This week, two points in an emerging pointillist picture of a White House leaking support—not the support of voters, though polls there show steady decline, but in two core constituencies, Washington's Democratic-journalistic establishment, and what might still be called the foreign-policy establishment.
Right now the emphasis seems to be on questioning just who is surrounding the president:
He added that rather than bowing to emperors—Mr. Obama "seems to do this stuff spontaneously and inexplicably"—he should begin to bow to "the voices of experience" in Washington.
When longtime political observers start calling for wise men, a president is in trouble.
It also raises a distressing question: Who are the wise men and women now? Who are the Robert Lovetts, Chip Bohlens and Robert Strausses who can came in to help a president in trouble right his ship? America seems short of wise men, or short on those who are universally agreed to be wise. I suppose Vietnam was the end of that, but establishments exist for a reason, and it is hard for a great nation to function without the presence of a group of "the oldest and wisest" who can not only give sound advice but help engineer how that advice will be reported and received.
Ah, they think President Obama needs the best and the brightest--but he doesn't have them. (And add five points to the nuance-meter for using an art description for our foreign policy canvas!)
With all due respect to the best and brightest of our foreign policy establishment, such thinking that all the president needs is more advisers like them gives us the exit strategy from Iraq on the eve of a victorious campaign. Or actual defeat in Vietnam. So given this argument, I suppose that that happy experience actually hasn't ended that pining for wise men.
Sadly, all that nuanced knowledge of foreign policy absent a focus just makes dithering and switching course--or surrender and retreat--look "nuanced." They know which or our enemy's leaders is fully whacko and which ones are just sixty percent whacko--and think that knowing this is all the difference between surrender and "an understanding."
No, our foreign policy will not stand or fall depending on the advisors the president has. The president needs to be the decider. And his aides need to be good enough to execute what he decides.
And in this model, we depend on the president having the confidence that America is on the right side of history, is actually the "good guys" side, and that we must win our battles and struggles while leading our friends. That's what I worry about.
