Commentary on issues of national interest.
Those who are politically pragmatic agree that Barack Obama should help Hillary Clinton retire her debt. Even given the circumstances under which it was incurred. That such an insider scenario seriously undermines Obama’s claim to be that refreshingly different kind of candidate is also acknowledged.
How to reconcile?
Easy. Have Hillary Clinton announce that she is writing another book: “How I Lost The Primary I Was Entitled To” – and then wait for the advances to roll in.
Let’s see if we have this right.
Zimbabwe used to be the self-sufficient, “Breadbasket” of Africa. Now, it’s a basket case.
Today it has the highest inflation rate in the world (165,000 per cent – that’s not a misprint) and an 80 per cent unemployment rate. And President Robert Mugabe has given tyrant a bad name by unleashing a terror campaign against his political opposition that has converted his own political defeat into a sham re-election. His erstwhile opponent, Morgan Tsvangirai, the one who defeated him in the March 29 presidential election, is in hiding after Mugabe’s marauders intimidated, tortured and murdered members of his opposition party.
So, how bad was Rhodesia?
I knew Tim Russert – although I never met him. I know you know what I mean.
In an era of electronic media as show-business staple, Russert was refreshingly old-school. For openers, he had, as he often acknowledged, “a face for radio.” He was camera comfortable but never mirror mindful. He took the work of political analysis dead seriously; IT was the focus – not him. He was a journalist’s journalist, a pro’s pro; a pre-eminent information enabler.
Russert was always prepared; he wrote his own material; he perfected the nearly lost art of being a good listener; he didn’t interrupt the subject of an interview; he never bullied; and he played to the truth – not to the lens.
Nobody topped Russert in credibility. He was a lawyer whose interviews were depositional – not theatrical. He had worked the other side of the political aisle as an aide and counselor to the late New York Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan and former New York Gov. Mario Cuomo, so he understood the universe of reality. He was ambitious – but never at the expense of others. His shtick was the relentless pursuit of truth. His mantra: “Accountability,” which was reinforced by the nameplate in front of his desk: “Thou Shalt Not Whine.”
He was very important, but never self-important.
Russert was, according to NBC and CNBC colleagues, “genuine.” What we saw was what we got because that was what he was. He was the 58-year-old kid from uncool Buffalo who never forgot family or blue-collar roots and always remembered how lucky he was to have such a high-profile forum. As Washington Bureau Chief of NBC News, moderator of “Meet the Press” and unparalleled political maven, he was, by all accounts, equal parts friend, mentor and work-ethic avatar to those in his midst.
The tributes — from co-workers and competition alike — were beyond anything accorded a member of the media since Ernie Pyle. Nobody, it seemed, had more godchildren. Former NBC anchor and close Russert pal Tom Brokaw, who doesn’t lose it, lost it in that commemorative “Meet the Press” show he hosted two days after Russert had collapsed and died. He had to be bailed out by Mike Barnicle.
I knew Tim Russert because he was my surrogate too. I didn’t want a presidential campaign to become further mired in trivial queries about lapel pins or whether the irreverent Jeremiah Wright “loves his country as much” as Barack Obama does.
I wanted incisive questions about foreign policy and health insurance and immigration and life experience – and more importantly, I wanted those follow-ups that allowed a candidate an opportunity to amplify his position or forced a poseur into self-revelation.
The death of Tim Russert was as shocking as it was sobering. He was too young and too good. The political process, one that too easily conspires with the media to morph into celebrity dynamics, is the worse for this loss.
Suppose they gave an election and everybody came but Tim Russert?
Here’s hoping that his legacy will be much more than collective memories of a consummate pro and a nice guy who loved his family, his country and his work. May his legacy be that some of those left behind will seek to emulate him – and remember that an electorate is not the same as an audience.
Another sign that Hillary Clinton will not be on the ticket with Barack Obama: The Obama campaign recently hired Patti Solis Doyle as chief of staff to Obama’s yet-to-be-named vice presidential running mate.
Solis Doyle had been Clinton’s campaign manager – until she was fired.
