Re: Palin-- "A hypothetical war with our once adversary is not the best way to start."

By GottaLaff

The quote in the post title is similar to what Andrea Mitchell said last night in response to Sarah Louise Palin's ABC interviews. Some more responses to Ms. War-with-Russia-is-an-Option:

ABC News is reporting that newly minted Republican superstar and vice presidential nominee, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, has said war “may be” necessary if Russia invades another country. Um, yeah.

But, when campaigning in Michigan, back when the Russians invaded Georgia, Sen. John McCain stood next to his wife, Cindy, Sens. Joe Lieberman and Lindsey Graham, and insisted that he didn’t want to restart the Cold War.

Apparently, though, it’s game on.

Maybe Sarah should consider blinking once in awhile.

But from 1945 to 1991, the world lived under a cloud of fear — knowing that one word, one diplomatic slip-up, could cost millions of lives. Even the relatively inexperienced President John F. Kennedy understood the consequences of killing Soviet personnel, and so, working against the advice of his own military leaders, did his best to prevent escalation during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Yes, these are just words. And we are all Georgians. I get that. But Palin has a great deal to prove not only to the country, but to the world, that she’s ready for the job she is seeking.

A hypothetical war with our once adversary is not the best way to start.

And this:

I couldn’t find any examples of Palin making any statements on either Russia or Iran before she became McCain’s running mate, so I contacted the McCain campaign press office to see if they could help me find such a quote.

The response: when McCain said “she was right” about Russia and Georgia, he was referring to her speech at the Republican National Convention, said McCain-Palin campaign spokesman Ben Porritt.

He directed me to the following excerpt:

“With Russia wanting to control a vital pipeline in the Caucasus, and to divide and intimidate our European allies by using energy as a weapon, we cannot leave ourselves at the mercy of foreign suppliers. To confront the threat that Iran might seek to cut off nearly a fifth of world energy supplies … or that terrorists might strike again at the Abqaiq facility in Saudi Arabia … or that Venezuela might shut off its oil deliveries … we Americans need to produce more of our own oil and gas. And take it from a gal who knows the North Slope of Alaska: we’ve got lots of both.” (Gov. Sarah Palin, Remarks At The Republican National Convention, Saint Paul, MN, 9/3/08)

It was widely reported that Palin’s speech was written by Matthew Scully, a former speech-writer for President George W. Bush. Yes, Palin does mention the names of both countries, but she doesn’t take much of a position on either country, other than we need to become more energy independent. I guess she is right there.

However, McCain implies Palin “was right” for taking positions that he defined in the interview, and as he defined them, they are shockingly similar to his own. There’s no evidence that she shared any of these positions before she joined the ticket. The campaign’s explanation seems a stretch, to say the least.

Are we the only ones who realize these things, besides the authors of these two articles? Sometimes it feels that way.