I just watched the second installment of the Sarah Palin
interview with Katie Couric, and I detect a major difference
between how she comes across when she's trying to be something
she's not, and when she's just being herself.
For instance, I absolutely cringed during the part when Palin
tried to explain why Alaska's proximity to Russia gives her
relevant foreign policy experience. But she did quite well
explaining that she never got a passport before last year because
she didn't come from a background that afforded her the
oppourtunity to backpack around Europe after college, and spent
most of her life working. Then at the end of the interview, Couric
kept pressing Palin on why she said America shouldn't second guess
Israel were it to bomb Iran. At first, it looked like Palin was a
bit rattled, but then she put it to Couric quite simply and
forcefully, not in packaged statements, but in her own words:
It is obvious to me who the good guys are in this
one and who the bad guys are. The bad guys are the ones who say
Israel is a stinking corpse and should be wiped off the face of the
earth. That's not a good guy who is saying that. Now, one who would
seek to protect the good guys in this, the leaders of Israel and
her friends, her allies, including the United States, in my world,
those are the good guys.
The "in my world" part, I thought, was especially key -- it's
almost like she's saying, "why don't you get it?" The typical
American can look at the situation and tell good from bad without
an international affairs degree, which is why the overwhelming
majority of Americans sympathize with Israel, much to the chagrin
of the anti-Israel crowd.
To be clear, this doesn't change my earlier
assessment that, in my view, Palin is not ready to be a
heartbeat away from the presidency. What I am saying is that Palin
is in a situation in which she has to field questions on a lot of
subjects that she doesn't know a lot about. Rather than try to spit
out rehearsed lines over and over again, she would be better off,
as much as possible, to speak in her own words, rooted in her own
values, and sense of right and wrong.
topics:
Foreign Policy, Sarah Palin, Iran, Russia, Israel, Alaska
