The Neocons’ Palin Project
Will the neocons who tutored George W. Bush in the ideology he pursued to the ruin of his presidency do the same for Sarah Palin?
Should they succeed, they will destroy her. Yet, they are moving even now to capture this princess of the right and hope of the party.
In St. Paul, Palin was told to cancel a meeting with Phyllis Schlafly and pro-life conservatives. McCain's operatives said Palin had to rest for her Wednesday convention speech.
Yet, on Tuesday, Palin was behind closed doors with Joe Lieberman and officials of the Israeli lobby AIPAC. There, according to The Washington Post, Palin took and passed her oral exams.
"Palin assured the group of her strong support for Israel, of her desire to see the United States move its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and of her opposition to Iran's aspirations to become a nuclear power, according to sources familiar with the meeting."
AIPAC's mission, like that of Likud, is to goad America into launching air and missile strikes on any and all Iranian nuclear facilities.
AIPAC went away happy. Purred spokesman Josh Block, "We were pleased that Gov. Palin expressed her deep personal commitment to the safety and well-being of Israel."
Heading home to Alaska to prepare for her interview with Charlie Gibson, Palin was escorted by Randy Scheunemann, McCain's foreign policy guru and, until March, a hired agent of the Tbilisi regime.
Scheunemann's lobbying assignment: Bring Georgia into NATO, so U.S. troops, like 19-year-old Track Palin, will be required to fight Russia to defend a Saakashvili regime that has paid Randy and his partner $730,000.
Reportedly, a phone conversation was held between Saakashvili and Palin, in which Palin committed herself to the territorial integrity of Georgia, though South Ossetia and Abkhazia have declared independence and been recognized by Moscow, which now has troops in both.
Also on Palin's plane was Steve Biegun, formerly of Bush's National Security Council, and Scheunemann's choice to tutor her. Of Biegun, Steven Clemens of the New American Foundation says, "He will turn her into an advocate of Cheneyism and Cheney's view of national security issues."
During her interview with Gibson, Palin often took a neocon line. Three times she said that, should Israel decide to attack Iran, the United States should not "second guess" Israel's decision or interfere.
This contradicts U.S. policy. Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the joint chiefs, has warned Israel not to attack Iran, as the United States does not want a "third front." And the Pentagon is withholding crucial weapons the Israelis want and need to carry out any such attack.
Palin also volunteered that the Russian invasion was "unprovoked," though Georgia attacked South Ossetia first. She followed up by saying that Georgia and Ukraine should be brought into NATO.
Would that mean America would have to go to war with Russia on behalf of Georgia in any new conflict, asked Gibson.
"Perhaps so," said Palin.
Scheunemann should get a fat severance check from Saakashvili for that one.
One ex-White House aide at American Enterprise Institute, asked by Tim Shipman of the Daily Telegraph if AEI sees Palin as a "project," replied: "Your word, not mine. ... But I wouldn't disagree with the sentiment. ... She's bright, and she's a blank page. She's going places, and it's worth going there with her."
In fairness to Palin, on issues like NATO membership for Ukraine and Georgia, her answers reflect the views of the man who chose her. She has no option at present but to follow the line laid down by Scheunemann.
But make no mistake. Sarah Palin is no neocon. She did not come by her beliefs by studying Leo Strauss. She is a traditionalist whose values are those of family, faith, community and country, not some utopian ideology.
Wasilla, Alaska, is not a natural habitat of neoconservatives.
And her unrehearsed answers to Gibson's questions reveal her natural conservatism. Asked if she agrees with the Bush Doctrine, Palin asked for clarification. "In what respect, Charlie?"
Gibson: "Do we have the right of an anticipatory self-defense?"
Yes, said Palin, "if there is legitimate and enough intelligence that tells us that a strike is imminent against (the) American people, we have every right to defend our country. In fact, the president has the obligation, the duty to defend."
Exactly. The intelligence must be legit and the threat "imminent."
Interviewed by Alaska Business Monthly in March 2007 on the surge, Palin said, "I heard on the news about the new deployments, and while I support our president, I want to know that we have an exit plan in place."
