provided an early look at what a 2012 election campaign between the two
might look like.
Each politician was openly dismissive of the other.
“Last I checked,
when he was asked about comments Palin made earlier in the week that
pronounced his vow not to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear
nations as “unbelievable.”
“It’s kind of like getting out there on a
playground, a bunch of kids, getting ready to fight, and one of the
kids saying, ‘Go ahead, punch me in the face and I’m not going to
retaliate. Go ahead and do what you want to with me,'” Palin said.
Said the president: “If the secretary of defense and
the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff are comfortable with it, I’m
probably going to take my advice from them and not from
Palin struck back Friday during an appearance at the
The back and forth was triggered by the Obama administration’s announcement Tuesday that
no longer would threaten to use nuclear weapons in retaliation against
non-nuclear attacks, even those that involve biological or chemical
weapons. The new policy wouldn’t prevent the U.S. from conventional
retaliation, however, and it exempted
Palin, who’s said she might run for the Republican
nomination to oppose Obama in 2012, also urged Republicans anew to
“reload” in their campaign to win control of
“Don’t retreat, reload. And that is not a call to violence,” she said.
“That of course means taking opportunities to
engage, and debate and to vote. … It’s not a call for violence. No
one is calling for such a thing. The media is so desperate to discredit
the tea party movement that they’ll make that up. But nobody is calling
for violence.”
Palin spent much of her speech on energy, lambasting Obama’s decision to allow some oil drilling off the coast of
“Let’s send the
She urged opening offshore sites to oil and gas drilling and giving some of the proceeds to the states.
“The outer continental shelf must be open for development,” she said, “with revenue sharing for the states.”
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(c) 2010, McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
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