October 1, 2008
An Open Letter to Sarah Palin
To: Gov. Sarah Palin
From: The American Conservative Editors
Re: What Your Tutors Aren’t Telling You
Congratulations on being chosen as John McCain’s running mate. It’s an honor, if a dubious one. As you know, conservatives have reservations about McCain. To your credit, they have few such concerns about you.
You’ve given new life to a party whose brand was bankrupt. You’ve energized a campaign that was embarrassing its own partisans. Across America, crowds flock to see you—not that old man who barely wheezed his way through the primaries. If John McCain wins, he will owe you, as the guy in the undisclosed location says, “Big time.”
Wonder why Middle America finds you irresistible? Maybe they’re big Tina Fey fans. More likely, you remind them of the conservative values they feared lost: faith, family, independence. This impression owes more to who you are than what you’ve done. But at least you keep Obama from cornering the market on hope. Conservatives have faith in you. Don’t fail them as George W. Bush has.
You see what happened: the president’s entire domestic agenda collapsed under the weight of his failed foreign policy. Social Security reform stalled. Pro-lifers became political orphans. And whatever gains Bush’s tax cuts secured were wiped out by record spending. Everything was subordinated to the war on terror.
Conservatives grasping for something to commend give the president points for his judicial picks. But he would have much preferred justices like Alberto Gonzales and Harriet Miers—toadies whose top qualification was their willingness to give the executive more power.
The party that championed the things you prize—individual liberty, fiscal restraint, and a strong defense—has trampled civil rights, pushed us to the brink of insolvency, and broken our Armed Forces. After eight years of Bush, even diehard Republicans are glad to see him go. You might have noticed the elephant not in the room in St. Paul.
There’s a better way. In fact, you figured it out in the 1996 presidential primary when you sported the flair of the leading pro-life candidate. (Your minders would prefer that we not mention his name. It triggers their Tourette’s.) As you surely know, even beyond social issues, he represents a strain of conservatism that offers a consistent ethic of life and philosophy of limited government. It was not a coincidence that the most pro-life candidate in ’96 was also passionately noninterventionist.
It’s also no coincidence that those who want you to heed the siren call of global democratization care little for traditionalist causes. Recall that second night of the Republican Convention when you were told to blow off a reception in your honor hosted by Phyllis Schlafly so Joe Lieberman could chaperone your debut before the directors of AIPAC. Neoconservatives pay lip service to life, but, as their enthusiasm for Lieberman shows, they have higher priorities. Now they plan to make them yours.
You’ll find the new friends conducting your foreign-policy crash course pleasant enough, if a little dogmatic and a lot condescending. They call you “Project Sarah.” We saw that one staffer at AEI—that mystery monogram on all your briefing books—said you’re “a blank slate.” He added, “She’s going places, and it’s worth going there with her.” That’s how they operate. They don’t implement their agenda themselves. Rather, they impose it on rising star. If things don’t work out, it’s because the Project wasn’t sufficiently committed. (Just ask President Bush.)
Now you’re the latest object of their attention, and you’re probably finding the program a bit confusing. They tell you that the U.S. is fighting “World War IV,” a struggle against “Islamofascism.” We can win, they say, as long as we’re prepared to bomb Iran and build up the national-security establishment at home, just like Reagan did.
Trouble is, your tutors also believe we’re still engaged in “World War III,” the Cold War with Russia. So maybe the Gipper didn’t win that one after all. In fact, neoconservatives like Norman Podhoretz chided Reagan for appeasing Moscow. And when terrorists struck the Marine barracks in Lebanon in 1983, Reagan, instead of “staying the course,” withdrew our troops. Your Beltway suitors prescribe the opposite of Reagan’s strategy.
And as they would have it, we’re not only waging World Wars III and IV, we’re still fighting World War II. At least, that’s the way it sounds when Robert Kagan opens a Washington Post op-ed by likening Russia’s conflict with Georgia to Hitler’s invasion of Czechoslovakia.
But Russia is not Germany, Georgia is no innocent Czechoslovakia, and Vladimir Putin is not Adolf Hitler—no matter what your guru Randy Scheunemann says. (He probably forgot to tell you that he used to lobby for the government of Georgia.)
