The world's biggest threat

If you type “the world’s biggest threat” into Google, the results generally name North Korea, Global Warming, Iran’s nuclear programme and even China. Well, I beg to differ. The world’s biggest threat is the one politician who has the dubious honour of being capable of making George W. Bush look like a capable leader. The politician who managed to confuse the “bailout” with health reform and amalgamate them both into one grand policy. Yes, I am talking about Sarah Palin.

Last week’s issue of New Statesman magazine has a cover story entitled “Palin Power”. One would have thought that after her stellar performance in the 2008 Presidential Campaign, she would have given up on politics and retired. But it seems that she is quite resilient, and is preparing her counter-attack. The recent formation of the Tea Party Nation movement (named after the Boston Tea-Party, an anti-British act of resistance in the 1770s) as a means of opposing President Obama’s “big government” schemes, such as the ‘outrageous’ idea of providing state healthcare, has provided Palin a platform from which to launch her comeback. She will be the keynote speaker at the party’s first ever conference in Tennessee in February, and, according to the Tea Party Nation website, tickets have already sold out.

With an increasingly divided electorate (President Obama has received the most polarized approval ratings in history for a President’s first year), and a financially weakened Republican party with no visible leaders, Palin could be preparing for a possible run for president in 2012. She has most recently published her latest book, Going Rogue: An American Life. Only £18.99 if anyone wants to give themselves a treat. Amongst other pearls of wisdom, she refers to her critics as “hate-America types”, and even more specifically “the liberals.” Reviewing Going Rogue, Sarah Churchwell points out that “Palin is a fan of free speech – unless it criticises her.”

The most worrying and pressing issue, is that a politician who has openly admitted in her book that she knew about the origins of American intervention in Iraq “to the same extent that most Americans did,” thus rather little, could be a potential candidate to lead the U.S. in 2012 or later. She has constantly demonstrated in interviews her absolute lack of understanding of foreign policy, a clear example being an interview with Charles Gibson in which she was unable to define the Bush doctrine. At a time when diplomacy is needed to prevent further catastrophes like the Iraq war, a politician who does not even understand American foreign policy (or, for that matter, cannot seem to grasp the basics of any sort of policy) is a danger not only to Americans, but also to the entire world.

With Obama’s approval ratings below 50% (47% according to the 25/01/2010 Rasmussen Report), and the possibility of the Republicans regaining seats in the Senate and House of Representatives in the upcoming mid-term elections, the prospect of Sarah Palin having the chance to lead the world’s most powerful nation is a daunting one. While it is true that she has publicly said that she does not intend to run for national office in 2012, her resignation as Governor of Alaska, the publishing of her new book, and the fact that she has recently been given a job by Fox News as a political commentator suggest that her career is not over at all, and the fact that she could be a candidate in the future should scare any rational person. Let’s just hope that the “hate-America types”, “liberals” and, my personal favourite, the “obstructionists” manage to stop her.

For further reference on her confusion over the bailout and health reform:

For a demonstration of Palin’s clear understanding of American foreign policy under Bush:

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