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Audacity of Truth
McCain’s handling of the Georgia/Russia conflict, continued
I wrote a few days ago about how McCain’s response to the Georgia/Russia conflict demonstrated his presidential qualities in terms of dealing with a pressing and developing international issue, and noted how Obama’s response – made while he has been vacationing in Hawaii – looks as though he’s reading off of cue cards. The contrasts couldn’t be more stark.  Lots of other people have noticed it, too, including – surprisingly – the NYTimes.Â
In this morning’s paper, underneath a picture of Senator Obama and his two daughters sitting in the HI sunshine crunching on flavored shaved ice along with two other little girls who I presume to be friends of Sasha and Malia, Times reporter Michael Falcone reports (via Memeo):
HONOLULU — For the last several days, Senator Barack Obama has seemed to fade from the scene while on his secluded vacation here, as his opponent, Senator John McCain, has seized nearly every opportunity to display his foreign policy credentials on the dominant issue of the week: the conflict between Russia and Georgia.
Only once, at the beginning of the week, did Mr. Obama discuss the fighting in public, when he emerged from his beachfront rental home to condemn Russia’s escalation, in a way that seemed timed for the evening television news. He took no questions whose answers might demonstrate command of the issue.
Mr. McCain and his surrogates, however, have discussed the situation nearly every day on the campaign trail, often taking a hard line against Russia to the point of his declaring the other day, “We are all Georgians.”
It is as if the candidates’ images have been reversed within a matter of a few weeks. When Mr. Obama was overseas last month, Mr. McCain’s foreign policy bona fides seemed diminished, if only because he could not attract the news media attention received by Mr. Obama, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee. Now, Mr. Obama’s voice seems muted at a time when much of the world has been worriedly watching the conflict.
A spokesman said that Mr. Obama had interrupted his vacation several times to get updates on the situation in the Caucasus and that he had been in “constant contact” with his national security advisers. He has spoken to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and President Mikheil Saakashvili of Georgia, as well as former Senator Sam Nunn, Democrat of Georgia; Senator Richard G. Lugar, Republican of Indiana; and former Defense Secretary William J. Perry.
For his part, Mr. McCain has fielded questions daily, batting back criticism that his tough stance is reminiscent of the language of the cold war. On the other hand, the fluency with which Mr. McCain, the presumed Republican presidential nominee, discusses Georgia, citing the history of the region and the number of times he has visited, lends an aura of commander in chief. And as if he already had a cabinet, Mr. McCain said he was dispatching his allies Senators Joseph I. Lieberman, independent of Connecticut, and Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, to the region.
Unfortunately in politics, image all too often is more important than the actual substance of the candidate/politician. In the case of Obama, his entire candidacy, as we all know, has been built on a “strong, capable” image of him that is a far cry from reality.  One of the only reak things about Obama’s candidacy is his concession that he is not the most experienced candidate. He has conceded it via implication every time the issue has come up, whether it has been in debates with Hillary Clinton during the primaries, or now in the general election. His standard answer is to suggest that he is a “Washington outsider” who supposedly doesn’t play the same ol’ “Washington politics” (cough) which, to him, equates to the “wrong kind of experience.”  Even he seems to realize, though, that that argument is only going to carry so far, which is probably one of the reasons why he has some 300+ foreign policy advisors – including actor and all-around windbag George Clooney, apparently – to try and help ease the fears of those who suggest he’s too weak on the foreign policy front.
Unfortunately for Obama, whether it’s 300 or 3,000 foreign policy advisors he has, nothing – not even one of his fancy speeches – is going to shake the images of him basking in the sun in Hawaii with his family, and issuing periodic brief wooden responses while an international crisis has continued to rear its ugly head  between Russia and Georgia the last couple of weeks.   President Bush was raked over the coals over the images of him on vacation while Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans and Mississippi back in the summer of 2005, and whether the images of him on vacation that contrasted with the images of the battered coastlines in the Gulf were fair or not, I think most of us can agree that that was a turning point in his presidency from him being a popular wartime president to one that looked – even if it was just for a few days – unaffected and disengaged while two states were heavily bruised by a devastating hurricane.  His numbers have never recovered from that.
McCain has been in solid command of the Georgia/Russia issue from the start, and some have even suggested that his responses have been even more resolute and forceful than the president’s initial statements on Russia’s attack on Georgia.  I’ve talked a lot about “images” in this post, but McCain’s strong grasp of the facts as it relates to that region of the world, and his “take charge” attitude regarding how both the US, the international community, and the respective countries engaged in this battle should respond, are more than just mere images. In spite of the WaPo’s implication here that McCain is being presumptuous in his responses,  McCain is demonstrating that when it comes to criticial foreign policy issues, his near 30 years in the Senate dealing with foreign issues as well as domestic, along with his long career in the Navy, have served him well in terms of knowing how to handle present-day international conflicts.
Ed Morrissey sums up:
McCain spent the week leading the American response in a real way, forcing the White House to catch up. Obama spent the week … body surfing and golfing. For a candidate who already has a confidence deficit on national security and foreign policy among voters, Obama seems strangely disengaged on what is the most crititcal and emergent foreign-policy issue of the campaign. He has taken a strangely passive path, and the contradictory statements by his surrogates have made Obama seem even more vacillating than usual.
Most interestingly, the media has finally started to notice. Michael Falcone’s article acknowledges McCain’s superior performance, an acknowledgment that finds its basis in McCain’s experiential advantage. The media has flocked to McCain for answers on a genuine foreign-policy issue, and more or less abandoned Obama and his team. He has become almost irrelevant in the Georgian crisis, made so by his own abandonment of the field.