Here’s a hint: don’t believe everything you read in the papers, especially if the byline is Kristol or Krauthammer. Russia is not an expansionist, ideological empire. It’s a traditional, semi-authoritarian great power intent on preserving its influence in its own backyard and its prestige on the world stage. That’s why Russia intercedes in the domestic disputes of unruly states on its periphery. Putin balks at Poland hosting our antimissile systems for the same reason we would bristle at Cuba or Mexico receiving Chinese antitank missiles.
With more validity, some of the people whispering in your ear tell you that Moscow wants to corner the European markets for oil and natural gas. And what nefarious end does Putin have in mind? Raising prices and reinforcing Moscow’s political clout, not with nuclear blackmail but with good, old-fashioned economic power. We have plenty of that ourselves (or at least we used to). Putin, far from being a totalitarian ideologue, is an economic nationalist, as the leaders of great powers traditionally have been.
Then there’s the Middle East, where only American arms (and lives) can prevent little Israel from being swept into the sea by Muslim hordes. Surely that’s what AIPAC told you that night you left Phyllis cooling her heels. But again, it isn’t true. Israel has nuclear weapons, for one thing, and can outfight her neighbors even without resort to atom bombs. Israel’s problem isn’t external threat so much as internal security and demographics. When the Jewish state was founded, tens of thousands of Palestinians—Christians as well as Muslims—lost their homes. Palestine was no wide-open Alaskan frontier: when the newcomers moved in, Arabs were moved out, often by force. Terrorism didn’t come to the region with Hamas or Hezbollah; decades earlier groups like the Stern Gang and Irgun used violence to clear the way for Israel’s creation. Nor was Palestinian Authority leader Yassar Arafat the first terrorist to lead a state in the Holy Land. Israeli Prime Ministers Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir had unclean hands as well.
While your minders probably don’t put much stock in his work, University of Chicago political scientist Robert Pape has shown that suicide terrorism develops almost always among occupied peoples. The task before the Israelis is not to defend themselves against aggressive neighbors but to give justice to the Palestinians already in their midst—to suppress terrorism without suppressing civil liberties and human rights, which only leads to more bloodshed. The most helpful role the United States can play is that of impartial mediator in the conflict. There is injustice and suffering on both sides.
No doubt you’ve been told (again and again) that Iran wants to “wipe Israel off the map.” Here’s something to keep in mind: Iran does not have nuclear weapons and is far from attaining them. Ironically, the Bush Doctrine’s pledge that “America is committed to keeping the world’s most dangerous weapons out of the hands of the most dangerous regimes” makes rogue states like Iran more likely to seek nuclear devices, as a deterrent against pre-emptive U.S. strikes. This is a vicious circle. Instead of boxing Iran into a corner, we should engage with Ahmadinejad, unsavory fellow though he is. Even with nuclear weapons, Iran would not pose an existential threat to Israel, let alone America.
Since you had some difficulties in your oral exam with Charlie Gibson, your new friends will no doubt ramp up their lessons. (For the record, you can scarcely be blamed for fumbling the answer about the Bush Doctrine. Your tutors were clearly reluctant to bring it up, even though the whole scheme was theirs, not Project George’s.)
They may even start assigning you book reports. It will feel like the third grade, except the subjects won’t be charming orphans. Now it’s rogue states against America the Benevolent. Near the top of the list will be An End to Evil by Richard Perle and David Frum. They’d have you think that Muslims will impose Islamic law on America if we don’t go to war with 18 different countries. But you know that a bunch of Muslims can’t make red-blooded, moose-hunting Americans wear burqas. Think what happens if you try to get a book pulled out of the library.
That’s only the beginning of the curriculum. You’ll be handed titles like Present Dangers and The Return of History. Thankfully, just like third grade, you don’t really have to read them. If they ask, just say, “The enemies of freedom won’t be appeased. We must stand firm, like Churchill.”