That is not the language of empire or "benevolent global hegemony."
Palin may disappoint many conservatives in the next seven weeks by having to parrot the McCain-neocon line on NATO expansion, NAFTA and a "path to citizenship" for illegal aliens. But the battle for Sarah's soul is not over.
For, again, the lady is no neocon. Nor is the husband Todd, First Dude of Alaska and former member of the "Alaska First" Independence Party.
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Entries(RSS)
Just maybe Sarah Palin will read her old candidate's columns and see the light. It's not much of a hope, but I think Mr. Buchanan has been writing with that hope in mind.
Chesterbelloc wrote: "It’s not much of a hope, but I think Mr. Buchanan has been writing with that hope in mind."
...And if wishes were horses then beggars would ride. While he continues to live and breathe, President Gollum will have Caribou Barbie doing little more than fetching coffee and picking up his shirts from the cleaners.
Sadly, I agree with "Chesterbelloc" and "Miles Gloriosus" regarding Ms. Palin's influence with Mr. McCain. I don't see her as a force of moderation and/or "realist" global policies within a McCain administration.
Mr. Buchanan is being [u]very[/u] optimist about Ms. Palin's potential influence. I wish that I could share his sentiments. I can think one scenario in which she [i]might[/i] change the direction of a Republican administration. However, such a circumstance is too horrible to contemplate...for more than a few seconds.
Hopefully, it will be discovered that Obama is not a natural-born citizen.........I know, I'm grasping at straws!
I will be sending Palin a copy of the _The Israeli Lobby and US Foreign Policy_ by Mearsheimer and Walt in today's mail...
In return, I'd like her to send me a list of the last 5 books she has read and her 5 favorite books.
I agree that she's probably not an organic neocon and seems to have some genuine leanings toward paleocon - especially her husband's "Alaska First" membership - the real question is her malleability and extent of careerism. Is she willing to do/say/believe anything to be VP? Kow-towing to the Israeli lobby isn't exactly the way of a maverick...
Mr. Buchanan, this is a great post. It deals with at least one aspect that is currently generally puzzling a bunch of people trying to figure out if they should vote for Mc/Palin, mostly because of Palin.
The questions seem to grow:
What set of values does Sarah Palin, herself, represent?
What set of values would Sarah Palin represent as John McCain's vice president?
What set of values would Sarah Palin represent as a president?
This remains an ongoing question, though it appears John McCain is ever-clueless, based on his comments today about the economy. He still thinks he should manage it. "...we need a commission to figure out what went wrong and how to fix it..." Argh.
But to the specific point you bring up about foreign policy, I am curious what you think our policy should be towards Israel and that region. Benevolent indifference with economic support?
My understanding of Israel's military prowess is other than what you imply in your writing. I do not think we are in their way at all. Couldn't they do to Iran what they did to Syria not too long ago? Why do they need us at all? (And why do we remain so interested and easily manipulated?)
Well Buchanan appears to be coming around a bit. I hadn't really thought about it this way before, but perhaps he is trying to shame her into doing right. "You know Sarah, you aren't a neocon studying Leo Strauss after all." That sort of thing. But up until now, it has seemed too much like he was making excuses for her bad behavior.
At any rate, none of it justifies a vote for McCain/Palin.
I am worried about her internalizing the Russophobic agenda of those behind McCain and Obama. The relationship of the West to Russia is critical to a future without world war. Russia tilts the balance either way, and since the 1990's the West has been driving Russia into alliance with the East. Note the recent activation of its Soviet alliances, a sign that Russia is giving up on the West. This on top of the Republicans and Democrats having the same Russophobic agenda will lead the world to catastrophe. The course is now set. Divergence to a different path is no longer possible. America is lighting the fuse.
"Reportedly, a phone conversation was held between Saakashvili and Palin, in which Palin committed herself to the territorial integrity of Georgia.."
"Scheunemann should get a fat severance check from Saakashvili for that one."
