Colin Powell on The Huffington Post

William Bradley: Obama's New Power Troika Faces Crises Old and New

2008-12-03T19:53:40Z

President-elect Barack Obama introduced his national security leadership team on Monday.

Well, so much for the notion, constantly bruited about by the fantasists of the far right, that Barack Obama was the most radical major presidential candidate in history. If his top economic management team hadn't disabused them of that nonsense, his national security leadership surely does.

Does this mean that Obama was a closet center-rightist, as some of the unintentional comedians performing on Fox News, not recognizing the irony, now claim?

Or is Obama forging a new center in American politics with refugees from the failed Bush/Cheney era?

Of the six top appointees announced Monday, three were major Obama backers in the hard-fought primary campaign, and three were not. It's true that Susan Rice, the new UN ambassador-to be, and Eric Holder, the next attorney general, were Clinton Administration officials, but what that means is they were ambitious DC Democrats in the '90s. Both were stalwarts for Obama in his sometime brutal battle for the nomination with Hillary Clinton. So was Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano, who was appointed a U.S. attorney by Bill Clinton, and will be the next Homeland Security Secretary.

But the three who were not with Obama in the primaries were decidedly not with him in the primaries. And It happens that Obama's non-supporters in the primary campaign will be the troika at the center of geopolitical decision-making -- Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense, and National Security Advisor -- the traditional iron triangle of national security policy and decision-making.

It will be up to Holder and Napolitano to find ways to maintain internal security without countenancing torture and outrageous violations of privacy. It will be up to Rice to bring a newly engaged public diplomacy to the United Nations.

But it will be up to the trio that were nowhere near right from the start with Barack Obama to handle the emerging crisis springing from the terrorist siege of Mumbai, which I expected in this Huffington Post piece last week, along with other crises centering on Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Iran, and Russia.

Barack Obama had sharp disagreements on geopolitics with Hillary Clinton during the Democratic primaries.

Hillary Clinton was Obama's toughest opponent. Now she's his Secretary of State. Bob Gates and General James Jones were major appointees of George W. Bush, Gates as defense secretary, Jones as NATO commander.

Ironically, Gates and Jones have already been helping Obama for more than a year, though that was almost certainly not their intent. On Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran.

A little background. Gates is a lifelong intelligence man, the first career intelligence officer to serve as director of the CIA. He was Deputy Director of the CIA under Ronald Reagan, and CIA Director under the first President Bush. He was also a member of the Iraq Study Group (ISG).

The ISG was greatly reviled on the right-wing, and by many in the Bush/Cheney White House, when it issued its assessment of the Iraq War. Basically, it called for the situation to be stabilized, in part with a temporary military "surge," and for US engagement with Iran and Syria, all as preparation for a US withdrawal from Iraq.

The right-wing, and Bush and Cheney, denounced that as "surrender" just two years ago. It happens to be what we're doing now. Under Bush and Cheney.

Had President Obama cut the deal with the Iraqi government that this White House approved, the new president would be denounced as a Neville Chamberlain. All US troops out of their cities and on their bases by the middle of next year. No US operations unless approved by the Iraqi government. All US troops gone by the end of 2011.

This is an absolute defeat for the Bush/Cheney strategy. As there were no Iraqi WMDs, there was no strategic threat from Saddam Hussein to be removed. Iraq was not involved with 9/11, and Al Qaeda had virtually no presence in Iraq until we removed Saddam. Iran is stronger now in the region with Saddam gone, and will have great influence in the Iraqi government. The US doesn't even get bases in Iraq, probably the best reason for the war, given Iraq's strategic location on the Middle Eastern map.

It's a total reversal of Bush/Cheney policy, not to mention neoconservative doctrine, and Defense Secretary Bob Gates is making it happen. Just as called for in the reviled-on-the-right ISG report.

When it comes to the deeply troubled situation in Afghanistan, about which Obama has been talking for the past two years, Gates is already looking to shift resources there from Iraq. And he's looking at how realistic any military solution can be there.

But it was General Jones who sounded the alarm early last year. I remember talking with Joe Biden in February 2007 about the then emerging Afghanistan crisis, and he quickly cited Jones -- an old friend of the vice president-elect, whom he called America's best military commander -- for vehemently denying Bush/Cheney assertions that Afghanistan was going well. Jones, he said, called Afghanistan "a disaster."

While Gates is not leaving the Pentagon any time soon, he's not Obama's long-term defense secretary. It may well be that Jones, in what is frequently the geopolitical catbird seat as Obama's National Security Advisor, will emerge as the most influential figure of the new national security power troika.

General James Jones, former Marine Corps commandant and NATO commander, on the crisis in Afghanistan.

As a retired four-star Marine general and decorated Vietnam War hero, Jones can solve many potential problems for a president with a seemingly exotic name and background who never served in the military. Obama made a show of honoring Jones's Marine heritage, and the military heritage of his family, citing Tarawa, one of the Marines' most famous battles.

In addition to the macho Marine stuff, Jones spent much of his youth living abroad, in Paris actually, speaking fluent French, and graduated from the Georgetown School of Foreign Service, where he also played on the basketball team. So he and Obama have more in common than it first appears.

Any top general or admiral has to have political skills, and Jones ran the Marines as commandant of the Marine Corps, giving him a seat on the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He was reportedly in line to become chairman of the Joint Chiefs -- Colin Powell was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, but after he served as Reagan's national security advisor -- but demurred due to his dislike of then Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Instead, he became the first Marine to command NATO, America's military alliance with European nations, giving him much more high-level operational experience with military and governmental leaders than anyone other than Gates.

He works well with Gates, is friendly with Hillary Clinton, and, unlike either of them, will be right there in the White House with President Obama. When that 3 AM phone call comes, Jones will be right there.

They'll have their hands full getting out of Iraq, without further empowering Iran, and in trying to salvage the situation in Afghanistan.

The terrorist attacks in Mumbai may trigger the destabilization of India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan.

They may also be dealing with a new crisis stemming from the terrorist siege of Mumbai. All indications are that the attackers were Islamic jihadists, with most if not all from Pakistan. What's not entirely clear yet is precisely who is behind it, though it's not unlikely that elements, hopefully rogue, of Pakistani intelligence were involved.

In addition to destablizing the faint rapprochement between Pakistan and India, the attacks also destabilize the shaky governments in both countries. Which could in turn further destabilize Afghanistan, as US strategy there depends on help from neighboring Pakistan.

The new Pakistani government has been trying to rein in the army and the ISI intelligence service. But with very limited success. This may cause the government to try harder, which could lead to counter-moves by the military. And it's not clear how hard the Pakistanis can push against the Islamic jihadists -- in the form of Al Qaeda and Taliban cadre -- that are using their country for a safe haven.

Obama has been aggressive as a candidate about taking the fight to Al Qaeda in Pakistan. We'll see how that flies in the post-Mumbai environment. That could lead to a new government in the world's only Islamic nuclear power.

Clinton criticized Obama for his aggressiveness on Pakistan during the campaign. Will her caution win out?

Two other areas of potential disagreement center on Iran and Russia. Clinton has flashed hawkish colors on Iran, at one point guaranteeing massive retaliation for any attack on Israel, which would constitute a startling new doctrine. Will Obama agree with that?

The Pentagon under Gates has actually been more dovish on Iran. During Gates' tenure as defense secretary, the constant saber-rattling from Washington on Iran clattered into silence. He and Jones may well believe that the US has no particularly useful military options against Iran, and that stirring up a hornets' nest would be a bad idea. Not to mention that the US needs Iran to help stabilize Iraq.

