Secretary of State: A Cautionary Tale

Let's hope Obama's skills live up to his confidence in them.

edit - I assume [beg?] you will cross-post to DKos?

Greetings Al,

As a regular reader of your blog  I definitely trust your insight to the PEAKS and TROUGHS of the campaign, the election and now the transition phase of President Elect Obama.

I guess I am unable to fully comment about Mrs. Clinton because I do NOT clearly understand why she is better for the job in comparison to John Kerry and/or Bill Richardson.  I have no specific opinion about Mrs. Clinton, but I do know that the press/media seems to focus on her more than any other politician I have ever known of in my life.  I must explain that I am a younger blogger and ALL I have ever known is a Bush and/or a Clinton in the White House.  Needless to say, I am happy for a President Obama.  

I will take a wait and see attitude regarding if she will become the Secretary of State.  I DO know that our country has a lot of problems and we will need a lot of help.  I think the Democrats should listen to President and focus upon saving the country and the economy.  My worry is long term (the U.S. Economy) and not short term (Mrs. Clinton).

Just my humble opinion.           

something like this would concern Obama if it happened on his watch.  (I was also alarmed to read that Obama was willing to take the word of Colombia's president regarding protection of labor rights if the Colombian Trade Agreement goes through.  Doesn't he know the history there?  And wasn't this trade agreement something that both Bill Clinton and Rahm were pushing?)

Aaah, here's the permalink.

http://narcosphere.narconews.com/notebook/al-giordano/2008/11/us-secreta...

Here.

(And I'll fix the link to the full story momentarily.)

Don't forget to check Narco News for news from Latin America. There is also a link there to the story...

Repeating what Fai reported in the earlier thread:

I just called the Obama-Biden Transition office at (202) 540-3000, and made my opposition to the potential HRC pick heard, loud and clear.  If you haven't called already, and you object as well, please call now.

I remember watching as my mother—an former enlisted woman in the air force for two decades—pushed shopping carts and sold perfume on commission to support her family. At a time when my family needed government assistance the most, the Clinton administration's answer was to make that impossible, all while extolling the virtues of a job creation with the NAFTA and WTO. Those new jobs didn't pay shit and there was no recourse to go for help from the government. And I know for a fact that I'm not the only one with these stories.

Please note this is in no way meant to draw a parallel to the numerous human rights atrocities or struggles in Mexico. It's an anecdote. But if I could pick my main reason for not to supporting Clinton as Secretary of State, it would be, admittedly and perhaps irrationally, for this personal reason. The Clintons live in their own little bubble and have proven time and time again that they're not interested in listening. Not to people like me, and certainly not to the communities residing outside of United States borders.

What an election joy buster this whole thing is.  I can see 6 months from now Pres. Obama having to call a press conference to denounce some screw-up she made and ultimately having to replace her.  I see her forcing him to deliver a "more perfect union" speech about some mess she created in the world and then a few weeks later, when she does something else more dangerous for all of us,  the denouncement of her --similiar to how he had to deal with Rev. Wright. Geez didn't she almost cause World War III with her Iran comments? 

I've been trying to understand why Obama did this and can only believe that he thinks he can control her.  Which he well may be able to but who has the time and energy for that?? I think this officially ends the No Drama Obama part of his presidency as she will upstage him in the news every day for the next 8 years.

Al, I read the Narco News links to the story and I'm sure this must be devastating for you to see the consequences of her actions firsthand. 

I  called and spoke to the gentlemen at Obama Biden transition and voiced my extreme displeasure with this choice.  I also replied to a donation appeal email that I received minutes ago that this choice of SoS is disgraceful both in choice as well as how it is being handled by the Obama team.  

 

God have mercy, is right.  After reading this piece from Al, I called the transition office for the second time today. This time I specifically mentioned that I had just read Al's piece and said I was now horrified at the idea of Hillary as SOS.

I started to write that I hoped someone would send a link to Keith O. and Rachel Maddow, in the hopes that they would cover this on their shows tonight. But then I paused, hit backspace several times, and sent the messages to their respective email accounts myself.  

countdown@msnbc.com

rachel@msnbc.com

Al - very smart to tell this story now - very concrete and specific - to help focus the conversations about SOS. I guess this is what you meant when you said that if you escalated to fight back about Hillary as SOS it would look very different than we might expect.  I hope this story has the legs it deserves.

(My first post with an actual login - previously Nancy M.)

Al, this an extremely powerful statement--and as many of us commit publicly to spreading the word (and hard evidence of Clinton's incompatibility with the concept of human rights) amongst all our contacts (especially those who organized, volunteered for, and paid for Obama's victory)--this should be considered a serious shot across the bow of an Obama foreign policy agenda AND domestic agenda.  Will community organizers--ostensibly valued in this campaign (or was it all spin?)--be respected by a Clinton State Department? by an Obama Presidency?

After HRC's callous refusal to support a constituent and in light of Bill's crocodile tears from the the Kigali airport tarmac where he "apologized" for not intervening in what his Secretary of State called "acts of genocide" in Rwanda, does anyone have any confidence at all that Mrs. Clinton as Secretary of State will do anything to defend the most basic of rights for those trying to organize and report on efforts to improve the lots of the most impoverished and marginalized people of our continent or other continents? 

It is time for Obama to drop the pretense of Lincolnesque metaphors (that start to smack of hubris anyway) and reenter the 21st century and our battles for the most basic social justice at home and everywhere else.

This absurd dance with a euphemism for death that is the ongoing Obama-Clinton courtship is grotesque. Enough already.

before I decide he ain't no agent of change and walk away from this all. I am still hoping that this is all some unseen (by the masses like us) chess move to check-mate the clintons forever.

amk

Obama in the last debate with McCain:

Actually, I understand it pretty well. The history in Colombia right now is that labor leaders have been targeted for assassination on a fairly consistent basis and there have not been prosecutions.

And what I have said, because the free trade — the trade agreement itself does have labor and environmental protections, but we have to stand for human rights and we have to make sure that violence isn’t being perpetrated against workers who are just trying to organize for their rights, which is why, for example, I supported the Peruvian Free Trade Agreement which was a well-structured agreement

I very much doubt at this point that Clinton will be offered SOS. I think the idea might have been floated as a test by the Obama administration specifically to see if she and her people could be more disciplined when not in campaign mode. A test I suspect that they failed.

Obama and his people seem to take the no-drama mantra pretty damned seriously yet the Clinton's hangers on gosip worse than the national enquirer. I doubt Carvile and that crew could keep their mouths shut if their lives depended on it.

I'm still pretty sure that the reason that Clinton didn't get the VP nod is mostly due to the efforts of her supporters who tried to apply pressure to the Obama camp.

I actually don't think Hillary would be that bad as SOS I've always thought she was further to the left in her views than her rhetoric. The problem I've had with her was always her alliance with the DLC and the right wing of the Democratic Party.

Afrer all in such a position she'd be tasked with fulfilling Obama's foriegn policy objectives not making up her own and she'd be easier to control than as a senator with her own power base.

Unfortunantly for her I think those camp followers who don't know when to keep their friggin mouths shut are probably going to blow this spot for her as well.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/al-giordano/us-secretary-of-state-a-c_b_145539.html

I feel very depressed about the prospect that this will come to pass and I really do feel it doesn't make any sense. But walking away is not an option. There is so much to do in other areas like healthcare, energy and the enviroment, civil liberties and civil rights, government reform, and many more areas. It would be folly in my opinion to ignore or devalue so much else that is good because of a bad judgment in one area (if that is indeed what it is).

At the end of the day, each of us needs to do whatever we can to make our communities, this country, and the world a better place and we will keep doing that whoever the president is and whatever we think of him. But I wouldn't give up hope at this point!

We can and must do all the things you list while speaking up and speaking back to the Obama administration with our opinions about this rumored choice.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/11/21/john-brennan-torture-tain_n_145517.html

 

before I decide he ain't no agent of change and walk away from this all. I am still hoping that this is all some unseen (by the masses like us) chess move to check-mate the clintons forever.

 

I have been utterly unimpressed by Obama on Latin America so far. I know there are bigger foreign policy challenges, like Iraq and Afghanistan, but appointing Clinton and keeping up the talk about "adversaries" and the Cuba embargo is almost a guarantee that he won't have a Latin America policy at all and human rights activists better prepare for another 8 years in the trenches. I know Al disagrees, but I see Holder's appointment as part of this bigger reality of "war on drugs" and profiteering of corporate human rights violations.

For much of the rest of the world, Obama's proposed policies are not progressive, but centrist at best. Where I come from he would be a right-winger. To make credible changes in US foreign policy and put human rights at the center of it he needs to reach out to the left instead of to the US center or the Republican side, but he doesn't seem to get that.

From day one in my support for Obama I always knew he'd disappoint me at some point in terms of a decision - after all no one is perfect and there were policies I didn't totally agree with from the start - but boy I never thought it would happen before he even took the oath of office!!!

The reason for my introspection? Well with the NYT now claiming that Clinton will accept the SoS offer - IF it's true then as someone who isn't an American or in the US, I have to say that from that position outside the US, the idea that Clinton will be the international face of the Obama administration is depressing and as someone who hoped the whole Clinton drama was finally behind us all it seems like the change thing has gone right out the window!

I mean does anyone think that the leaky colander that is the Clinton sphere will suddenly behave itself and shut up when she's at Foggy Bottom??? Of course not and goodness only knows what that might mean for US foreign policy and the country's relationship with the rest of the world...

I keep hoping that this is all a bad dream and in the end the job will go to someone else, but I'm starting to brace myself for bad news and a period of never ending drama

And no this is not me being a chicken little, just a realist and I'm not stopping supporting Obama at all, just approaching the upcoming administration with a bit more of a weary sigh than I would otherwise do if the Clinton's weren't around

mainly from Bush's gun-slinging, disastrous FP prism. Once that prism breaks, the charm is lost.

