Wednesday, September 24, 2008

A Crash Course in Foreign Policy?

Sarah Palin meets with foreign leaders to get a crash course in foreign policy.  Meetings with the leader of the Afghan leader Hamid Karzai and Columbian President Alvaro Uribe and an hour long cram session with Henry Kissinger (who better, right?) are little more than photo ops.  Outside of introductions, what could she possibly learn? It was so orchestrated, so calculated, it had to make you laugh.  Karzai and Uribe have close ties with the Bush administration, no surprise there.  I'd like to see Palin meet with the leaders of the G8 (where half the leaders don't agree with us) and see how she fares.  What I do think was interesting was the meeting with Kissinger.  Obviously he's old school Republican, successful in the more subtle art of diplomacy - and also a Secretary State during the Vietnam war and rumored to be a major player of the bloody coup in Chile in the 70s.   What could he tell her in an hour?  Here's how to orchestrate a political coup and win a Nobel Peace Prize at the same time? Another photo-op.  What was the point of this?  It's obvious that McCain is experienced in foreign policy (although I don't agree with his views), and he's the one running for president - Introducing Ms. Palin to these leaders is nothing but a PR stunt and this PR stunt is, well, I don't want to bring up that awful joke again.

1 comment:

The Czar Dictates said...

Reminds me of the time NPR asked Tom Lehrer why he retired from performing. His reply: "After Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Price, satire became redundant."