Experts: Obama needs to watch the gaffes
By Bridget Johnson
Posted: 03/30/09 07:40 AM [ET]
Instant Internet communication and an explosion in political commentary are magnifying President Obama's gaffes and administration missteps, and could erode his popularity faster than that of other presidents, say experts from both left and right.
Intense scrutiny and rookie mistakes by an understaffed administration combine to draw attention faster to Obama's stumbles.
Last week was notable for budget battles and a new Afghanistan strategy, rather than for headline-hogging gaffes, although the president didn't escape a few media jeers for his reliance on a giant TV screen in place of his trademark teleprompter to feed him his lines at Tuesday's primetime press conference.
His careful responses to reporters' questions, in an appearance that many commentators branded as boring, didn't wander into such hot-button territory as he found himself in the previous week when he told Jay Leno on "The Tonight Show" that his bowling skills were akin to those of the Special Olympics.
Obama swiftly apologized for the line, with many of those condemning the quip adding the caveat that they didn't think Obama spoke out of meanness toward the disabled.
But presidential experts from the right and left who spoke with The Hill said that if gaffes keep adding up, Obama may be damaged by incidents ranging from a foot in the mouth to a protocol faux pas.
"Gaffes do shape the public perception of the president because the mistakes that one makes reveal how you think and what you're doing," said Darrell M. West, vice president and director of Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution. "Ultimately, that can add up to an unfavorable public profile."
Lee Edwards of the Heritage Foundation, who has written biographies of President Reagan and Barry Goldwater, said Obama has the age of YouTube, Facebook and Twitter working against him even as the information-age media invaluably assisted his campaign.
"Because we're in the age of constant communication, the age of 24/7 news, gaffes, mistakes and missteps are seen, heard and repeated much more quickly," Edwards said.
"Anything you say spreads instantly around the world," said West. "There's no information lag. Everybody has incredible access to information, so the news cycle is much faster and it's less forgiving."
Obama began collecting unfavorable headlines and blogosphere chatter on the campaign trail as soon as he began his race for the White House, when in February 2007 he apologized for saying that the Iraq war had "seen over 3,000 lives of the bravest young Americans wasted." Obama later said, "Even as I said it, I realized I had misspoken."
In April 2008 he said that small-town Pennsylvanians "get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations." His challenger for the Democratic nomination, Hillary Rodham Clinton, seized on the ensuing outcry, saying, "Pennsylvanians don't need a president who looks down on them. They need a president who stands up for them, who fights for them."
Then, at a press availability a month later, Obama called a Detroit television reporter "sweetie," apologizing afterward and saying the terminology was a "bad habit" of his. He had earlier called an autograph-seeker "sweetie" on a campaign stop.
After winning the presidency, Obama, during his first news conference, said that he had spoken to all living presidents since his election, adding, "I didn't want to get into a Nancy Reagan thing about, you know, doing any seances." Reagan, who had previously consulted an astrologer, received an apology call from Obama.
The presidential gaffes fall into two categories: personal and protocol. The personal include the Special Olympics remark, saying that bailed-out businesses shouldn't be going to Las Vegas (which prompted a downturn in convention bookings and an angry Vegas mayor) and laughing and smiling while talking about serious subjects in a manner that prompted "60 Minutes" host Steve Kroft to ask recently if Obama was "punch-drunk."
Protocol gaffes would include the lack of a flag-adorned press conference for British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and his gift of a DVD set that wasn't even programmed to play in the U.K. which drew heaps of criticism in the British press, and bumping Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's visit to the previous weekend so Obama could fete St. Patrick's Day with the Irish prime minister, making Latin America look second-fiddle.
Other headlining protocol incidents have included Obama recently receiving his Newsmaker of the Year award from the National Newspaper Publishers Association in a White House ceremony that was closed to the media, and Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R) not being invited to the presidential town-hall meeting earlier this month in his own Costa Mesa, Calif., district.
The presidential experts don't believe that Obama has been more gaffe-prone than his predecessors. "Most presidents make rookie mistakes because everything they say is going to be newsworthy, and even prominent individuals get surprised by that," West said.
"Every president coming in flubs stuff ... but they're not so widely discussed as they are today," said Edwards.
"We've always had a honeymoon in this country and a new president is supposed to be given six months, maybe even a little bit longer, where he got acclimated," he added. "But again, because we're in a 24/7 news cycle and we've got a crisis, the honeymoon has shrunk."
West said that crisis makes or breaks Obama's honeymoon period. "I think the length of the honeymoon is going to depend entirely on the economy," he said. "Voters are bottom-line-oriented and they will judge the president based on performance."
Edwards said Obama is being subjected to a level of scrutiny at the two-month point that previous presidents have received several months into their terms.
But Edwards said the information age highlights the lack of executive experience that Obama brought into office.
Citing presidents who came into office with experience running a war, like President Eisenhower, or a state, like President Reagan, Edwards said the inexperience of the administration as a whole shows. "His staff should have protected the president better [against gaffes] than they have," he said, "but they also, like the president himself, don't have that much experience in running [a government at the executive level].
"I think his staff is completely overworked," West said. "They've had problems filling all of the open positions, they're facing enormous policy challenges, so the stakes are much higher."
Some of the vacancies have been higher-profile than others, with the slim Treasury staffing especially glaring in light of the economic crisis.
Ironically, a tool that Obama keeps at the ready to avoid verbal missteps the teleprompter has quickly become a running gag, with a popular blog launched pretending to be the voice of Obama's omnipresent teleprompter. This might not play against a politician, except for the fact that Obama was praised as a great orator on the campaign trail by right and left.
Reliance on the teleprompter, said West, goes against perceptions that Obama's speeches come naturally. "That could be damaging to him, because being a great speaker is central to his political persona," he said. "People don't like to look behind the veil and see what's actually there."
Noting Reagan's reliance on note cards, Edwards said the teleprompter was a new factor in presidential assessment. "It's just strange," he said. "We haven't been able to figure out why he's so dependent on it, because he's a really intelligent guy.
"If you start linking this with everything else then you begin to wonder: Is he really up to the job? Does he have the necessary experience?" Edwards added. "It could begin to raise serious questions. It hasn't yet."
When the gaffes come together, the early days of Obama's term reveal a new, harsh spotlight being shone on the Oval Office, where every misstep spreads across the Web within seconds and is relentlessly dissected on blogs and news sites.
"If you look at public opinion polls, he's still doing well," West said. "He has to avoid making mistakes otherwise that number's going to come down.
"With a gaffe it always depends on how seriously people take it," West added. "But if you keep making gaffes, eventually it adds up."
