Know Your (Warmongering, Insane) Candidate

Glenn sends us to Mark Hemingway at The Corner, who provides this bit of hysterical hysteria from Josh Marshall, reacting feverishly to the Palin-Gibson interview:

Wow, going to war with Russia might be necessary if Russia invades another one of the former states of the Soviet Union. So says Sarah Palin.

...[This] sort of shows the consequences of taking a freshman governor with no experience in foreign policy and giving her a ten day crash course with Randy Scheunemann and the rest of John McCain's neocon brain trust that got booted from the Bush inner circle for being too nutty.

Late Update: Do we all understand now why former Sen. Chafee (R-RI) called her a "cocky whacko" earlier this week?

I'll hold off on the punchline while I present this follow-up post in which Dr. Marshall expands and expounds on his theme:

Sarah Palin's "perhaps" in response to the question of whether we might have to go to war with Russia over Georgia is getting a lot of attention. The truth, though, is that Palin was doing little more that drawing out the logical inference of McCain & Co.'s unhinged policy vis a vis Russia -- not a huge surprise if you've just learned the policy in the last week.

Hmm, speaking of policies learned in the past week - in March of this year Obama supported NATO membership for Georgia and the Ukraine.  And did he back down during the scuffling in Georgia this August?  He did not:

Going forward, the United States and Europe must support the people of Georgia. Beyond immediate humanitarian assistance, we must provide economic assistance, and help rebuild what has been destroyed. I have consistently called for deepening relations between Georgia and transatlantic institutions, including a Membership Action Plan for NATO, and we must continue to press for that deeper relationship.

Too funny.  I think we can count on Dr. M to simply move on (what, you expect a correction or clarification? [Well, you get one, and its a whopper.]) but the real fun will be in seeing how many other Attack Drones follow his lead. 

So let's look in on Andrew:

All I have learned thus far is that a McCain administration would be prepared to go to war with Russia over Georgia...

Actually, folks who read the transcript learned that Charles Gibson is prepared to go to war with Russia - he misunderstands our NATO Article Five mutual defense obligation, which includes but is not limited to using force to defend a NATO ally.

Time dos not permit me to wallow in Marshall's embarrassment or to see how many sheep have followed him out to pasture.  But do enjoy the barrel-fishing.

PROPS WHERE DUE:  Kevin Drum:

This is not a gaffe of any kind.  Nor is it something that Palin blurted out due to inexperience.  John McCain's official position on NATO expansion is that we should include Georgia and Ukraine posthaste. This means that if either of those countries gets into a border skirmish — or worse — with Russia, the United States may be obligated to go to war on their behalf.

However, unless I'm mistaken, this is also Barack Obama's official position. So I wouldn't expect a whole lot of pushback on this from his camp.

THE LAUGHS KEEP COMING: Dr. Marshall backpedals, or at least staggers backwards in an attempted clarification:

Late Update:  A further point.  It's true that Obama and Biden both favor Georgia's accession into NATO -- a very bad policy position, as I've argued before. However, I do not think that their positions and McCain's positions are equal. The best analogy I can point to is the nominal agreement on Iraq policy (embodied in the Iraq Liberation Act) between the Clinton administration and the most radical neocons in the late 1990s. Nominally, they shared a policy. In practice, however, it was one group that was completely nuts and gung-ho in favor of a reckless idea and another that was sort of dabbling in and passively favoring the same policy. Not that that is saying much in the latter's favor. But there's a big difference.

Sure, there was a big difference on Iraq - Clinton was posturing and the neocons really believed the military option made sense.  But only the most delusional partisan could take Palin's answer, where she said "Perhaps" to Gibson's misstatement of our treaty obligation and then cited the intermediate steps we could take (such as sanctions) and turn that into advocacy of war with Russia.  Let me provide a snippet of her response as a reminder:

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.

But we are left wondering - Palin advocated economic sanctions to support our NATO treaty obligations in the hypothetical scenario described.  What does Dr. M imagine that Obama would suggest?  Would Obama completely ignore the treaty?  Declare war?  Or do something in between?

Maybe his 300 foreign policy advisers could put on their thinking caps on this one.  I don't know what they'll advise but I know it will be muscular.

Comments

[Mustang0302]

non-sean will get over his anger someday.
Then he'll turn 17 and learn that "girls aren't icky."

[M. Simon]

Guys,

I have a couple of good ones up this morning

Steal this picture - Goddess of Democracy some one needs to photoshop it and add eyeglasses. :-)

Worried - Not Yet Panicked. I have another of our favorites - the OODA loop. And I don't even mention it. :-) Nice quote from Bill Whittle though.

[M. Simon]

kim,

I worked "caviar and ashes" into "Worried" enjoy.

[bgates]

they want Murtha's ass so bad they can taste it.
Most unfortunate image, ever.

And I get a reminder to toss NotSean onto the ash heap of commenting, aka the troll list. Bye, NotSean! Stay miserable!

[Pofarmer]

Clarice is right on Obama's "pay equity for women" comment. This is not about requiring that a given job has the same pay regardless of whether it's a man or a woman. It's "comparable worth," which is the theory that pay needs to be equalized across different occupations. So (e.g.) if nurse's aides (mostly female) are determined to have roughly the equivalent skills to (e.g.) truck drivers (mostly male), and yet truck drivers make more, then the government decrees this to be gender discrimination and says that all nurse's aides must get paid more.

