From George Stephanopoulos via CNN:
Sen. John McCain retracted Sarah Palin's stance on Pakistan Sunday morning, after the Alaska governor appeared to back Sen. Barack Obama's support for unilateral strikes inside Pakistan against terrorists
"She would not…she understands and has stated repeatedly that we're not going to do anything except in America's national security interest," McCain told ABC's George Stephanopoulos of Palin. "In all due respect, people going around and… sticking a microphone while conversations are being held, and then all of a sudden that's—that's a person's position… This is a free country, but I don't think most Americans think that that's a definitve policy statement made by Governor Palin."
What led to this? Last night, Sarah Palin got to experience another part of this country, heading down to South Philly for a cheesesteak, a political ritual that I believe only Joe Lieberman (due to cheesesteak being unkosher) among presidential and vice-presidential nominees has avoided in recent history. Unfortunately, she was questioned by a Temple University grad student about Pakistan:
The governor got a more serious interrogation moments later when Temple graduate student Michael Rovito approached her to inquire about Pakistan.
"How about the Pakistan situation?," asked Rovito, who said he was not a Palin supporter. "What's your thoughts about that?"
"In Pakistan?," she asked, looking surprised.
"What's going on over there, like Waziristan?"
"It's working with [Pakistani president] Zardari to make sure that we're all working together to stop the guys from coming in over the border," she told him. "And we'll go from there."
Rovito wasn't finished. "Waziristan is blowing up!," he said.
"Yeah it is," Palin said, "and the economy there is blowing up too."
"So we do cross border, like from Afghanistan to Pakistan you think?," Rovito asked.
"If that's what we have to do stop the terrorists from coming any further in, absolutely, we should," Palin responded, before moving on to greet other voters.
On the plus side, she did get the man's name right, perhaps because she had a nice encounter with him at the UN; he called her gorgeous and I doubt she realized he was a Muslim, so it went great.
So here's the lesson McCain is teaching us: Palin's views are not what she says they are. They are what he says they are. Of course, this means that should he become unable to serve as president, she will have no views at all.
