Palin The Hun?

So the Gibson interview with Sarah Palin has started getting into the press. A couple of thoughts, ABC's press release headline of "Palin: War Possible if Russia Invades Again" is designed to get people thinking one direction before actually listening to (or reading the transcript of ) what she said. (Quotes taken from the Chicago Tribune, I give attributes the first time I use them, Barack)

"Perhaps so. I mean, that is the agreement when you are a NATO ally, is if another country is attacked, you're going to be expected to be called upon and help,'' Palin says in the interview with ABC's Charlie Gibson (in which she acknowledges that Georgia is not yet a NATO member, but says that, like Ukraine, it should be.)

Now, if you go to the Tribune, and read the comments, you find that a lot of folks were duped by the headline, and not the substance of the answer, in fact most missed the question (which already established IF Georgia were admitted to NATO):

GIBSON: And under the NATO treaty, wouldn't we then have to go to war if Russia went into Georgia?

PALIN: Perhaps so. I mean, that is the agreement when you are a NATO ally, is if another country is attacked, you're going to be expected to be called upon and help.

Worse would be if they weren't duped; which would mean many folks believe that we should dump allies as soon as something we don't want to get involved in happens. Then again, considering how the left was talking about NAFTA this spring, I guess I shouldn't be surprised.

Read the entire excerpt from the interview, and you find out that political and economic pressure on Russia is Palin's preferred method of getting them back into line, along with McCain's idea to toss them from the G-8. But most of the lefty commenters missed that part of it, they were already too fired up over the idea of her taking us to war against Russia, even if it was a hypothetical situation conjured by the interviewer.

Many commenters are also up in arms about the idea of allowing countries like Georgia, Ukrainia, and other former Soviet satellites into NATO. Following their logic, just like in the UN Security Council, Russia should have a veto power over who is admitted to NATO.

They don't want their former satellites in it, so we shouldn't allow them. That's a foriegn policy designed to gain friends (well, friend, Russia) and influence no one. Of course that follows the whole retreat to isolationism that the left has been advocating for the last 7 years. Don't upset anyone; well anyone important like Russia or France. Screw other democracies, like Georgia, and Ukrainia, and Poland, they aren't as well heeled as the French, so they aren't important enough to get involved with.

Think of the message that sends to those countries, who's people who spent 50 years trying to get out from under the oppressive thumb of the Soviets. Now they find the group that helped get them out is going to shove them right back under that thumb, lest they tick off the Russians? So much for US and NATO credibility in Central Europe.

Reading the comments from the lefties over at the Tribune makes clear to me why when pressed on foriegn policy, the left keeps coming up short.