Obama Press Narrative Emerging
I am worried about a candidate who promises to never use nuclear weapons, and/or discuss the circumstances he thinks their use is appropriate.That's from Jim Geraghty at the National Review, responding to something Barack Obama said today. I suppose I can understand the first half of that sentence, at least out of context, but the second half is hilarious. We live a democracy. Don't we deserve to know what candidates think about these issues? We're electing the person who is going to have his (or her) hands on the button. It would be nice to know, at least in a general sense, the circumstances under which prospective presidents think the use of nuclear weapons is appropriate. [update: a commenter points out that I may have misunderstood Geraghty's sentence. He may be saying that he wants a candidate to discuss the circumstances in which using nukes would be appropriate. If so, my apologies.]
As for Obama's actual comment, it's being taken badly out of context by Drudge (shocking, I know). Here's what he said in response to a question about whether there were any circumstances under which he would use nuclear weapons in Afghanistan or Pakistan:
''I think it would be a profound mistake for us to use nuclear weapons in any circumstance,'' Obama said, with a pause, ''involving civilians.'' Then he quickly added, ''Let me scratch that. There's been no discussion of nuclear weapons. That's not on the table.''That's not a very polished answer, but then again, it's kind of a stupid question too. Under what possible realistic scenario would any sane person even consider using nuclear weapons against Afghanistan (an impoverished country we are currently occupying) or Pakistan (an ally with its own nuclear arsenal)? There are none. And the only unrealistic scenario I can think of is if somehow Pakistan fell into the hands of Islamists who planned to use nukes against us.
I'm no mind-reader, but I suspect Obama went through the same mental exercise while answering the question, which is why he then qualified his answer.
What's troubling to me about this story is not what Obama said (I doubt there is any major candidate who disagrees with him), but the way the media is taking Drudge's bait and trying to make a big deal out of this non-story. There's a media narrative emerging whereby anything Obama says about foreign policy, no matter how trivial or uncontroversial, is trotted out as evidence that he is somehow "naive."
Obama's campaign staff should be worried about this. This is exactly the sort of dumb narrative that reporters love (Al Gore exaggerates; Dan Quale is dumb, etc.) and other campaigns are doing their best to feed it. I wish I had some advice about how to fight these kind of simple-minded narratives, but I don't. Our press corps likes to follow simple scripts; they want to be able to fit everything that happens into some pre-existing template. And it's looking like they've found their Obama template.
posted by A.L. at 4:28 PM
17 Comments:
I am afraid that reality is not comforting to Obama, or he is not comfortable within it. Has he made statements that are this extreme before? He seems to be channeling the shooter?
or has the data mining caused shooter to have access to Obama's dirty laundry?
any way you look at it, it is of a questionable nature
I agree with your comments concerning the media. However, if Obama is going to remain a serious presidential candidate he must be able to handle questions like this deftly. His handlers must know that a weakness in his candidacy lies in the perception that he might be somewhat "light" in experience to be president. This is the kind of issue he should have been prepped on.
It is a valid question. US controls the world's premier nuclear arsenal and the president -- in a real world situation -- has the sole authority to determine whether to use that arsenal. Anyone who runs for president and has NOT thought through when he/she might use nukes, is not ready for the job.
As for circumstances where using nukes in Pakistan might be appropriate -- considering the fact that Pakistan has nukes but not nearly enough to destroy the US, I would imagine a scenario could arise where fundamentalists overthrow Musharraf with the intention of using nukes against India. In that case, the US might want to launch a preemptive nuclear strike against Pakistan's nuclear arsenal -- particularly if such a strike would prevent India from retaliating to a successful Pakistani first strike, thus preventing a full-scale subcontinental war.
Obama should maybe think about scenarios like that if he wants to stay in the pres race.
It doesn't surprise me at all that Obama wasn't prepped for this question. I've never even heard anyone suggest that we should use nuclear weapons in Afghanistan and Pakistan. That's crazy.
And this is the sort of throw-way comment that no one would be paying attention to unless they are looking for data points to fit within this emerging narrative. The other day everyone focused on one passage from Obama's speech, despite the fact that basically every major candidate on both sides agrees with what he said.
This is classic media swarming behavior. For at least the near future, every statement Obama makes on foreign policy issues will be hyper-scrutinized and twisted into something that might potentionally be characterized as "naive."
Obama should maybe think about scenarios like that if he wants to stay in the pres race.
Oh please. Find me any candidate who has devoted even one second in their entire lives to consideration of that crazy scenario. We're going to pre-emptively obliterate Pakistan to prevent it from attacking India? What?
Moreover, Obama immediately took back what he said, realizing that perhaps there were nonobvious, but conceivable scenarios where a nuclear threat would be needed. That's why he said "strike that" and clarified that nukes are not on the table right now, which is unquestionably accurate.
........who promises to never use nuclear weapons, and/or discuss the circumstances........
