To thank or not to thank?
Yesterday morning, that’s what we were wondering around the PPI offices — would Obama thank President Bush during his Iraq address that night? I had a conversation with my colleague Lindsay Lewis, who had just heard White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs mention that Obama was scheduled to call Bush that afternoon. Might Obama directly thank Bush for adopting “the surge”, which, as the incomplete political narrative goes, was responsible for the decrease in violence in Iraq in 2007?
If he was explicit in his praise, I felt that the left would be apoplectic. DailyKos and HuffPo headlines would read “The Jerk THANKED Bush”, not “Obama Fulfills Campaign Pledge.” As polls indicate Democrats’ looming losses this November, that’s not what the administration wants floating around its mysteriously disenchanted base.
Lindsay, ever the astute politico, noted that by paying tribute to Bush, Obama was playing long-ball: If he were to thank Bush, Obama would be positioning himself as a post-partisan Commander-In-Chief. In political terms, he’d be positioning himself for the reelect.
Turns out that Lindsay wasn’t far off, and Obama even did him one-better: The president threaded a very fine needle that mollified critics on left and right:
This afternoon, I spoke to former President George W. Bush. It’s well known that he and I disagreed about the war from its outset. Yet no one can doubt President Bush’s support for our troops, or his love of country and commitment to our security. As I’ve said, there were patriots who supported this war, and patriots who opposed it. And all of us are united in appreciation for our servicemen and women, and our hopes for Iraqis’ future.
Turns out he didn’t go so far as to thank Bush, which keeps the focus on fulfilling his campaign pledge for the progressive base, but he succeeded in praising Bush enough to mute conservative critique and position himself as a post-partisan leader. If you’ll pardon the phrase, Mission: Accomplished.
The conservative intelligensia are split. Here Max Boot sounding… magnanimous, even:
I thought that this speech was about as good as we could expect from an opponent of the Iraq war — and better than Obama has done in the past. He even (for the first time?) held out an olive branch to his predecessor. … There was only a brief mention of Afghanistan, but what he said was pretty good.
Here’s Bill Kristol, sharing the love:
I thought his speech was on the whole commendable, and even at times impressive. … Not a bad tribute to the troops, and not a bad statement of the importance and indispensability of hard power. And, on the whole, not a bad speech by the president.
Truth be told, I’m happy to see them giving credit where credit is due.
Of course, every conservative didn’t feel so gooey inside. Here’s Jennifer Rubin:
Obama is still candidate Obama, never tiring of reminding us that he kept his campaign pledge and ever eager to push aside foreign policy challenges so he can get on with the business of remaking America. All in all, it was what we were promised it would not be — self-serving, disingenuous, ungracious, and unreassuring.
And Jonah Goldberg:
I really disliked it…. If you read this closely, what Obama is saying is that not only do we owe it to the troops to rally around his discredited and partisan economic agenda (“It’s our turn”), not only is it a test of our patriotism to sign on with his environmental and industrial planning schemes, but that doing so “must be our central mission as a people.” I find everything about that offensive.
The point is that on some level, Obama succeeded in presenting himself as a post-partisan Commander-in-Chief. Of course, anyone can concoct a reason why not to like a speech given by the president of a different political persuasion. So while Rubin and Goldberg’s reactions are stock and trade, drawing even faint praise from the likes of Bill Kristol is a remarkable and welcome milestone.
