THE POINT is that saying that they'll be found guilty is just a politician running his mouth. They all do it, so Obama doing it too isn't anything to get excited about. Can we move on now?

[Edited on November 19, 2009 at 10:25 PM. Reason : get ready for hacksaw to come talk about "change you can believe in" any second now]

11/19/2009 10:18:29 PM

Quote :

"LOL, ummm, lets see.... being found innocent and not sentenced to anything? Being awarded money for damages? Injunctions?"

CONTEXT. look into it.

and explain to me how if you're "found innocent" you've been brought to justice.

and if you're ordered to pay money, have you not been found guilty of something and punished?

wtf are you talking about?

[Edited on November 19, 2009 at 10:25 PM. Reason : /]

11/19/2009 10:23:07 PM

^ in fairness, the cost of defending oneself in a major court case isn't chump change anymore. but that would be paid for by the government in this case. BUT WE DIGRESS.

11/19/2009 10:27:30 PM

Not guilty, whatever. I think you got my point even if you won't admit it.

11/19/2009 10:29:28 PM

so, you don't think that having the President of the U.S. say "they will be found guilty" in any way will influence the trial? You don't think it will affect the perceived legitimacy of the trial? Really?

11/19/2009 11:31:18 PM

11/20/2009 10:53:19 AM

^^ affect the legitimacy for whom?

The people who are going to say it was illegitimate would do so anyway.

The people who wanted them tried in military tribunals don't care about legitimacy.

And everyone else pretty much knows they'll be found guilty.

11/20/2009 10:57:18 AM

THis is funny. Will you kiss me?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XN-ui28SlHU

11/23/2009 12:47:01 PM

I think we need a fact check on that first

11/23/2009 1:02:01 PM

^^ That's funny.

And there's this:

Geithner feels pressure from left, right to resign
11/20/09

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/68801-geithner-feels-pressure-from-left-right-to-resign

Geithner Resignation Calls May Increase as 2010 Election Nears

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=awXy12PVV7.0

11/23/2009 4:00:21 PM

Gathering consensus: Obama's Asia trip a flop
November 23, 2009

Quote :

"Why did Barack Obama take a tour of Asia? That question has begun to be asked around the world, as Obama returns home with no major initiatives launched, no diplomatic openings achieved, and nothing of consequence broached. The Times of London takes the lead in its news section by saying that that 'dream' of Obama appears to be fading: 'The real problem may be Obama's friends — or rather, those among his formerly most enthusiastic supporters who are now having second thoughts. The doubters are suddenly stretching across a broad section of the Democratic party's natural constituency. They include black congressional leaders upset by the sluggish economy; women and Hispanics appalled by concessions made to Republicans on healthcare; anti-war liberals depressed by the debate over troops for Afghanistan; and growing numbers of blue-collar workers who are continuing to lose their jobs and homes. Obama's Asian adventure perceptibly increased the murmurings of dissent when he returned to Washington last week, having failed to wring any public concessions from China on any major issue.'"

http://hotair.com/archives/2009/11/23/gathering-consensus-obamas-asia-trip-a-flop/

11/24/2009 3:26:05 PM

So people are disappointed that Obama is not liberal enough, and you are lamenting this?

I would have thought conservatives would be thrilled at this idea.

11/24/2009 3:28:01 PM

^ Why don't you support the consensus?



DENIER!!!1

11/24/2009 3:30:17 PM

Wow, that makes no sense.

I get the feeling you had that post saved up to use because it's just sooo clever, and you just couldn't wait any longer and just wasted it on me.

11/24/2009 3:39:57 PM

I think Obama should go balls out.

There's nothing he can do to win over the haters, and I'm not sure he realizes this. Like, all the talk he did about healthcare...he seemed to truly believe that if he simply explained his goals in another way, spoke very slowly, put down myths, appealed to reason, etc...that people would relinquish their Hitler posters. The Hitler posters are going to be there no matter what. In fact, Obama could scrap healthcare reform altogether, and fuckers would still be parading around with signs comparing him to Hitler.

It pains me to say this, but we've been here before. We've endured this precise set of circumstances before, and we know what works and what doesn't work. Carter didn't work. Reagan did.

Obama, be Reagan. It won't insult my intelligence, I promise.

[Edited on November 24, 2009 at 4:18 PM. Reason : ]

11/24/2009 4:18:22 PM

Quote :

"There's nothing he can do to win over the haters, and I'm not sure he realizes this."

^ If only it were that simple. Much of the criticism directed at Obama is coming from various groups within his constituency--to ignore this is simply disingenuous. And numerous examples of this criticism and even outrage have been posted here.

If Obama would just stop flip-flopping like a flounder, maybe he could at least shore up his base. Or maybe he's more like a jellyfish--spineless and all too malleable.

11/24/2009 4:32:01 PM

^^ I agree with that assessment, and I think the Obama admin (and his supporters) is just starting to realize it. They are just not that good at it yet (evidenced by the way they've been handling the KSM issue).

It's sad that trying to be conciliatory just doesn't work in our government.

11/24/2009 4:44:02 PM

I think obama is closer to a porcupine, armadillo, box turtle, or monkey before I think he's a jellyfish or flounder.

11/24/2009 4:50:45 PM

in regards to hooksaw's predictable, misguided, and shortsighted ASIAN DIPLOMACY FLOP nonsense....

(this is long, but excellent if you're looking for first hand accounts of the trip, the media coverage, and the reactions from asia, particularly china)


hooksaw, i dare you to read it.

