Brzezinski Endorses Obama

by hilzoy

Over the past few years, there have been a few people who have, in my opinion, been unusually and consistently insightful on foreign policy generally, and Iraq in particular. Wes Clark is one, and Zbignew Brzezinski is another. That's why I find it significant that Brzezinski has come out for Obama:

"MR. HUNT: Let’s go to the current race for president. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, as you know, have had several recent dustups over issues like whether the U.S. should act unilaterally if there were proven intelligence of al Qaeda in Pakistan, whether nuclear weapons should be taken off the table, and that thing. What’s your take on these arguments over foreign policy between these two leading candidates?

MR. BRZEZINSKI: I think Obama is clearly more effective and has the upper hand. He has a sense of what is historically relevant and what is needed from the United States in relationship to the world. He recognizes that the challenges, a new face, a new sense of direction, a new definition of America’s role in the world.

The senator from New York talks in very conventional terms and I don’t think the country needs to go back to what we had eight years ago. I think there is a need for a fundamental rethinking of how we conduct world affairs and Obama seems to me to have both the guts and the intelligence to address that issue and to change the nature of America’s relationship with the world.

MR. HUNT: And how about the other argument that whether you – the issue of talking to bad guys, the Iranians, North Koreans, and Hugo Chavez, do you believe that direct talks with unsavory characters rewards bad behavior or is just simply realpolitik?

MR. BRZEZINKSI: I can’t understand people who claim that that is the case because what it in effect means that you only talk to people who agree with you. We negotiated with the Soviets throughout the years of the Cold War when there was always the possibility of a nuclear war with them. We negotiated with the Chinese. More recently, we have negotiated with the North Koreans. So what’s the hang-up about negotiating with the Syrians or with the Iranians and so forth?

What Condi Rice says on this subject, mainly that we can’t negotiate with them because they don’t agree with us, is sheer nonsense. It’s really the reputation, the abandonment of intelligent diplomacy.

MR. HUNT: Dr. Brzezinksi, let me ask you a final question. You’ve made quite clear that you prefer Barack Obama in 2008. Are you talking to him about foreign policy right now, does he consult with you?

MR. BRZEZINSKI: Oh, I don’t think I would call myself a person that he consults with. I have known him, I’ve talked to him, but he talks to a lot of people and I’m sure that a lot of people are closer to him than I am. But I do feel fundamentally very deeply that we have gotten ourselves into a jam and that if America is to prosper and if our leadership is to be respected and trusted again, we really need a dramatic new departure. And I sort of sense that Senator Obama has that grasp, that fundamental understanding.

MR. HUNT: And therefore is ready, despite a lack of experience, to be president of the United States?

MR. BRZEZINSKI: Well, what kind of experience that was really relevant did Governor Clinton had before he became president? Being a former First Lady doesn’t prepare you to be president. President Truman didn’t have much experience before he came to office. Neither did John Kennedy. It’s basically a fundamental grasp of what is the nature of our era that is essential here, that is at stake"

The "Obama doesn't have enough experience" argument has always seemed to me to be somewhere between bizarre and amusing. I care a lot about foreign policy, as you might have gathered, and one of the main reasons why I support Obama is that of all the major candidates for President, he seems to me to have by far the best judgment on foreign policy. Part of this is the fact that before the war, when no one knew how it would turn out, he was the only one of the major Democratic candidates to oppose it, and to do so for reasons that now look prophetic. (Check out the YouTube video I posted here.) The fact that Clinton and Edwards voted for the Iraq War Resolution is a huge strike against them, in my book, and one that it would take a lot to get over. Moreover, Obama has always had an eye for very important but underappreciated issues like nuclear nonproliferation: issues that (I'd bet large sums) will be very important in coming decades, and that it takes good judgment to pick out and make one's own.

Besides that, however, I find both Edwards and Clinton dissatisfying on foreign policy, for different reasons. In Edwards' case, I honestly can't get a clear fix on who he is or what he believes, where foreign policy is concerned. His present foreign policy is reasonably coherent, but I'm not clear how the person who holds his present views racked up the rather different record that John Edwards had in the Senate. I find Hillary Clinton's statements on foreign policy troubling, for reasons Steve Clemons states so clearly that I'll just quote him:

"The Hillary we see today -- running hard right (if that is what one can call Bush's foreign policy) on a number of national security issues -- may not be the same Hillary we see in the Oval office. She may be ready to launch a new effort that helps reorder America's place in the world. Privately, I think she wants to do that. I have had at least one serious conversation with her -- and some occasional side comment moments with her -- that indicate to me that she really wants to push a 21st century foreign policy, not one sculpted in the last century.

That said, thus far in her campaign, she is demonstrating a disturbing trend towards incrementalism and continuity of Bush administration policies that she should cease.

This is a "discontinuous moment" in American history in which it's highly dangerous to American interests to plot tomorrow's course by what one did yesterday. There are no easy patterns or templates for the time we are in. America may be slipping from being a globally recognized, earth-sprawling hegemon to something that looks like just another great power -- well, perhaps not just any great power, a big one with great assets -- but that slippage has real costs."