Irritated with America's policy of NATO expansion to its borders, Russia is making moves in Latin America.

And what about Russia? While Bush and Cheney followed their delusional strategy in the Middle East, Russia has re-emerged as a great power. Angry about the longtime US strategy of expanding NATO to the Russian border, Russia, on the theory that turnabout is fair play, is now playing around in America's backyard. At Vladimir Putin's direction, Russian President Dmitri Medvedev met with several Latin American heads of state, and forged a deeper alliance on energy and military matters with Venezuela's Hugo Chavez. A Russian naval squadron is cruising the Caribbean, and one of its ships is going to sail through the Panama Canal.

It was actually President Bill Clinton who pursued the NATO expansion strategy which so aggravates Moscow. (Though it was Bush and Cheney who devised the missile shield project in Poland and the Czech Republic that infuriates Russia.)

Obama made obligatory hawkish sounds when Russia smashed the Georgian military over the summer, though nowhere near as bellicose as John McCain and his "We are all Georgians now" line.

Does Hillary Clinton still support her husband's strategy of NATO expansion? Or is she willing to let Russia have its unchallenged sphere of influence, just as Washington prefers in this hemisphere?

It may be that former NATO Commander Jones will counsel Obama to let NATO kill its own further expansion in Russia's "near abroad." Georgia doesn't look like a very good NATO candidate today, and Ukraine has very tangled internal politics.

Obama hasn't said much about the missile shield, which is ostensibly -- and amusingly, looking at the map -- aimed at countering Iran. If NATO expansion and the missile shield go by the boards, Russia could be helpful to the US with Afghanistan, as it very much was after 9/11, and Iran.

Or Russia, whose government is sliding from democracy to autocracy, could become more of a geopolitical competitor to the US.

These are some of the questions that Obama, who also has to manage the worst financial and economic crisis in decades, will have to work out with Jones, Gates, and Clinton.

You can check things out during the day on my site, New West Notes ... www.newwestnotes.com

James Freedman: Global Media Debate Hillary Selection

2008-12-02T20:50:12Z

After a bitterly-fought primary campaign and something of a reconciliation during the general election -- with Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY) campaigning on behalf of her one-time rival -- President-Elect Barack Obama has chosen Clinton to be his Secretary of State. Coming on the heels of an election that has captivated the world's imagination, it is unsurprising that many editorials worldwide offered their take on the pick.

Iran
Obama mixes up diplomacy with military force (Islamic Republic News Agency*): Will placing "a hawk at the head of the diplomatic apparatus" help repair America's international reputation?

Critics have questioned whether Obama would be able to guide U.S. foreign policy with a team of strong-willed veterans led by Clinton, his fierce rival during the long presidential primary campaign.

Israel
Team Obama (The Jerusalem Post): Obama's national security appointments were primarily reassuring, with Clinton in particular already a "trusted 'brand' " in Israel.

The lone discordant note was the appointment of Samantha Power to the relatively low-level job of assisting Clinton in preparing for her Senate confirmation hearings. Power has said that US military assistance to Israel should be redirected to the Palestinians; that Israel is a major human rights abuser, and that an international force should be sent to protect West Bank Palestinians.

Australia
How to control a pack of alpha dogs (The Australian): Obama's right-of-center national security team choices may augur "terrific disappointment" is in store for "his left-wing supporters."

Controlling the big beasts will be particularly hard in the cases of Clinton and [prospective National Economic Council head Larry] Summers. Foreign ministers, especially, tend to be most successful when they are extremely close to their heads of government, as Downer was with Howard, and as the immensely formidable Colin Powell famously was not with Bush. Foreign interlocutors want to know that a secretary of state speaks authoritatively for his government, that his (or her) boss will cash any cheque he or she writes.

China
Obama's national security team faces tough challenge (People's Daily*): "Public opinion" suggests Obama's nominations will make a "powerful team" -- but what about Clinton in particular?

[...] there was much controversy over the nomination of Hillary for she had criticized some of Obama's foreign policies, and she and her husband, former Democratic [P]resident Clinton[,] had a conflict of interest in overseas donations and lobbying. However, the conflict was later solved as Hillary made some concessions.

United Kingdom
Obama gambles on Hillary Clinton (Financial Times): Has Obama selected "competent and effective lieutenants" with his national security picks? Almost certainly, in the case of Defense Secretary Robert Gates and prospective National Security Advisor General James Jones. But what about Clinton?

[...] the main question is whether Mrs Clinton can subordinate not just her opinions but also her political ambitions to making the Obama administration a success. That must be in doubt. Her husband's financial entanglements and irrepressible flair for scandal are further potential pitfalls. In weighing all this and choosing her regardless, Mr Obama has taken quite a risk -- one that, in our view, is difficult to justify.

* State-owned and/or state-controlled publication.

William Klein: Overheard at Barack Obama Strategy Session

2008-11-26T17:42:56Z

A recording of a key meeting between Barack Obama, David Axelrod, Rahm Emanuel and Robert Gibbs was recently revealed. Most of the conversation revolves around the selection of Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State.

Barack Obama: Kerry? I couldn't stand having Kerry.

David Axelrod: Don't worry, it's not Kerry.

Barack Obama: Richardson? Holbrooke? Colin Powell?

Rahm Emanuel: You're not even f----n' close.

Barack Obama: OK, I give up. Who?

Robert Gibbs: You're not going to believe this.

Barack Obama: So tell me.

David Axelrod: Your sure won't..

Barack Obama: Tell me!

All : Hillary!

Barack Obama: Hillary?

David Axelrod: Think about it. It's the ultimate Big Gesture and the world will love it. Takes ten years off of your foreign policy gap, at least.

Robert Gibbs: Not that all that "experience" stuff really sticks, anyway. Look at John McCain.

Barack Obama: Don't you think she's going to, well, you know, have her own agenda?

Rahm Emanuel: Believe it or not, no. I've talked to her, and believe me, she thinks it's the greatest f----n' idea in the f----n' world. And f----n" Clinton, he's over the f----n' moon. It's the ultimate do-over. She'll play ball.

David Axelrod: Besides, that's the beauty part. Everyone is going to assume she's Lady Macbeth.

Robert Gibbs: You're going to love this.

David Axelrod: Say the press does become obsessed with that simple, easy to understand story for the next four or eight years. Opens up a lot of space for other narratives.

Robert Gibbs: It will be the the story of the day, every day.

Barack Obama: I get it, I get it. So if, say, I wanted to go fishing with Hugo Chavez, the press will be too busy reading tea leaves to notice?

David Axelrod: Well, maybe not that.

Rahm Emanuel: And no naming buildings after Saul Alinsky, either.

David Axelrod: But think about it. You can't lose. We get a pick that surprises people and gives people something else to like about you, we keep her in line, and every once in awhile, we catch a break while the press is distracted.

Robert Gibbs: They won't be able to resist. It will be like having Princess Diana stories all the time.

Barack Obama: What is Biden going to say? He thought he would be my behind the scenes foreign policy guy.

David Axelrod: We've got a plan for Biden, don't worry.

Robert Gibbs: You're going to love this.

Rahm Emanuel: You really f----n' are.

Barack Obama: ?

David Axelrod: OK. Step one. We get the Governor of Delaware to pick someone who'll keep the Senate seat warm for Beau.

Robert Gibbs: Step two. Joe announces he'll take the oath of office as a Senator when the new Congress comes in.

Rahm Emanuel: Step three. We f--- 'em. F--- 'em good.