Quote :

"17 Nov 2009 05:22 pm On Obama's Asian diplomacy -- #1 First of several updates on the fly: On reflection, I still stick with my initial reaction to the Shanghai Town Meeting appearance, rather than being won over by the on-scene complaints of my Shanghai friend Adam Minter as described here. If you combine Obama's opening statement (White House version here), with his answers to the questions about the Great Firewall, it seems to me that he said just about as much on censorship and liberties as a visiting dignitary could say, in the circumstances. I mean, seriously -- consider what he said in the opening statement. He talked about America's founding documents and the long struggle to match American reality to their promises. Then he said: "Those documents put forward a simple vision of human affairs, and they enshrine several core principles -- that all men and women are created equal, and possess certain fundamental rights; that government should reflect the will of the people and respond to their wishes; that commerce should be open, information freely accessible; and that laws, and not simply men, should guarantee the administration of justice.... "And that is why America will always speak out for these core principles around the world. We do not seek to impose any system of government on any other nation, but we also don't believe that the principles that we stand for are unique to our nation. These freedoms of expression and worship -- of access to information and political participation -- we believe are universal rights. They should be available to all people, including ethnic and religious minorities -- whether they are in the United States, China, or any nation. Indeed, it is that respect for universal rights that guides America's openness to other countries; our respect for different cultures; our commitment to international law; and our faith in the future. The Chinese students in the audience were smart. They understood what he was saying. In the circumstances, how much more obvious did he need to be? Those circumstances included: Obama's being in China for his first official visit; his knowing (as he must have, from his briefings) that the big Chinese bugaboo is "outside interference" from foreigners telling them what to do; and his knowing that he had business on many fronts ahead of him in Beijing. Even in those circumstances he clearly said: America believes that openness and liberties are not quaint American practices but are in fact universal and should be available to everyone, including in China. In domestic American politics, Obama has been known for doing his work with the scalpel rather than the sledgehammer. How much less deft would we like him to be on a foreign visit? Similarly with his answer about censorship and the Great Firewall: "I am a big believer in technology and I'm a big believer in openness when it comes to the flow of information. I think that the more freely information flows, the stronger the society becomes, because then citizens of countries around the world can hold their own governments accountable. They can begin to think for themselves. That generates new ideas. It encourages creativity. "And so I've always been a strong supporter of open Internet use. I'm a big supporter of non-censorship. This is part of the tradition of the United States that I discussed before, and I recognize that different countries have different traditions. I can tell you that in the United States, the fact that we have free Internet -- or unrestricted Internet access is a source of strength, and I think should be encouraged." "I'm a big supporter of non-censorship" is ungainly. But what's wrong with the statement as a whole? Foreign leaders do not typically go to other countries and frontally criticize the way those places they're run -- at least not if they're smart, or serious. For instance, when Hugo Chavez made his famous "I smell the devil!" crack after following G.W. Bush to the podium at the U.N., this was not a sign of his wanting to do business with America. Yes, you got Chavez's point, in all its gross clownishness. Who could miss Obama's point in Shanghai? Would we welcome a French or German prime minister coming to a US town meeting in the Bush years, shortly before a negotiating session at the White House, and saying, "Of course we condemn waterboarding, Guantanamo, and Abu Ghraib"? I condemn those things too, but is that the shrewdest thing for a foreign president to say while here? More later, but I thought the words stand up well and got across the intended message. "

[Edited on November 24, 2009 at 5:58 PM. Reason : .]

11/24/2009 5:49:59 PM

Quote :

"17 Nov 2009 07:20 pm On Obama's Asian diplomacy -- #2 Previously here. A reader writes: "Relating to comments on the Shanghai town hall, enough of the parsing of what he said on issues and how he said them, I think the most significant sentence was "That's why I'm pleased to announce that the United States will dramatically expand the number of our students who study in China to 100,000." Even without details (per year (I hope) or over what period, college and/or high school students, how funded, etc), I am surprised you have not remarked on it (and that the NY Times did not even report it). It is of major significance." Good point. I did noticed this while listening to the speech, but have not yet tracked back to see exactly how, when, and through what institutions this will occur. It's worth following up -- as I will, soon. But in the meantime, it's welcome news."

Quote :

"18 Nov 2009 03:59 am On Obama's Asian diplomacy -- #3 Last week some of Barack Obama's critics were upset that he ducked a question in Japan about whether he approved of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I cannot begin to say how short-sighted that criticism is. When I lived in Japan for several years in the 1980s, I learned about the various realms of the things you could say in public (??, tatemae) and things you actually believed (??, honne). Although not strictly a matter of tatemae/honne, the atomic bomb decision is a particularly thorny and awkward one for Americans to discuss with Japanese. The normal way to consider the topic in Japan involves the country's status as the only object of an atomic attack in history, the suffering its people underwent, and the status it therefore possesses to talk about the importance of avoiding any such event again -- all of which is understandable. There is a lot of history the prevailing Japanese account leaves out, but that is a point better raised in internal Japanese debate than by American officials. Americans may believe that Harry Truman saved both Japanese and Allied lives by this decision. But there really is no mileage in a U.S. official saying that to people in Japan. Probably the worst thing I did in my time there was to propose that argument to a man who had been a doctor in Hiroshima in 1945. The conversation came to an abrupt and hostile end. And I was just a reporter, not the American president who has the power to order nuclear weapons used again. Here's the best analogy I can think of: suppose you were a sheriff who had gunned down a group of terrorists who were threatening to blow up a town. In the crossfire, some innocent children were killed. If you run into their parents long afterwards, do you say: "Tough luck, it was in a good cause! And I'd do just the same thing again!" Or do you recognize their great sorrow and loss and do everything possible to avoid rubbing it in? In avoiding a direct answer to the question from a Japanese reporter about whether the bombing was justified, Obama did what any American president or diplomat should do when this topic is raised in Japan. There is no answer that would have worked out better for him than his not answering at all."

