Afarensis

That sounds about right. Although I think I heard Palin pronounce it nuculer once or twice.

Posted by: rundlc | October 3, 2008 12:48 AM

I was under the impression that the question was: "Which is more dangerous: Nuclear weapons in Iran, or an unstable Pakistan?"

Posted by: Brian | October 3, 2008 7:52 AM

Here are the two main comments on nuclear weapons that I found:

IFILL: Governor, nuclear Pakistan, unstable Pakistan, nuclear Iran? Which is the greater threat?

PALIN: Both are extremely dangerous, of course. And as for who coined that central war on terror being in Iraq, it was the Gen. Petraeus and al Qaeda, both leaders there and it's probably the only thing that they're ever going to agree on, but that it was a central war on terror is in Iraq. You don't have to believe me or John McCain on that. I would believe Petraeus and the leader of al Qaeda.
An armed, nuclear armed especially Iran is so extremely dangerous to consider. They cannot be allowed to acquire nuclear weapons period. Israel is in jeopardy of course when we're dealing with Ahmadinejad as a leader of Iran. Iran claiming that Israel as he termed it, a stinking corpse, a country that should be wiped off the face of the earth. Now a leader like Ahmadinejad who is not sane or stable when he says things like that is not one whom we can allow to acquire nuclear energy, nuclear weapons[Is she unaware that Iran already has nuclear energy or was this a slip of the tongue?]. Ahmadinejad, Kim Jong Il, the Castro brothers, others who are dangerous dictators are one that Barack Obama has said he would be willing to meet with without preconditions being met first.
And an issue like that taken up by a presidential candidate goes beyond naivete and goes beyond poor judgment. A statement that he made like that is downright dangerous because leaders like Ahmadinejad who would seek to acquire nuclear weapons and wipe off the face of the earth an ally like we have in Israel should not be met with without preconditions and diplomatic efforts being undertaken first.
...[various other questions and statements]
IFILL: Governor, on another issue, interventionism, nuclear weapons. What should be the trigger, or should there be a trigger, when nuclear weapons use is ever put into play?
PALIN: Nuclear weaponry, of course, would be the be all, end all of just too many people in too many parts of our planet, so those dangerous regimes, again, cannot be allowed to acquire nuclear weapons, period.[Does she mean regimes like North Korea? Does she not know they already have the bomb?] Our nuclear weaponry here in the U.S. is used as a deterrent. And that's a safe, stable way to use nuclear weaponry. [It used to be called "brinkmanship" though -- doesn't sound so safe to this old lady.]
But for those countries -- North Korea, also, under Kim Jong Il -- we have got to make sure that we're putting the economic sanctions on these countries and that we have friends and allies supporting us in this to make sure that leaders like Kim Jong Il and Ahmadinejad are not allowed to acquire, to proliferate, or to use those nuclear weapons. [Hm, no, she apparently doesn't know that Kim Jong Il has the bomb. That's kind of important, isn't it?] It is that important.
Can we talk about Afghanistan real quick, also, though?
IFILL: Certainly.
PALIN: OK, I'd like to just really quickly mention there, too, that when you look back and you say that the Bush administration's policy on Afghanistan perhaps would be the same as McCain, and that's not accurate. [No, it's not -- Biden said it the other way around.]
The surge principles, not the exact strategy, but the surge principles that have worked in Iraq need to be implemented in Afghanistan, also. And that, perhaps, would be a difference with the Bush administration.
Now, Barack Obama had said that all we're doing in Afghanistan is air-raiding villages and killing civilians. And such a reckless, reckless comment and untrue comment, again, hurts our cause.
That's not what we're doing there. We're fighting terrorists, and we're securing democracy, and we're building schools for children there so that there is opportunity in that country, also. There will be a big difference there, and we will win in -- in Afghanistan, also. [I might point out that the "surge" method didn't work for Genghis Khan -- the king of all "surgers" -- way back when, in Afghanistan, altho' he was pretty successful in Iran. Might want to consider that -- had to do with geography, I believe.]
IFILL: Senator, you may talk about nuclear use, if you'd like, and also about Afghanistan.
BIDEN: I'll talk about both. With Afghanistan, facts matter, Gwen.
The fact is that our commanding general in Afghanistan said today that a surge -- the surge principles used in Iraq will not -- well, let me say this again now -- our commanding general in Afghanistan said the surge principle in Iraq will not work in Afghanistan, not Joe Biden, our commanding general in Afghanistan.
He said we need more troops. We need government-building. We need to spend more money on the infrastructure in Afghanistan.
Look, we have spent more money -- we spend more money in three weeks on combat in Iraq than we spent on the entirety of the last seven years that we have been in Afghanistan building that country.
Let me say that again. Three weeks in Iraq; seven years, seven years or six-and-a-half years in Afghanistan. Now, that's number one.
Number two, with regard to arms control and weapons, nuclear weapons require a nuclear arms control regime. John McCain voted against a Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty that every Republican has supported.
John McCain has opposed amending the Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty with an amendment to allow for inspections.
John McCain has not been -- has not been the kind of supporter for dealing with -- and let me put it another way. My time is almost up.
Barack Obama, first thing he did when he came to the United States Senate, new senator, reached across the aisle to my colleague, Dick Lugar, a Republican, and said, "We've got to do something about keeping nuclear weapons out of the hands of terrorists."
They put together a piece of legislation that, in fact, was serious and real. Every major -- I shouldn't say every -- on the two at least that I named, I know that John McCain has been opposed to extending the arms control regime in the world.
There you have it, straight from the "horses'" mouths. They talked around the bushes, up, down, sideways, forwards, and backwards. But they did not stomp those bushes or grab the birds in them, I'd say. As an English teacher, I'd give Palin's rhetoric, grammar, and sentence structure a C-; Biden's a B, by the way. As far as ideas go, Palin's big on slogans, smiles, batting the eyelashes, and flashy phrases like "Joe Sixpack" and "gosh darn it" -- I almost expected her to say, "Gee golly, Batman!" and start punching Pow! Bang! Kiow! Kawop! Biden sounds more thoughtful, like there was real thought behind his statements and he just ran out of time to get it all out. There's my instant analysis, for what it's worth (2 cents?).

Posted by: DianaGainer | October 3, 2008 5:15 PM

Afarensis:
I agree with your initial impression, neither of them answered the question. That struck me at the time, and going back and reading the transcript, it still seems true.

The question seems pretty clear to me:

Governor, on another issue, interventionism, nuclear weapons. What should be the trigger, or should there be a trigger, when nuclear weapons use is ever put into play?

You could take Palins statement to mean that they should only be deterrent, but that would be a nonsense answer, since deterrent depends on people believing you will actually use it.

As far as I can tell, Biden didn't say anything about what his administrations nuclear doctrine would be, he just talked about McCain and arms control. I don't see any reading of the question that would make this a reply.

This was far from the only case where either or both candidates completely avoided the question. I really wish the moderator would have been a bit more active in these cases (hmm, I only caught about the second half of the debate, looking at the transcript it appears she did do that early on)

Posted by: Reed | October 4, 2008 12:02 AM