A Foreign Policy for the 21st Century

As we have seen so often, it is when President Obama sits down one-on-one with a reporter that we really see the depth of his thinking. That's why I was so interested in his interview with Ezra Klein on domestic affairs/politics and with Matt Yglesias on foreign policy.

In talking to Yglesias, President Obama rejected the binary choice of labeling himself either a realist or an idealist when it comes to foreign policy.


The first thing we must do is to accurately define the challenge we face today.

So the biggest challenge we have right now is disorder. Failed states. Asymmetric threats from terrorist organizations. And what I've been trying to do is to make sure that over the course of the last six years and hopefully the next two, we just have more tools in our toolkit to deal with the actual problems that we have now and that we can project into the future, rather than just constantly relying on the same tools that we used when we were dealing with Germany and Japan in World War II.

Those challenges look very different from what the world faced during World War II, and therefore require a different set of tools.

But this is going to be a generational challenge in the Muslim world and the Middle East that not only the United States but everybody's going to have to deal with. And we're going to have to have some humility in recognizing that we don't have the option of simply invading every country where disorder breaks out. And that to some degree, the people of these countries are going to have to, you know, find their own way. And we can help them but we can't do it for them...

And so, I think the real challenge for the country not just during my presidency but in future presidencies is recognizing that leading does not always mean occupying. That the temptation to think that there's a quick fix to these problems is usually a temptation to be resisted. And that American leadership means wherever possible leveraging other countries, other resources, where we're the lead partner because we have capabilities that other folks don't have. But that way there's some burden-sharing and there's some ownership for outcomes. And many of these problems don't get solved in a year or two years or three years.

The old tools of military domination and occupation haven't worked - and in many ways have probably made the problem of disorder worse. The new tools that are required include empowering people in these failed states to find their own way, engaging countries around the globe in order to create broad ownership for outcomes and having the patience to allow solutions to emerge organically rather than be externally imposed.

When it comes to the goal of these efforts, the President echoes Reinhold Niebuhr's suggestion that we have to be able to embrace both the world as it is while we hold on to the ideal of what we want it to be.

...the goal of any good foreign policy is having a vision and aspirations and ideals, but also recognizing the world as it is, where it is, and figuring out how do you tack to the point where things are better than they were before. That doesn't mean perfect. It just means it's better.

These ideas are embedded in principles that we've consistently seen from President Obama:

• An embrace of both/and instead of either/or
• A commitment to the power of partnership over dominance
• A preference for the pragmatism of the long game rather than a quick fix
• Realistic strategies as steps towards the idealism of our North Star

But make no mistake about it - when it comes to foreign policy - those principles take direct aim at how most Americans have viewed our role in the world. We have grown comfortable with the idea of splitting the world up into good guys/bad guys (U.S. vs USSR, patriots vs terrorists, "you're either with us or against us") and then using the power of our military dominance in an attempt to defeat the bad guys. The authoritarianism of "might makes right" has become part of the fabric of our culture. That is why so many people literally can't "see" the alternative this President is articulating - or find it somehow threatening.

An honest appraisal of the current situation tells us that our old ways of interacting with the world aren't working. If we didn't learn that lesson in Vietnam, we certainly should have in Iraq. Once we can accept that, these principles President Obama espoused have the potential to transform the destructive path we've been following. In other words, they comprise a foreign policy for the 21st century.

Competition Works. Who Knew?

A lot of liberals (like Paul Krugman) doubted that competition among insurers in the marketplaces created by Obamacare would work to control the cost of premiums. But here's the news from Kaiser this week.

A surge in health insurer competition appears to be helping restrain premium increases in hundreds of counties next year, with prices dropping in many places where newcomers are offering the least expensive plans, according to a Kaiser Health News analysis of federal premium records.

Liberals tend to have a love/hate relationship with the engines of capitalism - like competition. But a pragmatic approach would suggest that its important to use them where they will work and articulate why when they won't. That won't fit well on a bumper-sticker. But being able to promote a government that works is the best defense of liberalism.

When it comes to Obamacare, it looks like its going to require a commitment to the long game to see that one out over the fear-mongering we're hearing from a lot of conservatives. But I simply view that as noise. Every piece of information that comes out telling us that its working makes it that much more likely that its here to stay.

Thomas Frank still thinks like a Republican

I suppose that it should come as no surprise that most of the people on the left who suffer from Obama Derangement Syndrome (ODS) are former Republicans. No - I'm not buying into some tin-foil hat conspiracy theory that these folks are simply infiltrators. What's more likely is that they've been steeped in the ideology of dominance as the only form of power - or as Audre Lorde would suggest - they continue to cling to the idea that the master's tools can dismantle the master's house.

So low and behold, I find out today that Thomas Frank, the current spokesperson for leftist ODS now that no one is paying any attention to Glenn Greenwald, is a former Republican. He validates my theory about all this in his recent column titled: We are such losers.

Frank's point in this article is to suggest various similarities between Presidents Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama (apparently they're losers as far as he's concerned). Along the way he demonstrates his white male privileged ignorance by suggesting that the demographic changes we see today will no more shift politics in favor of the Democrats than the wishful post-Watergate assumptions of the 70's. And he actually assumes that President Carter's symbolic gesture to turn down the White House thermostat and dawn sweaters was indicative of his embrace of austerity rather than about energy conservation. That's some major level ignorance!

But overall Frank's message about these two presidents eerily mimics the Republican obsession with the futility of intelligent policies over those steeped in ideology. Here's the money quote at the end.

The moral of this story is not directed at Democratic politicians; it is meant for us, the liberal rank and file. We still “yearn to believe,” as Perlstein says. There is something about the Carter / Obama personality that appeals to us in a deep, unspoken way, and that has led Democrats to fall for a whole string of passionless centrists: John Kerry, Al Gore, Michael Dukakis, Gary Hart and Bill Clinton. Each time, Democratic voters are enchanted by a kind of intellectual idealism that (we are told) is unmoored from ideology. We persuade ourselves that the answer to the savagery of the right—the way to trump the naked class aggression of the One Percent—is to say farewell to our own tradition and get past politics and ideology altogether. And so we focus on the person of the well-meaning, hyper-intelligent leader. We are so high-minded, we think. We are so scientific.

We are such losers.

Whenever you hear one of these idiots talking about "centrists," its helpful to replace it with "pragmatists." That becomes obvious when, at the end of the quote, Frank mocks the idea that Democrats "are so scientific." In other words, he thinks we're losers because we are wedded to pragmatic ideas that are grounded in science rather than a rigid adherence to ideology.

