So I have 8000000000000 things to do right now, but I’m going to take just a moment to comment on something because I think it’s important to note.
The New Yorker’s Obama endorsement makes many excellent points. You should read it. But to my mind, the most important point it made was this one:
Although his opponents have tried to attack him as a man of “mere” words, Obama has returned eloquence to its essential place in American politics. The choice between experience and eloquence is a false one––something that Lincoln, out of office after a single term in Congress, proved in his own campaign of political and national renewal. Obama’s “mere” speeches on everything from the economy and foreign affairs to race have been at the center of his campaign and its success; if he wins, his eloquence will be central to his ability to govern.
See, the presidency is largely a symbolic office. Congress is the body that’s going to have to actually make and pass these tax cuts and health care policies–all the president can do is encourage and sign. One of the reasons I was an early Obama supporter was that he seemed to have a much better grasp of and less warmongering slant on foreign relations. And foreign relations are carried out by, yes, talking. Words. Speeches.
There’s a huge place for performative language in all of this. Timothy Cook outlines this whole process expertly in Governing With the News. The president makes a speech, and policy changes. Need an example? Remember the “Axis of Evil” comment, and how suddenly after that we seem to be dealing with North Korea and Iran increasing their nuclear capacities?
Every time the president makes a speech, it is news. Even now, when the candidates make a speech, it is news. That news gets carried not just to voters, but to other countries and other governments. The reason McCain keeps harping not on Obama’s willingness to go into Pakistan in search of Bin Laden, but his willingness to talk about it, is that he knows that by making a statement the president has to back it up.
A popular president’s speeches could buoy Wall Street just by pledging support; it is a measure of Bush’s lame duckitude that he can’t. Any president can screw foreign policy up majorly just by mistaking the names of countries or leaders; just ask Richard Nixon about Mauritius and Mauritania.
The president has to know when to speak and when to shut up, what to say and what not to say, and yes, be willing to talk to other leaders. Talk doesn’t prevent action, or require some sort of soul-selling to Ahmadinejad like McCain seems to think it does. But it does indeed have an effect on what happens.
So having a president who is a man of “mere” words, as opposed to one who regularly mistakes one country for another (or one Supreme Court Justice for another–ask Justice Breyer if he’s slightly insulted at being confused with Alito this morning) is actually rather important when you think about it.
And after watching those debates, which candidate do YOU think is more likely to shoot himself in the foot while attempting diplomacy, whether it’s face to face or through the press?
I just pray that Obama can inspire more hope than hate.
RE: Sarah J’s remarks, “See, the Presidency is largely a symbolic office. Congress … [etc.],” and also on Bush’s “Axis of Evil” comment and its supposed effect on Iran and North Korea.
Were you being sarcastic when you called the Presidency “largely a symbolic office”? If not, you should know that the President routinely originates legislation and sends proposed drafts to Congress, has power of appointment in Federal courts and executive agencies (even if some of these appointments are subject to Senate approval — and Presidential appointments during Congressional recess can help the President evade the need for Senate approval), has powers of patronage when Federal agencies award contract, has the power to pardon those convicted in Federal courts, and, above all, has the veto power over Congressional legislation. The President also has the power to withhold security clearance from individual members of Congress when such members petition certain Federal departments or agencies for classified information, and, since Federal agencies classify information as “high-security” without Congressional oversight but under the supervision of the President, the President thus has the power to control the flow of information to Congress.
The U.S. Constitution as well makes it clear that the Presidency is far more than “largely a symbolic office.” In fact, the U.S. Constitution entrusts the executive branch with the making of foreign policy, subject mostly to the Senate’s power to declare war, to withhold approval of formal treaties, and to the power of both houses of Congress to withhold funding for specific current or proposed operations of the Federal government (like current military campaigns).
Otherwise the celebrated “checks and balances” between the executive, legislative, and judicial branches wouldn’t be effective.
In fact, the concern since 1945 has been that Congress has been reduced to a nullity in the making and carrying out of foreign policy, since all wars fought by the U.S. since World War II have been undeclared wars. There is also concern that, starting with the World War II and the Cold War, the powers of the Executive Branch have expanded beyond the limits intended by the authors of the Constitution.
Perhaps you meant that the Presidency has ‘large’ powers of symbolism or the power to project symbols overseas. That’s true, but that’s not the same thing as the office itself being “largely symbolic.”
On Bush’s “Axis of Evil” speech: The North Korean and Iranian nuclear programs predate Bush’s “Axis of Evil” speech. Perhaps, when you said Iran and N. Korea “increased their nuclear capacities,” you meant that they stepped up their previously-begun efforts to produce nuclear weapons.
In fact, although Bush’s “Axis of Evil” speech did enrage the Iranian ‘man in the street,’ I don’t think there’s any evidence that the three governments themselves which were named as part of the “Axis of Evil” changed their policies in response to the speech itself. If anyone needs to correct me on this, please feel free to do so.
The governments that were indeed negatively affected by Bush’s various speeches were our allies in NATO and the EU. Bush’s deliberate arrogance and tactlessness, expressed in his speeches, did in fact antagonize European governments and made negotiations with them more difficult. So you’re right that Bush’s speeches have made a difference in foreign policy, only not, in my opinion, the differences that you mentioned.
