Some hard hitting stuff Charlie. Hard hitting.

The link didn't work for me.

fixing links, sit tight

Dispiriting, perhaps -- the headline on ABC News right now is that Palin just said "we may have to go to war with Russia".

Now, maybe Gibson tried to softball things and she imploded anyway. But Jesus Christ on a hotdog bun - imploded she did.

Even in the depths of the cold war, NO ONE would have seen casually threatening war with Russia as a "good plan", nor a sign of the sort of politician we needed.

I can't imagine a country as war-weary as ours is now would find this remotely appealing.

Gov. Sarah Palin took a hard-line approach on national security and said that war with Russia may be necessary if that nation invades another country.

In fairness to her, maybe her tutors only got through the 1970s in her lessons. She may not realize how it all turned out.

Boy, her answers sure sound coached.

I just threw up in my mouth a little bit.

http://strategy08.wordpress.com

wow...the McCain team really made sure that she said "blink" a whole lot in this interview.

We cannot repeat the Cold War. We are thankful that, under Reagan, we won the Cold War, without a shot fired, also. We've learned lessons from that in our relationship with Russia, previously the Soviet Union.

We will not repeat a Cold War. We must have good relationship with our allies, pressuring, also, helping us to remind Russia that it's in their benefit, also, a mutually beneficial relationship for us all to be getting along.

GIBSON: Would you favor putting Georgia and Ukraine in NATO?

PALIN: Ukraine, definitely, yes. Yes, and Georgia.

GIBSON: Because Putin has said he would not tolerate NATO incursion into the Caucasus.

PALIN: Well, you know, the Rose Revolution, the Orange Revolution, those actions have showed us that those democratic nations, I believe, deserve to be in NATO.

Putin thinks otherwise. Obviously, he thinks otherwise, but...

GIBSON: And under the NATO treaty, wouldn't we then have to go to war if Russia went into Georgia?

PALIN: Perhaps so. I mean, that is the agreement when you are a NATO ally, is if another country is attacked, you're going to be expected to be called upon and help.

But NATO, I think, should include Ukraine, definitely, at this point and I think that we need to -- especially with new leadership coming in on January 20, being sworn on, on either ticket, we have got to make sure that we strengthen our allies, our ties with each one of those NATO members.

We have got to make sure that that is the group that can be counted upon to defend one another in a very dangerous world today.

GIBSON: And you think it would be worth it to the United States, Georgia is worth it to the United States to go to war if Russia were to invade.

PALIN: What I think is that smaller democratic countries that are invaded by a larger power is something for us to be vigilant against. We have got to be cognizant of what the consequences are if a larger power is able to take over smaller democratic countries.

And we have got to be vigilant. We have got to show the support, in this case, for Georgia. The support that we can show is economic sanctions perhaps against Russia, if this is what it leads to.

It doesn't have to lead to war and it doesn't have to lead, as I said, to a Cold War, but economic sanctions, diplomatic pressure, again, counting on our allies to help us do that in this mission of keeping our eye on Russia and Putin and some of his desire to control and to control much more than smaller democratic countries.

His mission, if it is to control energy supplies, also, coming from and through Russia, that's a dangerous position for our world to be in, if we were to allow that to happen.

Copyright © 2008 ABC News Internet Ventures

I hope you didn't think this would be a Pulitzer or Peabody award winning interview. You knew this was going to be worse than Barbara Walters interviewing Paris Hilton, didn't you? Surely you didn't think she would say, "Oh no Charlie, I'm completely unprepared to lead and in over my head"?

at this point I should be happy that Gibson guy did not ask her about Rev. Wrihgt and Ayers? This is pathetic.

Gibson: Oh, and Governor Palin, could you tell the American people in our listening audience why, in your opinion, your opponent, celebrity candidate Barack Hussein Obama, loves himself more than he loves America?

This is what's known as putting lipstick on a mushroom cloud.

word salad. Sounds like an earnest 8th grade student trying to remember what the teacher said yesterday. But getting it wrong.

Lincoln comparison doesn't parse.

Russia stuff is scary.

It doesn't look like she explicitly said something like "let's go to war with Russia", but rather, "these countries shoudl be a part of NATO and if Russia attacks them, it's NATO's job to defend them".

HOWEVER, the absolute HUBRIS of not even considering whether she would serve the interests of the country, or if she was truly prepared is astonishing. If someone truly loved their country, wouldn't you at least THINK about it for a second??? She says she never did.

That's not confidence, it truly is hubris and mavrick-y, but in a cowboy sense. Just like the old.

Well, from this I don't have high hopes that she'll say anything too far off message.

But in her over-confidence and "good/bad" "God's plan" blather she sounds like no one so much as George W Bush to me.

Re: Track's deployment...

"What I know is that my son has made a decision. I am so proud of his independent and strong decision he has made, what he decided to do and serving for the right reasons..."

