Don't Confuse Susan Rice with Condi

By Ari Berman

They share the same last name, but don't confuse Susan Rice--Barack Obama's nominee as ambassador to the United Nations--with Condoleezza.

My colleague John Nichols cherry picks one statement Rice made about Iraq--praising Colin Powell's presentation to the United Nations about Iraq's supposed WMDs--as evidence that she's part of the "wrong-thinking that characterizes Barack Obama's foreign-policy team."

That's ridiculous. Unfortunately a lot of people praised Powell at the time and "good progressives" like Henry Waxman, John Edwards and Chris Dodd voted for the war and later came to regret it. One vote or statement on Iraq should hardly be a litmus test for serving in government.

Read More »

December 2, 2008

UN Pick Rice: Another Wrong-on-Iraq Nominee

By John Nichols

On the outside chance that anyone thought that Dr. Susan Rice might be the exception to the rule of wrong-thinking that characterizes Barack Obama's foreign-policy team, well, think again.

Obama's nominee to serve as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, had this to say February, 2003, after then-Secretary of State Colin Powell made a wholly absurd presentation a plenary session of the United Nations Security Council regarding the supposed threat posed by those Iraqi imaginary weapons of mass destruction.

"I think he [Powell] has proved that Iraq has these weapons and is hiding them," said Rice, a former Clinton administration State Department aide, "and I don't think many informed people doubted that."

Read More »

December 1, 2008

Obama's Big Tent

By Ari Berman

Say what you will about Barack Obama's national security team, but clearly the President-elect wasn't fibbing when he promised to bring unity to Washington. Who else could get Robert Gates, General James Jones, Hillary Clinton and Susan Rice on the same stage--let alone the same team?

Press reports have been emphasizing that Obama's vulcans are more hawkish than many of his supporters expected. Maybe so, but there is also a fair amount of ideological continuity and agreement among Obama's senior national security advisors about how to redirect American foreign policy--away from unilateral military action and aggressive posturing--and place diplomacy and cooperation at the center of our efforts.

"To succeed, we must pursue a new strategy that skillfully uses, balances, and integrates all elements of American power: our military and diplomacy; our intelligence and law enforcement; our economy and the power of our moral example," Obama said today. "The team that we have assembled here today is uniquely suited to do just that... They share my pragmatism about the use of power, and my sense of purpose about America's role as a leader in the world."

Read More »

December 1, 2008

Barack Obama's AIDS Advocacy

By John Nichols

Barack Obama has always spoken well and wisely about the challenges posed by the HIV/AIDS crisis, and about the opportunity the United States has to address them.

Two years ago on World AIDS Day, before he was a candidate for the presidency, Obama delivered a remarkable speech at the "2006 Global Summit on AIDS and the Church" at California's Saddleback Church. As part of his remarks, the senator said:

We are all sick because of AIDS - and we are all tested by this crisis. It is a test not only of our willingness to respond, but of our ability to look past the artificial divisions and debates that have often shaped that response. When you go to places like Africa and you see this problem up close, you realize that it's not a question of either treatment or prevention - or even what kind of prevention - it is all of the above. It is not an issue of either science or values - it is both. Yes, there must be more money spent on this disease. But there must also be a change in hearts and minds; in cultures and attitudes. Neither philanthropist nor scientist; neither government nor church, can solve this problem on their own - AIDS must be an all-hands-on-deck effort.

Read More »

December 1, 2008

American Muslims Mourn Mumbai Violence

By John Nichols

There will be many expressions of appropriate mourning and condolence when the final toll is determined from the terrorist attacks on Mumbai. The terrorists who struck the Indian city killed mostly locals in a brutal multi-day killing spree that left more than 160 dead and close to 400 severely wounded. But the targeting of westerners and religious minorities -- including a rabbi and others associated with a synagogue and Jewish community center in a city where Jews have lived bh.

Because of the sectarian focus of the attacks, one of the responses that is especially worth noting is the one from the Muslim Public Affairs Council, the twenty-year-old civil rights group that advocates "for the the integration of Islam into American pluralism, and for a positive, constructive relationship between American Muslims and their representatives."

