Palin Flubs Bush Doctrine Question

Sarah Palin’s interview with Charlie Gibson makes it fairly clear that she doesn't quite know what the Bush Doctrine is, writes Mark Silva in the Chicago Tribune. "But just as clearly, she supports it." When Gibson asked Palin in an interview if she agreed with the Bush Doctrine, she asked for clarification. Then she defined it as "His world view."

When Gibson defined the term as an assertion of a US right to preemptive attack such as in Iraq, again the governor eluded it by saying, "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.'' The closest she came to recognizing the doctrine of preemptive attack was to say that if credible intelligence showed "a strike is imminent against the American people we have every right to defend our country." A gotcha moment for her critics, Sllva writes, but good enough for supporters.


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