Remember the ad Hillary Clinton ran against Barack Obama during the 2008 campaign?
“It’s 3 a.m. and your children are safe and asleep,” it began. “But there’s a phone in the White House and it’s ringing. Something’s happening in the world.
“Your vote will decide who answers that call. Whether it’s someone who already knows the world’s leaders, knows the military, someone tested and ready to lead in a dangerous world . . . Who do you want answering the phone?”
Now we know the answer: neither of the above.
Since the winds — and fires — of change began to sweep North Africa two months ago, first in Tunisia, then in Egypt and now in Libya, the Obama administration has distinguished itself by its utter ineptitude in dealing with what is both a crisis and a historic opportunity to change the governments and the culture of the Arab world.
The intelligence community failed to see the revolutions coming. The president adopted a strangely dispassionate, disinterested stance — hanging his spokesmen, both in the White House and at the State Department, out to dry.
“The president puts out statements on paper sometimes,” said new White House Press Secretary Jay Carney last week, in reply to a reporter’s question about what was taking Obama so long to weigh in on Libya. Carney also blamed a “scheduling issue” for the lack of a rapid response.
Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton — “someone tested and ready to lead in a dangerous world” — came off like she’d literally woken up at 3 a.m. and stumbled out to face the cameras armed only with a mouthful of platitudes. Sounding more like a grief counselor than secretary of state, she said:
“The world is watching the situation in Libya with alarm. We join the international community in strongly condemning the violence in Libya. Our thoughts and prayers are with those whose lives have been lost, and with their loved ones . . . We are working urgently with friends and partners around the world to convey this message to the Libyan government.”
The Maria Dolores, a US chartered ferry hired to evacuate American citizens from Tripoli to Malta, was too small to sail in rough seas and had to delay its departure. To add insult to injury, the White House even misspelled the name of the country as “Lybia” on Twitter.
And UN ambassador Susan Rice? She blew off a Security Council meeting on the Libyan crisis in order to attend a UN panel discussion on “global sustainability” in South Africa. The Roxy had better amateur nights than this.
Once again, President “Present” has signally failed to lead, preferring instead to hide behind a fog of “consultations with allies.” True, on Saturday he finally — in a phone call to German Chancellor Angela Merkel — called for Khadafy to step down, and also took diplomatic action against the beleaguered regime, issuing an executive order that blocks property and other transactions.
Insiders say that Obama hesitated to take a public stand against the doomed dictator for fear that US diplomats might be taken hostage. But a great power can’t conduct a robust foreign policy in fear; that way lies the path of Jimmy Carter, whom Obama is coming more and more to resemble. As Christopher Hitchens pointed out recently, America is starting to look like Switzerland in its international irrelevance. Is that what Obama meant by “fundamental change”?
There are only two explanations. Either the White House, Langley and Foggy Bottom really are staffed by blithering incompetents, hopelessly out of their depth and unable to deal with the rapid pace of developments, or Obama is doing exactly what he wants to do — which is basically nothing.
So now we know where Obama is at 3 a.m. A pretty speech here, a basketball game there, another round of golf, another costly vacation and the endless whirl of White House parties take a lot out of a guy.
After Mao defeated Chiang Kai-Shek in 1949, the cry went up: “Who lost China?” Scholars are still arguing about that one, but when the question arises, “Who lost North Africa?” we’ll all know exactly where to look.
Michael Walsh, a former Time as sociate editor, is the author (writing as David Kahane) of “Rules for Radical Conservatives.”