Plus ça Change, Plus C’est la Même Chose. (cont.)

From Paul Krugman January 2008:
"...First, those who don’t want to nominate Hillary Clinton because they don’t want to return to the nastiness of the 1990s — a sizable group, at least in the punditocracy — are deluding themselves. Any Democrat who makes it to the White House can expect the same treatment: an unending procession of wild charges and fake scandals, dutifully given credence by major media organizations that somehow can’t bring themselves to declare the accusations unequivocally false (at least not on Page 1).

The point is that while there are valid reasons one might support Mr. Obama over Mrs. Clinton, the desire to avoid unpleasantness isn’t one of them..."

TW: Krugman likes to pat himself on the back, he does so here by pulling out one of his own quotes from 18 months ago. He was a vocal and prominent Clinton fan, but in this case he was right. The above describes to a tee the current environment.

Growing American Soft Power

TW: Some folks regard an American POTUS being popular in France as either irrelevant or outright bad news (I do not). Regardless the Obama Administration is rapidly restoring large measures of respect for the U.S. throughout the world. Some of the reasons are obvious, less bellicosity and more engagement. Some are more subtle. Building power is not all about guns and even $.

From Economist:

"MUCH of the world will resent us no matter what we do, at least when venting to pollsters from the Pew Global Attitudes Project." That's James Kirchik, arguing in the Weekly Standard last October that Democrats were foolish to believe that a restrained, multilateral Obama administration would dramatically improve America's image abroad. And, when the latest Pew Global Attitudes Project data came in last week, it turned out Mr Kirchik had been right—if by "much of the world" you mean "Pakistan and Israel". Pretty much everywhere else, the Obama administration has been punching up America's brand with numbers that would make Don Draper drool.

The leap in confidence that the American president "will do the right thing" was most shocking—not just the jump in France from George Bush's 13% to Mr Obama's 91%, but from 30% to 62% in China! That's, what, 450m people? (Oh, wait—urban China was over-surveyed. Okay, let's call it 200m.) Even in "new-Europe" Poland—don't forget Poland!—Mr Obama scored 62% to Mr Bush's 41%.

Much of this improvement is tied to Mr Obama's personal characteristics and image. But much of it isn't. It's the result of policy shifts America has made over the last six months—some of them below the radar of the American public.

For example, Hillary Clinton just wound up an immensely successful trip to Southeast Asia, ...Condoleezza Rice's visits to the region were much less frequent and this was more problematic for American foreign policy than Bush Administration officials seemed to realise.

...a raft of American and Southeast Asian experts identified a failure to send "appropriate-level" diplomats to regional meetings as a major impediment to improving America's relations in a region increasingly coming under the sway of Chinese "soft power". Experts from Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia complained that America did not seem to be engaged in regional issues and that the low rank of the officials it was sending to the region sent a message that it didn't consider Southeast Asia important..."

http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2009/07/sending_the_right_lady_for_the.cfm

Honduras: Detail Beyond the Infotainment Headlines

TW: This piece from Politics Daily gives a somewhat detailed but also tongue-in-cheek survey of the Honduran situation. This is not a strategic story but one vulnerable to the pithy, biased headlines of the infotainment sites (Drudge, Huffington, Fox, etc.). Calm diplomacy appears to be making some progress.
http://www.politicsdaily.com/2009/07/09/yanqui-dont-go-home-race-gender-oil-and-honduras/

The Hill-o-bama Team Works

TW: One does not hear an extraordinary amount about Hillary Clinton. She is in the news about as often as most secretaries of state but not as much as an almost POTUS nominee and a controversial former First Lady might be. The same thing happened when she became a first-term Senator from NY, she quietly went about her business in an effective manner.

Merely restoring the State Department to its traditional role as the primary diplomatic in place of the Pentagon is a huge and positive step. It is very early but so far she and Obama have made a pretty strong team.

From Economist:
"...Mischief-makers have been trying to discover tensions between the two former rivals ever since Mrs Clinton moved to Foggy Bottom in January. So far they have been frustrated...

