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Top McCain Adviser Blasts Palin: 'Of Course' She's Not Ready.

Lawrence Eagleburger joins the list of folks who don't think Palin is ready to lead.


A former Republican Secretary of State and one of John McCain's most prominent supporters offered a stunningly frank and remarkably bleak assessment of Sarah Palin's capacity to handle the presidency should such a scenario arise.



Lawrence Eagleburger, who served as Secretary of State under George H.W. Bush and whose endorsement is often trumpeted by McCain, said on Thursday that the Alaska governor is not only unprepared to take over the job on a moment's notice but, even after some time in office, would only amount to an "adequate" commander in chief.



"And I devoutly hope that [she] would never be tested," he added for good measure -- referring both to Palin's policy dexterity and the idea of McCain not making it through his time in office. (Listen to audio below.)



The remarks took place during an interview on National Public Radio that was, ironically, billed as "making the case" for a McCain presidency. Asked by the host whether Palin could step in during a time of crisis, Eagleburger reverted to sarcasm before leveling the harsh blow.



"It is a very good question," he said, pausing a few seconds, then adding with a chuckle: "I'm being facetious here. Look, of course not."



Eagleburger explained: "I don't think at the moment she is prepared to take over the reins of the presidency. I can name for you any number of other vice presidents who were not particularly up to it either. So the question, I think, is can she learn and would she be tough enough under the circumstances if she were asked to become president, heaven forbid that that ever takes place?



"Give her some time in the office and I think the answer would be, she will be [pause] adequate. I can't say that she would be a genius in the job. But I think she would be enough to get us through a four year... well I hope not... get us through whatever period of time was necessary. And I devoutly hope that it would never be tested."



The indictment of Palin was all the more biting because both she and McCain have held Eagleburger up repeatedly during the past several weeks as evidence that the Republican ticket has firm standing and support within foreign policy circles. (In fact, McCain conferred with Eagleburger by phone just this week, on matters pertaining to national security.)



In a recent co-interview on NBC, Brian Williams asked McCain and Palin "about what must have been a hurtful Sunday for you," referring to Colin Powell's endorsement of Barack Obama and specifically to the "heart of his quote" -- Powell's claim that Palin is not "ready to be president of the United States, which is the job of vice president."



"Obviously General Powell does not know Governor Palin's record," McCain responded. "All I can say is, I see all these attacks on Governor Palin. I don't live in a bubble. But those people obviously are either not paying attention to, or don't care about the record of the most popular governor in the United States of America."



Palin interjected, citing the "five former secretaries of states" that have endorsed their campaign and see in their candidacy "the ability to win the wars and to keep our nation safe and on course."



Days later, the Arizona Senator again touted the Eagleburger endorsement during a spot on CNN. During that interview, McCain tried to downplay the significance of Colin Powell's criticisms of Palin by noting that Powell had never taken the time to understand her political gravitas.



"I especially disagreed when he said the comments that he made about Governor Palin," McCain said. "And I hope that sometime General Powell will take time out of his busy schedule to meet with her. I know she'd be pleased to meet with him."



Perhaps Eagleburger, too, should sit in on that meeting.



Listen to audio of Eagleburger on Palin:

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Eagleburger apologizes for saying Palin not readyDavid Edwards and Andrew McLemore
Published: Friday October 31, 2008





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Prominent statesman Lawrence Eagleburger apologized Friday on Fox News for recent comments indicating that Gov. Sarah Palin wasn't qualified to be vice president.

Eagleburger could not bring himself to endorse Palin in an interview with NPR's Talk of the Nation Thursday.

Fox's Stuart Varney asked him if he stood by those statements.

"My comment about Sarah Palin was just plain stupid," Eagleburger said.

Eagleburger said that he had been quoted correctly by NPR as saying: "Give her some time in the office and I think... she will be adequate. I can't say that she would be a genius in the job."

Eagleburger said he made a "terrible mistake" in saying that Palin wasn't prepared to be vice president.

However, the former secretary of state also said Palin will need coaching from running mate Sen. John McCain on foreign policy.