David Axelrod: Step three. We start talking about a recovery plan. We say we want one ready to go the minute you take office. There's really only one way to do that.

Robert Gibbs: Step four...

David Axelrod. I'll tell him, it was my idea. Step four. Joe devotes himself to passing it in three weeks, gets all the glory, the press helps us build momentum, and we we get 80 votes.

Rahm Emaunuel: Maybe seventy.

David Axelrod: Whatever. Point is, this is the way to start your presidency almost as early as Tom Friedman wants, and gets us everything we want: fixing the economy, ending the wars, negotiating peace in the Middle East and manipulating the hell out of the press.

Barack Obama: I like it, I like it. Subtle, cool, efficient... Hey Ax..what's that in your Ceasar salad? Is that an anchovy? It looks like a microphone. Hey, it is...

All: Oh, f---.

(The tape breaks up at this point, with a voice in the background apparently saying, "But it would be wrong!")

Steve Clemons: Colin Powell for Middle East Envoy -- Dennis Ross for US Ambassador to Israel?

2008-11-25T09:34:09Z

Recently, Politico issued a roster of top policy and political hands who would be in line for key positions in an Obama government.

At the time, I thought it very odd that Clinton Middle East coordinator Dennis Ross was not on the list. Ross was rumored to be one of the four competing to be national security adviser to Barack Obama -- along with James Steinberg, Susan Rice, and Gregory Craig.

Now we know that General Jim Jones will be National Security Adviser. Former Warren Christopher aide Tom Donilon will probably be his deputy. Jim Steinberg will be Deputy at Hillary Clinton's Department of State, and Susan Rice will be the second Ambassador to the United Nations to follow the destructive tenure of the recess-appointed John Bolton. The fun and quite brilliant Gregory Craig will be a highly capable, turbo-charged White House Counsel.

But Dennis Ross has still not been selected for anything yet -- and his visibility has been low (well except for this disturbing "let's bomb Iran now and get it over with" report). There aren't a lot of rumors about him -- and there should be. He's an accomplished diplomat who should be in the mix somewhere -- but not just anywhere.

Ross is much more hawkish on Iran than I am. While I'm impressed with his ability to simultaneously sell conflicting themes -- like on one hand he wants to bomb Iran and undermine any engagement with Hamas while on the other he desires the sort of dovish position advocated by Search for Common Ground -- Dennis Ross is much more comfortable with neoconservatives than realists or liberal internationalists.

Dennis Ross, who I enjoy at a personal level and who I like to debate, is nonetheless part of the never-ending Middle East peace business in the country, and that is a business that needs to be put out of business.

Ross is close to the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. He would make an excellent U.S. Ambassador to Israel. Much better an Ambassador there -- than someone tasked with negotiating with Iran or trying to broker the birth of a viable Palestinian state.

Two of Ross' closest regular associates are Robert Satloff and James Woolsey -- and neither of these believe in assembling all of the key stakeholders in the Middle East that are needed to stabilize Iraq, to get Iran on a new track, and to establish a viable, successful Palestine next to a secure Israel.

Until the leaks about Susan Rice's appointment to serve American interests in the United Nations, I thought Ross would be a good shoe-in there as well.

And then I heard someone saying what I thought on TV today.

Zbigniew Brzezinski was on MSNBC's Morning Joe talking with a panel of folks, including his daughter Mika Brzezinski, about his co-authored book with Brent Scowcroft and David Ignatius (which I had a hand in initiating and sponsoring) and about moving in a more productive direction in the Middle East.

Brzezinski said that after Obama made some clarifying statements about his objectives in the Middle East, he should appoint people to help achieve his goals.

Zbig dropped some names -- some big ones....and I liked how he did it.

He said hypothetically, Colin Powell could be the person asked to do the broad negotiating and arm twisting to achieve the Obama administration's foreign policy objectives with Iran and in Arab-Israel peace negotiations.

Brzezinski then said that Dennis Ross would make an excellent and important US Ambassador to Israel.

I think he's right -- and it's time to start whispering about Ross's fate again and get him back in the mix as envoy to Tel Aviv -- but not as czar of Middle East negotiations. With Jim Jones, Bob Gates, and others in the mix -- that would be paralyzing.

But Colin Powell, Chuck Hagel, Richard Lugar, or even Richard Armitage -- those could be smart and interesting choices.

-- Steve Clemons is Senior Fellow and Director of the American Strategy Program at the New America Foundation and publishes the popular political blog, The Washington Note

Stephen Molton and Gus Russo: Spare Change

2008-11-19T17:35:08Z

The election of Barack Obama is, in part, a legacy of the sixties generation, an expression of its defining belief in equality, justice, and the prospects for world peace. The Politics of Paranoia has given way to a renewed hope, assertiveness, and (hopefully) participation. But as the Obama transition team begins its work, too little attention has been focused on the lessons to be learned from another youthful man to whom he has often been compared, President John F. Kennedy, whose capacity for inspiration notwithstanding, saw his administration crippled, and ultimately decapitated, by misadventures and meaningless warmongering in both Vietnam and Cuba - Kennedy's own father referred to Cuba as his son's "bone in the throat." Informed observers are holding their breaths in the hope that Obama avoids the pitfalls of his equally charming predecessor.

Although the charismatic Obama's lightning-fast ascendance has already invited the Camelot-"Bamelot" quips, there are in fact more serious considerations than Obama's JFK-like winning smile and his ability to properly pronounce complex words such as "nuclear." Obama, like Kennedy, enters the fray at an especially perilous time, remarkably similar, and every bit as challenging as the Cold War of Kennedy's 1961. And one can only hope that Obama fully grasps what very few have: the tragedies of Kennedy's presidency, including its untimely end, were the result a severely flawed foreign policy, co-managed by his brother, Robert, and a cadre of holdovers from the previous administration, such as über insiders Allen Dulles and Richard Bissell at CIA. These men, and others, convinced an already predisposed JFK of the need to continue a deadly policy towards "the commies." Young, bold, relatively inexperienced, and sensitive to charges of being "soft on Communism," JFK rubber-stamped a coup in Vietnam that resulted in the death of its head of state, and constantly tried to do the same in Cuba. The Cuban follies, it can now be concluded, backfired in the worst way in Dallas, with Kennedy's own assassination by a Castro sympathizer with vaporous ties to Cuba's intelligence service, the G2. The raison d'etre for this "blowback" is now apparent, or should be to those at the center of power.

Interviews conducted over the last couple of years make it more clear than ever that Kennedy suffered not only from horrible advice given him by what has sarcastically been dubbed "the Best and the Brightest," but also from an over-confidence (hubris?) that resulted from his against-all-odds victory. Consider that when Kennedy assumed office, he followed a two-term Republican, who, with an aggressive, albeit below-the-radar foreign policy in places like Iran, Guatemala and Cuba, set Kennedy up to address issues that might have confounded even the most seasoned policy wonks. But the parallels to 2008 are even more acute.