At a moment like this, you really need someone with very good judgment. For all I know, there may be a secret Hillary Clinton that has good judgment. But that Clinton is a secret, hidden beneath a lot of extremely conventional statements and positions that don't show much judgment at all. If those statements (most recently on Cuba) reflect Clinton's real views, I don't much care for them. I suppose I might try banking on a secret Clinton, but I see no reason to take her existence on faith. Moreover, if Clinton is, as Clemons suggests, hiding her real interests for electoral reasons, that is itself a big problem: while I recognize that no candidate will ever tell us every single thing that s/he thinks about everything, I also think that actively concealing one's real views to get votes is antidemocratic and wrong, and should not be rewarded if at all possible.

Luckily, I don't see that we need to take that gamble. And I'm pleased that one of the foreign policy analysts I think most highly of agrees.

Comments

[OCSteve]

Hmm. I’m certainly not there yet, and I’m torn on Wes Clark. A lot of what you say makes sense, but he is so inexperienced (Obama)… Everyone is triangulating at this point. Whatever they say means little…

I don’t know… maybe closer and after a little more fire. Lord knows you’ve convinced me before…

;)

[gwangung]

Well, there's the Obama type of inexperience and there's the Bush the Younger form of inexperience. I think there's a difference between the two.

Moreover, the type of foreign experience he DOES have seems to be more nuts and bolts type of thing, not flashy and splashy---which I tend to think would give him better insights into how other countries think.

Not that I'm necessarily a supporter, but it's not a dealbreaker for him that it would be for others as far as I'm concerned....

[matttbastard]

I care a lot about foreign policy, as you might have gathered, and one of the main reasons why I support Obama is that of all the major candidates for President, he seems to me to have by far the best judgment on foreign policy.

I find the Brzezinski endorsement curious, for reasons outlined here.

Considering who one of Obama's foreign policy advisers is, I'm beginning to question his FP chops and feeling a bit more sympathetic to rilkefan's somewhat lonely lukewarm stance on Obama. I'm curious about how the Senator from Illinois (and our esteemed blogmistress) feels about the Concert of Democracies proposal and Daalder/Kagan's belief that interventionism requires a 'new legitimacy'. (Various responses here, here here and here).

[Mike Schilling]

It’s really the reputation, the abandonment of intelligent diplomacy.

Repudiation?

[KCinDC]

I'm no expert on Daalder, but I did transcribe this bit I liked from the Diane Rehm Show last year that I intended to blog about and never did:

IVO DAALDER: We don't know what Iran's position is because we refuse to talk to them.

DAVID FRUM: Well, they keep going on the airwaves and saying "We intend to detonate nuclear bombs." They're pretty clear about their position.

DAALDER: Well, if you believe what people say publicly rather than what you do in an internal and diplomatic way -- and Flynt [Leverett] can talk in great detail about what the Iranians were saying quietly just only three years ago to us, which was a rather different language. The fact is we don't have diplomatic relations because we choose not to have them, and it is up to us whether we want to have diplomatic relations --

FRUM: They get a vote too, the Iranians.

DAALDER: Sure, but we could certainly offer them diplomatic relations. The real question is, Do we talk to people we don't like, or do we only talk to people we like?

This administration has decided that the only people we talk to are the good guys, the people we like, the democratically elected government in Beirut and the government in Israel, but we really don't talk to anybody we don't like. The problem is if you don't talk to people you don't like, you can't solve any problems -- you can't even get to first base with regard to trying to solve these issues. And this is a strange way of doing business. It's a strange way that says, "Because we are right, the rest of the world will just have to follow our lead, and if they don't we'll just bash their heads in" -- which is in essence what we see now.

We're allowing the Israelis to continue to have a military strategy with regard to Hezbollah, which as far as I can tell is not working. We're not defeating Hezbollah militarily. We're in fact creating a stronger support for Hezbollah over the immediate term and in the longer term. We're defeating ourselves politically, not only with regard to Israel, but also with regard to our own standing.

This is an administration that likes to talk about us-versus-them kinds of strategies, but it's embarked on strategies that create more of them and less of us.

[john miller]

mattbastard, I am curious. On what basis, other than the brief statement at the end of the op-ed, do you make the statement that Daalder is one of Obama's advisors?

I haven't looked very hard, but what searching I did do did not turn up anything.

I do know his main foreign policy advisor was just called up to go to Iraq with his reserve unit.

Even if you ar correct, it would not dismay me. One of the things I like about Obama is his willingness to hear more than one side of an issue. He is probably the most likely not to surround himself with yes men and women.

Concerning experience, the only two candidates on the Democratic side that really have experience in foreign policy would be Biden and Richardson that I know of.

I think Obama's response to Stewart about the experience issue was just right. It is not experience that counts (after all Cheney, Rumsfeld and others had lots of experience) but rather judgement. Clinton has not shown me great judgement at all.