Word has it that Track was involved in some kind of criminal vandalism or criminal mischief and joining the military was so he could avoid other "penalties."

I would also note that Obama got all kinds of hell for suggesting that we may have to stage incursions into Pakistan. That's pretty tame stuff compared to nuclear war with Russia.

It's so easy to dismiss any and everything with the all-purpose bullshit convenient phrase: Low Information Voter.

I mean really - there is not one positive argument that cannot be countered with: "Well, Americans are stupid so what does it matter?"

What I'd really like to know is: If you really believe that, what the hell are you doing here? Why do you care?

That's the ultimate in liberal nihilism. I've used actual facts to explode this now a half dozen times and nobody pays attention.

So I'm just going to be frank: you sound like a bunch of college students in a polisci or soc class. Honest to god.

"So I didn't blink then even when asked to run as his running mate." BS! I'll do some digging but in a presser a few months back Sarah told me that if she was asked she'd probably decline because she didn't want to leave Alaska. I have it on tape somewhere. DZ AlaskaReport.com

Sarah Palin: 2; Josh Marshall: still 0

Another ratings smash blowing up in the face of the "Free Sarah Palin" idiots. America thanks you for setting her up, once again.

Oh, and Josh - please stop whining already. She's not going away.

Lukewarm pablum. Delivered straight from ABC's tittie to the hungry mouths of America's junk food junkies.

I say again.

Get out there and volunteer, damn it.

Well, I wish I thought it was a trainwreck, but I think she's pulling it off in these excerpts--even the Russia comment is couched vaguely enough: it simply won't play as a decisive liability. Only a comment that's so far out of bounds not even wingnuts will applaud it will hurt her. There's no reason she can't continue to give these coached answers to predictable questions. And the questions ARE predictable, but not so bad they'll produce an outcry. She's lying about her "task from God"
remarks, and contradicting herself, but all that counts is that she play the game of knowing what to say when asked about it: won't matter that she did.

Coupled with the ridiculously low expectations (that anything beyond drooling on herself is commendable), this will be taken as a coup for her.

Again, simply surviving an interview without a universally condemned gaffe establishes nothing--but that's the standard in play.

Convince me I'm wrong.

I think she's pulling it off in these excerpts

Of course she's pulling it off. This is slow-pitch softball. Any REAL interviewer would have followed up on her statement that we might need to go to war with Russia. Any real interviewer would have reduced her to the steaming pile of pure bullshit that is her core and her essence.

This wasn't an interview. It's what's commonly known in the industry as a "puff piece".

A war with Russia? That's kind of like starting a land war with Asia.

Field Marshal Bernard L. Montgomery (Viscount Alamein) in a speech in the House of Lords on 30 May 1962: "Rule 1, on page 1 of the book of war is: 'Do not march on Moscow.' ... Rule 2 is: 'Do not go fighting with your land armies in China.'"

8/29/08: Palin dissed veep job
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0808/12969.html

"Larry Kudlow of CNBC’s “Kudlow & Co.” asked her about the possibility of becoming McCain's ticket mate.

Palin replied: “As for that VP talk all the time, I’ll tell you, I still can’t answer that question until somebody answers for me what is it exactly that the VP does every day? I’m used to being very productive and working real hard in an administration. We want to make sure that that VP slot would be a fruitful type of position, especially for Alaskans and for the things that we’re trying to accomplish up here for the rest of the U.S., before I can even start addressing that question.”"

And yet now she says she never hesitated at all???? SERIOUSLY NOW!

If you haven't seen this yet - do look at it. It makes me feel so much better every time I click it open -

http://punditkitchen.com/2008/09/05/political-pictures-barack-obama-chill-out-got-this/

Does Sarah Palin love America as much as Reverend Wright?

The way she kinda skipped over it............
I don't think Sarah knows the word "hubris".

The dumb........

I'm reading the 'mission' stuff a little differently.

Sounds like she's on a mission from God.

Think of it that way, and it re-casts the word 'reform' as well.

Double. Fucking. Scary.

"Rule 1, on page 1 of the book of war is: 'Do not march on Moscow.' ... Rule 2 is: 'Do not go fighting with your land armies in China.'"

Field Marshal Bernard L. Montgomery (Viscount Alamein) in a speech in the House of Lords on 30 May 1962

War with Russia is a really, really BAD idea. In 2008, it's something to run on.

I don't know what the effect on swing voters will be.

But I would guess that this will become a screaming headline on HuffPo and generate at least $5mil in donations for Obama. There are a lot of Dems out there who have this complacent idea that McCain can't be as bad as Bush.

They're soooo wrong.

She wore a brown jacket in that interview.

heh heh heh

one of the little tricks of the trade that trial lawyers learn is don't wear brown if you want to be believed. Wear dark blue.

I am a Russian speaking American physicist with considerable international experience. What I have written below is a not unlikely outcome under a President Palin, if she believes what she is said to believe in in the leaked ABC interview.

