Sarah Palin has been in the news a lot lately as she continues to rebuild her image and to promote her new book. So far she has done a good job with her interviews with Oprah and with Barbara Walters and it appears that her favor ability rating among many Americans has started to rise. So far I haven't seen any of these interviews but I did catch her two part interview with Oreilly and thought I'd comment on a few things.
For the most part Sarah seems a good bit more media savvy these days as she seems very conscience of how her answers will be viewed and played over and over again. The interview started with Oreilly asking her about possible tension between her and John McCain's aides during the presidential campaign. She admits that she had many differing views on how the campaign should be run, but she deferred to the aides because "they were the experts" and so she went with what they asked her to do. She also brings up that she wanted to make Obama's connection to Wright a lot more of an issue during the campaign, but this idea was also shot down as McCain and his aides thought that it would backfire and lead to calls of racism on them. IMO that was a real boneheaded call. Any clear thinking individual could watch those tapes of Wright and come to the conclusion that these guy was off his rocker and yet Obama stayed in the pew for 20 years. That should have been an issue and as someone who was the running mate of the Presidential candidate Sarah should have pushed this issue a lot harder than she did at the time. The fact that she did tends to give me pause that as a leader she may defer too often on issues where leadership is needed, in other words give us a conservative version of Obama.
In part two of the interview Sarah discussed issues such as Iran's nuclear program and how she would seek to stop them. She gave the response that working with our counterparts in Europe and Asia would be the best approach, but when countered that Russia specifically would need to be brought on board and asked how she would deal with this angle she appears to give an answer that adds up to attempting to pressure the Russians into stopping their work with Iran. That was not a good answer IMO because there is little that the US can realistically threaten the Russians with. If we initiate that kind of diplomatic relations the Russians would react negatively at likely accelerate support to the Iranians just to prove they can. The correct way of dealing with the Russians is to offer them a legitimate alternative to that would allow them to back off their relationship with Iran while not appearing to be bowing to international pressure.
Sarah also gave a sort of broad viewpoint when asked about Afghanistan. While she was emphatic that we will need to send more troops over there she was unable to articulate how they should be used and what to do about the corrupt Afghan government which is not being seen as legitimate in more and more Afghan eyes. "Well we have to deal with them" was her answer when pressed on this issue. Her heart is in the right place as we will need to continue in Afghanistan, but as someone who seeks to continue as a political leader in this country I would like to see a much clearer articulated position on what victory is to her and how we will achieve it.
Overall though Sarah did well in this interview and I do think she has a solid foundation of fiscal and social conservative values. I think in government her honesty and devotion to these goals would help us reduce the massive spending we are currently on, but on world matters she still comes up a bit short to me, so at this point I am no Palin supporter for 2012 and should she be the nominee will likely vote third party.
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