The Label Factor: Is Obama a Wimp or a Warrior?

[Purveyor]

By HELENE COOPER
Published: January 9, 2010

WASHINGTON — Like every Democratic president since John F. Kennedy, President Obama is battling the perception that he’s a wimp on national security.

It’s not just coming from Republicans (for example, Dick Cheney’s accusation that Mr. Obama is trying to pretend that the country isn’t at war). Now barbs are coming from the center too. This week’s Foreign Policy magazine has a provocative cover: Mr. Obama next to Jimmy Carter with — gasp — an “equals” sign in the middle. New York Times/CBS polling shows that public approval of Mr. Obama’s foreign policy dropped 9 points to 50 percent between last April and November. Leslie H. Gelb, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, wrote on the Daily Beast blog two weeks ago that Mr. Obama needs to toughen up with his adversaries. “He puts far too much store on being the smartest guy in the room,” Mr. Gelb wrote. “He’d do well to remember that Jimmy Carter also rang all the I.Q. bells.”

So soon? Here is a president who just ramped up the war in Afghanistan, sending an additional 30,000 American troops. He has stepped up drone strikes by unmanned Predators in Pakistan and provided intelligence and firepower for two airstrikes against Al Qaeda in Yemen that killed more than 60 militants. He has resisted the temptation to sign a new nuclear arms agreement with Russia that might not provide American inspectors with the level of verification detail that they want. He is moving toward the wide use of full body scans in American airports. On Thursday, in an oblique nod to the Cheney criticism, he even used the phrase “we are at war,” in describing the fight against Al Qaeda.

Of course, accusations that Democrats are genetically softer on threats to the Republic are nothing new. After World War II, Republicans mostly stopped attacking the Democrats as the party that had gotten America into two world wars, and began calling it soft on Communism. Roosevelt’s agreement to the postwar division of Europe at Yalta, followed by China’s fall in 1949 while Truman was president, spurred that on. John Kennedy managed to emerge from an early fiasco at the Bay of Pigs and achieve the counter-image of a cold war liberal, thanks to the Berlin and Cuban-missile crises; then Lyndon Johnson’s fear of being labeled “soft on Communism” helped him override his doubts about getting deeper into Vietnam. But after that, the ill-fated antiwar candidacy of George McGovern, followed by Jimmy Carter’s inability to rescue American hostages in Iran, sealed a stereotype of Democrats as, well, wimps.

And labels count, as a poll taken last August by the Pew Center for the People and the Press illustrates: When voters were asked which party could do a better job of dealing with terrorism, they expressed more confidence in Republicans than in Democrats, as they had consistently since 2002. The 2009 margin was 38 percent to 32 percent. But when asked which party could do a better job of making wise decisions about foreign policy, 44 percent chose the Democrats, 31 percent the Republicans.

MORE...

NYTIMES: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/10/weekinreview/10cooper.html

[Amerigo Vespucci]

1. What a stupid fucking question

"Wimp or Warrior?"

A fucking WIMP wouldn't have run for President of the United States after 8 years of George W. Bush.

STUPID...FUCKING...QUESTION.

Helene Cooper can kiss my ass...right after she kisses our President's ass.

[Cha]

3. Yeah, it's a stupid fucking question..

but tell me..what else do they have?

[Amerigo Vespucci]

7. "Junior spent 8 years fucking it up, Obama hasn't fixed it in ONE...what a WIMP"

You're right...they have NOTHING.

They're right...Obama has not fixed EIGHT YEARS of Bush fuck-ups in his first year of office.

But that's the "liberal media" for you, I guess.

[Cha]

8. It says everything about their ability

to come up with a pertinent question and nothing about the President.

[Dyedinthewoolliberal]

2. We should fight to

prevent the idea that someone doing a job as complicated and complex as President of the US can be summed up in a choice of two words.........

[CakeGrrl]

4. The intellectual equivalent of needing your food cut up in little bites

Some people apparently feel the need to oversimplify and pigeonhole things so they're easier to sort in their little compartments.

:eyes:

[Enrique]

5. Maybe Obama should dress up in a flight suit

the media whores LOVED that so much they didn't even notice that we had just made the biggest foreign policy in our history.

[bluestateguy]

6. Hackneyed CW crap

There is an inherent predisposition for Americans to stand with their commander in chief in a time of war.

[ChicagoSuz219]

9. My President is a Warrior...

...Cheney & his buddies are just a bunch of loudmouth, obnoxious obstructionists. No heroes there.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

10. IMHO Obama is neither "strong" nor "weak" when it comes to terrorism/national security

He is, however, much SMARTER, which, IMHO is a helluva lot more important! He seems to realize, unlike Cheney and his other Republican detractors, that we can approach terrorism and national security concerns without resorting to "enhanced interrogations", torture, keeping Gitmo open indefinitely, invading other countries, etc.