reflectivepundit

Hillary Clinton: “Two-for-One” Perception is Too Risky

By Brigitte L. Nacos
I read the other day that John Edwards endorsed the prominent roles that spouses play and should be entitled to play during presidential campaigns. Growing up in Western Europe, I did not witness anything close to the American tradition of spouses and other family members weighing in quite heavily during campaigns. Mostly, this is explained by the distinctly different candidate selection processes in parliamentary systems. In the current battle for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination there is a widely shared perception (part of it fueled by competitors’ campaigns and part of it by media reporting and comments) that former President Bill Clinton has been too outspoken and aggressive and divisive in his wife’s campaign efforts—especially, after her win in New Hampshire and before her poor showing in South Carolina.
    Senator Obama’s wife and former Senator Edwards’ wife have been blunt in their support of their husbands and critical of their husbands’ rivals. But they, unlike Bill Clinton, are not ex-presidents who are persistently in the limelight and have credits and liabilities accrued before and during presidential terms.
    While one would expect any man or woman in the American political context to go to bat for his or her spouse during campaigns for the highest public offices, in this year’s extraordinary and so far unique case, one of the spouses is a former president.

Hillary Clinton: Victim of Persistent Gender Prejudices?

Brigitte L. Nacos
During one of Hillary Clinton’s last campaign appearances before the primary in New Hampshire, two men screamed, “iron my shirt!” in an obvious effort to tell Hillary supporters that a woman’s role is that of a house-wife and her place the kitchen and laundry room—not in the White House. If you think that these two guys were rare chauvinist nuts among otherwise enlightened people without gender prejudices, you are living in a make-believe world. Males, white males, are still holding the power in America—including in the media corporations and the news rooms—and they are in excellent positions to influence the public climate—for better and for worse. Which is not to say that women in influential positions, especially those in the media, are free of these traditional prejudices or have chosen to embrace them, if only to prove that they are not weak sisters but as tough or tougher than the boys on the bus and in the news room. Just read the columns of Maureen Dowd and Gail Collins in the New York Times and you get the general picture. According to Reuters, Noami Wolf rejects the idea that “gender will determine whether the U.S. senator from New York and wife of former President Bill Clinton stands or falls… None of the polling or the focus groups indicate that people are ... (snubbing) her because she is a woman but because of a deficit in how she is projecting leadership.” I believe that Wolf is wrong. Neither the shapers of public’s perceptions nor voters will openly display gender bias. But the unbalanced reporting of the last several months and weeks undoubtedly worked on the Democratic side in favor of Barack Obama and against Hillary Clinton. 
As Gloria Steinem wrote in an op-ed article in the New York Times, the early stage of this candidate selection process has followed “our historical pattern of making change. Black men were given the vote a half-century before women of any race were allowed to mark a ballot, and generally have ascended to positions of power, from the military to the boardroom, before any women (with the possible exception of obedient family members in the latter)."

Since Senator Clinton’s qualifications for the highest job in the land are difficult to attack, gender stereotypes have been used to trample her personal traits, her character, her sincerity. She has been characterized as robotic machine, shrill, tough, ruthless. In comments below articles on Clinton’s changing fortunes on the Washington Post web site, she was called a bitch, cold-hearted, an “so obsessed with getting the nomination she has lost focus on the issues and her cause.” After a campaign-tired Clinton teared up during a conversation with women in New Hampshire, reporters asked witnesses of the incident whether it was a purposely produced display of her human side. Like Geraldine Ferraro as candidate for the vice-presidency and other female candidates for executive offices before her, Hillary Clinton’s news coverage is different than that of male candidates and affects public perceptions of her and her rivals.

