Barack Obama spoke to reporters yesterday aboard the campaign plane, and was still puzzled as to why news outlets rushed to report that he’d changed his approach to Iraq, when he’d done nothing of the sort. In turn, reporters didn’t seem especially pleased to be blamed, and so we got items like this one.
Two days ago, Senator Barack Obama said he had not been clear enough in explaining his Iraq policy. Today, there was a different rationale.
The confusion was not his fault, Mr. Obama said, but rather the media’s for seizing on three words he uttered in Fargo, N.D., when he suggested he would be open to “refine my policies” on Iraq.
“I was surprised by how finely calibrated every single word was measured,” he said, speaking to reporters as he flew here from Montana.
Even now, the NYT’s Jeff Zeleny is trying to characterize this as something of a shift. On Thursday, his report indicated, Obama blamed himself for the confusion, so he held a second press conference. On Saturday, Obama didn’t blame himself, but rather, pointed to irresponsible reporting.
This is all terribly silly. When Obama held a second press conference on Thursday, it was because he saw the misguided media frenzy and thought he needed to set reporters straight. When Obama suggested he hadn’t been clear enough, he was being polite — he was no doubt tempted to say, “Since you guys are running stories that manufacture a story out of nothing, I should probably explain why you’re being foolish.” Obama couldn’t say that, though, without incurring reporters’ wrath again.
“I was a little puzzled by the frenzy that I set off by what I thought was a pretty innocuous statement,” he said, speaking on Saturday about the episode for the first time. “I am absolutely committed to ending the war.”
Of course he is. Obama always has been, and nothing he said on Thursday changed that. But now that a couple of days have passed since the media’s overwrought freak-out, it’s worth considering what happened here.
The NYT is still characterizing this as an example of a candidate who choose the wrong words to get his point across.
When asked whether his Iraq views would be difficult to explain to voters, Mr Obama said: “What’s important is to understand the difference between strategy and tactics. The tactics of how we ensure our troops are safe as we pull out, how we execute the withdrawal, those are things that are all based on facts and conditions. I am not somebody – unlike George Bush – who is willing to ignore facts on the basis of my preconceived notions.”
So did he misspeak on Thursday when he said he would gather additional information in Iraq and “continue to refine my policies?”
No, he said, he did not.
“I wasn’t saying anything that I hadn’t said before,” Mr. Obama said.
As he spoke here, a dozen or more reporters furiously took notes and recorded his words. Aides later conceded that Mr. Obama knows the office he seeks — the Oval Office — comes with a job description of calibrating and measuring every single word.
I find this especially odd, since reporters actually want the opposite. If a candidate is overly cautious, calculating every syllable in advance for fear of misguided reporters/piranhas going berserk, the candidate is slammed for being programmed and scripted. If a candidate talks like a person, the same reporters remind us that the candidate should be “calibrating and measuring every single word.” Great.
I’d argue, though, that this was actually an example of pre-spin. The McCain campaign told reporters, over and over again, that Obama would reverse course on his withdrawal policy. Reporters not only bought it, they sought out evidence to reinforce it, measuring every word Obama said in the hopes of plugging the quote into the agreed upon prediction/narrative.
When Obama said “refine,” reporters said, “A ha!”
It didn’t make any sense, it was another disservice to the public, but it’s a lesson about how the game is played.