Yes, I do understand there are equally pressing problems in US and rest of the world too. But the sole attraction to us, foreigners, was his lonely voice of opposition to Iraq war when most of the US was being pretty jingoistic about it and that crowd included vociferous HRC. Of course, after joining here, I have learnt of more US atrocities, either directly or covertly engaged.

Immediately after Nov 5th, I bade farewell here with good feeling of job-well-done. I jumped back in mainly after this sos mess because that position affects the rest of the world. 

I am still hoping this would turn out alright at the end, may be I drink too much of kool-aid ?

amk

and the young man was very nice.  He recommended also going to the www.change.gov website and leaving a comment (for any here who might want to do that).  I suspect you'd do that at the "Share your story" link, bottom left.

Since I just received a request from the campaign for a donation, I unsubscribed and gave HRC as SoC as my reason and explained how upsetting I find this possibility and why.  If the appointment doesn't happen, or if Obama proves to me that he's the man I thought I've been supporting, re-enlistment is always an option.

That was in reference to amk, the same passage as quoted by Okke. Sorry that wasn't clear!

...away from the Clinton circus, the Dow is shooting up on the news that Obama's choice for Treasury is Timouth Geithner.

Interesting pick and one that excites me if no other reason then it's finally someone new!

He was interviewed by Arianna the other night when she filled for Maddow.  He said he has learned, at least for now, to stop second guessing Obama.  Richardson is my first choice at SOS and I certainly appreciate Al's position on this.  But I'm not ready to get worked up in to a lather over this after all the good decisions Obama and team have made.  Maher indicated that history shows that anyone who doubts Obama at this point will likely be proven wrong.  I don't like Clinton...don't trust either one of them...but I'm happy to say I voted for and we elected someone a hell of a lot smarter than I am and, for now, I'm just going to trust his judgement.

If this happens, I will believe some kind of a 'deal' was cut.  I agree, to a degree, with Tara(above), haven't heard Bill Maher.

I respect President-elect Obama, and I also respect Abner Mikva, and many others who do not think Clinton should be named SOS. Everyone gets to make mistakes, but this one is so huge, makes a difference to most of the world, and I hope the actions of thousands of us calling the transition office, will make a difference.

How can the euphoria of this election, be dulled so quickly.  Probably only by the Clintons pushing themselves into the spotlight as quickly as they could.

God have mercy, indeed.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/22/us/politics/22obama.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

I feel like I've stepped through the Looking Glass.

Easy does it. Please don't go anywhere.

Clinton, if appointed, will be working for Obama, not against him. This isn't a campaign. Furthermore, if she emerges as a massive screw-up, she's gone. And not just from the SoS post but from government altogether (she will have already given up her senate seat to take SoS). And if she indeed harbors presidential aspirations for '16, how does she benefit by screwing up State?

Finally, due most likely to a post-election news doldrum, conflating Obama's cabinet appointments with his overall message of change is flat-footed and wrong (and wrong while playing conveniently into rightwing talking points). Obama never once suggested that change to him had anything to do with the people working for him. Instead, change was about policy and practice. In that sense, selecting Clinton actually is change because it bucks conventional wisdom.

Al's case against Clinton in the position is strong, but none of us have any idea if she becomes SoS what her approach to the position will look like. Maybe she's learned a few lessons from her failed campaign. Check out her FISA vote.

 

As if the idea of Clinton as SoS isn't bad enough, the chatter is that her deputy will be Richard Holbrooke!

I know Obama is all about bringing people together but after some of the stuff Holbrooke came out with in the primaries there could be an argument  made that this is taking it a step too far...

If all these concessions Bill will supposedly have to make are true in order for Hillary to be SoS, Obama might be doing a brilliant job to contain him. Bill can't raise money on his own. He can't run his own foundation. His foreign speeches must be pre-approved. Someone is putting a big sock on him: he can't run around being the alternate President-on-a-Plane.

He's Commerce Secretary.

Early ---before the Iowa primaries, I saw the Youtube  video of the CodePink women in her Senate office (or in the lobby since she wouldn't invite them into her office).  The video is devastating in capturing Hillary's complete disdain for anyone who disagreed with her Iraq War position.  It is unsettling to witness her reaction to dissent and you get the sense that she would have been very happy to have had them all arrested for disagreeing with her. 

This was the moment that I knew I did not LIKE her, did not RESPECT her and would volunteer my time and money to see that she LOST her political power.  Fortunately, as I learned more about Obama, my volunteerism turned into more of an effort FOR Obama than an effort AGAINST Hillary. 

I will continue to do that as she has shown her true colors repeatedly throughout the primaries and general election that power over principle means everything to her.  Why else would someone continue to take millions of dollars of donations from struggling Americans KNOWING the math clearly showed she had no conceivable way to win the nomination after Wisconsin, let alone PA and TX or after NC/IN???  This obsession with power is her first and second nature and no one will dispute that.

In contrast, throughout his career, Obama has spoken out forcefully time and again about abuse of power and so it is so unsettling to me to see her rewarded with the potential to continue to abuse her political power over the people of many other countries.  

I have complete confidence that Obama is smarter than most of us but this appointment would not only require him to change her policies but also change her nature.  We did vote for CHANGE for that's CHANGE that is HARD to believe in.

NPR News confirms that the posts of treasury secretary and commerce secretary have been offered to Geithner and Richardson and that Clinton has accepted the offer of secretary of state.

KD

When Obama said he would bomb Pakistan and continue the war in Afghanistan, I told my friends, it isn't as important as the overall change he represents - change the world needed.  Ending the war in Iraq, action on climate change, healthcare - that's real change, so let's embrace it.

 

When Obama bent over backwards to appease AIPAC and said Jerusalem should be the undivided capital of Israel, I told my friends, well, what do you expect, he's running to be US President, and he's black - add to that all those Muslim rumours, the guy has to say nonsense like that to win.

 

When Obama capitulated over FISA, I told my friends that you can't win them all, and he has to be seen to be moderate and centrist - live to fight another day, as it were, and he could always reverse it when he won power.

 

When Obama rewarded Lieberman's treachery with continued responsibility over American domestic safety and nominated Clinton to be in charge of foreign policy at a time of two wars and increasing international tensions, I have nothing to say to my friends except: perhaps you were right.

 

All I can hope is that a deal was cut between Obama and Clinton, because this makes no sense from a political point of view.  If there was no deal, and Obama thinks this is a good idea, then either he is becoming weak and listening to his new Clintonite advisors, or he is losing his political touch.  From a moral point of view, this is a woman who said she would "obliterate Iran", who approved the "3am ad", and who cannot do a simple thing like concede or accept a nomination for a position without taking a week to consider her own selfish interests, negotiate with her slimy husband, and draw out this boring, pathetic psychodrama associated with her and her family.

 

Enough is enough.  I am not American, so I did not vote for change: however, 67 million Americans did, and I didn't follow Obama's campaign for a year, believing in the man, defending him against ANY criticism, and investing my hope in his ability to be a great president, to get the Clintons back in the White House.

 

He hasn't taken over yet.  Maybe I'm jumping the gun.  But this will only end in tears.  Barack, what have you done?  To come so far, only to throw it away with this egotistical, spiteful, childish pair of morons in charge of American foreign policy.  You yourself pointed out this trainwreck lacked the judgement to oppose the Iraq war.  What's changed in a few months?

Bit late, but I caught the end of the morning session of Politico's event at USC where a panel from Politico and members of both campaigns (inc the wonderful Steve Hildebrand) have been discussing various issue from the campaign.

They're on lunch break at the moment, but if anyone is interested in watching any of the afternoon sessions from Election 2008: Obama vs McCain: What happened and what comes next? here's the link:

http://capture.usc.edu/college/Viewer/Viewers/ViewerVideoOnly.aspx?mode=Default&peid=5e1df0d7-f1f6-4366-ae04-bfd5a792e07c&pid=6de8c992-5613-4fd8-bb49-bbb70693fffa&playerType=WM7#

One of the few things that still get Republicans in a lather is her involvement in an issue. If she's out of the Senate, that's gone. Any bill and anything Hillary advocates draws irrational Republican fire.

That irrational hatred killed Hillary Care and a lot of other things domestic she wanted to get done. We will finally get health care and some other things with her gone.

Hillary and Bill were people who had to be dealt with. They are too young to just go off and live the lives of retired Presidents who give advice and just do charity work. In the State Department they will at least be busy traveling the world-she and her noisy crew will stay out of domestic politics.

 

 

Says who? Anonymous aides? Clandestine confidants?

The tendency for these journalists to solely depend on reports from a small bloc of anonymous sources who could be ill-informed or have ulterior motives just reeks of unprofessionalism.

...doesn't make it true.

Now, I don't claim to know if the New York Times is correct (although I get a chuckle out of its use of two alleged "confidantes" as its sources about HRC supposedly accepting the SoS position, because confidantes, by definition, wouldn't be talking to third parties!), or if this pushback by Clinton's own spokesman is true:

A spokesman for Hillary Rodham Clinton says the New York senator is still in discussion over whether to accept the secretary of state's job, though the talks are ''very much on track.''

Spokesman Philippe Reines and other Clinton officials flatly denied reports Friday that she had accepted the job offer.

Clearly, they at least want the perception out there that something(s) are still to be negotiated.

If that's the case, it's not a done deal, no matter how many media organizations try to get out in front of the others and declare it.

I'm not saying it's true or untrue. I'm just saying that it makes sense to wait until the Obama organization itself announces its choice for Secretary of State, which it has not done.

The "inevitability game" is about creating the impression of something in order to make it so. But we already have a very good example of how that didn't happen for the last two jobs Senator Clinton allegedly had locked up: President and Vice President.

Don't talk about things as a fait accompli until they're, well, accomplished!

I have no doubt that the reports on the expected appts. for Treasury, Commerce and State are accurate.  These are being widely reported by NBC, NYT, the AP and other traditionally reliable sources with no push back from one person inside the Obama campaign. 

wouldn't want me in your reporter's pool!  I hear you but I'm one of those thinking that if Commerce and Treasury are to be  believed, why not State?

