Palin on Foreign Policy

The following article is reprinted (without permission; sorry about that) from this past Friday's (September 26, 2008) Baltimore Sun; I provide here it in full, verbatim, and without my usual correction of source-material punctuation. The Sun gives no author information, beyond the simple "Associated Press" attribution.

Stating the obvious: her absolute lack of experience and serious qualifications would be riotously entertaining, were she not – potentially – close to being President herself… much like Duhbya's been (when Cheney's allowed). I suspect she's been coached, at least, on how to pronounce "nuclear".

Palin on foreign policy

She defends Russia remark and extent of her experience

NEW YORK

Republican vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin defended her remark that the proximity of Russia to her home state of Alaska gives her foreign policy experience, explaining in a CBS interview airing yesterday that "we have trade missions back and forth."

Palin has never visited Russia and until last year, the 44-year-old Alaska governor had never traveled outside North America. She also had never met a foreign leader until her trip this week to New York. In the CBS interview, she did not offer any examples of having been involved in any negotiations with the Russians.

Palin's foreign policy experience came up when she gave her first major interview, on Sept. 11 to ABC News. Asked what insight she had gained from living so close to Russia, she said: "They're our next-door-neighbors, and you can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska, from an island in Alaska."

The comment met with derision from Palin's critics and was turned into a punch line for a Saturday Night Live skit featuring actress Tina Fey. Appearing as Palin, she proclaimed, "I can see Russia from my house!"

In the interview with CBS News anchor Katie Couric, Palin said: "It's funny that a comment like that was, kind of made to… I don't know, you know? Reporters…"

Couric said, "Mock?"

"Yeah," Palin said, "mocked, I guess that's the word, yeah."

When Couric asked how Alaska's closeness to Russia enhanced her foreign policy experience, Palin said, "Well, it certainly does because our… our next-door neighbors are foreign countries." Alaska shares a border with Canada.

Palin didn't answer directly when Couric inquired about whether she had been involved in any negotiations with the Russians.

"We have trade missions back and forth," she replied. As she continued, Palin brought up Russian Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin.

"It's very important when you consider even national security issues with Russia as Putin rears his head and comes into the airspace of the United Sates of America, where – where do they go? It's Alaska. It's just right over the border. It is – from Alaska that we send those out to make sure that an eye is being kept on this very powerful nation, Russia, because they are right there. They are right next to… to our state," she said.

Asked why she obtained a passport only last year, Palin said, "I'm not one of those who maybe came from a background of, you know, kids who perhaps graduate college and their parents give them a passport and give them a backpack and say go off and travel the world."

Earlier yesterday, Palin held a rare exchange with reporters outside a Ground Zero firehouse in New York.

At the firehouse just across from the site of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Palin took a handful of questions from reporters. She has not had a new conference in the four weeks since Republican presidential candidate John McCain chose her to be his running mate and has submitted to three major interviews – with ABC, Fox News and CBS.

Palin was asked if she thought the U.S. presence in Iraq and Afghanistan was helping to mitigate terrorism.

"I think our presence in Iraq and Afghanistan will lead to further security of our nation. We can never again let them onto our soil."

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to run downstairs and watch the debate (with visions of earlier VP-candidate James Stockdale in my head); I'll nosh on a couple Skinny Cow ice-cream sandwiches in her honor.

After-word, post-debate: Sarah-smile was obviously coached well, and some of it seemed to have stuck... although I was disappointed that she's still shaky on her pronunciation of "nuclear". (And her "Eye-raq" and "Eye-ran"... shudder!) Watch the footage on the news (or in small bites on YouTube, for those of you with more limited attention-spans): note how she consistently failed to answer many key questions, and would steer her responses as well onto familiar ground.

Next to our man Joe – I confess this is the most I've seen of him thus far (and me with a family member out of Wilmington long-since working on his campaign(s)!) – Sarah was indeed palin'; even while bearing up better than expected, she was very obviously out of her league... and her bubbly soccer-mom approach of "Well, John is just gee-golly-whillikers gonna fix it, Gahd bless him!" is utterly insufficient, and leaves me baffled over whether she'd respond to a true crisis with shaking finger, or leveled shotgun.