It has been months since I have blogged here....weeks since I even looked at my page.
I have missed it, and been blessed by more than a few messages that I have been missed.
Thank you.
While quiet here, I have campaigned. The person to person, neighbor to neighbor way.
A few uncomfortable exchanges. Some harsh words.
More smiles, agreements, sense of belonging.
After talks like that, calls across the country, emails, and blogs -
I do have hope.
I also watch too much news.
And from that...I gain fear...even when the news is good.
I am, one who can worry.
Sleep has been uncharacteristically hard for me this last week.
Focus at work wandering.
I wonder...will it all come true?
Will there be another, even worse wrenching loss.
Worse, might there be efforts to steal that work?
And what then for this nation? for this movement? for me and my spouse?
So, I needed a way to respond to that.
First I came back here.
Read.
Went through dozens of emails here and in my private account - reading words and thoughts and hopes
of friends I have made because of this effort.
And...
I donated.
Not a lot. But more than anyone would say is prudent for me to be donating at this time.
And that is what helped.
Looking around at people I know spending days on end on the phone, on the blogs, on the streets helping, working, trying, doing what they can, it became so clear that this is no time for prudence.
It is instead, a time for thoughtful abandon of normalcy, and a two day spasm of effort, built of hope, and fed by my belief that the better world I long for, that I wish for others, ALL others with no exceptions, will have its greatest likelihood, in a Barack Obama Presidency.
So I say to all of you, for all you have done and are yet to do, Thank You.
I say to all who fear and worry as I do, BREATHE, SMILE, HOPE and then ACT - it helps.
I say to the world watching us - hang on and be hopeful with us and for us. I believe we will get this right and then be better friends and neighbors again.
I say to all who may - VOTE.
I say upward and outward with all the sincere desire in my heart- Please.
John
The U.S. is not currently at war, at least according to Richard Stearns, a federal judge in Boston.
The determination wasn’t just so much dicta*. Judge Stearns actually had to decide whether the U.S. is at war in order to decide whether the statute of limitations had run on certain criminal charges in a case involving the Big Dig, the massive construction project that’s been going on for years in Beantown. Click here for a copy of the opinion. (Hat Tip: How Appealing).
The background: In May of 2006, former employees of a concrete supplier were indicted on a handful of charges alleging, among other things, that they’d submitted fraudulent reports to the government. The defendants argued that because the alleged activity took place in early 2001 and before, the charges were time-barred by the five-year statute of limitations.
The government, however, argued that something called the Wartime Suspension of Limitations Act, as the name implies, suspended the statue of limitations. The Act provides:
When the United States is at war the running of any statute of limitations applicable to any offense (1) involving fraud or attempted fraud against the United States or any agency thereof in any manner, whether by conspiracy or not . . . shall be suspended until three years after the termination of hostilities as proclaimed by the President or by a concurrent resolution of Congress.
Therefore, strange as it seems, Judge Stearns had to decide whether the U.S. is war to rule on a motion involving contractors in a highway project.
The opinion, while detailed, is a pretty fascinating read. The bottom line, according to Judge Stearns: the U.S. ended the war in Afghanistan on December 22, 2001 and ended the war in Iraq on May 1, 2003. In other words, the statute of limitations on the criminal charges hadn’t yet expired by the time the government filed its superseding indictment in June.
BusinessWeek: President Bush recently lifted an executive order prohibiting oil exploration in U.S. coastal waters, and many people believe the gold mine of oil in coastal areas could be tapped to lower prices. But the reality is that drilling in the now-restricted areas would require years of extensive seismic research before a single rig could operate. Even then, companies would not embark on such massive projects unless the profitability were clear, and the federal Energy Information Administration estimates that access to new U.S. deposits would not significantly affect overall domestic production for 22 years.
When Cathy Landry, a spokeswoman for the American Petroleum Institute Says "Every day we wait is a day further from more oil production." I say EXACTLY!
Let's get one day further away from oil production.
Then let's get one week away.
Then a month, and a year.
And finally and rightly lets get away from oil production FOREVER.
Why I support my Senator? Why wouldn't I? Why wouldn't any intelligent American?
HOPE
INTEGRITYINTELLIGENCEJUDGMENTCHANGEBELIEVEINSPIREELOQUENTCHARISMAPRESIDENTIALFAIRPASSIONCOMPASSION
HUMANITY
HONEST
EMPATHY
CHARACTER
TRUTH
KNOWLEDGEABLEURGENCYNOW
LEADERSHIP
ENVIRONMENT
PEACEWITHDRAWLUPLIFTING
Once you catch your breath, write him here:
KOLBERMANN@MSNBC.COM
Thanks.
JWZ
--------------
Keith-
While I do not know you well enough to call you Keith, I feel you know
me that well for almost nightly I hear you speak my heart.
Never more so than on Friday May 23, 2008.
Your special comment was compelling, masterful, and unfortunately
absolutely necessary.
It was also heart wrenching. Your efforts to support the Clintons in
the past are well documented. The obvious and painful disappointment
you feel in her massive, repeated, and inconscionable actions creates
in your delivery a different tone and cadence than when you more
gleefully rail against President Bush.
Thank you for both what you do and how. Please keep it up. This
nation, this world, and this individual are in desperate need of your
reasoned and empassioned voice.
Thank you
John W. Zinsser
All -
I have been quiet for a while.
Chalk it up to personal and professional demands, not a loss of interest and desire.
The good news is I have a bunch of things I want to write about and look forward to your thoughts and responses on.
But first this unbelievably surreal piece of politics.
Yesterday the WSJ carried a piece by Karl Rove entitled "Obama's troubling instincts."
