Five Mistakes the Obama Administration Has Made in the Aftermath of Bin Laden Killing
Time’s Mark Halperin lists the five mistakes the Obama administration has made in the aftermath of the killing of Al Qaeda terrorism CEO Osama bin Laden. Halperin praises the operation itself, but not the aftermath.
This is actually now a set pattern with the Obama administration. After it’s victory many assumed that the Obama administration would be masterful in public relations, general communications and how to deal with both the new and old media. But, in reality, it has more often than not appeared surprisingly flat-footed — almost amateur hour — when it comes to political impact.
Here are his five reasons (go to the link to read the details around each one):
1. Not getting its story straight: Was bin Laden armed or not? What woman served as a human shield? Who actually was killed beyond the main target? ….
2. Not giving George W. Bush enough credit for helping bring bin Laden to justice: Even if the White House believes the previous occupant had nothing to do with OBL’s ultimate demise, it would have been better for national unity and Obama’s own political fortunes if he had gone out of his way to thank 43…
3. Letting the photo debate get out of control: The decision about whether to release images of a dead bin Laden is not an easy one. But the administration’s conflicting statements and public agonizing has created an extended distraction. ..
4. Letting the debate about the war in Afghanistan get out of control: There are signs that some of the president’s advisers are looking to scale back the commitment in Afghanistan sooner rather than later…
5. Letting the debate about Pakistan get out of control: The congressional and media demand for a radical change in America’s relationship with Pakistan is burning like wildfire. The administration knows that a shift in policy is complicated and compromising, and not necessarily in the United States’ interest.’
American politics in the 21st century is now –more than ever with the 24/7 news cycle, partisan talk radio shows that rely on and benefit from capturing and creating rage and controversy, and new and old media scrambling to compete with each other — about not giving the other side an opening. The Obama administration for all the talk about its political abilities during the campaign at times seems like it truly does not have a clue or is stuck in a time tunnel responding to how America functioned 20 years ago.
22 Responses to “Five Mistakes the Obama Administration Has Made in the Aftermath of Bin Laden Killing”
Inept and amateurish, and out of touch, again, certainly, but are the critics as foolish about the permanence of this event or its effects as some of the liberal and Dem Obama cheerleaders this week are?
This has not decided the 2012 general election for the Presidency!
20th century presidents are fortunate they didn’t have the additional burden of having to control the message in an environment where so many forms of instant communication proliferated.
“This has not decided the 2012 general election for the Presidency!”
True but that seems to have been decided over the last few months and even prior to killing OBL he was coming up the most likely winner.
Yes, just as GHWB had a shoo-in re-election this far out, too.
No one seems to be allowing for the same thing to happen, a sitting President that is not popular with his base and has poor overall poll numbers, and facing a poor pool of candidates, get surprised by an out-of-nowhere candidate that really only wants to position themselves for the next election (Clinton).
Saying he will win is not saying he will win by huge margins. Bush was called a shoo-in and he was as was Clinton. Bush I’s goose was cooked when he A. had to debate someone with insane amounts of charisma and B. when he had to run against Perot that pulled a good amount of those he could appeal to away. Short of a left wing Perot I think he is a shoo-in, the margin of the win will depend on the type of nominee makes it out of the primaries. Daniels or Mitt could make it close but of course they have some major issues to overcome to make it out of the primaries alive.
Sky, as I’ve written before (even on another thread today, earlier), it’s impossible for Obama and the Dems to expect guaranteed re-election of Obama, and the worst thing they could do is get either complacent or worse, misinterpret the situation (as with the 2008 elections!) and rashly do stupid or other things that repel the voters.
Bush the Elder should have won re-election in 1992 against an unknown chump and sleazoid that even the liberal media put down early in the Dem nomination process. (E.g., Time, “Would You Trust This Man?” or something to that effect) Yes, Bush did some really bad things and Perot messed up things for Bush, too, but in the end the election was his to lose and he lost it.
In 2000 it was Gore’s election to lose, and Gore lost it, obviously.
If Obama and the Congressional Dems do what they did in 2009-2010, they seriously risk losing the White House even with a GOP in Congress that’s clownish, currently. (or even if there is a lot of ill will toward Midwestern and other GOP governors or what state GOP legislators do)
The Iowa Electronic Markets team has not created 2012 election markets yet. (Why not?)
I think Halperin is simply wrong across the board because he is trapped in the belt-way thinking forged under Bush.
1. Who really cares if obl was armed, dressed,or apprised of his Miranda rights? A secret operation against a known and admitted mass murderer was conducted halfway round the world. Marc is looking for the canned story lines he got from BushCo where pentagon propagandists produced that ready for prime time Jessica Dawn Lynch story or Tillman, the brave football player, who called down an attack upon himself. Reality is never as clear cut nor linear.
2, You really do need to think about this one. Bush gave up looking, and he said as much. Should we thank him for quitting or should we just be thankful he didn’t screw up further beyond his many failures?
3. Here he’s right, we should pass out photos of a dead terrorist to show the guys we wish to defeat we really mean business. As if Abu Ghraib didn’t do enough.
