The Bush Doctrine (II)
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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. ~Charles Krauthammer
And then I and most other reasonably well-informed people would say that Krauthammer, his adversary and the audience also did not understand what the Bush Doctrine was. Also, Palin apologists should get their story straight–if the “freedom agenda” is the first thing that would spring to everyone’s mind on hearing the phrase, why do so many of her defenders think otherwise?
The main innovation of the Bush administration in U.S. foreign policy, the one for which he will be remembered for good or ill, is the placement of preventive war as a means of nonproliferation and antiterrorism at the center of national security strategy. Related to this is the abandonment of traditional concepts of deterrence and containment. Democracy promotion as stated U.S. policy dates back at least to the Carter administration, and the “freedom agenda” has rhetorical precedents as far back as Kennedy’s Inaugural. What Bush did with democracy promotion that was distinctive was to marry this terrible idea to his existing terrible idea of waging preventive war against “rogue” states. The “freedom agenda” did not replace and eliminate the earlier iteration of the Bush Doctrine, but formalized the administration’s mad ideological fixation on democratization as an addition to that Doctrine.
Suffice it to say that this line of defending Palin can only underscore how little she knows, since her defenders seem to want to emphasize how complicated and, Heaven help us, nuanced the subject is, which just drives home how unsatisfactory it is that she had to wait to hear Gibson’s definition (which essentially used the President’s own words) in order to say anything coherent about it. If Gibson is wrong, as Palin’s defenders are so happy to point out, her parroting of his definition is doubly embarrassing, since it shows that she had no definition of her own and she also couldn’t recognize Gibson’s mistake. Rather like the line of attack from Obama supporters against Palin’s inexperience, which just reminded everyone how relatively inexperienced Obama was, ridiculing Charlie Gibson as clueless is just makes it painfully obvious how much more clueless Palin is.
Update: For whatever it’s worth, the cover story for the new Atlantic is overflowing in discussion of McCain’s support for pre-emption, which is what McCain calls it, and the Bush Doctrine, which supposedly no one knows how to define.
Filed under: foreign policy, politics
How do you think this will play with voters? It seems like this interview is basically just strengthening both bases opinions on her? McCain had a pretty rough interview today with The View, so I’m sure this will just galvanize the right against the wicked MSM, which now undoubtedly includes ABC.
Daniel:
Would it merely confirm me as a blind, pro-Palin fanatic in your view if I said that Mrs. Palin’s lack of knowledge of the Bush Doctrine did not particularly bother me? I actually do not want another president who lies awake at night thinking of creative ways to apply U.S. force around the world. I actually prefer a president who has Psalms, guns and her kids on her mind, instead—who has that frontier mentality.
Now, please do not misunderstand me. Mrs. Palin’s lack of expertise in foreign affairs is not in itself actually a good thing. But one would also prefer a president who understood the principles of civil, structural and mechanical engineering, given the vast sums of money the federal government spends on highways and military hardware. In the present election, however, such knowledge is not crucial. I am far more concerned—as one would think that you would be, too—that the next vice president lack an imperialistic disposition, yet it is precisely such a disposition that would have brought a depth of foreign-affairs knowledge with it.
Mitt Romney (whom I also like) would not be fumbling these questions right now. Think about that.
The fact that sister Sarah is fumbling the McCain party line, which—evidently—-she is hurriedly learning as though it were an undergraduate homework assignment, is rather encouraging as seen from one point of view.
So, yes, I’ll admit it. I’m “in the tank” for sister Sarah. She’s one of us.
Howard
Howard,
If Palin were to become President because of something happening to John McCain, she would have *no choice* but to make decisions about whether and how to apply U.S. force in the world. That is part of the job. What’s more, there would be numerous voices telling her that applying force in some situation is necessary to keep America safe. This is especially true because she would be surrounded by McCain’s national security team, which is unlikely to be filled with non-interventionists.
In such an environment, saying “no” to those people recommending the application of military force requires more than just having, in your words, “Psalms, guns and kids on her mind”. It requires some amount of knowledge to tell when an adviser is wrong. It requires some amount of self-confidence to say “no”. And, it requires that one lacks, as you put it, an “imperialistic disposition”. I see no evidence at all that Palin has the required knowledge and confidence. When she talks at all about foreign policy, it’s Bush-ian platitudes and following the usual Republican script. As for her disposition towards foreign interventions, who knows? That she hasn’t thought about foreign affairs in depth doesn’t say anything about what she’d be inclined to do as President.
Romney would not be fumbling with these questions, because if there is one thing that man is it is organized and prepared. As a matter of governance, selecting Romney as VP would have made more sense, regardless of the electoral consequences. The same goes for Pawlenty. Each day Palin is on the ticket makes it that much more obvious that McCain made the wrong choice.
What is very troubling about what she doesn’t know is that her lack of knowledge does not translate into an unwillingness to engage in bluster and bellicose rhetoric, but instead seems to be a cause of that kind of rhetoric because she has been coached to exude “toughness.” Underlying this seems to be a presumption that America has the right to do whatever it wants. Her response to a question on sanctions on Iran that I quote elsewhere is revealing:
“We need to pursue those [sanctions] and we need to implement those. We cannot back off. We cannot just concede that, oh, gee, maybe they’re going to have nuclear weapons, what can we do about it. No way, not Americans. We do not have to stand for that.”
She speaks as if Iran were our vassal or colony, and her attitude is one of total inflexibility. Is that enough of an imperialistic disposition for you? Overconfidence and ignorance do not make for the kind of combination I want in the executive branch.
Krauthammer explains that there have been four different “Bush Doctrines” on foreign policy in the course of Bush’s presidency. Something which is ever-changing cannot be a doctrine at all. It’s mere whim.
I must admit that Ratufa and Daniel have made a better argument than I have in the present thread. They win this round.