Obama's "Fair Pay Act" would require this. See here and here.

O.K.

If anybody can say with a straight face that that isn't Communist, then.........

[Gabriel Sutherland]

If anybody can say with a straight face that that isn't Communist, then.........

I may be wrong, but I don't think the Communists even went this far to declare that all jobs should pay the same. There's always going to be the "for the motherland" mumbo jumbo, but taxi driver making the same as a neuro surgeon?

Even the Communists have limits.

[clarice]

bgates, you have a point there on images--

Did you see this?
http://www.gallup.com/poll/110263/Battle-Congress-Suddenly-Looks-Competitive.aspx>Bedtime for Pelosi?
Gallup says the Reps may lose the House.

[M. Simon]

clarice,

Don't you mean "Donks may lose the House"?

[kim]

I'd like Palin to go to a Representative's district every day from now on. Talk about stampeding the Dems.
=========================================

[clarice]

Yes--I did M Simon--thanks for the catch..Isn't that amazing?

[bad]

I just tried to go to Steve Diamond's site, Global Labor, and was denied access. What's going on over there?

[DrJ]

Me too, bad. No idea what is going on.

[clarice]

Is it possible his site is swamped?

[rhodeymark]

Doktor Marshall & Chafee the Younger: two Rhode Island embarrassments who often miss excellent opportunities to Shut Up. Too bad 'lil Linc doesn't march in our St Patty's parade anymore - I would have been ready.

[bad]

clarice, that would be my preference to darker imaginings working their way through my thoughts.

[DrJ]

I sent Diamond an email to his academic address. Let's see what comes back.

[bad]

DrJ

Proffessor Diamond is quoted in every article about Ayers/Obama/Chicago Annenberg Challenge, both in print and on the web. Hope he is okay.

[DrJ]

We'll see, bad. I might give him a call later in the day if I don't hear back from him. He's just down the hill from me...

[bad]

WARNING: John Batchelor at Human Events took Professor Steve Diamond's hypothetical quotes and used them as if they were actual quotes.

Steve Diamond's blog has been changed to "invitation only". I have not heard back from him on why it is this way.

This is what he posted today that is behind the access wall.

A story has been posted tonight on Real Barack Obama authored by John Batchelor. It alleges the existence of a Plumbers Unit inside the Obama campaign that is aimed at blocking public access to the records of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge (CAC) at the University of Illinois and Brown University.

The story relies heavily on inaccurate and made up quotes from me. I never provided Real Barack Obama these quotes, I never spoke to John Batchelor for a story to be written for Real Barack Obama, I did not even know he was writing a piece for that website and I turned down an interview with him for the right wing magazine Human Events. (The email I sent to Batchelor is copied below.)

I have asked Batchelor to pull the story and remove the quotes and to only quote clearly and directly from Global Labor so that it is clear that I was not, in fact, interviewed by him.

If you see the Batchelor story referenced anywhere, PLEASE provide this correction. This is going to make the CAC story a non-story if this is profligated.

Posted by: Gabriel Sutherland | September 12, 2008 at 11:38 AM

[clarice]

I wrote to Lucianne explaining Diamond's position. Don't know if anyone will read it or act on that.

[PapayaSF]

Gabriel Sutherland: I may not have been clear. "Comparable worth" advocates don't claim to want every job to pay the same, they want "comparable" jobs that usually employ women to pay the same as "comparable" jobs that usually employ men. Because they think any difference must be due to sexism.

It's not full-blown communism, but it's pretty heavy-duty socialism and would be lots of new work for trial lawyers.

[Quasiblogger]

Publius:

"Your comment implies that an education career was a second choice to politics for Ayers. I do not believe that is the case."

Thanks for the comprehensive pointer! I've transfered your post whole to the notepad I've got going, and will (hopefully!) be reworking Radical Planks this weekend. I really appreciate the links and the assistance! I'm not crazy about distributive justice, but distributed intelligence is definitely a Big Leap Forward.

[Publius]

Quassiblogger,

Glad that you located the post. I was afraid it might get lost.

Kudo's to M. Simon for showing me how to create links. I've often wondered how you guys did that. LOL

[JM Hanes]

Publius:

Oops. Forgot to change back to my regular screen name. I use the other moniker over on the blog site, so that it's clear I'm blogging as the proprietor.

If you ever need a refresher, or want to pass your new skilz along, I posted a Hotlinks Cheat Sheet over at photobucket.

[Thomas Jackson]

Well when the JCS need Marshall or Gibson's opinions regarding our obligations in NATO I think ask for some help on my taxes from Charlie Rangel.

All these folks have the same honesty and integrity we have come to expect from the Left.

[Publius]

Thanks JMH,

I did see through your alias, and have added your sheet to my growing list of typedad hints.

Looking forward to reading your finished product.

[Publius]

Thanks for the response, Clarice.

My question was somewhat in jest. The more serious meaning in the question is to emphasize the degree to which new left socialism has undercut our critical institutions; media, the legal profession, and education. I have expounded on this theme in an earlier post. LUN

[Publius]

Whooops!!!

Posted on wrong thread.

[battery]

Whooops!!!

Posted on wrong thread.