All dressed up in his liberal sheep's clothing, Thomas Frank sounds an awful lot like a Republican to me.

What's not in the news

I'm going to have to give Republicans some props. In the lead-up to these midterm elections, they've had to show an amazing amount of flexibility.

For instance, remember when the main issue in the election was going to be Obama scandal-mania? They were placing their bets on Benghazi, the IRS, the VA and - for some poor souls - even Fast and Furious. And now here we are a few weeks away from the election and Trey Gowdy can't get anyone to pay attention to his hearings (if you don't know who Trey Gowdy is - you just made my point).

Next up was a shift to Obamacare. Following the troubles with the initial online rollout, Republicans were sure this was going to be the ultimate weapon to use against Democrats. That was until the web site was fixed, enrollment surged beyond predictions, the rate of uninsured dropped, and health insurance premiums didn't skyrocket. Oops, time to change the subject again.

Anyone remember the short-lived focus on "President Obama as tyrant" and Boehner's stupid law suit? Nah, that one didn't last long.

This summer's surge in unaccompanied children arriving on our border from Central America was sure to get the nativist's blood boiling and keep it that way through the election. But then President Obama asked for help from Congress in addressing the situation and they bailed. Now the surge is over and its back to business as usual.

So now what? NBC noticed that the NRCC - in a move that invokes the "spirit" of 2002-2004 - is now going for the "Democrats aren't tough enough on terrorists" line. In other words, when fear-mongering about everything else fails, ramping up the idea that the terrorists are at our doorstep is always a great fall-back position.

Given the speed with which Republicans have cycled in and then out of these various issues as "THE ONE" on which the midterm election will hinge, I expect at least one or two more in the coming weeks.

The point is that the GOP is addicted to the hysteria of the moment. As our President tackles one challenge after another, they keep thinking THIS will be the one that does him in. But minus all the drama, he just keeps thoughtfully and systematically taking them on and finding the best resolution possible - usually with zero assistance from Congress.

It would be nice if we had a media that noticed this trend. But the hysteria approach is more lucrative when it comes to link-bait. So it will be up to folks like us to remind the American people that we got exactly what we wanted when we elected President Obama - a no-drama pragmatist that plays the long game.

Its politics. Do we engage emotionally or strategically?

I am disappointed that President Obama has chosen to delay his announcement about immigration. For me, its not about the timing. A two month delay isn't that big of a deal. What bothers me is that he made a promise to do it "by the end of summer." And now he's decided to wait until after the November midterms. There will be some fall-out to that.

But rather than simply react emotionally, lets take a moment to think about how to respond strategically (i.e., be pragmatic). The first thing to keep in mind is that generally Democrats have been pretty nonchalant about the issue of immigration reform. I know that because even when I write about it here, the posts get fewer views than most others. I see that same pattern generally across the blogosphere.  On the other hand, the teapublicans are absolutely livid about it. If we had shown the same energy leading up to this election, the strategy of delay in order to help Democrats wouldn't even be on the table.

Secondly, its clear that Republicans are running a "no issues" campaign this fall. Their only strategy is to act like President Obama is on the ballot and run against him. He's not. And so if you are one of those people who are passionate about immigration reform, getting angry at the President about his two month delay only feeds the Republican agenda. How does that help us?

You are likely better served by sizing up those in your area who are running for House and Senate seats and working your ass off to get immigration reform supporters elected. I know that no one gives Democrats a chance in hell at winning back the majority in the House. But the truth is, it could happen. But only if voters wake up, take stock of the issues, and get out to vote. Then perhaps President Obama wouldn't need to act on his own. Even if the Democrats don't gain the majority, politicians will notice if/when supporters of immigration reform make their presence felt at the ballot box.

I know I'm spitting in the wind on this whole idea of acting strategically instead of emotionally. But by gawd the facts are out there about which route is likely to be more successful in reaching our goals. Go have your temper tantrum somewhere quietly. Then keep your eyes on the prize of what we're working towards.

Compare and Contrast: Froomkin v Giordano

First of all, here's what Dan Froomkin has to say about the Obama presidency.

In a lot of ways, we’re worse off today than we were under George W. Bush...

There will be no snapping back to a pre-Bush-era respect for basic human dignity and civil rights. Thanks to Obama, it’s going to be a hard, long fight.

In some cases, Obama has set even darker precedents than his predecessor. Massively invasive bulk surveillance of Americans and others has been expanded, not constrained. This president secretly condemns people to death without any checks or balances, and shrugs as his errant drones massacre innocent civilians. Whistleblowers and journalists who expose national security wrongdoing face unprecedented criminal prosecution...

In retrospect, what the country needed was a radical break from the Bush/Cheney national security policies: A reestablishment of American moral integrity; a rejection of decision-making based on fear (of terrorism, or of political blowback); a reassertion of the international laws of war; and a national reckoning.

There are a lot of inaccuracies in those few paragraphs (i.e., on checks and balances for drone strikes, members of Congress have been briefed on Every.Single.One.), but I'm going to try to look at the big picture rather than focus on the specifics.

In contrast, take a look at what Al Giordano wrote on the Obama legacy today in an article about potential challengers to Hillary Clinton.

And maybe it will be a candidate who can spark a “generational election” and have a shot at enough voter turnout in November 2016 to not lose the baby steps of progress – not long or fast enough steps by far, but at least the motion has been forward – that have been made over the past six years in the United States. After all, for its many and grievous faults, the US does finally have health care for so many more of its people, did measurably ratchet down two wars, did change the tone so that people who organized for LGBT rights, nonviolent marijuana and drug users and patients, immigrants and dreamers, grassroots XL pipeline opponents, among others, have finally started making progress on the level of law and policy. These are among the only things governments can do that help, or stop harming, the lives of real people.

When, in 2007, Obama’s campaign began recruiting volunteers to attend three-day community organizer trainings (called “Camp Obama”) that were designed by United Farmworkers Union organizer Marshall Ganz, it didn’t just built an army with a huge advantage over its rivals. It also trained a new generation in the forgotten skills of how change is really made at the most grassroots level. Many of the aforementioned tens of thousands of new organizers then went on, after the campaign, to organize with non-electoral social movements: LBGT and immigrants rights, drug policy referenda, and stopping climate change mega-projects like the pipeline. (“Activist” complaints that “nothing has changed” under Obama only indicate that the complainer still doesn’t get the profound qualitative difference between organizing and protesting.)

We can learn two things from these contrasting views:

1. While Froomkin is focused on the need for a "radical break" and therefore sees no change, Giordano sees "baby steps of progress" towards forward motion. In a nutshell, this is the difference between what we might call the "purists" and the "pragmatists."
2. From the outset its obvious that Froomkin is focused completely on what President Obama has/hasn't done while in office. On the other hand, Giordano is paying attention to what is happening at the grassroots level. He sees a new generation of organizers "starting to make progress on the level of law and policy."