In his effort to recruit the most current experts to ease his transition, Kennedy staffed key intelligence positions with those tied to President Eisenhower. Keeping much of Dwight Eisenhower's gung-ho spy apparatus in place was, in hindsight, Kennedy's greatest miscalculation. Consequently, his acquiescence to the most extreme sanctions against his perceived enemies dwarfed all his other more inspirational efforts. Old-school politics played a role also: had Kennedy survived his first term, a successful second bid was far from a lock, as the Republican opposition was hitting hard at the various foreign quagmires he had championed in order to win in the first place. Somewhat disturbingly, Barack Obama, as noted recently by long time CIA analyst Melvin Goodman (Baltimore Sun, 11-14-2008), has likewise reached out to some of the more flagrant architects of George W. Bush's failed foreign policy to vet, if not form, his national intelligence staff, among them George Tenet, John McLaughlin, John O. Brennan, and Jami A. Miscik. These advisers, Goodman noted, "were actively engaged in implementing and defending the CIA's corrupt activities during the Bush presidency." They tarnished the US for generations by justifying torture, and twisted intelligence data that ultimately led to Secretary of State Colin Powell's laughable case-for-war speech at the United Nations in 2003.

Barack Obama, like Jack Kennedy, combines great intellect, good looks, and grace. Unlike Kennedy, Obama seems uncluttered by the moral baggage that added to Kennedy's miseries. Obama has one other advantage over Kennedy, and that is historical precedent. The only question is, does the President-elect get it? One can only hope, as we do, that the new president will embody real change, a term we heard ad nauseum for the last two years, by bringing in a new generation of intelligence executives, with no baggage, and especially no links to the tragic policies of a previous administration.

Gus Russo and Stephen Molton are the authors of Brothers in Arms: The Kennedys, the Castros, and the Politics of Murder (Bloomsbury 2008).

Steve Clemons: What Barack Obama Should Learn From Dick Cheney

2008-11-12T10:23:27Z

Barack Obama should keep his smile and not adopt the scowl that Vice President Richard Cheney often deployed to tenderize his victims, but he should pay careful attention to the way that Cheney animated hundreds of followers to move the Cheney agenda across the national security bureaucracy.

If one were to score "influence" within the G.W. Bush administration, Cheney would get top prize -- higher than G.W. Bush himself.

No one knows how the incumbent President Bush makes decisions. He's not consistent. He holds his cards close -- and sometimes tilts one way, sometimes another. Swagger is the defining characteristic of Bush's decisions -- not necessarily logic, or at least not a logical line that I can discern.

Condoleezza Rice has a few followers who do understand her approach to problems -- but she never worked to build a significant following.

Colin Powell, who advised caution and a review of every scenario in responding to a serious challenges, tended to matter when he was in the room -- and not, when he wasn't.

But as I have written previously and as Barton Gellman chronicles in his important new book Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency, Cheney succeeded in not only getting people loyal and beholden to him appointed throughout the vast wings of the country's national security and intelligence bureaucracies, he and his close team of David Addington, Scooter Libby and John Hannah conveyed a template for approaching the world and agitating for an expansion of Executive Branch authority in comparison to other branches of government.

Cheneyism is disdainful of international institutions like the UN, viewed Europe and other states essentially as supplicants of American power, pushed hard the "unitary executive" notion of presidential authority, reinstituted the secrecy regime to levels greater than Reagan's CIA chief Bill Casey, promoted taking the gloves off" in American demonstrations of power abroad and in the interrogation room, endorsed torture and viewed the Geneva Accords as rules for the weak, despised regulation of business and industry -- particularly the oil, forestry and steel industries.

There are many other dimensions to Cheneyism, but what is important is that his followers understood how Cheney thought and how he would respond to a problem or policy issues.

Dick Cheney has been the most powerful actor in the Bush administration because Cheney didn't have to tell people hierarchically or by Rumsfeld-style "snow flake memos" what to do or how to think. They knew. And if they didn't, Cheney might call and simply ask a loaded question of a bureaucrat -- even a person very far down the pecking order of an agency or department -- as to why he or she hadn't thought of an alternative way [the Cheney way] of doing something.

Now to think about the new team moving into 1600 Pennsylvania.

According to some reports, Barack Obama seems to think that his intellectual, policy formulation and speechwriting skills are better than those around him -- or so goes that narrative in a recent New Yorker article by Ryan Lizza:

Obama, who is not without an ego, regarded himself as just as gifted as his top strategists in the art and practice of politics. Patrick Gaspard, the campaign's political director, said that when, in early 2007, he interviewed for a job with Obama and Plouffe, Obama said that he liked being surrounded by people who expressed strong opinions, but he also said, "I think that I'm a better speechwriter than my speechwriters. I know more about policies on any particular issue than my policy directors. And I'll tell you right now that I'm gonna think I'm a better political director than my political director."

Obama may very well be as skilled and confident as this passage suggests -- but if he follows that line of logic too far -- he'll end up hamstrung with a huge bureaucracy that won't necessarily understand the "Obama Way".

Others might emerge in Obama's White House with more power than he does to motivate and animate others because they may be more successful at communicating and telegraphing how to approach complex problems and challenges. Of those who are rumored to possibly be in the first Obama cabinet, potential holdover Defense Secretary Robert Gates comes to mind.

At a New America Foundation economic policy event that featured the economic advisers to John McCain, Hillary Clinton, John Edwards and Barack Obama, Obama's adviser Austan Goolsbee made the seemingly sensible suggestion that when confronting complex trade and economic treaties, Obama would weigh each one on its merits. His basic point was that trade deals -- even deals that seemingly promoted free trade -- were hundreds, sometimes thousands, of pages long. They were not all the same and Obama would support some and not others.

On one level, this suggests flexibility. On another, this possible management approach suggests a micro-focus on policy that Obama can't afford. Jimmy Carter was a compulsive micro-manager, and it severely handicapped his presidency. Goolsbee's comment also implies that Obama may not be ready to telegraph to his Cabinet Secretaries, Deputy Secretaries, and others the DNA of his generic decisionmaking approach.

To be as successful as Dick Cheney was in influencing action in government, Obama is going to need to telegraph the secrets of "Obama-ism" to his people.

If not, we'll have an ad hoc presidency, a reactive presidency, a micromanaged presidency, or a presidency hijacked by others who slyly follow Cheney's approach.

So keep the smile, President-elect Obama, but begin to think about how you clearly convey to your team criteria for decision-making and a guide for responses to complex, unexpected challenges.

I have learned a lot from watching how the Project for a New American Century became so successful and consequential in a remarkably short period of time.

Barack Obama -- who ran a very large, successful campaign operation that empowered many -- should in governing nonetheless look to Vice President Cheney's example to understand how a pro -- even one who so damaged the interests of the nation -- managed power and purpose while in office.

-- Steve Clemons publishes the popular political blog, The Washington Note

Phil Bronstein: Bush: Breaking Racial Barriers

2008-11-11T16:56:13Z

Seeing Barack Obama and George W. Bush together Monday, acting all cordial, made me realize it was probably time to put down those commemorative post-election Chronicles for a minute, hit the pause button on our tear into the future and give the outgoing President the credit he deserves for helping elect the incoming President.

I don't mean because Mr. Bush hit an all-time high disapproval rating, according to the polls in the liberal media. Yes, his unpopularity and policies helped the Democrats a lot.

But I'm talking about the impact on citizen state of mind when Mr. Bush appointed not one but two African-American Secretaries of State and the first African-American as Secretary of Education like it wasn't any big deal. He also named the first Mexican-American as Attorney General.

It doesn't matter what you thought of Ms. Rice or Mr. Powell or the others as public servants. (The Chronicle had a huge beef with Alberto Gonzalez over the BALCO case.) Here was a very conservative good old Texas fundamentalist Republican breaking a racial barrier without even blinking, like it was the most natural thing to do and not some monumental moment in our cultural or political history.

If you don't think that made the election of the first African-American president go down a little easier for some voters, think about it just a little more. I'll wait.

