At this point, it's obvious that John McCain's selection of Sarah Palin as his VP candidate was politically brilliant. The media hysteria surrounding Palin, even though often negative, has kept the previously unheard-of Alaska governor on the front pages of major newspapers for two weeks.
As Palin's star has grown, Obama's seems to be inexplicably faltering. To make things worse for Obama supporters, the media's often negative portrayal of Palin (while sometimes deserved), has veered into an unjustiably ignorant new direction in the past few days - brewing up resentment among women voters, and inciting a conservative Republican base that seemed intent on taking this election off only a few months ago.
Being the convenient moderate that I am, I can try to comment on this issue without a partisan bias filtering my observations. First, let me reassert my support for the Obama campaign. I believe that the Obama/Biden ticket is immeasurably stronger and more predictable than the McCain/Palin combo. But that's for another post.
Much has been made of Palin's apparent failure to understand what Charlie Gibson was getting at when he asked Palin about her feelings on the "Bush Doctrine." The absurdity of all of this is that Gibson referenced the "Bush Doctrine" as though it actually was a commonly accepted term for Bush's willingness to use preemptive force to defend the country. As a Washington Post article today finally makes clear, Palin's confusion regarding Gibson's question was entirely justifiable:
"Peter D. Feaver, who worked on the Bush national security strategy as a staff member on the National Security Council, said he has counted as many as seven distinct Bush doctrines. They include the president's second-term "freedom agenda"; the notion that states that harbor terrorists should be treated no differently than terrorists themselves; the willingness to use a "coalition of the willing" if the United Nations does not address threats; and the one Gibson was talking about -- the doctrine of preemptive war.
'If you were given a quiz, you might guess that one, because it's one that many people associate with the Bush doctrine," said Feaver, now a Duke University professor. "But in fact it's not the only one.'"
Sure, Palin may not have intentionally answered the question correctly -- she may not have had any clue what Gibson was talking about. But, at this point, it doesn't matter. The damage has been done. The media unjustifiably slung mud at Palin again, and voters resent negativity -- especially when undeserved.
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