Marketing the American Brand: The Limits of Public Diplomacy

By Brigitte L. Nacos
When Karen Hughes, President Bush’s long-time confidant, resigned as head of the State Department’s public diplomacy section, America’s image abroad and especially in the Arab and Muslim world was still on the downward slide that she had hoped to halt and even reverse when she took the job two years earlier. Just like advertising executive Charlotte Beers and former ambassador Margaret Tutweiler before her, Hughes failed to replace the image of “the ugly American” with a positive brand. While astute in domestic politics, Hughes lacked knowledge of the Middle East, the particular target region of the administration’s efforts in public diplomacy. This showed during her first “listening tour” during several Arab countries, where she was perceived as clueless and patronizing. But even if the job at the Department of State were to be filled with someone familiar with the premier target region of
Washington’s efforts to market the “good America,” it would be next to impossible to succeed. While attractive branding and packaging matters in the marketing of products, it is the content of the box of cereal or wash detergent or whatever that ultimately determines success and failure. Similarly, while so-called strategic communication initiatives, such as Washington officials granting interviews to al-Jazeera and other Arab media, receive attention in the region, ultimately it is U.S. policy that matters, not the rhetoric of public diplomacy vendors.
In other words, as long as U.S. policy in the region remains the same, any successor of Karen Hughes will face a next to impossible task. This is wonderfully expressed in a Slate V animated editorial cartoon by Mark Fiore that depicts the daunting job description for the position vacated by Hughes. Click the following link to watch the clip:

All of this is not to say that the U.S. should forget about public diplomacy. But the same strategies and tactics that were very successful during the Cold War do no longer suffice in the age of instant global communication and world-wide television networks and other global media.

The Bush Administration's Rich History of Fake News

By Brigitte L. Nacos
At the heights of the California wildfires last week, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) staged a news conference with Vice Admiral Harvey E. Johnson, the deputy administrator, presiding. But instead of facing real reporters’ real questions, FEMA staged a fake news conference during which FEMA bureaucrats masqueraded as reporters and threw softball questions at Mr. Johnson so that he could praise the agency that failed so terribly before, during, and after the Hurricane Katrina disaster. FEMA invited news organizations just 15 minutes before the fake news briefing began and thus made sure that no real reporter was present during the bogus event. Some cable networks, among them MSNBC and Fox News carried part of “news conference” as breaking news live from FEMA. The visuals were of Mr. Johnson only, while the fake reporters were heard and not seen--for obvious reasons. Neither newsroom personnel at the all news networks nor their audiences had reason to suspect that this was a sham event staged in order to resurrect the agency’s damaged reputation.

When the truth came out, the White House seemed not at all disturbed. Press secretary Dana Perino assured in her mild response that "it is not a practice that we would employ here at the White House. We certainly don't condone it. We didn't know about it beforehand. . . . They, I'm sure, will not do it again."

Not do it again? Perhaps not in the same agency and in the same form. But this is not the first instance in which the Bush administration has done more than put its spin on the news. Indeed, as the New York Times reported in early 2005, 
“Under the Bush administration, the federal government has aggressively used a well-established tool of public relations: the prepackaged, ready-to-serve news report that major corporations have long distributed to TV stations to pitch everything from headache remedies to auto insurance. In all, at least 20 federal agencies, including the Defense Department and the Census Bureau, have made and distributed hundreds of television news segments in the past four years, records and interviews show. Many were subsequently broadcast on local stations across the country without any acknowledgement of the government's role in their production.”

Manufacturing the News: Michael Deaver and Karl Rove

By Brigitte L. Nacos
The death of Michael Deaver, who was Ronald Reagan’s premier image maker, and the departure of Karl Rove from the Bush White House highlight the centrality of public relations, propaganda, and manufactured news in modern White Houses and administrations. Power-holders and power-seekers have always tried and often succeeded in manipulating public views about themselves, their politics, and policies, but Michael Deaver opened a new chapter of public relations stagecraft during the Reagan years. While major factors during the presidencies of George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, Karl Rove and his associates proved the most aggressive and ruthless yet in marketing a president, branding their party, and manufacturing news to sell their policies—most notably the Iraq War. Calling Deaver rightly “the media maestro who shaped President Ronald Reagan’s public image,” the Washington Post’s Patricia Sullivan writes. “As the White House deputy chief of staff during the first term of the Reagan presidency, Deaver orchestrated Reagan's every public appearance, staging announcements with an eye for television and news cameras. From a West Wing office adjacent to the Oval Office, Deaver did more than anyone before him to package and control the presidential image.”

