what matters aren't the actual words that she used, which I don't have a problem with at all; her dear-in-the-headlight's look is what most will take from it.  Why else did the commentators on cnn and fox try to explain what occurred here?  Even if she did know what Gibson was talking about, she gave off the sense that she had no idea.  Let's put it this way, if she had this minute back, Palin would probably opt for a do-over.

By saying she appeared to be in over her head, of course.

Won't work. If your average American doesn't know what the Bush Doctrine is, which they don't, they won't care if she doesn't either.

After all, being ignorant makes her more "like us." People can relate to that, 'member? Having beers and throwing cookouts and ridiculing knowledge is the American way.

One question. Where are they "ahead" at? Sure ain't the electoral college projections.

I guess you didn't see O'Reilly the last three nights?

I doubt too many people would come away from that interview segment thinking Gibson was being an ass; the guy came off as pretty civil to me perhaps a little too civil because he shouldn't have let her get off the hook with the Bush Doctrine question.

you're kidding right?

in none of the debates?

or on O'Reilly?

I've seen Meredith Viera be harsher than this. Hell, I've seen Matt Lauer be harsher.

This was extreme softball.

I mean really, is McCain going to say that Charlie Gibson wasn't "deferential" enough for Sarah Palin?

The American people are going to watch these clips and see a woman over her head. They are going to want to hear a lot more. Is McCain going to lock her up from now to the debates? Is this the last unscripted appearance for Sarah Palin?

Wow. I'm going to guess you missed the last few debates, then, and in particular that you missed the ABC debate in which Gibson went after Obama hard, with questions that were more critical and unfriendly and also far more trivial to the real issues. Gibson treated Palin much more nicely than he treated Obama.

I think you're projecting -- Palin came off as uncomfortable and covered it with aggression and the Bush-style certainty of her convictions. It's hard to appear uncritical or friendly when your interviewee is snapping off responses in a very cold tone. Gibson could've appeared to mirror the way she was responding. But he was much nicer to her than he was to Obama.

"...caught so flat-footed."

GWB's performance in the first 2004 debate comes close.

I think the "winks" put my teeth on edge from the first few seconds into that clip...

it shows her independence and her mavericky powers!

totally kidding btw

If McCain wins, I would support and join just about anything short of violence to express our displeasure.

Enough of this shit...Obama has already said he would follow the Bush doctrine...watch.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0WOFrEgR u4

that's the problem for Palin; it's the idea that many people may get from watching the video that she didn't know what Gibson meant by the Bush Doctrine.  Her actual answer is pretty decent in my opinion.  However, that she had to ask Gibson two questions to get a clarification suggests to some that she lacked any understanding of the Bush Doctrine.

You could be right, we'll have to see how this segment plays.  Imagine if someone asked what do you think of judicial review, and you asked "in what respect."

Wow.. someone that writes diaries like "Obama Calls Himself a Muslim" and consistently builds up Palin on various subjects, I'm shocked that you would think that she did well in this interview.  Absolutely shocked I say!

You think she knew what it was, and didn't want to agree with it? If that were the case, he wouldn't have had to explain it.

Dodging it would be "under what circumstances, Charlie? context is important". What she did was try to gut it out, which might have been more successful without the blizzard (nice one) of tangential talking points.

Most people seeing that will agree, what she was thinking was "The WHAT?".

I'll give you she's slimy enough to try every trick in the book to dodge the question, but she didn't have a clue, and Gibson had to explain it to her. If she had known, she could have given her same answer to Gibson's first attempt. The prime foreign policy contribution of the Bush administration, and she didn't know anything about it.

The problem is that "imminent threats" is traditional war policy, NOT the Bush Doctrine. Remember all those Iraq war apologists insisting that Bush never said Iraq posed an "imminent" threat? It was because Iraq was unjustifiable according to traditional war theory.

Yet, when told that Bush Doctrine means "anticipatory self-defense" and "pre-emptive strikes" she showed that she doesn't even know what THOSE concepts mean.

In many ways, then, the most damning part of the interview is AFTER she's told what the Bush Doctrine is.

I think that she did the best she could under the circumstances, but that's not good enough for me.  Whether that's good enough for the American voters, we'll see.

Really?  Are you saying that she intentionally took the conversation into the "I am a dumbass" territory?

That's strategery right there.

Barack Obama did not pick Hillary Clinton to be his running mate. Biden even knows it woulda been a better choice.

it was ignorant, and her facial expression was poorly managed. Fault McCain for putting her in the VP slot. However, once she had the definition, her answer was quite intelligent.

I am shocked that she's such a bad bullshitter. I thought that came with being a high-level pol.

...to eke out a bachelor's in communications.

I don't think she made it through brain power.

I really don't like using the word "ditzy" or anything of its ilk to describe her. For one thing, she's not stupid. She can talk and talk well, and there are clearly thing she does understand pretty well. She's poorly versed in national issues and she has poor skills at communicating at the level a national politician should communicate, particularly in interview situations.

That said: ditzy can only hurt us. Every time she manages a passable answer, people can say -- see, the mean nasty bloggers, they call her ditzy, and look, she knows stuffs. They're so sexist!

Calling her unprepared is fine. Not ready, fine. Not deep enough on the issues, fine. Lacking knowledge. Etc.

But let's keep clear of ditzy, or anything else with sexist connotations.

Palin fails foreign policy interview. And they're not stupid enough to not realize that if their new darling never gets to talk to the press again, it's because McCain is afraid to let her.

you are right.

The general public, for all we pretend they are shambling beasts, do know that their mechanic needs special knowledge. They know their Dentist should know things they don't. They expect the McDonald's clerk to know how to work the machine.

Expertise is understood to be necessary.

