Politico: "Democrats' worst nightmare: Terrorism on their watch"
Kickin' Names Takes It In The Ass
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0110/31099.html
Dems' worst nightmare: Terrorism
By: Ben Smith and Carol E. Lee
January 1, 2010 03:31 PM EST
From the time he launched his campaign for president three years ago,
Barack Obama had to consider how he would react to the first serious
act of terrorism during the campaign, or if he won, on his watch. His
fellow Democrats had been thinking about the moment even longer -
since the September day in 2001 when attacks on the World Trade Center
and Pentagon defined George W. Bush’s presidency and gave Republicans
a decisive advantage on a defining political issue.
And yet the White House’s response to last week’s attempt to blow up a
Northwest Airlines flight to Detroit could rank as one of the low
points of the new president’s first year. Over the course of five
days, Obama’s Obama’ reaction ranged from low-keyed to reassuring to,
finally, a vow to find out what went wrong. The episode was a
baffling, unforced error in presidential symbolism, hardly a small
part of the presidency, and the moment at which yet another of the old
political maxims that Obama had sought to transcend – the Democrats’
vulnerability on national security – reasserted itself.
“The presidency is sometimes about symbolism and not just substance,”
said Bob Shrum, who help craft Senator John Kerry’s response to the
late-October message from Osama bin Laden that was a pivotal point in
the 2004 campaign – and learned a painful lesson in the uneven
political playing field on the question of terrorism, at least at that
time.
“Kerry reacted perfectly, but it probably cost us the election,” said
Shrum, who said he thought Obama had effectively changed course after
his aides’ overconfident appearance on the Sunday shows following the
attempted attack.
Obama’s campaign was intensely familiar with the danger a potential
terror incident posed to any Democratic candidate, and all the more to
one who lacked Kerry’s military service and foreign policy experience.
They did everything they could to compensate with a high-profile
Senate focus on nuclear disarmament and a set of graybeard validators
to vouch for Obama’s readiness to lead.
A terror attack during the 2008 campaign, allies and former aides
said, would have drawn a response similar to the posture he eventually
took toward the financial crisis, one drawn from “Obama’s DNA,” in the
words of an ally: To put politics aside, stand with the sitting
president and to, ultimately, appear presidential.
The attack never came. Terrorism virtually disappeared as an issue,
despite the best efforts of Obama’s opponent, Republican Sen. John
McCain, who had a distinct advantage over Obama on the issue because
of his military experience. And Obama aced the politics of the
campaign’s sole public crisis – the financial meltdown of September
2008 – projecting concern and solidarity, acting – as his advisers
were at pains to point out – like a president should.
As president, Obama has been criticized by the left for adapting many
Bush administration policies – on Iraq, Afghanistan, surveillance and
secret detention. But when finally forced to confront national
security situations directly, from a restive Iran to a near-miss
attack, Obama’s characteristic caution has appeared tentative, and the
vacuum he left was filled by a political food fight between
Congressional Republicans and Democrats and, ultimately, his staff.
His staff’s first statement, released after Obama, vacationing in
Hawaii, was informed of the news three hours after the suspect was
taken into custody, was merely that the president was “closely
monitoring” the situation and stressed that his schedule would not
change.
The next day his aides informed reporters that he was continuing to
receive updates from his top national security advisers and began to
set the stage for press secretary Robert Gibbs to announce on the
Sunday morning talk shows that Obama had ordered reviews of the
terrorist watch-list system and airport security procedures.
But on Sunday Gibbs and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano
also sought to reassure the traveling public that – despite questions
about how the suspect had boarded the plane – the system of responding
to a possible attack had “worked” after the fact. It was an
understandable tone of reassurance for a country on the move because
of the holidays. “Imagine if the president had freaked out,” the White
House ally said, suggesting a dramatic Obama reaction could have
provoked chaos in the air travel system.
But that was the moment when some Democrats began to grow concerned
about the White House’s strategy.
