Chasing Authenticity Posted by Michael Signer

I unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately) can't write too much today, as I've gotten a little derailed at my day job, but wanted to chime in briefly on the very interesting debate about Joe Klein's new book.  I haven't read Klein's book, but it seems like one of those books you really don't have to read to understand. 

His thesis, summarized in this Time piece, is that politics has been ruined by think-inside-the-box consultants who take away Al Gore's passion for the environment, John Kerry's antiwar positions, and, to extend the logic, Bob Dole's humor.  His peroration that concludes the piece is stirring:

I hate predictions. Most pundits, like most pollsters, get their information by looking in the rearview mirror. But let me give 2008 a try. The winner will be the candidate who comes closest to this model: a politician who refuses to be a "performer," at least in the current sense. Who speaks but doesn't orate. Who never holds a press conference on or in front of an aircraft carrier. Who doesn't assume the public is stupid or uncaring. Who believes in at least one major idea, or program, that has less than 40% support in the polls. Who can tell a joke—at his or her own expense, if possible. Who gets angry, within reason; gets weepy, within reason ... but only if those emotions are real and rare. Who isn't averse to kicking his or her opponent in the shins but does it gently and cleverly. Who radiates good sense, common decency and calm. Who is not afraid to deliver bad news. Who is not afraid to admit a mistake. And who, above all, abides by the motto that graced Franklin Delano Roosevelt's Oval Office: let unconquerable gladness dwell.

Good as it sounds, though, there are problems with all of this.

Why Bono Should be our Next Secretary of State Posted by Shadi Hamid

Yes, this post may strike some as random, but it must be said, and I cannot help but say it. U2's Bono should be our next Secretary of State, under, of course, a Democratic administration in 2008. I came to this “conclusion,” when buried in my MP3 collection, I was struck once again by Bono’s remarkable skills as a communicator. In a live version of the classic “Sunday Bloody Sunday,” he breaks off into one of his impassioned mini-speeches:

Let me tell you something…I’ve had enough of Irish Americans who haven’t been back to their country in twenty or thirty years, come up to me and talk about the resistance, the revolution back home. And the glory of the revolution and the glory of dying for the revolution…Fuck the revolution! They don’t talk about the glory of killing for the revolution. What’s the glory in taking a man from his bed and gunning him down in front of his wife and his children? Where’s the glory in that? Where’s the glory in bombing a Remembrance Day parade of old-age pensioners their medals taken out and polished up for the day? Where’s the glory in that? To leave them dying or crippled for life or dead under the rubble of a revolution that the majority of people in my country don’t want…say no more, no more, no more, no more….”

The crowd, tens of thousands strong, screams back in unison. It is one of those rare, cathartic moments in music. Bono’s message here and elsewhere is affecting, powerful, and totally in keeping with America’s founding ideals. A keen regard not only for the dignity of the oppressed but for those who will no doubt be made to suffer in the sullied name of redemption. Joe Klein, to his credit, keeps on talking about the chokehold political consultants have on the Democratic Party and that we need genuine politicians who actually believe in something, who are alive with feeling, emotion, and (within bounds) righteous anger. Ok, then, let’s do this. Why Bono? Here are 7 reasons:

1. He actually does have substantive foreign policy experience, having met with and discussed the intricacies of Western aid to Africa with heads of state and senior-level officials from around the world. Moreover, he has been on the front lines of setting a new Africa agenda for development organizations, including USAID, the World Bank and the IMF.

A Progressive Recruitment Drive for Republicans Posted by Lorelei Kelly

Depressing news. The world is turning against us. Polling used to show how those queried in other countries separated American citizens from their government. Seems that is changing.  Which makes Karen Hughes' speech last week at the Council on Foreign Relations both ironic and probably too late.  Her main theme: Our actions must match our rhetoric.  After 5 plus years in leadership the Bush administration acknowledges that reciprocity (doing unto others....) and legitimacy (leading by example) are strategic assets. 

That the administration's chief campaign messenger is making this point is significant. It is an indirect acknowledgement that her gang has let politics trump good public policy far too often and the results are hurting them. Perhaps Hughes has become reflective in order to attract back the Republicans who are turned off by the Bush administration's leadership.

It's time for progressives to go on a recruitment drive to attract Republicans.  I just spent three days at bipartisan workshops, one on internal security and the erosion of democracy, the other on re-balancing our national security policy so as to not over-militarize it. These meetings included conservatives (not just libertarians) and liberals, Democrats and Republicans.  "Something's rotten" seemed to be a consistent theme--and in both cases the many problems discussed led back to philosophical beliefs about the role of government.  Good government Republicans are starting to get annoyed and we need to attract them to our side.

Five Thoughts on Immigration and National Security Posted by Heather Hurlburt

1.  Americans see immigration as a national security issue.  There's no debate except among foreign-policy types who don't want to deal with it.  Check the polls (2006) and polls (2003).