If it was not so painfully partisan and attack driven, it could be the opening to a SNL skit this week.
I wrote a comment to the WSJ website and it follows. Encourage you all to do the same.
Do it nicely. Be like Obama - respectful, thoughtful, maybe a little funny, but courteous.
But do act.
We all know this is but the tip of the iceberg. But this bad dog needs to be shown that we, the master, will not accept this form of bad behavior. So roll up that newspaper and please take a respectful discplining swing at Rove and the WSJ.
Best-
My Response -
_______________________________
Wait... Karl Rove is titling a piece "(anyone else's) troubling instincts?" Karl Rove who is under supboena from Congress for his troubling ACTIONS not instincts - but ACTIONS? Karl Rove (and others associated with him) who either instinctually or with great personal fore thought continue to choose to thumb their collective noses at the legislative branch of government in hereto fore unseen ways making a mockery of our form of government and balance of power? Karl Rove has no right to question any one else's instincts these days. Something about those in glass houses seems right here. I laughed so hard at the headline, had to wait for the tears to clear from my eyes before I went on to the article. Troubling Actions Karl...how about you write us a meaningful piece about your very troubling, offensive, and possibly illegal actions. That, or show up on July 10, and tell us all about it. Someone will be there to write it all down for you in the congressional record. SIDE BAR - The WSJ's editorial slant has so declined and shifted since the purchase of the paper and realignment of leadership there, that I can almost not read it anymore. It is quite sad to me. Like watching a good, trusted friend, one who was smart and intelligent and helpful, loose that capacity to some insipid brainwashing or disease. A real loss to the business community and America as a whole. Thanks. John
Ok - I am a hyper sensitive kind of person.
Little things bother me, get me down. I feel things, everything deeply. That is among the reasons I have always "avoided" politics. I hate the manipulation, creative truth management, spin, attacks etc. I do not understand why we, as a nation/society, can not actually stay on focus about the issues. Why the animosity? why the absence of respect and dignity? it kills me...literally, and all of us are less because of it.
Thus the SPIN CYCLE and the lie fest coming out of hrc this week is making me actually nauseous. (How anyone can say they WON a state with no one else on the ballot and where she signed a statement that it would not count leaves me questioning humanity - the one who can say it, the media that can repeat it, and the poor souls who accept it.)
So...I went looking for some help...something uplifitng and hopeful. As usual I went to music.
Here are some lyrics I found from an old favorite song. I am going to post them to my group Great Lines For Obama. feel free to submit song lyrics there for us all to turn to. maybe we can learn from each other's tastes and preferences, and maybe we can all smile for a few moments before we go back to work trying to do for this nation what it seems unable to do for itself...elect a decent honorable person.
It takes every kind of people.
Robert Palmer
Said the fight to make ends meetKeeps a man upon his feetHolding down his jobTrying to show he can't be boughtOoh, it takes every kind of peopleTo make what life's about, yeahEvery kind of peopleTo make the world go 'roundSomeone's looking for a leadIn his duty to a King or creedProtecting what he feels is rightFights against wrong with his lifeThere's no profit in deceitHonest men know thatRevenge do not taste sweetWhether yellow, black or whiteEach and every man's the same insideIt takes every kind of peopleTo make what life's about, yeahEvery kind of peopleTo make the world go 'roundYou know that love's the only goalThat could bring a peace to any soulHey, and every man's the same
He wants the sunshine in his name
Does Hillary surround herself with girly men? Obama and the experience question. Plus: Lincoln, Madonna's new face and a Bush with real authority.
By Camille Paglia
April 9, 2008 | I would like to get your feedback on the subject of those who end up in Hillary's orbit. Can you conceive of a strong, leader-type male ever working under her? An alpha, if you will. And if the answer is no, then why do you think that is?
The men you always see under her are to a person passive-aggressive, sadistic, mean, little, petty beta-male pieces of work who would not naturally succeed in a common male-type hierarchy. By that I mean an environment that values straightforward achievement rather than the darker political arts.
That statement is in no way meant to exclude women. In fact, I work with many women who succeed just as well in this environment. It is just a shorthand for an environment that values achievement and straight talk. Hillary's persona is simply not compatible with another strong will, male or female -- but definitely male, and that itself is a big red flag.
What kind of person would go to work for a Clinton in the first place? A naive true-believer? Everyone knows what they would be getting into: constant war rooms, personal attacks, spin, daily damage control, a boss prone to temper tantrums, placing your own integrity out on the ledge as a shill for a fundamentally dishonest person. I would argue that nobody who hasn't already sold their soul years ago would ever want to be a part of that mess.
Your thoughts?
Chris RichardAgoura Hills, Calif.
You have succinctly expressed one of the most unsettling aspects of Hillary Clinton's character and modus operandi. There is a strangely static and claustrophobic quality to the fiercely loyal cult she has gathered around her since her first lady years. Postmortem analysts of this presidential campaign will have a field day ferreting out all the cringe-making blunders made by her clique of tired, aging courtiers who couldn't adjust to changing political realities. Hillary's forces have acted like the heavy, pompous galleons of the imperial Spanish Armada, outmaneuvered by the quick, bold, entrepreneurial ships of the English fleet.
I agree that the male staff who Hillary attracts are slick, geeky weasels or rancid, asexual cream puffs. (One of the latter, the insufferable Mark Penn, just got the heave-ho after he played Hillary for a patsy with the Colombian government.) If I were to hazard a guess, I'd say Hillary is reconstituting the toxic hierarchy of her childhood household, with her on top instead of her drill-sergeant father. All those seething beta males (as you so aptly describe them) are versions of her sad-sack brothers, who got the short end of the Rodham DNA stick.
