The White House Responds

Scott Stanzel, a White House spokesperson, responds to this post about Ed Gillespie's gaggle.

"You should read the rest of the gaggle. That wasn’t Ed’s point. He later explained that the language wasn’t geared toward any one person."

Stanzel points me to something Gillespie said a little later:

Q So when the question of a possible rebuke to Carter came up, was the language changed, what was the discussion, what was the analysis of what might be --

MR. GILLESPIE: The -- it was put in the context of a broader discussion of approach and policy, so that it would not be seen as a reference to any individual.

Here's the first part of the quote:

"We did not anticipate that it would be taken that way, because its kind of hard to take it that way when you look at the actual words. ... There was some anticipation that someone might say you know its an expression of rebuke to former President Carter for having met with Hamas. that was something that was anticipated but no one wrote about it or raised it."

What do you think?

Comments

I think it's a pathetic, desperate attempt to backtrack from what everybody knows was an attack on Obama - an attack which, it seems, has backfired horribly on both Bush and McCain.

And as for that "well-connected Republican reader" email you posted earlier, I have to ask: what planet is that guy on?

Posted by DaveWoo | May 16, 2008 6:17 PM

I thought he was referring to the Europeans who have been trying the diplo dance with Iran for the last 2 or 3 yrs and have gotten zilch except for maybe laughed at. Next, I thought of Carter. It applies to an approach, not a single person. Tempest in a Tea Cup.

Posted by linda | May 16, 2008 6:28 PM

I think this is a transfixing example of Republicans backing down from an aggressor Democratic Presidential candidate.

What an amazing and unusual site that is !

Obama came out today and, not only defended himself from the stupid "appeasement" attack (with Biden's "BS" at his back), but went further and took the offensive. He accused Bush/McCain of aiding Iran and Hamas, and called them out to explain these failures, claiming that he would win such a foreign policy debate. (Also novel for these sorts of attacks: it is fact-based and rational.)

Sure enough, presto change-o, the gop backs down and says, uh, ... um, ya know, we weren't really talking about Obama, we uh . . .

Welcome to the general election. If Obama plays things this way -- bloodying noses and not merely defending himself against the mean republicans -- then he'll WIN.

Posted by SamSinister | May 16, 2008 6:29 PM

I think this is a transfixing example of Republicans backing down from an aggressor Democratic Presidential candidate.

What an amazing and unusual site that is !

Obama came out today and, not only defended himself from the stupid "appeasement" attack (with Biden's "BS" at his back), but went further and took the offensive. He accused Bush/McCain of aiding Iran and Hamas, and called them out to explain these failures, claiming that he would win such a foreign policy debate. (Also novel for these sorts of attacks: it is fact-based and rational.)

Sure enough, presto change-o, the gop backs down and says, uh, ... um, ya know, we weren't really talking about Obama, we uh . . .

Welcome to the general election. If Obama plays things this way -- bloodying noses and not merely defending himself against the mean republicans -- then he'll WIN.

Posted by SamSinister | May 16, 2008 6:30 PM

Fire. Ambinder. Now.

Any Atlantic intern could post GOP talking points or memo's from Hillaryland with much more alacrity than Mr. Ambinder, who yet again shows he is a wimpus hack who is been in the tank against Mr. Obama from the beginning.

Amdinder was bad enough as Hillary's Iraqi Information Minister, but is he know going to be doing the same for the Republicans?

What people think is that it's pretty pathetic that Mr. Ambinder can't even come up with an opinion as to whether the information he's parroting actually has any basis in truth.

But of course Ambinder only editorializes when slamming Senator Obama.

Ambinder is a weak-minded fool who clearly is once again under the influence of the old Jedi Mind Trick.

Fire. Ambinder. Now.

Posted by Eric Blair | May 16, 2008 6:47 PM

I poop on Eric Blair.

But Amdinder eats it.

The GOP will make no inroads by arguing over foreign policy with Iraq still hanging around their necks.

The American public understands who the true traitors are, and they're about to fire all of them.

Posted by The Man Doubled | May 16, 2008 6:50 PM

From the moment this story broke, CNN was reporting high level Bush aides confirmed the president was speaking about Obama and other Democrats.

Backing away now shows they did not think their anti-Obama strategy through fully and weren't aware of the blowback such an attack would begin.

Posted by Colin Hicks | May 16, 2008 7:02 PM

THIS IS EXCELLENT NEWS!! FOR HILLARY!!

