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By Andrew J. Polsky

No Easy Day, the new book by a member of the SEAL team that killed Osama bin Laden on 30 April 2011, has attracted widespread comment, most of it focused on whether bin Laden posed a threat at the time he was gunned down. Another theme in the account by Mark Owen (a pseudonym) is how the team members openly weighed the political ramifications of their actions. As the Huffington Post reports:

Though he praises the president for green-lighting the risky assault, Owen says the SEALS joked that Obama would take credit for their success…. one SEAL joked, “And we’ll get Obama reelected for sure. I can see him now, talking about how he killed bin Laden.”

Owen goes on to comment that he and his peers understood that they were “tools in the toolbox, and when things go well [political leaders] promote it.” It is an observation that invites only one response: Duh.

Of course, a president will bask in the glow of a national security success. The more interesting question, though, is whether it translates into gains for him and/or his party in the next election. The direct political impact of a military victory, a peace agreement, or (as in this case) the elimination of a high-profile adversary tends to be short-lived. That said, events may not be isolated; they also figure in the narratives politicians and parties tell. For Barack Obama and the Democrats in 2012, this secondary effect is the more important one.

Wartime presidents have always been sensitive to the ticking of the political clock. In the summer of 1864, Abraham Lincoln famously fretted that he would lose his reelection bid. Grant’s army stalled at Petersburg after staggering casualties in his Overland campaign; Sherman’s army seemed just as frustrated in the siege of Atlanta; and a small Confederate army led by Jubal Early advanced through the Shenandoah Valley to the very outskirts of Washington. So bleak were the president’s political fortunes that Republicans spoke openly of holding a second convention to choose a different nominee. Only the string of Union victories — at Atlanta, in the Shenandoah Valley, and at Mobile Bay — before the election turned the political tide.

Election timing may tempt a president to shape national security decisions for political advantage. In the Second World War, Franklin Roosevelt was eager to see US troops invade North Africa before November 1942. Partly he was motivated by a desire to see American forces engage the German army to forestall popular demands to redirect resources to the war against Japan, the more hated enemy. But Roosevelt also wanted a major American offensive before the mid-term elections to deflect attention from wartime shortages and labor disputes that fed Republican attacks on his party’s management of the war effort. To his credit, he didn’t insist on a specific pre-election date for Operation Torch, and the invasion finally came a week after the voters had gone to the polls (and inflicted significant losses on his party).

The Vietnam War illustrates the intimate tie between what happens on the battlefield and elections back home. In the wake of the Tet Offensive in early 1968, Lyndon Johnson came within a whisker of losing the New Hampshire Democratic primary, an outcome widely interpreted as a defeat. He soon announced his withdrawal from the presidential race. Four years later, on the eve of the 1972 election, Richard Nixon delivered the ultimate “October surprise”: Secretary of State Henry Kissinger announced that “peace is at hand,” following conclusion of a preliminary agreement with Hanoi’s lead negotiator Le Duc Tho. In fact, however, Kissinger left out a key detail. South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu balked at the terms and refused to sign. Only after weeks of pressure, threats, and secret promises from Nixon, plus renewed heavy bombing of Hanoi, did Thieu grudgingly accept a new agreement that didn’t differ in its significant provisions from the October version.

But national security success yields ephemeral political gains. After the smashing coalition triumph in the 1991 Gulf War, George H. W. Bush enjoyed strikingly high public approval ratings. Indeed, he was so popular that a number of leading Democrats concluded he was unbeatable and decided not to seek their party’s presidential nomination the following year. But by fall 1992 the victory glow had worn off, and the public focused instead on domestic matters, especially a sluggish economy. Bill Clinton’s notable ability to project empathy played much better than Bush’s detachment.

And so it has been with Osama and Obama. Following the former’s death, the president received the expected bump in the polls. Predictably, though, the gain didn’t persist amid disappointing economic results and showdowns with Congress over the debt ceiling. From the poll results, we might conclude that Owen and his Seal buddies were mistaken about the political impact of their operation.