11/24/2009 5:51:12 PM

Quote :

"20 Nov 2009 07:52 pm Manufactured failure: press coverage of Obama in Asia I have what I think is some interesting new info coming on this front over the weekend; stay tuned, starting Saturday afternoon. For the moment, two more installments in my argument, previously here and here, that Barack Obama's recent swing through Asia was a relative success, and certainly nothing like the disaster that most U.S. coverage implied. Installment one: me talking with Bob Garfield of NPR's On The Media just now, about why American fantasies of an omnipotent, rising China may have distorted American press reaction to what Obama said and did. Installment two: the before-and-after analyses from a private client newsletter by Damien Ma, Divya Reddy, and Nicholas Consonery of the Eurasia Group, reinforcing the idea that what actually happened on the trip was almost exactly what informed observers expected to happen, and not some humiliating disappointment. November 11, just before the trip: "President Barack Obama's first visit to China on 16 November will produce positive rhetoric, but achieve little on a range of issues from North Korea to economic rebalancing. Washington and Beijing will continue to highlight areas of mutual cooperation and interests, but domestic political agendas will pose serious constraints on the extent of near-term progress.... "Little to be expected on economic rebalancing and trade... Obama will likely raise the currency issue as part of a broader economic rebalancing framework. But the Chinese will continue to reject greater emphasis on the rebalancing issue, because Beijing interprets it as Washington shifting more of the blame on China for the global recession.... "No bilateral agreement will be reached on emissions reduction targets that might precipitate an ambitious global climate change treaty next month in Copenhagen. Obama's more modest task is to prevent China from aligning too closely with the G77 developing country bloc in global negotiations, although he has limited bargaining chips to encourage cooperation from China." [emphasis mine] November 20 (today), post-action assessment, which boils down to, it went just as expected, and maybe a little better: "President Barack Obama's first visit to China met the modest expectations set by the White House, making some progress on creating a more expansive relationship and on clean energy and climate change cooperation...Obama appears to have effectively reassured Beijing that the US does not intend to contain China's rise, creating a framework for mutual assurance that could augur a more mature relationship in the longer term. "The US-China presidential summit involved a genuine attempt by both sides to push toward closer cooperation -- producing a robust joint statement that highlighted a range of common interests. In particular, Obama's first visit to China saw deliverables on clean energy and climate change cooperation, as expected. By dampening Copenhagen expectations in Singapore, Obama avoided a potential collision with China at next month's meeting... But Chinese domestic politics prevented Beijing from publicly discussing contentious issues such as currency and economic rebalancing during the trip... "While policy disagreements and trade frictions will continue in the near term, Obama took an important step with a very public reassurance for Beijing that the US does not seek to contain China's rise. Beijing's receptiveness to this appeal indicates the intent of both countries to reduce the mutual distrust that has colored aspects of the relationship -- from currency, military engagement, and Taiwan to human rights and climate change. The Obama administration's more public approach, if successful, can promote longer term stability by engaging China on a broad range of issues within the context of a more mature and pragmatic relationship -- and in preventing specific, contentious issues from defining the relationship." Why bring this up? Because it's bad all around when American press coverage makes people feel that perfectly predictable results constitute a shameful failure for the country and its leadership. More on this theme tomorrow."

Quote :

"21 Nov 2009 08:06 am Manufactured failure #2: the press, Obama, Asia It's not just me. Two colleagues with different perspectives -- from each other's, and sometimes from my own -- marvel at how badly the mainstream American press distorted the picture of what happened during Barack Obama's just-ended tour of Asia. First, Howard French -- long of the NYT, now of the Columbia Journalism School, friend of mine in both Tokyo and Shanghai. He has a new online Q-and-A with the Columbia Journalism Review, here, in which he says that the traveling press covered Obama's meetings with Asian officials as if this were a bunch of stops in a presidential campaign tour, and as a result missed or misrepresented what was going on. Read the whole thing, but here are two samples: From the set-up to the interview, by Alexandra Fenwick: "In almost every analysis of the trip, Chinese officials were portrayed as optimistic and newly emboldened to stand up to American interests and Obama was cast in the role of the meek debtor, standing with hat in hand. The line is that little was achieved and Obama was stifled, literally by state television and figuratively by the Chinese upper hand in the power dynamic." Howard French goes on to say that these assumptions were flat wrong. He offers many explanations, including this: "I find that the Washington reporters tend to be typically the most subject to this instant scorekeeping. This is part of the game of Washington reporting. They're at the bleeding edge of this phenomenon that I think is distressing in terms of the approach of the press to serious questions. Everything is shot through this prism of short-term political calculation as opposed to thinking seriously about stuff. You can't be an expert on every question, and so you're part of the Washington press corps and if you're really good and really diligent, you're going to be expert maybe in a few things and one of those things might not be China." If you have seen Howard French's coverage over the years, including the five years he was based in Shanghai, you will know that no sane reader has ever put him in the category of "soft" on the Chinese leadership or China's faults. Yet his wonderment and exasperation at what he reads is palpable. Tish Durkin, who has written for the Atlantic from Iraq and elsewhere, arrived in China recently. The subhead on her new column for The Week gets across the point: "Even through a veil of censorship and propaganda, the Chinese people managed a clearer view of Obama's visit than the US media did." While I'm at it, here's one more: a story quoting the new US Ambassador to China, former Republican governor of Utah Jon Huntsman (a Mandarin speaker), to exactly the same effect. "Washington's ambassador to Beijing hit out on Friday at negative US media coverage of President Barack Obama's visit to China, saying it failed to take into account important progress on many issues... "The trip was the top news story in China, drawing strong interest from the mainland public who, surveys suggest, are largely positive in their view of the American president. "However, much of the US media coverage was strongly negative, accusing Obama of failing to gain concessions on key issues such as Iran's nuclear programme and climate change, as well as being weak on human rights." "I attended all those meetings that President Obama had with Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao," Huntsman said, referring to the Chinese president and premier. "I've got to say some of the reporting I saw afterward was off the mark. I saw sweeping comments about things that apparently weren't talked about, when they were discussed in great detail in the meetings," he said. I wasn't in touch with Howard French or Tish Durkin (to say nothing of Amb. Jon Huntsman) before we all expressed the same amazed and negative reaction at the way our colleagues had missed the main point of what just happened in America's relations with a very important part of the world. We're all familiar with one "crisis of the press," the business collapse. This is a different kind of crisis, though it makes the business crisis worse: the distortion of reality by compressing every complex issue into the narrative of the DC-based "horse race." As you can tell, this really bothers me."

