Redstate

Hint: it will not be Barack Obama.

By Moe Lane Posted in 2008 — Comments (16) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

You do not have to be an Obama supporter to recognize a hit piece against him, particularly when it gets it out of the way early:

Obama to Urge Elimination of World’s Nuclear Weapons
By JEFF ZELENY

WASHINGTON, Oct. 1 — Senator Barack Obama will propose on Tuesday setting a goal of eliminating all nuclear weapons in the world, saying the United States should greatly reduce its stockpiles to lower the threat of nuclear terrorism, aides say.

(bolding mine, but I suspect that Mr. Zeleny circled that passage with red ink and a scrawled "Has to stay in." Or whatever the modern equivalent would be.)

You do have to be an Obama supporter to achieve more than a certain detached tut-tuttery about the whole thing, but that's a different issue.

Read on.

The article is really kind of amusing, given that it goes to some trouble to preemptively deflate what the Senator probably hoped would be a strong policy speech on nuclear issues. Some highlights:

* Senator Obama wants to greatly reduce our stockpiles... and the NYT helpfully points out that the Bush administration is reporting accelerated efforts to do just that, with stockpiles already slated to be cut in half by 2012.

* Senator Obama's early opposition to the war is mentioned... and the NYT helpfully points out that he hopes to have this emphasized over the amount of time that he's been a Senator.

* Senator Obama says that we "should not threaten terrorist training camps with nuclear weapons." I wasn't aware that he was in fact making this argument, until the NYT took the time to helpfully point this out to me*.

* Senator Obama wants to stop production of American nuclear weapons and make the existing ones not ready to be launched at a moment's notice. The NYT took pity on him for that one and didn't say anything, but I won't: that last is a damfool idea, Sparky. In case you haven't quite noticed, the country that we primarily built those stockpiles up for in the first place isn't exactly a paragon of predictability and hard common sense. I'm not quite ready to tell them that we've decided not to get MAD at them if they go squirrelly on us.

* Senator Obama wants to use "diplomacy and pressure" to stop Iran's and North Korea's nuclear programs. The NYT helpfully notes that his aides had no answer to the question of what happens if that strategy doesn't work.

* And, oh, yes, this was the subtle one, and it only works in the online version: Senator Obama's apparently basing this off of an initiative by several former government officials who wrote some commentary in the WSJ last January. Fine, as far as it goes. Does the NYT link to the article? Nope. Does it list the officials? Yup. Does it link the officials' names? Only Henry Kissenger's.

Not that it all really matters. The first sentence was the killer. I'd say "unfair," except that even when you rewrite it to mean "Obama wants to have the US do these things to help other countries to reduce the threat of nuclear terrorism" it's still, well, incorrect. To use an analogy that either Niven or Pournelle once used: I can't quit your smoking for you. Even if I smoke. Analogy breaks down right after that - unless I'm smoking out of self defense of your smoking - but you get the point.

Now, I'm under no illusion that this hit piece was done to make me happy. Indeed, my happiness is an unfortunate by-product. I don't know whether the NYT has officially endorsed Hillary Clinton yet, but the odds of them not doing so are, well, low. I'm not saying that there's anything official going on, but the narrative's the narrative, and Obama's doesn't have the starring role.

I was going to finish it there, but it occurs to me: an Obama supporter may be reading this, and may be wondering what the Senator can do to counteract this problem. The short answer?

Nothing.

Moe

*I'm sure that's going to play very well with the people who thought that, say, Tora Bora would have looked much better after a tactical nuclear weapon was set off in the middle of it.