Posted by idiotic | May 16, 2008 7:25 PM

Our message to the leaders of Iran is also clear: Verifiably suspend your nuclear enrichment, so negotiations can begin. And to rejoin the community of nations, come clean about your nuclear intentions and past actions, stop your oppression at home, cease your support for terror abroad.

That was our fearless Dubya in the latest State of the Union address. If Obama has always considered this to be a "failed policy," why hasn't he spelled his proposal out more clearly or told us what's wrong with it? Most of all, why is Obama apparently taking it personal that his position is criticized?

Posted by MarkG | May 16, 2008 7:29 PM

Obama wants to meet with Hamas? Why parrot that? He's said repeatedly he will not negotiate with terrorists. At LEAST report that he said that in his reply to Mccain-Bush.

The Illinois senator also said that he has stated "over and over again that I will not negotiate with terrorists like Hamas."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24667991/

Posted by Damien | May 16, 2008 7:35 PM

I take back my previous post, you did point it out parenthetically.

Posted by Damien | May 16, 2008 7:38 PM

Wow - Obama's rapid response is insanely good. They fired this off just after McCain's NRA speech:

"What's reckless is continuing the Bush-McCain foreign policy that has cost us thousands of lives and a trillion dollars in Iraq, strengthened Iran, enabled Hamas to take Gaza, took our eye off al Qaeda, failed to capture Osama bin Laden, failed to finish the job in Afghanistan, and left us less safe and less respected in the world. No amount of utterly predictable fear-mongering and tough talk can change the fact that John McCain is running to continue the most disastrous foreign policy in recent American history," said Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton.

A Democrat with a spine? Who knew?

Posted by Bill | May 16, 2008 8:19 PM

I think they remond me of the old John Lovitz routines where he's president of "Pathological Liars Anonymous"...."Yeah, yeah, THAT's the ticket!"

Once a Pathological Liar, probably always a Pathological Liar --at least without big time help.

Posted by Tim Connor | May 16, 2008 10:12 PM

Wow - Obama's rapid response is insanely good.

It's an Obama press statement, though, and thus clearly unworthy of an Ambinder post.

Posted by Gabriel | May 16, 2008 10:48 PM

It seems to me that this whole question of who took what the wrong way could be resolved with a simple tick-tock story.

When did Ed Henry and other reporters receive their background briefings identifying the target of Bush's attacks as Obama and Carter? And when did Obama and other Democrats first decry the attack?

Given the time zone difference, it seems highly likely that the WH spin happened before any stateside Democrats had a chance to respond.

I know when I woke up yesterday the press was already covering Bush's speech as an attack on Obama even though there was no Obama statement on the matter.

Posted by southpaw | May 16, 2008 11:05 PM

The comments were directed at an approach, which the administration was quite aware would be imputed to particular individuals, particularly Mr. Obama.

To assert otherwise would be to suggest that even the much-vaunted political skills of the administration are as rife with incompetence as its every other aspect. This would remove the last leg the administration has to stand on, were it true.

But I doubt you'll convince most long-term observers that the association between these comments and Mr. Obama was the result of the administration's failure to accurately communicate its intended message. I don't believe they have disavowed the notion that it applies to Obama, have they?

Posted by Jon | May 17, 2008 2:48 AM

George Bush has no sense of history. He never has had one; nor has he implied a sense of history in his actions as chief executive. Rather he seems to have a loosely connected incoherent batch of notions that are demonstrated on occasion. Bush's actions and "comments are best explained by his personality. Thus far people have explained his comments in reference to the term "appeasement" as an unrefined understanding. That he has confused the idea of an unwillingness to negotiate and an willingness to support things like territorial concessions as one and the same.

This in fact assumes two things that are hardly supportable by what is known about George Bush. First it assumes that to George Bush, history is an important matter. I would argue that this is not only unproven and dubious, but is simply a case that has never even been made. To George Bush, history, like the Constitution itself, is a collection of inconveniences mostly. And when it is useful, it is because there is some usually simplistic notion that provides a rationale for doing something that is otherwise inexplicable. Secondly, George Bush rarely if ever acts out of motives that are larger than his immediate world.

In attempting to deflect the indignity of his comments it has been argued that he was referring to Jimmy Carter. If you overlook the fact that if anything approaches the true meaning of the term "appeasement" it is this cannard. While plausible, the context and the particular circumstances (addressing the Knesset) are not. Jimmy Carter is simply of no consequence to George Bush. And although he has demonstrated that he would not be adverse to using a cruise missile against a mosquito, he would be motivated enough to launch it himself.

