Debunking the 'Bimbo Doctrine'
Terence Corcoran, Canada National Post
With Tina Fey's Saturday Night Live portrayal of Sarah Palin, U. S. feminist-liberalism has come round to define one of its core beliefs: The Bimbo Doctrine. Any political woman who doesn't sound and look like either a cynical wisecracking babbling babe on The View or a frowsy academic from the Council on Foreign Relations is, under the Bimbo Doctrine, two frying pans and a bikini away from being Miss America.
The Fey caricature brilliantly plays up the Republican vice-presidential candidate's mannerisms. But it also runs in direct contrast with Palin's words, with the content of her statements. Palin's critics can't get past the small-town ways, middle-class mannerisms, the momism and the LensCrafters-clean looks.
What can such a person possibly know about foreign policy and the economy? Not much, it is assumed, so let's play up the Palin style and see how far we can go in making her look like the bimbo she clearly seems to be.
Outside of Fey, the first formal effort to skewer Palin came from ABC's Charlie Gibson. You can easily imagine the high-fives being exchanged as ABC's team came up with a couple of torpedoes to throw at Palin. What are the three things you would do to fix the economy? Or the humdinger: "Do you agree with the Bush Doctrine?" That'll bring her down.
On the economy, however, Palin was rock solid. She said she would cut taxes, reduce spending, reform government oversight and rein in what she called "quasi-government agencies." Gibson tried to nail her down on specifics, but she dodged the questions, as would any politician in her position.
On foreign policy, she was also rock solid on a NATO question, Iran (whose president's name rolled off her tongue like she'd been using it for years) and Israel. But she seemed to waver over the Bush Doctrine question, thereby giving critics their apparent "gotcha" moment.
It must be said that when Gibson popped the doctrine question, Palin's gears did appear to be grinding slowly while she tried to figure out what the question was. Or was she just on the brink of losing her temper?
"Do you agree with the Bush Doctrine?"
"In what respect, Charlie?"
Instead of answering her question, as he should have if he were not hell bent on nailing her, Gibson turned the tables back to her: "What do you interpret it to mean?" She came back with a general waffle, it might even have been a bluff, to the effect that the Bush Doctrine represented George W. Bush's "worldview." All of which was enough grist for the guardians of the Bimbo Doctrine, who instantly began grinding
out what they had been looking for. This woman doesn't even know what the Bush Doctrine is!
It turns out nobody really knows what the Bush Doctrine is, but they piled on anyways. The Atlantic magazine's James Fallows, among scores of liberal commentators, branded her as a scary combination of ignorant and decisive. The Globe and Mail's Margaret Wente joined the pile-on, with a patronizing put down of Palin as an ambitious dumb middle-class mom who didn't spend enough time cramming foreign policy jargon in preparation for her first postpartum job interview.
It turns out, of course, that the Bush Doctrine question is a trick question. There is no Bush Doctrine, or certainly no single Bush policy that can be labelled as the defining "doctrine" of the George W. Bush administration. As many have already observed on the blogosphere, there are as many as six different Bush policies that may or may not be classified as "doctrines" in academic and political circles.
Wikipedia may not be The Brookings Institution or the Council on Foreign Relations, but the online encyclopedia nicely summarizes the undefinability of the Bush Doctrine: "It may be viewed as a set of several related foreign policy principles, including stress on ending terrorism, spreading democracy, increased unilateralism in foreign policy and an expanded view of American national security interests."
As to the doctrine itself, "Foreign policy experts argue over the meaning of the term ... and some scholars have suggested there is no unified theory." So when Gibson asked Palin whether she agreed with the Bush Doctrine, and she asked in return, "In what respect, Charlie?" it was a perfectly sensible and accurate question. Even CNN's David Gergen, no friend of McCain or Palin, said, "I don't think most people know what the Bush Doctrine is, or was. We don't normally, as citizens or journalists, talk in the press about the Bush Doctrine."
Palin certainly doesn't bring the gravitational pull of a Henry Kissinger or Paul Krugman to foreign and economic policy. And that's a good thing. The policy swamp is full of experts and political bloviators -- from Kissinger to Ted Kennedy to Dick Cheney and Krugman -- who can boil inside-Washington policy obscurities and jargon into digestible poisonous stews.
Palin is also no bimbo, as Tina Fey may soon discover. If she tries to maintain her Palin caricature over time, she may do more to bolster Palin than put her down.