Many "regular" folk will see this and think "Wow, he had to explain it?". The look on her face, if nothing else, speaks louder than the wonkish term itself.

I don't think it's playing to moderates this time like it did in 2004. The approval rating numbers out of Ras are very eye-opening. 35% approve/61% disapprove among moderates? Before this interview? I don't think it's going to work for her.

And I think there's a real reason why, that's not sexist. It's the combination of overly-thin resume (even honest right-wingers said she makes Obama like an elder statesman) and lack of any national exposure. Right or wrong (and I'd argue it was wrong) people felt like they knew Bush belonged as a candidate for President. He'd been governor of the second-largest state, after all. Had national exposure. Knew a bunch of politicians. Had met some foreign heads of state. So once they knew he was marginally "qualified", they could evaluate him on the beer standard.

For a lot of moderates I don't think Palin meets the threshold; until she does (and the bar goes up every day) the beer standard doesn't apply.

Sure you have.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYc7QsWLh rA&feature=related

Oh please.  You never saw Obama speak off teleprompter?  

Watch out.. you've riled up the PUMA idiots.

Maybe if we are lucky they will go back to No Quarter or Redstate, but I wouldn't hold my breath.  These idiots are nothing if not persistent.. oh and did i mention liars..

Big.
Fat.
Liars.

".. you can't be fooled again..."  ?

Yeah, that's what I figured... The public LOVED that Bush was clueless... I'm sure they'll find her incompetence captivating as well... <sigh>

I am not as impressed with Sarah Palin as you are-- I find her to be incredibly shallow, uninformed on the issues and little more than a living, breathing talking point machine.  I'm not saying she isn't someone we need to be concerned about, but I don't agree when you call her "extremely intelligent."  She's a standard-issue Rovian wingnut whose only calling card is that she's not wrapped in the usual "old pasty white guy" package.  They have that guy at the top of the ticket, so their bases are covered there too.

If she can understand the 99% of issues that are completely different than in Alaska in a few weeks, she deserves to be President. But she doesn't understand, she memorized. If your bar is set that low, I feel sorry for you.

I don't give a fuck about "helping" Obama with my comments on a blog. That's his job, and I don't have any impact on it whatsoever. Sarah Palin is not informed enough to be President. In four years time, sure, she would have been deadly. But this year? She's NOT READY. And we absolutely need to keep trumpeing that.

There's a little bit of a difference between stating an opinion about a speech, and making shit up about whose baby it is that she said she gave birth to.  It is also not a mime, it's a genuine opinion.  Apparently, not one you can stand to read.

Most rational people will concede not being familiar with the Bush Doctrine isn't likely to harm the McCain ticket, but I'd like to know what interview you were watching.  Nobody was expecting her to implode during this interview: it was by its nature a fairly soft one.   Unfortunately it didn't really give us any valuable insights into who Sarah Palin is or what sort of executive leadership she would give us.  At best, she was treading water.

I'm tempted to guess you've read the transcripts and haven't seen the actual video. Having first read the transcripts myself, I thought she did pretty well... but watching it on video; the body language, her vocal inflections... the visuals seemed to shave off a lot of the confidence I saw in the transcripts.  

is anyone else concerned about the judgement of a woman who named her children bristol and trig?

Read Article Five of the NATO treaty:

The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defence recognised by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.

Any such armed attack and all measures taken as a result thereof shall immediately be reported to the Security Council. Such measures shall be terminated when the Security Council has taken the measures necessary to restore and maintain international peace and security.

The whole point of NATO is that all signatories treat an attack on one as an attack on all. It is specifically intended to be a tripwire for Russian aggression in Eastern Europe.

Are Democrats now calling for the United States to back away from commitments to multinational treaties and pull out of NATO?

sympathy about ike maybe?  unless they have texas polls we don't,or it's a "see we care about hurricanes" thing it does seem strange.

Most people don't know about the bush doctrine.  But, none of them has the hubris to accept a reckless offer to be a major party's presidential nominee's VP.  

She was rejecting the Bush Doctrine.

The problem was that she didn't even know she was doing it. And it was obvious.

This is why the "Palin as batshit hawk" meme is the wrong one. The real problem is that she is talking out of her ass and has no idea what pre-emptive war is.

She thought she was agreeing with the pre-emptive war doctrine, and then she defined it as opposing imminent threats, which is NOT pre-emptive war.

Does he really think that playing up the teen fad image is helping him?  

Yo man politix is like s00per rad.  

Bush is irrelevant. Palin is running to be John McCain's VP and, therefore, needs to understand the "McCain Doctrine".

In this case life imitates art.

We keep voting in the Sarah Palins of the world we will end up with:

President and five time World Wrestling champion:
Dwayne Allisandro Mountain Dew Camacho

Perhaps we need to remember that someday we might want to know who's ass it is and why it was farting.

Shit. I know shit's bad right now, with all that starving bullshit, and the dust storms, and we are running out of french fries and burrito coverings. But I got a solution.

It appears that you get your foreign policy information the same way McCain does... Wikipedia!  However, at least he attempts to change a few words before committing wikiplagiarism.

Actually, it was a pretty softball question. The Bush doctrine i, as you say, a pretty broad and nebulous thing. If she had picked any version of it, and part of it, and described how she felt about it, that would have been an answer to the question, and it would have been treated as such. She had no clue what the Bush doctrine was, when forced to guess, she asked if he meant Bush's world view, so she wasn't able to give any of the possible answers. When it was explained to her, she still couldn't give a meaningful or coherent answer.

It's reckless and dangerous. And McCain clearly supports it too.

Unfortunately, I have no idea if Palin knows what it is...even now.

...It's the reason the world hates us and we would likely receive no support if we got in over our heads with Russia.

It's Alaska. Lots of blizzards up there.