This is not a difference about the "issues." As a matter of fact, if we were to place Froomkin and Giordano on a continuum of their own personal preferences, I suspect Giordano would be to the left of Froomkin (Giordano identifies himself as an anarcho-syndicalist). This is about a difference in views on how change happens. For the pragmatic organizers, it all rests on a truly radical notion...

A pragmatist's musings on ending racism

Racism is a highly-charged emotional issue in this country. Rightly so. But I find it helpful to step back from the emotions every now and then to take a rational pragmatic look at where we are and what our goals should be going forward.

In order to do that, its important to recognize the two broad categories of racism: personal and systemic. Personal racism includes both the covert messages we've all internalized as a result of living in a white supremacist culture as well as overtly racist words/actions. Personal racism is basically a white-people's problem as my friend Robinswing articulated a while ago when she said "We Can't Fix Ya!" Ending personal racism is an individual journey.

I can't speak for anyone else, but that journey for me was initiated and has been maintained by some very patient people of color in my life. I have tried my best on this blog platform to pass those lessons on to the few people who read here. White people are "my people," and its important to me that we eventually get it.

But the truth is, people of color can walk away from personal racism. Unless they care individually or collectively about our opinions, they can chose to ignore us. Even the racist rantings of a Sterling or Bundy or Robertson (Duck Dynasty) are meaningless unless we give them weight.

Ultimately it is systemic racism that impacts people of color directly. It happens when racism becomes embedded, both overtly and covertly, in institutional patterns and practices. Both the Civil War and the Civil Rights movement were successful in ending different forms of systemic racism: slavery and legal segregation. But those patterns and practices have been embedded in our systems of education, health care, housing, employment, immigration and criminal justice.

While personal and systemic racism are certainly intertwined, I believe that the former is a slow process of personal transformation. No one can control when/if another person is open to that process. We can only seize the moments that are presented to us.

But if, as Rev. William Barber has articulated, we are in the midst of a Third Reconstruction, I think it behooves us to focus on further eradication of systemic racism. Others may disagree, but I think the most pressing areas today are in our education, immigration and criminal justice systems.

When viewed in this light, our "talk" about racism should be focused on gaining allies to do the work of dismantling systemic racism (you can see that on display with Rev. Barber's Moral Mondays Movement). This is where the current work of criminal justice reform presents a fascinating opportunity. Conservatives have joined the fight - not to rid the system of racism - but to reduce government spending. There are similar alliances developing with big business on the issues of education and immigration.

Now...if you've been paying attention, you might have seen how President Obama is providing leadership on these issues. His administration is busy advocating for universal pre-K, ending the school-to-prison pipeline, opening up the opportunity for a college education to more young people, passing comprehensive immigration reform, cracking down on police brutality, initiating a clemency initiative, and being Smart on Crime.

When the President's critics - like Michael Eric Dyson - say he needs to step up, use the bully pulpit and provide leadership, what they mean is that he should talk about racism. That is aimed at tackling the personal. For better or worse, this President has decided to focus on the systemic.

A pragmatist's guide to criminal justice reform

"Years of intensive study — and decades of professional experience — have shown that we will never be able to prosecute and incarcerate our way to becoming a safer nation."

That is what Attorney General Eric Holder said in a speech this week to the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.

There is a movement underway to finally walk back the failed "war and drugs" and "tough on crime" initiatives that have caused so much havoc, ended so many lives and cost our country dearly. Its interesting to me that this movement is getting so little attention. Perhaps that's because it doesn't fit very well into our current obsession with how polarized our politics are these days. People on both the right and the left are joining this movement - perhaps for very different reasons. But regardless of motivations, most of them agree with what AG Holder said.

The Obama administration has launched three major initiatives in this area. The first was A Drug Policy for the 21st Century. The plan lays out four evidence-based strategies:

1. Prevent drug use through education
2. Expand access to treatment 
3. Reform our criminal justice system by keeping non-violent drug offenders out of prison
4. Support people in recovery

Echoing the quote from AG Holder above, the report on this initiative states:

While law enforcement will always play a vital role in protecting our communities from drug-related crime and violence, we simply cannot incarcerate our way out of the drug problem. Put simply, an enforcement-centric “war on drugs” approach to drug policy is counterproductive, inefficient, and costly.

Secondly, in order to challenge the "tough on crime" mantra that fueled so many of these failed policies, AG Holder initiated a Smart on Crime approach. It contains five principles:

1. Prioritize prosecutions to focus on the most serious cases
2. Reform sentencing to eliminate unfair disparities and reduce overburdened prisons
3. Pursue alternatives to incarceration for low-level nonviolent crimes
4. Improve reentry to curb repeat offenses and re-victimization
5. "Surge" resources to violence prevention and protecting most vulnerable populations 

It was at the announcement of this initiative that AG Holder issued a memo to federal prosecutors instructing them to charge non-violent drug offenders in such a way that they would avoid triggering mandatory minimum sentences (another "executive action" based on prosecutorial discretion that hasn't gotten much attention).

Finally, this April the Obama administration announced its Clemency Project 2014. We haven't heard much about that one lately. But I suspect that we are in the stage in which petitions are being prepared and/or reviewed. At some point in the next few months we are likely to begin hearing announcements about the granting of clemency to prisoners who qualify.

On the other side of the isle, the web site Right on Crime provides a clearinghouse for all the conservative initiatives that are currently underway - mostly at the state level. As I've mentioned before, states like Mississippi, South Carolina and Texas are undertaking major reforms to their criminal justice systems. At that site you'll find names like Grover Norquist, Mark Levin and Jeb Bush joining the bandwagon for reform.

For a bi-partisan and international approach to much of this, check out the signatories to Breaking the Taboo - an initiative focused on ending the war on drugs. You'll find that people like Lech Walesa, George Schultz, Noam Chomsky and President Jimmy Carter have signed on.

I see that some of my friends who are Obama supporters have taken to criticizing Sen. Cory Booker for teaming up with Sen. Rand Paul on a bill promoting reform. I don't support Rand Paul and wouldn't vote for him for dog-catcher - much less president. But when he supports a bill that allows teenagers and ex-offenders to have their records cleared of past offenses for low-level crimes, I'm ready to team up on that one! I think this is exactly what Bernice Johnson Reagon was talking about when she said:

...in order to take the next step we’ve got to do it with some folk we don’t care too much about. And we got to vomit over that for a little while. We must just keep going.

