In today's Washington Post Charles Krauthammer discusses the Palin-Gibson exchange concerning the Bush Doctrine. He starts by referring the reader to Wikipedia's definition of the term, touting his own expertise by pointing out that he was first to provide the definition of the term. He Says:
I know something about the subject because, as the Wikipedia entry on the Bush doctrine notes, I was the first to use the term. ... I suggested that the Bush administration policies of unilaterally withdrawing from the ABM treaty and rejecting the Kyoto protocol, together with others, amounted to a radical change in foreign policy that should be called the Bush doctrine.
As it turns out, I had performed a cut and paste of Wikipedia's article in a comment to a DKos diary just two days ago. There was no mention of Mr Krautheimer in the Wikipedia article on that day.
Did Charles Krauthammer stoop to the level of editing WikiPedia so as to trumpet his own expertise in the subject and then use that edited version as a reference to help make his point in today's column at WaPo?
I wrote the following as an online comment to Krauthammer's column in today's Washington Post:
Charles Krauthammer!
Did you recently edit Wikipedia to put you own name as being the first to define the "Bush Doctrine"?
On September 11, 2008 at 11:57:30 I copied the beginning of that article in order to make my point in a comment in a Daily Kos Diary. At that time the Wikipedia article in question read:
"The phrase initially described the policy that the United States had the right to treat countries that harbor or give aid to terrorist groups as terrorists themselves, which was used to justify the invasion of Afghanistan.[1] Later it came to include additional elements, including the controversial policy of preventive war, which held that the United States should depose foreign regimes that represented threat to the security of the United States, even if that threat was not immediate (used to justify the invasion of Iraq), a policy of supporting democracy around the world, especially in the Middle East, as a strategy for combating the spread of terrorism, and a willingness to pursue U.S. military interests in a unilateral way."
Today it reads differently, with your name highlighted:
"The first usage of the term may have been when conservative commentator Charles Krauthammer used the term in February 2001 to refer to the president's unilateral approach to national missile defense well before September 11th.[2][3]
Later the phrase came to describe the policy that the United States had the right to treat countries that harbor or give aid to terrorist groups as terrorists themselves, which was used to justify the invasion of Afghanistan.[4] Later still, it came to include additional elements, including the controversial policy of preventive war, which held that the United States should depose foreign regimes that represented a supposed threat to the security of the United States, even if that threat was not immediate (used to justify the invasion of Iraq), a policy of supporting democracy around the world, especially in the Middle East, as a strategy for combating the spread of terrorism, and a willingness to pursue U.S. military interests in a unilateral way."
Actually both Palin and Gibson were wrong, and so are you. The most important and the currently relevant meaning of the term is included in both versions of the Wikipedia definition: both the one that existed a few days ago and the one as it exists today. I am speaking about the concept that the United States has the right to wage "preventative war", not just "pre-emptive war". In other words, the attribute of "imminent danger" no longer needs to be present in the situation whenever the United States wants to wage war.
You emphasize the concept of "spreading democracy" rather than the concept of preventative war. I recognize that spreading democracy was the administration's position for about a year or two. But eventually they dropped it unceremoniously, leaving it to wither on the vine. Because it was shown to be silly and even counter-productive to our own goals when put into practice: consider that Hamas won the elections in Palestine and we countered by refusing to recognize their victory.
What is lasting about the definition of the Bush Doctrine is the idea of preventative war: it is the ridiculous concept that the United States has a right to start a war merely because it wishes to prevent that very same war.