Obama vs. his staff

[Atomic Rooster]

Obama vs. his staff - Kenneth P. Vogel - Politico.com

Just hours after his campaign issued a first statement yesterday ripping the addition of Sarah Palin to the Republican ticket, Barack Obama backed away from that statement — or at least its tone — and said that his own campaign had misrepresented him.

Obama often speaks of how important his staffers are to his bid and would be to his administration, and he’s praised them for covering for each others’ mistakes. But in the heat of the campaign, he’s publicly called them out for everything from missing an event to misrepresenting his policy positions to using his office to aid a donor.

When asked about his campaign’s attack on Palin, attributed to top spokesman Bill Burton, at a Friday afternoon media availability at a Pennsylvania biodiesel plant, Obama referred to a statement he and running mate Joe Biden had since issued that hardly touched on policy issues and called Palin “an admirable person and … a compelling new voice.”

Obama disavowed his campaign’s first response, telling journalists that “I think that, uh, you know, campaigns start getting these, uh, hair triggers and, uh, the statement that Joe and I put out reflects our sentiments,” he said.

The latest disavowal of his staff’s comments on his behalf or in his name continues a tactic Obama employed repeatedly during his contentious battle with Hillary Rodham Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination.

When confronted about a campaign memo during the primary criticizing Clinton’s ties to India that referred to her as “D-Punjab,” Obama called it “a screw-up on the part of our research team” and said “it was stupid and caustic.”

And when the late Tim Russert asked Obama at a Las Vegas debate about his campaign’s efforts to push the storyline that Team Clinton was stoking racial tensions, Obama said “our supporters, our staff, get overzealous. They start saying things that I would not say.”

But, he added, “it is my responsibility to make sure that we're setting a clear tone in our campaign.”

Obama’s penchant for publicly rebuking his staff stands in sharp contrast to his declarations about how important they are to his management strategy, as well as the all for one, one for all mentality that he encourages in them.

And after he raised eyebrows by proclaiming in a July speech to a prominent Jewish group that he supports Jerusalem remaining Israel's "undivided" capital, Obama suggested his staff was responsible.

“We had some poor phrasing in the speech, and we immediately tried to correct the interpretation that was given," Obama told Fareed Zakaria on CNN, though Obama had made similar statements about an undivided Jerusalem before.

Sounds like the right hand has no idea of what the left hand is doing. Either that or he's flip flopping on the message after finding out how it's negatively affecting his campaign.