So yes, I'll vomit a bit over agreeing with libertarian Rand Paul (and all the conservatives who are joining this movement) and then get on with the business of reforming our criminal justice system. That's what pragmatists do.

Krugman admits Geithner was right and he was wrong

A lot of political commentary these days is focused on forecasting the future. As we learned with the Eric Cantor primary defeat, an awful lot of people get that prognosticating wrong. Sometimes its even more instructive to look backwards and see what we can learn from how actions taken in the past are working out in the present. On that front, the big news these days is that Obamacare is turning out to be way more effective than many on both the left and right predicted it would be.

The release of former Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner's book Stress Test has allowed folks like economist Paul Krugman to take some time to reflect on how the Obama administration's efforts to deal with the Great Recession look in hindsight.

As we all know Geithner became the lightening rod for people who went on a rage about the bailout of the banks by the federal government. Krugman was part of the left's contingent on that front. His recommendation - along with many other liberals - was that rather than bail out the banks, they should be nationalized (bought out by the federal government).

In Krugman's review of Stress Test, he does a good job of laying out the financial panic and what the government's choices were at the time. And then he issues a mea culpa.

Finally, there was Geithner’s position, which was that despite its scale the financial crisis should be treated more or less as an ordinary lender-of-last-resort problem—that temporary nationalization would hurt confidence and was unnecessary, that once the panic subsided banks would be OK. A principal part of Geithner’s argument against nationalization was the belief that a “stress test” of banks would show them to be in fairly decent shape, and that publishing the results of such a test would, in conjunction with promises to shore up banks when necessary, end the crisis. And so it proved. He was right; I was wrong; and the triumph of the stress test gave him the title for his book.

I always appreciate anyone who can admit they were wrong about something. So I congratulate Krugman in being able to say so in such an unequivocal way. As someone who has been one of President Obama's biggest critics from the left, Krugman seems to be changing his tune pretty regularly lately.

You should judge leaders by their achievements, not their press, and in terms of policy substance Mr. Obama is having a seriously good year. In fact, there’s a very good chance that 2014 will go down in the record books as one of those years when America took a major turn in the right direction.

Of course, in his review of Geithner's book, Krugman goes on to critique the Obama administration's performance after the panic about the banks subsided. He still maintains that they didn't do enough to provide a stimulus to the economy or mortgage relief for those facing foreclosure. On the former, I've said before that - when it comes to politics - Krugman should keep his day job as an economist. Any fiscal stimulus would have required cooperation from Congress and once Democrats lost the House and their super-majority in the Senate, there is no way that was going to happen. I have three words for anyone who doesn't think that the Obama administration went all-in on trying for more stimulus...American Jobs Act.

Krugman probably has a point about the administration not doing enough on mortgage relief. I've heard both President Obama and Geithner say the same thing when they reflect on their record. But the issues was not one of avoiding the problem, it was in finding a way to do something effectively. On that front, I want to give a big shoutout to my twitter friend @Sherifffruitfly for pointing me to this article by Felix Salmon on the same topic from back in October 2009.

This doesn’t mean that all these decisions were necessarily exactly right. But in politics, the quality of the implementation is often at least as important as the quality of the original decision. And the way that the Obama administration has spent its $787 billion, or avoided nationalizing the banks, or bailed out the auto industry, has been extremely professional and effective...

The point here is that policy initiatives are sometimes good and sometimes bad. We all disagree with some of the Obama administration’s decisions... But once that decision was made, it was handled very well, and seems to have had very little in the way of negative knock-on consequences.

The critique that might be leveled at the Obama administration is that they were too risk-averse when it comes to playing around with the home mortgage market. In other words, if they were going to do something radical, they needed to know that it was going to work and limit collateral damages. Obviously they were never able to come up with a plan that fit that criteria.

In many ways I'd suggest that Salmon has captured the essence of President Obama's pragmatism. On the things he chose not to do, we'll never know if the collateral damages might have outweighed the benefits. But on the things he has done, time has shown - over and over again - that they've worked because they have been so well thought-out. I suspect that as the years go by, more and more former critics will join Krugman in recognizing that.

Ideologues are NOT the answer to what ails us

When it comes to the civil war currently underway in the Republican Party (as evidenced by Rep. Eric Cantor's defeat), I've taken the position that I don't have a dog in that fight. In other words, I'm not going to take a position on who I'd like to see "win" that one. That's because I have concerns about both the lunacy of most of the tea party positions and the monied interests of the establishment.

There are voices on the left that want to embrace the "populism" that has gripped the tea party faction in this battle. If, by populism, we mean an equality of voice that balances an inequality of resources, then yes, I'm all for it. But Richard Eskow is asking us to embrace the very thing that makes tea partiers dangerous.

Unlike Cantor, who was a party apparatchik first and foremost, Brat is an ideologue. But is that bad? 

We all have our opinions about public policy. And most of the time those group into an overall philosophy that can be attached to what we call conservative, liberal or libertarian ideologies. But the ideologue attaches a fervency to their opinions that drives them to be more invested in defeating the "enemy" than solving programs, ie, governing. To actually govern in a democracy as big and diverse as the United States ultimately means being a pragmatist.

As an example, we saw how the ideologues on both sides of the political continuum reacted to the debate about health care reform. Even though President Obama and the Democrats proposed a plan that was based on a model developed by the very conservative Heritage Foundation, the right wing went apoplectic with charges of "socialism" and "death panels." Meanwhile, the left wing ideologues organized to "kill the bill" because it wasn't single payer. That's what ideologues do and, if we followed any of that noise, nothing would ever get done.

Rather than being the answer to what ails us, I believe that ideologues are the source of our problems these days. President Obama and many of the Democrats in Congress have embraced the idea of being pragmatic liberals. In the past, there have been pragmatic conservatives that I could respect - and at times even vote for (an example is former Governor of Minnesota, Arne Carlson). What all pragmatists share is a commitment to something President Obama articulated years ago.

Our goal should be to stick to our guns on those core values that make this country great, show a spirit of flexibility and sustained attention that can achieve those goals, and try to create the sort of serious, adult, consensus around our problems that can admit Democrats, Republicans and Independents of good will. This is more than just a matter of "framing," although clarity of language, thought, and heart are required. It's a matter of actually having faith in the American people's ability to hear a real and authentic debate about the issues that matter.

Yeah, I know its a bit of a pipe dream - especially these days with the extreme polarization we're experiencing in our politics. But as Obama said, its a "core value" that is a requirement for a functioning democracy. So I'm going to stick to it because I don't want to contemplate (or contribute to) the alternative.