4. In case Mark hasn’t noticed, the Afghan debate has been out of control since Tora Bora. The primary mission was to get obl and kick out his supporters. obl is dead I hear, and there are about 50 al qaeda members left in the country where we have 100k soldiers. What’s the debate based upon if the primary objectives are met?
5. “O villain, villain, smiling, damnèd villain!
My tables—meet it is I set it down
That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain—
At least I am sure it may be so in Denmark.”
or Pakistan for that matter. Wikileaks uncovered the secret world of national interests where “serious people” do all their best work. it sounds like we had a good idea where he was for the past two years and were almost certain in the past months as this operation was planned and trained for. In the past few years, three different terrorists were actually found in Abbottabad, and one was captured at this very house. Maybe the Pakistan debate needs to be out of control because recent history shows Pakistan leadership is at best incompetent and at worst, duplicitous.
Mark has been blinded by the beltway meme.
Re: 2012, don’t forget that progressives who have positioned themselves as lukewarm support for Obama over the past year (think polls) will come flocking back into the fold if any GOP candidate appears to have a shot at unseating him.
Handling of the OBL aftermath by the Obama administration, as someone posted : “Inept and amateurish”
“Handling” of (lying about) the Jessica Lynch and Pat Tillman events by the Bush administration: unforgivable
DLS-In many ways I agree but I think Obama does as well. Meaning I think he knows well he will have to fight and fight he will but he is a rather good pol which means he will be difficult to beat even with many winds against him. Carter was not a very good pol, he was way to nice of a guy and as I noted elsewhere Reagan was a known quantity which made Carter’s re-election bid much much more difficult. As for Bush I Clinton was not a stellar candidate but many voters base their vote on the debates and since I re-watched those debates a few months ago I am hyperconcious of just how they came off. In my youth I leaned more toward Perot and paid little attention to Clinton in the debates but looking back Bush would have been a wonderful pre-television POTUS.
On a few occasions a question caught Bush off guard and he looked lost and then Clinton stepped up to the plate and really really seemed to care(all an obvious act in my view but an important skill for a pol that he had and Bush I lacked). Problem is that Obama is more like Clinton than Bush I. His charisma is one of his largest draws and that will be difficult to overcome. Then you look at the GOP field and at best you get Daniels and Mitt. Mitt that liked HCR before he hated it much like all of his stances (he is Kerry on crack is what I mean). Daniels problem is first he wants to avoid social issues and is signing a defund planned parenthood bill in IN, this means the base will go after him in the primaries and then in the general he will be painted as a social con, all of this also ignores the fact that he had a large hand in our fiscal nightmare from his Bush “cut taxes and expand spending and unpaid for wars” years. Lump all of this with the dynamic of how the GOP picks its nominee and you have problems.
Dems tend to go for new and fresh faces but the GOP waits its “turn” which means Huntsman, Pawlenty and even Daniels will likely have to play second fiddle to Mitt and Huck. Another problem is that Pawlenty, Huntsman and Daniels, even Mitt for that matter lack the kind of charisma that Obama has. Once we move into the campaign less focus will be on whether or not we like what he did and more about do we hate it enough to start over with an unknown quantity and also which do we like better and Obama is likely to win that debate short of a charismatic known quantity type pol like Reagan was.
As for Bush v Gore I think that was more of a toss up election. Gore distanced himself from Clinton and was more of a Bush I type wooden candidate lacking any mojo. Many liked Clinton so much they wanted more Dem POTUS years but a pretty equal amount wanted a change as well. For a pol to win an election for the sitting party that is not the sitting POTUS is often a rather difficult mountain to climb since you often have to convince them that you are more attractive than a re-shuffling of the deck which Gore was unable to do but H. Clinton has a better chance being a known quantity and decently charismatic(in the league of Mitt and Daniels at least in the realm of Christie at best).
The top five mistakes the Obama administration has made….
#5 Bailouts
#4 Continuing Bush foreign policy
#3 Pushing mandatory health insurance during economic recession
#2 Telling Eric Cantor on Day 5…”I won” (i.e., sit down and shut up) when he didn’t have control of his own majorities.
and the #1 mistake….
Running for election
On a different thread, there was a discussion of how and why conspiracy theories start and thrive.
The whole handling of the communications of the Bin Laden operation provides one really good example.
When the story starts out as one narrative, especially one that sets a scene of how the ‘bad guy’ acted so cowardly with his wife as a human shield, and how justified we were in our actions as he was firing at our troops, and then shifts suddenly and those major talking points, among others, are suddenly refuted, despite the reality that the fog of war is the most likely answer, it simply starts speculation that will never end.
This was the lamest, most inane, back seat drivingest opinion piece I have read in awhile. OP is desperately trying to make the administrations team seem incompetent when they are doing everything right. Who gives a crap if they didn’t have the exact play by play ready immediately? Who cares if Osama was armed or not, he wasn’t coming out of there alive and anyone who thinks otherwise is being purposefully naive or has a mental deficiency. There would never be ANY way to keep people from babbling endlessly about Afghanistan or Pakistan in the wake of Osama’s death. Or maybe there is a way the OP knows about and just forgot to include in his incisive analysis. The “out of control” discussions are nothing more than the echo chamber of every talking head in the country tying to get their 2 minutes of national face time to squeeze in their unique and special take on events.
