Obama is Not Pundit-in-Chief
Robert Kagan, in an apparent effort to burn his reputation as the thinking man’s neocon, has a pretty silly column bashing Obama for not using his magical powers to cause the Iranian regime to topple. The Washington Post’s crack headline writing team decided to give the piece the absurd and offensive headline “Obama, Siding With the Regime.”
Meanwhile, my colleague Matt Duss was on MSNBC yesterday offering a much more reasonable take on Obama’s restrained response:
DUSS: I think the lesson to be learned is the United States’ ability to intervene and change these outcomes is rather limited. As Americans, we like to believe that our ability to move, to promote democracy and to move events in the world at our will is a lot bigger than it actually is. … Right now President Obama’s treatment of the demonstrations going on in Iran is pretty near perfect. He has taken the United States to the extent possible out of this equation, he, the United States, and our role in the Middle East is not — he’s not going to give that to the hard liners as an excuse for an even greater crackdown.
Something I think people don’t always get is that the President is not the columnist-in-chief or the National Blogger. One of the very nice things about being a professional political pundit, is that you can just sort of spout off what you think and use colorful language and strong, bold words. You need to be careful with what you say and do, paying scrupulous attention to consequences.
Max Bergmann did an excellent post on just this subject last summer, saying that John McCain had a tendency to act more like a pundit than a president. I think that’s exactly right. And today you’re seeing some rightwing pundits getting mad because Obama is acting like a president rather than like a pundit.
32 Responses to “Obama is Not Pundit-in-Chief”
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June 17th, 2009 at 10:08 am
It’s the “Of Mice and Men” theory of democracy promotion.
Robert Kagan : Iranian protesters :: Lenny : Mice.
I will hug him and pet him and call him George. Squish.
June 17th, 2009 at 10:14 am
And today you’re seeing some rightwing pundits getting mad because Obama is acting like a president rather than like a pundit.
More like we are seeing some rightwing pundits pretending to be mad about Obama acting like a president, because that is what rightwing pundits do for a living.
June 17th, 2009 at 10:20 am
I’m going to keep complaining until you start treating this as contextual. Do you remember South Africa? How hard activists and NGOs worked to pressure the United States and Britain to impose sanctions? There are some times when the United States should be an outspoken leader, especially if the regime has normalized relations with the US. I think Obama is doing everything right, but remember this isn’t some universalized lesson about what American should or shouldn’t do when confronted with a popular uprising against an oppressive regime.
June 17th, 2009 at 10:20 am
Duss:
As Americans, we like to believe that our ability to move, to promote democracy and to move events in the world at our will is a lot bigger than it actually is.
Don’t put hope in false hope as Hillary would say during the primary. Well Obama could push for a halt to the settlements in the West Bank and for a peace settlement. We do move events by giving a lot of money and diplomatic support to Egypt and Israel.
Republican politicians are doing the only thing they know how to do, cricitize the President for being a weak on security surrender-monkey Democrat, but I think Obama is playing it right. We’ll see what happens.
Biden did go to Lebanon before their election and that turned out well, so they’re not afraid to meddle but with Iran meddling would be counterproductive.
Robert Kagan:
If so, this will be one of those great ironies of history
The big irony is that one of the oppositions’ big beefs with I’m-a-dinner-jacket
is his reckless belicosity and foreign adventurism. Kagan agrees with this verdict but it could also be said of Kagan. The Iranian opposition want a leader more like Obama. Hence all the hipsters Twitterers.
June 17th, 2009 at 10:21 am
It’s worth noting that the neocon line in the immediate aftermath of the election was satisfaction that Ahmadinejad won and skepticism about claims of fraud. The result confirmed their view of the Iranian people and increased the chance of war, so they were happy to go with it. These are people who are on record as favoring military (and even nuclear!) strikes, which will inevitably result in the deaths of Iranian civilians. Now it’s not fair to assume that all neoconnish folks have a hive mind, but I’m skpetical of any neocon claims to have the best interests of the Iranian people at heart.
June 17th, 2009 at 10:40 am
True. If our history with Iran, including the history of the past 8 years, had been different, we might well be in a position today in which fierce advocacy on behalf of democracy and the protesters would be helpful.
June 17th, 2009 at 10:42 am
Barry 2-Way: “750,000 stolen Iranian votes saved or created.!”
June 17th, 2009 at 10:43 am
Matt Duss could be saying the most perceptive things ever said on this topic, and I would be unable to take him seriously because of that horrible neckbeard. Tell him to get rid of it!
June 17th, 2009 at 10:46 am
And today you’re seeing some rightwing pundits getting mad because Obama is acting like a president rather than like a pundit.
You’re forgetting the Gospel of St Ronnie, according to Peggy Noonan.
Once, the devil appeared to St Ronnie in the form of the Soviet Union. The Liberals and the Realists told him “You’re president and must act presidential towards the Soviets”. But St. Ronnie would have none of it and spoke the Simple Truth, that the Soviets were an Evil Empire. And, lo and behold, the USSR vanished. And there was much weeping and gnashing of teeth among the Liberals.
