Politico‘s Ben Smith has the scoop that Sarah Palin and foreign policy advisers Randall Scheunemann and Michael Goldfarb have parted ways.
According to the article, the neoconservative Scheunemann said flatly to Palin, “We can’t give you the time.” All are saying that the split was friendly — even though Hoover Institution’s Peter Schweizer, a skeptic of America’s intervention in Libya (and thus not at all where the neocons are on interventionist crusading), was just brought on board.
But the next zinger Ben Smith wrangled was an exchange with Bill Kristol who basically implied that Sarah Palin was nudging over to an Obama-Lite foreign policy:
I know Brent Scowcroft. I worked with Brent Scowcroft. Sarah Palin’s no Brent Scowcroft.
My other thought: The surge in Iraq works. The surge in Afghanistan works. There’s an Arab Spring. The world obviously needs American strength and leadership more than ever. And now everyone (even Palin, to some degree) decides, hey, time to back off?
It’s foolish substantively and politically. Do Republicans really want to run as Obama-lite in foreign policy?
This wedge between pugnacious nationalists who disdain international deal-making, and more realistic, national-interest driven assessments of power and costs is a key one. If Sarah Palin is about to become a realist, well, I may have to put some of my problems with her aside (“some” of my problems).
More soon.
— Steve Clemons
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