Palin on Pakistan Strikes
CBS News’ Scott Conroy reports:
(PHILADELPHIA) Sarah Palin told a customer at a Philadelphia restaurant on Saturday that the United States should “absolutely” launch cross-border attacks from Afghanistan into Pakistan in the event that it becomes necessary to “stop the terrorists from coming any further in,” a comment similar to the one John McCain condemned Barack Obama for making during last night’s presidential debate.
Normally we’ve seen Sarah Palin either engages in gaffes where she says something that doesn’t make sense or else we’ve seen her say stuff that isn’t true. Now, though, she’s entered into the realm of the Kinsley gaffe where she’s just not well-briefed enough to remember the McCain campaign’s convoluted talking points on this issue. Instead, she went with the common sense position — Obama’s position.
40 Responses to “Palin on Pakistan Strikes”
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September 28th, 2008 at 11:48 am
Maybe she just got the early word that McCain was changing his position…again.
September 28th, 2008 at 11:55 am
When Stephanopolous pressed McCain on this issue his response was that she should not be held responsible for answers given to impromptu questions.
September 28th, 2008 at 11:56 am
How in the hell is launching military attacks on the soil of a sovereign nation that has said they don’t want us to do so “common sense”?! We absolutely have to work with the government of Pakistan to try to clamp down on these insurgents hiding in Waziristan, but if Pakistan says no and then proceeds to shoot at us, it’s crazy to do otherwise.
I can’t believe a Democrat is saying this.
September 28th, 2008 at 12:05 pm
How far away are we from the day when all this briefing makes Palin more knowledgable than McCain? We can’t be far off now; it’s a very low bar to clear.
September 28th, 2008 at 12:07 pm
MSW: I honestly can’t tell if you’re kidding.
September 28th, 2008 at 12:17 pm
The maverick of my maverick is an uber-maverick.
September 28th, 2008 at 12:20 pm
FAIL
please stop arguing for ANOTHER war.
Obama is flat out wrong here.
September 28th, 2008 at 12:20 pm
I agree with David that, just because Obama needs to adopt certain hawkish principles to get elected, is no reason for us to embrace those principles.
September 28th, 2008 at 12:22 pm
Maybe watching the debate from a noisy Philadelphia bar is not the best way to hear your running mate’s positions.
Anyway…
The idea that Palin would be taken off the ticket has always seemed inconceivable to me. But I would say the odds are 50/50 now. And I think McCain is desperate enough to do it.
Bear in mind that Giuliani and Romney and Liebermann have whole armies of allies out there undercutting Palin at every turn, and advancing ‘rescue plans’ that involve their man coming in as savior.
Giuliani is the one who appeared as the de facto VP man Friday night; so my money’s on him.
September 28th, 2008 at 12:24 pm
tomemos,
I’m not kidding. McCain went on to brag about how proud he is that Palin is his VP pick, how much excitement she has added to the campaign, etc.
September 28th, 2008 at 12:26 pm
“The idea that Palin would be taken off the ticket has always seemed inconceivable to me. But I would say the odds are 50/50 now. And I think McCain is desperate enough to do it.”
People just won’t give this up, will they? If McCain dropped Palin now, the rage of the evangelicals combined with his campaign’s obvious incompetence would make it a Dukakis-type situation. He’d struggle to win a single state.
September 28th, 2008 at 12:27 pm
It’s nice that this happened just as the last few Palin dead enders are mounting a “Free Palin!” campaign on the Corner. After watching her implode in interview after interview, they’ve convinced themselves the solution is… to let Palin be Palin. They’d like McCain to stop treating her as a, you know, campaign surrogate who needs to speak on message. And they think she needs to stop pretending to be a, you know, vice presidential candidate who needs to be knowledgeable about the issues. Just let her say any damned thing, they argue, because she’s so charming and has good instincts and people will vote for that shit!
Well, that doesn’t work either, we see now. Palin Withdraws is only trading around 10% on Intrade. Sounds like a safer bet than the money markets right now.
September 28th, 2008 at 12:29 pm
So, McCain doesn’t care that Palin disagrees with him because he just doesn’t think she knew what she was saying? That’s some sexism right there.
September 28th, 2008 at 12:35 pm
Palin is botox applied to the corpse of the McCain campaign.
September 28th, 2008 at 12:42 pm
Obama’s position is that if we know Osama’s position in Pakistan, and the Pakistani government is either unwilling or unable to help us get him, then his administration would take action, not against Pakistan, but against Osama. I don’t think this position is totally wrong. (It might depend on exact circumstances.) Also, I don’t think this position is any different than what the U.S. has been saying and doing since the Clinton administration. Remember when Clinton destroyed that pharmaceutical factory in Sudan?
September 28th, 2008 at 12:48 pm
“Also, I don’t think this position is any different than what the U.S. has been saying and doing since the Clinton administration. Remember when Clinton destroyed that pharmaceutical factory in Sudan?”
Did we think that was awesome?