Commenting on Karl Rove’s sudden retirement from his White House job, Frank Rich takes his readers back to the summer of 2002, when “Andrew Card, then the president’s chief of staff, told The New York Times why the much-anticipated push for war in Iraq hadn't yet arrived. ‘You don't introduce new products in August,’ he said sounding like the mouthpiece for the Big Three automakers he once was. Sure enough, with an efficiency Detroit can only envy, the manufactured aluminum tubes and mushroom clouds rolled off the White House assembly line after Labor Day like clockwork.” While Card offered a glimpse of the behind-the-scene marketing tricks in selling the war on terrorism--in Iraq, Karl Rove was, no doubt, the brain behind such political maneuvers.

Democracy, Pelosi’s Iraq Plan, and the Washington Post’s Editorial Page

By Brigitte L. Nacos
In a democracy, citizens’ policy preferences are supposed to influence governmental decision-making. But that fundamental premise of the rules of the game in democratic systems is often ignored by the Washington Post’s editorials when it comes to the Iraq war. The paper’s lead editorial today criticizes sharply House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s plan to force President Bush’s hand in the Iraq mess by controlling funding and setting benchmarks for the withdrawal of American troops as a means to “winning votes in the United States.” In other words, the Post’s editorial page is well aware that the majority of Americans rejects the administration’s Iraq policies and supports the congressional Democrats’ oppositional positions. That is the message of public opinion surveys.

Why, then, is the Pelosi plan so out of bounce for the Washington Post’s editorial page? Because “the only constituency House Speaker Pelosi ignored in her plan for amending President Bush’s supplemental war funding bill are "the people of the country that U.S, troops are fighting to stabilize.” What kind of logic! The editorial condemns the Speaker for listening to the majority of Americans and ignoring Iraqis. For one, decision-makers in a democracy should be guided by their own citizens in the first place. But in this case, Iraqis were not ignored either since most Iraqis have also come to oppose a long-term presence of American-led coalition forces. What the Post editorial conveys is this: Those in charge of the editorial page, just like the Bush administration, know what is best for Americans and Iraqis—never mind what public opinion here and there reveals.Is this the kind of democracy that the Post’s editorial writers and the administration they support so staunchly have in mind for Iraq?

The Limits of Manipulation: U.S. Public Opinion and the War on Terrorism

By Brigitte L. Nacos
Most Americans are far more realistic than the Bush administration in judging the impact of the Iraqwar on the threat of terrorism. According to a new poll commissioned by The Third Way National Security Project, 55 percent of the public believe that the invasion of Iraq has made the United States less safe and 54 percent think that the Iraq war “is a distraction that diverts resources and attention away from the real war on terror.” I assume, the majority means that the real war on terrorism would concentrate on hunting down Al Qaeda leaders and followers around the world. Moreover, as Washington Post columnist David Broder writes, “Large majorities -- including most Republicans -- reject Vice President Cheney's contention that the absence of a second attack means we are safer. Instead, they say that the threat of terrorism has increased since 2001, and they believe that the war in Iraq has made us less safe, not more.” Indeed, four of five Americans disagree with the Vice President on this count (89 percent Democrats, 87 percent Independents, 67 percent Republicans). Three of four Americans (85 percent of Democrats, 63 percent of Republicans, and 75 percent of Independents) believe that “in the last few years, the US has focused too much on lofty ideals. We should focus instead on real threats to our own security.” These attitudes of the majority of Americans are contrary to the administration’s views. Like the President, most Americans believe that terrorism is a very serious threat (in fact, 86 percent consider “terrorism as serious a threat to America and the world today as Nazism and Communism were in the 20^th century), but a majority no longer supports major assumptions and goals of his administration’s counterterrorist policies. Thus, two thirds of Americans want a foreign policy that protects American security regardless of “whether it spreads or ideals or not.” Nearly three of five Americans want the U.S.to consider negotiations with Iran and Syria, if that would be helpful to America’s security interests.

