Palin's foreign negotiations limited to Canada

By MARTHA MENDOZA
AP National Writer


Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, who touts her state's proximity to Russia as
part of her foreign policy experience, has not met with Russian leaders
or delegations, negotiated any Russian issues or visited the country,
according to an Associated Press review of records from the governor's
office.

The review showed that the Republican vice presidential candidate has
negotiated with only one country, Canada, and until last week had met
with the leader of only one other, tiny Iceland. Her portfolio expanded
last week when she went to New York and met seven foreign leaders
attending the U.N. General Assembly.

Governors who run for national office often are criticized for lacking
the international experience that, for example, someone from Congress or
the president's Cabinet might have. But Palin's foreign policy adviser
Steve Biegun, on leave as vice president of international governmental
affairs for Ford Motor Co., said that's not a handicap.

"And what Governor Palin has is a full breadth of international
experience that any governor would have who is engaged with the world on
trade, on infrastructure issues," he said. "Governors don't have the
same opportunities or the same responsibilities that senators have.
They're different, but they're not inferior."

Palin herself has said repeatedly that her job is inherently
international because of Alaska's location, across the Bering Strait
from Russia.

In an interview last week with CBS News anchor Katie Couric, Palin
suggested that her contact was more than just awareness of Russia's
nearness. When Couric asked Palin if she'd "ever been involved with any
negotiations, for example, with the Russians," the governor replied, "We
have trade missions back and forth."

But Steve Smirnoff, the Russian Federation's honorary consul in
Anchorage, said Palin never accepted his invitation to open a dialogue
with Alaska's neighbor.

When Palin took office in December 2006, Smirnoff says, he sent her a
letter suggesting "she could be instrumental in reviving relationships
between Alaska and Russia, and the rest of the world."

Smirnoff said he'd met Palin years before, when they both worked on
then-Gov. Frank Murkowski's campaign. Smirnoff had hoped for some
rapport, but "I never received a response," he said. "I don't know if it
was taken to heart or thrown in the trash basket."

Patricia Eckert, who works in the governor's Office of International
Trade, confirmed that Palin had not held meetings with Russian officials
during her term. The closest interaction she cited was when the
Seattle-based Russian consul general attended a reception for the
diplomatic corps that Palin hosted in Fairbanks.

- - -

Sarah "DAFFI DUMB ****" Palin: As Daffy and Dumb-****ty As Ever!

----------------------------------
"Palin Gives Beliefs, Demurs on Policies"

"Couric Queries Nominee on Social Issues"

By Alec MacGillis
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, October 1, 2008; A07


Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin stood by her opposition to abortion even in
cases of rape or incest and her skepticism that global warming is
caused by human activity, but she stepped back from her past support
for teaching creationism in the schools in last night's installment of
her interviews with CBS's Katie Couric.

At several points in the interview, the Republican vice presidential
nominee answered questions about her stances on social issues by
offering her personal views, declining to describe how she would act
as a matter of public policy.

Asked by Couric whether her opposition to abortion rights would extend
even to a 15-year-old who had been raped by her father, Palin said she
would "counsel that person to choose life despite horrific, horrific
circumstances that this person would find themselves in." On this
point, Palin differs with Sen. John McCain, the GOP presidential
nominee.

Asked about the morning-after pill, Palin appeared to argue that it is
wrong because it takes effect after conception, while not stating that
it should be banned as a matter of policy. "Well, I am all for
contraception. And I am all for preventative measures that are legal
and safe, and should be taken. But Katie, again, I am one to believe
that life starts at the moment of conception," Palin said. She added
that that "isn't a McCain-Palin policy."

And asked about reports that one of the churches she attends has
encouraged gays to become straight, Palin referred again to her own
life. "I am not going to judge Americans and the decisions that they
make in their adult personal relationships. I have one of my absolute
best friends for the last 30 years happens to be gay, and I love her
dearly. And she is not my 'gay friend,' she is one of my best friends,
who happens to have made a choice that isn't a choice that I have
made."

Palin reiterated, with an unintentional word reversal, her position
that global warming is not necessarily being caused by carbon dioxide
emissions, as most scientists believe. "I'm not going to solely blame
all of man's activities on changes in climate. Because the world's
weather patterns are cyclical. And over history we have seen change
there. But kind of doesn't matter at this point, as we debate what
caused it. The point is, it's real, we need to do something about it."

Palin proposed teaching creationism alongside evolution during her
campaign for governor but has not pressed the issue while in office, a
position she seemed to adhere to in the interview. Evolution "should
be taught in our schools. And I won't deny that I see the hand of God
in this beautiful creation that is Earth," she said. "But that is not
part of the state policy or a local curriculum in a school district.
Science should be taught in science class."

