What Exactly Is the 'Bush Doctrine'?

@mysteryman,

But you'll agree that a journalist and a VP candidate are different, and that a VP candidate can't get a pass like Gibson can?

You see, if Obama said, "I don't even know what the President does...", or if he came up with a blank stare when asked whether or not he agreed with the Bush Doctrine, he'd be crucified by the right (and many on the left). If a journalist responded in the same manner, it's a difference that makes a difference.

While you have capitulated that Palin screwed up, you seem eger, as most on the right are, to draw an equivalence between Gibson and Palin, when in fact, there is a higher standard that we hold elected officials to than journalists. Palin should know about the Bush doctrine...what it is what it means, what it has looked like as a reality, what parts have been successful and which parts have failed etc etc etc. She has been championed by McCain and the repubs as having foreign policy experience. She will, if her ticket emerges victorious, be responsible for policy decision in the middle east.
How can she be credited for any foreign policy experience when she doesn't even know the ideology that has driven her party's policies for the last 2 terms?

As a journalist, Gibson can get a pass for being a bit of a douche and cherrypicking a component of the Doctrine, but Palin enjoys no such luxury.

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@McGentrix,

The Monroe Doctrine
The Hoover-Stimson Doctrine
The Truman Doctrine
The Eisenhower Doctrine
The Nixon Doctrine
The Carter Doctrine
The Reagan Doctrine
And now what exactly is the Bush Doctrine?
When you peruse the following impressive list of miscreants you come to the conclussion that his doctrine is a scandalized doctrine.
Link 1
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/004951.php

Link2
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/004766.php

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Palin does deserve common courtesy and at least a modicum of decency in the body politik that assesses her though. It should be obvious to anybody but a total numbnut that there is no single definition for or understanding of the "Bush Doctrine" and for Gibson to have assumed that his definition was the only one demonstrates ignorance on HIS part, not hers.

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@Foxfyre,

Deserves???

Says who?

Others have not been given that courtesy. Why does she DESERVE it?

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@Foxfyre,

I think you are doing Palin a disservice, she seems to be able take it and dish it out as well as the rest of men in this election. In fact she pretty well exploded with criticism of Obama from her first introduction. Probably what got him ticked off. He needs to calm down and get back on track. All of us 'dems' need to do that in fact.

I personally think the whole non issue of her being confused with what exactly is a Bush doctrine, is just that a non issue. More importantly to my mind is that she held to a different standard of attacking another country than does Bush and even McCain as she said imminent threat rather than preemptive threat.

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@squinney,

squinney wrote:

Deserves???

Says who?

Others have not been given that courtesy. Why does she DESERVE it?

Because every honorable person who aspires to high office deserves it and she has done absolutely nothing to not deserve it. Otherwise we will never have honorable qualified people aspire to high office. The fact that there are those who think slinging obscene phrases and describing people in the most insulting and dishonest terms is what politics are all about. I prefer that most of us set a better example.

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@Foxfyre,

Addendum to my last post - waited too long to edit:
I don't have any problem with normal political commentary - shrill, empty suit, clueless, out of touch, etc. - when attached to specific examples or within a specific context. But you know what I mean. Calling Obama the anti-Christ or Bush a second Hitler etc. is over the top, not constructive to the debate, and that kind of insult and/or deliberate stupid or irresponsible accusations should not be condoned by any of us about anybody.

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@Ramafuchs,

What Exactly Is the 'Bush Doctrine'?
"THE Bush doctrine is America's first attempt at a grand strategy since the end of the cold war. It consists of five interlocking parts:

• America is at war with global terrorism. This war demands that America deal with state sponsors of terrorism as well as terrorist networks.

Attack is the best form of defence. America needs to act pre-emptively to prevent threats from materialising.

• America needs to preserve its freedom to act independently. Global bodies are too slow-moving to deal with terrorist threats.

• Success breeds success. The bold use of American power will encourage potential friends to join America and potential enemies to abandon their evil ways.