September 28th, 2008 at 12:50 pm
tomemos, I wasn’t in favor of it.
September 28th, 2008 at 12:50 pm
Call me a fanboy, but I think Obama knows you need to be pro- at least 1 war to win an election nowadays.
September 28th, 2008 at 1:01 pm
Roddy, I gathered; I’m just saying that my objection isn’t that he’s taking a Republican position, it’s that he’s taking a bellicose position, ergo it doesn’t matter if it was Clinton’s position as well.
September 28th, 2008 at 1:21 pm
I don’t think launching a strike inside Pakistan would be particularly awesome, but calling it a war is going a bit overboard.
Obama’s not talking about bombing downtown Karachi. He’s talking about hitting a camp or something in the sparsely settled mountain area on the border with Afghanistan. And certainly not skirmishing with Pakistani forces – they don’t really have any there anyway, that’s sort of the problem.
If Pakistan as a whole isn’t a failed state, the border region is certainly a failed, ungoverned region. I don’t know what exactly international law says on the subject, but contra McCain, targeted airstrikes in such an area wouldn’t exactly be unprecedented or unpardonable.
The big concern isn’t war with Pakistan, it’s more what kind of mess it might make with internal Pakistani politics. (Another cost of the Iraq war – The Pakistani leadership and public would have find something like that a lot easier to support without it…)
September 28th, 2008 at 1:31 pm
McCain was asked about this on “This Week”, and said:
“In all due respect, people going around and… sticking a microphone while conversations are being held, and then all of a sudden that’s—that’s a person’s position… This is a free country, but I don’t think most Americans think that that’s a definitve policy statement made by Governor Palin.”
Apparently, McCain’s position is that it’s outrageous to try to infer Palin’s personal views from one of those rare occasions when she answers a question. Rather, the only authoratative source for Palin’s views is McCain campaign talking points.
September 28th, 2008 at 1:35 pm
The Governor of Alaska just had a nice photo op with Mr Ten Percent, also known as the President of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. There was overt sexual tension going on. (This is on record.)
We could try and sell Ms Palin to Pakistan, and then sell Alaska to Mr. Putin. Even though there may not be a trillion there, I guess both transactions will show black, not red, on the bottom line.
September 28th, 2008 at 1:39 pm
As far as I can tell, McCain’s position on all this is not that Obama is wrong, but rather that he shouldn’t be saying it. So it isn’t surprising poor Palin echoed Obama’s position, since it is actually McCain’s real position–she just forgot she wasn’t supposed to admit that.
September 28th, 2008 at 3:11 pm
#21: what he said…
Why should we expect a candidate to both say something *and* mean it?
September 28th, 2008 at 3:14 pm
tomemos, I think jack lecou at #20 well stated what I was trying to say. What Obama is proposing is not a war, and it is not unprecedented. I would add that the advisability of such a strike would be highly dependent on the actual circumstances. However, as a general point, what Obama said is fairly unremarkable.
September 28th, 2008 at 3:39 pm
Roddy, point taken.
Does anyone have video of McCain dismissing Palin’s statement?
September 28th, 2008 at 3:42 pm
Just answered my own question: http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/09/28/sarah-palin-contradicts-mccains-pakistan-position-while-ordering-some-cheese-steaks/
September 28th, 2008 at 4:50 pm
John Berryman (a famous poet 35 years ago, but largely forgotten today) wrote,
“Life, friends, is boring.
We must not say so.”
During the debates, John McCain said, essentially, that we should do as Obama has said. Only we must not say so. The distinction was lost on everyone including Palin. Now, only McCain understands his position.
September 28th, 2008 at 5:53 pm
Matt,
You have not clearly weighed the costs and benefits of the willingness to engage in cross-border attacks on al Qaeda or the Taliban position recently, and as others are commenting, what with the heightening tensions between our two countries and the shooting that has recently taken place, an elaboration of your conclusions and reasoning would be useful.
September 28th, 2008 at 11:19 pm
Anyone who hasn’t figured out by now that so-called “targeted air strikes” – which invariably end up killing civilians and missing their actual targets because they’re all based on crap intelligence – are a bad idea – because they radicalize the locals and destabilize the government – has no business running for President or voting for anybody who does.
Matt is an idiot on this subject, like he is on almost every area of foreign policy which requires some comprehension of the relevant region and some comprehension of military strategy and tactics and counterinsurgency.
In short, Matt just doesn’t get it.
Neither does McCain. Neither does Palin (big surprise there, right?) And neither does Obama.
Who does get it are the numerous military experts and regional experts who have weighed in on how the entire Afghan war and the evident intent to expand the war into Pakistan is a really, really bad idea that could end up starting a nuclear war between Pakistan and India as one really bad end result.
Get a goddamn clue, Yglesias.
September 29th, 2008 at 2:03 pm
John Berryman (a famous poet 35 years ago, but largely forgotten today)
Hey, his first “Dream Song” is probably my favorite single pome (though I don’t exactly love poetry).
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