Thanks to Fiore on Buzzflash who posted this essay by Mitchell Bard on Huffington Post on why Sarah Palin’s Korea flub matters.
That’s the real story about the Palin flub about North Korea that the media isn’t covering. It’s not that she misspoke, but that anyone cared what she had to say on the issue in the first place.
Sarah Palin, with her reliance on spouting talking points, simplistic approach to issues and complete lack of experience beyond a half term as governor of a state the size of Columbus, Ohio, is not competent to be discussing North Korea. And shame on any media outlet that treats her opinions as if they’re worth anything.
The real damning Palin quote in the Beck interview is the one in which she worries if “the White House is gonna come out with a strong enough policy to sanction what it is that North Korea’s gonna do.” Putting aside her usual butchering of the English language, she takes a complicated problem facing the United States (and the world) and reduces it to a talking-point political attack on the president.
Her comment reveals that she has no understanding that we are dealing with a North Korean leadership that may not be rational and may even be self-destructive. And one with the firepower to kill legions of South Korean civilians.
Korea’s dangerous dictatorship is a problem the Bush administration left unsolved for the next president. No one is proposing that we invade Korea, so how we ‘get tough’ will have to be worked out through alliances and diplomacy. Our allies in South Korea and Japan depend on wise policy from the US.