Why the Shinseki resignation was the pragmatic thing to do; and why that pisses off this pragmatist

When the story about the problems at the Phoenix VA gained national attention, the media could have launched journalistic investigations into what created the problem. And Congress could have held hearings to educate both themselves and the public about what went wrong.

But that's not what they did. Both groups determined that it was in their self-interests to engage in finger-pointing and scapegoating. And so the discussion centered around whether or not General Shinseki should resign. That fed the media's need for the hysteria that generates good linkbait and it gave politicians running for re-election a 5-second sound bite to assure voters they cared about the issue.

Once that frenzi got going, even people like Rep. Tammy Duckworth - who had originally focused on fixing the real problems - decided to join in the call for Shinseki's resignation because nothing was going to get done until/unless that was taken off the table. That's what pragmatists who actually care about veterans have to do once this kind of thing gets going. I suspect that was also what the conversation between General Shinseki and President Obama was all about earlier today.

What pisses me off about that is not the pragmatism demonstrated by that response. Its that it all makes the challenge of solving this problem even harder. Here's what Catherine Burke - an expert in public administration - wrote just prior to the announcement about Shinseki's resignation.

Given the general’s history and capability, he has actually made many things much better at the VA during his term of office. Forcing him out now is likely to make the situation at the VA worse — not better — as there will be no one in place for some time to actually take charge to fix the problem. A new secretary, even after the staggeringly long time it would take for nomination and confirmation, will take months more to learn who is who in the department: who is trustworthy, who is or is not competent, and which systems are the root cause of the problems. No one gets four stars without being extraordinarily capable; thus Shinseki may actually be the best person to identify the sources of the problems and to get them fixed.

As long as the media and politicians find it in their self-interests to engage in hysterical linkbait and 5-second soundbites, we'll continue to find ourselves caught up in this kind of frenzi rather than engaged in pragmatic problem-solving. Our power to change things lies in not following the linkbait, not engaging in the hysteria, and not buying the sound bites. That's something President Obama has been asking us to do for a very long time now.

I firmly believe that whenever we exaggerate or demonize, or oversimplify or overstate our case, we lose. Whenever we dumb down the political debate, we lose. A polarized electorate that is turned off of politics, and easily dismisses both parties because of the nasty, dishonest tone of the debate, works perfectly well for those who seek to chip away at the very idea of government because, in the end, a cynical electorate is a selfish electorate...

Our goal should be to stick to our guns on those core values that make this country great, show a spirit of flexibility and sustained attention that can achieve those goals, and try to create the sort of serious, adult, consensus around our problems that can admit Democrats, Republicans and Independents of good will.

When obstruction meets pragmatism

Those posters highlight just a few facts about the success of Obamacare. You can find a lot more here.

All of that creates a pretty big dilemma for Republicans who - from day one of the debate about health care reform - have chosen to simply obstruct anything President Obama and the Democrats tried to do. As David Frum told them 4 years ago, by refusing to even participate in the discussion, they were buying into creating their own Waterloo.

No illusions please: This bill will not be repealed. Even if Republicans scored a 1994 style landslide in November, how many votes could we muster to re-open the “doughnut hole” and charge seniors more for prescription drugs? How many votes to re-allow insurers to rescind policies when they discover a pre-existing condition? How many votes to banish 25 year olds from their parents’ insurance coverage? And even if the votes were there – would President Obama sign such a repeal?

We followed the most radical voices in the party and the movement, and they led us to abject and irreversible defeat.

Of course it was that kind of pragmatic talk that got Frum kicked out of the Republican tribe.

After Obamacare passed, the Republican mantra became "Repeal and Replace." The trouble is, they never got around to the "Replace" part. And now that its working for millions of Americans, they have a problem. As one Republican aid told Sahil Kapur:

As far as repeal and replace goes, the problem with replace is that if you really want people to have these new benefits, it looks a hell of a lot like the Affordable Care Act. ... To make something like that work, you have to move in the direction of the ACA.

Yesterday President Obama said, "This thing is working." That's what happens when you build a policy on pragmatism. Where does that leave the Republicans? Brian Beutler points out that The Republican Position on Obamacare Makes No Sense Anymore. Because nobody believes there is any GOP alternative to Obamacare.

It all reminds me of something Mark Schmitt wrote about President Obama's approach to creating change way back in 2007.

One way to deal with that kind of bad-faith opposition is to draw the person in, treat them as if they were operating in good faith, and draw them into a conversation about how they actually would solve the problem. If they have nothing, it shows. And that's not a tactic of bipartisan Washington idealists -- it's a hard-nosed tactic of community organizers, who are acutely aware of power and conflict.

Being pragmatic doesn't tend to get you the soundbite or linkbait that so often fuels our hysteria-driven media. But if you're willing to play the long game, it not only works...it is an excellent strategy for boxing in the obstructionists.

This is how pragmatism wins...

...it works!!!!

Power games don't work because in order to attack pragmatic solutions, they have to be based on lies. Dogmatic idealism doesn't work because it is never achievable. 

President Obama has succeeded because his North Star has always been to fight for policies that work for the American people. Sometimes you have to keep your eye on the long game in order to see that. But for those of us who have consistently been able to do that - this is ONE SWEET DAY!!!!

"The single best US analyst of Middle Eastern politics is Barack Obama"

As regular readers here know, I've been pretty hard on the failure of our media lately. But the truth is, there are exceptions. Given that my focus over the last few years has been to try to understand President Obama, there are a few reporters who have ignored the "inside the bubble" conventional wisdom and eschewed partisan spin to simply listen/observe in an effort to provide us with insight into his approach.

Two of the people who have done that are Michael Lewis and David Remnick. In addition, two years ago Jeffrey Goldberg interviewed President Obama on the topic of Israel/Iran and provided us with some fascinating insights that I recently suggested go beyond that topic. And then yesterday, Goldberg published another lengthy interview he had with the President last week that provides the same kind of insight. While the interview took place prior to the most recent events in Ukraine, it provides us with some grounding that counters much of the spin we're currently being subjected to about his approach. So if you are reeling a bit from all of that, I highly recommend you follow the link and read this one.

What we see from this interview is confirmation once again of President Obama's long view, his pragmatism and his efforts to use his opponents objectives to accomplish his own (an affirmation of the Aikido Way).

The Long View

In reference to his communication with Netanyahu:

What I’ve said to him privately is the same thing that I say publicly, which is the situation will not improve or resolve itself. This is not a situation where you wait and the problem goes away. There are going to be more Palestinians, not fewer Palestinians, as time goes on. There are going to be more Arab-Israelis, not fewer Arab-Israelis, as time goes on...

