Gary Hart
Candor in the Age of Spin
Should presidents, or for that matter presidential candidates, be open, honest, and straightforward about how they would conduct foreign and defense policy or should they reserve space for what in the Cold and post-Cold War worlds have come to be known as covert operations?
This is not an academic question. It arose most recently in a Democratic candidates debate when Senator Barack Obama was challenged by Senator Hillary Clinton for saying that he would, as president, reserve the option of attacking al Qaeda and Dead-or-Alive bin Laden (remember him?) on Pakistani territory with or without approval from the Pakistani government.
Senator Clinton did not challenge this proposition. She challenged the announcement of it, saying that experienced foreign policy people traditionally conduct some foreign military operations covertly and that his failure to observe this convention was yet another demonstration of Senator Obama's inexperience in worldly affairs.
As something of a veteran, seasoned or unseasoned, of the covert world of the 20th century and as one who peeked far enough into the 21st to see terrorists coming, this is a question Americans and their candidates should seriously address. Those who have the advantage of living in the world of black and white find this question, as with many others, easy to answer. The whites say that all our actions should be transparent. The blacks say do whatever is expedient at the moment and presume no one will notice. The rest of us, as usual, see the global village in patters of plaid and shades of gray.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gary-hart/candor-in-the-age-of-spin_b_59816.html
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