======================

Here is how WW I started. Three Bosnian separatists, Gavrilo Princip, Nedjelko Cabrinovic and Trifko Grabez were suffering from tuberculosis and knew they would not live long. They all agreed they were willing to give their life for what they believed was a great cause: independence of Bosnia-Herzegovina—a small, ethnic minority region with its own language and traditions--achieving independence from Austro-Hungary. So they bombed and shot Austrian Archduke Ferdinand. They were captured, and all three died in prison of TB.

As Wikipedia notes, "the retaliation by Austria-Hungary against the Kingdom of Serbia activated a series of alliances that set off a chain reaction of war declarations. Within a month, much of Europe was in a state of open warfare."

Fast forward to the Palin administration. She gets the Ukraine and Georgia admitted to NATO, who promises to protect them from Russia. Now,

Both countries are headed by extreme nationalists, but the president of Georgia is a real hothead with dreams of re-establishing dominion over ancient Georgian lands of Abkhazia and Ossetia, even though these are now mainly occupied by non-Georgian minorities who inhabit both sides of the Georgian-Russian border. During the last year of the Bush administration, he instituted programs of progressive discrimination against "impure Georgians" and eventually ethnic cleansing,causing Ossetians and Abkhaz to appeal through their relatives in Russia for protection from what they fear will become genocide.

During the 2008 Olympics, the Georgian president tried a sneak attack on Ossetia, but is repulsed by the vastly superior Red Army, who captures the Ossetian and Abkaz lands inside Georgia and ultimately annexes them, citing both security and humanitarian concerns.

After Georgia becomes a NATO member during Palin's administration, its President is under immense popular pressure to recapture lost Georgian territory. With the US committed to defend Georgia, he attacks Russia without warning his NATO allies. The Red Army counterattacks and easily overruns most of Georgia, and the President appeals for help from NATO from his mountain stronghold. Russia seeks negotiations with the US via the UN, arguing that it acted to protect itself from immediate and future attacks.

Amidst the international outcry and chaos, Russian-speaking, Eastern Orthodox residents of the Eastern Ukraine, who comprise over 1/4 of Ukraine's population, decide (with some help from embedded Russian agents) to seize their chance to break away from Ukrainian-speaking, Catholic Western Ukraine so as to join the Russian Federation. The Red Army quickly enters the Ukraine and establishes a frontier about half way between Kharkov and Kiev.

The Ukrainian president (whose wife is American by birth) also appeals to NATO for help.

President Palin orders all US citizens in Russia to leave Russia immediately, but says she is committed to reaching an agreement. One week later, when she hears that all the Americans are out of Russia, she demands impossible concessions from Russia, and negotiations break down.

The next morning, she orders a nuclear first strike on Russia, having been assured by her neo-con advisors and the CEOs of major military contractors that the US missile defense system in Western Europe will protect the US from attack. Russia detects the US attack, realizes it is going to be hit hard, and launches its entire inventory of ballistic missiles at targets in the US and Western Europe. The Russians also launch their secretly developed dummy missiles with countermeasures, which deceive the US missile defense system sufficiently that more than one half of the Russian missiles survive.

In the resulting conflagration, all the cities in European Russia and the lower 48 US states are completely destroyed, along with the capital cities of Western Europe. The US and Russia are essentially uninhabitable. The untouched Ukraine and Georgia become major local powers in their regions.

I'm so f'ed. Russia will nuke the hell out of DC, and I live just outside it. At least I won't feel a thing.

Yeah, but she has executive experience and knows energy...

AKA, we're FUBAR'd.

I got the impression that she did not know what "hubris" even meant. But maybe I am just a liberal elitist.

Oh please, is something along the lines of the following what Palin should have said?:

GIBSON: Governor, let me start by asking you a question that I asked John McCain about you, and it is really the central question. Can you look the country in the eye and say "I have the experience and I have the ability to be not just vice president, but perhaps president of the United States of America?"

Palin: Well Charles, I'm pretty sure I have the experience and ability, at least I think so, I guess.

GIBSON: And [when McCain asked you to be his running mate] you didn't say to yourself, "Am I experienced enough? Am I ready? Do I know enough about international affairs? Do I -- will I feel comfortable enough on the national stage to do this?"

Palin: God did I ever! Heck, I'm still not 100% sure I can handle the job!

GIBSON: Didn't that take some hubris?

Palin: Of course, but in the end I always indulge my delusions of grandeur.

Don't get me wrong, if McCain wins, I think I'd better avoid walking across any high bridges for a while, if you read me. But though I must admit I didn't read/see the whole of the interview, this passage is beyond inane, and the inanity can be credited to Gibson, not Gov. Palin.

Robert

Actually those were NOT her exact words. The first part of her sentence is found in part one of her appearance, but most people apparently have only listened to part 2.