And my assessment, which is shared by a number of Israeli observers, I think, is there comes a point where you can’t manage this anymore, and then you start having to make very difficult choices. Do you resign yourself to what amounts to a permanent occupation of the West Bank? Is that the character of Israel as a state for a long period of time? Do you perpetuate, over the course of a decade or two decades, more and more restrictive policies in terms of Palestinian movement? Do you place restrictions on Arab-Israelis in ways that run counter to Israel’s traditions?...

...one of the things my mom always used to tell me and I didn’t always observe, but as I get older I agree with -- is if there’s something you know you have to do, even if it's difficult or unpleasant, you might as well just go ahead and do it, because waiting isn’t going to help. When I have a conversation with Bibi, that’s the essence of my conversation: If not now, when? And if not you, Mr. Prime Minister, then who? How does this get resolved?

Gotta love the combination of mom advice with the Rabbi Hillel quote, don't you? But basically what President Obama is suggesting is that - if we take the long view - the status quo means things get worse for Israel. Demographics alone make that the case. As challenging as the situation is now, it will only get worse in the future for Israel. That is the perspective a long view provides.

Pragmatism

President Obama makes it clear that the focus must be on solutions.

I have not yet heard, however, a persuasive vision of how Israel survives as a democracy and a Jewish state at peace with its neighbors in the absence of a peace deal with the Palestinians and a two-state solution. Nobody has presented me a credible scenario.

The only thing that I’ve heard is, "We’ll just keep on doing what we’re doing, and deal with problems as they arise. And we'll build settlements where we can. And where there are problems in the West Bank, we will deal with them forcefully. We’ll cooperate or co-opt the Palestinian Authority." And yet, at no point do you ever see an actual resolution to the problem.

I think its safe to assume that what the President describes in that second paragraph is what he's hearing from Netanyahu. However, the long view suggests that the status quo is not sustainable. So the focus needs to be on pragmatic solutions that work for both Israel and Palestine.

What we can take from all of this is that while President Obama has been unwavering in his support of Israel, he is also placing tremendous pressure on Netanyahu to abandon the status quo and work with the Palestinians.

The Aikido Way

The end of the interview shifts from a focus on the Israel/Palestinian issue to the topic of Iran. A pragmatic assessment provides the President with this insight.

What I’ll say is that if you look at Iranian behavior, they are strategic, and they’re not impulsive. They have a worldview, and they see their interests, and they respond to costs and benefits. And that isn’t to say that they aren’t a theocracy that embraces all kinds of ideas that I find abhorrent, but they’re not North Korea. They are a large, powerful country that sees itself as an important player on the world stage, and I do not think has a suicide wish, and can respond to incentives. And that’s the reason why they came to the table on sanctions.

Based on that, President Obama has made the calculation that we can negotiate an end to Iran's quest for nuclear weapons in exchange for their involvement in the Middle East as a "competitor" rather than "enemy."

If...they are capable of changing; if, in fact, as a consequence of a deal on their nuclear program those voices and trends inside of Iran are strengthened, and their economy becomes more integrated into the international community, and there’s more travel and greater openness, even if that takes a decade or 15 years or 20 years, then that’s very much an outcome we should desire.

Throughout the article, President Obama demonstrates a deep understanding of history, the nature of the Sunni/Shia conflict in the Middle East and the balancing act of diplomacy vs military intervention. And so perhaps it shouldn't surprise us that at least one journalist responded to the article with this:

I'm increasingly of the view that the single best US analyst of Middle Eastern politics is Barack Obama: http://t.co/HPx6RPqV7W
— Michael Cohen (@speechboy71) March 2, 2014

The Cold War legacy of "leading from behind"

One of my favorite people on twitter said this today:

I like to have opinions but there are things I don't understand. It's a dilemma.
— Bearded Stoner (@beardedstoner) March 2, 2014

Yeah!!! I'm as caught up in the events unfolding in Ukraine as any other political junkie. But to be really honest, I think this is a terribly complex situation and I'm willing to embrace the fact that - on this one - there are things I simply don't understand. So I'm going to avoid any predictions about what will happen or advice about what the President should/shouldn't do.

But of course our media needs to hype this situation up in order to maximize eyeballs and clicks. To listen to them you'd think NOTHING THIS BAD HAS EVER HAPPENED!!!! That's why the one article on it all that I'd suggest you read comes from Sam Tanehaus in the NYT. As is almost always the case, a little historical perspective is always a good idea.

As folks seem intent on seeing the events in Ukraine as a resurgence of the Cold War, Tanehaus suggests that doesn't mean what a lot of people think it does.

That image of a chessboard — an epic contest between two giant players, carefully nudging their pieces around the globe as part of a grand strategy — has indeed become a familiar metaphor for the Cold War. But it is misleading. Many decisions remembered today for their farsighted, tactical brilliance were denounced in their day as weak-willed. And big, public gestures often made less difference than the small, hidden ones.

Born in tandem with the nuclear age, the Cold War was defined from the outset less by outright confrontation than by caution. And with caution came adjustment, compromise, improvisation and at times retreat. As often as not, both sides blinked...

In fact the costliest maneuvers — chess-piece gambits in Korea and Vietnam — backfired, increasing tensions abroad even as they shook public confidence at home.

Tanehaus goes on to provide specific examples of presidential actions that were decried as "weak-willed" in their day, but which history has recorded as "farsighted, tactical brilliance." For example:

• 1956 - President Eisenhower refused to intervene when the Red Army killed 30,000 in Budapest to quell anti-communist protests.
• 1962 - President Kennedy negotiated an end to the Cuban Missile Crisis by agreeing to remove US missiles in Turkey.
• 1981 - President Reagan's quiet response to the imposition of martial law in Poland to stop the Solidarity Movement. 

Here's what he says about that last one:

Or consider the most hallowed of Republican Cold War presidents, Ronald Reagan. Early in his first term, he too faced a Ukraine-like emergency when the Solidarity movement was crushed in Poland. Many expected a powerful response. Instead he showed restraint. He voiced sympathy for the movement, but the assistance he provided came quietly — and covertly, in part — through money and communications equipment funneled to anti-Communists. 

My, oh my! One might have suggested that Reagan chose to "lead from behind."

As many in the media and on the right attempt to emasculate President Obama for taking a similar approach to dealing with the situation in the Ukraine, its worth remembering just how wrong history proves them to be.

Understanding President Obama

I've spent a lot of time over the last six years observing President Obama and trying to understand him. From a personal standpoint, that's because I find him to be a fascinating human being. But from a political standpoint, I also think that he is a unique figure in our history. We have the benefit of living that history in the present moment rather than reading about it in books. It has been my passion to take it all in and try to understand what is happening.