And while we’re on the subject of Clinton, I never did see the vast sexism conspiracy at work. Of course, I saw the cheap-laugh lines about PMS and pant suits. What I didn’t hear, however, were references to her being a faux feminist, unless the definition of “feminist” now allows for those who enable their cheating husbands via a Faustian power deal. Better, arguably, the “fat ankles” comment than that.
“You never saw anything about what Obama was wearing,” recently noted “disappointed” and “angry” Sandy Freedman, the former mayor of Tampa.
Well, how about countless references to every time he wasn’t wearing his lapel pin? Only those weren’t sartorial jabs — but patriotism smears.
Or that name he wore? The obvious implication: Anyone deigning to run for president named Barack Hussein Obama might just be a Manchurian Muslim candidate.
Or that color he wore. Remember, he wasn’t “black enough” initially. But that changed as fast as you could say Rev. Wright rant, “hard-working whites” or fist-bump sista .
Hillary Clinton is not the Democratic Party’s nominee because of sexism. With a vote for the Iraq war, an aptitude for duplicity, an aura that embodied entitlement and lots of Washington seniority, she was never well suited for a quintessential, change-themed election.
Now that the Hillary Clinton campaign has put the best possible face on its government-in-exile phase, the Obamanians need to make certain they don’t overcompensate Hillary and the legions for whom she’s the Joan of Arc of American gender politics. Some advice:
1) Do not put this Faustian feminist on the ticket. Obama and his change-agent appeal will immediately implode. Look no further than Senators Joe Biden (Del.) and Jim Webb (Va.) or Governors Bill Richardson (N.M.) and Ed Rendell (Pa.) for a veepstakes winner.
2) Do not pick another female, even the well-regarded Kathleen Sebelius, the governor of Kansas. The emotions will eventually abate for Hillary’s Hoydens and there’s nowhere else for them to go if they don’t want to run the risk of unwelcome Roe v. Wade/Supreme Court-nominee scenarios under a President John McCain. Choosing another female won’t be perceived as a consolation prize — but an outrageous, personal affront.
3) Do not make a deal to help Clinton pay off campaign debt. She strategically sacked herself early and then fought on to the Democratic Party’s detriment when the math was inexorable. She can pay off the debt by writing another book: “How I Lost the Nomination I Was Entitled To.”
Amazingly enough, media speculation remains rife about “dream team” scenarios that could yield a Barack Obama-Hillary Clinton Democratic ticket.
As has been well documented – and orchestrated – Obama’s allure, aside from being intelligent and articulate, is his avatar-of-hope and change-agent appeal at a time of consummate cynicism.
If he were to put Clinton on the ticket, he morphs into yet another hypocritically pragmatic politician. Actually, he’d be worse, because of the level of inspiration and aspiration he’s induced. Clinton, the princess of pander and blatant political calculation, is also the personification of Washington-insider entitlement.
Obama can’t load all that baggage on the ticket – including assistant vice president Bill Clinton — and retain any prospect of appealing to the electorate’s desire for change, let alone long dormant idealism. Plus, he’s outnumbered in a key inner circle.
Moreover, would Obama really want somebody who would be to the vice presidency what Vladimir Putin is to the prime ministry of Russia? Or who, in her heart of hearts, prefers that he actually lose in November — thus validating all those self-fulfilling jeremiads about him not being the best candidate to defeat John McCain? And thus ushering in her de facto 2012 presidential run?
Recall why few observers really thought John Kennedy was rooting for Adlai Stevenson in 1956.
Local insider Frank Sanchez of Tampa, who heads Obama’s national Hispanic fund-raising campaign, is among those dismissing the notion of a spot for Clinton on an Obama ticket. Sanchez likes Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell, New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson and former Georgia Senator Sam Nunn. His dark horse veep candidate: former Florida Governor and Senator Bob Graham.
Finally, an ironic — but likely not final — note on the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. For one who deigns to speak – or shriek – for the older black generation, Wright grew up in a decidedly non-Jim Crow environment.
