Initial Thoughts On Palin Interview

Sarah Palin's first major interview was with Charlie Gibson of ABC.  The first segment of it aired last night, and two more segments are forthcoming.  I will post more details after the completed interview becomes public (if it's worth doing), but I wanted to offer up some general observations from the first night.

First off, I was pretty bummed that my local ABC affiliate didn't feel this interview was worth airing.  At least, if it was aired, it wasn't advertised much and it wasn't listed on the cable TV listings!  I tuned in to the channel a couple times through the evening, but never found it.  I did manage to find some video clips online, though, and I'll post those later.

ABC got the first shot at this juicy interview, and it appears that they're in the process of flubbing it badly.  The most immediate impression is of Gibson, who is sitting back with his legs crossed, his half-glasses perched partway down his nose.  As he asks the questions, he comes across as pretty condescending, and it appears that he's quizzing a student to see if she has the right answers.  This may have been inadvertent, but it is still the impression that comes across (again, I'll post the videos in a few days so you can see it for yourself).  That will likely fall into the media backlash that is already running high in the country right now.  Second, the segments that I saw were edited very badly, and it such a way that makes Palin look like a bit of a dunce who is simply repeating memorized talking points.  There are obvious breaks in the video, sometimes even between the end of Gibson's question and the beginning of Palin's answer.  Personally, I'd like to know what was cut out.  He also appears to badger her a bit, like here:

GIBSON: Do we have a right to anticipatory self-defense? Do we have a right to make a preemptive strike again another country if we feel that country might strike us?

PALIN: Charlie, if there is legitimate and enough intelligence that tells us that a strike is imminent against American people, we have every right to defend our country. In fact, the president has the obligation, the duty to defend.

GIBSON: Do we have the right to be making cross-border attacks into Pakistan from Afghanistan, with or without the approval of the Pakistani government?

PALIN: Now, as for our right to invade, we're going to work with these countries, building new relationships, working with existing allies, but forging new, also, in order to, Charlie, get to a point in this world where war is not going to be a first option. In fact, war has got to be, a military strike, a last option.

GIBSON: But, Governor, I'm asking you: We have the right, in your mind, to go across the border with or without the approval of the Pakistani government.

PALIN: In order to stop Islamic extremists, those terrorists who would seek to destroy America and our allies, we must do whatever it takes and we must not blink, Charlie, in making those tough decisions of where we go and even who we target.

GIBSON: And let me finish with this. I got lost in a blizzard of words there. Is that a yes? That you think we have the right to go across the border with or without the approval of the Pakistani government, to go after terrorists who are in the Waziristan area?

PALIN: I believe that America has to exercise all options in order to stop the terrorists who are hell bent on destroying America and our allies. We have got to have all options out there on the table.

I think she stayed pretty consistent, don't you think?  Is he just heckling her, or what?  Anyway, the net effect of this on the video is that she looks like she's simply repeating the same talking point over and over, and it seems that that was ABC's intent.

On the topic of word blizzards, Kathryn Jean Lopez offers a comparison of Palin's 43-word response to one of Joe Biden's interview responses which stretched to a whopping 290 words.  This was also illustrated at the Saddleback forum, where Obama came across as verbose in his attempt to look thoughtful and introspective, but where McCain offered short and to the point answers.  I think people want short and to the point, but that's just my opinion.

Another note of controversy is that of the question about Palin's prayer that our troops were performing God's mission.  From Michelle Malkin:

GIBSON: You said recently, in your old church, "Our national leaders are sending U.S. soldiers on a task that is from God." Are we fighting a holy war?

PALIN: You know, I don't know if that was my exact quote.

GIBSON: Exact words.

PALIN: But the reference there is a repeat of Abraham Lincoln's words when he said — first, he suggested never presume to know what God's will is, and I would never presume to know God's will or to speak God's words.

But what Abraham Lincoln had said, and that's a repeat in my comments, was let us not pray that God is on our side in a war or any other time, but let us pray that we are on God's side.

That's what that comment was all about, Charlie.

GIBSON: I take your point about Lincoln's words, but you went on and said, "There is a plan and it is God's plan."