But again, the Presidency is far, far more than “largely symbolic,” and the President’s actual executive power in the making and carrying out of policy carries far more weight than any symbolism conveyed by his speeches. That fact doesn’t necessarily contradict the general point of your post, but it needs to be acknowledged when talking about the power of the President’s words, whether in public speeches or personal diplomacy.
One further point about the power of the symbolism conveyed by an American President’s speeches:
Presidential speeches, especially those concerning foreign policy issues, probably have a greater impact on democratically-elected foreign governments than on non-democratic governments. That’s partly because voters in democratic countries are affected by the public language of foreign leaders as such language is reported by the local media, and democratic governments are ultimately accountable to their voters and bear that accountability in mind.
Democratic governments also take public communications more seriously, on the assumption that democratic leaders, when making speeches about foreign policy, are not only implicitly talking to foreign governments but also explicitly to voters at home and are making speeches that have been tailored, in varying degrees, for voter approval, and can to that degree reveal the actual intentions of the leader making the speech.
Nondemocratic governments, because they’re not accountable to voters at home, don’t necessarily outline their actual intentions in their own public speechmaking, and often assume that democratic leaders follow a similar strategy. So nondemocratic governments most frequently take a wait-and-see attitude toward U.S. Presidential speeches on foreign policy, whereas foreign democratic governments take U.S. Presidential speeches more seriously.
Sorry for the verbosity of both of my comments. Sarah J’s post provoked a lot of thought.
Thanks for the history lesson, but yes, I am aware of all of that.
And still, the office of the presidency has swelled in power in recent years, and I might even argue if I had the time that that has something to do with media focus on the presidency. Or with FDR and the New Deal, but that’s another story.
Still, the presidency is the symbol for America that other countries look at. The president, not Congress, is the figurehead and the one who, if he says something stupid, arrogant, or belligerent, is going to piss off other leaders.
And presidential speeches probably do the most to affect countries like Iran where our diplomatic relations are strained at best, because there aren’t other means of communicating “What the president really meant when he said X.” Democratic or nondemocratic, if what you’ve got to base your relationship with a country on is what its leader says in public about you, you’re going to react.
Iran’s government was not concerned with the reaction of its people when it ramped up nuclear programs. Instead, it was concerned with getting nukes before we could nuke them–deterrence.
As far as Iran’s nuclear program goes, perhaps you also saw the NIE that pointed out that Iran had not had a nuclear weapons program?
Also, the president’s ability to get the laws he proposes passed has much to do with his popularity and positioning–you need look no further than the drama over the bailout bill to see this. And the president’s popularity has to do with the image he projects to the public, as well as his actions. Despite Clinton’s impeachment, his approval ratings remained high.
With low approval ratings, Bush is able to get almost nothing done. Without a sympathetic Congress, Clinton was able to get almost nothing done–except foreign conflicts. So yes, the president can influence the legislative branch, but nothing says they have to listen to him.
And once again, being able to communicate with the public is a great way to keep your approval ratings and votes for your party’s congresspeople high. Which translates to getting laws passed.
Very quick responses to the points just made by Sarah J:
RE: December 2007 NIE report — Please see the January 2008 online article by Phillip H. Gordon entitled “The Iran Nuclear Program After the National Intelligence Estimate,” found on the Brookings Institute website at http://www.brookings.edu/opinions.
Gordon says that the December 2007 NIE report, besides defining Iran’s “nuclear weapons program” too narrowly, did confirm that until 2003 Iran was actively and illegally working on a nuclear warhead design. Gordon’s article is informative.
RE: Iranian government listening to U.S. Presidential speeches as a source of insight into prospective U.S. policy toward Iran — Iran actually does have additional, official U.S. sources for insight into prospective U.S. policy toward Iran. Although diplomatic relations between the U.S. and Iran have indeed been strained since 1979, both the U.S. and Iran have maintained what are called “interest sections” in Washington and Tehran. The U.S. interest section in Tehran is housed in the Swiss embassy; the Iranian interest section in Washington is housed in the Pakistani embassy. Although, formally, an “interest section” or “interests section” deals only with a government’s “interests” in a country with which it does not have formal diplomatic relations, such interest sections are places where diplomatic contacts can be maintained without attracting public notice. For example, since the U.S. maintains its Iranian interest section in the Swiss embassy in Tehran, the Swiss have repeatedly arranged supposedly low-level contacts between U.S. and Iranian officials in locations in Europe. In June 2008, the U.S. announced that it would not rule out establishing an interest section under its own flag in Tehran, and within hours the Iranian government responded that it was receptive to the idea (see article by David Gollust of the U.S. State Department entitled, “U.S. Considers Opening Interest Section in Tehran,” 24 June 2008, found on the Voice of America website at http://voanews.com.) That U.S. plan to open its own interest section in Iran was temporarily shelved by 4 October 2008.