The Philadelphia native was raised in Germantown, the same section as Bill Cosby — only Cosby’s neighborhood wasn’t as nice. But they were both variations on what was then a middle class theme in that part of northwest Philly. Wright’s father was a pastor, his mother a high school vice principal.
Students could attend either the multi-racial Germantown High School or – if they preferred and qualified – the city’s pre-eminent public school, Central High. It was mostly white, skewed Jewish and pure meritocracy. Racial friction was unheard of. Jerry Wright graduated from Central in 1959.
And the rest is revisionist history.
Speculation will now accelerate about who might make the best Barack Obama running mate. Insiders don’t put much credence into a shotgun marriage, “dream team” ticket of Obama and Hillary Clinton.
Here’s how one Obama insider, national Hispanic fundraiser Frank Sanchez of Tampa, is handicapping it. He touts Ed Rendell, the Clinton-supporting governor of Pennsylvania, New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson and former Georgia Senator Sam Nunn as strong contenders. His dark horse: former Florida Governor and Senator Bob Graham.
Nobody asked, but that never deters. If I’m advising Barack Obama, here’s the memo to his handlers:
*As long as delegates are the currency that counts, the race remains yours to lose. But being in a response mode, playing it safe and having plenty of money is not a winning strategy.
*Better late than never. Obama’s denunciation of that self-promoting, irreverent foghorn, Jeremiah Wright, as well as the myriad of stupid, race-baiting tripe he has bellowed was, needless to say, long overdue. Now emphasize to Obama that — after putting race into perspective in Philly — he can on occasion step out of well-modulated character enough to actually SHOW anger on this subject, not just voice it. Even Pennsylvania yahoos will respect that.
*Your guy remains, of course, the candidate of “hope” and “change.” But it’s not as if those themes haven’t been recycled before. It’s just that they’ve not been this relevant since the Great Depression.
The quintessential challenge: Making those words viscerally resonate as something other than dismissible rhetoric – AKA “mere words.” Obama, as everyone knows, has already clinched the 2008 Orator’s Cup.
He needs to mix in more concrete to be less vulnerable to opposition indictments about his “inexperience.” It’s the only palpable way he can ultimately separate himself from both Hillary Clinton and John McCain. Especially the former. The more one-on-one interviews she does – including the one with Fox Factormeister Bill O’Reilly – the more apparent it is that she’s well informed, possesses a wonkish frame of reference and is quick on the response, whether you like her answer or not. She’s better than your guy and much better than McCain.
*Remember, any Democrat can rail against corporate greed and the plight of the non-rich. That, however, only reaffirms Obama as a better-packaged Michael Dukakis. And any candidate can run against “special interests” and “threats” to America. But what is your candidate UNIQUELY qualified to emphasize beyond soaring abstractions?
Hand-wringing over lost factory jobs and scapegoating NAFTA doesn’t cut it for the majority who do understand the reality of globalization. Frankly, technological progress and innovation – not outsourcing – is the main reason for the decline in manufacturing jobs. And a health care plan that is not different enough from Clinton’s doesn’t qualify either.
*Try this: After reminders about judgment and who actually voted to authorize a catastrophic war, advocate a paradigm shift in FOREIGN POLICY. Just don’t say “paradigm,” because it sounds, well, elitist to you know who.
This focus differentiates Obama from McCain and gets him distance from those inevitably losing, head-to-head match-ups over who can better protect Americans. Such scenarios are sure losers: the nitty-gritty of pre-ordained, troop-drawdown schedules that might not jibe with reality on the ground can only make him look like an Ivy League micro-manager – not commander-in-chief material. Then there’s the unkindest juxtaposition of them all: a battle-tested patriot vs. the well-intentioned social worker.
Hell, who would you choose if that’s presented as the match-up? The big FOREIGN POLICY picture, however, is the bridge you need to an Obama comfort zone.
As for Clinton, don’t let her convert her mistaken, lemming-like Iraq vote into some sort of ironically perverse positive. A re-thought FOREIGN POLICY, one that boldly asks where America fits — including, most notably, the Middle East – and where and how we show the flag in a world where too many countries revile us, is the key. It paints Clinton, the mistress of details, into the disingenuously dangerous, zero-sum (Iranian) “obliteration” corner she deserves. She and her disaffected generals.
