Obama Scores

Gallup reports that Obama's approach to Afghanistan is off to a good start with the public:

President Obama has managed to thread the needle with his newly announced Afghanistan strategy, with his approach winning the approval of a majority of both Democrats (58%) and Republicans (55%) in a USA Today/Gallup poll conducted Wednesday night. At the same time, less than a majority of independents approve (45%). Among Americans overall, 51% approve of the strategy while 40% disapprove.

Afghanistan, Foreign Policy, and National Security

Constitution and Presidency

"And as Commander-in-Chief, I have determined that it is in our vital national interest to send an additional 30,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan."

Federalist 8: "It is of the nature of war to increase the executive at the expense of the legislative authority."

Democracy in America: "If the Union’s existence were constantly menaced, and if its great interests were continually interwoven with those of other powerful nations, one would see the prestige of the executive growing, because of what was expected from it and of what it did."

JFK taped meetings and calls on the Cuban Missile Crisis. In October 1962, JFK discussed the Cuban Missile Crisis on national TV.

As you reflect on JFK's decisionmaking, think about Peter Drucker's dictum: “The first rule in decision-making is that one does not make a decision without disagreement.”

A couple of years later, LBJ dealt with the Gulf of Tonkin. Bad intelligence contributed to the US reaction in the Gulf of Tonkin -- as Robert McNamara later acknowledged:

President Bush the elder launches Desert Storm:

Powell had such influence during the Gulf War because of Goldwater-Nichols.

We went into Afghanistan because of 9/11. Why did the intelligence community fail to foresee or prevent it? From the report of the 9/11 commission:

Commenting on Pearl Harbor,Roberta Wohlstetter found it "much easier after the event to sort the relevant from the irrelevant signals.After the event,of course, a signal is always crystal clear; we can now see what disaster it was signaling since the disaster has occurred. But before the event it is obscure and pregnant with conflicting meanings."...With that caution in mind,we asked ourselves, before we judged others,whether the insights that seem apparent now would really have been meaningful at the time, given the limits of what people then could reasonably
have known or done. We believe the 9/11 attacks revealed four kinds of failures in:

• imagination (see bin Laden memo)
• policy (see NBC report)
• capabilities (see Washington Post on translators)
• and management (see map of intelligence community)

Faulty intelligence also affected Iraq policy, as the WMD Commission concluded.

In the fall of 2007, President Bush responded to the new National Intelligence Estimate on Iran (full transcript here):

QUESTION: My question, sir, is are you feeling troubled about your standing here today about perhaps facing a credibility gap with the American people?
PRESIDENT: No. I'm feeling pretty spirited -- pretty good about life. And I made the decision to come before you so I could explain the NIE. And I have said Iran is dangerous. And the NIE doesn't do anything to change my opinion about the danger Iran poses to the world. Quite the contrary. I'm using this NIE as an pportunity to continue to rally our colleagues and allies. The NIE makes it clear that the strategy we have used in the past is effective.

The Courts

"That's why we must promote our values by living them at home -- which is why I have prohibited torture and will close the prison at Guantanamo Bay."

See Hamdan v. Rumsfeld

Chris Matthews, the great constitutional scholar, on Hamdan:

Obama Speech Fact Check

For the record..

Yahoo releases one of many responses to Obama's latest address. Aiming to compare his claims with the reality on the ground, they respond directly to four remarks about the Afghan war.

Obama and China- Saturday Night Live Skit

http://www.hulu.com/watch/110317/saturday-night-live-china-cold-open

Inappropriate SNL skit, but demonstrates the current media's interpretation of Obama's interactions with China.  

President Obama and PM Rudd

With Copenhagen talks and Afghanistan policy on the President's plate, international cooperation becomes more and more important.

This morning Australian PM Kevin Rudd met with President Obama and Secretary Clinton, declaring:

Australia takes its alliance with the United States very seriously. That’s why we have been with America for a long time in Afghanistan, and why we will be with America for the long haul.

The President has also been (seemingly successfully) pushing for NATO to increase its troop level in Afghanistan and helped convince Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao to attend the Copenhagen talks.

A NATO diplomat said Friday that European and other nations already participating in the international force are expected to contribute between 4,000 and 6,000 fresh troops.

...


China announced today that Premier Wen Jiabao will attend the Copenhagen climate summit and that China will commit to reducing its carbon intensity by 40 to 45 percent from 2005 levels by 2020.

Foreign Policy & National Security I

The Football

Recognition

• Truman and Israel


• China


• Cuba

Treaties & Executive Agreements


Use of Armed Force

Organization

• National Security Council


• Intelligence Community


• The Military


• Foreign Service

Presidential Health

This article from Slate discusses a new theory about FDR's health in his final days. A new book alleges that FDR actually died from a cancer that he and his doctor's knew about before he ran for his fourth term.

Conspiracy theories like this bring up important issues of presidential transparency. How much are president's and their doctors obligated to reveal about their health? When such a private issue can affect the nation so greatly, is it better to be honest or to uphold the image of the president? JFK kept his health problems private, going out of his way to appear athletic and energetic. After Reagan was shot, he walked into the hospital without help. Bush Sr. was mocked for vomiting on the Japanese Prime Minister. The McCain campaign was criticized for minimizing McCain's melanoma battle.

If FDR really did have cancer, why would he decide to run for a fourth term? How much did it affect his selection of Truman as a running mate? How much does a president's health factor into his decisions?