Ethics

Palin Slams Obama! On "Foreign Soil"!

By Ed Brayton

One of the most idiotic of all the right wing demagogic memes is the one about it being some evil thing to criticize the United States "on foreign soil." We heard it about Bill Clinton protesting the Vietnam War while at Oxford, as though it was okay to criticize the war in the US but you can't say that once you cross a border. We also heard it with the Dixie Chicks when they criticized Bush during a concert overseas.

In the 1992 campaign, George Bush raised the criticism of Clinton for "demonstrations he led against his country from a foreign soil." In a speech to Republican contributors, Bush said:

Full post as published by Dispatches from the Culture Wars on September 24, 2009 (boomark / email).