Meanwhile, we suggest sneaking a look at The Limits of Power by Andrew Bacevich. It’s stern stuff, but he gets to the point: America can’t spend money it doesn’t have, beat everyone up, and expect to stay healthy, wealthy, and wise. If you want a good book on how America screwed up in Iraq, there is Fiasco by Thomas Ricks. You said some nice things about Ron Paul during the primary. He gave Giuliani a list of books that might be worth your time.
You’ll have to keep your extracurriculars quiet. We know how these things work. Since he helped you break into the big leagues, you have to toe McCain’s line. But the outgoing administration has shown us how powerful a veep can be. If you go all the way, President McCain will be in your debt. (If he forgets, ask him how many rallies he held while you were home in Alaska. He wisely opted not to deliver speeches in phone booths.) Don’t leave your maverick spirit on the campaign trail.
Despite all the briefing books being thrown at you, you know your own mind—and you realize that the neoconservative agenda doesn’t square with your worldview. You prize localism, their vision is grandiose. You value fiscal discipline, neocons will ruin the country to finance endless war. You honor life, and they think nothing of killing hundreds of thousands in the service of ideology. But they’ll tell you this alien vision—imported from the Left—is coherent and conservative.
It is neither, but your supporters are both. They’ve turned against this war and definitely don’t want another. Yet your running mate does. Perhaps you’ve noticed that his interest in domestic policy pales alongside his foreign-policy ambitions. Or maybe you caught his virtuoso performance of “Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran.”
You surely see that the Bush policies have come to a dead end. If the millions poised to vote for you wanted four more years, the president’s approval rating wouldn’t be 25 percent. This isn’t because Republicans dislike Bush personally or disagree with his positions on energy and taxes. It’s because they know that his main legacy—the Iraq War—is a disaster.
Thankfully, they don’t think you’re like him. They see in you someone like themselves—a patriot and a mother. The Middle Americans waiting hours to hear you speak don’t want the United States to be defeated, and they don’t want Iraq to be a haven for al-Qaeda—something it never was before the invasion. They are pleased that the surge has made it more possible to leave because they don’t want to send their boys back for a third or fourth tour. They want America to come home—not because she’s weak but because she’s wise. They hope that you are, too.
SOURCE: The American Conservative Magazine
Tags: Israel, John McCain, Neocon, Russia, Sarah Palin
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I agree, especially concerning our country’s foreign entanglements.
Sarah Palin’s traditional values are a great attraction to those of us who are Reagan-Goldwater fans.
You know she’s going to read this letter, and the recommended reading, as well.
She is ours, Pat.
Even if the ticket fails, she will come back stronger, better. An early setback will only galvanize her resolve, make her more savvy. America loves the fighter who picks themselves up from a defeat and just won’t quit, no matter what the chattering classes say.
P.S. You are obviously unqualified to be VP - much less President.
The voters will be informing you on this shortly.
the crazy liberal is here to tell you that with two exceptions, there’s a lot to be commended in this article…and for those of you who wonder why you would ever “reach across the aisle”, it’s because there are lots of “commie pinko lefties” who are in argreement with a lot of your own principles–at least as they are related to foreign policy.
two points that should be made:
the history of russia includes periods of expansionism that are related to domestic political considerations…specifically, the desire to create an autocratic state that appears, to the russian population, to have the strongest possible leader.
peter the great invaded poland, as did nicholas the first and nicholas the second. none of these invasions were related to the actions of nato or the threatening presence of missiles.
not all of what putin is doing is related to missiles either, meaning the picture is a bit more complex than the way this story portrays it.
beyond that, the article seems to suggest mccain will be miserable in the job–but you should vote for him anyway because, hopefully, he will somehow be overwhelmed by palin’s presence and do what voters here want a mccain administration to do.
that’s a tough bet…and i’d rather be betting against it happening than betting it will.
When I first heard about Palin’s selection to the McCain ticket, I instinctively felt that it was a political ploy to get the mass evangelical voters behind the ticket. As I read commentaries from writers that I respect, saying that she would be a breath of fresh air, I began to hope that she would be more than just “Christian” puppet. My first instinct was right. The Christian evangelical right needs to review their Bibles. There is no gospel of bombs and bullets.
