Democrats' worst nightmare: Terrorism on their watch

HAT TIP: Politico

By BEN SMITH & CAROL E. LEE

From the time he launched his campaign for president three years ago, Barack Obama had to consider how he would react to the first serious act of terrorism during the campaign, or if he won, on his watch. His fellow Democrats had been thinking about the moment even longer - since the September day in 2001 when attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon defined George W. Bush's presidency and gave Republicans a decisive advantage on a defining political issue.

And yet the White House's response to last week's attempt to blow up a Northwest Airlines flight to Detroit could rank as one of the low points of the new president's first year. Over the course of five days, Obama's Obama' reaction ranged from low-keyed to reassuring to, finally, a vow to find out what went wrong. The episode was a baffling, unforced error in presidential symbolism, hardly a small part of the presidency, and the moment at which yet another of the old political maxims that Obama had sought to transcend – the Democrats' vulnerability on national security – reasserted itself.

"The presidency is sometimes about symbolism and not just substance," said Bob Shrum, who help craft Senator John Kerry's response to the late-October message from Osama bin Laden that was a pivotal point in the 2004 campaign – and learned a painful lesson in the uneven political playing field on the question of terrorism, at least at that time.

"Kerry reacted perfectly, but it probably cost us the election," said Shrum, who said he thought Obama had effectively changed course after his aides' overconfident appearance on the Sunday shows following the attempted attack.

Obama's campaign was intensely familiar with the danger a potential terror incident posed to any Democratic candidate, and all the more to one who lacked Kerry's military service and foreign policy experience. They did everything they could to compensate with a high-profile Senate focus on nuclear disarmament and a set of graybeard validators to vouch for Obama's readiness to lead.

A terror attack during the 2008 campaign, allies and former aides said, would have drawn a response similar to the posture he eventually took toward the financial crisis, one drawn from "Obama's DNA," in the words of an ally: To put politics aside, stand with the sitting president and to, ultimately, appear presidential.

The attack never came. Terrorism virtually disappeared as an issue, despite the best efforts of Obama's opponent, Republican Sen. John McCain, who had a distinct advantage over Obama on the issue because of his military experience. And Obama aced the politics of the campaign's sole public crisis – the financial meltdown of September 2008 – projecting concern and solidarity, acting – as his advisers were at pains to point out – like a president should.

As president, Obama has been criticized by the left for adapting many Bush administration policies – on Iraq, Afghanistan, surveillance and secret detention. But when finally forced to confront national security situations directly, from a restive Iran to a near-miss attack, Obama's characteristic caution has appeared tentative, and the vacuum he left was filled by a political food fight between Congressional Republicans and Democrats and, ultimately, his staff.

His staff's first statement, released after Obama, vacationing in Hawaii, was informed of the news three hours after the suspect was taken into custody, was merely that the president was "closely monitoring" the situation and stressed that his schedule would not change.

The next day his aides informed reporters that he was continuing to receive updates from his top national security advisers and began to set the stage for press secretary Robert Gibbs to announce on the Sunday morning talk shows that Obama had ordered reviews of the terrorist watch-list system and airport security procedures.

But on Sunday Gibbs and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano also sought to reassure the traveling public that – despite questions about how the suspect had boarded the plane – the system of responding to a possible attack had "worked" after the fact. It was an understandable tone of reassurance for a country on the move because of the holidays. "Imagine if the president had freaked out," the White House ally said, suggesting a dramatic Obama reaction could have provoked chaos in the air travel system.

But that was the moment when some Democrats began to grow concerned about the White House's strategy.

The muted response, allies said, was aimed at denying al Qaeda a propaganda victory, and at demonstrating how little the terrorists can now disrupt Americans' lives. "The president and his team have done a good job at handling the situation given the competing interests at play. He's been forceful without the bellicose chest bumping of the last administration," said Jim Manley, the chief spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. "One thing he's got going for him is Republicans have no credibility on this issue when their sending out former Vice President Cheney you know they've hit the bottom of the barrel."

