Obama really shouldn't speak without a teleprompter or prepared text.
Today he proved just how not ready for prime time the Junior Senator from Illinois is. As he demonstrated during the debates, Obama just can't seem to help stepping into a big pile of his own making.
His latest flailing of I-won't-use-nukes-with-citizens-wait-scratch-that-I'm-not discussing-nukes debacle illustrates that he is as clueless about how a Commander-In-Chief should address the most potent weapon in his military arsenal as he is about how to respond to a terrorist attack or about Presidential diplomacy.
The American electorate doesn't seem to like what Obama is stepping in, either.
The three most recent national polls taken after the debate show Clinton trending up and ahead by double-double digits over her nearest rival. As of today, Clinton trounces Obama 43(38) to 21(25) Rasmussen; 43(39) to 22(25) NBC/WSJ, and 40(34) to 21(24) Pew.
Standing in front of a teleprompter and reading a speech written by Richard Clark isn't a terribly difficult thing to do. Unfortunately for Obama, the American electorate knows that we live in serious times and require more from their President than a dramatic reading from a prepared text.
Posted by JoeCHI at August 2, 2007 04:14 PMYou guys are hopelessly out of touch with the American people and common sense. All you care about is the conventional wisdom of what the proper thing to do is. There is no need for nuclear weapons to be used in a non-retaliatory manner. I don't care how "tactical" they are. The media is desperate to find any gaffe from Obama so they can coronate Hillary. I'm not interested in that game.
Posted by Mike at August 2, 2007 04:31 PMAh, yes let's hang Obama for spontaneously attempting to answer a question. It's so much better to have a team that vets every possible question, writes up answers and tests them out with focus groups and then have the candidate memorize the answer that poll tests the best. Makes Hillary such an exciting and dynamic candidate.
Ah, yes, let's all forget that Hillary blessed the invasion of Iraq and didn't object to Bush's handling of Afghanistan that any idiot could have seen within days of that mission that it would fail.
Posted by Marie at August 2, 2007 05:03 PMIt has nothing to do with "conventional wisdom". It has to do with understanding the nuances of foreign policy, and not elevating outlandish hypotheticals. I think both the comments and the speech were a mistake. They both served to make Obama look as inexperienced as he is. Notice no one claimed Obama looked "presidential" giving his speech. That's a problem. This was a major foriegn policy speech and people didn't find it convincingly presidential.
Posted by Melanie at August 2, 2007 05:07 PMMelanie - "convincingly presidential" is why Democrats nominated Kerry. That worked well against commander guy didn't it?
People just don't want polished and scripted candidates -- they are willing to overlook rough edges. Just as they did in 1992 when Clinton and Perot looked better than the polished GHB.
Posted by Marie at August 2, 2007 05:18 PMThere is nothing nuanced about the use of nuclear weapons, whether strategic or tactical. The idea of first strike tactical nukes is mad. This goes straight to a kind of killing and terror which is dangerous to the whole world and absurdly draconian.
Deterrence, as people have understood since the 1950s, means having nukes so that another nation won't use the nukes they have against you. A first strike has become anathema; and an exemption to the rule of "no first strike" would be a clear breach of civilized conduct. The nukes which were used against Japan at the end of World War II must also be the last, and only instance, in which these weapons are used on those who have only conventional weapons.
God help us all if this taboo is ever set aside.
I feel dispirited to even have to argue this from the point of view of mutual self-interest; but in spite of the tedious claims that these bunker bombs are "surgical weapons" by the usual morons who pat us on the head; the fact is, that when these bombs detonate beneath the surface, they project a powerful plume of radioactive gases and dust upward. This violent ejecta is thrust up into the atmosphere and travels far across borders and timelines.
Chalmers Johnson writes in his recent book, Nemesis, about America's leaders and their penchant for remote-control killing:
"[Hannah Arendt] called [Adolf Eichmann] a "desk murderer," an equally apt term for George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and Donald Rumsfeld--for anyone, in fact, who orders remote-control killing of the modern sort--the bombardment of a country that lacks any form of air defense, the firing of cruise missiles from a warship at sea into countries unable to respond...
