It’s not clear to me whether Sarah Palin really did misunderstand Pat Buchanan’s column to mean that he thought Pres. Obama should bomb Iran (he was in fact making the opposite argument), or whether she was indicating that she thought it was a neat idea and was simply, in her verbally challenged way, citing Buchanan’s column as the place where she first learned about the idea (Buchanan got it from Daniel Pipes, who does want Obama to bomb Iran).
What is clear to me, however, is that Pipes (who comments on the controversy raised by what Palin said to Chris Wallace), in addition to being a warmonger, is among the most stunningly naive individuals I have ever come across. After quoting the relevant portion of the transcript of the Wallace-Palin interview, Pipes writes (emphasis is mine):
Comments: (1) Buchanan disapproves of Obama taking out the Iranian nuclear infrastructure, but Palin and I “would like him to do” that, thereby removing the world’s No. 1 security threat.
(2) After vilification from the Left and tepid reactions on the Right, it’s nice to have a major political figure endorse my idea.
I find it no easier to fathom how a grown person — much less someone with as much relevant subject experience as Pipes has — could believe that bombing Iran’s nuclear facilities would “remove” Iran as the world’s No. 1 security threat as I would to fathom how a grown person could believe in Santa Claus, or the tooth fairy. It just boggles my mind. How incredibly incapable of complex thinking must a mind be that could believe this?
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