I guess we'll see. I certainly don't claim to know one way or the other. But just because the Obama team isn't "pushing back" doesn't provide any evidence that Hillary is in fact the pick.

There's a very good article at Huffpo by Jamie Alter Lynton about the role that CA volunteers played in the 2008 election.  As many Fieldhands took part in this effort, I encourage you to read and celebrate what we accomplished.

There's a good chance that the role California played in Barack Obama's victory will go unnoticed by even by the more astute political observers. After all, California was never in serious play -- it's been twenty years since it went for a Republican in a presidential election. The Obama campaign's directive to the California operation was simple: keep up a presence but don't spend money. Fewer than 20 paid staff members were hired in September (compared with 100s in battleground states), a handful of offices opened and a minuscule budget approved. So it may come as a surprise that the California team actually pulled off what can only be called a field operation coup: on election day, California volunteers got on their own phones and managed to make an astonishing 2 million calls into battleground states -- a number that outstripped the calls made by all other Obama phone banks in all other states, combined. They called from coffee shops, from houses, from parks. They called from baby groups, from pajama parties, from book clubs. In the end, the state logged a total of 10 million calls between Obama's nomination speech and his victory speech. It was a milestone achieved with very little drama, and one that is noteworthy not only because it is unprecedented, but because it nearly took the national campaign by surprise. How it was done may also provide some insight into what lies on the horizon, on the grassroots front, going forward.

Read the full article here.

Thank you, Al.  Appreciate your post.

Interestingly, this is what CNN Politics has posted on it's site right now... 

Sources: Richardson a 'serious contender' for Commerce Job:

Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico is a serious contender for commerce secretary, but he could be tapped for another senior post, two sources close to the transition told CNN Friday...

Richardson is also considered to be a possibility for the secretary of state post.

Friday, Sen. Hillary Clinton's camp shot down media reports saying that she had already agreed to accept the secretary of state position.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/11/21/transition.wrap/index.html

I am still waiting to hear from the horse's mouth, a sensible horse at that, before I go and drown myself.

amk

The ink is dry.

I'm not getting pissy till I have a reason to.

The NYT story just doesn't sound really legit to me.

Still waiting....

your offer to fob us off with the Clintons. :)

amk

I have also unsubscribed from the Obama list and called the transition office. I won't be considering walking away but I intend to consider active opposition especially if other expectations of Change also get mucked up. I am fairly sure some of us have learned how to organize this year.

Catherine - Why can one reasonably think that reports about other cabinet posts are more likely than not to be true but those about another could be suspect?

Because of who it is about, and the fury of that person's spin-and-drama machine!

That her own spokesman is saying "wait a sec" and things are still being negotiating is an indication that one or both sides isn't in agreement yet.

Give it the weekend, at least. We may have to give it until after Thanksgiving weekend. And the longer it ticks on, the less you can trust what was reported, based on anonymous sources, today.

"A Senior Obama aide told CNN there has been no development on a possible Clinton appointment since they informed CNN yesterday she is "on track" to be nominated for secretary of state. "

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/11/21/transition.wrap/index.html

amk

I'll never forget being in New Hampshire prior to the primary and everyone working so feverishly to try to win the state. Two of the people in the trenches there were Tony Lake and Susan Rice, who were working the phones and going door-to-door in the frigid cold along with everyone else. Both had served in the state department under Bill but must have made the difficult decision to buck the Clintons. There were a couple of other foreign policy guys there canvassing who had worked in the state department under Clinton and even knew Hillary well, but were going all out to try to help Obama win because they thought he would be a superior leader. I think about those people and wonder what they think about the possibility that Clinton could now take over the state department. Obviously I don't know how they feel about it, but I can't imagine they would think it a positive development, for their own careers or for the progressiveness of our foreign policy. What bothers me most about this whole thing is that Obama would potentially buck the advice of, and essentially throw under the bus, those people like Rice who took a chance on him and stood behind him when few others in the foreign policy establishment did. But, as we have noted, it's not a done deal yet so I will dispense with the lament.

Clinton is a basic Ice Princess from the North Shore, cold hearted and wearing horns makes her useless in real crisis. So many judgement calls in Latin America requires a heart to speak from, Clinton is heartless.

Obama is making a deep error in keeping her in mind for any job requiring a working knowledge of the human heart. This is going to be a long learning curve for a bright young man.

Thank you Al.

http://www.change.gov/page/s/contact  (It appears not to have a word limit since I wrote a novel and it went through!)

 

Britta,

I had no idea that Lake and Rice were part of the early ground game  - how wonderful.  I just can't believe that they are philosophically in agreement with Obama about even entertaining Clinton as a possible SoS.  Based on Al's comments, I will keep my hopes alive that she stays in NY.

 

 

 

Your link also says "Richardson is also considered to be a possibility for the secretary of state post." There's no source or reference to that, but they make a good point: it isn't done until Obama says so.

Article I just received from a local antiwar activist that's on point:

http://www.alternet.org/story/107666/this_is_change_20_hawks%2C_clintonites_and_neocons_to_watch_for_in_obama%27s_white_house/

It seems to me at least the antiwar folks are gearing up.

When Al did his very first post on the whole Clinton/SoS saga, I commened that although she would not be my first choice, it would not bother me all that much.  Regarding Latin America, it has been shameful how for years this country has treated anything south of the Rio Grande as some for of uncultured, uneductaed, undeserving group of countries.

And I am not sure that anybody else would make that be a difference in our policy toward that region.  Which agauin is shameful.

But what has upset me a great deal is how the drama, "leaks" back and forth has gone on during this whole process.  One of the major qualities needed in diplomacy is tact, quiet andtotal lack of leaks.  Plus, a public maybe I will, maybe I wn't, etc type of atmosphere just doesn't work well.

I will also be telling the Obama transition team that the US cannot afford a SoS that cannot be committed enough to the position that it needs to be thought through and over and under.  Either she wants it or she doesn't.

I'm heading out for a night of ceegars, light libations, and some blues guitar playing, so don't flame me - I'll be in a happy end-of-week place, my own kind of transition, but...

What a buncha chicken littles!

I don't walk around intoning "must trust Obama, must trust Obama" but I do give the new President the benefit of every doubt possible in assembling his team. If Barack wants Hillary, so be it. It seems clear now that he pursued her, not the other way 'round.

If he wants Richardson for Commerce, cool. If he names Geithner to Treasury, fine. Napolitano at Home Security - I'm down with that. Even - gulp...hack...ptooey - Lieberman for the committee of the same name. Ok, ok. Gates at defense. Yes.

The man is forming a big, broad center-left government and he's going for some experience and range and political skill. He ran on a promise to do just that. And he means to govern, to go long and deep, in Rahmbo's words.

Folks, really - calling the transition office to protest the President-elect - the nerve!

Why not support Barack Obama? I do. If he decides tonight he wants Kerry over Clinton in a last-minute change of heart, I'm fine with it. Hell, if he keeps Condi, I'll go along for a while...

Minor kvetching is one thing; dissing the guy who changed American politics this year before he takes office seems a bridge too far. Come down off that ledge, because there's a little secret have to share with you: Barack Obama was elected President of the United States! Does that sentence not still thrill you?

Now I gotta go pack up the old guitar...and I won't be playing 'The Thrill Is Gone.'

Thanks for the link for submitting a written message. I didn't bust my ass for a year and go into debt to provide plums for the Clintons. I would offer her ambassador to the emperor penguins when they are standing on the ice through the winter if I didn't consider that every species of life deserves better treatment than her unfortunate constituent in Al's report.

and big business here in Canada but anyone I have talked to here don't like her or Bill.  Bill's presidency ay have een good for the US but it was bad for us here in Canada.  The loss of respect for the Government of the USA started with Clinton's presidency and was finished with Bush.  So good luck Al and others in your effort to stop Hillary being named to SOS. 

Didn't Carter turn a blind eye to (and even help cover up) the murder of three nuns doing aid work in El Salvadore toward the end of his presidency? I was just a kid then, and it's a long time ago, so I'm rather fuzzy on this. But, if so, would it be fair to say we've never had a president with a truly humanitarian record on foreign policy?

I know his record was way better than Clinton's and lightyears ahead of Bush. But it seems we can (and should) do so much better.

Roy - The assassination of Sister Jean Donovan and the other nuns in El Salvador occurred at the very end of Carter's term, on December 2 or 3 of 1980, after Reagan had defeated Carter, 48 days before Reagan took office. His ambassador to the country, Robert White, in fact jumped on the case as soon as he heard the nuns were missing, put pressure on the El Salvadoran government, and was physically present at disinterment of their bodies on December fourth, quoted as saying at that moment, "this time the bastards won't get away with it." And you know about that case today in large part because of Carter's ambassador's efforts after that.

We haven't seen anything like that from US diplomatic personnel in Latin America since that day.

Carter didn't have a perfect record, but the case you cite is exactly an example of what is so desperately needed from the next Secretary of State.

I just wrote the text below to http://www.change.gov/page/s/contact

I apologize for giving advice as I am not a US citizen (although a supporter for nearly a year). However, as a foreigner I am especially interested in foreign policy of the next administration. President-elect Barack Obama has an enormous reservoir of trust and good will after the election. So much can be achieved by capitalizing on that trust. The selection of Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State would squander much of that good will, both in the US and abroad. While Senator Clinton of course is not responsible for the politics of the 42nd President, she is for better or worse linked at least by name recognition. Her own foreign policy stances have been belligerent and lacking recognizable empathy towards e.g. workers in countries with whom profitable economic treaties could be made. Her tendency to take positions which she believes to be in her career interest (Iraq war, Iran sabre rattling) is very obvious and does not inspire any trust in her faithfully executing policies of the President, which are not her own. Obviously Senator Clinton is a very capable person, but as explained, I think that she would be a very bad pick for the SoS position.

