The American people are getting a chance to see how unprepared Barack Obama's team of advisors are to help lead this country through the minefield of foreign policy problems that await the next President. Thank God Barack's advisors are not allowed to carry firearms. They have spent the past week metaphorically shooting themselves in the feet and other delicate areas. Just imagine the damage they would do with real bullets.
We started with the Austan Goolsbee flap. You know, Barack's senior economics advisor who told the Canadians essentially that Senator Obama's public comments about NAFTA did not reflect his true feelings. Poor Austan did not understand that foreign governments take notes and file reports with their counterparts back home.
Not to be outdone, Susan Rice, a senior foreign policy advisor, jumps into the fray and essentially shoots Barack in the back when she admits that neither Barack Obama nor Hillary Clinton are qualified to answer a crisis phone call at 3am.
But wait, there is more. Samantha Power, another high powered foreign policy advisor personally selected by Obama, calls Hillary Clinton a monster and then pulls a Goolsbee--she tells the BBC that Barack's stated plan to withdraw two battalions a month from Iraq is not firm and will depend on what the situation on the ground is in January of 2009. While that may be a sensible position it does not jive with Obama's public position. And in a Presidential campaign a major task for any candidate is to persuade voters that he or she can be trusted. Well, this string of advisors saying their candidate does not mean what he says does not build the warm and fuzzy feeling among prospective voters.
But that's not all. John Brennan joined the party. Think Progress has the story:
Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) has consistently spoken out and voted against granting retroactive immunity for telecoms that participated with the administration's warrantless wiretapping program. This stance was part of the reason he won the support of Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT), a leader on civil liberties issues.One of Obama's advisers on intelligence and foreign policy advisers, however, is someone who "strongly" supports telecomm immunity. John Brennan is a former CIA official and the current chairman of the Intelligence and National Security Alliance. In a new National Journal interview, Brennan makes it clear that he agrees with the Bush administration on the issue of immunity.
Now, everyone can make a mistake. But this is ridiculous. These people cannot be trusted to accurately represent their candidate's public positions on key issues and Senator Obama wants the American people to trust his judgment in selecting folks to run the bureaucracies that he already admitted he can't run? God save us.
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