The “War on Terrorism” and Sacrifice

By Brigitte L. Nacos
As the various scandals related to the administration’s selling of the Iraq war (i.e., Plamegate), its shabby treatment of injured servicemen and –women, and the FBI’s “errors” in secretly demanding large numbers of telephone, e-mail and financial records make headlines, Thomas L. Friedman of the New York Times has written a compassionate column about the need for all of us to sacrifice in times of war. He compares President Bush’s lack of leadership in this respect with the shining examples that Presidents Roosevelt and Wilson set during WW II and I. He mentions the forthcoming book by Robert Hormats (The Price of Liberty: Paying for America’s Wars) in which the Vice-Chairman of Goldman Sachs International states, 

“In every major war that we have fought, with the exception of Vietnam, there was an effort prior to the war or just after the inception to re-evaluate tax and spending policies and to shift resources from less vital national pursuits to the strategic objective of fighting and winning the war,” said Mr. Hormats, a vice chairman of Goldman Sachs (International). He quotes Roosevelt’s 1942 State of the Union address, when F.D.R. looked Americans in the eye and said: “War costs money. ... That means taxes and bonds and bonds and taxes. It means cutting luxuries and other nonessentials. In a word, it means an ‘all-out’ war by individual effort and family effort in a united country.”

After mentioning that the high costs of the Iraq war left the U.S. Army short of money and thus the ability to spend on up-keeping its facilities, Friedman suggests that the American people would have responded positively, if asked to “pay a small tax to fill that gap.” Moreover, he urges readers to help by donating to organizations that help returning and fallen service-men and –women and their families. While his initiative in support of those who fight the war is laudable, the comparison between Iraq and the two world wars is more than a stretch.

Hillary Clinton has a Real Chance to Become the First Female President

By Brigitte L. Nacos
America’s women have taken a large leap forward by revealing positive attitudes about a female politician whose presidential ambitions were well known before she officially declared her candidacy the other day via a polished video release on her web site. As the the Washington Post's Lois Romano reports today, “After some rocky moments with female voters over the past 15 years, Clinton begins her historic race viewed favorably by 59 percent of women nationally, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll completed Friday night. She is viewed favorably among women of all age groups and educational backgrounds, and has especially large advantages among core pockets of Democratic women, including non-whites and lower-income women, and among Northeasterners.”

A whole year before the Iowa caucuses and nearly two years before the presidential election of 2008, the field of candidates and likely candidates for the nominations of the two major parties grows by the day. In the run-up to the 2000 election, Elizabeth Dole never looked like a serious contender for the nomination on the Republican side. She did not even survive the pre-primary season. She was unable to match the financial resources of George Bush and some other male contenders and never had an effective campaign operation. Democrat Hillary Clinton now, unlike Elizabeth Dole then, is a formidable candidate with enormous fund-raising capabilities and a first-rate staff in her back.

The Upcoming “Surge” Plan for Iraq

By Brigitte L. Nacos
The linguistic acrobatics performed by the White House spin doctors have been once again adopted by the political class—regardless whether they agree or disagree with the President’s next step—and by many in the news media. Instead of calling the expected increase in the number of troops in Iraq an escalation or build-up, the more benign White House term “surge” seems to carry the day. Whether the President and his advisers decide on 15,000 or 20,000 or 25,000 additional troops to be deployed in Baghdad and elsewhere and for how long, will not matter as far as the outcome of this alleged leg in the “war on terrorism” is concerned. Caught in a deadly battle between Shiites and Sunnis and under assault of terrorists the U.S. invasion helped to recruit and drew to Iraq, more American soldiers on the ground will mean more American fatalities and casualties in addition to the more than 3,000 Americans already killed and more than 20,000 injured in this war. It is hard to imagine that President Bush, Vice-President Cheney and Senators McCain and Graham and others still believe that this war can be won. Nor do we know what “winning” means for them—and for us. On yesterday’s “Meet the Press” Senator Lindsey Graham appeared close to hysterical in his insistence that more boots on the ground were needed for the United States not to lose but to win this war.