Harry Reed, Parliamentarian

If you are following the domestic health care policy bill/debate, you’re undoubtedly picking up the fact that the Senate Majority Leader is not only the political go-to guy for his party (along with the go-to gal, Nancy Pelosi in the House), but he’s also a strategist in Robert’s Rules—of necessity:

At some point, Mr. Reid will have to push for a vote to end debate. And to do that, he will once again need the support of 60 senators — either the entire Democratic caucus or some Republicans to make up for any defections.

At least four senators — three Democrats and one independent — who voted yes on sending the measure to the floor for debate have already publicly threatened to block any effort to get a vote on final passage.

Mr. Reid succeeded in getting the bill to the Senate floor with no clear path to a final vote to get it off the floor.

via Rough Race to the Finish for Senate Democrats – Prescriptions Blog – NYTimes.com.

And You Thought Your Credit Card Debt Was High?

Payback time is coming for the U.S. of A., and the implications for making policy, domestic and foreign–as well as a host of other debates–is only getting started.

In concrete terms, an additional $500 billion a year in interest expense would total more than the combined federal budgets this year for education, energy, homeland security and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.The potential for rapidly escalating interest payouts is just one of the wrenching challenges facing the United States after decades of living beyond its means.The surge in borrowing over the last year or two is widely judged to have been a necessary response to the financial crisis and the deep recession, and there is still a raging debate over how aggressively to bring down deficits over the next few years. But there is little doubt that the United States’ long-term budget crisis is becoming too big to postpone.Americans now have to climb out of two deep holes: as debt-loaded consumers, whose personal wealth sank along with housing and stock prices; and as taxpayers, whose government debt has almost doubled in the last two years alone, just as costs tied to benefits for retiring baby boomers are set to explode.

via Payback Time – Wave of Debt Payments Facing U.S. Government – Series – NYTimes.com with a tip o’ the hat to William Perry, economy watcher and course instructor.

Hillary’s Report Card

How is the Sec State doing?  Time Magazine provides a mid-term grade and its a mixed review:

The job of Secretary of State is more thankless than glamorous; in some ways, the Department of State, a noble antique, is still trying to come to terms with the invention of the telephone. In an era when Twitter haiku-messaging rules, diplomacy moves at the speed, and requires the nuanced complexity, of literature. Power has drifted from State to the National Security Council and the Pentagon, especially in wartime. Only a few of Clinton's recent predecessors have distinguished themselves. Henry Kissinger, a National Security Adviser who belatedly became Secretary of State, was Richard Nixon's schizophrenic alter ego; George Shultz was a strong policy voice in the Reagan Administration; James Baker had clout because he was George H.W. Bush's best friend and a world-class dealmaker. Most of the others have been frustrated or forgettable. And yet this is Hillary Clinton we're talking about — the second most popular American in the world, an eternally compelling and supremely talented character, the subject of constant speculation, a walking headline. Her very presence in the job makes it crucial once more.

via Hillary Clinton After Mideast Trip: Diplomacy Success? – TIME.

Bernanke Learns Flexibility in the Debate Over Fed’s Role – NYTimes.com

“Ben Bernanke turns out to have better political instincts than anybody thought,” Mr. Frank said in an interview last week.

Working the Hill is no different from building a bloc of support.  And with Ron Paul making the case against the Fed and even winning a few votes, the advocate for the Fed is in high demand.

“They accept the fact that I know what I’m doing up here.”The maneuvering is still under way, involving intricate negotiations outside of public view. But, aided by the pledge of help from Mr. Frank and backing from the administration, Fed officials cautiously predict they will get what they want.

via Bernanke Learns Flexibility in the Debate Over Fed’s Role – NYTimes.com.

The flagging peace process: Is Israel too strong for Barack Obama? | The Economist

Has Obama fever met its match in the Middle East conflict?

Five months after Barack Obama went to Cairo and persuaded most of the Arab world, in a ringing declaration of even-handedness, that he would face down Israel in his quest for a Palestinian state, American policy seems to have run into the sand. The American president’s mediating hand is weaker, his charisma damagingly faded. From the Palestinian and Arab point of view, his administration—after grandly setting out to force the Jewish state to stop the building of Jewish settlements on Palestinian land as an early token of good faith, intended to bring Israelis and Palestinians back to negotiation—has meekly capitulated to Israel.

via The flagging peace process: Is Israel too strong for Barack Obama? | The Economist.

President Obama Announces More Key Administration Posts 09/24/09 | The White House

I’m not sure how we missed this, but one more thing that John Dinkelman knows—and he does know everyone.  There are now three LDS U.S. ambassadors abroad, in China, Jordan, and now a Special Envoy on North Korea.  For those of you who have already made the wise decision to participate in the BYU Washington Seminar, you know Bob (now, “your excellency”) and Kay, who is equally impressive.

