TW: There was a time when foreign policy was the most bi-partisan area of national governance. During international crises that still holds, but generally the concept has wilted in particular during the W. Bush years. Obama and Sen. Dick Lugar (IN) have forged a relationship over the past several years. Lugar is regarded as the eminence grise for the Republicans on foreign policy. They are not allies on domestic policies but here is to hoping they can maintain a productive relationship to reduce partisanship on foreign policy.
From Bloomberg:
"...At a time when bipartisanship has all but broken down in Washington, the young Democratic president and the 76-year-old Republican wise man are quietly working to restore the notion that politics must end at the water’s edge.
The two have spoken on the phone four times since Election Day, a contrast to the limited communication that Lugar had with President Bush over eight years. The Bush-Lugar talks were “certainly not as frequent and as consistent as the contacts between Lugar and Obama,” said a Lugar’s spokesman
Lugar sought out Obama, 47, for a spot on the committee shortly after the Illinois Democrat won his seat in 2004, the start of a relationship that included traveling overseas together and that now positions Lugar as an informal senior adviser to the president.
The relationship also has given Lugar a powerful new ally in his decades-long quest to control the spread of nuclear weapons.
“One of my goals is to prevent nuclear proliferation,” Obama said at his first White House press conference Feb. 9. “I think that it’s important for the United States, in concert with Russia, to lead the way on this.”
Lugar is in an unusually influential position because of his decades of work with many members of the new administration’s diplomatic team..."
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601070&sid=aApDmrqhLZtk&refer=politics
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