On Morning Joe Wednesday, Andrea Mitchell chastised Obama again for yet another “bad optics” moment: venturing out for another round of fundraising while Ukraine and Gaza are in turmoil. “This isn’t politics,” Mitchell said Wednesday, “this is the optics of leadership.”
Mitchell has clearly soured on Obama’s presidency as of late, becoming one of his more vocal critics on the major networks not named Fox. She reprimanded him two weeks ago for playing pool with the Colorado governor instead of taking a much-needed "photo op" at the border, ripped him Sunday for his lack of moral outrage in his MH17 remarks, and now is hitting him again on failing to look like a leader.
After acknowledging that the president can effectively do his job from remote locations, Mitchell told Morning Joe Wednesday that the problem is his seeming inability to learn from the mistakes of the past about the “optics of leadership”:
This isn’t politics; this is the optics of leadership. The golf course is not the best place to be, even though you don’t really see him out there. But the fundraising, those trips... are being questioned for a good reason. You know, the trips last Thursday, when the Malaysian airliner was shot down, proceeding to Wilmington and then proceeding on to New York for two fundraisers, that’s all being questioned by people.
Mitchell then compared Obama unfavorably to Ronald Reagan, whom she praised for learning from his mistakes:
Ronald Reagan is being praised for coming back from California when the Korean airliner was shot down by the Soviets in 1983. That was only after he was criticized in 1981 for staying on vacation and for having his top aide, Ed Meese, come out and say the president was asleep but he’s always in charge. So they learned their lesson and fixed it the next time around.
Though Mitchell does not specify that Reagan waited for four days after the airliner was downed to give his speech, Reagan’s address certainly struck a far more authoritative tone than Obama’s weak MH17 speech Friday.
Mitchell is not alone in her "optics of leadership" critique, many critics arguing that by all appearances Obama has officially mailed in his presidency. Reacting to the president's hesitant response to the situation in Ukraine, Charles Krauthammer said in frustration Thursday that it was time for Obama to "make a damned decision for once in his life."
One positive optics choice for Obama: WH Press Secretary Josh Earnest did say Tuesday that the president was too busy to appear on Jimmy Kimmel as had been rumored.
Video via WFB.