Alexander Russo: Uncertainty Over Obama Education Adviser

2008-11-10T12:06:14Z

The general public may only want to know what kind of puppy the Obama girls are going to get and where they're going to go to school. The big-time pundits may be focused in on the pros and cons of a stimulus package and John Kerry as a candidate for State Department.

In education circles, however, there's no hotter topic than who is going to be the next Secretary of Education--and if it's going to be Linda Darling-Hammond, a Stanford professor known for her focus on teacher quality and her early opposition to the popular teacher recruitment program called Teach For America.

The controversy surrounding her candidacy says as much about Obama as it does about Darling- Hammond.

There are at present several people who are considered possible picks for the Education job, including Chicago schools chief Arne Duncan, Arizona governor Janet Napolitano, and former Secretary of State Colin Powell. Though the decision could be announced as soon as this week, no one outside the Obama camp knows.

The possibility of Darling-Hammond being named Secretary has emerged as an especially worrisome possibility among a small but vocal group of younger, reform-minded advocates who supported Obama because he seemed reform-minded on education issues like charter schools, performance pay, and accountability. These reformistas seem to perceive Darling-Hammond as a touchy-feely anti-accountability figure who will destroy any chances that Obama will follow through on any of these initiatives.

"On every issue relating to education, Darling-Hammond is far from a reformer," wrote one pro-charter organization called the Center on Education Reform, "She has a clear and proud record of supporting the existing track for training and paying teachers, and believes governance changes--like charter schools--are a side issue."

"These prototypical ed school types have typically never worked a day in their lives in the private sector and are oblivious to (or enemies of) things that, in the real world, drive success or failure," wrote Whitney Tilson, a pro-Obama hedge fund manager, nearly a year ago when Darling-Hammond's involvement in the campaign first came to light.

Yes, Darling-Hammond is an ed school professor who talks in nuanced, academic terms--not scripted talking points (see her debate here). Yes, she was among the first and most prominent critics of Teach For America--and still favors a more intensive, residency-based approach to training new teachers.

But she also has authored a recent study that acknowledged T.F.A. teachers were in some ways better than traditional teachers. And she has helped start several charter schools in California. Darling-Hammond says there's no real daylight between her positions and Obama's policy proposals, and I haven't seen any convincing evidence to contradict that claim.

So what's going on then? Part of it is just a knee-jerk response against someone who dared criticize T.F.A., the reformistas' most cherished accomplishment to date. Another part of it may be the desire for a younger, fresher name picked from their own ranks--D.C. superintendent Michelle Rhee, or New Leaders founder Jon Schnur.

But the biggest issue is that the reform-minded camp isn't sure that Obama is really with them. Even after a long campaign, there's still tremendous uncertainty about just how strong Obama's commitment is. They are not the first to experience this kind of uncertainty. Local school control advocates in Chicago had much the same experience with Obama 10 years ago, struggling to convince themselves that Obama was with them on an issue of intense debate within the Democratic party.

Of course, none of this means that Darling-Hammond will be the Obama pick for Education Secretary, or that she necessarily would be the most effective choice. It's unclear how strong are her political and administrative skills. Academics sometimes fare poorly in the "gotcha" world of politics where stray comments can turn into major fiascoes. Warranted or not, picking her would create immediate tensions with reform-minded school advocates.

Odds are it will be someone else--not her, and not one of the young guns, either.

Whatever the outcome, it's clear that education advocates who supported Obama because of his change agenda are frustrated and confused that Darling-Hammond's name is even part of the discussion. What kind of an education President Obama will be remains a mystery for now.

Harry Shearer: You Save Us, We Redeem You

2008-11-10T02:39:12Z

At a Sunday night live broadcast of KCRW's "Left, Right and Center" an audience member asked the panel (Tony Blankley, Bob Scheer, Matt Miller and Arianna Huffington) what role they thought Colin Powell should play in the new Obama Administration. Surprisingly, three of the panelists, including the Proprietress, allowed themselves to say that Powell had not paid sufficient penance, shown sufficient remorse, for his role in paving the way to the Iraq War. Blankley, expressing surprise at the near-unanimous disdain, suggested Powell for Secretary of Education, an interesting choice considering that conservatives used to advocate shutting down that department.

Me, I've long foreseen a more useful role for the tainted patron saint of failed wars. A couple years ago, when New Orleans was pondering its inability to motivate the political class to take seriously the city's dual needs--a full investigation of the design and construction flaws (and other problems) that led to the Katrina-related flooding, and a comprehensive program of flood protection and wetlands restoration to prevent a recurrence--I thought Colin Powell would be the perfect replacement for the then-incumbent Gulf Recovery Czar. Surely you remember the Czar. (Hint: Donald Powell, no relation) The pairing of a wounded city seeking national empathy and a fallen hero seeking redemption seemed to me sort of perfect.

It still does. The city, still wounded, hopes not to fall below Rwanda on the nation's to-do list, and General Powell, still tainted, could use a cause bigger than just making us forget photos of mobile bioweapons vans. Sunday's Times-Picayune reminds us that Bush's Gulf recovery office goes out of business in February, and it reminds us why that office was so ineffectual:

(It) was hamstrung, the two officials said, because the president didn't give it the authority to command or overrule recalcitrant federal agencies.

"The most important thing, whether you keep the office going or appoint a coordinator, is to have the president let it be known that the person is speaking for him and has the authority to get things done," said one of the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

In other words, do what President Bush promised in Jackson Square that he would do. General Powell would carry that authority among a bureaucracy possibly not burdened with memories of certain UN appearances. President-elect Obama could do both New Orleans and Powell a favor.

PS: For commenters crass enough to suggest that New Orleans deserves inattention because Dollar Bill Jefferson might still be re-elected, three words: Senator Ted Stevens.

Arianna Huffington: The Winners and Losers of Campaign '08

2008-11-06T15:57:33Z

WINNERS:

The Davids - Axelrod and Plouffe: they spearheaded a near flawless campaign.

Katie Couric: her multi-part interview with Sarah Palin was the turning point in how the country saw Palin -- and by extension John McCain. And she did it in a way that left no room for accusations of being unfair or playing "Gotcha!"

Colin Powell, Scott McClellan, Ken Adelman, Chris Buckley, Kenneth Duberstein, et al: crossing party lines to endorse the eventual winner can't hurt the rep.

Saturday Night Live: went from "Is that still on?" to Must See TV (or, at least, Must See on YouTubeTV)

Tina Fey: her take on Palin was pitch perfect; a comedy mugging for the ages. And with Palin's obvious weight loss during the campaign, she ended up looking more and more like her 30 Rock doppelganger.

Sarah Palin: lost an election but there has to be a reality show in her future.

Michelle Obama: smarts, grace, style, charm, and a serious "good mommy" vibe -- she's got the whole package.

The View: went from gal chat to political headline maker.

MSNBC: Keith, Rachel, Chris... they sent a collective tingle went up the leg of progressive viewers everywhere.

The Internet: click here.

LOSERS:

Joe Lieberman: failed to deliver Democrats, independents, or Jews. And on the way to losing his committee chairmanships.

Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Dick Morris, and hate-mongers everywhere: the stink didn't stick to Obama but it stuck to them.

Bill Clinton: it's gonna take a lot of work to repair the rep.

John McCain: see Bill Clinton.

Liddy Dole: see Clinton and McCain. Her "Godless" ad will be taught in What Not To Do poli sci classes for a century.

George W. Bush: the repudiation of his presidency was overwhelming and across-the-board.