Robert R. King, Nominee for Special Envoy on North Korean Human Rights Issues, with the rank of Ambassador, Department of State

Bob King has worked on Capitol Hill for the last 25 years, and for 24 of those years he was Chief of Staff to Congressman Tom Lantos (D-CA). He was concurrently Staff Director of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives (2007-2008), Democratic Staff Director of the Committee (2001-2007) and held various professional staff positions on the Committee since 1993. After Congressman Lantos’ death, Mr. King continued as Committee staff director for Chairman Howard L. Berman (D-CA) for one year. As Staff Director of the Committee, Mr. King supervised committee staff on all aspects of its legislative, oversight and investigative work. Mr. King was heavily involved in the planning and conduct of Congressman Lantos’ human rights agenda, including the establishment and supervision of the Congressional Human Rights Caucus, which recently became the Tom Lantos Congressional Human Rights Commission. Prior to his service on Capitol Hill, Mr. King served on the National Security Council Staff as a White House Fellow during the Carter Administration. He was Assistant Director of Research and Analysis at Radio Free Europe in Munich, Germany. Mr. King has also taught courses in U.S. foreign policy and international relations at the University of Southern California German Study Program, Brigham Young University Study Abroad, American University in Washington, D.C., New England College, and other institutions. He is author of five books and some 40 articles on international relations issues. He earned a Ph.D. in International Relations from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and a B.A. from Brigham Young University. Among his honors and recognitions, he received the Knight’s Cross Order of Merit of the Republic of Hungary. He is a Member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

via President Obama Announces More Key Administration Posts 09/24/09 | The White House.

 

 

Assumptions and Worldviews | What Have You Gone, Neocons?

Our assumptions about country roles and intentions shape our foreign policy.  One view of late–that represents what was not a well-known view until the administration of George W. Bush–is that of neoconservativism.  Although a political view of this era may be a series of unmitigated disaster, this approach has a much longer history than may be apparent–and represents a viable idea, even if it was ineffectively implemented, as noted by Francis Fukuyama in After the Neocons: America at the Crossroads.

One idea driving neoconservative thought comes from an assumption about enemies:

KATHRYN JEAN LOPEZ: Is there still an Axis of Evil?

MICHAEL LEDEEN: Yes, and it’s growing. It lost Iraq, but now counts Iran, North Korea, Venezuela, Bolivia, and Russia.

LOPEZ: Are we an “Accomplice to Evil”?

LEDEEN: That’s the whole point of my book. We have once again failed to see evil — Iran is the prime example — when it was right in front of us, and we have deliberately blinded ourselves to the war that the Islamic Republic has been waging against us for 30 years.

via The Problem of Evil by Interview on National Review Online.

The inability of neoconservatives to achieve their stated goals in Iraq has cost them social, political, and economic capital over past nine years, as Amy Chua writes in the NYT Week in Review:

Enter neoconservatism. At its core, the neoconservative program was premised on the aggressive, interventionist use of American military force, with or without international approval, to effect regime change and nation building. If 9/11 sent neoliberalism into a tailspin, the Iraq quagmire did the same for neoconservatism.

Then came the financial meltdown of 2008, which dealt the deathblow to both. Neoconservative power depended on immense disposable wealth to finance American military might abroad. Neoliberal economics assumed that American capitalism would produce that wealth. Today the dreams of both lie shattered, and policy makers are at sea.

What comes next?  She guides us toward the idea of a Roosevelt revolution–or rather, a return to his approach:

And what of the Obama administration? Richard Posner, most recently the author of “A Failure of Capitalism,” sees in current policy a case of “Roosevelt envy.” There may be some truth to this. Like the Roosevelt White House, the Obama administration seems committed simultaneously to renewing internationalism, overhauling regulation and spending its way out of economic crisis.

 

About the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations

In the U.S. laboratory of democracy one Senate Committee plays a key role in foreign policy.  The site Daily Kos focuses on how the committee makes it all happen on their sister site, Congress Matters, including some useful reference materials that would appeal to budding parliamentarians (jurisdictions, nominations, and even an analysis of John Kerry as unofficial Sec State of sorts.)  An excerpt:

The committee has jurisdiction over pretty much every issue that affects relations between the United States and the rest of the world. This includes acquiring space for embassies, oversight of the World Bank and IMF some jurisdiction shared with the Senate Banking Committee, non-trade treaties, and relations between the US and organizations like the UN and Red Cross. In addition, the committee is charged with holding confirmation hearings for foreign service appointments

From Ousted Harvard Prez to Trusted Insider to POTUS

Sometimes, the smart move politically is to say nothing.  (Yes, you can say too much.)

Lawrence B. Lindsey lost his job as director of the National Economic Council in part for excessive public candor. Lawrence H. Summers, its current director, will not be making that mistake.

via “When Keeping Quiet May Be Just the Right Thing To Do” – NYTimes.com

In Somalia, a New Template for Fighting Terrorism – NYTimes.com

Word yesterday that the US was taking a different tack on Somalia to apply carrots and sticks (read: diplomacy).  Critics were pleased that Pres. Obama wasn’t too hard or soft in his policy.  (Does that mean they were happy? No way–that’s not what critics do. Note to self: develop thick skin for future in politics)

Black Hawk Down made the United States gun-shy for years, contributing to its failure to intervene against genocide in Rwanda and, for a time, in Bosnia, too. The battle itself was immortalized in a so-so film and a great book — required reading for some courses at West Point.  “Never again, that was the message,” said John Nagl, a retired Army officer who was on the team that wrote the military’s new counterinsurgency field manual. “People were saying this is what happens when we get involved in small wars in places we don’t understand.”

But American policy has pivoted since 1993 to another question: What happens when we don’t get involved? The experience in Somalia speaks to that concern as well — to the problems of ignoring any patch of ungoverned territory, especially in the Muslim world, whose anarchy might tempt the arrival of the likes of Al Qaeda.

via In Somalia, a New Template for Fighting Terrorism – NYTimes.com.