"The bow" and other horseshit from the President's Asia trip -- horseshit exposed for what it is
- From: "Kickin' Ass and Takin' Names" <old_redneck@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 24 Nov 2009 03:40:47 -0800 (PST)
James Fallows of The Atlantic just had a terrific 6 parts series about
the media coverage of Barack Obama's trip to Asia - With a lot of help
from one WH official who traveled with the president (According to
Fallows, this source is a "She". But who knows).
http://jamesfallows.theatlantic.com/
Here's just a little bit from what this source told James.
About the "humiliating" bow to the Japanese Emperor:
"Obama's attitude was, this is an elderly gentleman in a country where
this kind of greeting is customary. It does not seem extraordinary to
show this kind of gesture to him. The Fox news poll said that 67% of
Americans thought it was a good thing for him to have done. When the
president heard that some people had complained, I'd characterize his
reaction as: The notion that the United States is somehow humbling or
humiliating itself by showing respect for a local custom, when it is
transparently the most powerful country in the world, leaves me
speechless."
About coverage of the trip in general:
"I don't care if someone criticizes us, I just would like it to be
accurate and in context. I fear I am learning that is not the skill of
some in the White House Press corps. They are experts on horse races,
and so that is the way everything is cast."
About what the Administration hoped for from the trip:
"The things we were trying to accomplish were all basically long term
things. We were not looking for 'deliverables' or one-day stories.
You've now got eight or nine countries among the G20 that are Asia-
Pacific countries. The historic shift of power and influence from West
to East is reflected in that number.
"Obama is very focused on global issues, things like climate change,
financial imbalances, non proliferation, energy issues. We saw all the
countries on this trip as players on those global issues. We saw this
as a way of developing relationships that would be helpful to us as we
tackled these issues coming down the road.
"We've got Copenhagen [climate talk] coming up in mid-December. We
have Iran heading increasingly likely toward Plan B rather than Plan
A, pressure rather than inducements. North Korea. And the Copenhagen
session is very far from a done deal. The countries we dealt with are
all key players here. And on the economic side, you've got the whole
issue of rebalancing the global agenda. They're all part of a long
process and a long game."
About judging the results of these talks:
"Discussions with the Chinese just don't offer dramatic breakthrough
moments. It's water on a stone. They don't reveal their Eurekas to
you. While you're there you get fairly predictable responses. Next
time you go back and get a little different treatment.
"Judgments will be borne out over time. Will they cooperate or not on
Iran? Will they be spoilers or not on climate change? On North Korea?
Rebalancing their economy? None of those is a one-day story. The only
fair way of evaluating results will be over time.
"But I get the sense that many of our critics would not be happy
unless Obama punched the Chinese leaders in the nose".
Interesting inside about the Town Hall meeting in Shanghai: Why was it
"censored" rather than streamed to anyone who wanted to see it in
China?
"We negotiated endlessly against a very difficult Chinese government
on the issue. Their intransigence tells me several things. It was the
day before the meeting with Hu Jintao, and there were uneasy about
what might be said in a live format. We wanted to have 1000 or 1500
people. They said No. Security problems, and so on. So, we got to 500.
We insisted on live streaming. Endless fights on that. Then live TV.
Endless fights. And questions from the internet. Huge fights over who
would pose them and who would screen. There wasn't a single aspect of
the meeting that wasn't hard fought.
"It was tortured enough that we thought about pulling the plug. At the
end of the day we decided to go through. The point is that on the
Chinese side, this showed more than the usual anxiety. I think there
was a genuine anxiety about the possible... force of Barack Obama. I
would say a word short of "subversive" or "destabilizing." But
something profoundly disturbing to their system of government and
control. The anxiety was a tribute to the kind of inspirational force
he has.
"What they actually did, was to put the live streaming part on
Xinhua.net. For the opening portion, we studied very carefully Ronald
Reagan's speech at Fudan in 1984. It began almost identically: Here is
who we are, and these are our values. But Reagan's ended with a poem
from Zhou Enlai. Can you Imagine what would have happened if Barack
Obama had ended up with a poem by Zhou Enlai?
"We know there were tens of millions of hits on Xinhua.net. And more
than two or three tens of millions. Some people complained that this
was carried 'only' on Shanghai TV, but that reaches reaches 100
million households. Of the top 10 Chinese web sites, nine carried
news and commentary. Thousands of user generated messages and blog
posts. Tens of millions people in the first instance saw it, and by
the time it's over the number is going to be staggering. Whenever we
had a discussion about, Should we pull the plug, we thought, if there
is an opportunity to talk to tens of millions of people, that is an
opportunity we should take. People can draw their conclusions about
China and America from the event."
Here is how it looked to a foreigner who has just written me -- a
person who has lived in China for two decades, still does business
there, and speaks Mandarin:
"I've been monitoring the China internet in the wake of the town hall
and, based on my observations of these things over the years I'm very
much leaning toward the White House insider's view -- that the reach
was vast and deep, in the many millions or tens of millions, though
not necessarily entirely positive. But the comment from President
Obama that I think will have the most impact inside the firewall was
not the one about US principles that you quoted in your followups. It
was this one:
'Now, I should tell you, I should be honest, as President of the
United States, there are times where I wish information didn't flow so
freely because then I wouldn't have to listen to people criticizing me
all the time. I think people naturally are -- when they're in
positions of power sometimes thinks, oh, how could that person say
that about me, or that's irresponsible, or -- but the truth is that
because in the United States information is free, and I have a lot of
critics in the United States who can say all kinds of things about me,
I actually think that that makes our democracy stronger and it makes
me a better leader because it forces me to hear opinions that I don't
want to hear. It forces me to examine what I'm doing on a day-to-day
basis to see, am I really doing the very best that I could be doing
for the people of the United States.'
Wow! As a resident of China for two decades and a Mandarin-speaking
China-watcher for three decades, I can say without any doubt that
those words will resonate far more deeply -- and potentially more
"subversively" or "destabilizingly" -- than any overt thumb-in-the-eye
hectoring that any foreigner or foreign leader might muster, in public
or private. Those words are ***precisely*** the kind that Zhongnanhai
[Chinese term equivalent to "the Kremlin"] fears the most, and rightly
so."
Meanwhile, in contrast, Sarah Palin sells books to the overweight,
beehive hairdo, polyester suit crowd.
.
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