Chicago Tribune, IL
April 25 2009
The campaign’s over, Obama; it’s time to lead
John Kass
April 26, 2009
In Europe, he chastised America for what he called our "arrogance." In
the Caribbean, he gave the dictator of Venezuela a warm smile and a
handshake, and called him "amigo." Before the Saudi king, he bowed low
and long.
And just the other day, in a cynical nod to the generals of Turkey,
the American president who campaigned for human rights quietly avoided
the word "genocide" from a resolution marking the anniversary of the
1915 Ottoman Turkish slaughter of more than a million Armenian
Orthodox Christians.
A few years after that slaughter, as he prepared to engage in his own
genocide of the Jews, Adolf Hitler was credited with saying: "Who
remembers the Armenians?" The United States may remember, but our
president can’t call it genocide.
Still, President Barack Obama offers himself up to an adoring world —
and the enraptured, Hopium-smoking American media that helped elect
him — as a leader more flexible than his hopelessly rigid
predecessor, George W. Bush.
And he’s proved it, charming nations and their leaders, remaining in
campaign mode, where he’s most comfortable.
But last week he bowed to his base in the hard political left by
reversing himself, opening the door for the prosecution of Bush
Justice Department officials who helped develop harsh interrogation
policies for suspected terrorists.
Some call it torture and legitimately oppose it. Others say harsh
interrogation — such as waterboarding — was necessary after the
Sept. 11 attacks to stop more bloodshed.
But what Obama accomplished, by opening the possibility of political
witch hunts, was to offer up one of his own eyes to his political
supporters. He needs both eyes to see a dangerous world.
The week began when Rahm Emanuel, Obama’s chief of staff, appeared on
ABC’s "This Week" with George Stephanopoulos to reiterate Obama’s
pledge not to prosecute.
"He believes that people in good faith were operating with the
guidance they were provided," said Emanuel, no fool. "They shouldn’t
be prosecuted. … It’s time for reflection. It’s not a time to use
our energy in looking back in any sense of anger and retribution."
Two days later, Obama abruptly changed course to please his anti-war
base that demands a few severed political heads.
"With respect to those who formulated those legal decisions, I would
say, that is going to be more of a decision for the attorney general,"
he told reporters. "I think there are a host of very complicated
issues involved there."
His critics used phrases such as "chilling effect" on intelligence
gathering, but I call it the pucker factor. In all bureaucracies, it
rolls down hill.
News reporters are somewhat like intelligence gatherers. We don’t
waterboard politicians, but we’re under pressure to get good
information. So, let me tell you a story.
In 1985, I was a kid in the news business, and our gossip columnist,
Mike Sneed — now at the Sun-Times — got the story of the year:
"Reform" Mayor Harold Washington had been secretly taped pressuring a
fellow to get out of the 3rd Ward aldermanic race. It sounded like raw
politics. It didn’t sound anything like reform. And Washington was
enraged.
Jim Squires, our editor at the time, decided to publish transcripts
from the tape but tell the readers that the tapes were leaked by
Washington’s white ethnic political opponents who wanted to embarrass
him. Fair enough.
But then he ordered me and another young reporter to find Sneed’s
exact source and walk back the cat. I didn’t want to do it, but he was
the boss and Sneed understood, and after a few days, he dropped his
harebrained scheme.
Yet for a long time afterward, sources worried they might be
outed. Reporters were concerned their bosses might investigate their
sources. And in the gathering of political intelligence, when sources
start puckering up, they’re not going to kiss you. You get scooped.
And some editors shriek, "How did you get scooped?!" even when they
knew that the boss made a decision that sent spasms through
everything. More spasms ensue. The pucker factor multiplies
exponentially.
Obama isn’t an editor. He’s the president of a nation targeted by
terrorists and constantly probed for weakness, even by our allies.
His intelligence gatherers — and others who give them the tools and
the go-ahead — can’t spend their time wondering if he has their
backs.
His statements surely sent spasms through bureaucracies that are vital
to his own success and America’s safety. All because he wanted to
campaign, rather than lead.
Our president has a fine ear for language and nuance. Yet sometimes he
shapes his principles to fit the moment, something anyone who watches
Chicago politics understood years ago. The Democratic machine
candidates he eagerly endorsed for re-election — from Boss Daley II
to Cook County Board President Todd Stroger to disgraced former
Gov. Rod Blagojevich — are testament to Obama’s flexibility.
But he must stop campaigning someday, and start thinking like a chief
executive. And he’ll need both eyes to see where he’s got to go.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