Still, the response failed to reckon with the intense public interest in a story of repeated government failures and a near-fatal attack. Not to mention that Americans and flight crews were on edge – as evidenced in the detainment of a man who was in an airplane bathroom for too long and who authorities released once they learned he was just a businessman who'd gotten ill. The White House, already feeling heat for its Christmas Day response, had a spokesman quickly issue a statement when the man was taken into custody.

In Obama's effective absence, Republicans began sharply attacking the administration, producing a partisan stand-off critics say could have been avoided.

"They should have approached it as a national security emergency requiring a bipartisan response, not a political response," said Doug Schoen, a pollster who worked for President Bill Clinton in the 1990s. "He absolutely should have interrupted his vacation and absolutely should have gone back to Washington, and convened a high-level, bipartisan meeting."

White House aides have repeatedly said there was never any discussion about Obama returning to Washington. Because of secure communications systems and by staff he brought with him to Hawaii, including his National Security chief of staff, he was perfectly able to stay on top of the situation from his vacation home in Kailua.

Aides also say Obama wouldn't necessarily be working more on the issue if he were back in Washington. Yet they made a point of announcing Thursday that he will hold a high-level Situation Room meeting with Cabinet secretaries and top intelligence and security officials on Tuesday, the day after he's expected to return. It's a meeting aimed at projecting his concern with the situation and insistence that it not recur.

But the listlessness of an initial response remains a puzzle, coming as it did during the same week Obama rushed off of the golf course in the middle of a game, his presidential motorcade screaming down a Hawaii highway at top speed to deliver one of his golf partners to the house where the friend's son had cut his chin on a surfboard.

Explanations of Obama's low-key reaction in the face of a terror attack include the characteristic caution of a president who resists jumping to conclusions and being pushed to action. They also include the White House's belief – disproven repeatedly in 2009 – that it can evade the clichéd rules of politics, which include a suspicion of Democratic leadership on national security. Only Sunday night, when criticism of the system "worked" comment was not going away, did White House aides realize their approach was not working and that they needed to shift course.

Others note that Obama does not like to interrupt his vacations, and that this isn't the first time his preference for staying in Hawaii – a hard place for a quick round-trip flight – has cost him politically. In 1999, as an up-and-coming Illinois senator, he challenged Rep. Bobby Rush in a Democrat primary race that came to focus tightly on gun violence after Rush's son was shot.

Obama, in Hawaii, missed a key vote on state gun control legislation in the state legislature, and wrote an unusually defensive column in the Hyde Park Herald defending his missed vote.

"Unfortunately, on Monday, December 27 — during an extremely short trip to visit my grandmother — my 18 month-old daughter Malia came down with the flu. By Tuesday, my daughter was feeling worse. I discussed the situation with my wife, and we determined that it was not advisable to take an eight-hour, red-eye flight back to Chicago with a sick baby. I also decided that I could not leave my wife alone with my daughter without knowing the seriousness of the baby's condition, and without knowing whether they might be able to get a flight out of Hawaii before New Year's Day" he wrote.

"I take my responsibilities as a parent very seriously. We hear a lot to talk from politicians about the importance of family values. Hopefully, you will understand when your stale senator tries to live up to those values as best he can."

Nobody really did. Obama was pilloried for missing the vote, and Rush crushed him in the primary, the only defeat of the future president's political career.

Ten years later, once again in Hawaii, Obama has not shown any public defensiveness about the growing chorus of critics. Indeed the only instance in which he addressed the criticism in the two five-minute statements he has delivered since the attempted attack occurred was to defend Napolitano. In his first statement, however, he made the case for not paying the attempted suicide bomber too much mind.

"The American people should remain vigilant, but also be confident," Obama said December 28. "Those plotting against us seek not only to undermine our security, but also the open society and the values that we cherish as Americans. This incident, like several that have preceded it demonstrates that an alert and courageous citizenry are far more resilient than an isolated extremist."

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