The compulsive war-room mentality of both Clintons is neurosis writ large. The White House should not be a banging, rocking washer perpetually stuck on spin cycle. Many Democrats, including myself, have come to doubt whether Hillary has any core values or even a stable sense of identity. With her outlandish fibbing and naive self-puffery, her erratic day-to-day changes of tone and message, her glassy, fixed smiles, and her leaden and embarrassingly unpresidential jokes about pop culture, she has started to seem like one of those manic, seductively vampiric patients in trashy old Hollywood hospital flicks like "The Snake Pit." How anyone could confuse Hillary's sourly cynical, male-bashing megalomania with authentic feminism is beyond me.
I have no idea whom I will vote for next November. Everything is open to me, and I am watching, listening and thinking. Regarding your comments on Sens. Clinton and Obama in your most recent article, I thought you were a little tough on Hillary in that you did not discuss any of Barack's shortcomings. No mention at all that the man who claims he will clean up Washington, D.C., was involved in a real estate transaction so questionable even my 7-year-old understands the implications.
Sen. Obama, a graduate of Harvard Law School, claims he did not break any laws, that he was only guilty of being "boneheaded." If I were Sen. Clinton's campaign manager, every ad would have the video of Sen. Obama saying that over and over. He claims his judgment is so good that he knew we should never have gone into Iraq, yet he had no qualms going into the real estate deal with Mr. and Mrs. Rezko. No mention that he has very little experience in politics.
I look for experience when I select my doctor, my CPA, my dentist, my child's teacher. Why can't I ask for some in my president?
Anonymity requested Houston, Texas
Obama's Rezko embroglio is certainly troublesome. But the splotches on Obama's record are few and relatively minor compared to the staggeringly copious chronicle of Clinton scandals, a mud mountain that the media have shown amazingly little interest in exploring during this campaign cycle. For all their grousing about media bias, the Clintons have gotten off scot-free over the past year from any kind of serious, systematic examination of their sleaze-a-thon history from Little Rock to Foggy Bottom.
Obama has actually served longer in public office than Hillary has. It's very true that he lacks executive experience, but so does she. Her bungling of healthcare reform, along with her inability to control the financial expenditures and internal wrangling of her campaign, does not bode well for a prospective chief executive. Beyond that, I'm not sure that your analogy to professionals like doctors, accountants and teachers entirely applies to presidents. There is no fixed system of credentialing for our highest office. On the contrary, the Founders envisioned the president as a person of unpretentious common sense and good character. Hillary may spout a populist line, but with her arrogant sense of dynastic entitlement, she's a royalist who, like Napoleon, wants to crown herself.
I too wish that Obama had more practical experience in government. But Washington is at a stalemate and needs fresh eyes and a new start. Furthermore, at this point in American history, with an ill-conceived, wasteful war dragging on in Iraq and with the nation's world reputation in tatters, I believe that, because of his international heritage and upbringing, Obama is the right person at the right time. We need a thoughtful leader who can combine realism with conciliation in domestic as well as foreign affairs.
Full disclosure: I have contributed small sums to Obama's campaign twice this year. I was lucky enough to see him up close as he spoke at a recent rally in the Philadelphia suburbs, where he answered policy questions in great detail. I was very impressed by his easy, relaxed authority and quick humor as well as his classy elegance. I'd love to have a woman president -- but slippery Hillary, stolidly pumping and pumping her narcissistic bellows like a steam engine, just isn't it.
It is hard to feel one's desire and strength fade.
There is none of the Media's or hrc's claims that weaken me.
It is more a malaise in a moment.
I have written and called and campaigned for months.
But this last 2 weeks....something...is missing in me.
I have seen other voices rise and fall.
Watched groups ascend in numbers of comments and then fall back again.
Seen tides swell and withdraw....
I want the fire of hope to rise in me again...
Not sure what I need...for that to happen.
Is this the problem of a six week lag...or the real world demands of my own life?
Is this happening to anyone else...or just me...I find that hard to believe.
What do I do to be better in support of the campaign?
So many others have to be so much more exhausted - mentally, spiritually, physically....
Where are my new words...my new ideas...my high hopes....
If you have seen them...tell them I miss them...
Then tell me to let it go and get back to it.
Because....
Now
IS
the
time.
Let's.
Think it was Chuck Todd on MSNBC/NBC who said this weekend that there comes a point where Obama can just GIVE Hillary FLA an MI and depower a few of her arguments and be magnanamous. That is great.
I am a conflict management and negotiation consultant. It is always worthwhile before negotiating to generate lots of options. Have seen many here. Some well thought out and others not so much so.
Was hoping some of you numbers types could help me think through this proposal.
What if Obama says to Clinton - Sure lets seat FLA and MI and here is how. -
We will divide the delegates by the average of ALL the other PRIMARY VOTES in all the other states?
How does that work out? Have to believe it keeps things...just as they are on the one hand, gets FLA and MI back in the fold.
Should the HRC campaign trot out that she "won" these and therefore should not need to average them - for weeks they were calling MI a fair election - I would lump that under more fabrication by asking how is it fair if only one candidate is on the ballot.
This way he can be seen as offering a positive option and not get painted as not interested in them.
Thoughts? Problems with this?
Fellow Obama supporters, it's time we all stopped bashing Sen. Clinton. It is unnecessary. The race, if not over, is clearly going to be won by Sen. Obama. Let's start reaching out to Sen. Clinton and to her supporters now. Let her campaign continue to throw the mud, the kitchen sink, whatever, if that's what they want to do. I trust Sen. Obama to handle it. Sen. McCain is the real opponent now, not Sen. Clinton. I've made the commitment to stop bashing Sen. Clinton myself. Since signing up on the my.barackobama.com website, I've had posted on my page the statement "Sen. Clinton reminds us that she spent eight years in the White House. Well, so did the pastry chef." Now I don't think that was a particularly harsh statement, but I took that statement down today anyway. Let the healing begin!