Al,

If you have time this Friday evening, I'd love your thoughts on the following:

I agree with almost everything you've written as to why HRC as Secretary of State is unlikely, unbeneficial and unsafe.  I've come to trust your analysis over the past year, especially as an antidote and salve against the braying of the traditional news media.

That said, I'm starting to wonder if there is some sort of political genius to appointing her in that position: 1)having both Clintons barking at the gates of the White House will only distract the media and subvert his goals; 2)to avoid that incessant distraction, Obama must force the Clintons to become "investors" in his administration; 3)probably the only way to force that is by including them (one or the other or both) within his administration; 4)State is probably the only position "high-profile" enough to which she would agree and which would also keep her husband's mouth - and wallet - sewed shut (I would accept her as Secretary of Defense, and she would most likely enjoy that; I don't think that position, however, molifies her husband).

Put aside your policy concerns (if possible), and please let me know if you think this "buying in" of the Clintons could be a possible shrewd strategy.  I hope I'm wrong.  Perhaps I'm Chicken Little-ing or I'm simply bargaining.  I trust you, your sources, and your intuitions more than almost any other "media" figure - and hope you are enjoying this Friday PM with either some good jazz or some good liquor or, even better, both.

I was thinking about Saul Alinksy and all the froth over the potential -- verified 100 percent minus probability off-the-record sources close to God who've already pissed off their bosses or been otherwise rejected said is for certain, as candy staying in a candy jar ... Clinton nomination to SOS, and wondering if any of these rules might be in play, somehow:

RULE 3: "Whenever possible, go outside the expertise of the enemy." Look for ways to increase insecurity, anxiety and uncertainty. (This happens all the time. Watch how many organizations under attack are blind-sided by seemingly irrelevant arguments that they are then forced to address.)

RULE 7: "A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag." Don't become old news. (Even radical activists get bored. So to keep them excited and involved, organizers are constantly coming up with new tactics.)

RULE 11: "The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative." Never let the enemy score points because you're caught without a solution to the problem. (Old saw: If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem. Activist organizations have an agenda, and their strategy is to hold a place at the table, to be given a forum to wield their power. So, they have to have a compromise solution.)

Or was it all just a dream?

Sometime in college, many years ago, I was in a political documentary class with a wonderful, activist professor. The kind of class the Republicans would love to characature, but I've never learned more or been more engaged.

I seem to recall, in one of those documentaries, something about Carter turning a blind eye to a human rights abuse when it was politically expedient. I think it was during the runup to the 1980 election, when he was trying to seem moderate.

I also recall Reagan's Foreign Policy Advisor, Jean Kirkpatrick, referring to those nuns as "radical agitators." I wanted to jump through the screen and strangle her.

Al, can you please comment on the prospect of Brennan in charge of the CIA?  Sullivan is as adamantly against it as you are against Hillary at State.

I see Obama's anti-torture stance as a fundamental part of his candidacy and his public image.  If he's appointing someone for the CIA who does not fully support that position then I have a problem.

I expect not to agree with everything, but the anti-torture policy needs to be clear, especially after Bush has muddied the debate so badly.

I also posted my views on proposed SOS without referencing HRC in anyway.

PS -  Used an underhanded trick to cheat on the ZIP code to get my message thru.

amk

I was very disappointed to see these rumors surface about HRC as the SOS. As some of you may recall, I have been hoping for Richard Holbrooke (apparently he is still in the running for Deputy SOS).

In an effort to make lemons out of lemonade, this is what I have come up with.

1. Obama has 'his people' surrounding the position providing oversight on several different levels. Kerry as head of Senate Foreign Relations, Lugar as the top Republican on that committee.  And Biden as his VP. None of these guys are shrinking violets that will let Hilary dominate them in a closed door meeting.

2. I'm guessing here, but he has paid a lot of attention to appointing staff for his big appointments that are also 'his people'. If you get Hilary separated from the Lanny Davis's and Terry McAuliffes of the world, she might be able to just indulge her inner wonk and get to work.

3. In my opinion, as someone else stated above, The Clinton's have always been more interested in Domestic Policy than Foreign Policy, so by moving her out of her traditional sphere of influence and literally putting her on a jet across the ocean, The HRC team's ability to damage BHO's domestic agenda is seriously reduced.

4. When you think about it, HRC, has always been a team player, she took a lot of hits for Bubba over the years. There is a chance, and I readily acknowledge that I'm being Pollyanish, that Hilary is leaving a screwed up inbred situation to get a job at a real professional outfit. She might love it, and be good at it.

 

We shall see, and I have high hopes for a better foreign policy approach with Latin America.

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

Ken in California

From the start, I understood that Obama was centrist, blindly pro Israel and pro-war in Afghanistan, all positions I think are wrong. I expect he will continue the war in Afghanistan and continue to turn a blind eye to the ongoing class war here, especially considering the wealthy and wealth-friendly people he's surrounded himself with. (How can the people ever thrive with so much public debt, and the fortunes it created privatized?) But the country ought to have a president who is close to the center, not left like me. If he suddenly revealed himself to have leftist views, the wholly owned media and the largely owned congress would turn against him. This teetering world would slide faster toward chaos.

Hilary is not Bill. NAFTA seems like his entry fee into the old boys club. Obama is a toasted guest there, but he hasn't made his first kill.

We always knew we had our work cut out for us, right?

As a fairly powerless leftie, I wish all the progressive web sites that worked to elect Obama could have an  umbrella site, elected leaders, one trusted place to donate. Just a daydream. The right has always been better at giving up intellectual inches than the left.

Al, I noticed this on Change.gov and wondered if you have a comment since Vela was on Gore's staff.
" Moises (Moe) V. Vela, Jr., Director of Administration for the Office of the Vice President Moe Vela will bring a wealth of business management skill and outreach experience to the Obama-Biden Administration. From 1996-2000, he served as Chief Financial Officer and Senior Advisor on Hispanic Affairs for Vice President Al Gore. Most recently, Vela was the founder and a partner at The Comunidades Group, a multi-family acquisition and operations company headquartered in Denver, Colorado. Vela received a B.A. in Government from the University of Texas, a J.D. from St. Mary’s Law School, and is a member of the State Bar of Texas. He currently resides in Denver, Colorado and is a Denver Civil Service Commissioner, appointed by Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper. Vela is a native of the Rio Grande Valley of Texas and hails from a pioneer South Texas family."

Right now, I'm working on the assumption that it will be Clinton because I don't think that Obama would allow expectations to mount this high and then have it fall through. That really would be drama he doesn't need to deal with.

Regardless of who he picks, however, he does already have some foreign policy staff in place in his transition team and these people are not only going to shape the direction Obama takes his foreign policy and the agencies he uses as tools, but I would expect they are also at the front of the line for jobs in the Administration. So I think it is worthwhile to look at them for hints as to where Obama wants to go. Clinton or whoever finally becomes Secretary of State will be presented with these people and this policy so unless they have some independent influence on this group, they will be doing what Obama wants not necessarily what they want.

The most directly relevant people are the Department of State Review Team Leads, who are listed here.

Tom Donilon is a partner at the law firm of O’Melveny & Myers and serves on the firm’s global governing committee. Tom served as Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs and Chief of Staff at the U.S. Department of State during the Clinton Administration. Since leaving the Department he has remained deeply involved in the national security arena. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Aspen Strategy Group, the National Security Advisory Group to the Congressional Leadership, the Brookings Institution Board of Trustees, the Miller Center of Public Affairs Governing Council, and the Trilateral Commission.

Wendy R. Sherman is a Principal of The Albright Group LLC and of Albright Capital Management LLC. Ambassador Sherman served as Counselor and chief troubleshooter for the State Department, as well as Special Advisor to President Clinton and Policy Coordinator on North Korea. Sherman is a recognized expert on national security issues and serves as a frequent analyst in major news outlets. She was recently appointed by Congressional Leadership to serve on the Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism.

I don't know much of anything about these people beyond what is written here but according to this source, Sherman played a key role in negotiating with North Korea and I expect Obama will want to make use of this experience. If so, she would not necessarily have a broad influence on foreign policy but would be focused on nuclear proliferation issues (God knows we need a return to sanity in this area).

What can we find out about Donilon? I think that would be a good way to get a better sense about what Obama envisions for the State Department, not just who he chooses to lead it.

More broadly on Al's point about human rights, a lot will depend not just on who the Secretary of State is but on who the deputies, assistants, undersecretaries, and whatnot are. Staffing Foggy Bottom with, say, Samantha Power, Susan Rice, and Sarah Sewall (the dream team?) would send a very different message than having Richard Holbrooke there.

But Donilon and Sherman aren't the only people shaping Obama's foreign policy.

First, within the structure of Obama's transition team, foreign policy falls under national security. Donilon and Sherman are reporting directly to Sarah Sewall (see again here and bio here).

Sarah Sewall is a member of the Obama-Biden Transition Project's Agency Review Working Group responsible for the national security agencies. She is on part-time leave from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, where she teaches and is Faculty Director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy. Her research focuses on U.S. national security strategy, civil-military relations, counterinsurgency, terrorism and mass atrocity. Sewall served as the first U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Peacekeeping and Humanitarian Assistance (1993-1996). She previously served for six years as Senior Foreign Policy Advisor to Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell.

Where Donilon and Sherman want to take the State Department has to fit into the larger picture of where Sewall wants to take all the national security agencies.

Obama also has a national security policy working group, whose job is to take Obama's campaign promises on national security and turn this into actual policy, with plans for how to implement it. Foreign policy falls into this bucket. So just as Sewall is directing Donilon and Sherman on how to shape the State Department as a tool that Obama will use, the national security policy team will be providing the State Department (among other departments) with plans for what Obama wants them to do. Here are the leads:

James B. Steinberg is dean of the LBJ School of Public Affairs (2006-present) and is a former Deputy National Security Advisor to President Clinton (1996-2000). His previous positions include vice president and director of Foreign Policy Studies at the Brookings Institution (2001-2005), director of the Policy Planning Staff (1994-1996) and Deputy Assistant Secretary for Regional Analysis in the Bureau of Intelligence and Research (1993-1994) at the U.S. Department of State. He is the author of and contributor to many books on foreign policy and national security topics, including, most recently, with Kurt Campbell, Difficult Transitions: Foreign Policy Troubles at the Outset of Power.