The Republican Party: the emptiness of its philosophic underpinnings was exposed for all to see.

Joe the Plumber: the clock just hit 15 minutes, and the wakeup call will not be pleasant. Joe the Plumber, meet Clara Peller ("Where's the beef?!").

Okay, these are my picks... what are yours? Please post your winners and losers in the comments section below.

If you are in the San Francisco area, I will be speaking at the Web 2.0 Summit on Friday, November 7th.

Lee Camp: Barack Obama's Notes on His Potential Cabinet Leaked to Press

2008-11-06T13:28:49Z

Colin Powell: Secretary Of Education?

2008-11-05T17:30:08Z

Update - 11/6: MSNBC reported: "One person who will not be serving in an Obama administration: Colin Powell, who said he has not been approached by the transition team. He says he wants a new generation of leaders to step up and serve."

* * *

Colin Powell has been mentioned as a potential member of Barack Obama's cabinet, both for Secretary of Defense and Secretary of Education.

In his endorsement of Obama, Powell called for a greater focus on education.

"I think the American people and the gentlemen running for president will have to, early on, focus on education more than we have seen in the campaign so far. America has a terrible educational problem in the sense that we have too many youngsters not finishing school. A third of our kids don't finish high school, 50 percent of minorities don't finish high school. We've got to work on this, and my, my wife and I are leading a campaign with this purpose."

Powell is a founder of America's Promise Alliance, a coalition of businesses, educators, and others working to improve the health and well-being of children.

Read more about Obama's cabinet on the HuffPost Big News page.

Eric Margolis: Why I'm a Rogue Republican

2008-11-05T15:32:27Z

My old California pals Bob and Larry, who are both wealthy, bigwig Republicans, are not happy with me. They are accusing me of having become a liberal because of my criticism of President George Bush and my evident lack of enthusiasm for Sen. John McCain's Republicans.

My pals are wrong. I've been a lifelong Republican and plan to spend all Eternity as one. I enlisted in the US Army as an infantryman during the Vietnam War when so many of today's `patriotic' Republicans - the ones with those little American flag lapel pins - were dodging the draft or playing weekend warrior in the National Guard.

For decades, angry leftwing readers have branded me a `fascist hyena,' `CIA agent,' and `American imperialist.' Now Bob and Larry think I've gone off the lefty deep end because I opposed the ruinous wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and because I'm even grudgingly ready to pay higher taxes just to get the calamity-prone Republicans out of power.

As a lifelong, rock-ribbed Republican, I am more likely to become a Hari Krishna or Rosicrucian than a liberal Democrat!

So please call me a `rogue Republican.'

I've always been a moderate, conservative Eisenhower Republican who believes in small government, low taxes, saving, hard work, individual freedoms, and avoiding overseas adventures whenever possible.

As a child, I saw President Dwight Eisenhower's inauguration in Washington and treasure the memory to this day. For me, Eisenhower was the embodiment of America's finest qualities: courage, honesty, human decency, modesty and plain speaking. He warned Americans of the danger of the military-industrial complex, a term he coined, and called for global nuclear disarmament.

I've said it before and say it again: I like Ike. When Eisenhower was president, America was respected and admired around the non-Communist world.

I have high regard for Sen. John McCain and believe he would make a fine president. But he showed terrible judgment in picking Sarah Palin as Vice President, and by surrounding himself with neocon advisors like Sen. Joseph Lieberman, Randy Scheunemann, Elliot Abrams and other extremists who played a major role in creating the frightful foreign affairs mess the US now faces. They have made America hated around the globe.

Equally bad, today's Republicans are no longer a party of the democratic center. After the 9/11 attacks, Bush and Dick Cheney packed their administration with rabid neocon warmongers who drove the nation and Republican Party so far right it flirted at times with fascism.

When I hear `Republican' these days, the words that comes to my mind are: arrogance, ignorance, and just plain dumbness.

Religious fundamentalists have become the bedrock of the Bush presidency. Today, 44-50% of Republican voters call themselves born-again Christian fundamentalists who believe every word of the Bible is true. Their most urgent foreign policy goal is to recreate Biblical Israel so their Messiah can return and destroy the planet.

That is no longer my party. The Grand Old Republican Party of Lincoln and Eisenhower has been hijacked by America's rural heartland and the southern-fried Bible Belt. The Republican Party no longer primarily speaks for most educated, worldly, city-dwelling Americans.

McCain's choice of an evangelical Christian ultra conservative, Gov. Sarah Palin, a woman of stunning vulgarity and ignorance, is testimony to the dumbing down of the party and its transformation into a populist religious movement. But he may have had to do so. Without Palin, many on the Christian right, cool about McCain, would not have even voted, assuring his defeat.

Note to Bob and Larry: I haven't changed my politics and remain firmly in the center. But the Republican Party has lurched so far to the right that the old center looks like the left to many Republicans. My party abandoned me in the year 2000.

Barack Obama is dead wrong to propose raising taxes or sending more troops to Afghanistan, an ignoble conflict he mislabels `the good war.' But he certainly is no socialist, as Palin charges. Nationalizing the nation's banks is socialist. Urging world domination neocon-style is National Socialist.

Raising taxes for the wealthy is not socialist, just a Democratic Party shibboleth that has been proven counter-productive time and again.

Republicans disgraced the nation by all their lies about Iraq, endorsing torture, assassinations, Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, secret prisons, kidnapping, kangaroo courts, spying on US citizens and undermining America's Constitution. Too many cowardly Democrats joined this lynch mob. Such vile behavior made me ashamed to call myself an American.

The Republican Party now speaks for many rich fat cats, the military-industrial-petroleum complex, and some of the least educated, most backwards, most prejudiced Americans. McCain and Palin have shamelessly stoked anti-black, anti-Muslim and anti-foreign hatred and fear among them during this campaign. So, to a lesser degree, did Hilary Clinton.

Gen. Colin Powell did the right thing by breaking with John McCain, denouncing racism and Islamophobia, and warning of the party's lurch to the far right. However, I wish he had also come clean regarding all the lies about Iraq he delivered at the UN. The good general still owes us an explanation.

America desperately needs a reborn, moderate Republican Party freed from narrow-minded religious ideology and ruralism that will return the nation to its former democratic values and multilateral policies. This was the United States the world used to respect.

Dr. Tian Dayton: An Integrated National Psyche

2008-11-05T09:05:47Z

Integration is a word often used by psychologists to describe a psychological state in which we are consciously consolidating the various parts of our inner world into a coherent whole. The thought behind "psychological integration" is that a lack of it is weakening to the self. That if parts of our larger "self" are banished from consciousness; we suffer an essential lack of inner wholeness. When we disown parts of ourselves we undermine our own ability to see and own the full picture, to make intelligent choices that take all of our various sides into account. We make it harder for ourselves to follow through on our own decisions because we aren't working with and mobilizing all of our parts. Valuable psychic energy that could be used in service of our own forward movement gets held in an unconscious, psychic frozenness. Certainly this same theory can apply to a country.

Last night, through the election of an African-American president, we are, as a country, allowing parts of our national psyche to become integrated into a coherent whole, into a working model of our national self. It is a stunning moment in our history as a country no matter what our political leanings. The idea behind psychic integration is that it makes the individual healthier and more whole, that it allows for previously tied up emotional, psychic and hence physical energy to become mobilized in service of the self, in service of moving forward into more of life. It seems no great stretch to apply these same principles to our national psyche. While parts of our population are disowned, don't we drain our own potential energy and intelligence as a national being? What ever our political leanings and preferences, we are a society of many races, this is who we are. Following this line of thinking, last night we became more of who we are, we allowed the hidden and banished parts of national psyche to be integrated into a coherent whole in service of a more fully integrated self.

