Legal Commentary

So, back in the primaries, Obama stated that if as president he had information about the whereabouts of bin Laden or his aides in Pakistan, and if Pakistan wouldn't or couldn't act to stop them, then he, Obama, would act, even if it meant violating Pakistani sovereignty. I'm not an IR/IL expert, but my understanding is that there's no legal problem with this: one of the responsibilities of sovereignty is not to protect or fail to stop those who would carry out violent acts against other nations. But leave that issue aside, because the criticism that McCain currently makes of Obama on this point isn't that Obama would act to protect the US (I can't remember if McCain originally made that criticism). Rather, it's that Obama says he would, out loud. According to McCain, there's some sort of hand-tipping going on that is somehow bad. Let's say for the sake of argument that McCain's right on this point.

Then how to explain today's statements by McCain on This Week? It all started with a comment that Sarah Palin made yesterday in Philadelphia. Asked by a Temple University grad student, Michael Rovito, whether "we do cross border, like from Afghanistan to Pakistan" due to the instability and threats from the western Pakistani area of Waziristan, Palin replied:

"If that's what we have to do stop the terrorists from coming any further in, absolutely, we should,"

Now, I'm no linguist, but it sounds to me like Sarah Palin has agreed not only with Obama's position, but has also said so, out loud. Asked about this by George Stephanopoulos today, McCain said that Sarah Palin "'shares' his views".

Ok. Obama says do something if necessaary. McCain says he shouldn't say that out loud. Palin says, out loud, that we should act if necessary. McCain says she shares his views. Asked by Stephanopoulos whether Palin didn't state that view out loud, McCain basically said no; at least, he wouldn't concede the point (I can't find a transcript yet or I'd provide the whole exchange). Stehpanopoulos then asks something like, "So she shouldn't have said it?" McCain won't agree. Then, having said Palin shares his views, and having refused to say she shouldn't have said those views out loud, McCain says the following:

"In all due respect, people going around and? sticking a microphone while conversations are being held, and then all of a sudden that's?that's a person's position? This is a free country, but I don't think most Americans think that that's a definitve [sic] policy statement made by Governor Palin."

So which is it?

1. McCain and Palin agree with Obama on the policy and are happy to say so out loud, in which case McCain disagrees with himself on being open about policy.

2. McCain and Palin agree with Obama on the policy but Palin shouldn't have said so out loud, in which case McCain disagrees with Palin's having been open about policy.

3. Palin shares McCain's views but didn't really take a definitive position when she held a conversation taking Obama's policy position out loud, in which case McCain and Palin share each other's views but may or may not share Obama's views on policy, and despite saying out loud that she does share that view, Palin has not definitively stated, out loud, what her view is, and therefore has not run afoul of McCain's view that one should not state one's policy views out loud.

Baffling, and ever more farcical.