Mr Obama and Mrs Clinton have hewed to the same line over the current uproar in Iran—expressing worries about the violence but avoiding raising the spectre of “American interference”. Mrs Clinton has followed Mr Obama’s lead in holding out a welcoming hand to assorted anti-American strongmen. “President Obama won the election. He beat me in a primary in which he put forth a different approach,” was her sharp response to a Republican congressman who reminded her of her former hawkishness when Mr Obama shook Hugo Chávez’s hand. Mrs Clinton now enjoys the highest popularity rating of any of Mr Obama’s cabinet; she also enjoys the admiration of some Republicans...

Mrs Clinton’s success has partly been a matter of good fortune. The State Department is delighted to see the arrival of an administration that does not regard Foggy Bottom as enemy-occupied territory. It also has better relations with the Pentagon than it has had for years. If Donald Rumsfeld went out of his way to antagonise State, Robert Gates, who replaced him in 2006, has bent over backwards to woo it, publicly agonising over the “creeping militarisation” of foreign policy and calling for a “dramatic increase” in the “civilian instruments” of national security, such as diplomacy and foreign aid.

...She has struck a balance between deploying her star power and deferring to the president. She is routinely greeted as a rock star wherever she goes, and has enjoyed mixing with ordinary people: holding a spirited discussion with the teenage audience of an Indonesian television show, “Awesome”, for example. But she has always known when to defer to Mr Obama or other cabinet secretaries, such as Tim Geithner.

...Mrs Clinton has also seemed content to delegate the day-to-day management of some of the world’s most volatile regions to special envoys: the Afghanistan-Pakistan region to Mr Holbrooke; the Middle East peace process to George Mitchell...But in general Mrs Clinton has disentangled herself enough from the daily demands of these regions to focus on strategic questions that are too often given short shrift: overhauling the management of foreign aid, improving the United States’ relations with Latin America and managing the rise of Asia, which is arguably the most important strategic issue facing the country..."
http://www.economist.com/world/unitedstates/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13856297

Yep Its the Clintons

Memories

TW: The best of lists for 2008 are coming out. We both really liked this one, being Sopranos fans and all.

The Facebook Generation

TW: I am truly curious how fifteen or twenty years from now folks will be able to overcome some of the evidence our modern technology is documenting for their mature years. As you may have seen the photo above is of Obama speechwriting wunderkinder, Jon Favreau aged 27, partying with friends and a cutout of our Sec State nominee Ms. Clinton. Many of us older folks are grateful our younger years were not so well immortalized. Between cellphone cameras, MySpace, Facebook and digital photography generally, I do not know how college and those somewhat raucous post undergrad years can possibly be lived without serious paranoia.

She's Baaaack....Amy Poehler That Is

TW: And a homage to Laura and the balance of the Ferrone clan...

Hillary And Other Clintonites

TW: Joe Klein captures my view on the Hillary drama very well....and as for Clinton veterans serving in the Obama administration, what do u want him to do bring in a bunch of greenhorns so that in 4 months everyone can say, "geez it would have been nice if they could have avoided GD 2.0 by having a little experience in the Administration". Obama, Axelrod et al. will bring plenty of change, they have no alternative.

From Klein at Time:
"You want my opinion on Hillary for Secretary of State? Don't have much of one. She'd be fine--I've traveled with her overseas and she's a terrific ambassador--but I'd also be thrilled to see her stay in the Senate and help build a consensus on health care and other issues.

You want to hear me expatiate on the plethora of Clintonians filling the Obama Administration? Don't have much of an opinion about that, either. I mean, most administrations are filled with experts who served in previous administrations. The Bush Cabinet dated back to the Ford White House (and to the previous Bush Cabinet). The Clintonites Obama has picked, or is considering, are excellent. I haven't heard a rumor yet that alarmed me as much as the prospect of Janet Reno (D-Mars) as Attorney General during the Clinton Administration; there hasn't been a name raised or a position offered that seems implausible so far. And the quiet, disciplined way that Obama has gone about this transition seems nothing but good. I can honestly say that he's probably a much better person than I am: His tolerance for Joe Lieberman--who questioned his patriotism--is saintly (and also smart politics)."