Dr. Susan E. Rice served most recently as a Senior Foreign Policy Advisor to the Obama for America campaign while on leave from the Brookings Institution where she is a Senior Fellow in the Foreign Policy and Global Economy and Development Programs. Rice currently serves on the Obama-Biden Transition Project Advisory Board. From 1997-2001, she was U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs. Prior to that, Rice served in the White House at the National Security Council as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for African Affairs and as Director for International Organizations and Peacekeeping. Rice was previously a management consultant at McKinsey and Company. She received her B.A. in History with Honors from Stanford University and her M.Phil. and D.Phil. (Ph.D.) degrees in International Relations from Oxford University, where she was a Rhodes Scholar.

We know Rice, of course, but we should add Steinberg as someone to learn more about in order to understand exactly where Obama wants to go on foreign policy.

or they have to do with what the prez gives them ?

amk

But the State Department is not the only agency that makes foreign policy. There is also the National Security Council, which is part of the Executive Office of the President. While the Secretary of State is a member of the NSC, in practice the National Security Advisor and the NSC staff can often control the making of foreign policy under the direction of the President and Vice President and sideline the Secretary of State to some extent.

Reports suggest that Obama wants retired Marine general James Jones as his National Security Advisor (the other two names I have seen on shortlists are Rice and Steinberg, whom we saw above as the national security policy team; if Jones does get the job I rather suspect that he will get Rice and Steinberg for his staff).

The transition has an agency review team for the NSC, which is found not on the national security page but the one for the Executive Office of the President, which makes sense from an organizational standpoint.

Antony Blinken was the Staff Director for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Under the Clinton Administration, Blinken served on the staff of the National Security Council, including as Special Assistant to the President, Senior Director for Speechwriting, Senior Director for Strategic Planning, and Senior Director for Europe. Blinken is the author of numerous articles on foreign policy and the book, Ally Versus Ally: America, Europe and the Siberian Pipeline Crisis.

Ivo Daalder is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, where he specializes in American foreign policy and national security issues. He served on President Clinton’s National Security Council Staff and was an informal adviser on foreign policy to the presidential campaign of Senator Barack Obama. Daalder is the author of numerous books, including (with James Lindsey) of the award-winning America Unbound: The Bush Revolution in Foreign Polity (2003/05) and (with Mac Destler) of In the Shadow of the Oval Office: Portraits of National Security Advisers and the Presidents they Served – From JFK to George W. Bush (2009).

Mara Eve Rudman serves as a senior fellow at Center for American Progress, where she advises Middle East Programs and works on national security policy. She is also president of Quorum Strategies L.L.C., an international strategic consulting firm. Previously, she was a deputy national security advisor to President Clinton, and chief of staff for the National Security Council. Earlier in her career, she was chief counsel to the House Foreign Affairs Committee, under Chairman Lee Hamilton. Rudman also serves on the board of the Middle East Investment Initiative and is a Crown Fellow of the Aspen Institute.

So we should also look into Blinken, Daalder, and Rudman and how they are shaping Obama's foreign policy. For instance is Blinken ("Antony Blinken was the Staff Director for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee") a Biden guy?

The main message I want to make with these three very long posts (and I appreciate the indulgence of everybody who bothered to read them) is "Don't mourn, organize". In organizing, we need to know who is crafting Obama's foreign policy right now, whether they can be allies of those of us who want to see genuine change in foreign policy, and what their interests are that may provide either insight into their thinking or suggestions for leverage on them.

That is the key question here, I believe. For background, people may want to read this article. In general, one would assume that the Secretary of State will be able to appoint the deputies, assistants, and undersecretaries she (or he) wants. If these are the Clinton people mentioned in the article, that will not be good.

However, it is possible that as part of the negotiations, Obama was able to impose on Clinton that he will pick her key staff. If so, this could go a long way to mitigating the damage, including on the human rights issues that Al discusses. That is probably one of the most important questions we need to see answers from Obama on if he does indeed nominate Clinton as I expect.

P.S. I appreciate your perspective discussed earlier but as someone who lives in the U.S., domestic policy is what directly affects me and I expect it to be the focus of my efforts rather than foreign policy. Obviously for people residing outside the U.S. such as yourself, foreign policy is the key. However, there are other areas where Obama can make a positive impact for the world, most notably on climate change (I am so excited to have a president who actually believes in and cares about climate change!). So I wouldn't give up just yet.

He can't fire her.

Of course he can fire her, but it would create a huge blowback and permanently alienate the Clinton wing of the Democratic Party (even if it wouldn't initially, the Clintons would make sure it would). If he fired her, she wouldn't have her Senate seat of another obvious political job to fall back on, so he would effectively be forcing her out of politics. It would make him look like a bully to half the party, much more so than if she remained in the Senate and he mostly ignored her.

Obama will know this, and Hillary knows that Obama will know it. So think about the implications: Secretary Clinton will be much more powerful than normal Secretaries of State and have much more discretion to do as she pleases (with, as Al pointed out, possibly disastrous consequences regarding human rights) and now and simply ignore Obama's orders.

I know Obama is all about reconciliation and national consensus, but this ain't the way to achieve it.

Let's all take a step and think. Would Obama choose Hillary if he had the slightest thought that she would undermine his agenda? What evidence is there that this selection means that he will go back on his frequently stated promises to end the war in Iraq, negotiate with Castro/Chavez/Ahmedinejad, and to restore the dominance of soft power?

I think I understand why people assume that choosing Hillary means Obama is not serious about these commitments. We have just gone through eight years where the President of the United States has been a complete dunce whose policies were by necessity crafted by his advisors. Just remember that historically this has rarely if ever been the case; now that we have an intelligent man in the White House again, and the Cabinet and Presidential staff will resume their traditional roles instead of instructing an idiot king on how to rule.

In the primary, Obama beat the odds and proved the pundits wrong by outwitting and outmaneuvering Hillary and her cadre. No question that he extracted from her all sorts of concessions with respect to their relative powers. She is not going to be the one running the show enacting foreign policy as she sees fit.

When Carter was elected I was at school in Munich and had many east European classmates. A friend from Czechoslavakia came every day beaming like the sun. He was SO excited about Carter's election and plans to put human rights at the forefront of his foreign policy. This was 1976 on the eve of the Charter 77 movement in Prague. At times it was a heady experience.

It ain't over til its over but the Obama transition team is not pushing back as nearly everyone announces the Clinton appointment as fact. I don't see how he rescues this now even if as Laura suggests he could appoint the senior department people. This is Obama's only chance to make that critical first impression and it looks like he is picking a conventional thinking hawk.

 

It seems to me that a host of reasons explain the opposition to Clinton as SoS, but a lot of it boils down to Iraq and the legislative choices Clinton has made that confirm her as hawkish.

People around the world were astonished when this country invaded Iraq and put millions of lives at risk. People around the world were encouraged that a man who spoke out strongly against that war had a chance to become president. When Americans talk about restoring our country's respect in the world, the Iraq invasion is the main precipitating event that make that make it necessary. THAT is the main watershed here.

IF it happens and Obama points someone who voted for the AUMF and Kyl-Liebermand and working on the Armed Service Committee, he has just used his first substantive chance to demonstrate CHANGE to the world and failed.

Remember CHANGE? ;-)

First impressions are important here and Obama can't afford to waste many.

But let's say Clinton is appointed and the world waits for his next substantive move. Is Obama going to micromanage Clinton? With a department that large I don't think so.

The idea that "if Hillary screws up and Barack can just fire her" is the backup plan is silly. He has a limited term and if he doesn't start right he pays a heavy opportunity cost.

It is pretty screwed up to think Obama's supposed to do what anyone says. Stupid really to think he's supposed to listen to and obey his biggest supporters. To treat him like he's your property is offensive. I just disagree with this concept, that we put him there so he better do what we say. He's a leader. To act like Hillary is Bill's puppet is also offensive. This is just what the Republicans want, a bunch of unhappy progressives already bitching in the camps. Searching for PUMA's? Check right here.

The idea is to put the party with the right principles in office and then wake up. Speak out, pay attention, all that. But to start raising hell like this before he is in office....go ahead and say hello to the independent ticket. Wonderful in principle, useless in change. 

Why not instead bring out the atrocities and openly ask Hilary how she will denounce and work to prevent them? How she would be different from Albright....get her to commit to the true implementation of change. If nothing else, let it be known this is what we, con los ojos abiertos, expect now. We are wide awake now, no more sleeping.

I opened the NY Times this morning (Sat) and my heart sank. "Clinton Set For State."  But, the more I read it, I realized it's nothing more than anyone knew yesterday.

The first paragraph ends with "...confidantes of Mrs. Clinton said Friday"  and later in the article it states that "Mrs. Clinton's Senate office broke a week of silence to acknowledge the talks but cautioned that they had not been made final."

If you flip to page 13, it talks about while the deal is not final yet,  Mrs. Clinton feels more comfortable about accepting such an offer.  Then the article proceeds to outline an extensive list of all of the potential complexities of such an appointment?

The paragraph that says it best for me (as Jeff mentions above) is:

On Iran for instance, Mrs. Clinton staked a position during the primaries to the right of Mr. Obama.  She voted in favor of a measure more hawkish than what even most of the Bush administration had been willing to venture, asking Mr. Bush to declare Iran's 125,000 member Revolutionary Guard-Corps a foreign terrorist organziation....

Many Iran experts critiicized the bill... Even some members of the Clinton campaign's foreign policy team at the time privately disagreed with the vote. ..

(Obama missed the vote but said he would have voted against the bill.)

