Those who thought Republican Vice Presidential pick Gov. Sarah Palin won’t be able to talk about foreign policy or stand up to Democratic Vice Presidential candidate Sen. Joe Biden might think again: she’s getting some tutors…Bush aides.
Newsweek’s Anthony Romano reports:
The McCain team has hastily assembled a team of former Bush White House aides to tutor the vice-presidential candidate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, on foreign-policy issues, to write her speeches and to begin preparing her for her all-important Oct. 2 debate against Sen. Joe Biden.
Steve Biegun, who once served as the No. 3 National Security Council official under Condoleezza Rice at the White House, has been hired as chief foreign-policy adviser to the Alaska governor, campaign officials told NEWSWEEK. After taking leave from his job as vice president for international affairs at Ford Motor Co. last Friday, Biegun flew to St. Paul and, together with McCain’s foreign-policy guru Randy Schuenemann, began briefings for Palin on national-security issues—an area where her resume is conspicuously thin.
So she’ll be tutored by Bush aides and then talk about bringing change to Washington MORE:
The proliferation of former Bush White House aides in the Palin team may strike some as ironic—and could even provide some fodder for the Democrats—given the McCain camp’s efforts to distance itself from the unpopular president. (It has been widely noted, for example, that while the president is addressing the convention tonight by satellite, neither the president nor Vice President Cheney will be coming anywhere near St. Paul. And when Palin’s selection was announced last week, McCain aides touted it as an example of the senator returning to his “reformer roots” and rebelling against the GOP establishment.)
One administration critic, Steve Clemons of the New America Foundation, said today that while he personally liked Biegun and viewed him as “extremely competent,” his retention as Palin’s foreign-policy tutor could have unpleasant consequences. Describing Biegun—a Russia expert who once served as staff director for Sen. Jesse Helms at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee—as a “big gun” in conservative foreign-policy circles, Clemens said “he will turn her into an advocate of Cheneyism and Cheney’s view of national-security issues.”
The reality is that Democratic operatives and pundits are deluding themselves if they think Palin won’t be prepped for the debates and public appearances. Just as George Bush was prepped on foreign policy before he went out onto the national political stage, Palin will be well-prepared.
And on the issue of change? It’ll be mentioned although more and more the McCain operation seems like a continuation of the same Republican political and foreign policy establishments in new bottles (or perhaps, more accurately, in older and different shaped bottles). But seeing Palin cite figures and talk about issues may be enough for some voters. Democrats shouldn’t make risky assumptions about how easy it’s going to be with Palin on the ticket. It won’t be. Her thorough Bush administration tutors will see to that.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.