Tuesday, November 09, 2010

Gibbs sticks his foot in the American 'or else' syndrome

These past few days have seen a Niagara Falls of presidential hagiography in India, with the Indian press at its apple-polishing best with regard to President Obama and the Pres himself at his most flattering about Indians that India itself has forgotten - Gandhi, Tagore and Vivekananda. But there is one man who won't be coming out of this transnational diplomatic chroming exercise trailing less than a truckload of (his own) crap - White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs.

The man, an opinionated brawler at White House press briefings, has a long history of "rapid-response" combativeness that has embarrassed even hardnosed Democrats. In a presidential team that typically has a low-adrenaline reaction time to Republican and media critiques - the latter however well meant - Gibbs' reflexive hostility and willingness to 'engage' hard has earned him the title of "The Enforcer".

So, according to the White House print pool reporter in attendance in New Delhi, Scott Wilson of The Washington Post, when Gibbs "announced loudly and persistently" that he would pull President Obama out of a meeting with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh unless all the "White House 8" (as the eight pool mediapersons were known) were allowed in to cover the "bilat", the Indian officials crumbled. Gibbs went to the extent of jamming his foot in the massive and dangerously heavy oak doors of Hyderabad House and asking the Indian officials labouring to shut it whether they were up to breaking it. They weren't, and the White House 8 marched in for a photo-op that lasted all of a full minute of President Obama and Prime Minister Singh smiling coyly at each other. While this was media triumphalism at its best, the most delicious images to come out of that engagement were those of Gibbs at spitting boothill bully distance from an Indian official and pointing at himself as if asking, "Do you know who the f**k I am?"

What is going to be debated in the next few days is whether the Press Secretary, beloved advisor of Obama's though he might be, has the authority to actually pull the president out of any
meeting with any senior politician of any nation for any reason at all. Or whether his truculence this time was an embarrassing overdose of self-importance.

Although much of the American media reacted quite positively to Gibbs' buttheadedness (they would), Wonkette, saying that "things predictably got violent", went ballistic at the very thought of American puffery:

YOU DO NOT TELL AMERICANS THEY CAN HAVE FEWER THINGS THAN THE EXACT NUMBER OF THINGS THEY WANT TO HAVE. USA! USA! USA!
Rivrdog thinks that "Gibbs pulled that one out of his Blackstone Ranger ass".

And now Gibbs' ought to be on the line, if not for bucking diplomatic protocol (oh well, one can always hope for Stateside humility), then at least for overstepping the very, very thick line that Obama has permitted him marching rights inside.