Reckless: Obama's Advisers Go Rogue
James Carden
A high-profile campaign by three well-regarded think tanks
(Brookings, the Atlantic Council and the Chicago Council on Global
Affairs) urging President Obama to send so-called defensive weapons to
Kiev recently kicked off a surprisingly intense debate inside the
Beltway over the wisdom of such a policy. Former government officials
and academics acting in a very public manner to try and influence
administration policy one way or another is par for the course and is,
especially when it results in a substantive debate over the merits of a
given policy choice, a very good sign that democratic discourse is not
dead in Washington—at least not yet.
The
debate over whether to arm Kiev [4]
is raging inside the Obama administration as well, and it is here that
the behavior of some of the president’s men and women has been somewhat
questionable. Unlike former high-office holders ensconced in
multimillion-dollar ivory towers off of Massachusetts Avenue NW, current
government officials reporting directly to the president of the United
States might consider keeping their own counsel (or at least, conveying
their counsel privately), rather than publicly trying to corner Mr.
Obama into endorsing a policy for which he may rightfully have
reservations.
http://nationalinterest.org/print/feature/reckless-obamas-advisors-go-rogue-12448
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