Many people have commented that Barack Obama became a blank screen onto which people projected their own desires and fears. In watching the coverage of his presidency, I find that to be true. It has been frustrating to watch people simply put him into a pre-fabricated box of their own making rather than listen to what he says and watch what he does. On the extreme right, he has become the socialist demon and on the extreme left the corporate tool. That's what they expected and that's what they see. Every word uttered and every action taken is twisted in order to fit the mold. But those caricatures rarely bear any resemblance to the actual man who is our President. And so, whether you agree with him or not, disabusing ourselves of those projections and being open to who he actually is allows us to see the reality at play in this historical moment.

On a couple of occasions, journalists have attempted to approach President Obama with that kind of openness and given us a glimpse into the man they see. Such was the case when Michael Lewis was given extraordinary access and produced the article titled Obama's Way. Recently, David Remnick (author of The Bridge: The Life and Rise of Barack Obama - which I recommend that everyone read) gave us another look. I'd like to take a few minutes to cull what I see as significant insights from that article.

First up, President Obama talks about race - both in the context of himself as well as its role in politics. On so many issues, we see the President make a both/and (rather than either/or) argument. But never more so than when it comes to this topic.

“There’s no doubt that there’s some folks who just really dislike me because they don’t like the idea of a black President,” Obama said. “Now, the flip side of it is there are some black folks and maybe some white folks who really like me and give me the benefit of the doubt precisely because I’m a black President.”

To my recollection, that is the first time I've heard President Obama acknowledge that race is a factor for some of his critics...a BFD! But notice that he immediately balances that with the idea that race also plays a role for some of his admirers. I imagine that this tendency of his to do the both/and is maddening to those who feel the very real anger of racism. But this is quintessential Obama, isn't it? He has been so steeped in the value of empathy that he rarely comes down on one side of an argument in righteous rage. His natural instinct seems to be to immediately place himself in the opposition's shoes in order to understand their perspective. Like it or not, if you're going to understand President Obama, this is one of the most important things to notice. Its the very thing that made his speech on race during the 2008 primaries so unique...he wanted white people to understand what racism looked like from the perspective of African Americans. But he also wanted African Americans to understand what it looked like from a white working class perspective.

In reflecting on the office of the presidency, Obama talked about his reaction to watching the movie Lincoln:

“The real politics resonated with me, because I have yet to see something that we’ve done, or any President has done, that was really important and good, that did not involve some mess and some strong-arming and some shading of how it was initially talked about to a particular member of the legislature who you needed a vote from. Because, if you’re doing big, hard things, then there is going to be some hair on it—there’s going to be some aspects of it that aren’t clean and neat and immediately elicit applause from everybody. And so the nature of not only politics but, I think, social change of any sort is that it doesn’t move in a straight line, and that those who are most successful typically are tacking like a sailor toward a particular direction but have to take into account winds and currents and occasionally the lack of any wind, so that you’re just sitting there for a while, and sometimes you’re being blown all over the place.”

That reminded me of how President Obama talked about his North Star early on in his presidency.

So, my job is to make sure that we have a North Star out there, what is helping people live out their lives; what is giving them more opportunity; what is growing the economy; what is making us more competitive. At any given juncture there are going to be times that my preferred option, what I am absolutely, positively sure is right, I can’t get done. And so then, my question is, does it make sense for me to tack a little bit this way or that way because I am keeping my eye on the long-term and the long fight. Not my day-to-day news cycle, but where am I going over the long-term.

As an example of how he keeps his focus on that North Star, Reminck relates this episode:

Last summer, he received a letter from a single mother struggling to support herself and her daughter on a minimal income. She was drowning: “I need help. I can’t imagine being out in the streets with my daughter and if I don’t get some type of relief soon, I’m afraid that’s what may happen.” “Copy to Senior Advisers,” Obama wrote at the bottom of the letter. “This is the person we are working for.”

Oh my! So much for the corporate tool argument. One can make the claim that President Obama's policies might not do enough to help this mother - that he's tacking too much - but he has consistently held to this priority. And in the end,  he says that this is how he wants his presidency to be judged.

“I think we are fortunate at the moment that we do not face a crisis of the scale and scope that Lincoln or F.D.R. faced. So I think it’s unrealistic to suggest that I can narrow my focus the way those two Presidents did. But I can tell you that I will measure myself at the end of my Presidency in large part by whether I began the process of rebuilding the middle class and the ladders into the middle class, and reversing the trend toward economic bifurcation in this society.”

There is a lot of discussion in Remnick's article about foreign policy - specifically in the Middle east. On the topic of terrorism, he asks the President about the fact that Al Qaeda now appears to be in control of Falluja. Obama uses the opportunity to talk about how we need to alter the way we view terrorism post 9/11.

“The analogy we use around here sometimes, and I think is accurate, is if a jayvee team puts on Lakers uniforms that doesn’t make them Kobe Bryant,” Obama said, resorting to an uncharacteristically flip analogy. “I think there is a distinction between the capacity and reach of a bin Laden and a network that is actively planning major terrorist plots against the homeland versus jihadists who are engaged in various local power struggles and disputes, often sectarian.

“Let’s just keep in mind, Falluja is a profoundly conservative Sunni city in a country that, independent of anything we do, is deeply divided along sectarian lines. And how we think about terrorism has to be defined and specific enough that it doesn’t lead us to think that any horrible actions that take place around the world that are motivated in part by an extremist Islamic ideology are a direct threat to us or something that we have to wade into.”

This kind of nuanced thinking about the complexities involved in our response to terrorism is totally missed by those who claim that this administration is continuing the fear-mongering we were subjected to by Bush/Cheney. That distinction and nuance is carried on as the President talks about the use of drones.

“I think any President should be troubled by any war or any kinetic action that leads to death,” Obama told me when I brought up Yousafzai’s remarks. “The way I’ve thought about this issue is, I have a solemn duty and responsibility to keep the American people safe. That’s my most important obligation as President and Commander-in-Chief. And there are individuals and groups out there that are intent on killing Americans—killing American civilians, killing American children, blowing up American planes. That’s not speculation. It’s their explicit agenda.”

