The White House is seen, Saturday, May 31, 2014, in Washington. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

The West Wing has a preferred distillation of the president’s foreign-policy doctrine.

'Don't do stupid sh--' (stuff)

Forget The New Yorker’s “leading from behind,” and even President Barack Obama’s own “singles … doubles.” The West Wing has a preferred, authorized distillation of the president’s foreign-policy doctrine: “Don’t do stupid shi*t.”

The phrase has appeared in The New York Times three times in the past four days. So, if the White House’s aim was to get the phrase in circulation, mission accomplished!

The phrase – as “Don’t do stupid stuff,” with a demure disclaimer that the actual wording was saltier and spicier than “stuff” — appeared in the Los Angeles Times at the end of Obama’s Asia trip this spring, was reprised in the lead story of Thursday’s New York Times.

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But the West Wing hit the jackpot Sunday when it was used twice in The New York Times — once in the news columns, and once in a column by Thomas L. Friedman, who had been part of an off-the-record roundtable with Obama on Tuesday.

The Columbian newspaper of Vancouver, Washington, actually had the scoop, when it reported in February that it kept selling out of mugs that are emblazoned: “Don’t Do Stupid Stuff.” http://goo.gl/9oQ8d3

Here is a timeline of the phrase’s propagation in the press:

— Christi Parsons, Kathleen Hennessey and Paul Richter in the Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune of April 29: “The president’s aides have scrambled to put things in simpler terms. ‘Don’t do stupid stuff’ is the polite-company version of a phrase they use to describe the president’s foreign policy.” http://www.latimes.com/world/asia/la-fg-obama-military-20140429-story.html

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— Christi Parsons and Kathleen Hennessey in the L.A. Times and Chicago Tribune on May 25: “Privately, White House officials have described the working label for Obama’s doctrine as ‘Don’t do stupid stuff.’ Within the tight circle of foreign policy aides in the White House, the shorthand captured Obama’s resistance to a rigid catch-all doctrine, as well as his aversion to what he once called the ‘dumb war’ in Iraq.” http://www.latimes.com/world/la-fg-obama-foreign-policy-20140525-story.html

— Mark Landler, in the lead story of Thursday’s New York Times: “In private conversations, the president has used a saltier variation of the phrase, ‘don’t do stupid stuff’ — brushing aside as reckless those who say the United States should consider enforcing a no-fly zone in Syria or supplying arms to Ukrainian troops.” http://goo.gl/WG20of

— Steve Chapman of the Chicago Tribune editorial board, in Thursday’s paper: “Instead of trying to do great things, he’s settled for a policy that his aides summarize as ‘Don’t do stupid stuff’ — though they use a different word than ‘stuff.’” http://goo.gl/bPPaS6

— Mark Landler on page 4 of Sunday’s New York Times, “White House Memo: In Obama’s Speeches, a Shifting Tone on Terror”: “In his second term, a time that presidents typically set about cementing their legacies as statesmen, Mr. Obama has instead settled on a minimalist foreign policy — one that he laid out at West Point and sums up with a saltier version of the phrase, ‘don’t do stupid stuff.’ ‘There is a fundamental and profound distinction between this speech and the earlier speeches,’ said David J. Rothkopf, the publisher of Foreign Policy magazine. ‘The Nobel Prize speech was infused with hope, ambition, and the desire to better the world. This speech is built around the idea of not doing stupid stuff.’” http://goo.gl/ZUbKcM

— Thomas L. Friedman writing from Sulaimaniya, Iraq, in the Sunday Review section of The New York Times, “Obama’s Foreign Policy Book: Here are a few working titles for the president’s consideration”: “When President Obama sits down to write his foreign policy memoir he may be tempted to use as his book title the four words he reportedly uses privately to summarize the Obama doctrine: ‘Don’t Do Stupid Stuff’ (with ‘stuff’ sometimes defined more spicily).” http://goo.gl/GCHKjT

Mike Allen is chief White House correspondent for Politico.