11/24/2009 5:52:14 PM

Quote :

"Manufactured failure #3: insider's view of the Obama trip 21 Nov 2009 05:41 pm Late yesterday -- after I had recorded my On The Media complaints about mainstream coverage of Barack Obama's trip to Asia, but before I had seen Howard French's and Tish Durkin's similar complaints -- I got a call from a government official who had been on the trip. This person -- for convenience, I'll say "she" rather than "he or she" from here on -- wasn't aware that I'd already weighed in about the coverage, and was calling to say that I, as person who'd recently been living in China, might be interested in how different the events seemed to her from what she'd seen in the U.S. press. She agreed to have her views conveyed "on background," which I'll do here and in a few more installments over the next two or three days. Obviously these are the views of an interested party, who was involved in planning the trip and believes it should be seen as a success. But compare them with what you read and heard about the trip last week -- including about the "failure" of the Town Meeting in Shanghai. 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: "In thinking about 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. Of course China is important in particular, but also Korea and Japan and the ASEAN countries. So 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. None of those is something where you come out of a meeting and say Eureka. They're all part of a long process and a long game. "The other thing we had in mind, which has to do with the whole "rising China" phenomenon: we wanted to solidify the relationship with China. To show them that we're not going to have a fluctuating policy. That we know what we're doing, and understand that we are dealing from a position of strength. And at the same time, to all our traditional allies [Japan, Korea, etc], we wanted to reinforce their sense of comfort that our relationship with China won't be at their expense." 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. ["Surprise" = "unacceptable risk" in many official Chinese dealings.] This was also a townhall format of a type they had never had before. [What about Bill Clinton's? That was a roundtable plus a speech, not a town hall.] 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." More to come tomorrow."

11/24/2009 5:53:15 PM

Quote :