I am convinced that Saakashvili is the worst neocon puppet since Nouri al-Maliki. What a contemptible little man he is.
Sadly, Sarah Palin does not even have to toe the Neocon line; they need her more than she needs them, she really is the lipstick on the pig. After all, where else are they going to go? Democrats, Independents, Libertarians, and Paloconservaties have no use for their foreign policy. Nor are they likely to drop her if she disagrees, after all, she is a maverick….
Moreover, if she is forced out or resigns on principle, it sets her up for 2012. All of this is a pattern familiar to her as she previously resigned on a matter of principle from her job as the chair and ethics officer of the Alaska Oil & Gas Conservation Commission. This gave her reform credentials that launched her into the Governors’ office against an incumbent Republican, thus she is comfortable in this spoiler’s role.
"Wasilla, Alaska, is not a natural habitat of neoconservatives."
As Buchanan explains elsewhere, the Marxist and the left were not able to bring their revolution to the West because it fell on rock-hard Christian soil and died, hence a “long march” through the cultural institutions was needed before a mass conversion could take place.
Similarly, today’s neoconservatives have taken a page from Gramsci’s playbook and are every bit as skillful as their ideological forbearers, in fact it took them very little time to flip a conservative Texas governor who advocated a humble foreign policy into a president who practiced a hubris interventionist policy. This means that if arid Texas political soil turns out to be fertile grounds for imperial neoconservative nonsense, what chance does the native daughter of Alaska’s frozen tundra have in preventing the planting of poisonous ideological platitudes?
Miles Gloriosus is certainly right that "Caribou Barbie" isn't going to have much to say or do under McCain. Let's hope he loses. It gets him out of politics forever but leaves Palin as a national figure with four years to possibly mature. Mr. Buchanan deserves the benefit of the doubt. He may be a sentimentalist, but he has been in Washington way too long to be naive.
I think we should remember that Mrs. Palin was a Buchanan supporter and therefore may have read some of Pat's books. His books were on the best-sellers lists afterall and it's not like she's going to go on Charlie Gibson speaking of non-interventionism and her plans to address the Death of the West.
That's not to say that she's being a stealth operative, but Pat is urging us to be openminded about this. On the otherhand she could be George Bush 3
Pat,
This is mostly a good summary of backroom lobbying to get Palin "on board".
However, I wish you wouldn't descend to spin.
E.g.: "Three times she said that, should Israel decide to attack Iran, the United States should not “second guess” Israel’s decision or interfere."
She actually only said it once, in response to a question about what the U.S. would do; then repeated it verbatim when Gibson annoyingly repeated his question twice.
I'd have advised her to just say that future U.S. policies would depend on relevant conditions. Rather than saying the U.S. "wouldn't second guess Israel", I'd prefer if she'd hinted that U.S. response could range from approval to understanding to extreme criticism. The way she put it, it gives the impression that Israel sets the agenda.
Anyway, with "Three times she said...", you make it sound like she's obsessed with Israel. I'm sure she'd rather just deal with domestic issues. If in fact she's naturally more "isolationist", that could be in line with what I understand to be your position. On the other hand, her lack of appreciation for the complexities of foreign affairs could easily make her a puppet for the "experts"she chooses to defer to.
* * *
People like Josh Block are not really doing Israel any favours by basically crowing about "getting" Palin, or Obama, or whoever. Expressing support for Israel is just an insincere ritual for U.S. pols. Even people who are blatantly antisemitic (Jimmy Carter) or, like Obama, belligerent towards nation-states and non-Black/African/Hispanic ethnic unity know how to mouth the requisite platitudes. (Or as Obama would intone: "JUST WORDS?)
* * *
Having unfortunately overheard numerous Hockey Moms' conversations, I can state with absolute confidence that they generally vote for the guy who sends the greatest thrill through their frustrated Hockey Mom bodies.