Alaska, a far off state we know nothing about.
Palin, one of its people we know nothing about.
The Republican Party, into the dustbin of history.
I was hoping she would have more foreign policy difference with Lieberman than lipstick.
Does anyone actually believe she’d even make it through that letter if she saw it?
Certainly time will tell the tale, but I find it interesting that in all the bs about McCain’ dropping dead in office … his family genetics do speak of a long lifeline, but again time will tell. But to my point, since when does a President ever lead alone? He (possibly ’she’) doesn’t. Nor is he a foreign policy expert nor need he/she be. that’s why a President appoints and surrounds him/herself with so-called ‘experts’!
What so defines the difference between Obama and his Plagiarizing Sidekick is actual state management and decision making experience. Neither of those sorry excuses for commanding leadership have a wit’s experience in that realm.
In the end, I’m going to do as I did the last time around and hold my nose and pull the Elephant’s tail.
jeffohora, experience goes only so far. By narrow definitions, Palin has more executive experience than John McCain. Neither community organizer nor war hero qualifies a person to be president. This election is about judgment, which Sarah completely lacks.
Thank You Rodfish for providing us with the delusional liberal perspective now go hump a tree or something?
Rodfish you are definitely a Tina Fey fan, an Obama fan and a danger to freedom.
Who is Governor Sara Palin? She is America’s most popular Governor. Sorry that the governor with the highest approval rating isn’t a dysfunctional liberal but in fact a true conservative. Chew on that for a while.
I fear that our Sarah has been co-opted by the Neocons. We’ll find out Thursday night.
The first 7 paragraphs and the last one are great and sould be emailed to her. The rest should be cut, it sounds like paranoia and fear (even if somewhat true). The language just will not convince anyone, and again, I believe most of it. All this Israel stuff should be summed up with, “We should only mediate” and leave it at that.
I think this letter is grotesque and offensive! As if the Libs attacks have not been degrading enough, here are the Conservatives, proclaiming she is “handled.” How sad. Palin is exactly who she claims to be and says what she means, she is authentic as far as I can tell, and sincere - perhaps that is the *magic* that actually does endears her to so many. And it seems to be what the authors of this letter want to change!
I would never vote for her or McCain based on what they stand for: amnesty and war and status quo free market mumbo jumbo debt culture. I wildly disagree with her on just about everything, but at least I have enough respect for her to believe that she says what she means and stands with a candidate she supports! Why is it so hard for people to just accept her for who she is: A NEOCON (with lipstick!)! She has a mind of her own. She does NOT agree with the stated view and general idiocy and downright meanness of conservatives like the ones who put this letter together! She loves Israel! She supported her son going to off to Bushes war in Iraq! She believes Russia is an aggressor! That is what she told us, and she did not lie, nor was she neoconned, like a zombie! If I were her I would toss this offensive letter in the garbage.
Palin, if she were ugly and flat chested would she have been picked?
No, she is a package to be used.
Sadly its an empty package.
The letter was the truth on Israel and the creeps
in Washington. Rodfish and Larson you belong on the ‘losers are us’ site, not this one. Palin, the
Christian puppet will take her orders from the neocons. The letter to Palin was great. The truth is beautiful. That’s why PJB is the best!
In her interview with Gibson, in which she spoke passionately about protecting us from terrorists and how proud she is of her son’s decision to enlist, she sounded like a Bush disciple. Although a politician has to answer hundreds of questions and occasional gaffes should be expected, Palin repeatedly demonstrates that she has no grasp of the issues. Maybe because she’s unsure of herself, she has been simply trying to parrot her handlers and the hope is that, if left alone, she’ll shine. That’s nonsense. Her answers to Couric’s questions were so off the wall that Saturday Night Live’s Tina Fey didn’t even have to exaggerate to get a laugh. Not only did Palin show no hesitation in green-lighting an Israeli attack on Iran, she seems to have considered not at all the consequences of such an attack. Worse, she appears willing to commit us to a war with Russia to safeguard the territorial integrity of Georgia — a country that, other than access to an oil pipeline, has nothing to offer us. In short, Palin doesn’t have well thought out positions, she has beliefs — as evangelicals always do. No evangelical has ever let a sound rationale, an unrefutable fact, or even simply curiosity make them question, or even explore, their beliefs. They believe, they don’t think. In short, after her stellar convention speech, Palin has been unmasked as an uninformed, none too smart, ideologue. She can’t be rescued from the neo-cons because she is a neo-con.
