A stunning profile of Ben Rhodes, the asshole who is the president’s foreign policy guru | Foreign Policy
Rhodes comes off like a real asshole. This is not a matter of politics — I have voted for Obama twice. Nor do I mind Rhodes’s contempt for many political reporters: “Most of the outlets are reporting on world events from Washington. The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old, and their only reporting experience consists of being around political campaigns. That’s a sea change. They literally know nothing.”
But, as that quote indicates, he comes off like an overweening little schmuck. This quotation seems to capture his worldview: “He referred to the American foreign policy establishment as the Blob. According to Rhodes, the Blob includes Hillary Clinton, Robert Gates, and other Iraq-war promoters from both parties who now whine incessantly about the collapse of the American security order in Europe and the Middle East.” Blowing off Robert Gates takes nerve.
I’m consistently surprised that we haven’t yet elected someone who, on day three, says something like “Holy crap, they’ve been briefing me for the last two days and you wouldn’t *BELIEVE* the crap the last guy got away with!!!”Report
My first guess as to why that doesn’t happen is that the first person who does it will make it the norm forever more. No new weapons ever get retired after they’re used the first time, so you can be sure the next guy will stick that knife straight into your back as you walk out the door at the end of your term.
The other reason I can think of is this: Your typical ex-president is still alive. If you break the code of silence between current and past presidents, you’re making an enemy who can dump right back on you. Worse, he has plenty of media clout and a lot more time on his hands than you do, and he has a lot less to lose. I bet a really ticked off ex-president could make a ridiculous amount of trouble for his successor by stirring things up in the media if he really wanted to.Report
And that is precisely the reason there are not and never will be any serious investigations by the executive branch into its own past malfeasance. It’s an OrwellIan twist on ‘judge not lest ye be judged.’Report
You’ve forgotten the sniping which went on between Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, and Ronald Reagan. It wasn’t terribly frequent, but it went on. Obama’s and his minions are not above blaming the previous administration. Also, administration A doesn’t necessarily leave administration B much in the way of scandal that isn’t publicly known.Report
Do you have the names on the golden parachutes?
Thought not…Report
And yet that never seems to happen, which should tell you something.Report
This comes off as more about the writer then Rhodes. What is incorrect about his criticisms of political reporters. Hell that sounds right on. All they care about is horse race and political maneuvering and have no knowledge of policy or international affairs. That is a criticism that has been lobbed at the press by all sorts of people. Calling the foreign policy establishment “the blob”, umm yeah, that kind of thing is really common among experienced types in the military and state dept. In fact they are called worse.Report
Rhodes strikes me as someone who exemplifies the Administration. An articulate person whose fundamental vocation is to be part of a pr apparat. And, of course, he was quite well-connected. And deceitful.Report
That’s enough projection for a 70mm film.Report
I’m having a hard time understanding how the “advisor for strategic communication” is not supposed to be part of the PR apparat. Much of the criticism of Rhodes seems to forget this and assumes that his role is some kind of impartial fact-checker and not, you know, the president’s strategic communicator.Report
Uhhmm, I am seeing a different A-hole here, not Rhodes. In fact, the writer seems to be going out of his whay to prove Rhodes right.
Man, FP is falling as fast as everyone else.Report
Yeah, on the second part of the quoted portion Rhodes seems right on the mark. The idea that America can or should have control over everything that’s going on in different regions of the world is ridiculous and destructive, and needs to go.
If you’re under the illusion that you have or had control, then you’ll go to great lengths, damaging lengths, in order to maintain control. That’s what’s been behind many of American leaders’ decisions to invade and/or sponsor coups in other nations, with usually disastrous consequences.
From the NYT article:
Rhodes strategized and ran the successful Iran-deal messaging campaign, helped negotiate the opening of American relations with Cuba after a hiatus of more than 50 years
Okay, liking him even better now. The Iran deal and normalization of relations with Cuba were two of the most sensible foreign policy decisions the Obama Administration has made.Report
Just to be clear, this is a profile that has the following on-the-record statements:
… and Ricks thinks the worst part is an insult against Iraq war promoters? Yeah, this says a lot more about FP than it does about Rhodes.Report
Rhodes committed a huge gaffe. He told the truth.Report
For those of you interested, Jeffery Goldberg (no uber pro-Iran deal guy by any long shot) had a really blistering response to Samuels over at The Atlantic website.Report
Though Goldberg is at this point all-in in defining Obama’s foreign policy and its execution as heroically as possible – which is exactly as Rhodes would like as well.Report
Really, that’s an interesting characterization of Goldberg’s stated position re: the Iran deal.Report
That’s a statement of Goldberg’s position on the complete scope of Obama’s foreign relations posture – even if there’s quibbles in the details that Goldberg still holds onto – based on the long article that Goldberg wrote a few months ago that got widespread dissemination and conversation (including here)Report
Is goldberg actually defending The Mad Bomber?
Because that takes serious PR talent…Report
Goldberg’s response is pretty weak if you ask me. The idea that Samuels has a conflict of interest because he doesn’t *like* Goldberg (and even that’s tenuous) makes me wonder if Goldberg even understands what a COI is. Beyond that, he just signs on to the WaPo coverage that Samuels is “gross” and Rhodes is an “asshole” without a whole of substance. I’m now even more inclined to believe Rhodes, given the amount of ink that has been spilled personally attacking him and Samuels in response to the piece, as opposed to actually evaluating the veracity of his claims.
In general, the WaPo coverage has been pretty horrendous all around. Their latest nit pick is that *gasp* Samuels has been vocally against the Iran deal so what was Rhodes thinking to let an administration critic (!) actually interview him. Setting aside the weirdness of a journalist complaining about this, the White House strategy has actually been pretty transparent. Their goal is to look like the adults, and the way they do that is by (a) recruiting ostensibly adversarial journalists; (b) giving them the scoop on some minor administration screw-up (that does not harm the image); (c) pitting them against other, less savvy journalists; (d) using b+c+access to sell the larger narrative of Obama the 11-dimensional-chess player. Why, it wasn’t that long ago that Goldberg himself was shitting on other journalist while chumming it up behind closed doors:
And … wouldn’t you know it, our old friend Rhodes feeding him the perfect scene setting line.Report
There is a lot going on here, both in the Ricks piece and in the original NYT piece, but one random thing stuck out to me and I’m reminded of it by my conversation on housing on another thread:
The one luxury? I have to ask why the NYT wants to pretend that a 2-br apartment in the District or even the sort of daycare that an upper-middle class couple is likely to use isn’t a luxury. And yes, it’s a rhetorical question.Report
But he said it was modest and unpretentions, jr, did you miss that? He was also wearing a simple Armani suit, with just the hint of a Rolex watch modestly peaking out from below the cuff.Report