For a timeline of contacts between the U.S. and Iranian governments since 1979, see the article by Lionel Beehner entitled “TimeLine: U.S.-Iran Contacts” on the Council on Foreign Relations’ website at ww.cfr.org/publication/12806. As Beehner’s article indicates, the U.S. has repeatedly squandered opportunities to respond positively whenever the Iranian government indicates that it is interested in thawing the official U.S.-Iranian relationship.
So, for the above reasons, Iran’s sources for official info about U.S. policy are not limited to Presidential speeches, and in fact, nondemocratic governments routinely regard U.S. Presidential speeches about their specific governments as propaganda tailored for domestic U.S. consumption, and specifically for the consumption of interest groups in the U.S.
I’m not trying to be quarrelsome here. As both your original post and response to comments explain, an articulate, eloquent U.S. President can, through his public speeches and other public statements (as in press conferences), have a dramatic impact on public opinion both in the U.S. and overseas. But such impact on public opinion affects only those foreign governments who themselves feel obliged to accommodate public opinion in their own countries.
Iran’s government, at least as regards Iran’s foreign policy and especially its policy toward the U.S., does not feel it needs to accommodate Iranian public opinion. Journalists inside Iran report that the Iranian public, while it mostly supports Iran’s nuclear program (although not necessarily nuclear weapons), does not support what it perceives as Iran’s unnecessarily belligerent attitude toward the U.S. But, since the Iranian government while shaping foreign policy can safely ignore Iranian public opinion, can continue to make foreign policy based largely on what the U.S. actually does in the Middle East rather than on public statements by U.S. politicians, which the mullahs think are largely tailored for interest groups in the U.S. (such as AIPAC), anyway, rather than serious policy statements directed toward foreign governments.
But again, I’m not trying to be argumentative here. Your basic point that an eloquent, articulate U.S. President can have a dramatic impact on public opinion is indisputable. G. W. Bush’s crippled inarticulateness and the consistent belligerence of his rhetoric have, along with his catastrophic policies, turned public opinion against him both in the U.S. and around the globe. In countries where public opinion counts for something in shaping official foreign policy, Bush’s godawful inability to communicate is known to have been counterproductive for the U.S. But in countries where public opinion has minimal impact on official foreign policy, the governments will look more at what a U.S. administration actually does and less at the text of a President’s public statements.
As to the impact of a President’s eloquence in maintaining approval ratings and thus impacting his ability to get laws passed in Congress, that’s true only to a very limited extent. Clinton’s high domestic approval ratings, like Bush’s abysmally low domestic approval ratings, were and are due more to how the U.S. public perceived each President’s policies as improving or worsening their own personal lives, and less to the President’s effectiveness as a speaker.
Bill Clinton was then and remains now a charismatic and effective speaker. But his approval ratings were due to the fact that his policies were almost uniformly successful and were perceived as such by the American public, particularly Clinton’s successful deficit reduction policy and his largely benign foreign policy overseas. Americans were deeply grateful for the prosperity of the Clinton years and for his enhancement of America’s stature around the globe, not only through his rhetoric, but through his effective foreign policy.
Similarly, in July 1992, President George H. W. Bush (Bush Senior) enjoyed a 91% approval rating due to what the American public perceived as his successful conclusion of the first Gulf War — despite the fact that George H. W. Bush was consistently a depressingly inarticulate public speaker and known for his personal “negative charisma” in his efforts at communicating with the U.S. public. But as soon as the U.S. economy started to slip into recession in August-September 1992, Bush Senior’s approval ratings collapsed, because Bush’s policies were seen as partly to blame for the recession (including Bush’s tax increases). At this point, Bill Clinton’s personal charisma and consistent articulateness did serve Clinton well on campaign. But it was the recession that mostly caused Bush’s low approval ratings and electoral defeat, not his predictable inarticulateness. And even with the recession, in 1992 Bill Clinton did not win by a landslide, despite his eloquence.
So where public opinion counts, a President’s eloquence and skill in talking to the public, since it can impact public opinion, can help boost his approval ratings. But a President’s domestic approval ratings are caused more by how the public perceives that his policies are affecting their personal lives, regardless of his eloquence or the lack of it.
It’s still certainly true that Obama’s effectiveness as a public speaker will be a huge improvement over the current occupant of the White House. But if Obama’s policies during his administration are perceived by the public as worsening their personal lives, his approval ratings will drop, and his articulateness, at that point, won’t increase public trust in him by very much, if at all.
Thanks for what is still a great column, and thank you also for taking the time to respond to my first two comments. We all actually do appreciate your interest in U.S. politics and your efforts to explain how politicians’ public communications affect their relationships with the American public and with entities overseas. I happen to disagree with some points raised in your original post here, but we all hope you will continue your columns on U.S. politics and public communications.
While I appreciate your thoughtful comments as well, who are the “we all” that you purport to speak for?
RE: “we all”
By “we all,” I meant the readers of this blog as well as the readers of Global Comment.
I wrote that last paragraph very hastily and I probably should have chosen my words more carefully. But I hope I can speak for the readers of this blog and of Global Comment when that “we” do look forward to reading more of your columns on politics and public communication.
Correction: “when that ‘we’ …” should read:
“when I SAY that ‘we’ …”