----
I would add to this that maybe it is time to create a group or two for reconciliation...some groups where folks who supported each can be decent to each other and begin exploring connections and ties.
I understand that some will feel so strongly, and hold such animosity to the other that it may not be possible...but for thos that can, there should be a space and support to help it happen.
Here is to 1Party...and the better world it should build.
My Dear Friend PA.
It has been too long since I wrote. I do apologize.
While my visits have been few in recent years,
you continue to occupy a special place in my heart.
The school years I spent outside of Philly in Bucks County
matter as much to me as anytime in my life.
That time, and you, had a big part in making me who I am.
Writing that I think to, how much of a role you had in making our nation what we are.
You hosted the continental congress that birthed this nation.
It is a signature event our nation's past. Thank you for hosting so ably.
It could not have happened anywhere else.
I recall as well how you changed the course of our nation some 4 Score and... years later. A deep red scar. A singularly costly time. A turning point. No joy in hosting that moment. But recognition of its necessity.
And that is why I really am writing. I wanted to ask...can you do it again?
Now the "fighting" of the last few weeks can not compare to the loss of life and treasure in the early 1860s. But I find it hurts me none the less. In fact, I think it has hurt us all.
We may no longer wear blue or grey. But whether we are decked in blue of a pale or fuller hue - and even for those who would wear red - the last few weeks have hurt more than helped. All of us are less I feel
PA, can you help?
Yes You Can.
I believe.
Why don't you show us again your capacity and import.
Help us emerge into a whole new political reality and positive era.
You have done it before. Would you please do it again?
You can be THE deciders.
You can end the rancor.
You can end the acrimony.
You can make peace and foster quiet amongst that blue party.
So it and all of us, may go forward.
BUT, Only if you choose to vote for Obama.
If she wins...it goes on and I fear gets worse.
More blood spilled in PA's rich soil, no one needs.
This would not be the blood of soldiers...
but rather, the life blood of a chance too rare to squander.
If he wins...it is over.
The chance to progress would again be saved on your land.
Through your hands, hearts and minds.
So, PA, I have to ask -
What are you going to do?
Who do you want to be?
A nation turns its eyes, tired and pained by the last few weeks, to you.
I wish you great good luck and much providence in your choosing.
With deep affection and high hopes.
When Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama met in California for the Jan. 31 debate, their back-and-forth resembled their many previous encounters, with the Democratic presidential hopefuls scrambling for the small policy yardage between them. And then Obama said something about the Iraq War that wasn't incremental at all. "I don't want to just end the war," he said, "but I want to end the mind-set that got us into war in the first place."
Until this point in the primaries, Clinton and Obama had sounded very similar on this issue. Despite their differences in the past (Obama opposed the war, while Clinton voted for it), both were calling for major troop withdrawals, with some residual force left behind to hedge against catastrophe. But Obama's concise declaration of intent at the debate upended this assumption. Clinton stumbled to find a counterargument, eventually saying her vote in October 2002 "was not authority for a pre-emptive war." Then she questioned Obama's ability to lead, saying that the Democratic nominee must have "the necessary credentials and gravitas for commander in chief."
If Clinton's response on Iraq sounds familiar, that's because it's structurally identical to the defensive crouch John Kerry assumed in 2004: Voting against the war wasn't a mistake; the mistakes were all George W. Bush's, and bringing the war to a responsible conclusion requires a wise man or woman with military credibility. In that debate, Obama offered an alternative path. Ending the war is only the first step. After we're out of Iraq, a corrosive mind-set will still be infecting the foreign-policy establishment and the body politic. That rot must be eliminated.
Obama is offering the most sweeping liberal foreign-policy critique we've heard from a serious presidential contender in decades. It cuts to the heart of traditional Democratic timidity. "It's time to reject the counsel that says the American people would rather have someone who is strong and wrong than someone who is weak and right," Obama said in a January speech. "It's time to say that we are the party that is going to be strong and right." (The Democrat who counseled that Americans wanted someone strong and wrong, not weak and right? That was Bill Clinton in 2002.)
But to understand what Obama is proposing, it's important to ask: What, exactly, is the mind-set that led to the war? What will it mean to end it? And what will take its place?
To answer these questions, I spoke at length with Obama's foreign-policy brain trust, the advisers who will craft and implement a new global strategy if he wins the nomination and the general election. They envision a doctrine that first ends the politics of fear and then moves beyond a hollow, sloganeering "democracy promotion" agenda in favor of "dignity promotion," to fix the conditions of misery that breed anti-Americanism and prevent liberty, justice, and prosperity from taking root. An inextricable part of that doctrine is a relentless and thorough destruction of al-Qaeda. Is this hawkish? Is this dovish? It's both and neither -- an overhaul not just of our foreign policy but of how we think about foreign policy. And it might just be the future of American global leadership.
When considering any presidential hopeful's foreign-policy promises, it's important to remember that what candidates say is, at best, an imperfect guide to their actions in office. What proves to be a more reliable indicator of presidential behavior is a candidate's roster of advisers. (If the press had paid better attention, the country would have seen through Bush's pitch about a humble foreign policy and realized that many of his advisers, including Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle, were conspiracy-minded warmongers.) Obama's foreign-policy advisers come from diverse backgrounds. They are former aides to Democratic mandarins like Tom Daschle and Lee Hamilton (Denis McDonough and Ben Rhodes, respectively); veterans of the Clinton administration's left flank (Tony Lake and Susan Rice); a human-rights advocate who helped write the Army's and Marine Corps' much-lauded counterinsurgency field manual (Sarah Sewall); a retired general who helped run the air war during the invasion of Iraq (Scott Gration); and a former journalist who revolutionized the study of U.S. foreign policy (Samantha Power). Yet they form a committed, intellectually coherent, and surprisingly united foreign-affairs team. (Shortly before this piece went to press, Power resigned from the campaign after making an intemperate remark to a reporter.)