What she actually said:

"Pray for our military men and women who are striving to do what is right. Also, for this country, that our leaders, our national leaders, are sending [U.S. soldiers] out on a task that is from God," she exhorted the congregants. "That's what we have to make sure that we're praying for, that there is a plan and that that plan is God's plan."

A bit more clarification:

Totally untrue, but that's what he gets for relying on the Associated Press, which took the liberty of bowdlerizing her quote mid-sentence in order to make it fit the narrative they were trying to build of her as some fundie who thinks she can read God's mind.

Gibson missed this one so badly that even the L.A. Times figured it out:

Gibson, however, mischaracterized her as simply asserting that the nation's leaders were sending troops to Iraq on a task from God.

"Are we fighting a holy war?" he asked.

After Palin disputed his characterization, she paraphrased Abraham Lincoln, saying she meant, "Let us not pray that God is on our side in a war or any other time, but let us pray that we are on God's side."

Gibson went on to take a second part of her comments out of context. Palin had asked the group to pray "that there is a plan, and that plan is God's plan."

But Gibson dropped her reference to praying -- and instead quoted Palin as saying the war was God's plan. He asked if she believed the country was sending her son on a task from God.

"I don't know if the task is from God, Charlie," she responded, adding that she was proud of Track for "serving something greater than himself."

Of course, the Times screwed up other parts of the story, but even a partial stab at objectivity is progress for them.

The final item of much conversation is that of the Bush Doctrine.  Here's the exchange:

GIBSON: Do you agree with the Bush doctrine?

PALIN: In what respect, Charlie?

GIBSON: The Bush -- well, what do you -- what do you interpret it to be?

PALIN: His world view.

GIBSON: No, the Bush doctrine, enunciated September 2002, before the Iraq war.

PALIN: I believe that what President Bush has attempted to do is rid this world of Islamic extremism, terrorists who are hell bent on destroying our nation. There have been blunders along the way, though. There have been mistakes made. And with new leadership, and that's the beauty of American elections, of course, and democracy, is with new leadership comes opportunity to do things better.

GIBSON: The Bush doctrine, as I understand it, is that we have the right of anticipatory self-defense, that we have the right to a preemptive strike against any other country that we think is going to attack us. Do you agree with that?

PALIN: I agree that a president's job, when they swear in their oath to uphold our Constitution, their top priority is to defend the United States of America.

I know that John McCain will do that and I, as his vice president, families we are blessed with that vote of the American people and are elected to serve and are sworn in on January 20, that will be our top priority is to defend the American people.

The Weekly Standard identifies the problems with Gibson's questioning here:

Gibson should of course have said in the first place what he understood the Bush Doctrine to be--and specified that he was asking a question about preemption. Palin was well within bounds to have asked him to be more specific. Because, as it happens, the doctrine has no universally acknowledged single meaning. Gibson himself in the past has defined the Bush Doctrine to mean "a promise that all terrorist organizations with global reach will be found, stopped and defeated"--which is remarkably close to Palin's own answer.

They go on to quote a wide variety of interpretations of the 'Bush Doctrine' just within the sphere of ABC News.  Guess how many there are?  Nine.  And that's just from a cursory look, so there are probably more.  So, the idea that Palin doesn't understand the Bush Doctrine can only be made by people who don't understand it themselves (like Gibson), since there isn't an official 'correct answer' to what it means.  If you look at the general idea, though, Palin clearly gets it.

Something that isn't a surprise at all is the fact that ABC appears to have initially overstated her failure in the interview to make her look a bit more favorably on war with Russia than her actual words convey. 

All in all, it was a solid outing, at least in the first segment.  She didn't knock the ball out of the park, but given that the balls she was pitched were bowling balls, that's hardly a surprise.  It will be interesting to see the rest of the interview, and it would be really useful to see the entire, uncut version.  After all, context is key in this sort of conversation, especially when ABC has already admitted an attempt to over-hype and mis-characterize her statements.

Yuval Levin has a pretty even-handed reaction to the interview, but asks a key question that I think should be put out there:

And by the way, when do we get to hear Barack Obama explain why he thinks he's ready on day one?

That's an answer I'd like to hear.

There's my two cents.