Posted on 09/12/2008 1:11:06 AM PDT by jeltz25
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
And most normal Americans live a near version of that same reality, and respect her for how she handles the pressure with grace, and even with feistiness. That’s the original American spirit, before we became (a percentage of us, anyway) a nation of whiners and victims. Governor Palin’s no victim.
Bottom line, the “Bush Doctrine” as a term is a made up media phrase.
If Palin didn’t knos this, it just proves that she’s not some sycophantic follower of the DC elite, one who allows her opinions and template to be defined by these pinheads.
I wouldn't expect any softball from the Left.
Amen, sistah.
It would have been worse to me if he had thrown her softballs.
Damn, people get over it, I say again.
He threw a few high hard ones, she handled it. S0 WHAT?
Stop expecting the Democrat Media to be "fair".
They're not "fair".
Do like Sarah did. Showed up well-informed, tough, and confident.
Maybe a little nervous, but damn, that was her first national hard-core interview. Tons of pressure.
She did it.
She did good.
I felt her question to Gibson was perfectly reasonable, an attempt to get him to define what part of the Bush doctrine he was speaking about.
It was a trap to get her to say “yes” and in doing so brand her McSame. She was smart to ask for clarification.
Somebody posted an interview of Obama by Gibson. It was ridiculous the difference in caliber of questions being asked. IMHO, if McCain was smart he’d do a video with side by side of Gibson asking Palin a question, then Gibson asking 0 a question., plus make the point he’s running for President, she for VP. It would show her poise in answering versus his ahs and ums and it would show Charlie Gibson’s demeanor change toward her versus him.
It almost makes me mad to hear Sarah Palin parroting this MSM mantra, that we made mistakes along the way. Name them. Yes, we needed more troops to occupy Iran after we conquered it in a WEEK (nobody mentions it when things go BETTER than planned, huh?). We corrected that, with the reluctant, howling acquiescence of a Congress acting like a spoiled five year old boy resisting going to bed.
City of Satan.
I'm not a fancy pants journalist, but it seems to me that answering that question would probably make more sense than running up a list of what other people think the Bush Doctrine is.
you know what was the biggest mistake of the Bush admin? really bad PR and communication.
Take that, Charlie.
Do you remember what thread that was on? I'm dying to see the comparisons..
that’s Obama’s loss and Sarah’s gain. She wants the tough challenges. It’s what she lives for.
I don’t understand why conservative politicians feel the need to acknowledge the MSM in the first place. Screw them.
Palin should be granting interviews only to unbiased or friendly news outlets. People like Gibson don’t deserve the attention.
I posted transcripts. Here they are:
http://abcnews.go.com/WN/Politics/story?id=4854865&page=1
TRANSCRIPT: Charlie Gibson Interviews Hillary Clinton
http://abcnews.go.com/WN/story?id=5000184&page=1
Charles Gibson Interviews Barack Obama
THANK you:)
It is not going to change. It is what it is.
Let the Leftists wave their magic wands to make all the bad things go away.
Conservatives must deal with reality.
Reality tells me that Media Bias is not going away.
The way to beat them is to show up smarter, more honest, more well-informed than they are.
Well-informed Truth will put them in their place. Embarrass them.
That is how to beat them.
Thanks I just went to find them, and came across the Obama one. What a change of demeanor by Gibson...it highlights his bias. He’s soft spoken, he asks no follow up to 0’s explanations, and as usual, 0 says “uh” and stutters through the whole thing.
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