[Ben Ficklin]

"Palin is moving toward Ron Paul's position"

Captain Kirk and others always try to define it as the isolationists like Ron Paul against the NeoCons. They leave out the foreign policy Realists.

Her new adviser, Peter Schweizer, is a very well known foreign policy Realist. He is not a Ron Paul isolationist.

Schweizer's foreign policy positions are going to be similar to those such as Colin Powell, Bob Gates, Brent Scowcroft, Henry Kissinger, etc.

I know that many republicans and freepers are not willing to admit it, but Obama has followed the Realists' policies

[Springfield Reformer]

Interesting points. Yes, false opposites are always a fun way to win an argument, but in the end they are unhelpful.

As for Obama, I don’t know if the realist school is his preference or if it has been imposed upon him by, well, reality. The latter would explain why it seems so haphazard. He lurches forward on one premise but must always finish on another, because reality intervenes. This thrashing about between utopian thinking and reality gives an impression of incompetence, precisely because the most competent plan is necessarily that which best accommodates itself to reality from the get-go.

[Captain Kirk]

You are right that there the realists also play a part in this debate. I was arguing that she was moving toward Paul's position on Libya. Having said that, I don't think you can say where she is going! It will shift depending on the mood of her potential electoral base in the GOP.

I know the Sarah worshippers disagree but I think this woman is very, very driven to appease her potential conservative base. At first, she bet (wrongly) that they were hawks on Libya and mirror images of the neocons in foreign policy. When she discovered that the conservative base was antiwar on Libya, she shifted opportunistically. She'd still be hawk today on Libya if conservatives had backed the Libya War.