Here's MPAC's statement:

Read More »

November 28, 2008

Obama's Trickle-Down Equanimity

By Leslie Savan

The other day I noticed that my husband had for the tenth time ruined the slick seasoned surface of my cast-iron skillet by scrubbing it with Brillo. I started to get ticked off, building up a tiny tornado of fury; boy, am I ever going to tell him. Again.

But then I thought, Would Obama let this get to him? That tall cool drink o' distilled water would never blast Michelle for a domestic faux-pas like this, but here I am going ballistic because my spouse tried to clean a pot? Then poof! (or plouffe!): my anger was gone.

Not to get all hagiographic about it, much less to liken the President-elect to "The One" (the name the McCainiac right sarcastically used to paint him as the false Messiah), but Barack Obama's calm, nonreactionary response to the worst that politics and economics can throw at him has begun to establish a new emotional policy: trickle-down equanimity.

Read More »

November 28, 2008

Indian Crisis Tests Obama

By John Nichols

This transition period was supposed to be all about getting a grip on the financial crisis -- and it looked this week as if Barack Obama has succeeded sufficiently to take the Thanksgiving holiday off. But on Wednesday, the president-elect was reminded that he is inheriting messes far beyond Wall Street.

The devastating attacks in Mumbai -- which have left more than 100 dead and three times that number seriously wounded -- have put the war on terror back in competition for Obama's urgent attention. And the reported focus of the attackers in U.S. and European visitors to India makes this anything but a foreign affair.

Wednesday's developments do not quite qualify as the "test" famously anticipated during the fall campaign by Joe Biden, the outgoing Senate Foreign Relations Committee chair who will now serve as Obama's loose-lipped vice president. But Obama and his aides are scrambling to refocus after a key American ally suffered a devastating attack that John McLaughlin, the former acting director of the Central Intelligence Agency refers to as "India's 9-11."

Read More »

November 26, 2008

A Secretary of Defense We Can't Believe In

By John Nichols

Barack Obama in February, 2008: "I don't want to just end the war; I want to end the mindset that got us into war."

Barack Obama in November, 2008: "Never mind."

All indications are that the man who has run George Bush's nightmarish occupation of Iraq -- along with the downward spiral that is Afghanistan -- will now manage Barack Obama's nightmarish occupation of Iraq and the new president's plans to turn Afghanistan into a full-blown quagmire.

Read More »

November 26, 2008

Placeholder Senator: Ted Kaufman, D-Biden

By John Nichols

While President-elect Barack Obama has surrendered his US senate seat and said he'll stand back and let Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich name a successor, Vice President-elect Joe Biden is not letting go of his senate seat quite so easily. The Delaware Democrat plans to retain the seat he has held for almost 36 years until he takes his new job. And when he does give the seat up, Biden will hand it off to a short-term appointee who will quit in two years.

The placeholder senator, Ted Kaufman, served for nineteen years as Biden's chief of staff before becoming a co-chair of Biden's vice-presidential transition team. He will be appointed in mid-January by Delaware Governor Ruth Minner, a Democrat closely ties to Biden who is retiring at the end of this year, and will serve only until a 2010 special election.

Kaufman has announced that he won't be running in that election. "I also want to make clear that I am very comfortable with retiring after 2 years," says the senator-to-be. "I don't think Delaware's appointed Senator should spend the next two years running for office."

Read More »

November 24, 2008

Eyeing Obama Era, DailyKos Launches Blog to Press Congress

By Ari Melber

Prominent writers for DailyKos, the country's top liberal blog, are launching a new site to scrutinize and pressure the Democratic Congress.

This week, as most politicos focus on appointments in the incoming Obama administration, DailyKos bloggers began a "soft launch" for Congress Matters, which promises a "community-based political watch party" for Democrats on Capitol Hill.

"It'll be a place where we'll try to explain Congressional rules and procedure so that the netroots community gets a better handle on it and can become more effective advocates for their priorities," said David Waldman, an attorney and former Congressional aide who blogs on the front page of DailyKos under the name Kagro X.

Read More »

November 24, 2008