"Manufactured failure #4: more on Obama's trip 22 Nov 2009 03:02 pm Things are warming up on this front. Previously here, with backward links. Today's points: 1) Many people have forwarded me a posting from my friend and former colleague Chuck Todd, saying that people who criticize the press's horse-race, instant-analysis coverage of Obama's trip are guilty of the same horse-race, instant-analysis thinking themselves. Ie, Hypocrite lecteur - mon semblable -- mon frere! With all good will toward Chuck, let me point out the distinction: What (we) reporters say or write about an event can in fact be judged as soon as we say or write it, because it's all out there to be seen. What happens in a meeting between the leaders of China and the US often can't be judged for months or years after it occurs -- which is the complaint about instant analysis of what Obama "got" or didn't from this trip. For instance: no sane person imagined that an agreement about the value of the RMB would be announced just after this session. That is not the way the Chinese government has ever behaved in response to foreign "pressure." We will know whether US intervention on this issue had any effect over the next few months. It reveals zero familiarity with the issue to expect anything else -- or imply that the absence of an announcement is a "failure." 2) Many people have sent clips of today's talk show by my friend and former colleague Chris Matthews, which went in super-heavy for the "Obama humiliated in Asia" line. With all good will to Chris, I fear that this show today, notably the comments by the Washington Post's reporter from the Asia trip, will be the new symbol of exactly the kind of instant-analysis that, in my view, fundamentally misrepresents what happened on the trip. (Distillation of my complaint in an On the Media segment here; also, it was one theme of my All Things Considered discussion with Guy Raz yesterday.) 2A) As a bonus, here is what the Post's page showed yesterday for discussion of Obama's trip: was it a success or "an embarrassment"? 3) Below and after the jump, more comments from a US government official who was on the trip and knows first-hand about many of the meetings with foreign dignitaries. Earlier from this person here. About the "humiliating" bow to the Emperor of Japan: "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." On what Obama "got" from China on climate/environment issues: "We closed some of the gap but not all of the gap. The Chinese do not wish, three weeks out of Copenhagen, to be seen working hand in glove with the US to impose a "G2" solution to the G77. They have their own reservations about how far things should go. But they also don't want to be seen as the stumbling block or odd man out. "We kept making the argument, We're the #1 and 2 emitters, so we have a special responsibility, a special role. We got some movement. They are taking substantial mitigating steps, which they didn't enumerate but we know what they are. As best we can tell, they are prepared to submit those as their "target" in Copenhagen, and of course we want them to be "commitments" rather than targets. There is still a stumbling block on the issue of accountability, which is always a hard one with the Chinese. We'd like to have an independent peer review of whether doing what you said you would do. There are lots of different ways to do that... But we haven't closed that part of the gap yet. "Prime Minister Rasmussen [Lars Loekke Rasmussen of Denmark, with obvious involvement in the Copenhagen talks] has been saying that while a binding legal treaty by this December is not possible, he has been calling for a politically-binding accord at Copenhagen. Then there would be the task of turning it into a treaty over the next year. The Chinese have bought into that general framework. And we made a lot of agreements with them on clean energy [details here]. So on climate change, there were no miracles, but we moved them out out of the position of being blockers to being part of the game. On what happened regarding North Korea and Iran: "North Korea first. We announced that [Ambassador Stephen] Bosworth was going there on December 8. Essentially we want his talks to be followed by resumption of Six Party Talks before terribly long. We told the Chinese that. In the joint statement, the Chinese did in fact commit to seeking resumption of Six Party Talks at an early date. They agreed to that principle, and they were pretty robust in their insistence that they care about the denuclearization of North Korea. In fact they more than anyone else have reasons to be troubled by the program. The missiles may not be aimed at China, but they are right next to China. So our perspectives are not identical, but on North Korea, we're doing pretty well. "Iran has been more difficult, and will probably become a more sensitive issue. Iran itself is heading the wrong direction. By end of the year, we may have to go to the pressure track. We made a strong presentation, whose gist was: Time is running out, and if this situation continues, several other clocks are ticking. There's the Israeli clock. If Israel decides to do something, we cannot stop them. If it's an existential decision, you don't consult anybody else. And Saudi Arabia and Turkey and Egypt probably would follow with nuclear programs. What's the impact of that on security in the Persian Gulf and the international non-proliferation regime? And on Japan and Korea? It is profoundly in China's interest to stay close to the "P5 + 1." [Five UN Security Council permanent members, plus Germany.] "On the one hand, they get it. But as a matter of principle they don't like sanctions and are concerned about their energy supplies, and they always like to free-ride. If the Russians are on board they will be on board too. At the end of the day, I expect the China will be on board. There may be some foot-dragging about specifics of a resolution, depending on how draconian it is. Russia is the bigger challenge, in the sense that if you get China. About judging the results of these talks - and those on economics [about which more in the next installment]: "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." More to come, from the official and also from sources in China, on the impact Obama's town hall may prove to have."

11/24/2009 5:53:42 PM

Quote :

"Manufactured failure #5: views from China 22 Nov 2009 07:19 pm I won't go on in this vein forever (previously #1, #2, #3, #4), but the topic is important enough to bear a little more elaboration, IMHO. Part of the importance: there is no country with whom America's interactions are more consequential, or perpetually more complicated, than China. Another part of the importance: how the American public understands these interactions makes a big difference, in recognizing the points of disagreement and the areas of possible cooperation. Tomorrow, one more installment from the US government official who participated in important meetings and whom I have quoted twice before. For now: This morning on the Chris Matthews show I mentioned earlier, a White House reporter for the Washington Post said that the Shanghai town meeting was another item on the disappointment/failure docket for America. Her argument was essentially: the Chinese outsmarted the Obama team and kept their countrymen from seeing it. I don't remember whether she said it was not broadcast at all or only on one "local" network; as mentioned yesterday, that one network reaches 100 million households. So to a member of the traveling press pool, viewing the session mainly as a campaign stop whose advance work went either well or poorly, this looked like a bust. 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: > "In your series, you touched on the Shanghai town hall, quoting from President Obama's opening and his response to the Twitter/Great Firewall question, and gave voice to a White House insider as to the power of his words and their likely reach inside China. There's been some buzz among western journalists about how the town hall "reached no one". > > "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." After the jump, two other reader responses, one with an additional Chinese perspective and one with a historical comparison. ______ A reader writes: "We were watching the Bejing dinner highlights on cable at home (CT state), via CCTV network [China Central TV, state controlled] and saw a very close friend among the group of musicians/artists performing. My wife woke me up to tivo it, then she called our friend in Shanghai (he had already returned the next early morning). "He apparently accompanies the bigwigs when they travel and/or entertain foreign guests, etc. For instance, he was in Moscow last year when Hu saw Putin. So unlike other performers, he gets to see the leadership withforeign dignitaries on a routine basis. "Anyway, long story short, from his local chinese perspective, it was obvious to him that the Chinese leadership were clearly enamored with Obama. They sincerely enjoyed our President's company, it was obvious from their body language of some connection with Obama. Obviously the state press wouldn't show that.....hopefully this visit established some mutual 'trust'. We'll see...." Another writes: "One of the things that struck me when I was reading one of the NYT's stories on the President's visit to China was their odd way of contrasting it to past presidential visits. As I remember, the reporter(s) writing the story as much as said that Mr. Obama had not "gotten" any concessions on this and that unlike how it used to be in the good ol' days. [WaPo story to that effect here.] "You remember those days right? when the U.S. President could helicopter into China and come back with the RMB exactly where we want it, no more internal censorship or repression, all political prisoners freed, China ready and willing to impose sanctions on country A and help invade country B, and of course solid enforceable contract law appearing by magic all around the country, and whatever else comes up in these silly articles." I am most certainly not saying that all the coverage was negative, nor that all the negative coverage was wrong. Nor that all of the coverage was misinformed. Pretty soon, out of fairness, I will do a compliments-list compendium of enlightening stories from the trip: one that instantly comes to mind is Jason Dean's in the WSJ about the mysterious half-censored interview Obama conducted with Southern Weekend newspaper. If, as I'm saying, we should judge the trip on its long-term results, it could turn out to be a failure when we see what China and Japan actually do over the next year on contentious issues. But my very strong impression is that the overwhelming tone of coverage was campaign-like and unnecessarily negative, and that the resulting bias is worth noting. If you haven't gotten the point yet! Bonus update! My friend and occasional Atlantic contributor Adam Minter writes from Shanghai in partial defense of the MSM: "I remain sympathetic to the traveling press corps and their coverage, in part because I think the White House did such a lousy job about conveying its goals for the trip during and in the immediate aftermath of the visit. Put differently, I've learned more about the administration's hopes from the mission from your post-facto interview with the un-named gov't official, than I did from any statements given to the media by the White House during the mission. Why couldn't the un-named official have briefed the press corps in the same way that you are being briefed while everyone was crossing the Pacific? Clearly, they didn't. So, to some extent, I think the blame for negative coverage - and, true, I'm sympathetic to some of it - must be laid at the feet of the White House and those responsible for getting the press corps up to speed." More tomorrow."

