About Gibson's Palin Interview and "The Bush Doctrine"

A friend posted Don't Poke the Bear? at his Blog, rekative to Charles Gibson's interview of Sara Palin and specifically about his question about "The Bush Doctrine." And I commented

Tony:

"The Bush Doctrine" is no textbook or dictionary certified term. It's how some popular culture commentators referred to Bush's explanation in the wake of 9/11 that he will act proactively if he perceiv3es a threat in another country. Some threw into that bag Bush's assertion that states that harbor terrorists or terrorist activity will be guilty and accoountable. But, there is no official definition.

I thought of the preemptive strike assertion, but I am a freak who watches this stuff full-time. I'm no longer even distracted by a career. With MS, I walk with a walker for a few hundred yards and haven't driven for a dozen years. I had stopped driving when I met you in Iowa in 1995.

For a definition to not have been on the tip of Palin's toungue is not a matter of any kind of illiteracy. Also, I am 51. Palin is 44, which means that she was a working mom in her 30's when Bush was explainibg himself.

All of this stuff about foreign policy experience, knowing world leaders and such is garbage. Joe Biden for instance, supposedly has decades of "foreign policy experience." So, he has decades of foreign policy experience being wrong. SO WHAT?

As I told a friend, what matters is character, sobriety, judgment, and an understanding of human nature. Anyone who has worked with human organizations, from businesses to civic groups to churches, is experienced with human nature. PEOPLE ARE PEOPLE. They play with the same tactics. Some just play with bigger marbles.

More Curses From The Damned And A Christmas Look At The Rebublican Presidential Candidates

Mike Huckabee appeared on CNN's Late Edition on Sunday, discussing the latest in the endless string of desperate accusations. The indefatigable Mr. Maloney screeches on, ever more shrill and clawing as his candidate sinks over the horizon. Giuliani started with just a media profile, and whatever profile they preserve for him is about all he has left. But, he raises an opportunity to discuss the Candidates for President of the United States, with Christmas just over a week away and the primary season less than 3 weeks away.

Stephen R. Maloney said...

It's true that I think Larry Perrault is a model of verbosity and dishonesty. If you cut through the endless layers of crap that he dispenses, you find an adult mimicking a two-year-old. Larry's point since the beginning has been: "My way or the highway," that is, if Mike Huckabee doesn't get the nomination, then I sit home with my pacifier and blanket. But at the same time he believes traditional Republicans, a group three times the size of the evangelical group has some sort of obligation to support Huckabee if he gets the nomination. Well, Larry, this is politics (imperfect as it is) rather than the theological absolutism you prefer. If Huckabee gets the nomination, he will perform about as well as Goldwater in the 1964 election, when Barry carried five states and got roughly 34% of the vote. Mike Huckabee seems to be a decent guy, but he is clueless about foreign policy and military affairs, which is rather an important limitation. In short, he's no Giuliani and no McCain.

Some of the people endorsing Huckabee, such as Dr. Laurence White of Houston and blogger Larry Perrault, are America-haters who have no comprehension of what it means to live in a diverse and free society. Basically, they're theocrats who would be more comfortable in John Calvin's era than in 21st century America.
As this becomes clear to people, the support for Huckabee will sink like a rock. Who would be a better President of the U.S., Mike Huckabee or Hillary Clinton? My frank view is that Mrs. Clinton would be far superior. That's a problem for Mike because I've never voted for a Democrat for President, and in all modesty, I believe I speak for a lot of people. I do predict, however, that Huckabee would carry Mississippi, although not Arkansas, New York, California, or Illinois. As the Rev. Rudes (and trust me, he is no along) and Larry Whites surface, Mike might have to start worrying about carrying Mississippi. Meanwhile, I wait for Larry Perrault to denounce his favorite pastor (and Mike's?), Dr. White, and his garbage-laden piece in "God and Caesar." If Mike agrees even in part with Dr. White, then what is he doing running for President of this country? To Larry in Houston, I ask: have you ever considered Venezuela?

Larry

Mr. Maloney, who showed up months ago as a nice guy, has gone all ugly now that his money (or whatever it is) horse has fallen from his perch even in his erstwhile "firewall" of Florida. Call me wrong, but if anything, I’m honestly wrong. I’m also not the slightest bit tempted to “correction” by Stephen Maloney. Man, you’re too old to act that way! Don’t meet God in a bitter snit! Oh, and though I haven’t seen him in a couple of years, Laurence White is always smiling and pleasant to speak with. But, this conversation raises the opportunity to take a look at the Republican presidential field, as it stands.

Maybe you want to take a look at Mitt Romney, Steve, who at this point still holds forth in New Hampshire, though he's flailing in Iowa, where he should get 2nd, but if he doesn't win Iowa, he WON"T win South Carolina or Florida or probably not even his papa's stomping grounds in Michigan. But, he looks better than Giuliani. And btw, I might vote for Romney if he wins, though it's looking like I won't have to face that awful choice. It's bad enough that he is just a political opportunist who uses polls as a tuning fork for his rhetoric. But, the really awful prospect is that he poses another eight years of relative inaction on restoring the American spirit: he has more than adequately demonstrated his incompetence in that regard. Romney would be another establishment Republican administrator. George H.W. Bush confessed that he wasn’t much on “the vision thing.” But even he had the substance of more integrity and resolve than Romney. But, Dick Morris said that Romney “doesn’t have a prayer in Hell of beating Hillary.” Maybe he could beat Barrack on resume and plain o’ life experience.