Two very meaningful and historic speeches were given last night. John McCain's speech was a powerful and moving call for psychic integration. Whatever the campaign was or wasn't, last night he did not foster or encourage the fracturing of our psychic energies, he did not allow us to boo or hate parts of who we are, rather he called for a kind of acceptance and integration of our national psyche in service of our self as a nation. His words, "we are Americans, we don't give up" took on a new meaning, especially coming from someone who did not give up under circumstances that most of us can never even allow ourselves to imagine.

Last night Barack Obama's very presence on stage along with Joe Biden's family was a speech in itself, it said what words cannot touch and what history has not known how to manage. It allowed us to become whole, to consciously integrate who we already are, to bring split off parts of ourselves under our conscious control and to take responsibility for them so that we can mobilize heretofore tied up psychic energy toward the task of moving forward. Obama's words "yes we can," echoed toward a future that we are daring to imagine that we can co-create. Whatever our political leanings, last night we became a more integrated, coherent and whole national psyche.

Read more reaction from HuffPost bloggers to Barack Obama's victory in the 2008 presidential election

Joshuah Bearman: Turning Back the Torches of the GOP

2008-11-04T16:57:27Z

The Pompano Beach McCain field office, like almost everything else in Florida, is housed in a strip mall. There's a guy waving a flag out front, but inside traffic is light. I've been hearing about empty McCain offices, sapped of enthusiasm, but this one has a few true believers left. "We're still high on the rally down in Miami last week," says one of the volunteer coordinators. "There were a lot of Hispanics there, and it was good to hear them sing the Star Spangled Banner." She's wearing a McCain memorabilia dog tag. Then she adds, "Oh, you know else was there? The Jewish. They turned out in droves."

Then Tim McClellan, the Northeast Broward Regional Field Manager, appears. Tim is a former businessman originally from Michigan. I'm here with Steve Elliott and Benjy Sarlin and we all agree that Tim is a nice guy, forthright and friendly, which you don't usually find in any political office during a campaign. He's also certifiably through the Looking Glass. After we ask a few questions about bread and butter Republican issues like terrorism, Tim quickly segues to crack pot conjecture that Obama is not a citizen.

"That's an internet rumor," I say. "Obama produced his birth certificate."

"But there's no seal on his birth certificate and the font is wrong."

This is the latest twist in the ongoing internet rumor, one being promoted not far away, at this very moment, by a lunatic fringe blogger named Pam Geller at a rally in Palm Beach. The worst thing that ever happened to the conspiratorial right is that they got it right once, with the Dan Rather documents. Now, they chase every rabbit down the hole.

Obama's birth certificate has been verified by the State of Hawaii and multiple news organizations. But that's not good enough by Tim. For him, the better source of fact is a lawsuit by Philip J. Berg, a longtime paranoiac gadfly who has also filed lawsuits demanding "the truth about 9/11." Berg has filed so many lawsuits, as it happens, that the very lawsuit Tim cites was thrown out as frivolous. Nevertheless, Tim says, he fully expects that "the US Supreme Court will prove that Obama's not a citizen."

Context will help understand why this is shocking. Tim is a paid McCain staffer questioning the citizenship of the Democratic presidential candidate. Such a thing would have never have happened in 2004. Bush's campaign, for all its faults, had discipline. First off, had you wandered into a Bush field office with a notebook someone would have taken you down with a flying tackle. And you certainly wouldn't have been able to quote the local honcho straying way off message. But what my encounter with Tim illuminates is even more troubling: he's not off message. With McCain swinging at shadows, like ACORN, Rashid Khalidi, and the liberal media that won't tell the truth, the entire republican apparatus has devolved into an insidious rumor mill. The sub rosa dirty work that once was the province of 527s is now the official line. Some time around six weeks ago, the party held hands, took a deep breath, and stepped off the cliff.

We visit several McCain visibilities nearby, and not one supporter is interested in the issues. They want to talk about "Obama's shady associations"; how his money was raised by the PLO; and the minorities who took down the economy via Fanny and Freddy. And not a single Florida Republican seems to sense the irony of complaining that Obama, who is seven points ahead nationally, will probably "steal the election."

Spending some time among the rank and file makes you realize that the last two weeks have not been about winning this election, but making the country ungovernable afterward. McCain himself infamously warned that the "fabric of Democracy" is threatened. If this true, it's backwards: democracy has been at least moderately damaged by McCain, one of whose own advisors recently acknowledged, after being unable to point to any actual instances of voter fraud, that the whole charge is a "perception" meant to "plant seeds of doubt." I guess the lesson McCain learned from the failure in Vietnam is scorched earth: if we can't have the country, no one can. Let's burn it down -- and poison the wells for good measure.

So far, this tactic seems to have backfired. Resurrecting the culture war and wrapping it in paranoid delusion has stripped the Republican party to its radioactive core. Any remaining moderates are gone. And when you lose not just David Brooks but David Frum, you officially sever all ties to reality. It is almost humorous to watch the remaining "intellectuals" on The Corner contort themselves into a rage in defense of Sarah Palin. If that's who they want as the standard bearer for the cause of Edmund Burke, Leo Strauss, and William F. Buckley, Jr., then the game really is over. This is why Colin Powell's earth-shattering endorsement of Obama was framed inside a detailed un-endorsement of today's Republican party. Remember Rove's "permanent Republican majority" of four years ago? Rove's own projection is that Obama will win 338 electoral votes. If he's right, the torch-wielding mob is about be turned back and into the countryside.

See also:

McCain at Midnight: The Last Stand
McCain-o-Ween
JoshuahbearmanHQ

Alex Geana: An Obituary for the Bush Administration

2008-11-04T14:24:38Z

In the final hours of this long election cycle, everyone is reflecting. Piecing together trend pieces and the last of the poll numbers, the reflections of this very long race and the inability for the current administration to focus on their legacy.

In the past eight years we've seen two wars rage, the melting away of our national reputation and the prevalence of age old market driven economic policy - shatter. The wilting of civil liberties, the nationalization of Wall Street, the rise of mega corporations, and finally the longing of days when giving the President a blow job, was grounds for impeachment.

The housing and Wall Street boom, which created wealth for very few; which only trickled debt to the impoverished, while widened the divide between the middle class and the entry level rich and the ability to attain the American Dream (house, car, kids, vacation). The culture produced restaurants that relished $750 Kobe Steaks on their exclusive menus, from cows massaged with care by Japanese herders. The catering of lavish parties. The ability for high-end designers like Gucci (under the guidance of Tom Ford) to sell $4,000 plus pet beds.

Finally collapse, because the leveraged wealth and the marginal trading on the backs of the poor could not be sustained. In truth the free market does work. Yet as Adam Smith reminded us, it needs to be managed. Or I'll add, nature has a way of doing it for us. We see this through our nations infrastructure, or approach to poverty, the administrations many attempts to pretend Global Warming and the shipping our nations wealth overseas, does not matter. It does. This is the great gift of the Bush Administration.

The nations voters are energized, the Democratic Party has found a candidate with backbone. Bush has whittled away the powers that bind the President with great affect. Now that power - will hopefully be handed to Obama, someone, who as Colin Powell states - has great judgment.

We are all starting to understand that we are interconnected. In the south they fly confederate flags and proudly display lawn signs with Barack Obama's name. The electorate is educating themselves as the founders had envisioned.