Republicans are stuffy about “presidential conduct” when it suits them but, at other times, they delight in the Man-Of-the-People confounding the elites with his Plain Speaking.
June 17th, 2009 at 10:49 am
Barry 2-Way: “750,000 stolen Iranian votes saved or created.!”
If you’re going to troll, at least be coherent. We are trying to have a grown-up conversation about a president with a grown-up foriegn policy.
June 17th, 2009 at 10:51 am
The problem is not just that the US power is limited. It’s worse than that. It’s that, given the nature of the US-Iranian relationship, open US support for any groups or individuals in Iran is likely to damage the political position of those very groups or individuals.
One has to wonder whether people like Kagan are really interested in promoting what they say they want Obama to promote, or are just interested in posing ostentatiously, and scoring demagogic political points here inside the US.
After all, a lot of these guys were openly rooting for an Ahmadinejad victory.
June 17th, 2009 at 10:59 am
I suppose this is Fred Hiatt overreacting after Andrew Sullivan bitched at him for running a single opinion piece pointing out that the results might be more accurate than (almost) everyone thinks. On the same page with the paper’s editorial and another opinion piece saying the election was flat-out stolen.
June 17th, 2009 at 11:02 am
today you’re seeing some rightwing pundits getting mad because Obama is acting like a president rather than like a pundit.
Of course, if Obama were out there being bellicose and rattling sabers, movement conservatives, who never shy from acting in bad faith, would criticize him for that.
That Obama’s conservative critics generally make such bad arguments in public is an indaction both that Obama is on the wrong track and that the Republican Party is doomed to further irrelvance.
June 17th, 2009 at 11:02 am
Were all neocons rooting for Ahmadinejad or just Danial Pipes? I didn’t notice that most were uncharacteristically silent for a few days when one might expect them to reflexively support the rebellion. Only when it began to look like it might serve as a pretext for American intervention did people really start to speak up.
June 17th, 2009 at 11:03 am
Didn’t notice = did notice; sorry.
June 17th, 2009 at 11:17 am
I think you forgot some word in the last sentence of the second-to-last paragraph, but otherwise the post is right on the money
June 17th, 2009 at 11:18 am
not using his magical powers to cause the Iranian regime to topple.
I suppose there’s nothing to be gained by pointing out that historically, toppling Iranian regimes has tended to bite us in the ass.
June 17th, 2009 at 11:32 am
[...] June 17, 2009 · No Comments yglesias [...]
June 17th, 2009 at 11:42 am
IF WE HADN’T TORTURED PEOPLE, MAYBE WE WOULD HAVE THE MORAL AUTHORITY TO ACT RIGHT NOW.
However, we tortured people, and so are probably less popular in Iran than the idea of a stolen election.
June 17th, 2009 at 11:47 am
If you’re going to troll, at least be coherent. We are trying to have a grown-up conversation about a president with a grown-up foriegn policy.
OK.
President Obama tendency to defer decision is not due to a mature caution or circumspection; his ever-contigent policy non-choices are due to lack of “audacity,” and belief in his own platitudes. This is covered up by phrasing, for example, such as (the impossible to quantify), “…jobs saved or created.” Or the simple BS, “We will kill bin Laden. We will crush Al Qaeda.” (Heh)
He leaves himself, always, an exit-strat; and the progressive-o-sphere and the media swoon at his vaulting wisdom. Never mind that someone always ends up under the bus: This time perhaps Iranian Greens? Maliki? Anti-Taliban Afghan/Paks?
Capiche.
June 17th, 2009 at 11:53 am
Were all neocons rooting for Ahmadinejad or just Danial Pipes? I didn’t notice that most were uncharacteristically silent for a few days when one might expect them to reflexively support the rebellion. Only when it began to look like it might serve as a pretext for American intervention did people really start to speak up.
I don’t even pay attention to the neocons. Robert Kagan’s column is all contradictory, but he is right in that “realism” is cold blooded and people might as well admit it.
But yeah as I understand it the neocons view is that reformists are just presenting a false face of the regime given that the Supreme leader is in charge.
What’s new about this election is the mass protests demanding a do-over. And the confrontational television debate which I think provoked the opposition. And the global recession. And the youthful opposition have been able to evade the censors via new communications technology. And maybe Obama.
June 17th, 2009 at 11:57 am
However, we tortured people, and so are probably less popular in Iran than the idea of a stolen election.
To be fair, we were unpopular in Iran before the torture. Um, our torture. But it certainly didn’t help.
June 17th, 2009 at 12:09 pm
This is covered up by phrasing, for example, such as (the impossible to quantify), “…jobs saved or created.”
Yes, he originally just said created for a long time, and then I’m guessing someone told him some accurate unemployment projections (much higher than expected at the time) and he realized that wasn’t going to happen, so he changed the rhetoric. A lot of people didn’t notice, and it is a bit crafty. Regardless, it’s not all that relevant as to arguments for/against a stimulus and Keynesian economics in general.