But, it’s correct that I WON”T be voting for Rudolph Giuliani for a job for which he is definitionally unqualified, but for which he looks unlikely to even attain an opportunity to contest a Democrat for. John McCain is also demonstrably philosophically opaque and unsuited to be the chief executive charged with protecting and defending The Constitution. But, it’s conceivable that he could finish strong in New Hampshire and the public forgive him and turn back to a known quantity after rejecting everyone else: in some ways, he looks more likely than Giuliani or Romney. But, I think he’s a good man and an honorable patriot and would be happy for Huckabee to give him a suitable post in an administration, which doesn’t seem unlikely. Fred Thompson is also philosophically ambiguous and one might raise the same question about whether he should be in an administration but…WHY and WHERE? Anyway, if he doesn’t gain a respectable 3^rd in Iowa, he can probably start looking for acting jobs, again.

??What is Rudy Giuliani's experience in foreign policy? I ask not because it’s such a sober question: it isn't. America has, in fact, elected mostly governors as president. Governors don't have the kind of "experience in foreign policy" that Maloney is talking about. It doesn't take this vague idea of "experience in foreign policy," which surely people have who are all over the map in terms of ideology and wisdom. It takes principle and resolve. In fact, probably the two 20th century presidents with the most resolute and successful accomplishments had none of this prior "foreign policy experience": FDR and Reagan. Neither did G.W. Bush or Bill Clinton.

Though Giuliani’s “foreign policy (in)experience” doesn’t dazzle me, he would rely on military strategists and thinkers like Norman Podhoretz, like any defense-responsible president would. (Come to think of it, Thompson might first need to hire someone to assemble a cabinet) Do you seriously think President Huckabee would leave the world untended and America undefended? In addition to McCain, he’s lean on people like Duncan Hunter and Frank Gaffney and others.

There are still 3 weeks for Romney, Giuliani, and McCain to smear Mike Huckabee with something that the public perceives as terrible and they will surely mightily try, so I won’t count them out, yet. At least it would be interesting to watch the Republican voters return to sniffing around the reject pile. Thompson looks like the longest shot, but his best chance might be if he’s the only remaining candidate that the voters can stomach. Hunter and Tom Tancredo I like some things about. But, they definitely lack a leadership quality for uplifting America that Mike Huckabee plainly has. Have you really not looked at the Democrat blogs and seen the expressions of either electoral fear or personal admiration, or are you just too proud to admit it? I have conversed with such people on the ‘net and in person. Huckabee definitely weakens one of the strongest sentimental motivations that Democrats have on their side: that Republicans are rich guys only looking out for rich guys. Never mind how true that sentiment is or isn’t. The perception is an indisputable reality. And, it is plainly untrue of Huckabee.

Oh, and what about Ron Paul? He has the money and the intensity (his own and his followers”), so that I don’t think he’s going away. But, I don’t see him getting less than 5% or more than 15%. Look for a melee from his followers at The Republican National Convention

I hope Huckabee faces Clinton, who has unprecedented negatives. There are a LOT of Democrats who wince at the prospect of voting for Hillary Clinton. Oh, well: at least she might have YOU. Hillary’s brightest potential is that her gender might draw out voters who otherwise wouldn’t vote. Otherwise she’d probably need a third-party or a great population of stay at home Republicans protesting social conservatism “stealing OUR party!”

Any Republican nominee would ride the youth and inexperience angle against Barack Obama, and appropriately so. Give him credit for belting out syntactically correct sentences. He needs them, because substantively, there isn’t a lot there.

See This Short Video: What We Need/We Just Need To Do The Right Thing

This video was posted at the campaign blog, today: What We Need

One of the friends that I sent it to responded…” Thank you Larry, I agree completely! I truly hope he wins....I will forward this to friends...”

I answered with these comments about what forces were at work:

Thanks. I honestly think that the battle is in the early states. In Iowa, conservative Christians like Huckabee. In a vacuum, he would win, especially after he has aired some television ads. What’s working against Huckabee is ironically, the people that should be for him. The old guard social conservatives like him, but they are so tuned to the conventional media that they don’t have confidence in the work that Huckabee has done and what he has accomplished in the early states. How much will their neglect persuade people who like Huckabee to not vote for him? Prominent talk-radio host Hugh Hewitt has been declaring that it’s really a two-man race and any social conservative who votes for Huckabee or Thompson is taking a vote from Romney and in effect voting for Giuliani. He even went so far as to say that supporters of McCain and Giuliani are working for Huckabee and Thompson to derail Giuliani.

That’s an interesting thought, but it has crossed over into delusion when he says he thinks that’s what Giuliani and McCain did at the Ames Straw Poll in August to give Huckabee a strong showing. Giuliani and McCain passed on competing in the Ames Straw Poll and snubbed Iowa Republicans, obviously because they knew that they couldn’t win by trying. And, EVERONE knows that that didn’t sit too well with Iowa voters. Huckabee’s success at that straw poll was simple straight-up face-to-face engagement and persuasion.

Voters just need to ignore what they always thought were their “leaders,” which is now an especially inapt word because the “leaders” are really followers. And they aren’t even following their constituents but the faithless winds of the popular culture. People can now do all of their own investigation and should. You can access information in any form on the Internet and weight it and see what you like for yourself.

Anyway, if Huckabee does well in the early states, I’m sure he’ll do just fine in Texas.

Larry