Sarah Palin is not pro-life anymore. She thinks the states should decide. This is the standard neocon fall-back position designed to seduce conservatives by echoing the old states rights bit. Should infanticide be up to the states too? How about segregation? The death penalty for five-year olds?
Palin is what she appears to be, namely a ditz and easy pickings for her “trainers.” That’s better than being a neocon, but if you think she gives a damn what American Conservative thinks and would take the trouble to read it you’re in La-La-Land. As I write this another Republican airhead rears his airy head - Roy Blunt. According to Mr. Blunt, Einstein said everything should be done as quickly as possible but no quicker. I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he is ignorant rather than lying. Most people know that what Einstein actually said was “Everything should be made as simple as possible but no simpler.” Grumpily yours,
Peter
I pray she reads it and uses it as at the debate.
Pat is 100% right, as usual.
Sarah Palin is one of us! If you are so inclined, pray for her before the debate tonight
Ronin555 your commentary is exact, thank you.
Palin is a neocon and is about as prolife as
Gwen Ifill is intelligent. I can’t stand liberals or neocons, but Palin interviews horribly. I still prefer her over Biden. The state of affairs in this country is pathetic as is our choices.
The past week we have seen Mother Sarah play the dope - tonight she must bring out the rope - a la Ali - and lash out and lasso Mr. B like a raging prophet, as if her noble son’s life depends on it. It’s all about letting her be that pit bull: she is the personification of authentic change because she is not living in that mess we call DC. Her very switched off nature to detail WILL be an asset if she makes herself the outsider who can at least put up a fight to change the history of that failed detail: because this woman stands for the millions of Americans who are justly furious with DC’s reaction to our nation’s acceptance of the sin of greed - greed from the rich, greed from the poor, greed from our government. She must encapsulate that righteous indignation, articulate its fury and characterize our desire for a new way back to where we once aspired. Vicariously, we are counting on you, Mother Sarah! Speak for us!
Guys, Palin got neoconned. I am not sure if it is just her pretending to please McCain’s stooges or for real. But I cannot trust her anymore. So it si comrade Obama vs. generalissimo McCain — a really great choice… Vote for third party!
This is sadly pathetic. First of all Palin won’t respond to this letter, second of all this is a McCain pick, do you honestly think McCain would pick Pat Buchanan, Chuck Baldwin, Ron Paul, or Ross Perot as his running mate? McCain is going to pick someone like him, call it a “neocon”.
rodfish, as if we would vote a fat ugly man in either. think first man, think first.
btb Obama has been taught arabic, recieved teaching in the koran, has closely related muslim fam and whether he is muslim by proclomation or not you cannot avoid the idea that he will have sympathy where it does not belong in a clear and defined national difference. bring on the air brother. better that than ‘oops i guess we should have!’ when it’s too late.
PaleoRepublican is right. I never thought of it but
PR is right when it’s stated that McCain would only
pick someone like himself- a neocon. Are Patrick
Buchanan and Ron Paul the only ones with guts to
stand up to Neocon garbage?
The game- Pretend you care about other people.
to get elected. Take in millions from big business. Get elected. Creat new taxes. Lie the rest of your life. If there is a hell- the politicians are definitely going.
For two bold maverick/rebels these charlatans whine more than a teething, tired toddler!
“It doesn’t seem fair. Life’s not fair!” the war hero moans to FOX news this morning.
Senator McCain life is not fair!
A fair is a place with clowns and cotton candy, not an election for the leader of the free, though heavily mortgaged, world.
As for media bias and censorship….the McCain campaign has spent the last two weeks spewing those words at every bump in the road, now that ‘POW and Bridge’ are no longer effective.
And rather than shouldering the truth regarding Palin’s ineptness and this mismatched ticket, the GOP blames the press.
