Sarah Palin Quotes
We need a commander in chief not a professor of law standing at a lectern - the lectern.
Palin, Sarah. "Keynote Address." National Tea Party Convention, 6 Feb. 2010, Gaylord Opryland Resort, Nashville, TN.
George Washington had been appointed by the Continental Congress as Commander in Chief of the Continental Army but was politic about keeping Congress informed and not appear to be usurping authority. He asked Adams for an opinion of whether his authority reached beyond Boston to include the defense of New York City. Adams had been a member of the Congress that appointed Washington. Adams reply has been used as precedent for the broad authority of the President as Commander in Chief by those claiming broad Presidential power since.
This quotation was an attack on President George W. Bush who had argued to a nation hostile about the Iraq War that the decision on whether to continue the war should be determined in large part by the report that was to be given by the commander of our forces In Iraq, General David Petraeus. He reported that he thought we should give the situation some more time and effort, and that was the policy decision. Clark and others thought this was not fair to Petraeus whose job it was not to make the policy but to implement it. It was perhaps the only time in history where a President abdicated a major war policy decision to a field officer. The President even argued to Congress that they should all wait for the General to return to Washington. He argued that he made the decision; he just wanted to hear the General’s recommendation. Most believed that he could have obtained that without the General returning to Washington to talk to Congress and the American people.
On military or foreign policy matters his view was that presidents ought not to rule anything in or out so that he/she can keep all the options open and not reduce future flexibility.
This point of view is contentious in that many people (usually those at the extreme left and extreme right) think that the intention of the founding fathers was to avoid a single executive from starting a war unilaterally. Congress was given the power to declare war—not the president. Arguably public opinion is reflected by Congress, but going to war, when public opinion has been opposed to it has always turned out badly in American History.
Sarah Louise Palin is an American politician, commentator, author, and reality television personality, who served as the ninth governor of Alaska from 2006 until her resignation in 2009. As the Republican nominee for Vice President of the United States in the 2008 election alongside Arizona Senator John McCain, she was the first Republican female vice presidential nominee and the second female vice presidential nominee of a major party, after Geraldine Ferraro in 1984.