[hilzoy]

Hmm. I don't much like the Concert of Democracies idea. I think that bits of the Daalder/Kagan piece are right: we will probably intervene again somewhere, we need to rebuild our legitimacy to do so, for both international and domestic reasons. They seem completely OK with this interventionism; I am guarded. (I mean: I support intervention in pretty defined circumstances. In response to attack or imminent threat (= we have clear evidence that they are about to attack, and the only question is whether we have to wait for them to do so), in response to an attack on an ally, in response to a humanitarian catastrophe (think Rwanda), under the auspices of the UN. That I contemplate humanitarian intervention I suppose makes me, in some eyes at least, an "interventionist". But I don't think this is wise unless the humanitarian catastrophe is really, really, really bad, for various reasons.)

I'm also wholly unconvinced by their concert of democracies idea. I think the main way in which we need to rebuild legitimacy is by acting responsibly, not by creating a new structure. I think one part of behaving responsibly is to do our best to make international structures work better. (It would have been responsible to do some of the heavy lifting on the renegotiation of the NPT, for instance, instead of ignoring it; and to have really worked for UN reform, instead of sniping at it.) I would much, much rather postpone the question what new structures, if any, are needed until we've gotten a bit of the behaving decently part under our belt: since it will involve working with international institutions, I think we'll have a better sense of the options then in any case.

As far as Obama's advisors go, I'm happier about Samantha Powers.

[Incertus (Brian)]

I'm currently an Obama supporter, and figure to stay that way unless something dramatic happens, but I think there's a simple answer on the two John Edwards' issue. When he was in the Senate, he was running for President as a conservative Democrat, because that was his schtick, and that was what his handlers told him would work to both get the nomination and win the presidency. They were obviously wrong, and the presence of Clinton and Obama in the race opens up room between them for him to run as a repentant Iraq hawk.

I'm not excusing his earlier choice--that's a big part of why he's between 2 and 4 depending on my mood--but I think it does explain why his rhetoric doesn't match his record.

[hilzoy]

Note: in that last comment, I didn't mean to imply that the main reason to rebuild our legitimacy is in order to intervene. I think we should do that regardless, just as I think that when an individual has done something awful, she should try to act in ways that will restore her reputation for decency, not in order to do anything, but just because. I mean: we should always do the right thing, but we especially need to do a whole bunch of right things round about now.

But the next time a Rwanda comes along, we will not be able to do anything about it unless we have regained some credibility. I'm thinking, here, of Cambodia: as I think I've said before, when the facts about Pol Pot began to come out, I thought to myself: suppose for the moment we leave aside the question whether the Khmer Rouge would have come to power had we not gone into Vietnam and then Cambodia. -- This is exactly the sort of situation in which our basic reasons for going into Vietnam would have been good ones. (I mean, Cambodia had a brutal Communist dictatorship of exactly the sort that I would support intervening against. Vietnam did not.)

But we cannot now intervene, because we have completely, totally lost any credibility in that part of the world, by invading Vietnam. Moral, according to me: the consequences of getting into a war you shoudn't get into go way, way beyond that war itself, and include a whole lot of opportunity costs.

[David Sucher]

It is absurd that talking with adversaries is still an issue in American politics. It is counter to the wisdom of that great strategist (no joke) Don Corleone who told us to "Keep your friends close and your enemies closer."

[KCinDC]

David, that's why it's depressing that HRC decided to pick a fight with Obama about the issue. I originally transcribed that Daalder quote for a blog post that I ended up being too lazy to write. It was going to be about Bush's refusal to talk to anyone he disagrees with: other countries, congressional Democrats, people in his administration who stop being yes men, and members of the public (who can't get into his events without loyalty pledges).

[rilkefan]

"The Hillary we see today -- running hard right (if that is what one can call Bush's foreign policy)"

I think that's insane.

Brzezinski endorsing Obama is certainly good for the latter.

[David Sucher]

The logic of talking to enemies/adversaries is that you can keep an eye on them, watch their responses to this or that verbal feint. Even from -- or maybe especially from -- a hard-right perspective in which the world is filled with enemies at every turn (a perspective with which I have some sympathy) it seems vitally important to know what your enemies are doing. And you can't read body language from a satellite.

As to the issue of talking to enemies rewards them: there may indeed be al element of that when we are dumb. But as soon as it is obvious that we talk to everyone, the value of that conversation as propaganda will diminish.

•••

So that's how Obama separated himself from the rest of the pack: he said we should talk to our enemies. It's a pretty simple concept and rather showing his inexperience it shows his commonsense...I wouldn't even call it brilliance or anything like that. It's just horse-sense and no even remotely ideological.

[rilkefan]

mb: "feeling a bit more sympathetic to rilkefan's somewhat lonely lukewarm stance on Obama"

Yay, a shadow of company. Actually though I think I've been arguing that the claimed foreign policy differences among the leading candidates are mostly the result of wishful thinking by partisans, and would if they actually existed be irrelevant in the real world. (Above modulo Edwards on free trade.)