And #2 has got to be the biggest damn joke I have ever heard. Did Dusty Baker get to claim credit for last year’s Giants win in the World Series? You seriously think Bush gets any credit for this? That guy had officially taken the focus off of the hunt for Bin Laden. Agencies were re-tasked and he even made public statements to the effect that it was no longer a priority while he pranced around the middle east like a bull in a china shop. Gimme a freakin break.
Oh and Obama’s not Bush I. And dont forget he lost to Clinton, a world class campaigner. The GOP has no one even close to a candidate like that and unless one pops out of the woods later in the game they have no one currently who is going to beat Obama next year. Mitt Romney might make it close, but he’ll never make it thru the primaries because he once tried to help poor people get health care and I don’t think the GOP will ever let him live that one down.
If the GOP doesn’t find a strong rational moderate to run against Obama they might as well give up right now, although I don’t know why any “rational” republican would want to run against O.
Slamfu — again, welcome back. Right to the point.
J. Spencer — right you are. You so-called “progressives” will be joined by every other liberal who can vote if a particularly noxious Republican wins the nomination and if Obama looks bad (weak) in 2012. Note if the Republican looks bad, we independents are going to punish the GOP again. And no doubt you already know it’s not limited to the nature of the GOP nominee but what the GOP does in Congress.
(Is a 20-week “national” abortion ban next?)
Sky –
Bush v. Gore saw Gore simply collapse and Bush lunge, perhaps(!) at the end to win, but the real point was Gore’s collapse or self-destruction.
With the GOP, are they really waiting, are they passive and waiting their turn, or are they dysfunctional? The question about the GOP (and about conservatism) remains, Is it a positive, attractive kind of alternative to liberalism and the Democrats? Much is bad or wrong about what the libs and Dems have done and will do, but if the GOP is unappealing, it can’t count on replacing the Dems.
(just as Obama and other Dems are foolish to believe they can do anything if the GOP seems toxic to others beside themselves)
Well, given the incredible change in the narrative of events in just 24 – 48 hours, it seems Obama ‘lies’, too.
Isn’t that the meme developed the the Left for anything stated by an Administration that subsequently, for any reason whatsoever, is discovered to be false?
Or is this yet another example of, ‘wait, um, no, that is only true for Republicans’?
1. Not getting its story straight: Was bin Laden armed or not? What woman served as a human shield? Who actually was killed beyond the main target? ….
– BS and unimportant. Fog of war applies, and they’ve corrected things very, very fast. I have no issue with any of this.
2. Not giving George W. Bush enough credit for helping bring bin Laden to justice: Even if the White House believes the previous occupant had nothing to do with OBL’s ultimate demise, it would have been better for national unity and Obama’s own political fortunes if he had gone out of his way to thank 43…
– that dork deserves no kudos, “unity” or not
3. Letting the photo debate get out of control: The decision about whether to release images of a dead bin Laden is not an easy one. But the administration’s conflicting statements and public agonizing has created an extended distraction. ..
– wrong again. Obama made his call, I think it’s right (albeit incomplete)
4. Letting the debate about the war in Afghanistan get out of control: There are signs that some of the president’s advisers are looking to scale back the commitment in Afghanistan sooner rather than later…
– OK, it hasn’t even been a week yet. Out of control?? Get a grip.
5. Letting the debate about Pakistan get out of control: The congressional and media demand for a radical change in America’s relationship with Pakistan is burning like wildfire. The administration knows that a shift in policy is complicated and compromising, and not necessarily in the United States’ interest.’
– Well, personally, the Pakistan talk has already got the stink of “political correctness” about it. Pakistan is NOT the best of allies. It is purely a case of “keep your enemies closer”. They should be challenged IMO.
What a lousy article! Out of five points, only one worth discussing …
WAR
American Heritage dictionary defines it this way, “A state of open, armed, often prolonged conflict carried on between nations, states, or parties.”
Osama bin Laden was the leader of a party of individuals who openly stated their goal of destroying the United States of America. They planned and carried out strikes against the United States, none more aggressive than the attacks on 9/11. The leader of this party of terrorist then announced they would continue these attacks until they have destroyed or conquered us. They were so dedicated in this war against us that they sacrificed their own lives to kill as many USA citizens as they could.
In defending our nation we sent our military to fight our enemy, known as Al Qaida, to many parts of the world. Our military focused on areas where the enemy trained their troops and waged war against us and our allies. We used smart bombs and drones to attack and destroy their places of refuge. In doing this, some innocents suffered death and injury. In war this is called collateral damage. Our goal was to win this war, destroy or conquer our enemy should be the final result.
We tracked down the iconic leader of our enemy and killed him, that’s what you do in war. If we could have done this to Hitler or Goring during WW2, it would have been a good thing. So why are some saying that killing bin Laden was wrong?
[...] Five Mistakes the Obama Administration Has Made in the Aftermath of Bin Laden Killing (themoderatevoice.com) [...]