Friday, November 20, 2009

O'Reilly Vs. Palin II

The second part of the O'Reilly/Palin interview just finished.


Palin sounded confident in all her answers. The first part of part two was spent with critical analysis of President Obama. These are questions right in Palin's wheel house. She never called Obama a "socialist" but did say that he was moving away from free market principles. She criticized his policies on closing GITMO and trying KSM in New York specifically.

I was looking forward to the policy portion which really didn't start until after the break. Much like every politician, Palin had nothing but platitudes towards Iran. She wants to work with our allies and apply stiffer sanctions. She referenced Reagan's tough diplomacy as a model.

All of this sounds nice but there's really no specific policy in there. In fact, the best idea I've heard from anyone is from O'Reilly himself and his idea of a military blockade, itself an act of war. Palin was far less specific.

On Afghanistan, Palin said she'd give General McChrystal the troops he's asked for. She made the analogy between the situation in Iraq and the current situation in Afghanistan. O'Reilly pointed out that the Karzai government is terribly corrupt and thus, it may not be worth sending troops. Palin never pointed it out but Maliki was extremely corrupt, and isn't a model of purity still, when Bush sent in the additional troops. Getting a handle on the security situation reduces the corruption.

On China owning a trillion dollars worth of our debt, Palin said that our policies of endless spending is causing us to be vulnerable to this position.

Palin handled the questions fairly well. She appeared confident and not intimidated. She was no more or less wishy washy on Iran but generally gave clear answers to O'Reilly's questions.

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