They also share a formative experience with each other and with Obama. Each opposed the Iraq War at a time when doing so was derided by their colleagues, by journalists, and by the foreign-policy establishment. Each did so because they understood that the invasion and occupation ran counter to the goal of destroying al-Qaeda. And each bore the frustration of endless lectures on their lack of so-called seriousness from those who suffered from strategic myopia.
"There is a popular notion that Democrats have to try to appear like Republicans to pass some test on national security. The fact that that's still the case after Iraq is absurd," says one of Obama's closest advisers. "So you break from that orthodoxy and say 'I don't care if the Republicans attack me because I'm willing to meet with the leadership in Iran. We haven't for 25 years, and it's not gotten us anywhere.'"
Most of the members of Obama's foreign-policy team expressed frustration that they had taken a well-considered and seemingly anodyne position on Iraq and suffered for it. Obama had something similar happen to him in the spring and summer of 2007. He was attacked from the left and the right for saying three things that should not have been controversial: that if he had actionable intelligence on the whereabouts of al-Qaeda's leadership in Pakistan but no cooperation from the Pakistani government, he would take out the jihadists; that he wouldn't use nuclear weapons on terrorist training camps; and that he would be willing to meet with leaders of rogue states in his first year as president. "No one [of Obama's critics] had thought through the policy because that was the quote-unquote naïve and weak position, so they said it was a bad position to take," recalls Ben Rhodes, the adviser who writes Obama's foreign-policy speeches. "And it was a seminal moment, because Obama himself said, 'No, I'm right about this!'"
Instead of backing down, Obama asked his foreign-policy team to double down. Rhodes wrote a speech that Obama delivered at DePaul University on Oct. 2, which criticized the boundaries of acceptable discourse set by the same establishment that backed the war. "This election is about ending the Iraq War, but even more it's about moving beyond it. And we're not going to be safe in a world of unconventional threats with the same old conventional thinking that got us into Iraq," Obama said. One of his advisers, recalling the fallout from Obama's comments about pursuing al-Qaeda in Pakistan, says, "He takes policy positions that are a break from both rigid orthodoxy and the Bush administration. And everyone says it's a gaffe! That just encapsulates everything that's wrong about the foreign-policy debate in Washington and in Democratic politics."
The Obama foreign-policy team describes it as "the politics of fear," a phrase most advisers used unprompted in our conversations. "For a long time we've not seen much creative thinking from Dems on national security, because, out of fear, we want to be a little different from the Republicans but not too different, out of fear of being labeled weak or indecisive," another top adviser says. Identifying that fear as the accelerant of the Iraq War mind-set is the first step to a new and innovative foreign policy. John Kerry was not able to argue for fundamental change in foreign policy because he was consumed by that very political fear. Obama's admonition to Democrats is much like Pope John Paul II's to the Gdansk shipyard strikers -- first, be not afraid.
Like Obama, his defense advisers have supplemented their American views with the perspectives of outsiders. Gen. Scott Gration, a retired Air Force jet pilot, says hello to me over the phone in Swahili. He learned about the crushing misery of the world's poor by growing up in Congo, where his parents were missionaries. After the violence following Congolese independence in 1960, Gration had an experience few Americans ever will: He became a refugee. "We lost everything we owned, and what we took with us, they confiscated," he remembers.
Sarah Sewall, a Harvard professor and another of Obama's closest advisers, also knows about stepping outside of her comfort zone. A longtime human-rights advocate with the disarmament organization, the Council for a Livable World, Sewall found herself in 2005 and 2006 with an unlikely partner: Gen. David Petraeus. He and two colleagues were rewriting the Army and Marine field manual for counterinsurgency and wanted Sewall's input on how to create a more just, humane, and successful doctrine. For agreeing to help, she was attacked by some on the left. "Should a human-rights center at the nation's most prestigious university be collaborating with the top U.S. general in Iraq in designing the counterinsurgency doctrine behind the current military surge?" Tom Hayden wrote online in The Huffington Post.
Sewall's involvement may have lost her some influence within the academic left, but she has become a hero to the military's growing circle of counterinsurgency theorist-practitioners. "Her impact on the thinking about the war and the conduct of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan has been significant and not without cost," says Army Lt. Col. John Nagl, one of the counterinsurgency community's luminaries. "She has shown, in my eyes, great moral courage. I think Senator Obama is listening to someone who has thought long and hard about the use of force and who understands the kinds of wars we're fighting today."
This ability to see the world from different perspectives informs what the Obama team hopes will replace the Iraq War mind-set: something they call dignity promotion. "I don't think anyone in the foreign-policy community has as much an appreciation of the value of dignity as Obama does," says Samantha Power, a former key aide and author of the groundbreaking study of U.S. foreign policy and genocide, A Problem From Hell. "Dignity is a way to unite a lot of different strands [of foreign-policy thinking]," she says. "If you start with that, it explains why it's not enough to spend $3 billion on refugee camps in Darfur, because the way those people are living is not the way they want to live. It's not a human way to live. It's graceless -- an affront to your sense of dignity."