Asked what newspapers and magazines she reads, Palin said, "I've read
most of them." Pressed by Couric for examples, Palin declined. "Um,
all of them, any of them that have been in front of me over all these
years," she said. Again asked to name a few, Palin said, "I have a
vast variety of sources where we get our news, too. Alaska isn't a
foreign country, where it's kind of suggested, 'Wow, how could you
keep in touch with what the rest of Washington, D.C., may be thinking
when you live up there in Alaska?' Believe me, Alaska is like a
microcosm of America."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...093002993.html

PALIN (Daffi Dumb ****) As Vice President Is "A Terrifying Prospect"!


--------------------------
"McCain vs. Palin"

By Ruth Marcus
Op-Ed
The Washington Post
Tuesday, September 30, 2008; A19


Forget Joe Biden. I'd like to see John McCain debate Sarah Palin.

McCain's scorn for Barack Obama was on unrestrained display in Friday
night's debate. How dare this impudent whippersnapper imagine he can
be president, you could almost see McCain thinking. I'm the one who's
racked up the frequent-flier miles to Waziristan! Henry Kissinger and
I were BFFs when Obama was glued to "The Brady Bunch"! Listening to
McCain debate was like a stroll down foreign policy memory lane:
Brezhnev, Andropov, Chernenko. George Shultz, "our great secretary of
state." Perestroika. SDI.

Those were the days, my friend. We thought the Cold War would never
end.

"Back in 1983, when I was a brand-new United States congressman. . .,"
McCain reminisced. And, "I supported Nunn-Lugar back in the early
1990s." By the time McCain described how the Pakistan-Afghanistan
border "has not been governed since the days of Alexander the Great,"
you were half-expecting that he was going to tell you about how he led
the congressional delegation that met with Alexander.

All this looking back doesn't strike me as a politically smart tactic
-- or is that strategy? McCain risked coming off as the crotchety
uncle who insists on telling you the same war stories -- over and
over, no matter how off-point they are. No voter looking into the
financial abyss believes the most pressing budgetary problem is $3
million to study bear DNA.

And for McCain to open the debate by noting that Ted Kennedy was in
the hospital -- a gracious touch, certainly, but reminding the
audience about an ailing senior senator is not the optimal move for a
72-year-old cancer survivor seeking the presidency.

Which brings me to Palin, and my continuing -- no, make that deepening
-- mystification over McCain's choice. I can understand how he views
Obama as untested and unprepared.

I can't square that dismissive attitude with McCain's selection of
Palin.

McCain's fundamental argument in pursuit of the presidency is that he
has the background to do the job. He made this point again and again
Friday night. "I've been involved, as I mentioned to you before, in
virtually every major national security challenge we've faced in the
last 20-some years. There are some advantages to experience, and
knowledge, and judgment." Or, "The important thing is I visited
Afghanistan and I traveled to Waziristan and I traveled to these
places and I know what our security requirements are."

And so therefore I picked a running mate who didn't have a passport
two years ago? Asked about that by Katie Couric, Palin explained that
"I'm not one of those who maybe come from a background of, you know,
kids who perhaps graduated college and their parents get them a
passport and a backpack and say, 'Go off and travel the world.' "

Instead, Palin said, "the way that I have understood the world is
through education, through books, through mediums that have provided
me a lot of perspective on the world."

This would be more reassuring if Palin had demonstrated more evidence
of having read extensively about history or world affairs. Asked in an
interview for PBS's Charlie Rose show last year (
http://www.charlierose.com/guests/sarah-palin) about her favorite
authors, Palin cited C.S. Lewis -- "very, very deep" -- and Dr. George
Sheehan, a now-deceased writer for Runner's World magazine whose
columns Palin still keeps on hand.

"Very inspiring and very motivating," she said. "He was an athlete and
I think so much of what you learn in athletics about competition and
healthy living that he was really able to encapsulate, has stayed with
me all these years."

Also, she got a Garfield desk calendar for Christmas 1987 that made a
big impression.

McCain is a voracious reader of history. The day before the New
Hampshire primary, I sat on his campaign bus listening to him hold
forth about William Manchester on Douglas MacArthur.

And in his most recent book, "Hard Call," McCain explains why
knowledge of history matters: "Great statesmen who have been praised
for their ability to see around the corner of history knew their
history before they looked beyond it, and they understood the forces
that drove it in one direction or another." If there is evidence that
Palin has that understanding, it is yet to emerge. Peering around the
corner of history with Palin as vice president is a terrifying
prospect.



http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...092902661.html