2.  Control of our borders is a national security issue.  But, er, it's our northern borders where terrorists have been apprehended -- or not -- in recent years.  And nobody has suggested calling out the national guard to cover the long, lightly guarded land borders in Washington State -- where we know people have come across to try to commit acts of terrorism -- or elsewhere.  What should be done?  Who is going to do it?  How much will it cost?

3.  The role and mission of the National Guard is a national security issue.  CNN found that three-quarters of those who viewed President Bush's Oval Office address on immigration supported the proposal to put 6,000 Guard troops on the border.  Unfortunately, he doesn't appear to have consulted with the relevant governors first -- where are those Guard troops going to come from?  Is this part of a comprehensive re-orienting of the Guard's role to such missions, and away from expectations of duty in places like Iraq, as CSIS's Michele Fluornoy and others have been advocating?  Or is it just one more item on our "you fix it, military" to-do list?

4.  World perceptions of the US on this issue are a national security issue.  I'll just quote John McCain (no, not at Liberty University): 

"Any real solution in the U.S. must start with a view of immigrants as individuals in possession of certain basic human rights, and as an economically and culturally revitalizing force... In such questions of values, it is imperative that we hold ourselves to a standard at least as high, and surely higher, than we hold everyone else."

5.  Efficacy is a national security issue.  Americans need to recapture the sense that our government -- whether it's Bush and a GOP-dominated Congress this year, Bush and a not-so-GOP-dominated Congress next year, or somebody else and his/her Congress in '09 -- can carry through on certain basic tasks.  Who's going to seize the baton on that one?

How to Join the Friendly Dictator Club and Live to Tell About It Posted by Shadi Hamid

It appears that the serial offensiveness of the US decision to restore diplomatic ties with Libya has been lost on most observers. It marks yet another instance of the Bush administration’s implacable disregard for Arab democracy. If anything, this was exactly the time to say to Libya that, yes, we are happy that you have renounced nuclear ambition but we will not be fully satisfied until you renounce your autocracy. Libya, unlike many of the other egregious human rights offenders in the region, is actually what may be termed a “full autocracy,” meaning that there isn’t even the charade of electoral window-dressing. There is, however, the well-scripted, although somewhat tiresome charade of Muammar Qaddafi’s “third way,” forever enshrined in the laughable “Green Book,” proof that sometimes the first and second ways are the better bet. In any case, there is a well-deserved, although now crumbling, consensus that Qaddafi is (was) a most despicable man, and one, to boot, with a fashion style bordering on the horrific.

Then there was the overwrought self-aggrandizement that seems to have become a mainstay of the State Department press operation. Condoleezza Rice declared that “just as 2003 marked a turning point for the Libyan people, so too could 2006 mark turning points for the peoples of Iran and North Korea.” She went on to call Libya “an important model.” Well, in 2006 the Libyan people are still living under the same unrepentant tyranny as they were in 2002, a tyranny which allows them no recourse to liberty and freedom - things which, lest we forget, President Bush seemed to believe in quite strongly as recently as January 20, 2005.

Yes, if you’re disciple of Scrowcroft (and it just so happens that Rice is), then yesterday’s announcement was indeed one to get triumphant about. Realism is alive and well. I, on the other hand, am perhaps being unrealistic to expect that any US administration – Republican or Democrat – will be able to resist the lure of dictator-coddling, a favorite pastime in Washington circles. Interests, interests, interests. Well, if this is the case, then the war on terror will not be won easily for an American victory requires nothing less than the dismantling of the authoritarian status quo, a status quo which has made the region a hotbed of all the things we don’t like – extremism, terrorism, fundamentalism, cultural, economic, and political stagnation... The list, as always, goes on.

China: Threat or Threatened? Posted by Suzanne Nossel

Last week I went on my first ever trip to China - just four days spent in a business conference in Shanghai.  A few simple observations before I forget them:

Sitting through presentations on China's over 100 million internet users, a number growing by 400% a year, walking through shopping districts that are every bit as bustling and diverse as those of any middle-income European-style city, hearing about the billions of dollars in advertising spending being pumped into China, it is impossible not to wonder how long the government's control over dissent will last. 

They may be barred from certain google searches, but China's fast-growing middle class can see - and write and talk - right over the fences the government has built for them.  How long can China's zero-tolerance for dissent, a policy predicated on jailing those that dare challenge authority, be enforced across a population of 1.3 billion people and exponentially more emails, text messages, cellphone calls and blog posts?  Yes, surveillance technologies are racing ahead too but a data-mining algorithm cannot find a man and jail him.

I discussed this with a leading American journalist covering the region who put it well:  the Chinese authorities are going to have to keep pedaling awfully fast - providing an ever improving standard of living, employment opportunities, and material and social goods - to stay ahead of the forces of individual autonomy and freedom that education and interconnectedness are bound to feed.  If growth slows, if a currency adjustment deals a big dislocation, if police overreact in a serious way and its caught on film, the forces unleashed could be hard to stop.

So while we worry about China pedaling fast to catch up with us, the other side is the 1.3 billion people with their feet at the wheels who - if the momentum stops - could veer off every which way never to get back on the same bike again.