THE ABSURDITY OF BEING BILL BENNETT

You may have heard or read that Sarah Palin isn't well-travelled:

Palin not well traveled outside US
VP candidate, Alaksan governor got first passport in 2006, left N. America only once
By Bryan Bender and Sasha Issenberg
Globe Staff / September 3, 2008

ST.PAUL — Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin got her first passport in 2006 and has visited just four countries, and she had little involvement in her state's cross-border issues, raising questions about her supporters' assertions that Alaska's proximity to Russia has given her unique experience on foreign affairs.

This morning, Slots Bennett decided that the best retort to this claim is that James Madison didn't travel outside the country. Yeah, Palin is right in the mould of James Madison! On CNN, Slots made the connection to the Culture War¹:

BILL BENNETT, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Yes. It's a different crowd. It's a different audience.

But the message is unifying. I thank Donna Brazile for that.

That video was interesting. That was an American video. It started with the Federalist Papers, the Declaration. I was thinking about what Carl said, just to gig him a little bit. He talked about Sarah Palin and her passport.

This is something I have heard of, her two things. Why didn't she get a passport and she's never been on "Meet the Press." See, this is the Eastern problem that people have. You can actually be somebody and not be on "Meet the Press." And James Madison, believe it or not, actually never left America. Jefferson was a great president. He spent too much time in Paris. The need for European experience wasn't in James Madison.

So, there's a lot...

BROWN: The world is a little different.

BENNETT: Yes, the world is a little different. And America is a much more dominant and predominant and important place than Europe is right now.

So, by the way, when she got her passport, she didn't go to Paris. She went to Kuwait to see the soldiers. So, there's a kind of cultural underpinning here, Wolf, and it's going to play itself out over the next three days.

[snip]

BENNETT: You know, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, one of the best people to ever grace the Senate, smartest people, said, politics is important, but culture is more important than politics. Cultural symbols. Look for the cultural symbol.
And if I can make one last comment, one name that hasn't been mentioned yet by us, you are going to hear a lot, the brooding omnipresence, Ronald Wilson Reagan. You heard the applause when his face appeared. He will be invoked a great deal.

And it is the mantle of Reagan. This is one of the questions, one of the ways we have been talking about this election this year. What would Ronald Reagan do? On whom will this mantle fall? And you will see him invoked, I think, many times, and appropriately so. He's one of our big heroes.

¹CNN
September 2, 2008 Tuesday
SHOW: CNN ELECTION CENTER 8:00 PM EST
Republican National Convention Day Two
BYLINE: Ed Henry, Kyra Phillips, Candy Crowley, Dana Bash, Gloria Borger, Leslie Sanchez, Carl Bernstein, Donna Brazile, Bill Bennett, Wolf Blitzer, Campbell Brown
GUESTS: Kendal Unruh, John Tyler Hammons, Hilary Rosen, Alex Castellanos, Leslie Sanchez, Donna Brazile, Carl Bernstein, James Carville
SECTION: NEWS; Domestic
LENGTH: 6999 words
HIGHLIGHT: Republicans highlight John McCain's biography on day two of the Republican National Convention.