* * *
I remain optimistic about Russia. I've always felt that Russia and the U.S. should be natural allies. Certainly Russians should be more understanding of the U.S. than more prosaic states like France or Belgium could ever be. Russia's closer ties to Korean or Arab or Latino tyrants are actually very demeaning to the Russians (as U.S. ties to the filth like the Saudis are demeaning to Americans). These developments should encourage the U.S. to treat Russia with more respect, in the hope that they could be drawn away from such ignoble alliances. Instead, both Democrats and Republicans just ramp up the "anti-Soviet" rhetoric.
Let's say, just for the sake of the argument, that Palin is actually a ruthless Machiavellian who is really a paleo but is lying to gain access to power which she will then use to advance paleo goals. Doesn't her slavish repetition of neocon propaganda harm her potential to do that? I mean couldn't she at least equivocate some instead of sounding like, as Justin Raimondo called her, a "neocon pod-person" who just finished Neoconservatism 101.
When the neocons infiltrated and eventually took over the conservative movement, did they ever outright lie about what they believed? (That is a question I am not 100% sure I know the answer to.) My sense is that they did not. (Of course, neoconservatism is based on the big Noble Lie, but that isn’t what I am getting at. They never pretended to be spreading something other than the Noble Lie which they didn’t identify as such.) They might have spun their ideas to sound more conservative, but they never lied and masqueraded as traditionalist, did they? They made common cause with traditionalist and while they were at it preached their dogma, and a gullible, ungrounded movement ate it up. The traditionalist/neocon battle lines were drawn pretty quickly, I believe, because they were quite upfront with their agenda, universal democracy for example. (They may well have hidden some of their motives, such as excessive affinity for Israel.)
The idea that we have to be stealth paleos to get anywhere seems to me counterproductive. We need to be very upfront with what we believe. That “paleo” Palin so quickly capitulated simply does not bode well.
As I said before, the best thing that can be said about Palin is that like Huckabee she has good enemies and makes some of the right people nervous. (Krauthammer and Will don’t like her selection.) But the notion that she is “one of us” in anyway other than some cultural sense is hopelessly optimistic, IMO. Not that the cultural sense is unimportant, it just will not necessarily translate into policy.
Red,
I think your "stealth paleocon" idea is a good one. I'm not qualified to say how many outright lies the neocons told to get in power, but I know they didn't really have to lie. The National Review crowd was desperate for the kind of intellectual "respectability" the neocons could provide. Besides, it was the Cold War, and anybody "anti-communist" was considered to be on the same team.
What I do know is that over the course of thousands of editorials and debates, the neocons incrimentally changed the meaning of being "pro-defense", "nationalist", "pro-market", etc. Republican Party insiders didn't notice or care about the change, and the current generation grew up without knowing conservatism could be anything else. Hey, even I was a teenage neocon (sounds like a monster movie).
Neoconservatism wins by default! We need to bring about some incremental changes of our own. I think "stealth paleocons" can be an effective part of the overall strategy. Join your local Republican committee and put in some work for the local candidates (or run yourself). For most Republicans, this is enough to make you part of "us" rather than one of "them". Stay true to yourself and decline to campaign for the likes of McCain. When people ask you why, tell them in reasonable terms and emphasizes things they will agree with (e.g. his amnesty support). You'll win over a few people. At the very least, you'll stop the one-upsmanship dynamic present in many Republican chapters: when everyone's views are the same, people try to stand out by saying something crazy and extreme. Someone else one-ups them by saying something crazier, and before you know it you have a chapter full of crazies. Just one person can cool things off and restore sanity. This has been my personal experience, for what it's worth.
P.S. Sarah Palin is indeed no stealth paleocon. That deer-in-the-headlights look on Charlie Gibson was not an act.
"While he continues to live and breathe, President Gollum will have Caribou Barbie doing little more than fetching coffee and picking up his shirts from the cleaners."
While doubtlessly true, in the event McCain is victorious, the real scenario here is an Obama victory. Amiable Barack has got "One Term Wonder" all but tattooed on his forehead, and assuming she doesn't do something to disgrace and/or humiliate herself in the next few weeks (most likely not), and that the election is at least somewhat close (seems almost certain at this stage), she would be the frontrunner to be the GOP nominee for President in 2012. That's when what she thinks will actually matter. Otherwise, nada.
