Friday, March 07, 2008

Maybe Today Is Not the Day

Obama's key foreign affairs advisor, has resigned over comments she made to a UK newspaper in which she called Hillary a "monster."  (Yeah, I know...no arguments here.)

There will be much hue and cry from the Obama faithful about how she was railroaded, etc.  Unfortunately, she also managed to blunder in a BBC interview in which she essentially said that Obama won't be able to get U.S. troops out of Iraq in 16 months, as he says in his stump speech.

This all comes on top of the revelation that key economic adviser Austan Goolsbee had assured Canadian officials in private conversations that Obama's anti-NAFTA pandering was just campaign talk and not to be taken literally.  And foreign policy adviser Susan Rice admitting on television that neither Hillary nor Obama are ready to take that "3 AM" call yet.

And, now, Obama's intelligence advisor is on the record as disagreeing with Obama's position on FISA.

Are any of these missteps horrific? Not really, although if Powers is meant to be in a senior foreign policy position she should be more aware of using diplomatic language.  Calling Hillary a monster was kind of a bush league mistake.

That being said, this weird trend in Obama's camp suggests two things. 

First, a lot of Obama's policy talk is just pandering for votes and he shouldn't necessarily be taken at his word.  Sure, politicians do this all the time, but isn't Obama's whole campaign based on the lofty notion that he would not be an "old politics" candidate?

Second, it suggests to me that Obama is a bad manager.  A slip here or there is part of the game, but four advisors with very close relationships with Obama screwing up so royally tells me that he is not keeping on top of his policy team.

On top of it all, Hillary has managed to push him way off message and into a desperate, flailing attack mode.  How did Obama get from "audacity of hope" to "when is Hillary going to release her tax forms"?  

Crikey.  Somebody needs to send an adult to Obamaland to crack some freakin' heads.

2 comments:

Jackson said...

I guess Mano's got some re-writes to do.

Anonymous said...

.
Firing Powers was a mistake, Obama has shown himself to be subservient to the PIAPS.
Great post. Obama’s aide was right. Hillary is a monster. Of course not the same kind of monster as Hitler, Mao or Stalin, but a monster nonetheless.
.
absurd thought -
God of the Universe says
don't call monsters monsters

never expose their evil
never upset a monster


.
absurd thought -
God of the Universe says
claim to care for people

call yourself progressive
your policies hurt poor folk


.
absurd thought -
God of the Universe says
elect women presidents

who cover for their husbands
who rape other women


.
if you’re MAD
punish your country
VOTE for Hillary

.
http://www.hillaryproject.com/

Go here and watch ‘The Hillary Show’ with Howard Dean. It’s Hillarious!

http://www.stophernow.com/

http://absurdthoughtsaboutgod.blogspot.com/

:)
.