11/24/2009 5:54:13 PM

Quote :

"Manufactured failure #6: the wrapup 23 Nov 2009 10:22 pm I think this is it for a while, in three extensive sub-parts! Background here. 1) Today the Columbia Journalism Review published part 2 of its interview with Howard French; first part was here and was discussed here. It is long and convincing, but here is the heart of its criticism of the dominant "Obama was a wimp" coverage. French says: "I am known for having had a pretty consistent focus on human rights in my work as a journalist [JF note: this is very true], so the comments that will follow should not in any way suggest that I believe in a de-emphasis in human rights with regard to China.... But the problem with the way the press has covered this is there's a kind of implicit premise [that...] is misleading, I think. Maybe disingenuous is even a better word, because it seems to suggest that if Obama had pulled a Khrushchev and banged his shoe on the table on these issues and really jumped up and down and made a lot of noise, then this would have achieved a markedly different result for the better. I don't think there's any evidence of that. It may have made certain people in this society feel better about themselves, but if the goal is changing behaviors in China or obtaining political or diplomatic results with China, I think the evidence is the contrary." 2) From the U.S. government official who has appeared twice before, these final comments on the trip and its consequences: On atmospheric payoffs of the trip: "Two of the press conferences, in Japan and South Korea, both began with the same elements. In Japan, Prime Minister Hatoyama got up and gushed that "my friend Barack calls me 'Yukio.'" Then the Korean press conference began with [president] Lee Myung-bak saying, 'We have become close friends.' That says something. Those are not just routine polite words. It meant that Obama is profoundly popular in those countries. Hatoyama's poll numbers are high but dropping, Lee Myung-bak has been embattled, though recovering. But both saw it as enormously important in terms of their own agenda to be identified with Barack Obama. In my mind, the personal popularity and respect for him is a strategic asset. And not one that gets you results in a day. If you have foreign leaders who see their own fate tied up with Obama, that becomes a chip you can draw on. If you need a last minute shift on climate change, they do not want to separate from Barack Obama. Everyone wants to be his best friend." What about the view that Obama caved to the Chinese on human rights? "Here are the things we tried to do. Number one, he made a robust statement in Shanghai. Number two, have that reach as many tens of millions of Chinese as possible. You can argue about the degree of success, but the message got out. They had a chance to see him in a setting no Chinese had seen before. And beyond that was to be explicit and direct in the private meetings about the importance of our values and the effect on our relations. And then we put in references in the press conference statement to Tibet and the Dalai Lama, and the importance of rule of law, freedom of expression, protection of the rights of minorities, which was an obvious reference to the Uighurs and Tibetans. We went straight to Tibet in the statement, saying that we consider it part of China and urge direct negotiations with the Dalai Lama." [NB: This following paragraph is from me, JF, and not the official. Before the trip, Obama postponed a meeting with the Dalai Lama, and the DL said in public that was fine with him, since smooth US-Chinese relations at the start of an Administration were important. Obama said that the fact of a meeting was not in doubt, only the timing. I said then and still think that the test will come in the next three or four months If Obama meets the Dalai Lama during that period, he will have preserved the tradition of his predecessors in treating the D.L. as a substantial religious and cultural figure who has earned international respect. If he doesn't, then it will be time to talk about "caving."] About non-China aspects of the trip: [This is the official again] "We thought the Southeast Asian part went well. We showed up a day late because of the Fort Hood memorial ceremony. But Obama got to the dinner, which the leaders liked. And the funny-shirt part, which they also liked. [See below - a tradition at meetings of the Asian Pacific Economic Cooperation group, or APEC.] And the ASEAN meeting [Association of Southeast Asian Nations]. He announced he was going to Indonesia next year, which soothed some of the feelings from his not being able to go there on this trip. The Indonesians love him. Lee Hsien-Loong [prime minister of Singapore; son of Lee Kwan Yew] was very positive about US presence in the region. As for Burma, of course they were at the ASEAN 10 meeting. Kurt Campbell [assistant secretary of state] had just gone to their capital, the first executive-branch representative to go there since almost forever. He met with Aung San Suu Kyi, and we are seeing some preliminary results. There's a little bit of the ice breaking there. I wouldn't overstate it. Maybe we'll see some developments, but it will take time. And the other ASEANs feel they are getting attention that they haven't gotten before. "With Japan, it's a new and untested government. It's the first time in power for their party, and they're finding their sea legs. Everyone understands that. We were not trying to knock them off their uncertain sea legs, particularly in public. Not make them lose face or back them into a corner. But at the same time, we wanted to provide a degree of clarity about the future of the bases there. We announced a working group about the bases, and 99 of the 100 press outlets in the room understood that this meant we were not changing the agreements. We're making some adjustments around the edges, we want to show sensitivity to local concerns about the environment and other issues. But we're definitely not throwing out the agreements. Unfortunately, one person got it wrong, and [the New York Times] portrayed it as a stunning "concession." It was the exact opposite. As for Japanese prime minister Hatoyama's calls for a new "East Asian Community," which would explicitly leave the U.S. out: "We were very clear privately and publicly that the U.S. is going to be in on the ground floor on consultations about new international institutions. The key countries in the region really don't want a line drawn in the middle of the Pacific. There's a general concern over any attitude that would leave us out. No one is going to speak openly about any concerns over China's rise. Everyone understands that it's better to have a prosperous China than the reverse. But a robust U.S. presence in the region is widely seen as the best counterweight in the long-term." About trade and financial imbalances between the US and China: "Obama talked a great deal in public and in private about the need for the Chinese to increase demand. He made clear that we're simply not going back to the old model. [Old model = China makes, saves, and lends; US borrows and buys.] So we are moving down what will be a long path. [US coverage has implied that China is the dominant paymaster in the US-China relations, but:] Their positions on climate change and rebalancing the economy all reflect an awareness of internal fragility and a reluctance to do anything that would affect their export industries. The nervousness over the Shanghai town hall was also a reflection of internal fragility and the need to assert and demonstrate control." Comparing bubbles: "From inside our bubble, we thought we were doing what we should be doing. From inside the press's bubble, I think it came across fine except for China. I think some of them wanted us to be rude to the Chinese leadership. That seems to be the standard for effectiveness. Not only is it bad form in general to be rude, and ineffective in Asia, but the last person on the planet who would be rude is Barack Obama. That is part of the reason he got elected." 3) Bonus! Selections from a note from a reader with experience around the world. "- No one should assume that because the Obama visit was only aired on limited TV outlets (I understand his town meeting was aired in Shanghai), that it will not be seen throughout the country. Download videos, live streaming videos, etc. will circulate over the next weeks and it will be widely seen. "- Americans tend to view most relationships through the prism of win/lose. Asians (as you well know) tend to be more subtle. This is why Americans often have difficulty bargaining for goods in Asian markets. They want to 'win' the transaction. The transaction as seen by the Asian is to try to find a price where each party feels that they got something of value and feel that each party is responsible for protecting himself from being cheated. It's up to you not to be taken... I have suggested Richard Nisbett's "The Geography of Thought" which addresses differences in ways of thinking of things east and west. "- From the Asian perspective bowing to the older Japanese leader is a sign of strength. One does that because the power is not questioned, not because it is. Will Americans ("just win baby", "Winning isn't everything, it's the only thing") ever understand this?... This does it for the time being. "

