I wrote in my post that Hate Spin?… that we get the news stories, and hence PR, that we want. But do we sometimes want more spin than we get?
This thought occurred to me regarding a story that was hot in the news over the Labor Day weekend. Many covered Obama’s statement “We don’t have a strategy yet” regarding the threat posed by ISIS.
It was great fodder for Republicans, and reporters in search of a catchy headline on a slow news day. As the story was repeated and amplified, I wondered whether Obama’s statement was simply an example of unfiltered candor from a politician, which might actually be refreshing.
But Frank Bruni broke it down in his NY Times column Obama’s Messy Words. He wrote:
There are things that you think and things that you say… These overlap but aren’t the same. Has President Obama lost sight of that?
Not having a strategy, at least a fixed, definitive one, is understandable. The options aren’t great, the answers aren’t easy and the stakes are enormous.
But announcing as much? It’s hard to see any percentage in that. It gives no comfort to Americans. It puts no fear in our enemies… [It’s not] the right message for the world’s lone superpower (whether we like it or not) to articulate and disseminate…[not] savvy, constructive P.R.