During Bush's second term, a strange disconnect has arisen in liberal foreign-policy circles in response to the president's so-called "freedom agenda." Some liberals, like Matthew Yglesias in his book Heads In The Sand, note the insincerity of the administration's stated goal of exporting democracy. Bush, they observe, only targets for democratization countries that challenge American hegemony. Other liberal foreign-policy types, such as Thomas Carothers and Marina Ottaway of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, insist the administration is sincere but too focused on elections without supporting the civil-society institutions that sustain democracy. Still others, like Kenneth Roth of Human Rights Watch, contend that a focus on democracy in the developing world without privileging the protection of civil and political rights is a recipe for a dangerous illiberalism.
What's typically neglected in these arguments is the simple insight that democracy does not fill stomachs, alleviate malaria, or protect neighborhoods from marauding bands of militiamen. Democracy, in other words, is valuable to people insofar as it allows them first to meet their basic needs. It is much harder to provide that sense of dignity than to hold an election in Baghdad or Gaza and declare oneself shocked when illiberal forces triumph. "Look at why the baddies win these elections," Power says. "It's because [populations are] living in climates of fear." U.S. policy, she continues, should be "about meeting people where they're at. Their fears of going hungry, or of the thug on the street. That's the swamp that needs draining. If we're to compete with extremism, we have to be able to provide these things that we're not [providing]."
This is why, Obama's advisers argue, national security depends in large part on dignity promotion. Without it, the U.S. will never be able to destroy al-Qaeda. Extremists will forever be able to demagogue conditions of misery, making continued U.S. involvement in asymmetric warfare an increasingly counterproductive exercise -- because killing one terrorist creates five more in his place. "It's about attacking pools of potential terrorism around the globe," Gration says. "Look at Africa, with 900 million people, half of whom are under 18. I'm concerned that unless you start creating jobs and livelihoods we will have real big problems on our hands in ten to fifteen years."
Obama sees this as more than a global charity program; it is the anvil against which he can bring down the hammer on al-Qaeda. "He took many of the [counterinsurgency] principles -- the paradoxes, like how sometimes you're less secure the more force is used -- and looked at it from a more strategic perspective," Sewall says. "His policies deal with root causes but do not misconstrue root causes as a simple fix. He recognizes that you need to pursue a parallel anti-terrorism [course] in its traditional form along with this transformed approach to foreign policy." Not for nothing has Obama received private advice or public support from experts like former Clinton and Bush counterterrorism advisers Richard Clarke and Rand Beers, and John Brennan, the first chief of the National Counterterrorism Center.
The Obama foreign-affairs brain trust balks at the suggestion that what it's proposing is radical. "He said we'd take out al-Qaeda's senior leadership in the Pakistani tribal areas if Pakistan will not. That's not, to me, a revolutionary policy," Rhodes says. "Watching him get attacked on the right is absurd. You've got guys who argued for a massive invasion and occupation of a country that had nothing to do with 9-11 criticizing him for advocating the use of highly targeted force to kill Osama bin Laden!"
Rhodes is referring, of course, to John McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, who recently asked of Obama, "Will we risk the confused leadership of an inexperienced candidate who once suggested invading our ally, Pakistan?" It's no secret that McCain, a war hero who is to the right of Bush when it comes to Iraq, hopes to make this a foreign-policy election. Conventional wisdom holds this would give him an advantage over Obama. A Feb. 28 Pew Research Center poll found 43 percent of respondents believe Obama is "not tough enough" on foreign policy. Thirty-nine percent believe Obama's foreign policy is "just right," while 47 percent say the same of McCain.
Even so, Obama's foreign-policy advisers are thrilled at the prospect of facing McCain. Had the GOP nomination gone to Mitt Romney or Mike Huckabee, politicians who don't particularly care about foreign policy, an Obama victory would not provide a mandate for the sweeping foreign-affairs overhaul his campaign proposes. November's election could be, for the first time in a very long time, a choice between two radically different visions of U.S. global engagement. "We want to have this debate with John McCain," a close Obama adviser says. "[Obama] will offer this clear contrast."
Susan Rice, an assistant secretary of state in the Clinton administration and one of the few foreign-policy-establishment luminaries to sign on with Obama, explains what's at stake: "After eight years of George Bush, when the next president puts his or her hand on the Bible to be sworn in, the U.S. is going to get one brief second look [from the world] about whether the U.S. truly learned to change from its past mistakes, recent and historic, and whether we're again the kind of America people look to lead in a constructive fashion, or whether we're hopeless. In my opinion, they'll look at McCain and decide we're trapped in our old mistakes."
Of course, it remains to be seen how voters might look at an Obama-McCain race. "The important distinction will be, does Obama come across as saying he wants to make a break with the foreign policy of the last seven years, or does it sound like he'll take foreign policy in a fundamentally different direction than that of the last twenty, thirty, fifty years?" says Guy Molyneux, a Democratic pollster with Peter D. Hart Associates. Americans are eager to put the Bush doctrine behind them, Molyneux says, but there's a danger that voters will see Obama as a "young guy who's less experienced but sounds like he's taking off in a new direction."
In his focus on the importance of dignity in our policy toward the developing world, Obama sounds quite a bit like John F. Kennedy, who knitted together an argument for engagement with the "non-aligned" world and began the tradition of development assistance as a foreign-policy goal. However, Kennedy's basic foreign policy continued along the Cold War lines that had been laid down during the Truman administration.
