Sarah Palin's Travels

Visited Iraq? Nope, never left Kuwait.

Ireland? Just a refueling stop, she didn't get out of the plane.

Andrew has the deets.

The more we learn about the truth behind Sarah Palin's foreign experience and travels, the more we realize it is as thin as the soup that was made:

'by boiling the shadow of a pigeon that had starved to death."

That metaphor is Lincoln, by the way, since Sarah seems to be fond of Lincoln quotes.

Obama the Realist on Foreign Policy

UPDATE: I cannot determine why the line breaks are screwed up in this post. I've scrubbed the blockquote through notepad, edited it in HTML mode to remove any hidden tags, and nothing works. I like a tidy if cluttered blog, this is driving me nuts. Any suggestions?



In a recent issue of Newsweek, Fareed Zakaria contrasted teh foreign policies of McCain and Obama, finding the latter the realist and the former the starry eyed idealist.

Comparing the two candidate's approaches to Russia and China, Zakaria writes:


Obama's response to McCain's proposals on Russia and China could have been
drafted by Henry Kissinger or Brent Scowcroft. We need to cooperate with both
countries in order to solve significant global problems, he told me last week,
citing nuclear-proliferation issues with Russia and economic ones with China.
The distinction between Obama and McCain on this point is important. The single
largest strategic challenge facing the United States in the decades ahead is to
draw in the world's new rising powers and make them stakeholders in the global
economic and political order.Russia and China will be the hardest because they
are large and have different political systems and ideological approaches to the
world. Yet the benefits of having them inside the tent are obvious. Without some
degree of great-power cooperation, global peace and stability becomes a far more
fragile prospect.

My emphasis. And my take: McCain is the reckless one. Obama is the conservative here.

Zakaria: McCain is the Foreign Policy Unrealistic Idealist

A must read from Fareed Zakaria today:

Ironically, the Republicans now seem to be the foreign-policy idealists, labeling countries as either good or evil, refusing to deal with nasty regimes, fixating on spreading democracy throughout the world and refusing to think in more historical and complex ways. "I don't do nuance," George W. Bush told many visitors to the White House in the years after 9/11. John McCain has had his differences with Bush, but not on this broad thrust of policy. Indeed it is McCain, the Republican, who has put forward some fanciful plans, arguing that America should establish a "League of Democracies," expel Russia from the Group of Eight industrialized countries and exclude China from both groups as well.

Obama's response to McCain's proposals on Russia and China could have been drafted by Henry Kissinger or Brent Scowcroft. We need to cooperate with both countries in order to solve significant global problems, he told me last week, citing nuclear-proliferation issues with Russia and economic ones with China. The distinction between Obama and McCain on this point is important. The single largest strategic challenge facing the United States in the decades ahead is to draw in the world's new rising powers and make them stakeholders in the global economic and political order. Russia and China will be the hardest because they are large and have different political systems and ideological approaches to the world. Yet the benefits of having them inside the tent are obvious. Without some degree of great-power cooperation, global peace and stability becomes a far more fragile prospect.

Wrong Conclusion, Chuck

Charles Krauthammer gives good analysis but comes to the wrong conclusion in his column today. He takes Obama apart for his debate response indicating he would meet with the leaders of hostile states with no preconditions. Krauthammer effectively rebuts the would-be president and in so doing tacitly bolsters Hillary's argument. He then reaches back to a previous debate to rip Obama for saying the first thing he would do after another terrorist attack is provide an effective emergency response. Hillary said she would retaliate as soon as "prudent."

Krauthammer ends by saying:

The country might decide that it prefers, yes, a Republican -- say, Sept. 11 veteran Rudy Giuliani-- to a freshman senator who does not instinctively understand why an American president does not share the honor of his office with a malevolent clown like Hugo Chávez.

Wait. What? If I recall correctly, the "Sept. 11 Veteran" mayor was busy doing what after 9/11? Coordinating emergency response, right? Besides why is Krauthammer so certain the Dems are going to nominate Obama. After this week, Hillary looks...what's the word...oh yeah, whisper it: "inevitable."