Skip to main content

The dilemma of being President-elect

This is the problem with being a high-profile President-elect: you're not President.

I don't mean that to be facetious, but to highlight the uncomfortable problem that Barack Obama has right now--especially with US foreign policy.

There's stuff you just can't comment upon.

Take this brief snippet from Anti-war.com:

Yesterday, top US military commander in Iraq General Ray Odierno said that, though the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) explicitly requires all US forces to be out of Iraqi cities by June 30, he expects troops will remain in the cities past that date.


OK, so as President-elect what do you say about this?

You're already hung up between campaign rhetoric that you'll begin an immediate withdrawal from Iraq that contradicts your official policy statements that the US will retain forces there for years. You've announced a foreign policy team that is more conservative than you are, and there is mounting pressure from the intelligence community and even inside your own party to keep the current Director of the CIA and Director of National Intelligence in office, as well as to continue to authorize Torture lite, and to go very, v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y on closing Gitmo.

In short: while the majority of American citizens are understandably focused on the economy, you seem to have adopted a foreign policy that is far more conservative than the people who supported you.

And you can't really comment on General Odierno's statement, because to do so would be to undercut the current administration in ways that are traditionally off limits--and besides, he works for Defense Secretary Gates, whom you've already said will continue in place.

Which at least gives the impression that when the Defense Department or our Generals speak, they are doing so with the approval of the man you want in charge, which is tantamount to saying, I'm Barack Obama, and I approved this message.

I doubt there is a right answer for President-elect Obama's current situation, because he's pretty much in uncharted territory.

But I do sense this: for all that he appears to be moving pretty deftly toward his domestic agenda, Obama is drifting into a foreign policy rather than (apparently) even thinking about imposing his will on events.

There's time. People will remind me, he's not President yet.

But you can't have it both ways. You can't call news conferences and announce appointments, and act like you're already assuming power on the domestic front with effectively asserting a functional co-Presidency.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

A Libertarian Martin Luther King Jr. Day post

In which we travel into interesting waters . . . (for a fairly long trip, so be prepared) Dr. King's 1968 book, Where do we go from here:  chaos or community? , is profound in that it criticizes anti-poverty programs for their piecemeal approach, as John Schlosberg of the Center for a Stateless Society  [C4SS] observes: King noted that the antipoverty programs of the time “proceeded from a premise that poverty is a consequence of multiple evils,” with separate programs each dedicated to individual issues such as education and housing. Though in his view “none of these remedies in itself is unsound,” they “all have a fatal disadvantage” of being “piecemeal,” with their implementation having “fluctuated at the whims of legislative bodies” or been “entangled in bureaucratic stalling.”   The result is that “fragmentary and spasmodic reforms have failed to reach down to the profoundest needs of the poor.” Such single-issue approaches also have “another common failing — ...

More of This, Please

Or perhaps I should say, "Less of this one, please." Or how about just, "None of them. Ever again. Please....For the Love of God." Sunshine State Poll: Grayson In Trouble The latest Sunshine State/VSS poll shows controversial Democratic incumbent Alan Grayson trailing former state Senator Dan Webster by seven points, 43 percent to 36 percent. A majority of respondents -- 51 percent -- disapprove of the job that Grayson is doing. Independents have an unfavorable view of him as well, by a 36/47 margin. Grayson has ignored the conventional wisdom that a freshman should be a quiet member who carefully tends to the home fires. The latest controversy involves his " Taliban Dan " advertisement, where he explicitly compares his opponent to the Taliban, and shows a clip of Webster paraphrasing Ephesians 5:22 -- "wives, submit to your husbands." An unedited version of the clip shows that Webster was actually suggesting that husba...

A reply to Salon's R. J. Eskrow, and his 11 stupid questions about Libertarians

Posts here have been in short supply as I have been living life and trying to get a campaign off the ground. But "11 questions to see if Libertarians are hypocrites" by R. J. Eskrow, picked up at Salon , was just so freaking lame that I spent half an hour answering them. In the end (but I'll leave it to your judgment), it is not that Libertarians or Libertarian theory looks hypocritical, but that the best that can be said for Mr. Eskrow is that he doesn't have the faintest clue what he's talking about. That's ok, because even ill-informed attacks by people like this make an important point:  Libertarian ideas (as opposed to Conservative ideas, which are completely different) are making a comeback as the dynamic counterpoint to "politics as usual," and so every hack you can imagine must be dragged out to refute them. Ergo:  Mr. Eskrow's 11 questions, with answers: 1.       Are unions, political parties, elections, and ...