The reviews of President Obama's recent trip to Asia "were harsh," writes Politico editor and Beltway CW-setter John Harris. "His peculiar bow to the emperor of Japan was symbolic. But his lots-of-velvet, not-much-iron approach to China had substantive implications." The left saw Obama retreat into "cynical realism" on civil rights and the environment. The right found Obama weak.
As the Politico is fond of pointing out, perception drives reality in Washington. But as The Atlantic's James Fallows has noted (and noted and noted), the American political elite responded to a narrative of President Obama's two-week trip to Asia that turned out largely to be a myth. As much as the president's foreign policy team would like to ignore the prevailing narratives, they can't. Obama's agenda is constrained by public opinion, which, of course, is influenced by -- and influences -- the chatter among the elite. And that elite is a cum hoc ergo propter hoc elite; it is addicted to the here and now. It requires short term political victories and a constant stream of symbolic ones.
So on Friday, the White House distributed a document to reporters listing some here-and-now accomplishments, including a tough line from China on Iranian sanctions. Several senior White House officials acknowledged that they were frustrated about the way Obama's leadership style and intentions are being communicated to the American public. They are not ready to blame themselves for failing to sufficiently explain what Obama is trying to do. "There is just so much we can do," one official lamented. About one particular perception, the administration is as sensitive as an eye surgery patient is to the sun. It is that Obama is concerned only with his image, and likes to bask in the glow of his un-Bush-ness as much as possible, even when American interests are at risk. Here's a look at what Obama was trying to do.
Fact: Bowing to the Japanese emperor produced giggles in Japan, too. But as the news cycle turned over, Obama's gesture (which his aides insisted was based on the president's reading of protocol) was transliterated in Japan as a gesture of respect to the symbolic core of the nation, and a sign that the United States treats Japan seriously as a partner, rather than a younger sibling. On August 31, the Japanese people rejected decades of leadership from its Liberal Democratic Party, ushering into office a a new government, led by Yukio Hatoyama, full of think tankers and idealists with little governing experience. Hatoyama promised to re-examine the increasingly unpopular Grand Bargain that's existed between the U.S and Japan since the end of World War II. Standing up to the U.S. is popular; Hatoyama and his foreign minister questioned the 2006 agreement to relocate a U.S. Marine base from Okinawa to Guam and announced that they're bringing home fuel supply tankers lent to NATO for its mission in Afghanistan. This is the political context into which Obama's entourage flew. Japan wants to be independent and more equal; it does not want the U.S. to define its relationship with China or NATO.
Obama's main goal, an administration official said, "was to give Hatoyama the right kind of face and motivation" by acknowledging Japan as an equal, an independent agent with its own interests, rather than as a junior partner or a means to any particular ends. True, Obama could have responded in kind to the Hatoyama government's fairly clumsy acclimation to its new power by demanding cooperation or puffing his chest out. Instead, a White House official said, he decided to treat them as "grown ups" under the theory that Japan now faces the pressure to act more maturely. This is the foreign policy version of not bowing to the soft bigotry of low expectations.
More prosaically, the administration felt it was important for Obama to reiterate his commitment to review the American nuclear posture while in Japan -- and to show that he takes the upcoming climate change summit in Copenhagen seriously. This stuff makes the Japanese people happy. It evolves their image of Obama beyond merely his celebrity. And the more happy the Japanese are with the U.S., the less the Hatoyama government will feel the need to stiffen their spines on the Okinawa base deal and on Afghanistan. The result: this week, the Obama and Hatoyama governments will begin high-level discussions on both issues -- and the level of irritation that the Japanese felt when Defense Secretary Robert Gates pounded the table on the basing issue has decreased.
Most remarkable about the administration's visit to South Korea was what did not happen: for the first time in a long while, there were no major protests on the streets to mark the visit of an American politician. But the bilateral relationship is always on a level of DEFCON 3. South Korea is angry at the U.S. Congress for stalling a much-needed trade agreement; the U.S. is frustrated that South Korea refuses to open its country to U.S. automobiles; both countries are always calibrating their views on negotiations with North Korea. Obama's big problem is domestic. Americans are potent protectionists during recessions; most of his party's labor base is skeptical of trade agreements, and the country, for the most part, doesn't buy the idea that even well-planned accords will result in the net creation of American jobs. For domestic consumption, the administration wanted positive headlines back home about Obama's push for more American economic opportunities, but there weren't many.