http://jamesfallows.theatlantic.com/

happy reading, hooksaw

11/24/2009 5:56:04 PM

wtfl;dr

11/24/2009 6:03:07 PM

^^ Promptly ignored.

Obama's Trip Lacked Notable Achievements
SEOUL, Nov. 19, 2009

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/11/19/politics/washingtonpost/main5710612.shtml

Why don't you support the consensus?



DENIER!!!1

PS:

Is Obama's star dimming as U.S. stock drops?
His celebrity is not enough to reverse an erosion of our global dominance
Nov. 24, 2009

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34128987/ns/politics-white_house

[Edited on November 24, 2009 at 6:24 PM. Reason : That last headline is hilarious. ]

11/24/2009 6:11:51 PM

so you refuse to read first hand accounts of obama's trip to asia from journalists who have lived and worked in china for decades?

can't say i'm shocked really. confirmation bias is pretty typical of people of your ilk. oh well, i tried. continue getting your kook on.

11/24/2009 7:38:04 PM

I stopped reading all those [words] after the paragraph starting with this: "Here's the best analogy I can think of: ...."
The writer can't think of much.

[Edited on November 24, 2009 at 8:44 PM. Reason : ]

11/24/2009 8:44:43 PM

The Obama Surge...

July 2011... "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!"

12/1/2009 8:48:45 PM

Pretty decent speech from west point. Count me as a dirty liberal who thinks we need to stay in Afghanistan to win, not sure we can though. Watched fox news coverage briefly and it's hilarious. These people will find any disingenuous way to detract from the president. So far the compaints: needs new teleprompter with energizer bunny batteries, it was tired, it wasn't CHURCHILL, it wasn't THE GETTYSBURG ADDRESS, no urgency in speech, not enough detail, not forceful enough, he didn't unite the country (with a 30 min speech?!), he's sending 30000 instead of 40000, he's too "academic" (fucking thinking son of a bitch), there was no passion and table pounding, TIMETABLE!!!

12/1/2009 8:53:21 PM

Obama: Here let me use my nobel peace prize with this surge.

