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Robert Gates: Wrong Man for the Job
By Katrina vanden Heuvel
Barack Obama not only had the good judgment to oppose the war in Iraq but , as he told us earlier this year, "I want to end the mindset that got us into war." So it is troubling that a man of such good judgment has asked Robert Gates to stay on as Secretary of Defense--and assembled a national security team of such narrow bandwidth. It is true that President Obama will set the policy. But this team makes it more difficult to seize the extraordinary opportunity Obama's election has offered to reengage the world and reset America's priorities. Maybe being right about the greatest foreign policy disaster in US history doesn't mean much inside the Beltway? How else to explain that not a single top member of Obama's foreign policy/national security team opposed the war--or the dubious claims leading up to it?
The appointment of Hillary Clinton, who failed to oppose the war, has worried many. But I am more concerned about Gates. I spent the holiday weekend reading many of the speeches Hillary Clinton gave in her trips abroad as First Lady, especially those delivered at the UN Beijing Women's Conference and the Vital Voices Conferences, and I believe she will carve out an important role as Secretary of State through elevating women's (and girl's) rights as human rights. As she said in Belfast in 1998, "Human rights are women's rights and women's rights are human rights." That is not to diminish her hawkish record on several issues, but as head of State she is in a position to put diplomacy back at the center of US foreign policy role--and reduce the Pentagon's.
It's the appointment of Gates which has a dispiriting, stay-the-course feel to it. Some will argue, and I've engaged in my fair share of such arguments, that Gates will simply be carrying out Obama's policies and vision. And a look at history shows that other great reform Presidents--Lincoln and Roosevelt--brought people into their cabinets who were old Washington hands or people they believed to be effective managers. Like Obama, they confronted historic challenges that compelled (and enabled) them to make fundamental change. But Gates will undoubtedly help to shape policy and determine which issues are given priority. And while Gates has denounced "the gutting" of America's "soft power," he has been vocally opposed to Obama's Iraq withdrawal plan. And at a time when people like Henry Kissinger and George Shultz are calling for steps toward a world free of nuclear weapons (a position Obama has adopted), Gates has been calling for a new generation of nuclear weapons.
(27) CommentsDecember 1, 2008
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Andy Stern on the New Moment
By Katrina vanden Heuvel
Like any reformer, SEIU President Andy Stern has his admirers and his critics. I understand the critics' arguments. But I also think Stern is a visionary labor figure. When in history were heretics well liked? Yet their ideas are worth hearing.
Yesterday, Stern came to The Nation offices along with Change to Win Chair and SEIU International Secretary-Treasure, Anna Burger, to discuss this new moment in the country's history and what kind of strategic thinking will be needed moving forward. Their mood was optimistic--as well it should be, since labor spent some $450 million in the 2008 races, contributed mightily to massive voter outreach and mobilization and saw their candidates win.
"It's a different world – the free market ideology has been discredited," Stern said. This was "a clear election not on small things." And he argues, "We've redefined the center. Universal health care is now centrist."
(25) CommentsNovember 25, 2008
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Let's Be Clear About Obama
By Katrina vanden Heuvel
There are some interesting conversations and debates underway at thenation.com (see especially Chris Hayes at Capitolism, "Left Out") and in the progressive blogosphere (see Glenn Greenwald, Jane Hamsher, Digby and David Sirota about why Obama has so few progressives among his cabinet picks.) It's worth checking them out.
I think that we progressives need to be as clear-eyed, tough and pragmatic about Obama as he is about us.
President-elect Obama is a centrist at a time when centrism means energy independence and green jobs and universal health care and massive economic stimulus programs and government intervention in the economy. He is a pragmatist at a moment when pragmatism and the scale of our financial crisis compel him to adopt bold policies. He is a cautious leader at a time when, to paraphrase New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, caution is the new risky.The great traumas of our day do not allow for cautious steps or responses.
(137) CommentsNovember 23, 2008
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Smart Defense
By Katrina vanden Heuvel
Last month, Congressman Barney Frank called for a 25 percent cut in the defense budget--approximately $150 billion in annual spending--saying, "We don't need all these fancy new weapons. I think there needs to be additional review."
Predictably, the Republican backlash was swift. House Minority Leader John Boehner called Frank "incredibly irresponsible." House Armed Services Personnel Subcommittee ranking member John McHugh (R-NY) labeled the proposed reduction "unconscionable." Democrats--especially those on the House Armed Services Committee --didn't exactly embrace Frank's target, either.
But Congressman Frank isn't backing down. In an e-mail to me yesterday he wrote, "Much of the reduction will come from ending the war in Iraq and from cutting unneeded weapons systems. I believe that it's appropriate to reduce defense spending, and this is a goal I wanted to set. I don't have specific details at this point, but I will be working with my colleagues to identify weapons systems that we can reduce, and I also want to look at drawing down the number of our overseas bases."
(50) CommentsNovember 18, 2008
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Ideas for Change
By Katrina vanden Heuvel
Mark Green, president of the New Democracy Project and Air America, called me on the phone the other day to talk about the now released book he co-edited, Change for America: A Progressive Blueprint for the 44th President.
"So it turns out that these past eight years in the wilderness allowed--or compelled--scores of progressive thinkers to do promising work in think tanks, universities, congressional offices," he said.