Note also that Dennis Ross is apparently advising Obama. That would weigh in Obama's favor in my book.

[rilkefan]

"So that's how Obama separated himself from the rest of the pack: he said we should talk to our enemies."

This is simply wrong.

[rilkefan]

From the Cuba link: 'Clinton took the bait, giving Obama exactly the line he wanted: "she would continue the Bush administration's hard-line stance."'

This is journalistic malpractice.

I agree that Obama's stated position is better from a policy standpoint if not a political one.

[matttbastard]

First of all, my apologies for the drive-by earlier - got busy with meatworld activities. It's getting late, but I will try to address as many responses as possible.

Hilzoy: thank you for your response.

John Miller: mattbastard, I am curious. On what basis, other than the brief statement at the end of the op-ed, do you make the statement that Daalder is one of Obama's advisors?

Er, that should be unofficial advisor. I didn't mean to imply that Daalder was acting in an official (ie, paid) capacity, and apologize for being unclear. Regardless, I suppose my main objection is the notion that there is a substantial difference between Senator Clinton and Senator Obama's foreign policy, and having an avowed interventionist like Daalder in Obama's corner reinforces that objection.

According to the Chicago Sun Times, besides Mark Lippert (the reservist JM referred to), "the core Obama group consists of three people who worked in President Bill Clinton's administration: former National Security Adviser Anthony Lake and former senior State Department officials Susan Rice and Gregory Craig. ...Lake was the NSA adviser during Clinton's first term. Rice was the senior adviser on national security affairs for the Kerry-Edwards campaign in 2004, an assistant secretary of state for African affairs and a special assistant to the president at the National Security Council at the Clinton White House."

How do Clinton-era officials (one of whom worked on the oh-so-successful Kerry-Edwards campaign) represent this new era in politics (or, in this case, foreign policy)? How much of the love-in for Obama is merely projection?

rilkefan: Yay, a shadow of company. Actually though I think I've been arguing that the claimed foreign policy differences among the leading candidates are mostly the result of wishful thinking by partisans, and would if they actually existed be irrelevant in the real world.

As said to jm, from my observances, I don't see much difference between his foreign policy vision and Clinton's, other than semantical minutia (eg, 'talking to other nations'). I think Obama takes full advantage of the fact that his record lacks a vote for the war (but can anyone say with certainty that he would have voted nay? Again, the lack of a yes OR no vote is to his advantage).

With his charisma and rhetorical flair, bi-partisan/centrist appeal, choice of pro-interventionist Clinton-era advisers, more and more Obama reminds me of...er, Bill Clinton.

How does this represent anything other than 'not George W. Bush'?

[matttbastard]

KC: Daalder is one of the so-called PNAC Dems willing to get into bed with the neocons to shore up their Serious cred. This December 2003 Newsday editorial (co-written after the capture of Saddam with America Unbound: The Bush Revolution in Foreign Policy co-author James Lindsay ) is a good introduction to Daalder's bipolar take on the invasion (was initially against it) and subsequent occupation ('well, since we're already there, we might as well finish the job...') An excerpt:

Even if the insurgency can be brought under control, the task of creating a secure, peaceful, and stable - let alone democratic - Iraq will remain the "long, hard slog" that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld warned it would be back in October. The process for returning full sovereignty to the Iraqi people remains as contested as it was before Saddam Hussein was captured. And none of the difficult questions about Iraq's political future - the sequencing of elections and constitution writing, the role of Islam, the extent of power decentralization, the nature of minority rights, to name but the most contentious - is any closer to being resolved.

The discovery of a disoriented Saddam Hussein cowering in his spider hole, then, represents a tactical rather than a strategic victory. We still need to stay the course so that our ultimate objective of building a better Iraq can be achieved.

But while yesterday's good news does not represent an opportunity for the United States to withdraw, it does represent an opportunity to get Iraq right.

As intimated earlier, Daalder's views on preventative intervention are troubling [PDF]:

...[T]he concept of an international system composed of wholly independent, autonomous nation-states that are fundamentally equal and pose a threat only when one state attacks another no longer accords with the real world of today. Therefore, the standards for intervention, as well as the structures for making decisions on whether to intervene, must be
adapted to today’s realities. The notion of sovereignty as an absolute right to noninterference must be reformulated to recognize that sovereignty entails real responsibilities—both with respect to those who live within the state and with regard to internal developments that can have an
impact on those who live outside it. This changing concept of sovereignty—the notion of sovereignty as responsibility—has become increasingly accepted in recent years. The first step in this direction was the growing recognition that states have a responsibility to protect their own citizens from genocide, mass killing, and other gross violations of human rights.16 The next step is to recognize that the notion extends to other areas as well. It is increasingly evident that states now also have a responsibility to prevent developments on
their territory that pose a threat to the security of others—such as developments
relating to weapons of mass destruction (such as their acquisition or the failure to secure weapons, materials, or deadly agents against possible theft or diversion); the harboring, supporting, or training of terrorists; or environmental dangers (for example, failing to prevent the spread of dangerous diseases or the destruction of rain forests)

[...]