I have to say, this morning,  I am not one of those people who will support Obama blindly.  I've explained here before, I was a Kucinich supporter because his record / actions supports a long list of causes that I feel strongly about.  I swung to Obama enthusiastically and worked hard for him during the campaign largely because of his promise of change, compassion and better judgement especially when it comes to the world stage.

It's all been said here already. Sen Clinton is a polarizing figure both at home and potentially abroad.

My devotion to certain causes was how I decided for whom to vote and runs deeper than the vote itself.   This is not a minor disappointment for me. 

As Jeff said, for 7 years this New Yorker has been appealing to my Congressional representatives including Sen Clinton about the war in Iraq and potentially Iran.  She was not interested in the least.  What makes her different now? 

Bill Richardson (whom I also considered voting for) was the other voice critical of US policy in Iraq.  He supported Obama when it counted during the primaries.  He has served in the UN and has demonstrated, positive experience on the foreign stage.  To bypass him for example and appoint Sen (and Prez) Clinton suggests that this Admin may be quite bold but not quite the way I was hoping.  It suggests to me that we have much farther to go than I had hoped. 

We shall see how it all plays out, but I am starting to realize that perhaps the party is over and it's time to get back to reality.  I shouldn't have been so naive. 

 

After winning the primary and beginning the general election, Obama mentioned he'd be flexible about his timeline for withdrawing from Iraq.  Many jumped on him for shifting to the center the second the primary was over.  Remarkably, some die-hard Hillary PUMAs attacked Obama for being too conservative on Iraq.  Lost in all of it was that Obama didn't change his position even one degree.  He'd always said he had a withdrawal pace in mind but would modify it if circumstances on the ground changed but some people refused to hear him.  Perhaps because of his soaring rhetoric and original opposition to the war, they projected onto him someone who wanted to end the war in a week.

In 2002, before he was a senator, Obama spoke out against the Iraq War with a clear-eyed speech that had as a refrain "I'm not against all wars."  One of his principle arguments against the Iraq War was that it hurts our overall strategy in going after terrorists, including our military effort in Afghanistan.  Just because Bush was wrong and Iraq was no threat to us and the biggest blunder in memory, doesn't mean the president's foreign policy priority shouldn't be choking terror networks and reducing the chances that they get their hands on WMD.  Obama has even praised Bush's leadership in the initial months after 9/11.  People called Lincoln and FDR warmongers too.

Obama is not going to talk to Ahmadinejad either.  He backed away from that as early as the primary and surely doesn't want to boost Ahmadinejad who's embattled and heading into his own re-election effort.  He'll refrain from cowboy diplomacy and rally our allies to threaten more severe sanctions on Iran which will be communicated by low level negotiations.  Realistically, the prospects aren't so hot that negotiations will work but it's good that Obama will try hard to make them work.  Even so, if that gets nowhere and Obama ultimately bombs Iranian nuclear reactors before the end of his first term, I won't be especially stunned and I certainly won't feel like he betrayed a campaign promise just because his poster had the word "change" on it and I was too lazy to pay attention to anything else.  Also, you know, sadly, there are cases where goals of peace and human rights are in potential conflict.  A negotiated deal on Iran's nuke program may require offering acceptance in the world to their oppressive regime.

Others have pointed out that having a Secretary of State with a pro-Israel rep like Hillary buys Obama more trust for pushing an Israeli-Palestinian border based on the Green Line and will add a voice to the discussion, that Israelis are less wary of than his own, to call for a true end to settlement expansion, which will help hopefully boost Israeli moderates as they head into elections in February 2009.  Obama probably sees he has a few weeks after his inauguration to subtly undermine Netanyahu's campaign. Hillary is a good instrument for that and Obama will have his attention dominated by domestic matters in the first month.  On the other hand, Obama recognizes I assume that a peace deal won't be possible until the Palestinians resolve who is in control of their government and have a capability for enforcing any agreement.  So don't expect him to magically wave a wand and make that happen either.

I guess my thesis here is, after the last 8 years, offering a moderate foreign policy itself amounts to change.  Which is not to say you shouldn't keep your own voice in the conversation.

Laura, I like that Washington Independent link very much. It sums up opposition to Clinton as SoS very well:

“It was Washington’s conventional wisdom that led us into the worst strategic blunder in the history of U.S. foreign policy,” writes Power, who declined to speak for this story. “The rush to invade Iraq was a position advocated by not only the Bush Administration, but also by editorial pages, the foreign policy establishment of both parties, and majorities in both houses of Congress. Those who opposed the war were often labeled weak, inexperienced and even naïve.”

Some in the Obama camp are left wondering whether picking Clinton as secretary of state represents an acquiescence to such conventional wisdom.

Remember when Samantha Power was fighting the good fight for the Obama campaign and challenging conventional wisdom.

 

@ dulce mia : "To treat him like he's your property is offensive." That is so offensive and wacky that it is funny.

 

Leaves no doubt that Hillary only accepted after getting assurances that she could run State as she pleased, in my opinion. It also stated clearly that Bill will be expected to be a silent partner. The Times may be wrong but this is the worst choice our new president could make. The Hillary faction of the Democratic Party was going with the plan except a few top people who wanted better political jobs for themselves. Now this wing of the party is fired up and ready to take back the party. All this talk here about strategic choices is just wishful thinking. For whatever reasons if this choice goes through we'll have a Republican Congress in 2010.

Sorry for the negative assessment but this is the last chance at meaningful change in my opinion. Stop this choice now.

I find your point about galvanizing the Clinton wing interesting. I don't doubt that is happening to a degree, though if/when Clinton is ensconced in Foggy Bottom, I somehow don't see her being the co-President from that spot; I don't see her ruling the media then the way she can now, precisely because it is a Cabinet position. As everyone has said, a lot depends on how the State Department is staffed and what other voices exist to balance out hers and those of her acolytes. 

But, to suggest that the Democrats will lose the Congress in 2010 bespeaks complete ignorance about how significant the landslide gains in 2006 and 2008 have been.  You seem to think that the Republican Party is something more than the rump-party it has become; you seem to think they have some mystical power source that will allow them to dominate hapless Dems. That is so 1990's! By all measurements, Democrats stand to go beyond the 60 seat threshold in the Senate in 2010. Add to that the power of incumbency for all the new Dem House members and your fluster about losing Congress in 2010 is pure, unadulterated CL'ing. Buck up, man.

I was thinking more of the number of Democratic activists who will sit it out, and the number of independents, such as the one who has already called me to say how disappointed he is. I hope I am wrong, but there will be a lot of promise taken out of the sails.

I agree with Dan re people sitting out 2010 if they become unhappy with the Obama White House.  A lot of folks who had turned off to American presidential and congressional politics got excited for the first time in a long time because of what they perceived Obama's intentions and character to be.  Certainly some Republicans I know who voted for a Democrat for the first time in their lives are seriously unhappy at the thought of Hillary Clinton as SoS.

The "to whom much is given, much is expected" saying is right on.  Obama has been given a mandate because of what he portrayed and the policies he promoted.  And because people trusted him.  Hillary as SoS is, to many, a complete betrayal of that trust.

hmmm...After reading Bumiller's article in NYT about the detente between the old foes, I'm starting to feel the inevitability set in.  It would be extremely awkward for the media if Obama actually ends up picking another person for SoS. I'm not saying that the media is the driving force behind this pick, but I'm impressed by the media's confidence that this is a foregone conclusion.  They are evidently very, very confident in whatever untold sources they have had.

Anyway, I'm hoping that if Clinton ends up taking this role that it will be like when you dislike a new song at first but then it becomes your favourite song for some of the same reasons it was difficult to listen to in the first place.  I appreciate Al's very relevant and well informed worries about possible implications for policy direction in S. America.  What is the solution for this real problem? Or is it only a potential problem?

If there is one thing I have become heartily sick of since really becoming a political blog junkie this year, it is the frequency with which some people on the political left throw around words like "betrayal" when referring to Democratic politicians. At the height of the Lieberman drama, even netroots icons like Howard Dean and solid progressives like Sherrod Brown were being denounced and rejected by some. At what point is there no one left on the island of "good Democrats" but you. A lot of the problem comes from taking a single issue or incident and declaring the politician unforgivable because of their stance or action.

Those who are boycotting the transition and withholding their money because of the Clinton pick, how precisely does that help us fix the economy, or deal with climate change, or reform healthcare? These are all areas of tremendous importance, that swift, bold action needs to be taken on - and that Obama is in fact going to be taking the action we need. Why are people trying to make it more difficult for him to do this?

Most ordinary Democrats I know (which may or may not be a representative sample) are either pleased with the selection of Clinton or they just don't care. Why not? Because they are way too busy worrying about whether they're going to have a job next month or how they can make ends meet. If I told them that some people are claiming Obama "betrayed" them by selecting Clinton they would think I was crazy.

Let's not lose sight of what's really important here.

Carter spoke out against a lot of human rights violations, but also famously turned a blind eye to human rights violations in Panama by dictator Omar Torrijos because the US wanted a favorable free trade agreement Canal Treaty. His close advisor, Greg Craig Hamilton Jordan, was a good friend of Torrijos. Carter maintained total silence as Torrijos was exiling, torturing and killing his opponents and trashing civil rights, all under the guise that the country needed "stability" to successfully complete the negotiations for what would by all reasonable standards become an illegitimate treaty.

Carter and Torrijos

Then, to celebrate that treaty after it had been "approved" by "referendum", Carter visited Panama in June 1978. The day before, Luitenant Colonel Noriega's troops had killed two protesters at the University. Carter didn't mention it, but spoke nice words about advancing "the cause of human dignity".

Evidence of the Torrijos clan trafficking drugs was swept under the carpet.

When another US foreign policy disaster came up, the fall of the Shah of Iran, Carter dumped him in Torrijos' Panama. He didn't seem too worried about those who protested the arrival of the despot being beaten up, tortured and disappeared.

Needless to say that Carter is neither respected nor liked down here, but seen as a phony.

"Let's not lose sight of what's really important here."