Or the simple BS, “We will kill bin Laden. We will crush Al Qaeda.” (Heh)
I don’t recall him saying this, and it certainly doesn’t match your claim in the next sentence that he “always leaves himself an exit strategy.” But sure, he says we’re going to kill Bin Laden. Just like, well, every single presidential contender on both sides in 2008. And 2004. And 2012, if he’s still alive by then. I’m failing to see any real point here you’re trying to make. Is he letting you down by not revealing in detail McChrystal’s plan for searching the caves of Pakistan? It wouldn’t really behoove him to say “intelligence reveals he probably died a few years ago from kidney failure.”
the progressive-o-sphere and the media swoon at his vaulting wisdom.
You should probably, uh, actually read some progressive blogs before you make a comment like that. DKos in particular has been fairly brutal about his lack of commitment to gay rights and Bush-like state secrets approach. I’m sure I can dig up a few dozen posts from here on the same subjects as well. Sorry to not fit your predetermined conclusions.
June 17th, 2009 at 12:46 pm
You should probably, uh, actually read some progressive blogs before you make a comment like that.
That raised for me an interesting question: are there any even semi-prominent “progressive” blogs that are as resolutely pro-Obama as many prominent “conservative” blogs were pro-Bush? I don’t claim to have an encyclopedic knowledge of “progressive” blogs, but offhand I can’t think of any which haven’t vocally disagreed with Obama about at least one, and often more, major issues.
June 17th, 2009 at 1:09 pm
President Obama tendency to defer decision is not due to a mature caution or circumspection; his ever-contigent policy non-choices are due to lack of “audacity,” and belief in his own platitudes.
Excellent! Complete sentences. Now, provide some actual evidence . . . or are you using the power of The Force to read his mind and emotions?
Never mind that someone always ends up under the bus: This time perhaps Iranian Greens?
In what way is he “leaving them under the bus?” They, he, and everyone else with a dog in this fight and a modicum of common sense agree that butting out is the best American policy choice. What else should he be doing that would do any good? Specifics, please, not slogans or platitudes.
Maliki?
What are you referring to? Obama’s policy for the last two years has been pretty much what Maliki and most of Iraq wanted. In fact, Maliki’s holding a plebiscite this summer to push us out the door a little faster than we planned. All to the good, for both sides.
Anti-Taliban Afghan/Paks?
Again, you seem to have it backwards. Obama’s program is pretty much in sync with those people, minus a few too many airstrikes. And the new guy in charge is cutting back on those. How is he betraying them?
June 17th, 2009 at 1:18 pm
Of course not you silly person.
June 17th, 2009 at 2:17 pm
So, not to get TOO convoluted or cynical, but I have to question if Kagan actually wrote what he really thinks. An alternative explanation is that he’s trying to use reverse psychology. Maybe he’s hoping to cause a groundswell of political pressure for Obama to intervene because he wants the protesters to fail and thinks that Obama’s backing them would be the difference. That way, he and his neocon buddies can safely go back to lobbying for an attack on Iran rather than having to deal with a much more complicated political situation that would require the U.S. to actually show some restraint.
June 17th, 2009 at 4:11 pm
The entire Kagan clan is disgusting in my opinion. I will never forget that one of them was sneering about the soldiers family’s reactions to the lengthening of deployments and said, ‘They want to come home? They can come home when they win.’ I wanted to drop kick those doughy pieces of excement right into Fallujah.
June 17th, 2009 at 4:27 pm
[...] Various leftwing columnists are vigorously attacking Bob Kagan assertion that Obama actually wants the uprising to [...]
June 17th, 2009 at 5:01 pm
You need to be careful with what you say and do, paying scrupulous attention to consequences.
Not that I disagree with what you say there, but putting that out there without any qualification at all makes me wonder if you’ve been paying attention for the past eight years or so. We have come off a long period of having a President who was never careful with what he said and didn’t give a damn about consequences since he was surrounded by men who assured him that they could control reality. The right loved the guy precisely because he would say things like “bring it on”, or tell the Muslim world that the US was engaged in a “crusade” against Muslim terrorists. Obama’s handling of the Iran situation is just one more reminder that the right will not be getting any red meat to chew on for the forseeable future. And they are pissed.
June 17th, 2009 at 7:17 pm
Dan Kerwick-
It’s that, given the nature of the US-Iranian relationship, open US support for any groups or individuals in Iran is likely to damage the political position of those very groups or individuals.
So, if Obama would openly support the Mullahs and/or Ahmadimnutjob, they will be politically damaged?
What is he waiting for?
June 17th, 2009 at 8:48 pm
Kagan is a Neocon. Neocons are extremist.
Game Theory teaches us that extremist on opposing sides will cooperate to undermine the moderates on both sides.
(See “The Evolution of Cooperation” by Robert Axelrod, Economist at University of Michigan).
It was an extremist Israeli Jew who assassinated Prime Minister Rabin.
A rabidly anti-Israel, anti-U.S. is core to the Neocon foreign policy identity. Without that, their reason to exist evaporates.
The Neocons and their Republican allies are just getting warmed up. The more the protesters succeed in Iran, the more the Neocons and the Republicans will try to undermine the protesters by trying to goat Obama into coming out on their side.
I’ll admit, it’s clever of them. But it’s also very dishonest and very evil.