When I interviewed a National Security Council official about the visit to China, I wanted to know whether the Chinese had expressed any concerns about the soundness of the U.S. economy in private, whether they had given any indication that public musings about a new reserve currency were anything more than posturing. "There wasn't a peep about that," said this official, who participated in all of the meetings on economic policy. Indeed, the meetings appear to have produced some progress on a critical but often obscure dispute: the day after Obama left, Chinese economic ministers suggested that the RMB exchange rate would be more "flexible" in the future, a gesture to the U.S., which has long wanted China's currency to appreciate.
In public, virtually all the discussion was about climate change; the U.S. and China had played a game of chicken to see who would announce their pre-Copenhagen emission reduction targets first. U.S. officials say that they won from China two concessions: full transparency in how emission reductions are evaluated and a unilateral declaration that China would agree to "mitigation action" of some sort -- unilateral being the key word here because prevailing wisdom seemed to be that China and India would present a united force against not only particular emissions targets but the enforcement mechanisms put in place to protect them.
So -- there were plenty of concrete deliverables. There are, of course, just as many open-ended disputes. We may not know for years whether Obama's Asian foray was successful. But judged through the lens of American interests -- even traditional American interests -- it cannot be called a failure.
As a Dem I hate to write this, but it's same thing as always: "so much mess to clean up that we can't explain it all or put in sound-bites, but trust us, we're turning the ship around out of view." Same sad message on the Domestic front. That's great for the Poli Sci history books but naive, irresponsible politics, which is fueling the 2010 tsunami the Party about to absorb.
These two statements epitomize everything that is wrong about the political "elite". They were chattering over a narrative that was myth, and the administration has to respond to this chattering over a "myth".
I'd be interested in Mr. Ambinder's take on why the political "elite" is often quite dense, short-sighted, and just plain wrong?
And why they continue to be considered "elite"? And for inspiration, you need look no further than one David "Bush is poised for a comeback" Broder, who gave us the "doesn't matter if the decision is wrong or right, what matters is that he make it NOW" piece of wisdom just a short time ago.
The American People, as represented by our President, bow to nobody. Ever. Nor do we ask anyone to bow to us. Ever.
There are certain symbols that are simply too onerous for the US citizenry to tolerate, and that's one of them.
Worse - all of the nuances that Armbinder discusses here could have been accomplished without the bow.
And, while Obama was "mis-reading protocol," did our "highly intellectual" president ever think about what China might read into the US President bowing to the Emperor of Japan? Anybody with 2 cents worth of intelligence about the region will know that most of Asia still views Japan skeptically - and I'm being polite.
If Obama was looking to impress our largest creditors with his astute knowledge of the region, and sensitivity to their culture, I'm pretty sure he Failed spectacularly.
"The American People, as represented by our President, bow to nobody. Ever. Nor do we ask anyone to bow to us. Ever."
Really? Haven't we pretty much exhausted our "greatest show on turf" status at this point? Don't we have quite enough full-window American flag decals? It's this type of brain-dead, rah-rah populism that stifles real debate and clouds real issues, as Marc makes clear.
As always, leave the "symbols" for the "symbol-minded" and let the coherent adults do the real work.
As to your second point, tell it to Hamid Karzai. Or Saddam Hussein. Or Mossadegh. Or Noriega.
As to the first point... Here's a story from Two Hundred Stories and Select Pieces for Children by T.M. Preble, published in Albany, NY, in 1846.
It's almost like there's a moral principle here, isn't it? Something like, oh, I don't know, "As ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise."
Two things of note. First, this "America rules the world" attitude is the source of many of our problems, and a big part of the reason why the Bush administration screwed everything up so badly. And the American people rejected it at the ballot box quite soundly in 2006 and 2008.
Second, in Japan, the bow is equivalent to the handshake. Ethnocentrism is not your friend.
