Cast of 300 advises Obama on foreign policy - International Herald TribuneIt's a concern to me, that's for sure. I'm afraid from what I've seen so far it's mostly a mix of wishful thinking and sound bites.WASHINGTON: Every day around 8 a.m., foreign policy aides at Senator Barack Obama's Chicago campaign headquarters send him two e-mails: a briefing on major world developments over the previous 24 hours and a set of questions, accompanied by suggested answers, that the candidate is likely to be asked about international relations during the day.
One recent Q. & A. asked, for example, whether Obama supported the decision by Iraq's prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, to include a timetable for American troop withdrawal in any new security agreements with the United States. The answer, provided to Obama with bullet points, was yes — or "a genuine opportunity," as he put it in a speech on Iraq this week.
Behind the e-mail messages is a tight-knit group of aides supported by a huge 300-person foreign policy campaign bureaucracy, organized like a mini State Department, to assist a candidate whose limited national security experience remains a concern to many voters.
300 people. Man, to try to get that many people to agree on anything is near impossible. And I've got to admit that something like that would be, unfortunately, very fertile ground for a foriegn policy that'll weathervane very, very badly.
I'd rather see him have his own opinions and stick to them (no matter how much I might disagree with them) than have a 'committee' of 300 he has to continually ask what he thinks.
J.