Let's Put the Red Phone to Bed

Hillary Clinton's now infamous commercial depicting the White House red phone (it's not red, but red makes it even scarier) ringing at 3am, is thought by many to have contributed to her margins of victory in the Texas and Ohio primaries. While Barack Obama supporters and some in the media have rightly deplored the Karl Rovian campaign tactic, few have suggested that very premise of the ad is pure fiction, or have wondered what exactly the hypothetical crisis might entail.

Since the ad depicts a time of 3am (and one presumes that's EST, for if it were Hawaii time one would hope that the president had already finished his or her breakfast), something incredibly bad would have to have happened in order for the president to be tested on the question of what would make or keep American families, or American families that haven't perished in some unnamed catastrophe, safe. And at that exact time, 3am Eastern or midnight Pacific. For the benefit of voters in Wyoming (1am) and Mississippi (2am), (and other states that haven't had their primaries yet) who might still be wondering about the issue, let's ask what those scenarios might be.

3am at the White House is between 10am and noon in the Middle East and East Africa, so it's safe to think some conflagration has occurred in that region, a conflagration that requires the interruption of sleep all over Washington, not just in the White House. What could that be? A major act of terror against US forces or personnel, perhaps an Embassy bombing or two? Certainly. But if that is the emergency, you don't need to rush into your kids' bedrooms to make sure they're okay, and you needn't worry about whether the president needs to make a groggy, snap decision at 3:01am. There is no decision that can be made at that point, not without a whole lot more information that will take hours, if not days, to gather and become clear. What if the catastrophe is even bigger than a terrorist attack against US interests? Let's try to imagine what could be bigger. All out war, obviously. So let's assume that, for example, Iran's military (and Iran is our only serious enemy -- that is actually a country with a conventional military -- in the region) wakes up that morning and decides it's a good day to attack a number of US warships in the Gulf. But US ships that are under attack do not need to wait for the Commander in Chief to issue a counter-attack order; they are, under the rules of engagement, allowed to defend themselves (as did the USS Vincennes, when in the eighties it shot down an Iranian passenger jet that it mistook for a warplane about to drop its bombs). Military action in the Persian Gulf is serious indeed, and certainly requires the president to be up and about with his or her advisors, but again, your kid is safe and you probably won't even wake up yourself and start worrying about their future. When you do wake up in the morning and put on the news, you might hope that the president, the cabinet, and the military are all on top of this thing, but you'll probably send your little tykes off to school without worrying that Iranian warplanes might come over and bomb their school buses. So the question becomes, what do you want your president to have done at 3am, or what do you want him or her to do now? If it's President Obama, maybe at 3:01am he got the president of Iran on different red phone and said, "WTF? I said I would talk to you unconditionally, so let's talk. Did you order this attack? Are you declaring war on the United States? If so, you know I'll have to flatten your country, don't you?" Maybe the Iranian president says, "No, no, no, it was a mistake! It was an honest mistake....remember the Vincennes?" Or, he might say, "No, no, no, it wasn't us. It was a renegade group of Revolutionary Guards trying to start a war to hasten the arrival of the Mahdi; believe me, the Supreme Leader has already ordered their executions!"

If it's President Clinton, one might imagine an aide asking her if she wants to talk to the president of Iran. "No," she says, "I can't do that. If I do that without preconditions, then the prestige of the United States is at risk. Maybe we should talk to the Brits, or the Russians?" If it's President McCain, I'd have to think that he couldn't talk to the president of Iran, because at 3:30am, Tehran ceased to exist. Take your pick, but in either scenario, it's unlikely your kids are any great danger.

Let's leave the Middle East and come back to the homeland. What if the 3am call is about a terrorist attack in the United States? (It's unlikely to the point of impossibility that it would be a Pearl Harbor-type attack on US soil by another country, or incoming ICBMs from Moscow.) What kind of terrorist attack? If it's a mass hijacking again, believe me, your house with the sleeping children is not the target of suicide pilots. If it's a big bomb somewhere very near you, you might run into your kids' bedrooms and maybe evacuate the house, but you're not thinking, gee, I'm glad we have a president who can deal with this! Later, as a survivor you may wonder why the president and the administration didn't anticipate the attack or protect your community, but at 3:01am who the president is, is completely irrelevant to you.

But what if it's a dirty bomb? Or what if anthrax has descended as dust or a vapor onto your community? If you're awake or have been awakened and know what's happening, you'll run into your kids' bedrooms to check and see if they're alive, and then you'll try to get yourself and them the hell out of Dodge. This is the scenario where who the president is, is actually most relevant to you on a personal level. Assuming you've survived, do you want a Katrina-like response by your government? The competence of the president, but maybe more importantly, the administration, will absolutely be crucial. But let's face it: it is highly unlikely that an Obama, Clinton or McCain administration would be quite as incompetent as the one they've replaced. And for folks in Mississippi and Wyoming, I'd have to say that you have little to worry about in terms of a dirty bomb. It's far more likely that that kind of terrorist attack will occur in a heavily populated urban area.

Finally, assuming that whatever disaster has befallen the United States, that the administration and local governments have taken care of the immediate concerns, the question later, maybe much later as with 9/11, becomes one of vengeance and preemption. If it's a terrorist attack, or a military attack on our interests somewhere in the world, whom do you trust to make the right decisions? Someone who will go off half-cocked and start bombing without asking the right questions, someone who will bomb the hell out of anyone conveniently similar to the perpetrators (perhaps because pollsters say that's what the American people want), or someone who will carefully weigh all options and then specifically target the known perpetrators to ensure that they can't strike again?