Democratic presidential candidates since Kennedy have either downplayed foreign policy or simply argued for more competence in its execution, with two major exceptions: George McGovern in 1972 and Jimmy Carter in 1976. In the popular imagination, based on the "Come home, America" line from his nomination acceptance speech, McGovern pivoted from a striking critique of the immorality of the Vietnam War to an indictment of U.S. involvement abroad. But McGovern purposefully left this broad criticism out of most of his campaign. "I concentrated on Vietnam," McGovern says in a phone interview, "because I thought it would be difficult to sell a comprehensive rewriting of American foreign policy." Carter is a more ambiguous case. In the wake of Watergate, he made a full-spectrum argument against the Washington establishment. Rethinking foreign policy was a part of that, and his aide Hamilton Jordan remarked, "If, after the inauguration, you find Cy Vance as secretary of state and Zbigniew Brzezinski as head of national security, then I would say we failed." Both men, of course, received precisely those posts.
Obama is doing something braver with foreign policy than McGovern or Carter. Much, of course, could go wrong. Right-wing demagogues are already implying Obama is a Muslim terrorist. Conservatives are using Obama's argument about the inextricability of international prosperity and U.S. national security to portray him as a "post-American globalist." Jewish right-wingers in the U.S. have begun a smear campaign not just about Obama, but also about Power, as writers for Commentaryand National Review have baselessly implied that she is an anti-Semite. Expect more of this for the duration of the primary season, and, if Obama wins, beyond.
If he wins in the general election, he will face a crush of foreign-policy problems so enormous that they risk overwhelming even the most competent, experienced national-security team. Iraq is, of course, a nightmare, and al-Qaeda is not just sitting still in its Pakistani safe haven. To propose rebooting U.S. foreign policy now is, to say the least, ambitious. Many military leaders consider Obama an unknown quantity. At a recent talk, Washington Post correspondent Thomas Ricks said that officers and soldiers serving in Iraq thought that McCain and Clinton would both pursue a foreign-policy commensurate with Bush's, but Obama left them puzzled. Once in office, Obama might feel compelled to turn his back on the critique he makes on the trail.
But while the doubts about Obama contain fair points, they also, to a certain degree, reflect a triumph of the Iraq War mind-set. Why not demand the destruction of al-Qaeda? Why not pursue the enlightened global leadership promised by liberal internationalism? Why not abandon fear? What is it we have to fear, exactly?
"He goes back to Roosevelt," Power says. "Freedom from fear and freedom from want. What if we actually offered that? What if we delivered that in the developing world? That would be a transformative agenda for us." The end of the Iraq War mind-set, it turns out, may be the beginning of America's reacquaintance with its best traditions.
Reprinted with permission from Spencer Ackerman, "The Obama Doctrine," The American Prospect, Volume 19, Number 4: March 24, 2008. The American Prospect, 2000 L Street, Suite 717, Washington, DC 20036. All rights reserved.
Spencer Ackerman is an associate editor at The New Republic.
"A man may dwell so long upon a thought it may take him prisoner" - Lord Halifax.
You have dwelt more than long and dotingly enough upon Rev Wright and this whole matter.
Part of why the story lives, is you keep breathing life into it.
Some of the breath - purposely agitating (See Fixed Noise <Thank you Keith Olberman>.
Others of it less targeted to destroy, meant only to sell copy or ad time - but by that, no better in quality.
You cut away from Obama's economic speech this morning.
But not last weeks Race speech.
Tell me why?
Race matters more to this country than the economy? I think not.
While Race matters, I think it is not as central as the current and deepening economic tumult we are enduring.
Let it go.
So we all may go forward.
Think on that which does in now matter.
And build toward a better and clearer choice.
The right one being...Obama.
The following is from the WSJ's Law Blog.
The Pepperdine Professor in question, D Kmiec, has taken a courageous stand.
Looking at the comments he is being widely savaged by conservatives in the field of law.
He stands fast. That is what is required today. Courage combined with Hope and Intellect.
Prof. Kmiec in his opening answer states elequently what brought me to this campaign...
A man, capable of respectful disagreement, and the ability to explain, what he is thinking, why he makes the choices he makes. I do not agree with Obama on everything either. That is not whay I need in a President. What I do need is to understand why he reached the decision he reached. What I need is the chance to present my ideas and have them respectfully heard, whether they are in fact adopted or not.
This is why I am with Obama.
I encourage all of us as we go forward to work with this set of principles...
Listen
Be respectful
Explain your own thinking after learning of the others
Be patient
Stay open and engaged
Be hopeful.
Yes We Can. And with each passing day I feel more and more, both that we MUST and that we will.
Yesterday, the Law Blog mentioned that the Pepperdine con law prof, Douglas Kmiec, had endorsed Barack Obama’s bid for the presidency on the Slate Convictions blog – a surprising move for the high-profile Republican who was a lawyer in the Reagan and Bush I administrations.
In Kmiec’s endorsement letter, he confirmed his belief in “traditional marriage,” a “limited judicial role” for the Supreme Court and that “life begins at conception.” Kmiec went on to write: “In various ways, Senator Barack Obama and I may disagree on aspects of these important fundamentals, but I am convinced . . . . he is not closed to understanding opposing points of view, and as best as it is humanly possible, he will respect and accommodate them.”
News of the endorsement quickly ricocheted around the blogosphere, eliciting moans from conservative legal bloggers like L.A. lawyer Patrick Frey, who writes the Patterico’s Pontifications blog. “Prof. Kmiec, that’s all very nice,” Frey responded. “But, you see, there is a candidate — his name is John McCain; you might have heard of him — who actually supports the principles for which you claim to stand. Why are you refusing to support him?”
The Law Blog caught up with Professor Kmiec to get a response to his critics.
Hi Professor. Thanks for chatting. Many have criticized your Obama endorsement, arguing that, based on your stated beliefs, Senator McCain would be a better candidate for you.