Of course, in many of these cases military intervention is not the only, or even the preferred, means for dealing with an emerging threat. As James Steinberg notes in his chapter on weapons of mass destruction, there often are good alternatives.19 Yet, to address this and other new threats, force will sometimes be necessary. When it is, it often is best used early, before threats have been fully formed, since this will likely reduce the associated costs and enhance the probability of success. The problem with the Bush doctrine, then, is not that it relies on preventive force too much but that it has conceived of its use too narrowly—primarily to deal with terrorism and as a means of forcible regime change.

Daalder goes on to further examine his 'Concert of Democracies' idea (because apparently the UN Security council is, like, totally antiquated, or something like that.) Prebel and Rieff articulate one of my main questions regarding the concept of 'legitimate' preventative interventions:

The authors assure us that U.S. military interventions will be seen as legitimate, so long as they are endorsed by "the world’s democracies." But that wouldn’t seem to include India, for example, which staunchly opposed the intervention in Kosovo in 1999. Are they speaking, therefore, only of the West European democracies, with perhaps Japan thrown in for good measure?

Though Daalder isn't mentioned by name, this Greenwald post is also relevant, IMO.

[vwcat]

Hillary has no real positions. I dont' think she really knows what she believes. Just what sounds good today. And that is what terrible judgement is and what can lead to another tragedy.
She has no instincts for what is important or how to govern. Just how to campaign.
Maybe because she was first lady and not really experienced ,like the press wants to believe, in governing and legislating.
She is also been around a long time. Pretty much the full era of this failure in all policies. And that is all she knows and what she believes to a degree.
She does not think in terms of what needs to really be addressed or how those who do know how to lead and govern do. Not innovative or farsighted.
Obama is her opposite. He has good judgement and leadership skills. He knows what he believes and can project forward in his thinking. He has critical thinking and insights. He is better prepared and able for the job of president.
I honestly do not know what my party is thinking in blindly believing in and looking backwards and not seeing the danger signals with Hillary.

[KCinDC]

but can anyone say with certainty that he would have voted nay?

Of course we can never know, just as we can never know whether President Gore would have invaded Iraq. But it's not like it was somehow impossible for Democratic senators to vote against the authorization: 22 did (plus Jeffords), and one of those was Illinois Democrat Dick Durbin. And given that Obama spoke out on the issue when he didn't have to, I don't see any reason to think he was faking it then in the hope of some future political benefit, or that he would have abandoned his beliefs out of fear of political retribution when lots of Democrat senators didn't.

[matttbastard]

And given that Obama spoke out on the issue when he didn't have to, I don't see any reason to think he was faking it then in the hope of some future political benefit, or that he would have abandoned his beliefs out of fear of political retribution when lots of Democrat senators didn't.

I never said he was faking it in the hope of a future endeavour. He did, however, speak out at a time when he didn't have to fear the political retribution you mentioned, which obviously gave him more free reign to speak his mind.

[matttbastard]

And I hope it's obvious that I am not trying to excuse the cowardly actions of the 22 Democratic senators who did vote in favour of military action. Frankly, were I American (and a Democrat) I likely would vote for Obama in the primaries, if only because giving my vote to one of the others who did authorize the war would essentially be giving them a pass from reaping any consequences for their actions. (I'd never vote for Kucinich; his flip-flop on abortion strikes me as far too opportunistic, even though he's the quixotic darling of the Democratic Party's far-left wing. And Gravel is...well, Gravel.)

But based on the factors outlined above, I think that Obama doesn't represent some 'new era' in US foreign policy as much as he represents a return to Clinton-era multilateralism and sensible diplomacy. Which, after 7 years, is admittedly a relative breath of fresh air.

[matttbastard]

OT: Is Eason Jordan on crack?!?! $80 a month?!

[john miller]

Yes a breath of fresh air. Additionally, to stress a point I made above, everything I have read and heard about Obama is that he tries to get as broad an understanding of issues and options as he can (limited by time and opportunity) in order to have as good a basis as possible for making his decisions.

This is also a breath of fresh air, and is , I believe, beyond what HC would be doing.

[Davebo]

I don't get all this talk about experience concerning Obama/Clinton.

What kind of experience? As an elected official? Obama wins that one.

On foreign policy? Seems to be at best a draw to me. But I don't count time served as first lady as experience.

[Nell]

OT2: mattb, thanks for that pointer. I've run into quite a few interesting stories via IraqSlogger, but $80/month (or $60/month early subscriber rate) is the kind of thing one pays for a service that's just indispensable.

I kept on top of Iraq news without them for three years, and expect that I'll be able to go on that way for the next three. {sigh}

Unless they know something we don't about the imminent withdrawal of virtually all the news bureaus...

[matttbastard]

I kept on top of Iraq news without them for three years, and expect that I'll be able to go on that way for the next three. {sigh}

Yeah, me too.