It’s an interesting and revealing parallel to the kind of media frenzy Obama attracted in Europe but did nothing to earn. McCain has earned the attention for being prescient and informed on the crisis in Georgia and the nature of Russia. The former is the attraction of celebrity, and the latter the attraction of leadership, and American just got an object lesson in the differences between the two.
Indeed. School may be out for the summer for America’s children, but it’s in session between McCain the teacher and Obama the student.Â
Yes, Virginia. Experience really does matter.
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How angry the dems must be that their comrades in Russia are making Obama look bad. I mean, unfortunately for Obama, we see that we can’t always script international incidents, especially Russian aggression.
I also see where the Russians have threatened Poland now, for agreeing to host part of the ABM system. No doubt, Poland watched the Georgian drama unfold and realized that Russia is back, and as mean as ever.
Russia Threatens Nuke Attack On Poles
No doubt Obama will express his deep disappointment in such a statement. That’ll show ‘em.
NC Cop: your points are well taken. It needs to be emphasized that in this world of rapidly changing alliances, any one incident is RARELY all it appears to be on the surface. The hard money says Russia gets away with this slaughter in Georgia. And not only that, but Vlad the Putin (calling the shots there) will be emboldened.
Although McCain is certainly in the lead on this one, I’m not so sure I agree with his “We are all Georgians” speech. Frankly, after Georgia has conducted itself, I’m not really sure I want them in NATO.
Granted, Russia has been 10 times worse, but I’m not sure I want to ally myself with a country that pokes a big bully with a stick, and then is surprised when they get pummeled. Apparently, the white house has been warning Georgia that this would happen.
I actually (& strangely) agree wholeheartedly with the current Bush plan of sending in nonmilitary US aid. I believe that Russia will avoid killing american nonmilitary personnel. They will avoid war with us (as much as we should avoid war with them). The problem with allying ourselves too closely with nations still smoldering over Russia is that we might be dragged into the coals.
Alchemist,
I agree with you. Bush’s response was letter perfect.
Unfortunately, that sounds remarkably like saying “they shouldn’t have raped that girl, but she did kinda deserve it because she wore that short skirt.”
Georgia was dumb to step into the trap Russia and Putin laid for them, giving them an excuse to step in, but that’s what the cagey Putin setup. Give Georgia enough provocation that they respond and then use that as pretext to justify and rationalize your brutality that you were planning on performing. It in no way makes Georgia the bad guy. Being pressed in that way is a tough issue to resolve, and yes, it was a trap, but that makes Putin doubly responsible and reprehensible.
One thing that is of concern, if we get into another Cold War, remember how we “won” the last one, we basically outspent the Russians on defense, their state run economy couldn’t keep up and imploded, which was the beauty of the Reagan doctrine. Things are a bit different now, the US has grossly higher national debt, and is saddled with a lot more socialist “entitlement” programs that eat up money and hamstring the economy, plus energy prices and food prices are hurting the US economy. Now let’s look at Mother Russia, flush with oil cash, acting to take control of any and all non-Russian controlled oil resources (like bombing pipelines thru Georgia). Russia is drunk with cash, and is probably in a position, with world energy demand the way it is, to easily outspend the US. “Winning” by outspending them on defense and such is not going to be possible in this new world order we are looking at. Russia is despotic and totalitarian, and rich, and getting richer.
The very definition of “not good.”
So we should abandon them and say “good luck”? I think not.
These words were just as true then as they are now. If we fail to live up to them, God help this planet.
I would say it’s more like “I would be careful about threatening the gang leader on your street…. he’ll shoot you in broad daylight”.
Which is essentially what Russia did. Russia is definitely the bad guy and doesn’t need a reason to create problems. So why give him one? Be smart, be careful, make sure you’ve got proper backup BEFORE you make your move, not after.
NC Cop: I don’t think we should abandon them. However, we should make it clear that we’re not going to be dragged into every little skirmish with Russia. We need to be smarter about how to push Russia back in the hole, and so do our allies.
Sev- I agree we need a longer term solution of dealing with Russia. I have been VERY uncomfortable with how friendly Bush has been towards Putin. Hopefully this will wake him up a bit.
Not that I am disagreeing, but how fast could we flood the oil markets to the point where Russia isn’t getting so rich?? Granted this would take some serious spinal capacity from our present leadership, which I seriously doubt they have, but we could easily double our capacity, and it really wouldn’t take that long. If the US added 3 million barrels a day, which is still quite aways below what we use to pump out of the ground in the 80s, you would see oil prices drop pretty drastically. Let’s start looking at uncapping some wells, and fixing some “hurricane” damaged oil rigs, and see what this country could do, neither of these things would take that long to correct. There is some serious money to be made in this present climate, I say let’s let Americans make that money. Just 1 million extra barrels a day would translate into 100million dollars per day, and there are a ton of independant oil producers out there whose hands are tied to do our government. It would be good for everyone if we stopped tying our own hands. – Lorica
That’s a good point Lorica, and just one more reason we need to drill and suck up as much of our own oil as possible. It not only would help our economy and energy independence, but also hurt Russia and other despotic oil rich countries by reducing their incomes.
But, unfortunately, I don’t see any real chance that’ll happen. If the pro-green/anti-capitalist Luddites realize that it would also hurt their ideological sugar daddy Russia, they will just redouble their efforts to squash any drilling.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the aisle, Michael Ramirez captures the Obama response to a crisis perfectly.
I liked your take on this. My initial thought: a campaign is part theater if you don’t give a performance no one will remember you.
It’s clear, to me at least, that Senator Obama’s inexperience also covers the art of campaigning.