The liberal, left wing elitist have not had their hands up Sarah’s skirt moving her mouth and releasing gibberish. They have not taken her on elocution hunts, hoping to shoot and bag an actual fact!
Her lips stick on the understanding of the simple issues…the basic functioning of government.
Supreme Court cases and naming newspapers or periodicals are hardly extra credit questions during a Political Science thesis defense.
And the irony, of all this painful im-palin-g, is that these abundant examples of inability have appeared in two major interviews in 45 days. It’s not like she’s up at dawn on the morning shows or sparring until midnight with Democratic demagogues.
No So Much!
And Sarah Six Pack’s moments of arterial avalanches occurred not at the hands of torturous Guantanamo guards but with…Katie, “I’ll give you one more chance,” and Charlie, “Can you help me understand?” No media waterboarding involved.
Sarah, these will not be the people making the 3 AM sky is falling call!
America, expecting a future President to be competent in more than parenting and parroting is not a ‘gotcha moment’ or ‘attack journalism’….it is our duty!
“If there is a hell- the politicians are definitely going.”
*claps*
There is hell and that is exactly what these politicians are putting the people through, hell.
Palin accepts the Neocon doctrine for her own. After no considerable amount of AIPAC briefings and Schuneman crash courses, Sarah Palin became an Isreali tonight on primetime TV. In fact, she and Biden actually sparred over which of them was the greater friend of Israel. How fortunate for our American economy that both parties are ready to expand the Mideast War into the rocky terrain of Afghanistan and Pakistan to influence Jewish voters in the closing weeks of the campaign. I was so relieved when Gov Palin said there would be no white flags of surrender from our nation (which has over 10000 nuclear warheads and trident subs capable of rendering life on earth uninhabitable several times over and again). No sir! Even though our neocon politicians from both sides of the aisle have brought us to economic collapse, we will not cut and run. We will stay the course, become the proud owners of bad debts and financial houses, tax ourselves to pay for all the bad gambles by speculators and downright crooks, and protect Israel because Arabs and Persians may someday acquire the estimated 200 to 400 nuclear warheads in the Israeli nuclear arsenal that they refuse to acknowledge or have inspected. But, it’s good to know that our main political parties are Israel-firsters. I think one or both even mentioned the holocaust in tonight’s debate. How relevant that was. I’m not sure that applies to the Palestinians, though.
In the 2006 midterm elections, I honestly was pleased to see the Democrats win the House. I thought, at the time, they might actually be a preferable alternative to the Neocons who came to dominate the Republican Party. It then became vividly clear that neocons have undermined both parties, all the halls of Congress, our Dept of State, our Defense Dept, and probably our intelligence agencies.
So, when the debates end, and the strongly dominantly partisan Israeli American Media have crowned the newest president of this charade, no America-firster will have reason to cheer. Our army is triumphant in the field, but our soul is long stolen away by an enemy whom our political candidates proclaimed as our strongest ally. No sir! I won’t be cheering at all. Ravaged by debt, reliant on public rescue of our private sector, we will expand our presence in the deserts and mountains of the Mideast for God knows what.
If AIPAC doesn’t show the destructiveness of immigration, I don’t know what does! Maybe it is time to admit that Italian and Jewish mobsters just have different ambitions?
Is there even a nation left when candidates for national office openly claim a love for a foreign nation? There is nothing worth saving. I hope the system collapses!
Is there even a nation left when candidates for national office claim a love for a foreign nation? At least now I know why I felt so utterly defeated after last night’s debate.
Viacom is owned by Sumner Redstone, real name
Maury Rothstein, a zionist who is a huge contributor to McCain. Iran, Russia, Pakistan,
N. Korea- All these conflicts will make the neocons tons of money if they happen. They own congress.
I’ll be you $ 700 billion I’m right!
Well, given the demographic trends in this country anyway, the days of “jewish power” are numbered. There are more and more muslims here in the US, and mexicans do not bear a guilt complex for the WWII holocaust of the jewish people as well as past centuries of European christian opression on the jews (both of which were real of course). So certain shadow bankers and various intellectuals and pundits will soon be moving to Switzerland and Cayman islands. Unfortunately, there are regular jewish people who never supported all this empire of democracy bullshit, and they will suffer.