The muted response, allies said, was aimed at denying al Qaeda a
propaganda victory, and at demonstrating how little the terrorists can
now disrupt Americans’ lives. “The president and his team have done a
good job at handling the situation given the competing interests at
play. He’s been forceful without the bellicose chest bumping of the
last administration,” said Jim Manley, the chief spokesman for Senate
Majority Leader Harry Reid. “One thing he’s got going for him is
Republicans have no credibility on this issue when their sending out
former Vice President Cheney you know they’ve hit the bottom of the
barrel.”
Still, the response failed to reckon with the intense public interest
in a story of repeated government failures and a near-fatal attack.
Not to mention that Americans and flight crews were on edge – as
evidenced in the detainment of a man who was in an airplane bathroom
for too long and who authorities released once they learned he was
just a businessman who’d gotten ill. The White House, already feeling
heat for its Christmas Day response, had a spokesman quickly issue a
statement when the man was taken into custody.
In Obama’s effective absence, Republicans began sharply attacking the
administration, producing a partisan stand-off critics say could have
been avoided.
“They should have approached it as a national security emergency
requiring a bipartisan response, not a political response,” said Doug
Schoen, a pollster who worked for President Bill Clinton in the 1990s.
“He absolutely should have interrupted his vacation and absolutely
should have gone back to Washington, and convened a high-level,
bipartisan meeting.”
White House aides have repeatedly said there was never any discussion
about Obama returning to Washington. Because of secure communications
systems and by staff he brought with him to Hawaii, including his
National Security chief of staff, he was perfectly able to stay on top
of the situation from his vacation home in Kailua.
Aides also say Obama wouldn’t necessarily be working more on the issue
if he were back in Washington. Yet they made a point of announcing
Thursday that he will hold a high-level Situation Room meeting with
Cabinet secretaries and top intelligence and security officials on
Tuesday, the day after he’s expected to return. It’s a meeting aimed
at projecting his concern with the situation and insistence that it
not recur.
But the listlessness of an initial response remains a puzzle, coming
as it did during the same week Obama rushed off of the golf course in
the middle of a game, his presidential motorcade screaming down a
Hawaii highway at top speed to deliver one of his golf partners to the
house where the friend’s son had cut his chin on a surfboard.
Explanations of Obama’s low-key reaction in the face of a terror
attack include the characteristic caution of a president who resists
jumping to conclusions and being pushed to action. They also include
the White House’s belief – disproven repeatedly in 2009 – that it can
evade the clichéd rules of politics, which include a suspicion of
Democratic leadership on national security. Only Sunday night, when
criticism of the system “worked” comment was not going away, did White
House aides realize their approach was not working and that they
needed to shift course.
Others note that Obama does not like to interrupt his vacations, and
that this isn’t the first time his preference for staying in Hawaii –
a hard place for a quick round-trip flight – has cost him politically.
In 1999, as an up-and-coming Illinois senator, he challenged Rep.
Bobby Rush in a Democrat primary race that came to focus tightly on
gun violence after Rush’s son was shot.
Obama, in Hawaii, missed a key vote on state gun control legislation
in the state legislature, and wrote an unusually defensive column in
the Hyde Park Herald defending his missed vote.
“Unfortunately, on Monday, December 27 — during an extremely short
trip to visit my grandmother — my 18 month-old daughter Malia came
down with the flu. By Tuesday, my daughter was feeling worse. I
discussed the situation with my wife, and we determined that it was
not advisable to take an eight-hour, red-eye flight back to Chicago
with a sick baby. I also decided that I could not leave my wife alone
with my daughter without knowing the seriousness of the baby's
condition, and without knowing whether they might be able to get a
flight out of Hawaii before New Year's Day” he wrote.
“I take my responsibilities as a parent very seriously. We hear a lot
to talk from politicians about the importance of family values.
Hopefully, you will understand when your stale senator tries to live
up to those values as best he can.”
Nobody really did. Obama was pilloried for missing the vote, and Rush
crushed him in the primary, the only defeat of the future president’s
political career.