It also reminds voters that while McCain patriotically took one for the team, he still sees the world through a Vietnam prism cell. His Cold War blinders convince him that maintaining troops in Germany and Japan, for example, is still a good idea and keeping Taiwan as a Chinese trip-wire makes as much sense as treating Israel as the 51st state. (OK, for pragmatic political reasons, nuance this reference – but the point is: No blank check for Israel. In fact, make the case that we expect, for openers, a deal between Israel and Syria — more concrete — to get done, and we hold enough leverage to make it happen.)
*Obama should remind the electorate that he will, indeed, meet with real friends, erstwhile friends and bona fide adversaries – and won’t fear negotiating any more than Harry Truman did with “Uncle” Joe Stalin or Richard Nixon did with Mao Zedong. A meeting is not a de facto validation of another’s position on anything, but it is a reaffirmation of the principle that ours isn’t the only perspective that matters. Anything that undermines — or at least mitigates — the almost universal perception of American arrogance is good. And, yes, that includes the Brothers Castro, Hugo Chavez and Mahmoud Amadinejad.
*And while Clinton prattles on about gas-tax holiday gimmicks and Lincoln-Douglas debates on flat-bed trucks, Obama can make the case that Cuba is the first place he’d start the FOREIGN POLICY overhaul. And that, to be sure, includes the counter-productive economic embargo. But not in politically safe, methodical increments – which doesn’t sound like the modus operandi of a change-agent candidate. Sure, it will upset the Diaz-Balart brothers and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and some other family-feud zealots in South Florida and Jersey City. So what? The rest of the country and the rest of the world would applaud.
Moreover, such an issue would provide Obama with another forum to help rally a Democratic Party that must produce a bigger majority in Congress to make meaningful progress. Especially where Cuba – and the Helms-Burton Act – is involved.
Even though the usual exile suspects will shriek in choleric rage, Obama will get much more credit than criticism. Let’s face it; change is coming anyhow. But it will show some Obamian vision and, more importantly, old-fashioned, non-intellectual, non-effete guts. And it will be seen as the right thing for all the right reasons: morally, economically (especially in Florida) and geopolitically.
It will be a signal to the rest of the world that this isn’t Bush League business as usual any more coming out of Washington.
*What all this does is reinforce Obama’s argument that this election, while thematically about “hope” and “change,” is fundamentally about vision and judgment – not seniority. America’s FOREIGN POLICY – in the good name of continuity – can no longer continue as an ad hoc extension of the way business has largely been done since the Cold War. This is Obama’s trump card. Everything else, from security to energy to global trade, is a byproduct.
*And a couple more points to sum up. Since there’s ample precedent, to say the least, for other candidates changing their minds on policies, have Obama change one of his own stands. Have him do a 180 on his muddled-at-best stance on capital gains. This is a net loser.
Leave the rate at 15 per cent. Please. About 100 million Americans are invested, directly or indirectly in the stock market. Approximately 20 per cent of taxpayers reporting capital gains in 2006 had incomes of less than $50,000. And there’s a causal relationship between increased capital-gains taxes and decreased federal revenues. This isn’t even a good pander point.
And don’t worry about losing Main Street cred by acknowledging the obvious. The U.S. is an investment economy, which isn’t some liberal affliction. Because the net result is jobs, jobs, jobs.
*Get Obama started right now playing that FOREIGN POLICY trump card, which gives heft to “hope” and ballast to “change.” Call it “America’s ENLIGHTENED Self Interest,” which not-so-subtly incorporates all facets of national security. That is: our economy, our way of life and our literal lives.
*And get some of you
r more formidable surrogates out there. Whether it’s a Tony Lake, Bill Clinton’s former national security advisor, or Paul Volcker, the former Federal Reserve chairman, or Bill Richardson, the globally-savvy Hispanic governor of New Mexico who’s looking more and more like vice presidential running-mate material.
