While Jeffrey Goldberg is admittedly correct to call Palin out for essentially endorsing Hamas, I think his analysis is a bit too smug. Palin was asked “What happens if the goal of democracy doesn’t produce the desired outcome? In Gaza, the U.S. pushed hard for elections and Hamas won.”

It’s a fair question that gets to the heart of our commitment to democracy over specific outcomes, which is questionable, at best. It’s a good question…a tough question…and it could be extended to the elections in Lebanon, in Syria, and (to a degree) in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Iraq. What do we do when there are elections and people that hate us and hate Israel wind up winning those elections?

Palin’s answer was partially non-responsive.

“Yeah, well especially in that region, though, we have to protect those who do seek democracy and support those who seek protections for the people who live there. What we’re seeing in the last couple of days here in New York is a President of Iran, Ahmadinejad, who would come on our soil and express such disdain for one of our closest allies and friends, Israel … and we’re hearing the evil that he speaks and if hearing him doesn’t allow Americans to commit more solidly to protecting the friends and allies that we need, especially there in the Mideast, then nothing will.”

Of course, President Ahmadinejad is an elected official. He was voted in in an imperfect election because certain candidates were determined by the Council of Guardians to be ineligible to run against him. But Iran does a pretty good job of counting votes. They have real elections. So, Palin’s answer is a little off-key here, but American politicians play fast and loose with the facts about Iran’s political structure all the time. What bothers Goldberg is that Palin seems to be saying that we should protect those that seek democracy like the Palestinians, who elected Hamas. Hamas is an admittedly tricky case…a true test of our commitment to the principles of self-determination. Palin sidesteps the central focus of the question, perhaps because she is so unfamiliar with the dilemma that she didn’t understand the thrust of the question.

Where Goldberg is too smug is in failing to answer the question himself. Goldberg, rather, suggests that it was a mistake to push for democracy in Palestine. And I might agree with Goldberg if only he would explain why self-determination is okay when we get the desired result and not okay when we don’t.

I’m not above exercising some double standards now and then, and realpolitik is not a wholly dirty word in my book. I do believe that our national interests come first. But let’s not pretend that there isn’t a huge cost to our double standards on self-determination, on nuclear weapons, and on what constitutes a rogue state. Palin failed to answer the question, probably because she is a numbskull. Goldberg provides a perfectly acceptable alternative answer.

“Yes, Katie, it’s true that if you push for democracy, sometimes you get an outcome that you don’t want. This happened in Gaza with Hamas, and I think the Bush Administration was as surprised as everyone else. So the lesson here is that you have be careful when you try to export democracy. But I still believe that, over the long-term, democracy is the best antidote to terrorism that we have. What we have to do, though, is know when to push, and know when not to push. And every day, we have to do the hard work of advocating for press freedom, and the rule of law, and for all those things that build a civil society.”

What Goldberg doesn’t do is answer the root of the question. Why was it a mistake for the Palestinians to have a vote on their leadership? How is it even possible for a free and fair election to be a bad thing? Those may be more philosophical than political questions, but unless you can answer them, you shouldn’t be too condescending to those that have no good answer.