Opinion columnist Kirsten Powers thinks so, as she wrote in her piece NY Post piece Bungling on Blago yesterday. According to Powers:
The Obama camp has managed to violate almost every tenet of crisis communications - starting with Rule No. 1: Get all the information out quickly, accurately and fully.
It's imperative that reporters don't learn something from a third party that you could have told them. And, in the era of nonstop news, "quickly" means within 24 hours...
Obama's response has been an exercise in dripping.
Blagojevich was arrested Tuesday, Dec. 9...In the intervening time, Obama has repeatedly stated defensively that he had no contact with the governor or his office and had not discussed the Senate seat, as if either would somehow be inappropriate.
In a Dec. 10 interview, he refused to say whether Blagojevich talked with his top aides: "It's an ongoing investigation. I think it would be inappropriate for me to . . . remark on the situation beyond the facts that I know."
But then, in a press conference the next day, he had no problem stating emphatically, "I'm absolutely certain . . . that our office had no involvement in any deal-making around my Senate seat" - and then said he needed to "gather all the facts" about what contact took place so he could release that info.
Which left everybody scratching their heads: How could he be "absolutely certain" if he still had to gather the facts?
The Obama team has sometimes claimed that it's holding off on giving details at Fitzgerald's request - and sometimes that it will talk specifics as soon as it has found exactly what contact occurred. Which is it?
She points out a couple of times that none of this should matter because there have not even been allegations about any improper involvement from the Obama camp. Of course, there should be contacts and even some possible deal-making between Obama's staff and the governor's office over who will fill his seat (within appropriate and legal guidelines, of course).
She concluded:
The only scandal here, in short, is the way Obama's camp has mishandled the whole matter.
It is hard for me to argue with her logic. At the same time I think that it is refreshing to see that there is after all a mere mortal with human flaws in Obama (hard to believe this, given all the positive coverage and heightened expectations).
Hopefully he will be more focused on good policies and governing then on how he spins.
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