Obama’s opponents — as well as the media — love to associate him with the Jeremiah Wrights and the Tony Rezkos. Fire back with people who count.
CARACAS, Venezuela–As noted previously, Venezuela, the hybrid home of fast-forwarding, sloppy socialism, is a land of contrasts. Rain forests and skyscrapers. Oil wealth and nasty slums. Spanish scions and African ancestors. Capitalists and campesinos.
There’s another contrast.
This one’s made in America. It’s a foreign policy artifact that’s at least at odds with the spirit of the Venezuelan law (not unlike the one in the U.S.) that proscribes outsiders from directly financing political parties and campaigns. That is, interfering. It’s a sovereignty thing.
Rather than rely on the CIA to reprise the bad old coup days of U.S. involvement in the likes of Guatemala (1954) or Chile (1973), the influencing now is more nuanced. Quasi-governmental organizations such as the National Endowment for Democracy, the International Republican Institute, the U.S. Agency for International Development and the Office of Transition Initiatives are charged with influencing events in countries — such as Venezuela — that can significantly impact the U.S. They do it in the obeisant name of “promoting democracy” and “supporting dialogue.” It’s a loophole a fleet of Hummers could drive through.
To many, this is certainly no revelation. In 1983, the NED was established via Congressional legislation, and Congressional funding was authorized. In 1990, it played a major role in Nicaragua by helping Violeta Chamorro defeat Sandinista President Daniel Ortega. It beat funding contra guerrillas.
More than a decade ago New York Times journalist John Broder famously referenced the intelligence morph when he wrote: “The National Endowment for Democracy, created 15 years ago to do in the open what the CIA has done surreptitiously for decades, spends $30 million a year to support things like political parties, labor unions, dissident movements and the news media in dozens of countries.” In fact, Allen Weinstein, the NED’s first president, was more than up front with the NED’s raison d’etre with this 1991 acknowledgement: “A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA.”
So much for democratic ideals. Geopolitics is about winning and losing – not playing nice.
It’s no secret, for example, that the U.S. didn’t just anxiously hope for the best outcome when the abortive coup against President Hugo Chavez took place in 2002. Orchestration happens.
The U.S. mustered neither disapproval nor diplomatic concern. It certainly didn’t condemn the coup, as egregious an affront as there is to the concept of elected leadership. Consequently, it’s no surprise that the NED, for example, is helping Primero Justicia, a relatively new and key opposition party to President Chavez.
Mary Ponte, an articulate, 30-something spokeswoman for PJ, acknowledged the outside aid – but maintained the non-governmental semantics. PJ, she said, “does not receive money from the U.S. Government.” However, pointed out Ponte, it does receive NED “support for training, scholarships and workshops.”
Oh.
Not that PJ is nothing more than an “Anyone But Chavez” alternative. It has viability, if not political parity, and can make a case. It generally lambastes Chavez for “unfulfilled promises” as well as a revisionist-socialist school curriculum, “deteriorating hospitals,” unmet infrastructure needs, rising crime rates and a communication climate of “permanent confrontation.”
It also wants him weakened and defeated – not ousted.
The point is this. Not unlike any other country, America’s own self-interest is a legitimate priority, and the U.S. would obviously be remiss not to make its case in countries that matter. But that begs three questions: What is the U.S. “case”? “Does it represent what’s in this country’s ‘enlightened’ self-interest?” And “Can we make it without impinging on another country’s sovereignty?”
And how welcome would it be if such queries about how the U.S. comports itself in a complex world became high-profile issues during the upcoming, general-election presidential campaign?
This arguably goes to the core of America’s overarching foreign-policy questions: Where does the U.S. fit in a world too filled with countries that revile us? And what, if anything, could we – and should we – do about it?
We obviously don’t have to like how Venezuela, a country steeped in ethnic inequity and historically inured to massive poverty and indifferent politicians, is playing its self-determination card. We simply have to respect it. And maybe learn this seemingly self-evident lesson: If the leader of a country is removed by coup, we can at least not celebrate. It’s really poor democratic and diplomatic form – especially when the coup is quickly reversed.