(Double sigh.)

[matttbastard]

(BTW, here's the lowdown on the 'Slogger premium service, Nell.)

[otmar]

Hilzoy, congrats! I can find your voice now on two of the blogs I read.

[rilkefan]

"I also think that actively concealing one's real views to get votes is antidemocratic and wrong, and should not be rewarded if at all possible."

What about Obama's views on gay marriage? Surely he's actually in favor. Do you think he actually believes the stuff he's said lately about China? Surely he thinks the war on drugs is insane and should be abolished? Isn't this just politics - and more power to him?

[Fidelis]

"As said to jm, from my observances, I don't see much difference between his foreign policy vision and Clinton's, other than semantical minutia (eg, 'talking to other nations')."

Ummm...'talking to other nations' (i.e. diplomacy) is anything but 'semantical minutia'. It is often the difference between war and peace. Seeing as how we can ill afford another war at the moment, a President willing and able to engage in diplomatic discussions with nations we don't particularly care for seems like a good selling point.

[rilkefan]

'talking to other nations'

Clinton is committed to return to the standard practice of diplomacy - she said at the time of Obama's gaffe that her administration would immediately actively pursue progress with all countries.

[hilzoy]

rilkefan: fair enough, and I'd add "clean coal technology" to the list. One point of difference (which I was thinking of when I wrote this, not that anyone but me would have any way of knowing this): Clemons seemed to suggest that maybe Clinton would govern in a way that's different from her speeches now, and knows this. I don't have any idea whether that's true or not, but I thought: to the extent that I consider that possibility at all, I take it to be a negative. Insofar as I take her at her word, on the other hand, I don't like what she says.

It would make a difference to me if Obama was actually planning to legalize gay marriage. I mean: obviously I'd be happy that it happened, but I'd be pretty unhappy about his saying the opposite, and would think less of him.

[matttbastard]

RF: Clinton is committed to return to the standard practice of diplomacy - she said at the time of Obama's gaffe that her administration would immediately actively pursue progress with all countries.

Exactly. That's what I meant re: 'semantical minutia', Fidelis. Both are committed to essentially the same policy goal (ie, a return to standard diplomacy) but differ in presentation (but not substantively, IMO).

[rilkefan]

Well, I think Clemons is (at best) deeply confused.

The president doesn't have the ability to legalize gay marriage. It's a question about character. I assume Obama has the character I want him to on this question and I expect him to lie about it. I'm a little uncertain about his bona fides on abortion rights, actually, given his votes in Illinois, but I expect him to be unspecific about how that would affect his appointments to the court, even though it's a matter of interest to me.

[rilkefan]

'"Being a former first lady doesn't prepare you to be president," Brzezinski said.'

Having a funny accent doesn't prepare one to endorse candidates.

[KCinDC]

RF, I don't understand the parallel. Is someone pointing to Brzezinski's accent as a qualification?

[rilkefan]

My point was that saying Senator Clinton (who can point to more time in the Senate) "was just First Lady" is 0) misogynistic and 1) ignores the reported info that she was a leading adviser to President Clinton and 2) ignores the various things generally recognized as experience she did while First Lady (and ditto in Little Rock), maybe because they mostly involved women's and children's issues.

[Gromit]

Rilkefan, first, did he say she "was just First Lady"? And second, misogynistic how? Do you mean to imply that he would not have said the same thing about a First Gentleman, and if so, why do you read it that way?

He also says that JFK wasn't very experienced when he ran. I'd say he's looking at experience in orders of magnitude, and puts Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama in more or less the same order. In any case, his point seems to be that acuity and judgment trump quantitative measures of experience.

[Gromit]

And, for the record, I can't rule out misogyny on Brzezinski's part, but neither do I see any evidence for it.

[rilkefan]

Gromit: '"Being a former first lady doesn't prepare you to be president," Brzezinski said.' Clinton is a former first lady the way Brzezinski is a guy with a funny accent. Whether or not the act of downplaying a woman's accomplishments by referring to her role as a wife is misogynist is I guess a judgment call.

[KCinDC]

Again, no one is pointing to Brzezinski's accent as a qualification, whereas plenty of people are pointing to Clinton's experience as first lady as a qualification. And accusations of misogyny seem completely out of line. Your points might be more convincing without those distractions.

[Gromit]

Rilkefan: '"Being a former first lady doesn't prepare you to be president," Brzezinski said.' Clinton is a former first lady the way Brzezinski is a guy with a funny accent. Whether or not the act of downplaying a woman's accomplishments by referring to her role as a wife is misogynist is I guess a judgment call.

Hillary Clinton's stint as First Lady was the launching point for her political career, and is an important part of her resume. It's not as important as her work in the Senate, I'll grant you, but it's still way more important than Brzezinski's accent.

