Does Sarah Palin have any foreign policy and national security experience? The media jumped on this question quickly after John McCain introduced his running mate just under two weeks ago.
Last night, Sarah Palin had the chance to answer this bedeviling foreign policy and national security question herself. How did she do?
Charlie Gibson: When I asked John McCain about your national security credentials, he cited the fact that you have commanded the Alaskan National Guard and that Alaska is close to Russia. Are those sufficient credentials?
Sarah Palin: Let me speak specifically about a credential that I do bring to this table, Charlie, and that’s with the energy independence that I’ve been working on for these years as the governor of this state that produces nearly 20 percent of the U.S. domestic supply of energy, that I worked on as chairman of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, overseeing the oil and gas development in our state to produce more for the United States.
Gibson: I know. I’m just saying that national security is a whole lot more than energy.
Palin: It is, but I want you to not lose sight of the fact that energy is a foundation of national security. It’s that important. It’s that significant.
Speak to your strengths, even when they aren’t that strong, and even if they don’t really relate to the question at hand. In other words, evade, evade, evade!
If there’s a lesson in this, however, it’s to let the candidate do the talking, instead of the surrogates. Palin may have dodged Gibson’s question, but her response was succinct and more convincing than either Bounds’s or Sheunemann’s “throw everything at the wall and see what sticks” strategy (see below).
From now on, we know what Palin will say to any foreign policy or national security question: “energy independence.”
With the first “impromptu” press appearance out of the way, let’s revisit how McCain spokesmen handled the first two goes the MSM had at Palin’s foreign policy qualifications:
They were quick to defend the previously unknown candidate. In an interview with CNN’s Campbell Brown on Sept. 1, McCain spokesperson Tucker Bounds suggested her experience came from commanding the Alaskan National Guard.
Tucker Bounds: I don’t think there should be any problem explaining her experience … she’s been in executive office longer than Barack Obama has been in the U.S. Senate. She’s been the commander of the Alaskan National Guard that’s been deployed overseas, that’s foreign policy experience.
Campbell Brown: Can you just tell me one decision she’s made as commander-in-chief of the Alaska National Guard, just one?
Bounds: Any decision she has made as the commander of the national guard that is deployed over seas is more of a decision than Barack Obama has been making as he has been running for president for the past two years.
The McCain camp’s initial tactics? Grasp for whatever sounds the best, then evade, evade, evade.
Ted Koppel got another chance to crack the foreign policy nut when interviewing Randy Sheunemann, McCain’s foreign policy and national security director, a week later on NPR’s Talk of the Nation. How did the McCain camp pitch Palin’s foreign policy experience after having seven days to refine its strategy? It dropped the reference to commanding the Alaskan National Guard, and instead just mentioned random military jargon.
Ted Koppel: Maybe you can give us a sense of what [her foreign policy expertise] is.
Randy Sheunemann: Well, certainly, I mean, for starters, she’s been the governor of the only U.S. state that has two international boundaries, a land border with Canada and a maritime border with Russia. Significant military facilities are on this territory, the state of Alaska, from Fort Wainwright, which has a striker brigade that’s about to deploy to Iraq, we have F22’s at Elmendorf Air Force Base, we have the national missile defense site that is being constructed in Alaska. She’s hosted literally dozens of international trade delegations as part of her duties as governor. She’s also traveled overseas to visit Alaskan National Guard troops deployed in the Persian Gulf region.
When Koppel pressed Sheunemann on Palin’s expertise on Russia (”So it would be fair to assume, then, if and when we ever get the opportunity of talking to Governor Palin, that she has considerable expertise on Russia?) the adviser mentioned her other areas of experience instead.
Sheunemann: I think it would be fair to say that Governor Palin has considerable expertise in running a large state. She has more executive experience than Senator Obama and Senator Biden combined. She has passed significant legislation through her leadership, not just co-sponsoring something written by others. She’s passed a budget. She’s enacted an oil pipeline, which has significant international ramifications. She’s worked with Canadian companies and the Canadian government on international energy issues.
Round No. 2 strategy? Draw any possible connection between Palin and the military. Who cares if it’s nonsensical! If you get called on it, change the topic.
In other words: evade the subject at all costs. I think I can hear Joe Biden chomping at the bit.
Tags: ABC, Charlie Gibson, energy independence, experience, foreign policy, interview, sarah palin
Wrong. Palin did a good interview. And, yes she did sidestep a few questions as did Omaba in his early interviews during the Obama/Clinton campaign. I suggest you go back and take a look for yourself. You will see the studdering (shit I don’t know) long winded side stepping of Obama to very similar questions about Russia, war and Iran and GOD.
SHE DID MORE THAN SIDE STEP SHE AVOIDED THE QUESTION ALL TOGETHER, AND SHE DON’T KNOW JACK ABOUT THE FOREIGN POLICY, AND JUST BEACASE THE NATIONAL GUARD IN HER STATE WENT TO IRAQ DOSE NOT MEAN SHE SENT THEM THERE THE PRESIDENT DID NOT HER, OBAMA BEEN IN THE SENATE SINCE 2004, AND IN THE STATE SENATE BEFORE THAT FOR 7 OR 8 YEARS, AND PALIN JUST DON’T KNOW JACK.
After Sarah Palin’s incredible perfomance on ABC ( All Barrack Channel) with Charlie Gibson I think all of American will now agree that expertise is overrated. Gut instincts, being tough,and being decisive,and not blinking are all far more important than actually knowing things.
Our new savior of the GOP, Sarah Palin, is the one who is finally waking everyone up. Sarah is serious about foreign policy. Sarah is serious about cutting taxes. Sarah is serious about an energy policy drill, baby, drill
She has it all. She is honest. She is a religious She is incurious . She is anti-science. She may be inexperienced, but Sarah works from the gut and places a greater value on instinct than knowledge.
Sarah he is supremely self-confident to the point of not recognizing how ill-equipped she is to lead the country. And this drives the liberal elite media like Gibson crazy.
Palin’s willingness to go to war with Russia says more about her than anything else so far. The liberals kept telling us there was a reason why for sixty years both nations bent over backwards to avoid all-out war: they said there would be no winner. Notorious softy Nikita Khruschev once observed that if there was a nuclear exchange “The living would envy the dead.”
Palin will show those Russians that Nuclear Winter is followed by the bounty of Nuclear Spring and the balmy warmth of Nuclear Summer
Palin is the antidote to all those pointy-head resume thick elitists who inhabit Washington.
She is clearly a common sense straight shooter.