Cringeworthy Remarks

Dumb

The New Zealand Prime Minister has been asked to chair the negotiations over a Pacific free-trade agreement which will be a side-bar to the upcoming APEC meeting.  President Obama has sent his apologies, due to the "government shutdown" in the United States.  APEC will have to do without him. 

This is quite a public honour for Prime Minister Key.  However, he let himself down when he was asked for his opinion on the present US political imbroglio.

Firstly, he compared Obama's presence at such international meetings to fizz.  We kid you not.  This from Audrey Young, at the NZ Herald:

Mr Key told the Herald he was disappointed that Mr Obama had had to cancel his trip to the Apec summit in Bali because of the US Government shutdown.  "At one level, he just adds a lot of fizz to the show."

We know that Key was just trying to be his normal, low-key, jovial Everyman.   We also know he was trying to convey the glamour which Obama brings to international gatherings.  He meant it as a compliment. 

But when Obama's ratings currently stand at just 41% approval in the US, we can imagine that a large number of US voters would see Key's statement about fizz in a more pejorative light.  Comments like Obama being, "all fizz and no pop" spring to mind.  The cynics will sarcastically point out that a responsible President, when the core powers of the US government are at an impasse, will negotiate in good faith--something Obama appears unable to do--so they know all about Obama's fizz.  Lot's of hot air, little else.  "Might as well go to OPEC," they will likely be saying.  "He's not doing any good here." 

More to our embarrassment here in New Zealand, however, is Key's apparent ignorance of the US Constitution and the structure of its Republic.  He apparently makes the mistake most folk do down under.  They think the US President is like our own office of Prime Minister, which effectively controls both the executive and the legislative branches of government.  Here is Key's ignorant assessment:

But he agreed that Mr Obama was being held to ransom and that he should not give in to renegotiate a policy he had been re-elected on.  "You can't really give in because if he gives in, he is firstly giving in on a policy for which he campaigned, won the election and [was] re-elected.  "He's got a point, hasn't he, that he is being held to ransom."

Except that in 2010 and 2012 congressmen and senators were likewise elected on platforms supported by their electorates.  They won the popular franchise.  They were voted in because they promised to get rid of "Obamacare".  They have obligations to the people they represent, just as Obama has obligations.  When they differ--that is, when the office of the president is committed to a certain policy and the House of Representatives is committed to opposing that policy and both alike are representing their constituencies, the doctrine of the separation of powers requires negotiation between the branches of government to secure a compromise.  It's what "checks and balances" are all about.  Moreover, the Constitution of the US gives the power of the purse not to the Executive branch, nor to the Courts, nor to the Senate, but to the House of Representatives alone. 

So, no, John.  Sorry.  The President is not being held to ransom at all.  He is obligated to follow the procedures and processes implied in a constitutional system of checks and balances--as the vast majority of his predecessors always had done, but which, for some reason, President Obama signally fails to grasp, or, if he sees it, stubbornly refuses to imitate.  He thus casts himself either as an ignorant or a radical.  

To Obama's gauche behaviour, Kay has added the exposure his own ignorance about the structure of government in the US, which is an embarrassment to us all.  Far better to follow the normal convention of not commenting upon the domestic political circumstances of other nations.  Usually, Key is most circumspect when it comes to that. 

When All Blacks coach, Steve Hansen was asked to comment upon the thuggery of prop Ben Franks, who stiff-armed the neck of a Springbok's opponent over the weekend, his laconic adjective was, "Dumb."   Maybe we should employ Hansen as a political commentator when he retires as the All Blacks' coach.  He will have no dearth of topics and subjects.