Denial of A Denial
04.25.2008 - 7:59 AMJoseph Cirincione, the subject of my post yesterday, Obama’s Radioactive Potato, writes that “I am not a top advisor to Senator Obama. I have never met the Senator. I have written occasional memos to his campaign and publicly endorsed his candidacy, but I am afraid there is no way I could be considered ‘Barack Obama’s top expert on matters nuclear.’”
“No way”?
With all due respect to Joseph Cirincione, I stand by my claim that he serves as Senator Obama’s top adviser on matters nuclear and I am astonished that he would deny it.
In a March 12, 2008 article in the New Republic by Michelle Cottle in which he was extensively quoted, Cottle wrote that Cirincione “agreed last spring to advise the candidate on non-proliferation.”
If that statement is true, and I see no evidence that Cirincione has disputed it, then he is their adviser on nuclear proliferation, and indeed their top adviser unless he can point to a more senior nuclear expert advising the campaign.
Cirincione has been widely identified as an Obama adviser all over the blogsphere by publications spanning the political spectrum, from National Review to the Weekly Standard to the DailyKos, where he was even given the title “Informal National Security Adviser.” I did not find a disavowal from Cirincione in the comments section of that web document.
Stephen Zunes, chairman of the program in Middle Eastern Studies at the University of San Francisco, writing in Foreign Policy in Focus, described Cirincione as a “key Obama adviser.” Once again, I did not find a disavowal from Cirincione in the comments section of that web document.
Will the real top Obama nuclear advisor please stand up.
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April 25th, 2008 at 9:27 AM
Not only that, Gabe, but the rest of his response to your post, as I wrote this morning, was utter humbug and elided all charges against him. Again: Cirincione has consistently played down Iran’s nuclear weapons program and has been dead wrong about a number of foreign policy issues. His paranoid style, seeing “neocons” under every bed, is a substitute for analysis.
First he claims he’s not an advisor, but as you point out he is listed all over the place as one of Obama’s foreign policy advisors. DId he send in corrections to all these publications? And writing a few memos may not be as benign as he makes it out; if the candidate’s top issues staff goes back and forth with him on this and gets his views to the candidate, then he’s a key advisor. I speak from experience. The only thing left to do, if he were important enough to matter, is to dig up a photo of the two of them together! I’m not saying it’s there, but who would be surprised if it were at this point?
Then he changes the subject. Commentary was wrong about WMD. Jeez. Everybody who was not consumed with BDS, including all our major allies and most liberal Dems (from Kennedy to Kerry to Pelosi and Levin and on and on) believed that they had some WMD arsenals but more importantly WMD programs with the potential to break out in the near future. Which of course was true. He was wrong then and he remains wrong today.
Then he offers the old ’some of my best friends are Jews’ defense. What does having family in Israel possibly have to do with his hyper-critical views on Israel? And he offers no argument in defense of what he posted on the Syrian nuclear facility and Israeli attempts to derail the US-Syrian dialogue. For an alleged friend of Israel his views are remarkably suspect. And for a supposed non-proliferation expert, denying the North Korean-Iranian-Syrian axis is professional incompetence of the worst sort.
One more thing: like Samantha Power, Cirincione shows the dangers of venturing out beyond the narrow confines of your field. Power may know a lot about genocide, and Cirincione may know a lot about the nuclear fuel cycle, but neither has shown an ounce of wisdom or judgment in the broader world of foreign policy.
April 25th, 2008 at 10:56 AM
http://www.barackobama.com/2007/12/19/over_60_foreign_policy_experts.php
April 25th, 2008 at 11:28 AM
A STRIKE IN THE DARK. By: Hersh, Seymour M., New Yorker, 2/11/2008
“Joseph Cirincione, the director for nuclear policy at the Center for American Progress, a Washington, D.C., think tank, told me, “Syria does not have the technical, industrial, or financial ability to support a nuclear-weapons program. I’ve been following this issue for fifteen years, and every once in a while a suspicion arises and we investigate and there’s nothing. There was and is no nuclear-weapons threat from Syria. This is all political.” Cirincione castigated the press corps for its handling of the story. “I think some of our best journalists were used,” he said.”
April 25th, 2008 at 11:35 AM
The Democratic Foreign Policy Wars. By: BERMAN, ARI. Nation, 1/21/2008
‘It’s true that a number of Obama’s key advisers—like former
National Security Adviser Tony Lake, former Assistant
Secretary of State Susan Rice and former Navy Secretary
Richard Danzig—held prominent positions under Bill Clin ton .
At the same time, Obama’s team includes some of the most
forward-thinking members of the Democratic foreign policy
establishment—like Joseph Cirincione and Lawrence Korb
of the Center for American Progress, the party’s leading ex -
perts on nonproliferation and defense issues, respectively…”
April 25th, 2008 at 12:14 PM
Cirincione has a bright future in the DNI office, with Messrs Fingar and Immerman. His reflexive focus on whether he is an adviser to Obama is a pretty good equivalent of the 2007 Iran NIE’s focus on the (almost certainly temporary) suspension of nuclear weaponization — but nothing else — in 2003.
The method works like this: counter an element of the case that is of secondary importance anyway, by making assertions that no one else can prove, indisputably, are untrue. Then leverage the superficial credibility of this non-disprovable assertion to throw a non-specific blanket of putative verity over the mumble-mumble with which you briefly address “everything else.”
Generally, someone who is making a straightforward case doesn’t need as many “nons” in the mix to do it. In the conversation of normal people, Mr. Cirincione’s brief on his own relation to the Obama campaign is what is known as a “red herring” — and everything else he says about the nuclear facility being constructed in Syria as “spin.”
April 25th, 2008 at 12:39 PM
Interesting, this is like the New Republic doubling down on the Beauchamp scandal. Schoenfeld makes a claim that is shown to be demonstrably false and instead of issuing a correction says because it was reported somewhere else and it was not rebutted in the comments then it must be true.
I think the fact that he has never even met the Senator pretty much shows he is not a top advisor on any subject. The fact you did not even give him the title advisor but instead added ‘top’ to it shows your bias.
Countdown to Schoenfeld making a retraction and an apology to Senator Obama is at Day 1.
April 25th, 2008 at 12:48 PM
By the way his real ‘top advisors’ on matters of national security Zbigniew Brzezinski and Anthony Lake both former national security advisors. If the writer had done any kind of research he would have found that out instead of making up a story out of whole cloth. Yes Senator Obama has met with both of them on numerous occasions.
April 25th, 2008 at 2:12 PM
Jennifer, kindly supply the inaccurate statement in Schoenfeld’s piece. It’s been reported everywhere that he’s Obama’s advisor on nuclear proliferation. You’d know that if you’d bothered to click on the links or read the comments.
April 25th, 2008 at 9:48 PM
“Daily Kos”, not “the daily kos”
This magazine is not called “The Commentary Magazine”.
April 26th, 2008 at 9:35 PM
T, just because something has been reported elsewhere on blogs does not make it true. It seems you believe everything you read in a blog.