Green told me he approached Center for American Progress (CAP) president John Podesta (now on leave to serve as transition chief for President Obama) in December 2006 about gathering together "the best thinking of progressive scholars, activists, and officials into a one-stop shopping, comprehensive volume discussing how to move from a conservative to progressive presidency." Green edited a similar book for President Clinton in 1991 and wanted to repeat the effort for the 2008 cycle.
(48) CommentsNovember 13, 2008
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The First 100 Days
By Katrina vanden Heuvel
At the end of this remarkable week, we're starting to look ahead to the First 100 Days of the Obama presidency. Already, we're hearing calls in the mainstream media warning the new administration "not to overreach." And working overtime, the Inside-the-Beltway Punditocracy continues to reveal its ability to ignore reality--even while describing itself as "realist"--with its claims that this is still a center-right nation, despite all evidence to the contrary.
But as Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman writes in today's New York Times, "Let's hope that Mr. Obama has the good sense to ignore this advice...this year's presidential election was a clear referendum on political philosophies--and the progressive philosophy won."
Obama himself his talked about needing to measure his accomplishments over the first 1,000 Days, rather than 100, given the problems he has inherited from arguably the worst president ever (my words, not Obama's). Indeed, it will take years to undo the damage of the Bush administration and the conservative ideology that has dominated this country for nearly thirty years. But the First 100 Days are still crucial--not only in signaling to the American people and the world that the administration will take determined steps to repair this nation--but there is a historical precedent for the need to move forward expeditiously in order to seize the moment and the mandate.
(121) CommentsNovember 7, 2008
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Transformational Presidency
By Katrina vanden Heuvel
Four years ago we gathered at The Nation to watch the election returns. Around midnight we began to weep. But we had to put out an issue the next day. So, through the grim night and bleak day after, as the Election 2004 verdict became clear, we held our emotions in check and worked to make sense of the disaster that had befallen the country. The cover of our issue that week was of a black sky, dark clouds obscuring a slim and crestfallen moon, with a simple headline: "Four More Years."
Four years later, our offices are filled with editors, writers, interns, and colleagues--some crying, this time with joy--all jubilant about the new era of possibility opened up by Barack Obama's victory. We know there is work ahead to build a politics of sanity and justice and peace. But tonight we simply celebrate.
Obama's election marks a remarkable moment in our country's history--a milestone in America's scarred racial landscape and a victory for the forces of decency, diversity and tolerance. As our editorial board member Roger Wilkins reminded us on the eve of the election, Obama's win "doesn't turn a switch that eradicates our whole national history and culture." But "win or lose, Obama has already made this a better country, made your children's future better."
(167) CommentsNovember 4, 2008
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Nation to New Yorkers: Vote Change Like You Mean It.
By Katrina vanden Heuvel
This item was originally posted on October 13.
"In an otherwise desultory fall election, there is one lever New York voters can pull on Election Day that will make a real difference – that of the Working Families Party…"
--The Nation, November 2, 1998Progressives face a constant dilemma between a transformative politics aimed at a fundamentally different, humane and sustainable society, and the compromises often needed to begin addressing people's immediate needs. Never is that dilemma more acute than in presidential election years, when the stakes are so high and the choices often so narrow.
(16) CommentsNovember 1, 2008
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Halloween, Elections and Haywire Emotions
By Katrina vanden Heuvel
I don't know about you but I am having a hard time sleeping, and a tough time focusing on the day-to-day tasks of my job. Sure, there's that big investigative piece waiting to run once the oxygen is back in the room after this extraordinary election. And there's all the knocking on wood and superstitious rituals that must be attended to as we head to November 4th. And there's the Nation's election pool which requires math reminding me of all the math we did during the delegate counting between January and June.
And who the hell organizes the calendar so a pumped up Halloween arrives the Friday before the mother of all Election nights?
I've decided to go to a Halloween party tomorrow night ....The tix for entrance: a contribution to Planned Parenthood on behalf of Sarah Palin. I may go as an Alaskan snow queen--after all, why waste the good stuff I picked up when the Nation cruise was in Juneau in July 2007...That was the same month the National Review and Weekly Standard cruisers docked and decided Juneau was not their kind of town....not for the elite bunch they were...and they quickly jumped at the invitation to lunch with Sarah Palin in the luxo Governor's mansion ...Meanwhile, The Nation cruisers hung with the people of Juneau at a rally organized by the city's Veterans for Peace.
(31) CommentsOctober 31, 2008
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Bachmann’s Blues
By Katrina vanden Heuvel
Ever since Minnesota Republican Congresswoman Michele Bachmann's poisonous comments on Hardball ten days ago, it has looked increasingly possible that her deep red district might turn blue next week.
Her Democratic-Farmer-Labor (DFL) party opponent, Elwyn Tinklenberg, a former mayor and state transportation commissioner, has raised more than $1.5 million since Bachmann channeled Joe McCarthy on MSNBC. The Washington Post reported today that Tinklenberg's fundraising "in a single week, is more than what any other Democratic challenger has raised in a fundraising quarter in the entire two-year election cycle."
Bachmann's constituents seem to be rejecting her politics of division, distraction and demonization as well. According to a new Minnesota Public Radio/University of Minnesota Humphrey Institute poll, Tinklenberg – previously considered a long-shot – now leads Bachmann 45 to 43 percent. Approximately 40 percent of the district's voters say that they have "re-evaluated [Bachmann] and are less likely to support her," and two-thirds disagree with her comments.
(94) CommentsOctober 27, 2008
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Katrina vanden Heuvel
Thoughts on politics, current affairs, riffs and reflections on what’s in the news and what’s not--but should be.
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