"Even people who are blatantly antisemitic (Jimmy Carter)"
Man, that's funny!
"Russia’s closer ties to Korean or Arab or Latino tyrants are actually very demeaning to the Russians (as U.S. ties to the filth like the Saudis are demeaning to Americans)."
On this, the 60th anniversary of the assassination of the Swedish Count Folk Bernadotte, on the part of a group of "national heroes" led in part by future Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, I can think of another Middle Eastern country we could do with loosening our ties....
I can remember briefly identifying with neo-"conservatism," as a college student in 1990-91 (of course, like so many college students, I wasn't nearly as sophisticated as I thought I was, and thus didn't realize how incongruous my enthusiasm for Patrick Buchanan was at that time). I recall telling one of my numerous liberal Democrat friends how "I'm a neo-conservative." He was predictably horrified. I felt so smart when I told him he should get off his high horse, because being a neocon wasn't really all that different from being a liberal. At the time, I had no idea just how truthfully I spoke.
“Scheunemann should get a fat severance check from Saakashvili for that one”.
Saakashvili is a western installed politician by George Soros so Soros would be the one paying Scheunemann pay check.
The electorate want an anti-Russian policy so I don't think Palins being pushed in that direction that he own belief that she doesn't like Russia or Russian like Brezinski, Neocons or the Clinton Balkan crowd.
If Russia did not have Nuclear weapons US and EU public opinion would have a majority in favour of bombing Russia.
@13Akira
The plan is already in place with the Brezinski doctrine, CFR and opinion pages foreign policy magazines promoting the idea that Russia should be divided and separated in 3 being the Caucus region, Siberia and Western Russia with western Russia eventually being admitted into the EU.
Exactly the same strategy as they used in the former Yugoslavia.
They tried it through separatism and terrorism inside Russia when that failed they used new tactic first inventing the story of former KGB agent killed when smuggling plutonium turning that into Putin killed former KGB critic know this Georgian fiasco which they claim was part of a Kremlin ploy to lure Georgia into South Ossetia although all the evidence points otherwise like OSCE, civilian bombardment of the capital, eye witness testimony, US and Georgian intelligence documents seized, etc.
The media is embedded with government policy. Apart from Paul Craig Roberts I have not read any criticism of Saakashvili bombing of South Ossetia.
Chesterbelloc, I wasn't advocating the stealth strategy, but what you outlined I have no problem with. The key is not going along with every general election nominee and being very honest and forthright about why.
Let's remember: Palin doesn't have to be a neocon to be a disaster; all she has to do is be a regular Reagan/Bush Republican. I am guilty of this too, but let's stop blaming the neocons, who can do what they do only because of the intellectual and moral bankruptcy of the Republican Party. Without their vehicle they amount to little. Unfortunately, the Republican Party is tailor-made for their take-over.
Have to go with Dr. Wilson on the part about the moral and intellectual bankruptcy of the GOP. They really did a number with rhe Ron paul faction at the RNC this year. Any true beleiver in a non interventionist foreign policy or limited govt is "guided" out the door, smeared, or cornered into selling out. They morphed into Dems, but since they have a lust for war are still considered Republicans. How sad that the lust for war is the only thing that seems to deferentiate the two.(but not by much on war either)
From reading about Palin from other sites, I would put money that Palin is just another ambitious politician and out of necessity adopted the "paleo" doctrine to win office. Mr. Buchanan is truly grasping at straws thinking this brunette Barbie doll is going to have McCain's ear for anything. IF Lieberman is put in as Sec of State or Defense, he will be the man leading McCain around, not Palin. Remember how Lieberman corrected McCain on how Iran doesn'tsupport Al Qaeda, just extremeists on camera? Lieberman will be the new Cheney.
I have no real faith in Palin at all, but I suspect they may have brought into their midst someone who may turn out to be a bull in their china closet. She doesn't have to be even remotely neocon to have this effect. She just has to be a very ambitious woman. Dr Fleming has already mentioned Hatshepsut in another blog here. Sooner or later, the unexpected must catch up with them.
