InternationalOn campaign promises
Published: Thursday February 19, 2009
With a recent blog post, the conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks has ignited a debate about whether campaign promises are to be taken seriously. "What I'm really annoyed by," Mr. Brooks wrote in the Times website on February 5, is that Tom Daschle - the former Senate majority leader turned lobbyist - withdrew from consideration as secretary of health and human services. "Obama asked for all this with his cynical promise to ban lobbyists from his administration," he added. After suggesting that trying to exclude lobbyists from the administration "is absurd," Mr. Brooks wrote, "I assumed Obama understood all this and the campaign blather was just for show. But it turns out [otherwise]."
Here is a seemingly savvy journalist taking it as a given that politicians' public commitments are "cynical promises" and really nothing but "campaign blather," "just for show." And he is not impressed but "really annoyed" that a politician has acted on a campaign promise.
This post and the debate it has generated are reminiscent of some of the attitudes in our community regarding President Obama's firm and repeated promise that he would, as president, recognize the Armenian Genocide, support a settlement of the Karabakh conflict "based upon America's founding commitment to the principles of democracy and self-determination," and continue U.S. support of Armenia's development.
People of goodwill are heard to say, "Presidential candidates make all kinds of statements while campaigning, but the reality of the job of being the leader of one of the strongest countries in the world is different. Mr. Obama supported the Genocide resolution as a senator and he was a senator when he made his promise. But as president he has different priorities and access to different advisors and information."
We find such statements to be ill-informed and unhelpful.
It is not particularly useful to make excuses for broken promises when those promises have not been broken. It is much more useful to do our part to make sure the promises are kept. And we fully expect that Mr. Obama will keep his promises.
In October 2007, in a strong wave of lobbying, the Bush administration put forward all its arguments against the adoption of the Armenian Genocide resolution. Administration officials, including Robert Gates, who was then and is now secretary of defense, argued that a resolution at that time would cause Turkey to undermine the U.S. war effort in Iraq. They also argued that Armenia and Turkey are improving their relations and a resolution would be unhelpful to that process.
It was with full knowledge of these arguments that Mr. Obama announced in January 2008 that he would, as president, recognize the Genocide. So, for that matter, did Hillary Clinton, now secretary of state. Neither the arguments nor the circumstances are novel. And in preparing with his advisors for the presidency, Mr. Obama found the arguments unpersuasive.
The first priority of the new president and Congress is, as it must be, to rebuild the American economy. At the same time, the president seeks, as he must, to restore and redefine America's relations with the rest of the world. His promises regarding the Armenian Genocide should be seen as part of his high-priority commitments to prevent genocide and to restore the moral authority of the United States.
Promises are meant to be kept. Barack Obama did not engage in "campaign blather," "just for show." Our role as Armenian-Americans is to show the president that he has our strong support in fulfilling his commitments.