How do ordinary people become desk murderers? First, they must lose the ability to think because, according to Arendt, "thinking conditions men against evil doing." (Nemesis pp 21-2)Eichmann was brought to Jerusalem to be tried for war crimes. Arendt would reflect years later upon Eichmann's 'banality of evil' in terms of his distinct and "extraordinary shallowness":
"However monstrous the deeds were, the doer was neither monstrous nor demonic, and the only specific characteristic one could detect in his past as well as in his behavior during the trial and the preceding police examination was something entirely negative:it was not stupidity but a curious, quite authentic inability to think." (ibid)A nuclear bomb is a totally inappropriate weapon to use against a bunch of partisan fighters holed up in the badlands of Afghanistan or Pakistan. It is ridiculous to even consider it as an option.
Candidates for president ought to answer this one hypothetical question, simply to confirm to the world that American leaders are not so immoral that they would allow themselves to become nuclear first strikers.
Posted by Copeland at August 3, 2007 01:46 AM"...his explicit willingness to use American forces to attack...."
Chickenhawk?
Posted by And Bagley Was A Friend Of Mine at August 3, 2007 06:23 AMThe media is desperate to find any gaffe from Obama so they can coronate Hillary.
Ding, ding, ding! That's correct! Both Edwards and Richardson are neutralized right now as the press ignores them, the rest of the field is irrelevant, which leaves the Two Senators. If one isn't in trouble, the other will be. As Obama is the less experienced politician, he's going to be on the receiving end more often.
But I doubt this is the great momentous fall of one of the top Democratic candidates yet. In November or December will be the big falling stock market moment.
The real story is the GOP campaign IMO. The press is confunded and the party is in complete disarray as to whom it'll support. There is no solid front group of candidates as there is for the Democrats. There's very little clear direction as to whose 'turn' it is. There are poll leaders, but the margins are much smaller between them and the pack and their campaigns are much more likely to implode. Support is less iron-clad. I don't know how McCain is holding on; one more big crash and his run has had it. Giuliani is hanging on only because he's got a public image that doesn't match his competence. Mitt's in the best position by far, but who knows if the rank and file will support the GOP version of affirmative action in their party nomination.
Posted by idiosynchronic at August 3, 2007 06:39 AMThe United States is largely given a pass internationally for being the first and only country to use nuclear weapons. That is because in the context of World War II the effects were proportional.
If the US uses nuclear weapons in the context of responding to 9/11 our country will never recover on the global stage and we will regress to a country based purely on power interests like China or India.
Obama was exactly right to eliminate nuclear weapons from the range of responses. The world would accept two divisons of US troops in northern Pakistan with 100,000 dead tribal fighters more easily than it would accept a single microyield nuclear device targeting some underground bunker.
Keeping the nuclear option available (which Hillary Clinton would NEVER use) is keeping available the ability to bluff the world into thinking you are mad. That IS a continuation of the Bush foreign policy and I want no part of it.
Deterrence works against state actors, not terrorists.
Obama spoke the truth.
Posted by joejoejoe at August 3, 2007 10:16 AM"Keeping the nuclear option available (which Hillary Clinton would NEVER use)"
Hillary Clinton has clearly indicated that a nuclear attack on Iran is "on the table". She has also made it clear that a nuclear attack against bin Laden or "other terrorists" in Pakistan or Afghanistan is "on the table".
Obama wants to do a typical Bush style high priced P.R. campaign in the Muslim world to try to convince "them" how wonderful the U.S. is while bombing Pakistan.
Care to remind me again what will change with a Democratic president?
Posted by Shirin at August 3, 2007 11:23 AM"Wrong answer Senator. No one wants to use nuclear weapons, but no commander in chief should be telling Al Qaeda’s senior leadership that they are safe from battlefield tactical nukes."
This is just flat-out nonsense.
I'll agree that as a domestic political matter Obama gave a poor answer (Although I am fully aware that the media has now internalized the "naive" Obama narrative, and his responses will be far more scrutinized than any other candidates).
However, publicly taking tactical nukes off the table gives Al Qaeda not a shred of an advantage. There is simply NOTHING that Al Qaeda would refrain from doing, under the belief that the U.S. might use tactical nukes. Unless you are aware of some $10 billion nuke-hardened bunker that bin Laden was planning to build in Waziristan prior to Obama's gaffe.
In REALITY, taking tactical nukes off the table -- indeed calling for a nuke-free region in the region -- would be kind of smart and effective soft-power move that might begin to rehabilitate the perception of the U.S. in the region, but will never happen because of the domestic political need for "tough" talk.
Posted by space at August 3, 2007 12:53 PM