Now, see, this is so transparently false that I'd be surprised if you managed to type it with a straight face. America's imperialist history stretches back way further than 100 years (talk to the American Indians about it, if you can find one). And if history (or finding Indians) is not your strong suit, then I'll restrict my observations to Vietnam, Regan's war-mongering (Granada, Panama, etc.), and, of course, the recent invasion and occupation of Iraq.
And yet, he managed to get some very far-reaching concessions from them. So, not to put too fine a point on it, it appears Obama really did know better than you do.
"The American People, as represented by our President, bow to nobody. Ever. Nor do we ask anyone to bow to us. Ever."
Whoa, tough guy, step away from that computer game. Where on earth did you get that idea? We bow out of respect to our allies and friends.
You seem to be analyzing Asia through the lens of either an old history book or a new X-Box program.
Time to re-boot.
DC journalists, no matter how educated or well paid, are just following orders from their bosses. These Editorial Managers are the ones to be most faulted for turning everything into a short-term horse race. They have convinced themselves that readers only care about that. They are wrong, of course, but it's a cheaper way of producing the news if there is just one, constant narrative. And it's an easy thing to shift when their bosses (the kleptocratic owners) command them to.
I agree completely with this article. I am a great supporter of the Obama admin but they continue to shoot themselves in the foot by handing the right on a silver platter everything they need to attack. The fact is the Obama administration is proving to be as clueless and ditzy of the nation's citizenry's image of itself as the Bush admin was arrogant and clumsy in handling strategic matters.
The bowing -- absurd -- this does not just play in the hands of the right it irritates all Americans because it goes against the Nation's image of itself. This is just like the flag pin incident -- Obama and his team doesn't get this part of America, they proved this during the campaign. And this hurts him across all sections of the population that did not attend Havard Law.
Failure to Meet the his highness the Dali Lama -- Again the Obama admin goes out of its way not to stick their fingers in the eyes of Frienemies -- however it makes most Americans feel good to give a backhanded slap to a frienemy every now and then - instead it plays into the narrative that left is weak and the right is strong. Rather than using these little really meaningless opportunities to push back on China etc, to display strength Obama would rather send 40,000 new troops to Afghanistan to show his strength. This is a disaster and he pisses off his base.
Announcing the shift in strategy on missile defense on Sept. 19 -- Again how incompetent can an administration be to announce a major shift in strategy which impacted our Europeans allies (and coincidentally was favored by Russia) on a day that Poland remembers being invaded by the Soviet Union. For me this was the equivalent to McCain picking Palin for VP. I had to ask myself could they really be this incompetent. The answer was yes.
Failure to Support a Democrat in NYC Mayoral Race -- This one I will never understand. Without Obama's help Thompson, the democratic mayoral candidate, came within a few thousand votes of unseating Bloomberg even though he was outspent by nearly 100 millions dollars. The Obama admin did nothing to conduct their own polls in order to ascertain the mood of people, they simple self-determine that the race was lost. If they had done anything at all, the likely could have pushed the race in favor of the Democrat. Yet in their never-ending wisdom, they essentially called in an endorsement. How pathetic. Stand for something for Christ sake.
All of these little things add up and for an administration that wants to accomplish so many big things they appear woefully ill-prepared to handle any of the little things. I call this the Ivy leaguer's Syndrome. The biggest symptom is that you lose your ability to think about anything that might be considered small -- whether it be small businesses, small decisions or small race. Once inflicted with Ivy Leaguer's Syndrome you simply can't comprehend why any of the little things could possibly matter, therefore you spend all of your time addressing big problems, the needs of big businesses -- big automobile companies, big banks, etc.
" The President is working under alot of pressure from people who like to stereotype black males and black people in general, these people like to make statements that blacks are not whole as adults or as professionals.
Blacks are whole,complete persons and are administering professionalism in their job prescriptions, FULLY!" ... custom term paper team online
Former President Richard Nixon, a Republican, can be seen in a Life magazine photo from 1971 bowing to Akihito's father, Emperor Hirohito, who ruled when Japan bombed Pearl Harbor in 1941.
Again, too many of us (i.e., conservatives) live lives of amnesia, ignorant of our own history.
I have even seen a photo of George W. Bush kissing a Saudi on the mouth. I believe Prince Abdullah.