That's entirely the point.

What's important to some of us, might not be as important to you or the democrats you speak of.  Perhaps that's why you are struggling to understand our disappointment. 

that gives some hope.

Here is the link.

Orlando - The matter of emoluments won't be a deciding factor one way or another. The pay raise for cabinet officers was for $5,000 annually. All Congress and the President have to do is lower the Sec. of State salary by that amount and, voila, Senator Clinton would not be in violation of that clause in the Constitution.

Interestingly (although it seems he's already moved on to take the helm of the Foreign Relations Committee rather than wait in line for the drama to play out), the emoluments clause wouldn't affect Senator Kerry because having been reelected this month, 2009 would put him in a new term. The emoluments clause applies only to legislators who voted for a cabinet pay raise in the same term in which they might take a cabinet post!

If you have read any of my other comments here, you will see that I am disappointed too. What my comment was about was making sweeping declarations of "betrayal" or boycotting Obama over one single issue. I understand that different people have different priorities and that for some people (especially those living outside the U.S.) foreign policy may be the only issue they care about.

For me, economic recovery, healthcare reform, and dealing with climate change are top priorities. I am a bit surprised for people to say that these issues are not priorities to them, but to each their own.

As I do consider these issues top priorities and I also believe that Obama will do good things in each of these areas I will continue to support him in taking those actions. I hope that others will be able to join me in this but of course if that is not important for you then you should do as you think is best.

@Laura: I have read most all of your comments.

Nobody said that Health Care reform, the economy and the environment aren't priorities for me or anyone else. I am actively involved in these causes as well.   I have also lived overseas on a number of different occasions for a number of years, have friends around the world and know people who have loved ones who have served or are serving in Iraq.  You can care deeply about what is going on elsewhere around the globe without neglecting interests here at home. And, be sure, our foreign policy effects us here at home.

I think I understand what you mean about the "sweeping" statements and boycotting and I am with you to an extent.  While, I did not say that I felt betrayed, and I am not going to boycott Obama, I will not support him blindly on everything he does, either. 

The potential appointment of Sen. Clinton to the specific position of SoS is a very big deal in my eyes and has me confused and disappointed.  It seems inconsistent and counterintuitive to Obama's campaign mantra regarding change and judgement especially with regard to the things he had to say about Bush, Clinton and McCain's Iraq positions, which yes, I happen to care about. 

We still don't truly know that the SoS appointment is Final.  So, it's time for me to sign-off of here for a while and get back to life.  I have 'Clinton Circus Fatigue' and have already posted more than enough on this subject.  (Sorry, Al.) 

Need to give it a rest for a while. 

Putting Barack Obama in charge immediately isn’t impossible. Dick Cheney, obviously, would have to quit as well as Bush. In fact, just to be on the safe side, the vice president ought to turn in his resignation first. (We’re desperate, but not crazy.) Then House Speaker Nancy Pelosi would become president until Jan. 20. Obviously, she’d defer to her party’s incoming chief executive, and Barack Obama could begin governing.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/22/opinion/22collins.html?_r=2&ref=opinion

amk

Al Gore was fantastic in his analysis and his advice to Obama (he is too smart for me to advise) and he paid an off-handed compliment to HRC as SOS (she will be a very good sos but I don't know her present status...ouch).

In the panel discussion, Friedman wants Obama to take up Presidency right now (sorry Tom, Gail beat you to it). This from a guy, who was egging Bush from the sidelines since 9/11. Guess, all "journos" want to get in on the right of side new WH asap.

And there was a Brit guy from Harvard, quite funny in warning that it is all going down the toilet in US and Europe, it being the economy.

Then that woman from Princeton (who was constantly giggling like a school-girl at other guys' "jokes') got on my nerves, concern trolling why Obama is not doing anything about economy right now (!!!) and ... yeah. according to her HRC was make an excellent SOS. Now we know where she comes from. And to top it off, she warned that the chinese will take to the streets soon and blood will flow on the Beijing streets and to "divert attention of their masses" the chinese gobinment will start the world war III (ok, I exaggerate).

The brit put her in place by saying hello, lady, they do have a plan B (expand their local market with the gazillions of their dollar reserve and that's going to crimp the US plan of going to them with their brother, can ya spare a dime routine), well unlike, you know who. Of all the three, the brit seemed to know what he was talking about and the lady was a complete waste of air-time.

amk

We elected a president, not a saviour and not a papa-in-chief.  We are allowed - and I feel obligated - to scrutinize his decisions and his behavior and also to let him know how we feel in any way we choose.  From the election forward, it's been up to Obama to prove people's faith in him was justified. 

I am lucky to live in a very progressive area of this country, Puget Sound, Washington.  Because of my prior involvement with a group striving to (1) educate about and (2) help the civilians in Iraq during the murderous sanctions regime, and (3) because the WTO protests occurred in Seattle, giving so many the opportunity to learn about "free trade," I have met many progressives - teachers, ministers, students, coworkers - who pay close attention to both issues, and some people who devote their lives to activism. 

These people do not give trust to mainstream politicians easily, and many took a big leap to trust Obama enough to donate to him, work for him, and vote for him.  I know that a lot of them have previously voted third party or not voted at all.  We are not talking about lockstep Democrats here.

If Obama turns out to be just another Democratic corporatist or one who believes in using our military to enforce market-based the-people-be-damned policies, like the Clintons and others in the DLC, many of these people may indeed drop their previous support.  They're allowed to do that; Obama should take no one for granted.

The possibility of appointing a hawk who often appears to be missing a heart to SoS has many worried, and yes, if that happens and any worst fears are realized down the line, you can bet that there will be people who will go back to what they did before.  They will feel betrayed.  They will be critical.  You don't have to agree with their feelings or decisions.

I still hope that Obama will turn out to be what we thought he could be.  We need a decent and good president, now more than ever.  And one strong enough to stand up to business-as-usual Democrats who sold their souls a long time ago. 

Rant off.

amk

Interesting article.  MoveOn has come a ways since its formation to help WJC during his impeachment woes.

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2008/11/22-3

"So far it's disappointing who he's appointed to his Cabinet," said Margaret Welke, 54, a market researcher. "I don't want another Republican lite in office."

Welke told the group she doesn't trust Obama to do what he said he would do. "If you look back in history, few presidents became more progressive once they got into office," she said.

"I don't want to say that I stand with Obama because I don't know where he stands," Welke said.

Time will tell.

An interesting thing happened along the way of opposing Clinton for State.  I called that transition office phone number and spoke with a very reasonable fellow who allowed me to list my reasons for not wanting her in that high-profile position.  I guess it was cathartic because now that I feel listened to, I'm not as upset about it.  I think this underscores one of the great strengths of Obama's style.  He listens to people who don't agree with him and then he does what he wants anyway.

He probably will pick her for State.  Suddenly, I'm not freaked out about it now.  There will be problems, to be sure, but I'm confident that he has found a way to address those problems. 

Now I can see what could be potential advantages to having her out of Congress and out of Health Care.  She won't be in a position to hold those meetings where she brought lobbyists together with Reps and Senators like she did before.  She'll be out of the country a lot, right?

As much as I'm opposed to the media circus that surrounds her, there might be an unintended consequence that can be exploited.  Part of the reason why Bush/Cheney have been able to get away with so much in the last two years has been the media's obsession with the election.  Maybe this one element of drama will provide some cover for other things we want to see done. 

I'm not going to damn the whole administration because Obama makes a decision I'm not happy with.  If he didn't think he could find a way to make it work, he wouldn't have struck a deal with her in the first place.  And like the wonderful cartoon above (thanks amk), Obama has placed enough restrictions on the appointment to satisfy his needs. 

In the end, I just don't think I can remain worked up about this.  I'm going to focus on our local stuff cuz we have another important election coming up in Feb.  We have a real live, genuine election integrity specialist running for Director of Elections.  How cool would that be if he won?

A question for someone to investigate:
Is Obama a total pushover? His actions make it look like it again and again--small things (wearing a flag pin). Big things (voting for FISA). Enormous things (giving Clinton any power in his administration--SoS if he has control is scary, SoS + purge of clinton 'enemies' from state = wtf). 

The consistent thing with each of these is that Obama had a prinicipled position. Then he claims to have 'compromised', without any explanation of what he gained from the 'compromise' other than more power.

Al, you were angry at those of us who were angry at the FISA turnaround; will you be happy if Clinton is SoS and hurts the Americas, because you will think it's part of playing a long term chess game?

Mary in Seattle wrote: "These people do not give trust to mainstream politicians easily, and many took a big leap to trust Obama enough to donate to him, work for him, and vote for him."

Some of you might remember me from the old location of the Field during the primaries, and hopefully will remember that I was insistently supportive of Barack Obama. Just for context since I don't post here now and I am posting something critical.

Mary, like the people you describe, I took a leap in my support of Barack Obama. I let go of a core element of what I had learned about electoral politics;  I trusted where I had learned through experience that I should not trust.  While it was my choice to let down my guard, I did it in an interaction with a politician -- Obama -- who throughout his campaign pushed insistently and persistently on people to let down our guard, to trust where we had learned not to trust.

My own central worry right now is not the SoS decision, though I am very very concerned about that. I have a more immediate and personally pressing worry -- that another Obama administration cabinet pick will functionally sacrifice any remaining well-being of the people in my state, Arizona, and that I myself personally will lose my job in the aftermath.

But this larger thing about trust is hitting home for me right now. I am revisiting Obama's persistent push, throughout his campaign, on me and others to let down our guard, and to trust where we had learned not to trust. I am reflecting on the heavy heavy responsibility of asking people to do such a thing. I am finding in myself a growing suspicion that this push was primarily a means to an end, and that the heavy responsibility of such an approach was not really part of the dynamic.

