obama's credit problem

Photo: Doug Mills/NYT

Obama, in his measured, careful way, gave a strong defence of America's involvement in the war of Gadaffi last night (he even won a glowing review from Bill Kristol). But it won't do his ratings much good. If it had been me I would have been banging the podium and saying 'Look what might have happened, you unimaginative bastards'. But this is one of the relatively minor reasons that I never made it to the Oval Office.

The most convincing part of the speech for me (not that I needed much convincing) was when he argued that the American-led action had prevented a massacre in Benghazi. As he says, when a dictator promises 'no mercy', refers to his enemies as 'rats', and bears down on the city in which they're gathered, then it's time to act (the dehumanisation was particularly chilling and all too reminiscent of Rwanda and other genocides). That Obama seemed to enter this conflict reluctantly only makes it clearer (or should make it clearer) that this was a case of America's military being put in the service of humanitarian concerns. For this alone America should feel proud.

But it probably won't, and nor will the rest of the world rush to acclaim it, or its allies. When it comes to making any political capital out of this intervention, Obama faces the same problem as he does on the economy. People just don't spend time imagining alternative realties. In 2009 the president and his team did a pretty heroic job of averting a further financial crisis and an economic implosion leading to a Great Depression. As it is, the economy is bobbling along in a rather uninspiring way, which is a hell of a lot better than it might have been. But not good enough to win him credit. Similarly in Libya, we face what will be, in narrative terms, a rather unsatisfying, confusing struggle with Gadaffi and his supporters. This is a hell of a lot of better than what was about to happen before America intervened. But so what?

It's very, very hard - irrationally hard - to win credit for 'It could have been worse'. Voters aren't moved by counterfactual histories. In Libya, as Tom Malinowski points out, if the massacre had actually started and then Obama intervened, he'd have won far greater acclamation. This is obviously crazy and unfair. But hey, nobody said being president was going to be easy, or that politics always makes sense.

Comments

[Charlesbarry]

I'm guessing a major reason why you never made it to the oval office is that you're not a natural-born US citizen?

[Marbury]

Yes Charles, that's definitely one of the reasons.