ICYMI: Recent Missteps Preempt White House Counter-Programming Effort

Excerpts from The Hill
By Amie Parnes and Jeremy Herb
January 31, 2012
 
“The White House’s weeks-long effort to counterprogram against the GOP presidential primary fight has veered off course over the past two days…
“A day before the Florida primary, the president stumbled twice in an online chat on Google+, first when he got into an awkward discussion with a woman about her unemployed husband and said it was ‘interesting’ that he hadn’t found work in the engineering field.
“Almost instantly, Republicans and reporters pounced on Obama’s off-the-cuff remarks.
“Kirsten Kukowski, a press secretary at the Republican National Committee (RNC), immediately fired off an email to reporters: ‘Maybe there’s a difference in how the president sees our economy and how Americans see our economy,’ she said. And in a matter of hours, the RNC created a Web ad, hammering Obama as out of touch.
“Obama also earned unwanted media attention by for the first time acknowledging the classified drone program and defending the use of drone strikes to kill members of al Qaeda in countries such as Pakistan.
“Newspapers overseas said Obama was ‘confirming’ and ‘admitting’ that the United States is flying drones over Pakistan, and a spokesman for Pakistan’s foreign ministry called the drone strikes ‘unlawful, counterproductive and hence unacceptable.’
“White House press secretary Jay Carney was left to field questions about Obama’s comments in Tuesday’s press briefing from reporters who asked if Obama had slipped up, revealing a little more than he might have intended. 
“‘He’s the commander in chief of the armed forces of the United States,’ Carney replied. ‘I would point you to his comments. I’m not going to discuss broadly or specifically covert programs. I would just point you to what he said.’…
“‘It’s hard to see what the geopolitical reason would be for doing that at this point,’ said Frederick Kagan…‘At a time when you’re trying to re-establish some kind of normalcy…it’s a little incomprehensible about how that fits into a strategy that makes any sense.’…
“Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), the chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, appeared to wade into the debate at a hearing with top intelligence officials on Tuesday.
“‘Once again, this committee has been put in a difficult position of trying to avoid any mention of classified matters when various parts of the executive branch may be doing somewhat the opposite,’ Feinstein said…‘I ask members to be careful in their questions and statements and to remember that public discussion of some intelligence programs and assets can lead to them being compromised.’…”
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