• The best solution to global jihadism is to export democracy. America needs to abandon its deals with authoritarian regimes and encourage democracy the world over.
The Bush doctrine has been scorched in the flames of Iraq. Pre-emption? Iraq's WMD failed to materialise, and the links between al-Qaeda and Saddam's regime proved to be tenuous at best. Attack is the best form of defence? The invasion stoked up a powerful local insurgency, and America's travails in Iraq have emboldened the Iranians. The bandwagon effect? America's close allies have tried to distance themselves from the debacle in Iraq and the jihadists have got a foothold there.

The Iraq war has damaged America's confidence in its hard power
http://www.economist.com/specialreports/displaystory.cfm?STORY_ID=10873479
Cashing in on the Bush Doctrine
Americans are paying for Bush's 'global democratic revolution' through the nose
" but a chosen few are reaping huge profits-

http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=5562

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@Ramafuchs,

It has now become the doctrine of a large clan of politicians that political honesty is unnecessary, slow, subversive of a man's interests, and incompatible with quick onward movement.
Anthony Trollope
I do not subscribe to the doctrine that the people are the slaves and property of their government.
Gerrit Smith

In America everybody is of the opinion that he has no social superiors, since all men are equal, but he does not admit that he has no social inferiors, for, from the time of Jefferson onward, the doctrine that all men are equal applies only upwards, not downwards.
Bertrand Russell
The president led us into the Iraq war on the basis of unproven assertions without evidence; he embraced a radical doctrine of pre-emptive war unprecedented in our history; and he failed to build a true international coalition.
Nancy Pelosi

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@cicerone imposter,

It is do as I say not as I do.

Bring It On means 'You fight but I stay stay behind'.

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@talk72000,

Bush's doctrine is like this

1A faith is something you die for, a doctrine is something you kill for. There is all the difference in the world.
Tony Benn

2 Optimism: The doctrine that everything is beautiful, including what is ugly, everything good, especially the bad, and everything right that is wrong... It is hereditary, but fortunately not contagious.
Ambrose Bierce

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@Ramafuchs,

Hypocrisy would best describe the Bushes' Doctrines.

Bush Sr. was so enraged by the flag burning incident that he introduced a law against the desecration of the American flag yet he did more harm to America by helping his awful first-born to become 43 knowing full well he was no good yet he was willing to put America thru the W wringer.

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@McGentrix,

McGentrix wrote:

Gibson should of course have said in the first place what he understood the Bush Doctrine to be--and specified that he was asking a question about preemption. Palin was well within bounds to have asked him to be more specific. Because, as it happens, the doctrine has no universally acknowledged single meaning.

This is really a stretch of a defense. Palin didnt ask Gibson "to be more specific". Gibson asked her what she thought of the Bush doctrine, and she asked back, "his world view"?

As Steve Benen put it at the Washington Monthly:

Quote:

Let's not play games. Yes, there have been a variety of foreign policy maxims dubbed the "Bush Doctrine" over the years. If Sarah Palin heard the question and said, "Which one?" I would have gladly accepted that as a perfectly legitimate response. Indeed, if she'd answered the question under the assumption Gibson was asking about a different doctrine, that would have been fine, too. Hell, if Palin could have explained the differences between some of the various concepts that have been given the label, she would have shut up her detractors for a very long while.

But none of that happened. You can watch the video. She said she perceived the Bush Doctrine as the president's "worldview," which really doesn't make any sense at all.

Or, to put it in yet different words:

Quote:

A quick follow-up [..] on that Post piece: There may be "Many versions of 'Bush Doctrine,'" as the piece's headline notes. But the sub-head, "Palin's Confusion in Interview Understandable, Experts Say," is pretty far off the mark. Palin's confusion would be understandable if she'd offered a response she thought reflected the Bush Doctrine, but which was different from the version Charlie Gibson or many viewers had in mind. But Palin ventured no response at all. She was completely unfamiliar with the term, which is not understandable because, regardless of interpretation, the term has circulated widely.

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@nimh,

Thanks for that Nimh. That has been my point all along.
It seems so familiar that Palin has been given these "passes" as W. Bush had been given. When you play the "common (wo)man", I guess stupidity and naivete just become cute or endearing and everyone just lets it go.