It seems his complaint is that Obama does NOT want to discuss the appropriate use of nukes. The sentence implies, awkwardly that Obama does not think nukes should be used and does not want to talk about their use...at least that is how I translate it.
Richard
I agree that most presidential candidates probably don't lose sleep over "what-if" scenarios. However, I do think Obama has to learn to better deal with unexpected questions of this sort. In a heated presidential race "taking back" comments will only get you so far. Certainly, given the tight race between Hillary and Obama, sloppy and poorly though out responses can ultimately become fatal in a tight presidential contest. Dodging an answer altogether would have been preferable to bungling an answer outright.
Obama should have retreated to a more vague response such as "That is a highly speculative question with too few details to comment on" or "My actions would be determined by the circumstances of the situation, but rest assured I would protect our country." Some sort of nonanswer that we are accustomed to hearing from politicians.
Nevertheless, keep in mind that Palistan is becoming a more complicated situation for the US. Over the last several weeks there have been some disconcerting news articles dealing with Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf. His failed effort to displace the country's top judge coupled with his drop in approval ratings in that country makes one wonder about potential insecurity in that nation.
I have no problem with Obama taking nukes off the table, and have no problem with the majority of his speech on M.E. policy. I remain concerned that any candidates for president--Obama or anyone else--use armed agression against another nation as a policy plank. The founders warned us that War, more than any other thing, could lead to an unbalanced, over-powerful Executive. We have now been in "war" for longer than we were in WWII, with no end in sight.
I'd note that neither Obama nor Clinton took military force off the table when discussing Iran in front of AIPAC. I'm supposing nukes--tactical nukes-- form an extreme edge of "military force".
A.L.,
On a completely different note, what do you make of this anonymous poster over at TPM? Mr. Blank, I think some are calling him. Have you read his stuff?
A.L., you should probably update this story. Both Hillary and Dodd have criticized and disagreed with Obama, with both essentially saying that nukes should always be "on the table."
IMO, this is a fundamental difference between Obama and Hillary and Dodd. Obama doesn't want to use nukes pretty much ever, and Hillary and Dodd want to use nukes to saber rattle at other countries. To me, that's big.
Obama should confront and challenge those in the Media who misquote,misinterpret,mislead,misconceive
his words.
He must take them head on since his whole campaign is based on changing
Washington's beltway "ditto head" thinking.
I know after over 6 years of Bush ramblings the media elite may have a hard time in grasping someone who actually attempts to articulate his positions for them.
I think once again people are getting away from what's really the problem here, which is the media narrative. Again, both Hilary, Dodd, and pretty much everyone in the Democratic field would know when and where to use nuclear weapons. I don't see a difference in their policies. But in that media narrative, anything Obama says is going to be put through that "naive" lens. That being the case, no question is dumb since whatever answer he's going to give is going to be considered "naive" anyway.
Maybe the best thing Obama can do is stay quiet for a while. When the media focuses on something like this they're just getting prepared for a Howard Dean moment. Better to just ease off the gas for a while and let this burn itself out (or at least drop to a simmer).
Teethwriter I disagree with you.
Staying quiet or not going after those who mislabel you is what sunk Gore, Kerry and Dean.
Just as the Blogs have been successful by going after those who
LIE,Cheat and mislead so should Obama.
Otherwise it'll be open season on Obama.
I agree, Teethwriter. Probably best to just starve the narrative of oxygen for a little while. Unfortunately, the YearlyKos event and breakout session will provide a lot of new material. I guarantee you that rival campaigns will be closely monitoring everything Obama says and will feed the most "naive"-sounding sentence fragments to Drudge and the Politico, and from there it will be picked up and repeated by mainstream journos. Such is life.
I don't believe Samantha Powers helped in her clarification, which implied that the other candidates favor using nuclear weapons on terrorist training camps under some circumstances. That's a match thrown on gasoline, as far as I'm concerned. People are going to think (right in my view) that Obama's team has no message discipline. And his explicit threat on Pakistan's sovereignty was unnecessary and stupid as well.
On the matter of how to counter media narratives: Maybe I'm just being naive, but what if a candidate or his/her surrogates were to simply complain about "media bias" when they're on national TV? Isn't that what conservatives do?
Look at the interview Jon Stewart had with Tony Blair's spinmeister Alistair Campbell. Campbell went out of his way to say three times -- three times -- that Stewart was "taking him out of context". Stewart was strong enough to push back and not let Campbell's spin dominate, but would elite pundits do the same?
The trick is to complain about media bias in a way that doesn't seem whiny.
Maybe I'm too old, but I remember a bygone time when the use of nuclear weapons--especially the first use--was considered to be "unthinkable." How far we have come since then, alas.
I expect to hear this kind of thing from the frothing maniacs of the Republican party. But to observe nuclear sabre-rattling by the Democrats--as a campaign issue, no less--makes me frustrated and sad. It seems there is hardly a level of violence that we Americans will not countenance in the name of what we call our "national security", but which really is our freakish self-image as both the king of the world and the saviour of humanity.
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