Having Said That ...
From the strength of Kamala Harris's polling lead to her foreign policy acumen, I contain multitudes.
I’m Michael A. Cohen, and this is Truth and Consequences: A no-holds-barred look at the absurdities, hypocrisies, and surreality. If you were sent this email or are a free subscriber and would like to become a paid subscriber, you can sign up here.
If money is tight or you’re already up to eyeballs in subscriptions, here’s another idea — share this article. Email it to a friend (or even an enemy). Post it on Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn. Text or email it to your wife, husband, mother, father, brother, sister, or even your creepy second cousin who lives in Nebraska. Word of mouth is often the best way to build support for a creative endeavor, so if everyone here sends it to just one person … it would be much appreciated.
Not Too Bright
A lot is going on this week, but let’s start with the enduring mystery of why Trump and his supporters have such a poor understanding of apostrophe usage.
Did no one look at these shirts and say, “Something seems off here”?
“We Must Go Forward, Not Backward. Upward, Not Downward.”
Kamala Harris is on the cusp of having a higher favorable than unfavorable rating, which, in the broader scheme of things, is not necessarily that impressive but is a big deal in the context of modern American politics (where polarization means few politicians are all that popular)
Having said that … based on the latest horse race numbers, it’s not clear that Harris received any boost from the DNC in the head-to-head matchup with Trump.
I suppose that means that next week’s debate is crucial for Harris and an opportunity to seal the deal with undecided voters.
Having said that … I’m not so sure. I think the trend lines of this election are relatively straightforward, and it’s not immediately apparent how Trump narrows a three-point gap with Harris. If Harris has a Biden-like performance next week, things could go south (though even then, I’m not so sure), but I seriously doubt that happens.
Are We Underselling Kamala Harris’s Foreign Policy Experience?
Smart observation by Dan Drezner:
“Harris’ foreign policy and national security experience to date primarily comes from her four years as a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee and her subsequent four years as Vice President. Just on the surface, however, Harris has way more foreign policy experience than any post-Cold War president other than Joe Biden. Consider:
Bill Clinton: Governor of Arkansas, no substantive foreign policy experience;
George W. Bush: Governor of Texas; see above;
Barack Obama: Four years on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee;
Donald Trump: Zero, nada, no, repeat, no foreign policy experience;
Joe Biden: Decades on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee followed by eight years as vice president.”
I’ll be honest: I fell for the argument that Harris has little foreign policy experience, but Drezner provides a helpful corrective. Slate’s Fred Kaplan made a similar observation last month.
According to several officials, Harris has attended almost every National Security Council meeting and, more important still, almost every President’s Daily Brief, during which a senior intelligence officer lays out, both in writing and in an oral presentation, the threats and other developments affecting U.S. interests across the world. Biden receives four or five PDBs a week. These are not passive exercises; they often last an hour or more, with Biden, Harris, and other officials asking follow-up questions; sometimes the president calls in senior Cabinet secretaries or military advisers to discuss these issues at still greater length.
Even if Harris had remained quiet at these meetings, her mere presence would have exposed her to more information—to a fuller picture of the world in its broadest dimensions and its most granular detail—than any newly elected president has ever had, coming in to office, in more than half a century.
And in fact, several officials say, Harris has actively engaged in these meetings.
So, there’s a reasonable argument that Harris has far more foreign policy experience than one might assume. That’s no small thing. Foreign policy is often the least appreciated and arguably most important presidential responsibility. Domestic policy is overwhelmingly contingent on the partisan makeup of Congress and the willingness of members of Congress and the Senate to pass legislation. In foreign policy, there are few checks on presidential power (and they’ve notably declined over the past few decades), and presidential decision-making plays a far bigger role than in practically any other element of the job.
Having said that … it’s one thing to be in all the right meetings. It’s another to face difficult, life-changing decisions that only presidents get to make.
My pet theory on foreign policy presidents is that the good ones have a strong base of knowledge and are confident in their judgment. In 1962, John F. Kennedy stood up to his entire Cabinet, the military, and his brother (the Attorney General) in opposing the use of military force against Cuba and pursuing a diplomatic off-ramp with the Soviet Union that resolved the crisis. In 1985, Ronald Reagan ignored the counsel of his foreign policy advisors and gave Mikhail Gorbachev the political breathing space to pursue political and economic reforms that six years later led to the end of the Soviet Union. During his second term, Barack Obama brushed aside the calls for US military intervention in the Syrian Civil War and, in 2021, Joe Biden moved forward with withdrawal from Afghanistan, against the advice of the Pentagon.
What did all these presidents have in common? Aside from acting correctly, they had confidence in their foreign policy decision-making. Moreover, and arguably more crucially, they were willing to ignore the views of their closest military and foreign policy advisors to pursue actions that they believed were in the country’s best interests. I could have also mentioned Eisenhower and Nixon, both very good foreign policy presidents, primarily because they understood the world better than most politicians and were self-assured in their decision-making.
Compare these presidents with a few of the worst modern foreign policy commanders-in-chief: Lyndon Johnson, Jimmy Carter, George W. Bush, and first-term Bill Clinton. All of them had little confidence in their foreign policy decision-making and relied far too heavily on the counsel of military advisors. Now, in the case of W, his problem was more one of misplaced confidence, and as for Trump, he’s just an idiot, but the point stands. You want a president who believes their judgment is sound, doesn’t second guess themselves, and is not persuaded by the last person to have their ear (that was often Clinton’s problem). It’s quite possible that Harris will be that kind of foreign policy president — and that her time on the Senate Intelligence Committee and as vice president has given her the certainty in her judgment that is essential. But we simply won’t know until she takes the job.
Having said that … there’s no way she won’t be a better option than Donald Trump.
May Their Memory Be A Blessing
Over the weekend, Hamas terrorists massacred six Israeli hostages in the tunnels underneath the city of Rafah in Gaza. I know I should have something profound to say about this … but I don’t. Their deaths are so unbearably sad and pointless that I struggle to find the words to capture my anger, sadness, and despair. They did nothing wrong. They didn’t need to die. They should be with their families.
My anger is mainly directed at Hamas, who kidnapped them and held them in captivity for 11 months. They are ultimately responsible for their deaths. But having said that … Ha’aretz’s Zvi Bar’el accurately captures my thoughts. “Few Israelis needed Joe Biden's blunt ‘no’ when he was asked if he believed that Benjamin Netanyahu was doing enough to achieve a hostage-release deal. Israelis have known the truth for months. The prime minister didn't shoot the six hostages in the head last week; Hamas terrorists did. But Netanyahu systematically created the conditions that led to the murders.”
Quite simply, Netanyahu deserves significant blame for these needless deaths. Their blood is on his hands (not that I imagine he cares).
What’s Going On
Hey, guess what: remember those dire predictions that a Taliban takeover in Afghanistan would turn the country into a terrorist launching pad … turns out they were completely wrong.
It feels like we should be paying more attention to the fact that Donald Trump keeps insulting American Jews because they are refusing to support his presidential bid.
Donald Trump admitted this week that he lost the 2020 election. He also said he has the right to interfere in a presidential election (he doesn’t).
As my MSNBC colleague Zeeshan Aleem points out … the boy is not well.
The New York Times’ political coverage is a disaster … again.
Musical Interlude
You won’t be surprised that some will disagree with your assessment that Nixon was a “very good foreign policy president,” myself among them. I’m willing to give him some credit, but I can’t square the assessment that he was very good with his (and Kissinger’s) handling of the Vietnam War.
I won’t elaborate, since my attempts to do so keep leading to intemperate language.