Shortly after President Obama delivered his prepared remarks on the beheading of U.S. journalist James Foley, he made his way to a nearby golf course, a decision that left supporters and critics alike questioning his judgement.
Indeed, considering that Obama’s somber statement came shortly following the release of a video depicting Foley’s death at the hands of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, the optics of the president grinning, “fist bumping” and playing golf with his friends seemed wholly inappropriate.
So, NBC News’ Chuck Todd, the newly appointed host of “Meet the Press,” took the opportunity to ask the president about the much-criticized golf outing in an interview that aired Sunday.
“I’ve got to ask, so during that vacation, you made the statement on Foley, you went and golfed. Do you want that back?” Todd said.
The president responded: “[T]he possibility of a jarring contrast given the world’s news, there’s always going to be some tough news somewhere, it’s going to be there. But there’s no doubt that after having talked to the families, where it was hard for me to hold back tears listening to the pain that they were going through after the statement that I made, that I should’ve anticipated the optics. That’s part of the job. And I think everybody who knows me, including, I suspect, the press, understands that you take this stuff in and it’s serious business. And you care about it deeply. But part of this job is also the theater of it.”
“[I]t’s not something that always comes naturally to me. But it matters. And I’m mindful of that,” he added.
The president’s remarks present two issues worth examining:
First, he says political theater doesn’t come naturally to him. To this point: Yes, Obama has experienced some serious missteps in recent months. But the idea that the 44th President of the United States is somehow uncomfortable with or befuddled by political theater is both absurd and laughable.
Remember, the man who said Sunday that political theater doesn’t always come to him “naturally” is the same man who stood flanked on both sides by giant plywood Greek columns before a crowd of 80,000 adoring supporters in 2008 and promised to usher in the age of the politics of hope.
This is the same man who stood surrounded in the White House by doctors in white coats to make a major health care announcement, as if they had just rushed to the Rose Garden for Obama’s remarks and were not invited earlier to act as an authoritative presence at an official government presser.
This is the same president who has made it a staple of his public addresses to appear in front of living, breathing human shields, a sympathetic backdrop of supporters whom he could call on in his never-ending bid to demand action from Congress.
Yes, the president “gets” political theater. In 2014, the president can’t exactly claim that he’s a naïve novice who’s just figuring it out.
The president’s entire commentary on his post-Foley behavior — at the very root of it — is insulting.
This is more or less what the president said: I’m sorry that you’re offended.
Rather than take the opportunity to apologize to Foley’s family and the American people for what appeared to be gruesomely callous behavior, the president merely explained it away by essentially saying, “I forgot you all were watching.”
Obviously, this is not an apology. This isn’t an excuse or an explanation. He doesn’t even agree that it was callous or tone deaf. He’s just sorry that you caught him.
The only thing that’s missing is an eye-roll.
