Charles Krauthammer Explains: Charlie Gibson Had it Wrong
The inventor of the term “Bush Doctrine,” Charles Krauthammer, explained in his latest column for the Washington Post that Charlie Gibson, of ABC News, got the Bush Doctrine all wrong in his interview with Republican running mate Sarah Palin.
‘The New York Times got it wrong. And Charlie Gibson got it wrong,’ he wrote.
‘There is no single meaning of the Bush Doctrine. In fact, there have been four distinct meanings, each one succeeding another over the eight years of this administration — and the one Charlie Gibson cited is not the one in common usage today. It is utterly different.’
Gibson explained the Bush Doctrine – an issue which is more complicated than many ‘know it alls’ seem to be willing to admit – as follows: “The right of anticipatory self-defense.”
Krauthammer: ‘Wrong.’
‘I know something about the subject because, as the Wikipedia entry on the Bush Doctrine notes, I was the first to use the term. In the cover essay of the June 4, 2001, issue of the Weekly Standard entitled, “The Bush Doctrine: ABM, Kyoto, and the New American Unilateralism,” I suggested that the Bush administration policies of unilaterally withdrawing from the ABM treaty and rejecting the Kyoto treaty, together with others, amounted to a radical change in foreign policy that should be called the Bush Doctrine.’
That was the first definition of the term.
Then came the second meaning. This came after the 9/11 attacks on the U.S. ‘In his address to the joint session of Congress nine days after 9/11, President Bush declared: “Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists. From this day forward any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime.” This “with us or against us” policy regarding terror — first deployed against Pakistan when Secretary of State Colin Powell gave President Musharraf that seven-point ultimatum to end support for the Taliban and support our attack on Afghanistan — became the essence of the Bush Doctrine,’ Krauthammer explained.
‘Until Iraq. A year later, when the Iraq War was looming, Bush offered his major justification by enunciating a doctrine of preemptive war. This is the one Charlie Gibson thinks is the Bush doctrine.’
But, sadly for Gibson, this was not the last meaning of the Bush Doctrine: ‘It’s not. It’s the third in a series and was superseded by the fourth and current definition of the Bush doctrine, the most sweeping formulation of the Bush approach to foreign policy and the one that most clearly and distinctively defines the Bush years: the idea that the fundamental mission of American foreign policy is to spread democracy throughout the world.’
He added: ‘Presidential doctrines are inherently malleable and difficult to define. The only fixed “doctrines” in American history are the Monroe and the Truman doctrines which come out of single presidential statements during administrations where there were few other contradictory or conflicting foreign policy crosscurrents. Such is not the case with the Bush Doctrine.’
Sadly it is unlikely that many ’serious’ commentators, journalists and, yes, news readers will take the time to digest Krauthammer’s column. After all, jumping to conclusions and pretending nuanced subjects to be rather black-and-white is much easier.
Did Charlie have it wrong?
Here are the facts:
1. Charles defines the Bush Doctrine as "malleable" – yet Palin didn’t offer a response of the supposedly many different answers possible.
2. The Bush Doctrine has morphed into the exact definition Charlie discussed with Palin. There are many, many articles on it – and just because Sir Charles wants to boast and defend the neoconservative agenda, it doesn’t mean Charlie was wrong; nor does it excuse Palin’s ignorance of the topic.
Here are two other credible sources on the Bush Doctrine:
Jeffery Record, The Bush Doctrine and War with Iraq, Parameters, Spring 2003. (html version)
Edward A. Kolodziej, Getting beyond the Bush Doctrine, Center for Global Studies, December, 2006.
What we have is another media neoconservative claiming ownership of terminology that has long since changed to include the extension of the original meaning out of necessity – after all, foreign policy doesn’t happen in a vacuum.
you could bother to read the post James
Goodness knows that we can’t have a vice-president who hasn’t memorized the spring 2003 edition of Parameters!
Charles Krauthammer is always great at explaining everything putting them into logical terms.
Did she answer the question, Jason? Nope.
She had no clue what the Bush Doctrine is – in any of his supposed forms, which are all directly related to military-related unilateralism.
It’s fairly important to know administrations’ current and past foreign affairs policies, but if people want to lower the bar of expectations, like they did with Bush and Cheney, to focus on image and not substance, that’s each individual’s right.
At no point during that segment could she put together an answer that approached the question asked. It was political mad libs – let’s see how much jargon I can fit into my answer before he’ll leave me alone.
When someone refers to the Bush Doctrine, they are not referring to its obsolete meaning or application – the initial version that didn’t receive a lot of attention. Rather, when it is referenced, it is usually representative of the foreign policy departure from the past as it relates to 911, Afghanistan, and Iraq.
If there were so many different answers and different interpretations, how come she didn’t reference a single one of them. Basically, going by the low standards set forth in Charles’ article, she failed a multiple choice test – where 4 of the 5 answers were correct.
Hey, if you want to lower the standards so she can scrape by, that’s your choice. I, on the other hand, kinda like my leaders to know more about foreign affairs than I do. Clearly she doesn’t.
So when she asked him – in what meaning – you feel this would not be – asking Gibson what meaning he intended?
How about the fact that the first term she thought of when asked about the Bush Doctrine was a question – "Do you mean his worldview?" If she understood what the Bush Doctrine meant she could have easily expressed her opinion on any one of it’s interpretations, or simply referred to the most general interpretation. If somebody answers a question with a question it usually means they don’t know the answer.
Nonsense. When a professor, for instance, asks me a very general question, I tried to get him to specify it. And others do as well. Those who don’t show they don’t understand the complexities of the subject at hand.
Additionally, in order to formulate such a precise answer as possible, one benefits from making the question more precise. That’s all very common, especially in academic (non-high school) circles.
"There are these four ways of answering questions. Which four? There are questions that should be answered categorically [straightforwardly yes, no, this, that]. There are questions that should be answered with an analytical (qualified) answer [defining or redefining the terms]. There are questions that should be answered with a counter-question. There are questions that should be put aside. These are the four ways of answering questions. ”
—Buddha"
When someone refers to the Bush Doctrine, they are not referring to its obsolete meaning or application – the initial version that didn’t receive a lot of attention. Rather, when it is referenced, it is usually representative of the foreign policy departure from the past as it relates to 911, Afghanistan, and Iraq.
Or, you know, they can also just make stuff up and use the term Bush Doctrine as a catchall for any part of Bush’s policy that they disagree with, as Obama did here.
The National Security Strategy pretty clearly discusses all three of the major policies the Bush administration has on foreign policy.
The policies of going after safe keepers of terrorists (e.g. see the recent incursion into Pakistan) or preemptively going into a country the U.S. perceives as a threat haven’t been superseded by the policy of spreading democracy. These policies are still there.
I think Gibson is off on narrowly defining the Bush Doctrine as its preemptive strike portion, but that definition is still part of it. The doctrine is multifaceted.
Exactly. Hence "in what regard specifically" is a perfectly reasonable response.
Especially because, as we have found in recent days by just searching for articles, etc. the term itself is used frequently and has been used frequently to describe different things. One question one may ask is; ‘does Gibson require Palin to be 100% up to date about the meanings of certain ‘doctrines’ or is she allowed to simply be able to identify the guidelines of Bush’s policies, the thoughts behind them, and that’s that?’