I have nothing against McCain. Indeed, he was my candidate in 2000, and I would still think him the better choice in 2000. But, perhaps like my time, his time has passed. John’s understanding of warfare is the understanding of, as Tom Brokaw put it, the greatest generation. Just as shock and awe did not prevail in Iraq, McCain’s under-estimation of the cost of deployments both in terms of money, life, and international standing, make him not well suited to protect our national security in a time of terrorist threat.
You worked as a lawyer in the Reagan and Bush I administrations. Do you see any qualities in common between Obama and those past presidents?
I actually think Obama and Ronald Reagan have more in common than not when it comes to qualities of leadership, communication and ability to call us to our better selves. President Reagan used to tell all of us in his administration, and the public generally, that his proudest achievement was making the country feel better about itself. I believe Obama is committed to giving us reason to feel better about ourselves. I’ve seen it in the classroom. I’ve been teaching for 40 years, and have not seen a more electric and engaged atmosphere with regard to the democratic process. We’ll be saying something quite disappointing to that generation by saying we want to continue the politics of the past.
One of your former students, writing on a conservative blog, says he can’t understand how you reconcile your beliefs with Senator Obama’s. Take abortion, for example.
Senator Obama has the interesting capacity to go to people and emphasize the values of self responsibility. So when he goes to Planned Parenthood, he says the usual things the Democrats say, but then he also emphasizes that we need to teach young people to have a reverence for what sexual intimacy means and how it’s necessarily linked to new life and parenting. That’s remarkable for someone on his side of the world to say. It’s not enough to satisfy my concerns as a Catholic and conservative who believes the Court had no business in that territory. But it is a kind of federalist reminder – that these problems get solved first in family, church and the community.
Can you talk a bit about Obama and Supreme Court appointments?
One of the hardest things to reconcile was my concern with the Supreme court, which I do think President Bush, somehow miraculously, deserves credit for. The Chief Justice and Justice Alito are unparalleled. But I view those appointments not as partisan appointments, but rather appointments that, as Roberts tried to articulate, are designed to take politics out of the Court. So when my fellow conservatives say that even thinking about Senator Obama betrays the importance of Supreme Court appointments, I think they’re smuggling in an improper premise – that there aren’t people of integrity from both parties that can do constitutional interpretation in the vision of a limited judicial role.
On blogs, some of your fellow conservatives have been quite outspoken and critical of your position. Have you received any direct responses?
I’ve received some e-mails which have been quite thoughtful. It’s a curiosity that people write in a tone on the blogosphere that they wouldn’t say to the person themselves.
From a book by Joe Brewer and George Lakoff
The conservative view of the world as a dangerous place where military threats always lurk nearby is not conducive to the tasks that make our world safer: communicating effectively with leaders of other nations, building trust and forging lasting alliances across the globe, promoting peace through diplomacy and engaging in efforts to ease suffering through initiatives that build secure communities at home and abroad.
We need a president, not just a commander in chief.
This is a workable and usable line.
I do not wish for someone ready to be Commander in Chief.
I want someone to be President.
There is only one.
OBAMA OBAMA OBAMA
When people talk of the freedom of writing, speaking or thinking I cannot choose but laugh. No such thing ever existed. No such thing now exists; but I hope it will exist. But it must be hundreds of years after you and I shall write and speak no more. John Adams
It is now hundreds of years after Adams wrote this.
And I ask you...are you speaking or writing or thinking freely? truly?
Are you exercising the essential faculties of democratic liberty within the representative structure?
Or are you, reacting to small minds and deeds of others? Are you falling pray to that which can be brutish and bruising within us?
I ask you again to write, speak, in all its modern forms, but also those of the past, pen and paper, face to face, one person to a group...and do so freely, properly, respectfully, and hopefully.
As you do so please keep this in mind.
The happiness of society is the end of government. John Adams
That is all there is. I wish to be happy again, proud again, of my society. I like Michelle have too long gone with too little to be proud of or happy with.
That said, I would be happy with this campaign FIRST. Happy with its tone, demeanor, purpose and passion.
I would rather be happy with the way each of us, for we are the campaign, holds ourselves, and speaks, writes and thinks, then win at the cost of that.
Be happy in what you do today for Obama and otherwise.
It may well make all the difference.
In Hope.
Hope - The Ultimate Renewable Resource.
If we do not lay out ourselves in the service of mankind whom should we serve? John Adams
Who indeed. To much of late has been done in the service of corporations, (who are of course only collections of some people) but not people in the purer sense.
Too much done in the name of a few, not all.
In politics the middle way is none at all. John Adams
Have you already tired of hearing Obama painted as the MOST liberal Senator? It will become louder.
I like the line at this moment though that give we are in "Uncharted Waters" we are not in a time when the middle path makes sense. We are in a place, where in response to the rash and flawed reality of the last few years, as extreme as that was, to gain some balance we need not the middle path, but something as extremely human, intelligent, and hopeful, and the last many years have been monstrous, thoughtless, and fearful.
Let us tenderly and kindly cherish, therefore, the means of knowledge.
Let us dare to read, think, speak, and write. John Adams
This line makes me weep. It speaks to each of us RIGHT NOW. We must DARE to read, think speak and write. To be silent is tantamount to treason or worse, a commitment to fail.
Ever wondered why education is always talked about in Presidential elections, but rarely acted on?
I do hope this time will be the dear and rare exception. For if we can elect this man, and begin on the process of again making education relevant, intellect desirable and the thoughtful use of language pertinent we have a chance to make not only our world better and safer, but our nation a finer democracy than it has ever been.
For as Adams also said -
Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people. John Adams
Please my friends, the time is now.
We may not have the chance to birth a new nation, but we can in fact deliver this one from one of its darkest periods, into a moment of great rediscovery and glory.
I am with Obama for that very purpose.
Are you?