Russia's reaction to their shenanigans in Georgia was one of those unexpecteds. Let's hope she turns out to be another. She may not destroy them , but she may set them back or otherwise do some damage.
Sad but true, nobody can be elected for standing firm on any set of issues. But if Palin is unfaithful to what she appeared to be when first named VP candidate (and I think we then saw what she really was), she will lose that freshness that made her an instant hit with so many people, including Mr. Buchanan.
A better strategy than indoctrination ---from the Republican point of view--- would be to allow her to be DIFFERENT from McCain and company. She needs to maintain her stance as the independent thinker she appeared to be from the start---someone acting on personal conviction, not political expedience.
Amusing and also sad to read the article and comments that desperately wish that the empty skirt, Palin, can be the savior of true conservatives.
Whether Palin can be a savior of "true conservatives" is less important to me than whether she can save the nation from Obama and the American left.
"Whether Palin can be a savior of “true conservatives” is less important to me than whether she can save the nation from Obama and the American left."
Hearing that a lot from Palin smitten born-again Republican cadres returning to the fold. Finding the stench from both sides overbearing this cycle, will side with third-party alternatives.
@20 James
Soros does not write checks, he has front groups do that for him.
But RT reported that the Georgian army went into Tskhinvali and leveled the Jewish neighborhood first. Maybe they can be of some use after all! The Rose Revolution was carried out by Saakashvili donating bags of "fertilizer" in exchange for votes. He used Soros front-group money for that successful operation.
@29Etienne Gervaise
Soros set up shop in Georgia in 94 funded the president before this one to come to power in Georgia but when he struck an oil deal with Gazprom he had to go.
Soros Rose revolution was pure comedy and theatrical sending organised demonstrators and Soros shipping in millions of dollars of roses to put on troops guns.
What about the financial aid and revenue coming for the oil pipeline 70% of which is actually being spend on Israeli and US weapons instead of being spent on infastructure.
Now it turns out MPRI were training Georgian forces in Georgia prior to the invasion of South Ossetia. MPRI help train Croat forces to ethnically cleanse Serbs in Croatia and train terrorists in Bosnia.
Added with that US and Ukrainian mercenaries were captured or killed and US instructors were training Georgian forces in sabotage techniques its reeks of prior planning.
Ron Paul has now endorsed Chuck Baldwin. Hopefully Pat will follow his lead and do the same.
Pat ...
And to think you seemed so excited in your last post! Now it turns out that the beloved grand dame of the evangelical right is just another stooge of the dirty, moneygrubbing swindlers at AIPAC. Next thing we'll be playing Guess who's the Jay-oh-oh on Howard Stern.
I won't vote for her or McCain. Staying home is always an option.
Don't vote, it only encourages them!
PS From now on please refer to the other candidate as Baruch Obama.
@30 James
The Rose Revolution was nothing more than a publicity stunt, as is the Orange Revolution, the Velvet Revolution etc. Any bets on what the next goofy advertisement will be?
One should keep in mind that Palin is a Pentacostalist; her stand on Israel probably has less to do with any neocon influence than it does with populist dispensational theology and eschatology.
@34 Right you are Frank.
And don't think the rabbis are not aware of that apple of the eye superstition, I've seen them at evangelical conferences gathering information on the sentiments and will duly report what they hear to Mossad.
The only trouble is; in order to reach that conclusion, one has to discard the passage in the Gospel which says let His blood be on our heads. The Pharisees relinquished God's blessing on the Israelites as Chosen People at the crucifixion. Or was it when Isaac's blessing on Esau was fulfilled as Herod the Edomite ascended the throne? About the same difference I reckon.
And from Judicial Inc, there is this juicy tidbit verified by several other sources like the reliably reliable Wiki.
http://judicial-inc.biz/89reports_sarah_palin_jewess.htm
Perhaps that is why she passed AIPAC's test with flying colors.
Drat I just realized that reliable is an anagram of liberal.
well almost. I did mean to write liberal