Is this true?

[Alan]

Hi,

Is this true?

[Molly]

OMG, that would mean a ban on blinis!

[Jamie (K)]

Most of the US media lean Democrat, and they are trying to make Sarah Palin look as bad as possible. They have reported a lot of "scandalous" stories that turned out not to be true, and they're playing a trick with this one.

The typical story has a headline that says Palin is calling for war with Russia. The first half of the story makes it sound like she wants a war. Then near the bottom of the story it tells what she really said.

What she did was explain what people appear to have forgotten about NATO. It's a mutual defense organization. If a member is attacked, then all the other members are supposed to treat it as an attack on themselves and come to its assistance militarily, if necessary. That has been true since the beginning of NATO.

The reporter asked her whether, if Georgia had become a NATO member, the US would have to defend it militarily. Palin just said that, yes, that's what the treaty says. Part of the deal when you let a country into NATO is that the US and the other countries are supposed to defend it militarily. If Russia attacks and the defense means fighting with Russia, then that's what's in the deal. This is uncontroversial when, for example, the idea is brought up of Russia attacking the US, France or some other older, more western NATO country, but add a new country and suddenly we're supposed to think before defending it, according to some.

So Sarah Palin is not hoping for a war with Russia any more than McCain is hoping for the war in Iraq to last 100 years. These are distortions and exaggerations peddled by US media.