Palin is the empty slate that the neocons need to resurrect their failed ploicies for even more destructive actions under the tutelage of Bill Kritol Randy Scheunemann, and Steve Biegun. Who know? Maybe she can get Cheney to stay on as her senior council on foreign affairs.

Neoconservatives plan Project Sarah Pain to shape future American foreign policy


Comments by the governor of Alaska in her first television interview, in which she said Nato may have to go to war with Russia and took a tough line on Iran's nuclear programme, were the result of two weeks of briefings by neoconservatives.

Sources in the McCain camp, the Republican Party and Washington think tanks say Mrs Palin was identified as a potential future leader of the neoconservative cause in June 2007. That was when the annual summer cruise organised by the right-of-centre Weekly Standard magazine docked in Juneau, the Alaskan state capital, and the pundits on board took tea with Governor Palin.

Her case as John McCain's running mate was later advanced vociferously by William Kristol, the magazine's editor, who is widely seen as one of the founding fathers of American neoconservative thought - including the robust approach to foreign policy which spurred American intervention in Iraq.

Now many believe that the "neocons", whose standard bearer in government, Vice President Dick Cheney, lost out in Washington power struggles to the more moderate defence secretary Robert Gates and secretary of state Condoleezza Rice, last year are seeking to mould Mrs Palin to renew their influence.

A former Republican White House official, who now works at the American Enterprise Institute, a bastion of Washington neoconservatism, admitted: "She's bright and she's a blank page. She's going places and it's worth going there with her."

Asked if he sees her as a "project", the former official said: "Your word, not mine, but I wouldn't disagree with the sentiment."

Pat Buchanan, the former Republican presidential candidate and a foreign policy isolationist, who opposes the war in Iraq, the project most closely associated with the neocons, said: "Palin has become, overnight, the most priceless political asset the movement has.

"Look for the neocons to move with all deliberate speed to take her into their camp by pressing upon her advisers and staff, and steering her into the AEI-Weekly Standard-War Party orbit." The AEI, or American Enterprise Institute, is a free-market think-tank with many neo-cons among its members.

Mr McCain's chief foreign policy adviser, Randy Scheunemann, an influential neoconservative, wasted no time in briefing Mrs Palin. He quickly made Steve Biegun, a former number three on the National Security Council, her chief foreign policy adviser.

Steven Clemons, of the New American Foundation think tank in Washington, a chronicler of the ebb and flow of neocon power in the White House, bemoaned the appointment, saying Mr Biegun "will turn her into an advocate of Cheneyism and Cheney's view of national-security issues."


"In choosing Palin, McCain may also have changed the course of history," he said. "Should this ticket win, Palin will eclipse every other Republican as heir apparent to the presidency and will have her own power base, wholly independent of President McCain."

Should Palin get anywhere near the white house, we will have a crap load of (*)(*)(*)(*) to clean up after she's gone. What a disaster.

__________________
“Share everything with your brother. Do not say, ‘It is private property.’ If you share what is everlasting, you should be that much more willing to share things which do not last.”
~ The Didache

"Not to enable the poor to share in our goods is to steal from them and deprive them of life. The goods we possess are not ours, but theirs."
~St. John Chrysostom

"An empty vessel". Truer words were never spoken.

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One Nation, Indivisible, with Liberty and Justice Forever.

A turkey by any other name--is still the governor of Alaska.

Capt. Paul and Sea Shepherd forever!!

I can hardly believe it. These people are crazy.

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"I don't think we should be governing ourselves. What we need is a king, and every now and then if the king’s not doing a good job, we kill him." - George Carlin

It's crazy to do what you have to do to maintain power? That's a radical opinion if I ever heard one.

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I coulda trip out easy, but I've a-changed my ways. - Donovan

No they're not. They're very CRAFTY. If I was Chairman Dean I would have a team in Alaska right now combing Palin's record both as mayor and as governor. The Rethugs did it to Senator Obama, we need to do it to Miss Moose Shooter.

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One Nation, Indivisible, with Liberty and Justice Forever.

A turkey by any other name--is still the governor of Alaska.

Capt. Paul and Sea Shepherd forever!!

Your tin foil hats are showing.

Perhaps you should take these off first. You may see what is really going on without them

__________________
“Share everything with your brother. Do not say, ‘It is private property.’ If you share what is everlasting, you should be that much more willing to share things which do not last.”
~ The Didache

"Not to enable the poor to share in our goods is to steal from them and deprive them of life. The goods we possess are not ours, but theirs."
~St. John Chrysostom