[rilkefan]

It seems to me that the statement in question will be said word for word, and with precisely the same intent, by the Republican candidate and by his attack surrogates if Clinton is our nominee; I would guess that when it is said by those people it will sound misogynistic to you. I have no sense of Brzezinski's feminist consciousness or lack thereof, but the statement it seems speaks for itself.

"plenty of people are pointing to Clinton's experience as first lady as a qualification"

This is a more reasonable formulation (though it elides her main qualification) - "her experience as first lady" - being one of the main advisers of the president, leading a task force, successfully pushing important legislation into law, giving widely-hailed speeches before world bodies. If she had done those things without having been first lady, no one would be sneering at those eight years. Brzezinski ought to be able to defend Obama on the experience charge without doing so. (And he does sneer - 'Truman didn't have a lot of experience. JFK didn't either. Clinton was [just] first lady.')

(And incidentally his point about JFK et al. seems to me to be pretty poor - as I recall the people cited did some dumb things early in their presidencies ascribable to inexperience.)

[mop]

I'm gonna have to disagree with those who claim Obama and Clinton are not substantially different on the issue of diplomacy. Going back to that debate, in her answer on that question, she concealed more than revealed the actual substance of her position. After all, even John Bolton claims that the U.S. has engaged in rigorous diplomacy in an effort to pursue progress on, say, Iran's nuclear ambitions. The question isn't whether or not a candidate is willing to pay lip service to the notion of "diplomacy", the question is: what is the content of said diplomacy? Is the candidate willing to use economic sanctions? Is the candidate willing to use carrots as well as sticks. Is the candidate willing to invoke summitry and, if so, to what extent? Etc etc. The question is not whether or not one is vaguely committed to some undefined diplomacy. The question is, how do you envision your diplomatic efforts?

To that extent, Clinton gave us no positive statement of diplomacy under her watch. She told us what she wouldn't do, so I guess that's an upper-bound: she wouldn't promise summitry. Other than that, what did she say? She promised "vigorous diplomacy" and "high level envoys to test the waters" and that's it. That's not a coherent vision of what diplomacy is. Compare that to Obama's answer, where he gave a very clear idea of what his vision for diplomacy involves: it involves summitry, he sees Reagan in the Cold War and Kennedy before him as role models on that issue, that we need to get in Iran and Syria and make it clear to them that we're not a permanent occupying force and as such, they're going to have responsibilities in terms of stabilizing the region.

One is a clear statement of what diplomacy will mean. Another is obfuscation. I don't know how this could be any more obvious.

The only hint Senator Clinton did give us as to what her vision of diplomacy is was when she said she will not be used for "propaganda purposes". That suggests a stance towards summitry in particular and diplomacy in general that's at the very least skeptical of diplomatic efforts, if not out-right wary of their costs.

One candidate offers a foreign policy that sees summitry and, in general, diplomacy as an inherent good worth pursuing. The other adopts a stance that treats summitry as something of which one should be skeptical and perhaps even treated as a concession (if we're going to take "propaganda purposes" to be the dog-whistle politics it most likely was). Those are two fundamentally different stances to the issue.

Clinton sends a dog-whistle to liberals ("vigorous diplomacy"), a dog-whistle to conservatives ("not used for propaganda purposes"), and avoids giving any positive statement of what diplomacy would actually entail under her Administration. The liberals who support read into her answer that she holds the position they want her to hold; conservatives who then see her attack Obama read into her answer that she supports the position they want her to support. That's triangulation, in a nutshell. Pardon me if I'm not very impressed by a politician who treats that issue (which I consider incredibly important) as an opportunity for political point-scoring rather than actually elucidating a position. And pardon me for not being impressed by Clinton partisans who are trying to claim that she described a position she clearly did not.

You have to assume before she even answered the question that she shared Obama's position to get that she actually holds it. Because she never said she does hold it, nor does she say that she doesn't hold it. She goes a long way in basically not saying anything at all. Indeed, a quick glance on her website only says that she thinks we need to engage our enemies, but again: doesn't say what that engagement entails.

So, again, tell me why I should believe the two are so very similar on the issue?

[mop]

This is a more reasonable formulation (though it elides her main qualification) - "her experience as first lady" - being one of the main advisers of the president, leading a task force, successfully pushing important legislation into law, giving widely-hailed speeches before world bodies.

Er...it seems as though you are intent on taking the most generous interpretations of Clinton's statements and resume as is possible.

One: I don't see how being a main adviser is relevant experience. The roles are fundamentally different: giving advice (offering one point of view) vs receiving, understanding, and choosing multiple sets of advice.

Two: my understanding was that her experience as a task force head (on heath care) was an unmitigated disaster, for which she was criticized by Democrats and Republicans alike.

Three: I have to scoff at those who think the sanitized trips to foreign countries and speeches she gave there is somehow experience for dealing with, say, diplomatic negotiations with Iran. Certainly, speaking out about women's, children's, and human rights in general on the international stage is admirable, but it's not at all preparation for sitting at the table with the Ayatollahs. The suggestion as such is flatly insulting.