If you take an intellectual position, or actually know what the f*ck you're talking about, you become an elitist.
Dumb and uninformed = cute and adorable
Informed and intellectual = elitist

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@nimh,

Gibson interviewed Obama back in June and asked some real hardball questions of Obama. I am wondering why Gibson didn't ask the same type of hardball questions of Palin?

Some examples from the interview...

Quote:

GIBSON: Senator, I'm curious about your feelings last night. It was an historic moment. Has it sunk in yet?

GIBSON: Public moments are not your own. There's a million people pulling you in a million different directions, but when everybody clears out, the staff is gone, you're in your hotel room at night and you're alone -- do you say to yourself: "Son of a gun, I've done this?"

GIBSON: On what three issues will this campaign turn to you?

GIBSON: I watched closely your countenance last night, your mien, as you stood in that hall. You didn't smile much. Has the joyfulness of this hit home yet? Do you take joy from it?

Take a look at the entire interview, it isn't all that long.

One thing that struck me was this part.

Quote:

GIBSON: John McCain has issued an invitation to do a series of town meetings (inaudible). Going to do it?

OBAMA: Oh, we're definitely going to be doing some town hall debates. I look forward to, you know, having more than just the three traditional debates that we've seen in recent presidential contests, so I'm glad that he's interested in doing it.

You know, we're going to have to figure out timing. I know that he wants to start, generously enough, a week from today. And since we just won the nomination, we may have to spend some -- a little bit of time over the next couple of weeks, you know, retooling for a general election.

But...

GIBSON: (inaudible)

OBAMA: Well, we are definitely going to be debating with John McCain, and we will do more than the three that -- that have been promised. And so, some of those will have to be done before our respective conventions.

Lies or just a change of mind?

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@candidone1,

My wife and I were discussing this as well. Neither of us could say exactly what the "Bush Doctrine" was other than a media catch phrase.

The fact that they are teaching it to 9th graders in Canada as some sort of teachable fact shows how screwed up the Canadian's world view really is.

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@nimh,

Perhaps widely circulated in your world, but not mine. I asked six different people, all pretty politically astute, in my social circle--both Democrats and Republicans--and not one was aware that there was a Bush doctrine. They all knew of the Monroe doctrine, Truman doctrine, etc. but none had thought about a Bush doctrine. I'm as much a political junkie as anybody, and I had only vaguely heard of a Bush doctrine and I could not have answered Charlie Gibson's question without him defining what his version of the Bush doctrine was. It is not in my granddaughter's poli-sci textbook.

Further you can't google "Bush Doctrine" and come up with a single definitive description of it unless you pick one source and ignore all others that come up.

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@Foxfyre,

Foxfyre wrote:

Perhaps widely circulated in your world, but not mine. I asked six different people, all pretty politically astute, in my social circle--both Democrats and Republicans--and not one was aware that there was a Bush doctrine.

Well - what does this prove?

There's a wikipedia entry for it; it's in the (dvd) 2007 [and 2008] edition of) Britannica; the Albuquerque Journal wrote about the Bush Doctrine eight times more than one sentence between June 26 and today; nationwide newspapers ... ... ....

Btw: Google seems to work differently in your worls as well: besides the Wikipedia entry, in my world Google found 'sourcewatch' plus some other sides, too - not mentioning the 470,000 entries.

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@Walter Hinteler,

Walter Hinteler wrote:

Foxfyre wrote:

Perhaps widely circulated in your world, but not mine. I asked six different people, all pretty politically astute, in my social circle--both Democrats and Republicans--and not one was aware that there was a Bush doctrine.

Well - what does this prove?

There's a wikipedia entry for it; it's in the (dvd) 2007 [and 2008] edition of) Britannica; the Albuquerque Journal wrote about the Bush Doctrine eight times more than one sentence between June 26 and today; nationwide newspapers ... ... ....

So tell us Walter, what is the Bush Doctrine?

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@Foxfyre,

Foxfyre wrote:

Perhaps widely circulated in your world, but not mine.

Perhaps. But not relevant, unless you're running for Vice President of the United States - because then, you can reasonably be expected to at least having heard the term.

1 Reply

What Exactly Is the 'Bush Doctrine'?

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