Comments

[dragonfly142]

In an op-ed in the New York Times, Orlando Patterson says the following about the campaign's recent ad: The ad could easily have removed its racist sub-message by including images of a black child, mother or father....

and truth be told the ad did have a black child in it...you can see the picture of the child on Hillaryclinton.com under fact hub

[Plank]

The Ad is about Hillary's experience which was proven to be bogus. Combine that with a lack of good judgement (Vote for war) and you have the worst possible candidate to answer that phone.

[bdd]

Obama should not let Samatha Power resign. Hillary is despicable. She has thrown so much trash at Obama she "s helping McCain win. Enough of her. She should have the decency to bow out now.

[Erdgeist]

Sorry, there ain't no "red phone" in the White House anymore. Here is proof: http://www.whitehouse.gov/ask/20030624.html

[fullkelly]

What if it was Louis Farrakhan calling?

[realistxxx]

Or the bogey man?

[MrWinky]

The point of the article is sound, in that in a country that maybe watches a little too much tv, the idea of the 3 a.m call is ludicrous. Seriously, it reminds me of the Jack Bauer/9-11 scenarios we hear all the time from the Bushies to validate torture. The problem is, that situation is never going to happen.

A crisis occurs, and as Hillary explains it, there is no time to consult anyone, you have to act. This country isn't a minivan that had a bicycle dart into its path, there is always time. I don't want anyone in office who would react to reports of a situation without consulting those around them that are in the know to confirm the crisis and develop the best response.

Look at the Cuban Missile Crisis - nuke warheads in the hands of our enemy at our doorstep. Really doesn't get more dire than that, and our response to blockade Cuba was developed over time, it wasn't JFK in his Yoda jammies yelling into the phone at 3:01 a.m. "GO! GO! GO!" 20 seconds after he heard it.

It is fear mongering at its worst, and if it truly affected anyone, then they should have to eat their voter registration card as punishment.

[Durango]

There is a precedent for the 3:00 am phone call.

When the allies invaded Normandy on D-Day 1944 his aids would not wake up Adolph Hitler because he worked far into the night and slept late. Hitler had control of the armored division which was the best hope the Germans had of driving the invasion force into the sea. Th German high command could not release the division on their own and many critical hours were wasted.

Of course Hitler refused to believe the invasion was any thing but a diversion and he held up troops to protect Calais, where he thought the real invasion would occur.

But the lesson to be taken from this incident is not that a competent leader needs to be on the end of the phone at 3:00 am. The lesson is that Hitler should have delegated authority to his generals on the ground who were most familiar with the local situation. He had no business interfering with tactical decisions made by those with the greatest and best information.

So my point would be: It doesn't matter so much who answers the phone at 3:00 am. What matters is the policy and decisions and judgments made prior to the crisis. And I respect Obama's judgment far more than Hillary's.

[Puller58]

Crisis response. Frankly, Hillary may see herself as Margaret Thatcher, but she compares in a way she might not appreciate. When the Falklands War was underway, a Brit on a call in accused her of trying to show her guts by spilling the guts of young men on the shores of the Falkland Island. She supposedly later encouraged GHW Bush to attack Saddam as a way of staying in power. Hillary would like to paint Obama as untrustworthy, but I believe her own judgement is in doubt.

[fullkelly]

How would Obama answer? -----------present.

[quest44]

FYI Fullkelly . Present is the way all politicians vote when they don't like a bill and want to see it amended .Its not an Obama thing its a political ploy to change a bill.

Well thank you Hooman Majd that puts this whole red phone add in prospective !

[nightwind928]

It's 3 A.M. and the phone rings...it's an emergency...Hillary's hair stylist has the flu and will have to cancel her appointment for 8 A.M.and the cleaners have lost her favorite tacky pantsuit...... O M G!!!!!

[iseebs]

Sorry, you got it all wrong.
When we are attacked, I expect the President to call and not to wait until the enemy calls him on the red Phone. (He might wait forever).

[DazHype]

...still waitin on one of these poor excuses to answer the call of katrina victims. and the wait ensues...

[AxelDC]

When asked about when Clinton had ever faced a foreign policy crisis, Marc Penn was completely at a loss to explain how she had demonstrated her abilities.

Clinton's experience, foreign or domestic, is a complete fabrication based on distorting history and downplaying the role of Al Gore et al. in favor of a narrative that shows Hillary as co-president instead of chief hostess.

[PhDiva]

Typo: put the word "the" in front of the word "very" in the first paragraph. I'm an educator so I had to say it.

This is one of the few times I've laughed out loud while reading a blog. At the same time, the thesis is very astute. I was thinking that Obama needed to point out that Hillary is "acting" really "pretending" in the ad, not necessarily doing. You are reminding us that the entire ad is a performance. Can you get this blog to Obama?

[TabysGrandma]

I was watch our local news in Seattle tonight and one of the children in the commerical lives here. She is now 17 and image was from when she was about 8 (it belongs to getty images). The funny thing is that she is an Obama supporter and has been campaigning for him in Washington.

[CalliDem]

I watched SNL last night that exposed BO for who he really is. Not than I needed SNL to point it out.
He is flat out incompetent to be president.

[TabysGrandma]

If you believe SNL about a person, no matter who it is, I feel real sorry for you. Oh, and by the way, SNL makes Hilliary look totally incompetent to me. I did not like her in the 1990's and I sure as hell don't like her now. I just hope I do not have to listen to her talk for the next 4 years cause there will be no second term for her.

[soulstressed]

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