MikeLigalig.com

A question of temperament

Obama's responses to crises during Asia trip reflect the attributes needed by a commander-in-chief.

September 6, 2016
The Baltimore Sun

For a U.S. president, temperament is destiny, and nowhere was that more evident than during President Barack Obama's trip to Asia last week. Confronted with a series of unforeseen glitches, diplomatic mishaps and potentially dangerous military provocations, the president kept his cool even when sorely tried by circumstances that might have flummoxed a less level-headed chief executive. We couldn't help but compare Mr. Obama's grace under pressure to how GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump might have reacted under similar circumstances, and in a head-to-head matchup there's no question who is better suited for the job.

Start with the minor snafu that greeted the arrival of Mr. Obama's plane at the airport in Hangzhou, China, for a Group of 20 summit meeting. For reasons somewhat in dispute, the portable staircase the U.S. had provided for the president to use when deplaning wasn't in place for his arrival. Mr. Obama found himself stuck on his plane for several minutes until he finally decided to exit the aircraft via a little-used hatch.

Linkback: https://tubagbohol.mikeligalig.com/index.php?topic=82735.0

Nor did Mr. Obama pick up his marbles and go home after Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, who was elected in June, used a coarse epithet to describe Mr. Obama's mother and then threatened to humiliate the U.S. president if Mr. Obama brought up Mr. Duterte's appalling record of human rights violations against suspected drug offenders, including some 2,400 extrajudicial killings in the three months since he took office.

Rather than respond directly to the insult, Mr. Obama mildly suggested that Mr. Duterte was a "colorful character" and went on to question whether the G-20 summit was really "a time where we can have some constructive, productive conversations." A few hours later his aides canceled the meeting. The next day a chastened Mr. Duterte appeared to have gotten the message: "We ... regret [the remarks] came across as a personal attack on the U.S. president," his office said in a statement issued Tuesday.

Linkback: https://tubagbohol.mikeligalig.com/index.php?topic=82735.0

Mr. Obama didn't say Mr. Putin was acting in bad faith (though he was) or that Russia's support of Syrian President Bashar Assad was prolonging a war that has already killed more than 400,000 people and driven some 6 million from their homes (though it is). Instead, Mr. Obama vowed to keep pressing Russia on the issue. Would Mr. Trump have done the same, or would he have let his open admiration for Mr. Putin get in the way of the best interests of the Syrian (and American) people?

And then there was the North Korean missile launch timed to coincide with the G-20 meeting. Mr. Obama's reaction was entirely appropriate: an immediate denunciation of the test as a violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions and a call for even tougher global sanctions against Pyongyang. It was the most consequential decision the president made during a trip in which Mr. Trump's strongman persona would only have inflamed tensions.

Linkback: https://tubagbohol.mikeligalig.com/index.php?topic=82735.0