To understand George Bush you need to discard the sort of sophisticated yardstick you would normally apply with regard to presidential behavior. Historical analysis simply fails to reveal anything useful or revealing about what he does or why he does it. Since he has thrown it out the window, it does not and will not shed sufficient light. This in fact may be the true and most lasting legacy of neo-conservatism.

George Bush wasn't talking about either Jimmy Carter or Barak Obama. He was talking about his father. George Bush is always talking about his father because George Bush cannot help himself from talking about anything of significance other than his father. George Bush suffers from a very deep mental attachment to his father that results in a constant attempt to repudiate whatever approach his father might have had to dealing with the same sort of matters that George faces. And the results have thus far been disastrous for the nation. When the neo-cons were looking for anyone foolish enough to be their standard bearer in the real world, George Bush like Vonnegut's Billy Pilgrim, or like the Asian prostitutes his brother Neil claims were not recognizable as such, simply appeared.

People in American still do not understand what they got in George Bush. George Bush has no understanding of politics or history. He does not care about them in the normal way that people in public office do. That is precisely why neo-cons grew to love him. Sure he was rough. And he was something of an unknown. They knew that George Bush's only meaningful accomplishment before becoming Governor of Texas was creating and disposing of dummy corporations. People including initially even the neo-cons dismissed the importance of this too readily. But they grew to appreciate how it might provide the sort of exterior they would need to weather the obvious revulsion that would inevitably follow any meaningful application of their ideas. To neo-cons, this more than anything else helps to reference Bush's seemingly inexplicable behavior as good if not better than anything else. Some people in the business world take pride in building substantial things. To George Bush, substance is simply not relevant. Substance is in the way. What matters is getting away with it. And it matters because it is Bush's way of telling his father "I'm right and you're not." And what is the United States as a result of the Bush presidency? Prove to me that is something other than a dummy corporation. Prove to me that the entire Bush presidency is not the raison d'etre for the brush clearing fetish at Rancho Deluxe.

Well. There are hangovers. And there are hangovers. And I'll bet that for all his posturing as the family simpleton, brother Neil at least knows how to cure what ails.

I believe it was Voltaire who said: "History is a pack of tricks we play on the dead." Thank god for history.

Posted by JFive | May 17, 2008 8:45 AM

@JFive:

George Bush suffers from a very deep mental attachment to his father that results in a constant attempt to repudiate whatever approach his father might have had to dealing with the same sort of matters that George faces. When the neo-cons were looking for anyone foolish enough to be their standard bearer in the real world, George Bush ... simply appeared.People in American still do not understand what they got in George Bush. George Bush has no understanding of politics or history. He does not care about them in the normal way that people in public office do. That is precisely why neo-cons grew to love him.

I think there's some truth here. Whenever you hear about what Bush is reading, it's always this or that piece of history, but usually in the form of biography -- Teddy Roosevelt and so forth. Meanwhile there was clearly a sense at the height of his administration, say from '03-'06 or so, that history would be what Bush's government made it. This sense resided in Rove's official policy-adviser role in part, but it infected the foreign policy mightily. The neocon obsession with using American power to shape the world, one can imagine, got translated for Bush into very personal terms: unlike Bush pere, Bush fil would be a hero, he would have a splendid little war, he would bestride the narrow world like a colossus, because fortune favors the bold and what not.

It's sickening, really. Hangover might indeed be the right word.

Posted by DGJ | May 17, 2008 1:59 PM

As for the question Marc poses, this was transparently about Obama. Even our boy-in-a-bubble president is sooner or later going to become aware that Obama is making hay by attacking his legacy, and when he notices he'll get petulant. Bush's gang wouldn't know how to stop smearing their opponents and then lying about it, even if they wanted to. Even though Rove is gone.

Posted by DGJ | May 17, 2008 2:03 PM

What do I think? Someone who wants to be President of the US should avoid twisitng their own panties and working themselves into a tizzy. It doesn't show great "judgment." Someone who doesn't want their spouse quoted should get her off the campaign trail and stop attacking the other's spouse.

Posted by sbj | May 19, 2008 12:38 PM

This is becoming a big deal. Even the White House counsel had to write a demand to NBC on this same topic.

Strange... and stupid... If there was a misinterpretation, why not go out and say what exactly the President's position is.

What's the point of accusing the press of misinterpretation with these memos and letters. Just say out loud and clear what your position is on this.

Posted by Krassen Dimitrov | May 19, 2008 9:30 PM