Palin on the "Bush Doctrine"

1.
Yes, the "Bush Doctrine" is an absurd mish-mash of different statements of intention, tracking whatever is flitting through the Current Occupant's head at the time. But the two most prominent versions seem to be:

(a) The doctrine that preventive war is permissible.
Um, allow me harp on this one more time:
NOT: preemptive war.
Everybody knows that preemptive war is permissible. It's endorsed by just war theory. A preemptive war is a war that country A launches if country B is actively preparing to attack A. The idea is: if I see you aiming your gun at me, I don't have to wait for you to squeeze off a shot. It's permissible for me to shoot you preemptively.

Preventive war is very different. A preventive war is a war that country A launches against country B if A thinks that B might attack A at some point or other in the future.

The idea is: If I know that you might try to shoot me at some point, I can go shoot you right now.

This is, to say the least, a rather more contentious theory.

The other prominent interpretation is:

(b) That we should/will act to spread democracy around the globe.

Interpreted sensibly, this isn't in any way new with Bush. It's the kind of view Democratic foreign policy idealists have advocated for my whole life. And the idea ridiculed by Republican foreign policy "Realists" (note: not actually realism) as naive.

Interpreted rather more kookly, this is new with Bush...but it's the very bad idea invoked as a post hoc justification of the invasio of Iraq. I guess the idea here is that we should spread democracy even to countries where the costs outweigh the benefits. Not smart.

2.
However--and this is the important point--Palin was not confused by the objective ambiguity of the phrase 'The Bush Doctrine.'

Rather: it was obvious from her reaction that she had no Earthly idea what Gibson was talking about.

It wasn't: gosh, you could mean any of four different things. It was: beeeeeeeeeeee...pure dial tone. Test pattern. Nothing. Nada. Drawing a blank.

That much is reasonably obvious, and has been noted by almost everyone this side of The Corner.

I'm almost more interested in another aspet of Palin's reaction, though: she barely missed a beat. She just bulled right ahead with a show of unflappable confidence. She had absolutely no idea what she was talking about, but that barely gave her pause.

Some of my friends had already told me that they knew the Palin type--not too bright, but sharp enough to BS and bully through most ordinary problems. This hypothesis seems consistent with what we saw in the Gibson interview: here's a person untroubled by and able to cover up for her own ignorance, and supremely confident no matter how clueless.

Extremely Bush-like.

Exactly the wrong kind of person to have in charge of a democracy.