I know Obama, for example, has sat down with the President of Kenya and told him that the corruption in his government is unacceptable. That is experience for diplomacy and summitry. To the extent Clinton has done things similar, I'm willing to consider, and please, feel free to enlighten me. But the standard talking points (she traveled with Albright to Europe...a lot!) leave me a little unimpressed. What did she do there? Give human rights speeches? Engage in ceremonial, hand-shake meetings with heads of state? That's unimpressive.

[Gromit]

rilkefan: It seems to me that the statement in question will be said word for word, and with precisely the same intent, by the Republican candidate and by his attack surrogates if Clinton is our nominee; I would guess that when it is said by those people it will sound misogynistic to you.

Ought I be speculating on whether you'd hear racial overtones in nominee Giuliani calling Obama "naive and irresponsible"? Or am I right in thinking this a pointless game to play? But will I still think so a year from now?

I have no sense of Brzezinski's feminist consciousness or lack thereof, but the statement it seems speaks for itself.

...

(And he does sneer - 'Truman didn't have a lot of experience. JFK didn't either. Clinton was [just] first lady.')

Perhaps the statement doesn't speak for itself, at least as far as proving your point goes, since you chose to reword it into something more dismissive than what he actually said. I'm a little puzzled that you can be so aggressive in pointing out perceived distortions of Clinton's statements, yet you so readily read sneers and misogyny into the words of her critic.

[rilkefan]

mop, I think the rest of your remarks refute themselves, but I was expecting to need to respond to this argument:

"Two: my understanding was that her experience as a task force head (on heath care) was an unmitigated disaster, for which she was criticized by Democrats and Republicans alike."

Perhaps it's a peculiarity of the Silicon Valley mindset, but to me experiencing failure is indeed experience, and of a very important sort. The presidency is such a difficult job that no one can expect unalloyed success at it, and knowing what it is like to fail and yet survive is, for a thoughtful person, highly useful. In the case of George Bush, his failures in his earlier careers in some sense set up his failures in office. But I think Clinton is too smart and too capable not to have drawn useful lessons from the failure of her task force (a failure which I hasten to note was not by any means hers alone).

[rilkefan]

Gromit: "Perhaps the statement doesn't speak for itself, at least as far as proving your point goes, since you chose to reword it into something more dismissive than what he actually said."

That was just laziness - but really I don't think I made the statement worse given the brackets around "just": the parallelism of the phrasing is entirely simple and leads directly to my version.

"I'm a little puzzled that you can be so aggressive in pointing out perceived distortions of Clinton's statements, yet you so readily read sneers and misogyny into the words of her critic."

I call them like I see them. And I don't think I'm being aggressive - just clear.

'Ought I be speculating on whether you'd hear racial overtones in nominee Giuliani calling Obama "naive and irresponsible"?'

Look, if somebody endorses Clinton saying that "being a community activist in an inner-city neighborhood isn't at all preparation for sitting at the table with the Ayatollahs" I'm going to call that statement racist, and if you get there before me I won't label it aggression.

[Harald Korneliussen]

"When he was in the Senate, he was running for President as a conservative Democrat, because that was his schtick, and that was what his handlers told him would work to both get the nomination and win the presidency. They were obviously wrong, and the presence of Clinton and Obama in the race opens up room between them for him to run as a repentant Iraq hawk."

Holy cow, was he a conservative democrat last time?

Suddenly my nagging suspicion that Edwards is just running to spoil for Obama became slightly less unreasonable.

[john miller]

RK: "Look, if somebody endorses Clinton saying that "being a community activist in an inner-city neighborhood isn't at all preparation for sitting at the table with the Ayatollahs" I'm going to call that statement racist,"

Why? Seriously, there is nothing racist in that comment at all. If you see racism there, then I get a better understanding of why you are reading something into the "first lady" comment that others aren't seeing.

[matttbastard]

The point (to me) is that Senator Clinton's accomplishments and qualifications extend far beyond merely being married to a (former) president. Similarly, Senator Obama is a lot more than juar a former community activist in an inner-city neighbourhood.

YMMV re: sexism/racism (I lean towards rilkefan's interpretation), but to me it's hard not to see that Brzezinski was being deliberately reductive in his statement re: Clinton's qualifications (or lack thereof).

[rilkefan]

jm, what do you think "inner-city" is doing in the sentence? It's not supporting the argument, as a moment's thought shows that working as an organizer in an inner-city neighborhood (as opposed to say in Kennebunkport) is likely useful training for a negotiator. The sentence says to the Dixiecrats, "Do you trust a black man from the hood to be on our side to our enemies?" Consider the other, non-racist options: "A degree in foreign relations isn't [etc]" or "Being a one-term senator isn't [etc]".

[matttbastard]

'juar' s/b 'just'. No more posting @ work :-P

[4jkb4ia]

I am glad to hear that hilzoy is suspicious of Edwards's foreign policy. This is a large reason I have not joined the Edwards bandwagon. In 2004 he had only vague ideas about foreign policy and his activities since 2004 are focused on domestic issues.