I am realizing that my own distrust of the political system and its elected agents was, for me, a hard-won and possibly functionally necessary political coping mechanism based on long observation and lived experience inside an insane society. It was a barrier against the persistent and insistent lies that are the norm in electoral politics, as politicians try to find ways to manipulate people so they can get elected and have power to do what they want to do while pretending that this is a government accountable to "the people" (and keeping us busy acting as if this is true).

I am someone who has to build up distrust, who has to work hard to build those barriers -- building such barriers is neither easy nor natural for me. So for me, taking them down is a big deal, and bringing them back up is more difficult than I would have hoped. And at this moment in time, I feel that letting go of that distrust, letting down my guard -- even for this one very unique sort of politician -- was a deeply and seriously wrong decision on my part. I believe that this politician, as brilliant as he was and is, might not have accepted the true and heavy responsibility that comes with persistently and effectively asking of people what he did, with regard to trust. I could be wrong but this is how I'm feeling it right now.

Awesome cartoon.  If it has to happen, I only hope they are required to check not only their baggage and drama but also their lobbyists and corporate hawkish idealogy at the door.  Where did you find the cartoon?

http://politicalhumor.about.com/od/politicalcartoons/ig/Political-Cartoons/

It has been one of my fav sites for over an year now.

Sorta agree with Tien, Obama seems to have played a superior game by leaking out HRC's name in advance and allow all the expected outrage work itself out. Even many kossacks seem resigned going by the dairies and comments there.

I am yet to reach that point (accepting that is) but both side pundits on CNN were raving about his team so far. Let's see.

amk

Matthew writes:

Al, you were angry at those of us who were angry at the FISA turnaround; will you be happy if Clinton is SoS and hurts the Americas, because you will think it's part of playing a long term chess game? 

Al replies:

Matthew - That's false in so many ways in a single paragraph that it boggles the mind.

1. I did not dedicate a single blog entry to the FISA question because I thought it was overblown. It was only when Glenn Greenwald began emailing me on it that I thought it would be interesting to put some sunshine on those emails. I defy you to find a single example in which I showed "anger" over that issue. The truth is, I didn't care, and I don't care about FISA, because, as I stated at the time, A. As an American journalist living abroad, it affects me more than most that were shouting about it (so I think their "concern" was overblown) and B. Everything that so many thought FISA would make possible is already happening anyway. I thought it was a prime example of how progressives get caught up in symbolic battles without looking at the real consequences as opposed to the perceived ones. I still don't care about FISA. How could I possibly get "angry" about it. I ignored it then and I choose to ignore it now.

 

2. The question of who is Secretary of State obviously interests me by a scale of thousands compared to that of FISA, and will have a direct impact on my daily life and everybody's around the world. But "happy" or whatever it's opposite is are not the emotions that concern me. We've had a fucked up situation with US policy around the world and if it continues I'll continue to address it as I have all along: with investigation, journalism and publicity, to shine light on its harm. And my views on the suggestion that Senator Clinton might get that post are well stated now in four diaries (scroll down if you haven't read them) so I don't understand your question. Because if you had read what I've already written, then you'd know the answer to your own question already. Or was it merely rhetorical? If that's the case then you're just trying to be an annoyance.

 

Tien le wrote: "I guess it was cathartic because now that I feel listened to, I'm not as upset about it.  I think this underscores one of the great strengths of Obama's style.  He listens to people who don't agree with him and then he does what he wants anyway."

To my eyes, that's not actual listening as interaction.

To my eyes, that's doing something to make someone feel better while not actually taking seriously what the person is saying. Listening as management technique, maybe?

IMO, it is an interactional technique for minimizing disagreement by approaching it from an emotional needs perspective (I know you need to feel listened to so I will make you feel listened to).

It is treating people like children who must be placated to accept that it is the parent who makes the decisions.

I suppose that if we agree that people in this country are like children who need to be placated like this and need a parent to do it (which may be true, who knows?), this is a good approach to deal with the problems this nation faces. Have a brilliant political daddy with huge and intelligent plans who makes us feel listened to while doing what he wants. Maybe what he wants/plans to do is so superior to anything that we would ask of him that it makes sense to be led like this. And the way people do politics in this country is sometimes very childish.

I am not being sarcastic here. Truly I am not. Maybe this is what this nation needs because its electorate isn't mature enough, and Pres-elect Obama really does know best. That seems to be the message and I am not prepared to reject it as functionally untrue at this time. It does however, kind of creep me out.

I've never heard of Jim Steinberg so if anyone knows anything about him other than what is in the article, please inform. 

Also, I have rarely followed the political appointments during the President-elect timeframe this closely, so I was curious if anyone knows if these appointments are normally announced via the press (versus directly from the President-elect or someone on his team via a press conference).  It's rather odd to me how they are just out the there...even Rahm Emanuel wasn't ever formally announced that I recall - he just appeared at Obama's first press conference after the election and was standing by his side.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/11/23/obama-eyeing-jim-steinber_n_145815.html

Hi Michelle, :) nice to see you again.  I missed your strong and well spoken arguments and opinions these past several months.

 

 

...in a new thread, above.

and with being thought of as a child.  Politically, I am uber-naive, there's no two ways about it.  I'm so thrilled to learn from the adults here.  I'm learning to pick my battles as a result.  I got that I was being 'handled'.  I'm okay with that. Diffusing an explosive situation is part of what being an adult is and Obama is a master at it. 

@Matthew: As far as him caving and compromising...he has to if he wants to make any progress.  Still, he has clearly shown that he will stick to a plan and ignore the outside pressures to do differently.  If he'd listened to the Internet/Pundit class about what he should or shouldn't do, he wouldn't now be Pres-elect.

sorry if you think i'm trying to be irritating al, i know you don't care about FISA, and that doesn't bother me at all. my point was that there are those of us who lost a lot of respect for obama over the issue--less over the outcome than because it was one of the few explicit promises he had made, and his 'compromise' seemed not like a compromise (tien le, i agree with you: compromises must usually be made to make any progress) but a pure failure to follow through with priniciples, in trade for who knows what.

the point was that it was indicative--if he does select clinton, and grant her the right to control all of state, it will be a compromise exactly like the fisa bill vote. all i'm saying is that this seems to be a repeated pattern with obama and i'd love to figure out what the trigger is, and how to tell when the compromise which seems false really is in term of a long term successful plan, and when it's just giving in because it's low priority, when it's a true change of heart based on new information, and when it's for other reasons which i can assign bad motive to but would rather not.

 

(and michelle has an excellent point above: sometimes listening can be used and directed in interesting ways. recommended book: _influence_ by cialdini. if only i could understand how to use it better rather than just see when it's being applied.)

“In a robust and sophisticated democracy, political leaders and all of us ought to talk with many people who hold dissenting even radical ideas.” Bill Ayers

 

I don’t think you called my comment “so offensive and wacky that it’s funny” so you could talk with me, a person who holds a dissenting idea, Jeff. I think you singled me out and attacked me to silence me. That’s exactly how the republican noise machine responds to ideological diversity too.  Whoever yells the loudest or delivers the swiftest punches, wins…the issues don’t matter.  Your aggressive response to my comment reminds me of hate radio, an effective republican rhetoric tool. I took a different position, and your idea of a reply was to call my comment wacky, the same way republican talking heads trample the legitimacy of diverse views offered up in their radio shows. These shows have zero tolerance for the lonely rigors of personal searching, but they do provide the listeners with a pathologically intense sense of inclusion. What they sacrifice in individuality and intellectual integrity is seemingly more than offset by the potential narcotic of reassuring simplicity. Many of the listeners even derive a sense of pseudo-intimacy via this electronic fraternity of kindred spirits. (The Republican Noise Machine) Does it make you feel powerful to attack the minority view on this thread Jeff? The minority view is always the easiest to make fun of or criticize. Does it make you feel more connected with your electronic fraternity when you turn my unpopular opinion into a joke? Why don’t you reply to this comment with another insult since you’ve already taken one punch.  You could just call me stupid…or a total bitch. That always seemed to work for Morton Downey Jr. Maybe you could accuse me of “pallin’ around with terrorists” since I began this comment with a quote from Bill Ayers.

 

Speaking of terrorists, do you also find the racial epithet used by Al-Qaida’s No. 2 leader to insult Obama “so offensive and wacky that it is funny”? The offensiveness of this idea that he will soon be in the White House “to do the bidding of the whites” seems to be at the very least a legitimate reference to make. What makes you so sure of yourself that my view gets no legitimacy?

 

Maybe you think that I am not entitled to disagree because I don’t fully understand the organizing of the president. I think that as an attorney who volunteered to assist with voter restoration for convicted felons, went to battleground NC on election day to volunteer legal service as a poll watcher, flipped republicans within my own red state and my own conservative community, happily donated my middle class money to the Obama campaign, and debated with every single soul I encountered including check out clerks, I’ve participated in this monumental and historic movement. Not easy for me to do either, since this year my husband is in Iraq. He volunteered during the Clinton Administration as a JAGG reservist so I could stay home with my second baby for a while. That baby is 9 now. This year a schoolmate informed her that her daddy might die in Iraq. She cried at bedtime every night for the first six months I swear to god. My son got to start middle school without a dad around. Single parents know this is big stuff. All of this, for a war I don’t believe in. So, I’ve been pretty motivated in my role in organizing the president. I think I’m allowed to have a voice in the forum.

 

Maybe you insulted me directly like that because you figured I just don’t understand human rights violations. I am enraged by the atrocities in Acteal.

Hell, Jeff, I’m enraged by human rights violations happening every time immigrants from Mexico try to cross the border and then continuing after they get here. I’ve been writing and talking about that since way back when you and I were having conversations about Wolves on Fieldhands. I post about my concerns regarding human rights violations on my blog, Dulcemia, which you no doubt have not read. I have been a civil servant for the majority of my professional career, I believe in human rights, and I believe in democracy. And I believe in debate. There can be value in dissent. There can also be value in telling the dissent why you think they are wrong. But there is no value in the way you replied to my comment. If it was to shut me up, I guess you see now that it had the opposite effect. If it was to invite me to a game of name calling, I don’t play.