But there is more to it. Republicans have long enjoyed a political edge on national security, but not this year. The death of Osama bin Laden, coupled with a limited military intervention in Libya that brought down an unpopular dictator and ongoing drone attacks against suspected terrorist groups, has inoculated Barack Obama from charges of being soft on America’s enemies. Add the end of the Iraq War and the gradual withdrawal of forces from Afghanistan and the narrative takes shape: here is a president who understands how to use force efficiently and with minimal risk to American lives. Thus far Mitt Romney’s efforts to sound “tougher” on foreign policy have fallen flat with the voters. That he so rarely brings up national security issues demonstrates how little traction his message has.

None of this guarantees that the president will win a second term. The election, like the one in 1992, will be much more about the economy. But the Seal team operation reminds us that war and politics are never separated.

Andrew Polsky is Professor of Political Science at Hunter College and the CUNY Graduate Center. A former editor of the journal Polity, his most recent book is Elusive Victories: The American Presidency at War. Read Andrew Polsky’s previous blog posts.

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from America At War poems selected by Lee Bennett Hopkins, illustrated by Stephen Alcorn McElderry Books 2008 Yeah, I'm back in the Friday Poetry round-up, for the month at least. Can't let National Poetry Month drift without mentioning some sort of poetry. I'm taking the liberty this week of cross-posting two different poems from the same collection because, well, just because. Does poetry

Here is a terrific view into a Boston area auction from Tom of Pazzo Books.

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October 9th Auction notes - It’s not the Venom, it’s the Bite
There’s a book auction that we frequent perhaps 10 times a year - typically we go to the uncatalogued sales to pick up lots of material that we don’t have easy access to, usually antiquarian (or at least old).  Occasionally though we go to a catalog sale and try our hand at picking up some higher end books.  The catalog sales attract an entirely different group of folks - at least half collectors - and they also get quite a number of telephone and faxed bids (which results in many items starting over my max price).  This is a reasonably major auction house - the prices are included in American Book Prices Current, so the sale prices do impact prices realized at other auctions as well as at retail.

Unlike uncatalogued sales where one shows up early and evaluates a massive amount of material in a few hours, most prep on catalog sales is done in the weeks leading up to the sale.  We’re rank amateurs at both the auction and the antiquarian book trade, but we systematically go through the catalog identifying items that we believe are salable or interesting stock and put cap prices on them.  If we systematically ignore this information during the auction, at least it’s there.  We use ABE, American Book Prices Current and various bibliographies and other reference materials to come up with our prices.  Often, even with that, it’s a bit of a seat of the pants endeavor.

As usual, half the items that we’d targeted looked less than exciting in person and half the items we’d ignored looked great - that’s when you have to proceed with an inspired mix of knowledge, gut feelings and stupidity. Luckily we excel at at least two of those.

So here’s a quick run down of what transpired:

We picked up a nice first English edition of an important book on herpetology - the author claimed that snake venom was harmless and the deadliness of the bite was the transferal of the snake’s anger into its victim.  It touched off a firestorm in the snake world in 1669.  We paid more than we wanted but slightly less than we were willing to pay - a typical result.

Also:

A nice 1749 2 volume illustrated 4to of Paradise lost.

A beat up but lovely 1725 Works of Josephus with folding plates and maps.

A great bunch of Victorian Erotica (I have this idea that the only unfilled niche in puritan Boston is Erotica).

A number of random items that ‘fell’ to us that may or may not have been good ideas.

Items of interest:

A pair of 1599 Bibles (both pirated versions, from later, one around 1639) went for $1300 - more than double the high estimate.

Kay Neilsen items went well (though a Brother’s Grimm went over estimate - $2400 - and an East of the Sun went under at $2000).  Rackham sold well also, including a Peter Pan Portfolio in elephant folio for $3200.  I love golden age of illustration stuff so I follow it even if I can’t afford it.

