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Comment by tptacek | Hacker News Reader

That's an argument that could fit any set of facts. Just say "most people don't know that, and it's the optics that matter" and you can shoot down any policy.

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I see your point, but I would say that if the general population sees it that way, then your "optics" truly do matter. Speculation can be extremely damaging, and that's why the president has an entire press corps to manage that image.

"Optics" do matter. I think this move was made to a greater number of political points at home than fewer ones abroad. In any case, it shouldn't be too big of a surprise since the US administration has been very clear about Snowden and their intentions from the very beginning.

For whatever set of reasons, going to summit would have made Obama and the administration look weak at home.

> For whatever set of reasons, going to summit would have made Obama and the administration look weak at home.

That is the reasoning precisely. Some of the news stories noting the cancellation are merciless in their insults to Obama: e.g. "Finally, a red line that is actually red".

it shouldn't be too big of a surprise since the US administration has been very clear about Snowden and their intentions from the very beginning.

Obama said that he was, “not going to be scrambling jets to get a 29-year-old hacker” during a press conference in Senegal. That was a pretty straight-forward signal that he was not going to make a big deal about Snowden. Other people in the USG have been losing their proverbial shit over the situation, but Obama himself deliberately downplayed it.

Bizarrely, the US decided to flex its muscle to ground Evo Morales' plane, on the suspicion that Snowden may be on it.

Actions speak louder than words. This is obviously a much bigger issue to the Obama administration than they are saying.

Can you support that argument with evidence, or do you simply think it's self-evident that no country would disrupt Morales' flight unless the USG had pulled strings?

"While Spain said it gave Morales’ plane the go-ahead to fly over the Iberian peninsula after receiving assurance that the NSA leaker was not on board, the European nation’s foreign minister did admit that a U.S. request had led it to delay approving the over flight."

http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/politics/2013/07/10/bolivia...

Huh! Interesting. Thank you! I hadn't seen this.

It doesn't look downplayed to me; it's a complete sentence in the White House's press release on the summit. A pretty big deal diplomatically (http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2013/08/07/statem...):

Russia’s disappointing decision to grant Edward Snowden temporary asylum was also a factor that we considered in assessing the current state of our bilateral relationship.

Matter to whom? The optics for Obama in the U.S. matter because U.S. citizens can vote him or his party out of office. And, generally, this is non-issue in the U.S.

The optics internationally are very different; influence depends on military and economic levers. Summits exist to show those levers getting pulled; if neither side is willing pull anything, there's no point in having a summit.

> For whatever set of reasons, going to summit would have made Obama and the administration look weak at home.

I dunno. Cancelling a meeting doesn't exactly look strong either.

I don't see your point. It's not an argument, it's an observation: "outside of your bubble, the rest of us see this clearly". Pretty much the opposite of what you are objecting to.

99% of the world's population is in a bubble, and you see yourself as part of a fortunate 1% that can see clearly. Seems legit.

bowlofpetunias' observation: "You are in a very small bubble. The rest of us 99.9% see it clearly." Look at some of the other comments in this thread. The entire rest of the world is talking about Snowden and the bad US behavior that he revealed.

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