Will the occasionally harsh exchanges between the Bush and Chavez administrations be escalating? Some think America’s presidential election and Venezuela’s gubernatorial and mayoral elections later this year will provide the perfect rhetorical storm for just that.
Count John Fredrikson among those who anticipate more confrontational positions by both sides.
“Let’s face it, political rhetoric stirs up the base in the U.S. – and the same here,” says the Caracas-based director of the United Nations High Commission on Refugees. “Chavez can talk about cutting oil to the U.S., but he can’t. In the short term, he cannot afford to do that. There would be panic.” Expect “rhetorical confrontation,” underscored Fredrikson, but not “real” confrontation.
According to Phil Gunson, the Latin American correspondent for The Economist magazine, Chavez could try to play more than an oil card.
“Chavez will make increasingly desperate attempts to force a confrontation,” predicted Gunson. “The relationship with Iran and Hezbolla is one route he could use, if all else fails. That would make it very hard for Washington to hold out.”
The Economist’s Gunson said that to the extent people are supporting anyone, the right-wing opposition to Chavez would back (John) McCain for president, while the more moderate oposicionistas “would probably like (Barack) Obama to win, because that would take the wind out of Chavez’s ‘anti-imperialist’ campaign. It would be so much harder to make Obama a hate figure.”
Alex Correa is an Afro-Venzuelan instructor at the Bolivarian University in Caracas. He lectures on Venezuela’s multi-racial history and the vestiges of traditionalEurocentric models. He’s underwhelmed by the prospect that America might elect an African American president.
“You have Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell,” he noted. “But in the USA, you have a mindset. So, I don’t know that it would matter much. Color by itself doesn’t mean much. It’s PR.”
And then there is Maria Alejandra Escobar, a young print journalist. “Chavez,” she explained, “is the father figure for the continent. He takes positions; the people love him.” She also added that he “needs an enemy” not unlike the way Fidel needed one – and subsequently played the U.S.-as-scapegoat card.
And one other thing. She’s read “The Audacity of Hope.”
“I love Obama,” she giggled.
* Who would have thought? The heavyset guy with the buzz cut, T-shirt and casual jacket at the spacious health facility could have been an Ybor City bouncer. But he was Dr. Rafael Antonio Broche Morera, the director general of Salvador Allende Centro de Salud Integral. The Havana, Cuba native is a key component in Venezuela’s nationwide plan for better health care via a series of hierarchal clinics throughout the country.
And he had made it clear that he wanted to meet the (Latin American Working Group) delegation member who was from Tampa. As it turned out, Ybor City wasn’t far off. Dr. Broche was in Tampa earlier in the year.
“I like your city,” he said. “You know La Teresita ?”
“Of c
ourse,” I responded. “It’s on a street they call ‘Boliche Boulevard.'”
“I had the picadillo,” he informed. “Excellent.”
Small world – big geopolitical differences notwithstanding.
*While oil, security, FARC and narcotics dominate the often shrill exchanges that pass for dialogue between the U.S. and Venezuela, there’s one conversation that is refreshingly civil – albeit emotional. Baseball.
Imagine sitting at the La Buena Paella Restaurant Bar at the Hotel El Paseo in Caracas and throwing down Solera Lights with some colleagues and new-found, local friends. No talk of paramilitaries, the price of crude or Bolivarian anything — only observations about Johan Santana , who was pitching for the New York Mets against the Florida Marlins.
Venezuelans have been serious Major League Baseball fans since Luis Aparacio broke in with the Chicago White Sox in the 1950s. Now they have players, including Caracas’s own Dioner Navarro of the Rays , on virtually every MLB roster. (In fact, the Rays have a prospect academy in the small, northern Venezuelan town of Guacara.)
Courtesy of a FSN satellite feed, we continued to watch Venezuelan native Santana, who might be more lionized — especially by the poor — than Chavez. No one was suggesting he give his money away in the barrios – only that he get better control of his slider. He did.
There’s hope.