12/1/2009 8:53:27 PM

I know man. He needs to be intellectual. We don't want to invoke any urgency to get those afghan women rights to leave the house and be able to get a job, or stop them from decapitating anybody who has dissenting views.

Good points indeed sir^^

I like how msnbc was just sitting there saying how they are SO GLAD TO SEE A PRESIDENT NOT GET A SENSE OF SUPPORT OF THOSE TROOPS. THEY NEED TO GET A LECTURE ON THE FREEDOMS THE AFGHANS ARE ENTITLED TOO. let's not give them a morale boost before 500-1000 troops march straight to their deaths to give the world more long term peace.

[Edited on December 1, 2009 at 8:57 PM. Reason : .]

12/1/2009 8:55:07 PM

fair and balanced, y'all.

12/1/2009 8:56:58 PM

^^^good point, buster! Very intelligent contribution. You should be on the fox news round table.

[Edited on December 1, 2009 at 8:58 PM. Reason : N]

12/1/2009 8:57:09 PM

i wonder if the taliban finds you and decapitates you in front of your parents would msnbc be right there to report the urgent situation?



[Edited on December 1, 2009 at 9:01 PM. Reason : 9]

12/1/2009 8:58:20 PM

^ Kid, you need to go back to 4chan. You can insult people all want, but the kind of shit you just posted is worthy of being suspended. Cut it out.

And that's not what you wrote.

Quote :

"i hope a taliban finds you and decapitates you in front of your parents. msnbc will be right there to report the urgency of the situation!!!!"

You wanna defend that?

[Edited on December 1, 2009 at 9:01 PM. Reason : quote.]

12/1/2009 9:00:56 PM

^oh so a 'hypothetical' decapitation by these alqaeda freaks is out of the question?????

dude. they do it on nearly a daily basis to westerners. wow. what are you drinking??


obama just sent 30k people, probably 10 of them i guarantee you will be caught and decapitated by these freaks. just a statistical truth!! are you gonna defend that??????? of course not

[Edited on December 1, 2009 at 9:03 PM. Reason : d]

12/1/2009 9:01:59 PM

Quote :

"i hope a taliban finds you and decapitates you in front of your parents. msnbc will be right there to report the urgency of the situation!!!!"

What you just posted isn't a defense. If you wanna say "i hope a taliban finds you and decapitates you in front of your parents," you should be prepared to defend that as a legitimate point of debate. Otherwise you're being a jackass for the sake of actually wishing harm.

12/1/2009 9:03:21 PM

Just ignore him. I'm not sure how wishing death upon me has anything to do with the speech or the new policy so it's not even worth engaging this guy in a debate.

12/1/2009 9:07:03 PM

yeh go ahead and misquote me more. like i said, you are in a fantasy world here now in some retarded argument, while 30k people are going right into the hornets nest where this goes on, on a daily basis.

you have no response to that. pm me if you want to continue any other fantasy piss fight though.

12/1/2009 9:08:47 PM

great speech, the deadline however is kind of weird
did he say why he chose july 2011?

12/1/2009 9:10:42 PM

Quote :

"If you wanna say "i hope a taliban finds you and decapitates you in front of your parents," you should be prepared to defend that as a legitimate point of debate. Otherwise you're being a jackass for the sake of actually wishing harm."

TSB IS SERIOUS FUCKING BUSINESS

12/1/2009 9:15:26 PM

^^to appease the left. if he didn't have a pullout date he would literally be walking a tight rope to the end of his presidency.

realistically you can't put an end date on this stuff. and he knows it. and there isn't in reality. he only SAYS that to appease certain of his people. that is all.

^very serious. not only did i edit it immediately to a totally different tone, but he chooses to go into his cache and use the pre-edited quote as bait. ha. ain't gonna happen. very similar tone to the spiked data in climategate. hmm. oh wait, that's all liberals do. ha

[Edited on December 1, 2009 at 9:18 PM. Reason : d]

12/1/2009 9:15:36 PM

Quote :

"i hope a taliban finds you and decapitates you in front of your parents. msnbc will be right there to report the urgency of the situation!!!!"

That's an edited quote from me? Bullshit, chester. I copied-and-pasted it word for word. And now you're gonna act like you didn't write it. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Oh this is gettin' good. Look how many finger-presses on your Selectric you've already wasted trying to make me the liar.

12/1/2009 9:25:08 PM

it's over dude. you lost.

obama is sending more troops
'global warming' is a hoax
your perfect congress is getting voted out slowly
mr perfection in the oval office is literally copying BUSH
you are misquoting and skewing info just like your fellow climategate brethren
your world is literally caving in on itself.

ha. i'd be pissed and looking for shit like this to bait constantly too if i were in your shoes.

12/1/2009 9:31:57 PM

Quote :

"i hope a taliban finds you and decapitates you in front of your parents. msnbc will be right there to report the urgency of the situation!!!!"

Keep going man, you're on a roll. And we're waiting to hear you defend yourself.

12/1/2009 9:32:54 PM

you're what the french call- les incompetant

oh wait, the french aren't even your allies anymore after this speech by prez obama! let it go man!

[Edited on December 1, 2009 at 9:35 PM. Reason : d]

12/1/2009 9:33:52 PM

Quote :

"i hope a taliban finds you and decapitates you in front of your parents. msnbc will be right there to report the urgency of the situation!!!!"

You're what the Americans call avoiding the question. C'mon man, you're full of good stuff here. Keep going!

12/1/2009 9:35:00 PM

the most important thing i gathered from this speech is that there are a lot of hot girls at west point

12/1/2009 9:44:09 PM