrine

Shame on Charlie Gibson, not for asking tough questions of Governor Palin--those are appropriate for someone seeking the office of Vice-President of the United States--but for his condescending, "smarter-than-thou" attitude as he looked out over the rims of his eyeglasses and down his nose, talking to and treating the Governor as if she were some naive and silly schoolgirl who should be honored to be sitting in his class at an elite academy. I haven't watched Charlie Gibson in a long time, but my memory of him on Good Morning, America is much better than what I witnessed on 20/20 Friday night. There was neither a sense of respect for Mrs. Palin nor any sort of attempt at a balanced interview but instead a series of efforts to "out" the Governor for the nitwit Gibson apparently thinks she is. Not surprisingly, the consensus seems to be that Mrs. Palin held her own against Gotcha Gibson quite well and that in fact he was the one who came off looking uninformed, not her. The question that has received the most attention is the one in which Gibson asked the Governor if she agrees with the Bush Doctrine. The MSM (mainstream media) are making much of her hesitation and seeking of clarification before answering the question. But Charles Krauthammer, the first person to use the phrase "Bush Doctrine," points out here that it has gone through at least four different definitions and that the one Gibson ended up providing was not even the most common current usage. The Wikipedia article on the Bush Doctrine defines the term as encompassing various of Bush's foreign policy principles and cites one book that discusses six--not one--Bush doctrines. So maybe it's Charlie Gibson and not Sarah Palin who needs to hit the books a little more before attempting to discuss foreign policy.

Having said that, I expect that someone as new on the national scene as Mrs. Palin is does have a lot to learn. And as well as I think she did in the interview, I would agree that she is not as conversant on some subjects as others. But I have no doubt that she has the intellect to master all the subjects that as Vice-President she will need to command, and I am sure that the McCain campaign is working with her night and day to bring her up to speed. What is more important to me than a perfect command of the facts is to be able to vote for someone--whatever the office--who understands America's greatness and has its best interests at heart, who is of good character, who is smart and principled, and who shares my beliefs and core values. And I believe the Governor--and her running mate--is all those things. What she needs to learn, she is learning, and she will continue to do so. (I do hope, along with Kathryn Jean Lopez at The Corner, that as the McCain handlers work with Palin they don't create a more controlled, careful and plastic Sarah. A big part of her appeal is her honesty, frankness and yes, spunk . . . sorry, Melody!)

In case you didn't get to see the interview, here's a full transcript. By the way, it has come out that ABC did some interesting editing to the interview. Mark Levin has details.