A number of items went to collectors for more than they would have had to pay on ABE which is certainly of interest to those of us wondering what the internet is REALLY doing to prices.

A lovely second edition in folio, rebacked, of Johnson’s Dictionary went for $3600 which seemed like a lot at the time but was, in retrospect, probably a pretty good deal.

A first edition of Thomas Hobbe’s Leviathan, estimated at $1000-$1500 (which we’d begrudgingly decided to spend $1200 on if possible) went for $4600. I’d had this feeling that the political climate around the world would bring Hobbes back, and this may be an early indication.  This happens a lot - we spend all this time hemming and hawing about whether it’s reasonable to spend $800 or $900 on something and it goes for $3500.  On items you’ve accidentally fallen in love with, it really knocks the wind out of you.

A California rarity, Le Conte’s Joural of Ramblings Through the High Sierras of California, went well over estimate at $7500.

A first of Walt Whitman’s Franklin Evans; or the Inebriate, a temperance novel, went for $2200.    It was published in 1842, 13 years before Leaves of Grass.

Large numbers of lots of singles and pairs of firsts by John Mcphee and Eudora Welty went very well - much more interest in these than I expected.

Overall it was an interesting auction - we usually only attend catalog sales like these, where there is a broad selection of good material without any specialized trove that brings in the collectors who we can’t bid with.  The dichotomy between auction prices and the internet is interesting and much of it is counter intuitive, so I’d urge anyone interested to subscribe to a local auctioneers catalog and check out some previews, even if you’re not interested in bidding.  If you take some notes, you can learn a lot from the prices realized when it comes in the mail, and it’s always a gas to look at books you can’t afford.

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 Another entry from our distinguished writer from Massachusetts Tom Nealon of Pazzo Books

A signed proof of Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls is headed for auction in November at Swann.  It has a signed dedication to Martha Gellhorn, Hemingway’s fiancee and is signed to his friend and longtime employee Toby Otto Bruce, as well as being, apparently, the first signed proof of one of his novels ever to surface.  Why then, is Swann projecting a price of $75,000 -$125,000?

A signed and inscribed (to his physician) copy of The Sun Also Rises, from the famed Maurice Neville collection, went for $366,400 in 2004.  An inscribed first of Three Stories and Ten Poems from the same collection went for $150,000, Old Man and the Sea $140,000 and In Our Time, $280,000.  These did have the luxury of being together and from a famed collection, but they were also just ordinary first editions, exciting inscriptions notwithstanding.

Now, auction houses do dearly love items to go over estimate (the above Sun Also Rises was estimated at $80,000 - $120,000) but you’d think they’d at least try to get closer to the mark.  Wouldn’t one of the underbidders from the Neville auction like to scoop up this far scarcer item for the bargain price of, say, $300,000?  It may just go to show that Hemingway (as we revealed in a previous post) is down on his luck these days, passed over for the red hot William Faulkner.

The other possibility - if it really does sell in that range - is that advance proofs really are going down the tubes.  There was a time, not long ago, when any serious collector of modern firsts had to have the proof copy of the book along with the first trade edition.  Important dealers like Ken Lopez still often market them together, but it seems like the proof business has been suffering a slow death for years.  Part of it, no doubt, is the carpet bomb approach that major publishing houses perform when marketing a new book, but it also seems to speak to a certain lack of conviction or a lost thoroughness in today’s collector.  That said, as proofs pile up around the store, it’s hard not to view them with a certain studied disdain - could anything this common, anything treated with such offhandedness by their publisher, be worth collecting?

It’s up in the air, but I’ll continue to quietly sock away the good ones in my boxes of marinating fiction firsts, waiting for the day of their resurgence.  Remember, it’s often the initial lack of popularity that causes books to be discarded and end up impossibly scarce down the road.

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