Varney asked, "I do want to give you another opportunity here to straighten it out. You do feel that she's a quick learner and would be good as vice given a few days?"

"No. A few days. No," replied Eagleburger. "She has made it clear that she's a quick learner."

This video is from Fox's Your World with Neil Cavuto, broadcast October 31, 2008.
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Originally posted by JJPAUL:
If you're going to post info,please give ALL:

Eagleburger apologizes for saying Palin not readyDavid Edwards and Andrew McLemore
Published: Friday October 31, 2008


I did not know he apologize, but I guess after he got calls from the right wing, I guess he was scared into apologizing or get a visit from the KKK. Big Grin


Poor old Eagleburger--he seems to be losing it. HOW could he have actually said what he said and then lament that he could not understand why he said things so d*a*m*ning. Maybe the old boy is getting some sticky stuff clogging up his brain cells!

Ah, well, even if Eacleburger has injured his credibility, NcCain still has the support of other former Secretaries of State, including that egregious war criminal, Henry Kissinger.

"The fast and circus-like media trial that almost immediately assigned blame for the crimes of 911 formed a rude introduction to the attempt by the US executive branch to extinguish habeas corpus—the basis of the principle that individuals are innocent until proven guilty. The appearance of official duplicity and cover-up only grew in 2002 when President George W. Bush tried to appoint Henry Kissinger as the White House's main investigator into the crimes of 911. As a prime candidate himself for the role of the accused in possible war crimes tribunals of the future, Kissinger's appointment proved unacceptable.[xv] But the effort to make Kissinger the US agent in charge of covering up what happened on 9/11 established patterns that continued until the 9/11 Commission released its final report. From its inception the Bush White House's 9/11 Commission had everything to do political protection of the powerful and nothing to do with the substance of an impartial judicial review. The work of the 9/11 Commission was shot through with evasion, fraud and cover-up from beginning to end."

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"Nevertheless, it seems that Pinochet's case caused concerns at the highest levels of the Bush administration, as described in a revealing account by a former lawyer in the Bush administration, Jack Goldsmith. He describes how, during 2002, Henry Kissinger found himself on the sharp end of the Pinochet case. Reportedly livid, a rattled Kissinger complained to his old chum Donald Rumsfeld, who was already worrying about "lawfare" (the use of law to achieve operational objectives). Rumsfeld instructed the chief lawyer at the Pentagon, Jim Haynes, to address the problems posed by this "judicialisation of international politics". Haynes passed the assignment on to Goldsmith, whose memo reached the National Security Council, which also worried about the threat of foreign judges. According to Goldsmith, the NSC couldn't work out what to do about the problem.

We now know that while this was going on, Rumsfeld and Haynes and others at the Pentagon were secretly circumventing international laws like the Geneva conventions and the torture convention and removing international constraints on the interrogation of detainees at Guantánamo and in Iraq. Torture and other international crimes followed. So did the Abu Ghraib photos. Amid the welter of legal opinions received by the administration none, it seems, bothered to examine the consequences of the House of Lords judgment for senior US officials.

The legacy of the arrest warrant signed in Hampstead 10 years today, is the Pinochet principle, that no one is above the law. It may one day come to haunt the very people who sought to set it aside. If, that is, they ever dare to set foot outside the United States."

Henry K. has to be very careful where he travels, fearing that he could be arrested and tried before an international tribunal for the war crimes he committed when in office in the Nixon/Ford years!

"A revival of interest in Henry Kissinger came in 2001, when journalist Christopher Hitchens wrote The Trial of Henry Kissinger, a scathing critique of Kissinger's policy that accused him of war crimes, particularly for his policy toward Vietnam, Cyprus, Cambodia, Chile and East Pakistan (present day Bangladesh). Kissinger became a focal point of criticism from the political Left and certain human rights NGOs. According to the book, his foreign policy was chiefly concerned with attaining allies that had valuable geographical and strategic locations, such as Turkey and Pakistan, and turned a blind eye when these allies attacked democracies and murdered countless innocent people."

The book was later adapted into a documentary entitled The Trials of Henry Kissinger. The film focused on Kissinger's policies towards Vietnam, Cambodia, East Timor, and Chile.

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