Thursday, September 11, 2008

More on Reckless McCain's Reckless VP

Ilan Goldenberg agrees with my take on Palin's assinine Russia comments, and since he knows a lot more about this stuff than I do, that makes me feel pretty good. LOL. Excerpt:

No sane American or European leader would ever ever ever give an answer like that. You do not get into hypotheticals about nuclear war. You just don't. Palin references the Cold War. The only reason the Cold War stayed cold is because our leaders understood the stakes of getting things wrong and saying things that could lead to catastrophic nuclear war. During the Cuban Missile Crisis every word, every public statement, and any message that the Kennedy administration sent to the Soviets was checked, double checked, and triple checked to make sure it was sending precisely the right signal. This is what you are forced to do when you have thousands of nuclear weapons and so does your opponent. The stakes are simply too high. And yet there is a nominee for the vice presidency of the United States who may one day have her hand on the button and she is casually talking about potential catastrophic nuclear war.

Barack Obama would never give that answer. Joe Biden would never give that answer. They would say that we don't discuss those types of hypotheticals. That might sound like a cop out, but think of the Palin alternative and what kind of alarm bells that sets off in Moscow. Prescisely the type of alarm bells that could one day lead to mushroom clouds.

Saber rattling matters. Words matter. We've learned that from the past eight years. ... And when Sarah Palin, a first term Governor with no national security experience or expertise, talks about hypothetical nuclear war it really matters. It reflects badly on her and her readiness. It reflects even worse on John McCain who thought that she was qualified to be Commander in Chief.

McCain/Palin is the National Insecurity ticket.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Her words were straight up horrifying in any context, putting hypothetical in front of them doesn't make them any more jarring.

We can barely sustain a military effort in a country that doesn't even have an army to contend against. The idea re igniting old feuds with Russia, a country whose own pride is hurt beyond imagination, would be a nightmare.