Even the pick of McCain as the Republican nominee, caused ripples through the party, he has drifted far from his former self. Yet in at one point he flirted with being a Democrat. He considered Joe Lieberman as a running mate for a good long time.

If the Republicans loose, which I hope they do. They will need to become inclusive. For the moderates in this great nation, have found, that their vote truly does matter, that they can affect change and provide us with hope by getting involved.

This is the great gift of the Bush administration, that apathy has fallen by the way side; citizens are once again active in government. This is George Bush's legacy. It might not be what he was hoping for, yet this is his gift to the nation. He's our Herbert Hoover. Because, without Hoover we could've never had Franklin D. Roosevelt.

For more commentary check, out my writing and follow on Twitter.

Read more Election Day Liveblogs, Reaction and Analysis from HuffPost Bloggers

Steve Clemons: My Vote Today: Barack Obama and Joe Biden

2008-11-03T21:11:35Z

Despite the pleas of a number of my favorite (and even not so favorite) readers, I have kept quiet until now about who I planned to vote for.

My support for any candidate or party is something I tend to keep on hold until getting very close to voting. I don't believe in unconditional support for anyone or any organized political institution.

There are also some issues I care about more than others, and my approach is subjective, dependent on ever changing postures and issues. I mull things over, reconsider, change course, and sometimes change back.

I have known and admired Senator John McCain since 1993. I have met Senator Barack Obama several times personally and have studied his record, habits, and words very closely. I have colleagues and friends who work at the highest levels in both organizations.

Despite my having applauded John McCain's political career and often brave policy positions many times in the past, I can't support him and his vice presidential running mate, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, tomorrow.

The reasons I can't support John McCain are three. First, despite having a credible and impressive record in the United States Senate on a great number of policy issues, he chose to make military and national security issues the primary foundation of his campaign. Rather than recruiting Colin Powell, Brent Scowcroft, James Baker, Brent Scowcroft, Richard Armitage, Chuck Hagel, Richard Lugar, Robert Zoellick and others to be the primary sculptors and advisers to his campaign, he neglected most of these and ignored others in favor of foreign policy hands that reflected militant neoconservatism and strident, pugnacious nationalism.

Rather than conveying that he was a national leader who understood war and peace and would be cautious with deployments of troops and American commitments, McCain telegraphed a "recklessness" when it came to U.S. foreign policy and key national security questions.

Secondly, amplifying this recklessness, John McCain failed to make competence and a clear understanding of what America's history and great debates and challenges are an absolute requisite for anyone he would put in line for the presidency. He chose Sarah Palin who I doubt knows much about the very DNA of the nation. I have heard no evidence of her knowledge or awareness of the founding fathers, the Federalist Papers, the Civil War, womens' suffrage, the civil rights battles of our near term history, or many other great debates and challenges in our past. I don't get the sense that she is ready in any serious way to drive the ship of the United States of America. I think had McCain selected Tim Pawlenty, Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, Joseph Lieberman, or even a Meg Whitman as his running mate -- this race would be tighter. Picking Palin was a reckless move -- amplifying significant doubts about John McCain's judgment.

Thirdly, I am a fan of some leading members of John McCain's team -- including Rick Davis, Trevor Potter, and Douglas Holtz-Eakin. I have seen them all in better times managing better challenges and issues. Holtz-Eakin is one of the least partisan economic policy players in Washington and has provocative, constructive ideas on a wide range of domestic policy issues. McCain allowed Senator Phil Gramm to squelch Holtz-Eakin's views and work early in the process and to make every answer to every problem the single refrain of "tax cuts." McCain was largely unprepared and had not thought through what were obvious fragilities in the U.S. economy.

This was a failure of leadership and judgment.

The reasons why I am voting for Barack Obama and Joe Biden are several.

I think Obama's limited record and the fact that so many have affixed their expectations and aspirations on his campaign -- despite the fact that these aspirations between different groups are in fundamental conflict with each other -- have made supporting Obama a challenge for me.

I'm not someone moved by the questions of race and identity about his past. I know others are, but these qualities of leadership and "breakthrough" are not so high on my list when voting for national leadership.

I admire sharp-edged thinking, the establishment of clear priorities, a commitment to move the nation's interests forward and the conceptualization of a broader global vision that may help to promote opportunity, stability and justice.

On the whole, Barack Obama has convinced me he is capable of seeing America's challenges in these terms -- though i think that there are a great many close advisers around him who want to continue the "third term" of the Clinton administration -- or whose vision is defined by inertia and incrementalism -- rather than the big leaps forward that Obama frequently flirts with.

This nation is at a pivot point in its history. We have to change and rethink things. We need to anticipate crises and tests of America's power -- exactly as Joe Biden suggested will happen. He is right.

America needs a new global social contract -- and a domestic social contract that reshuffles the costs, opportunities and responsibilities between our stakeholders at home and abroad. Winner-takes-all capitalism and unilateralist foreign policy has to be shelved. We need a "smart globalization," not manic neoliberalism.

America needs to re-engage, needs to end an idiotic, self-damaging Cold War against Cuba and its people; needs to put the Middle East Peace Business out of business and produce and impose if need be a two state solution that respects Israel's needs and Palestine's.

We need game changers with Syria, North Korea, Cuba, and Iran to offer them compelling reasons to take Libya-like tracks out of the international doghouse. We need to understand what Russia's and China's highest national priorities are and see if we can help them achieve what they want in exchange for helping us on Iran, nuclear proliferation, climate change, the global economy, and other important global causes.

We need to reconnect with and re-marry Europe because that partnership is vital to momentum and to being taken seriously anywhere else around the world. We need to respect the Arab world, the Muslim world, need to stop making false choices between our relations with the Saudis and other Arab states on one hand and Israel on the other.

We need to buy the opium product of Afghanistan and redirect the production targets of farmers and warlords there, deal with the Taliban, and do what needs to be done to help pragmatic leadership in Pakistan seduce its tribal regions to support national goals with the U.S. not antagonizing an anti-Western nationalism there.

We need to see the checks and balances of our form of democracy restored and the usurpation of unprecedented and dangerous powers by the White House rolled back. We need to pursue accountability for the collapse of trust at home and abroad and reform the nation's balloting process in order to make certain that citizen voices are heard restoring again a representative form of government.

I think that on the whole Barack Obama represents the kind of leader who knows that we need to find our own 21st century versions of John Maynard Keynes and Dean Acheson and have to regain global leverage as "systems designers" and "systems integrators", collaborating with other globally responsible stakeholders to re-engineer the world and create a new equilibrium.

These are terms that I think Obama thinks in -- and they are very much the kinds of benchmarks that inspire the work that Joe Biden and his team have done.

As I have written before, I am a great fan of Joe Biden's work and approach to problems. He takes risks with ideas -- and we need that.

Incrementalists are not jumping ahead and not taking the risks that tomorrow's challenges require of us -- and my hope is that Obama tempers himself and rejects the security blanket of taking too many personalities and too much thinking that will make his administration look like "Clinton III."

We'll see. I have concerns. I have hopes. But I want seriousness and a fresh run at getting America back on track to restoring health and solvency to its national security and economic portfolios.

To my regret, John McCain and Sarah Palin are not up to these challenges.

I believe that Barack Obama and Joe Biden may be -- and I hope to work with them, in my think tank role and in a constant run of constructive counsel here on this blog -- as they help move the nation out of the incredibly bad mess it is in.

-- Steve Clemons publishes the popular political blog, The Washington Note