Sarah can’t save us Pat. Only we can save ourselves.
Just joined today! But not w/o opinion? I cannot believe how everyone is falling for Palin. If she’s qualified or not doesn’t matter at this point since there’s no possible way McCain could survive by asking her to step down. Let’s face. Palin is an embarrassment to not only McCains campaign, but is also an embarrassment to herself.
I cannot vote for a McCain ticket with this Person only a heartbeat away from being President.
Will the American Southwest become a giant Kosovo, a part of the nation separated from the rest by language, ethnicity, history and culture, to be reabsorbed in all but name by Mexico from whom we took these lands in the time of Jackson and Polk?
The quote makes sense up until the last 2 lines. It should accurately say: to be reabsorbed in all but name by Mexico from whom we “stole” these lands in the time of Jackson and Polk?
Otherwise it makes complete sense.
While I’ve long been an admirer of your pugnacious brand of conservatism, there’s one area that’s always nagged at me: Your position on the Middle-East. I agree with you fully that the Neo-Cons anal fixation with “spreading democracy” through intervention in this area is not in our best interest, but I wonder if your distain for their positions, though well earned, has not resulted in a blind spot with respect to Iran. You seem to be stating that we can talk to Iran and that it does not pose an imminent danger to Israel or us if they eventually get the bomb. This is where we tear the sheet. While there may be good Iranians, they apparently haven’t developed enough spine to stand up to the Ayatollahs. I would tell the Israelis to “act in your own best interest”, while simultaneously issuing a statement to the rest of the world that it is the position of the United States that “while we have no interest in intervening in the internal affairs of another nation, we will act unilaterally to protect the security of our nation wherever we perceive a threat to exist”. This means no UN, no NATO, no SEATO, no nothing. To believe that Iran will not provide terrorist clients the bomb when, not if, they get it operational is to put it mildly, delusional. Please tell me that you’re not there. The Third World respects one thing: Not power, but the will to use it!
I think that you are wasting your time, Pat. Sarah Palin strikes me as being nothing more than an ambitious airhead who will do anything that she thinks she needs to do to get ahead and if that means marching to the beat of the neocon drummer, then she will do it and do it enthusiastically, you betcha!
Excuse my ignorance. Somebody please enlightem me. Who are “They” in letter refer to ?!
I assumed names mentioned in the letter are some of those “They” so I searched those names in the letter.
Richard Perle,David Frum,Krauthammer,AIPAC. I found out “They” have these in common: 1.Jewish-please don’t start with anti semite routine because I’m not- 2.Zionists 3. Lobbyists for Israel
I found out -all on interent- every Jew is automatically citizen of Israel. So these “They” are citizens of another country while at the same time influencing our politicians. This made me astonished and sad that USA a country of 350 million is being influenced to the benefit of another country. Our lives and money are spent to the point of bankruptcy. Then I digged more-again all on internet from various sources.
Now hear this, most disturbing fact, I tried to find out how many of these dual citizens we have in government and our congress.
This is from The Jewish Virtual Library a division of the American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise not an “anti semite” nutcase.
There are 31 Jewish in Bush admin.
see (http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/US-Israel/bushjews.html)
13 Senators in senate
30 Reps in House of Reps.
Again don’t call me anti jewish- I am really not.
But this is just outragous. The Jewish community makes about 2% of the population of this country. There is not proportion what so ever. Problem is that they willingly or unwillingly represents Israel interests too. Iraq war,Afghan war,Iran,Russia,…
Security for who??
Now seeing Mrs Palin showing Israeli flag in her office?? Ah, unbelievable, looks like “They” have already got her.
Please Mr Buchanan would you enlighten me as why it’s so?
I know many seem to be “smitten” with Sarah Palin, but my “gut feeling” is, if she ever made it to the White House, she would sell herself out to the “special interests” and “neo-conservative” crowd quicker than that “compassionate conservative” George W. Bush.