Fact Check: Sarah Palin's ABC Interview

Recently, Sarah Palin (or her handlers/spin doctors) dug up and invoked Honest Abe Lincoln, when back-pedaling to try to explain her statement to an audience that the Iraq War was "...God's Will"... Even though she never mentioned good ol' Abe in that speech.

Now, when finding herself on the spot in a recent interview with ABC's Charles Gibson, she casts a long line into a fictional wishing well and tries to tell us - among other things - that, if we look back in history not just she, but other Vice Presidents had no experience with meeting foreign heads of state before they took office.

Go Fish!

That is utterly untrue, going back in history at least 30 years.

Then, when questioned about her glaring lack of diplomatic experience or even traveling to other continents on her resume, she offered that her inexperience translates to serving our country's desire for change in D.C.... that having such experience is the old Washington way of doing things.

Uh, Hello? Sarah? Yes, our country has a deep and justified desire for Change... But, that Does Not mean we want to replace the Incompetent-in-Chief with the Unqualified.

Peace.
L.

(From: abclocal.go.com/kgo)
Fact Check: Sarah Palin's ABC News Interview
Friday September 12, 2008 | 7:01 PM

By Mark Matthews

FAIRBANKS, AK (KGO) -- Charlie Gibson interviews Sarah Palin on domestic issues on Friday night. His questions to the Republican vice presidential candidate on Thursday night focused on foreign policy.

Here is a Fact Check of some the answers she gave.

Sarah Palin just applied for a passport two years ago, and has not travelled extensively outside of the country. Charlie Gibson asked her about her readiness to lead the country.

"Did you ever travel outside the country prior to your trip to Kuwait and Germany last year?," asked ABC News Charlie Gibson.

"Canada, Mexico and then yeah that trip that was a trip of a lifetime to visit our troops in Kuwait and stop and visit our injured soldiers in Germany. That was a trip of a lifetime and it changed my life," said Gov. Sarah Palin/(R) Vice Presidential Nominee.

"Have you ever met a foreign head of state?" asked Gibson.

"I have not, and I think if you go back in history and if you ask that question of many vice presidents they may have the same answer that I just gave you," said Palin.

Fact Check:
No they wouldn't, at least not going back the past 30 years.
Dick Cheney was secretary of defense before he was vice president.
Al Gore was a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee and was a part of many congressional delegations to foreign countries. It was the same for Dan Qualyle, who lacked Gore's credentials but also sat on the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Before Quayle, George H.W. Bush was an envoy to China and the head of the CIA, and Walter Mondale was a senator for 16 years before becoming vice president, and was Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Palin went on to say what the country wants now is someone without the big resume.
"
We got to remember what the desire is in this nation at this time. It is for no more politics as usual and somebody's big fat resume maybe that shows decades and decades in that Washington establishment, where yeah they've had opportunities to meet heads of state," said Palin.

Gibson challenged Palin for flip flopping on global warming; taking on John McCain's position that global warming does have man-made causes.

"Call me a cynic, but I hear a little bit of change in your policy there when you say yes now your beginning to say it is man-made," said Gibson.

"I think you are a cynic, I have not said that. I believe in science and have such great respect for what they are telling us. I'm not going to disagree with the point that they make that mans activities can be attributed to changes," said Palin.

Fact Check:
That's false.
Just two weeks ago, Palin is told a conservative online news service: "A changing environment will affect Alaska more than any other state, because of our location." Adding that: "She isn't one though who would attribute it to being man-made."

Last year, she told the Fairbanks Daily that "She is not an Al Gore doom and gloom environmentalist blaming changes in our climate on human activity."