Obama said that, if terrorists can be captured and prosecuted, “that’s always my preference. If we can’t, I cannot stand by and do nothing. They operate in places where oftentimes we cannot reach them, or the countries are either unwilling or unable to capture them in partnership with us. And that then narrows my options: we can simply be on defense and try to harden our defense. But in this day and age that’s of limited—well, that’s insufficient. We can say to those countries, as my predecessor did, if you are harboring terrorists, we will hold you accountable—in which case, we could be fighting a lot of wars around the world. And, statistically, it is indisputable that the costs in terms of not only our men and women in uniform but also innocent civilians would be much higher. Or, where possible, we can take targeted strikes, understanding that anytime you take a military strike there are risks involved. What I’ve tried to do is to tighten the process so much and limit the risks of civilian casualties so much that we have the least fallout from those actions. But it’s not perfect.”

I find the statement I bolded most fascinating. It is often ignored when the President's critics accuse him of being just like (or worse than) Bush. President Obama acknowledges that his actions aren't perfect. But he wants us to think about the alternatives. Rather than invading whole countries because they harbor terrorists, he has chosen a different path. This is obviously something he has struggled with. And later on in this article, he sounds positively Niebuhrian in how he talks about it.

“I have strengths and I have weaknesses, like every President, like every person,” Obama said. “I do think one of my strengths is temperament. I am comfortable with complexity, and I think I’m pretty good at keeping my moral compass while recognizing that I am a product of original sin. And every morning and every night I’m taking measure of my actions against the options and possibilities available to me, understanding that there are going to be mistakes that I make and my team makes and that America makes; understanding that there are going to be limits to the good we can do and the bad that we can prevent, and that there’s going to be tragedy out there and, by occupying this office, I am part of that tragedy occasionally, but that if I am doing my very best and basing my decisions on the core values and ideals that I was brought up with and that I think are pretty consistent with those of most Americans, that at the end of the day things will be better rather than worse.”

President Obama knows that even the leader of the free world has to keep his place in the scheme of things in perspective.

“One of the things that I’ve learned to appreciate more as President is you are essentially a relay swimmer in a river full of rapids, and that river is history,” he later told me. “You don’t start with a clean slate, and the things you start may not come to full fruition on your timetable. But you can move things forward. And sometimes the things that start small may turn out to be fairly significant...

“I think we are born into this world and inherit all the grudges and rivalries and hatreds and sins of the past,” he said. “But we also inherit the beauty and the joy and goodness of our forebears. And we’re on this planet a pretty short time, so that we cannot remake the world entirely during this little stretch that we have.” The long view again. “But I think our decisions matter,” he went on. “And I think America was very lucky that Abraham Lincoln was President when he was President. If he hadn’t been, the course of history would be very different. But I also think that, despite being the greatest President, in my mind, in our history, it took another hundred and fifty years before African-Americans had anything approaching formal equality, much less real equality. I think that doesn’t diminish Lincoln’s achievements, but it acknowledges that at the end of the day we’re part of a long-running story. We just try to get our paragraph right.”

Some people are suggesting that this represents a kind of resignation from President Obama that is in contrast to where he started six years ago. But I am reminded of how his wife Michelle described his foray into politics way back in 2005.

Barack is not a politician first and foremost. He's a community activist exploring the viability of politics to make change.

President Obama's response upon hearing that description was to see it as a compliment. Certainly he's learned a thing or two about "the viability of politics to make change" in the last six years. But I'm also reminded of what he said exactly one year ago today.

We must act, knowing that our work will be imperfect. We must act, knowing that today’s victories will be only partial and that it will be up to those who stand here in four years and 40 years and 400 years hence to advance the timeless spirit once conferred to us in a spare Philadelphia hall.

This is a President who has always believed in the long game. Anyone who wants to understand him needs to at least get that one.

Robert Gates' criticisms reflect well on our Commander-in-Chief

Instead of being filtered through Bob Woodward's bias, today we have former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates in his own words via an excerpt of his book in the Wall Street Journal. One of the most interesting passages came when he was talking about the similarities between George W. Bush and President Obama.

Both, I believe, detested Congress and resented having to deal with it, including members of their own party.

But then two paragraphs down, Gates goes on to talk about what appears to be his biggest problem with Washington:

Congress is best viewed from a distance—the farther the better—because up close, it is truly ugly. I saw most of Congress as uncivil, incompetent at fulfilling their basic constitutional responsibilities (such as timely appropriations), micromanagerial, parochial, hypocritical, egotistical, thin-skinned and prone to put self (and re-election) before country.

Kinda makes you wonder who exactly it is that "detested Congress and resented having to deal with it." I'll grant you, it might be that they all have a point. But Gates can hardly critique the 2 presidents he worked for when he so obviously shares their disdain.

Perhaps even more significant, however, is the fact that Gates asserts that President Obama didn't trust senior military leaders.

Obama was respectful of senior officers and always heard them out, but he often disagreed with them and was deeply suspicious of their actions and recommendations.

And yet Gates himself is the one that tells us that right from the beginning of President Obama's first term, he had very good reason to be suspicious. From the Woodward article we saw that the President was angry when Petraeus leaked information to the press about his disagreement with the plan in Afghanistan. In this excerpt we learn what General McChrystal did just prior to that.

But I believe the major reason the protracted, frustrating Afghanistan policy review held in the fall of 2009 created so much ill will was due to the fact it was forced on an otherwise controlling White House by the theater commander's unexpected request for a large escalation of American involvement. Gen. Stanley McChrystal's request surprised the White House (and me) and provoked a debate that the White House didn't want, especially when it became public. I think Obama and his advisers were incensed that the Department of Defense—specifically the uniformed military—had taken control of the policy process from them and threatened to run away with it.

Remember that both of these incidents involving senior military leaders (Petraeus and McChrystal) happened in the fall of 2009 at the very beginning of President Obama's first term. Even Gates acknowledges that these were attempts to put control of the policy process in the hands of the Generals rather than the Commander-in-Chief. And yet he still criticizes President Obama for being suspicious. It is actually a big concern to me that on two occasions in this short excerpt, Gates points out that then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton joined him in this critique of the President. If she decides to run in 2016 it will be important to consider whether or not she would provide the kind of civilian oversight of the military that we should expect from our Commander-in-Chief.

Gates' big concern was that the non-military members of the administration were too controlling (ie, insisted on being part of the decision-making process). Early on he posits that this was about politics.

With Obama, however, I joined a new, inexperienced president determined to change course—and equally determined from day one to win re-election. Domestic political considerations would therefore be a factor, though I believe never a decisive one, in virtually every major national security problem we tackled.

Given that this administration walked into the threat of a second Great Depression, it should come as no surprise to anyone that domestic political considerations would be a factor in EVERY conversation. That would be necessary for both policy as well as political reasons. The fact that even Gates admits that these factors were never decisive in foreign policy matters should be viewed as a credit to the President and his administration.

Many of the things President Obama faced coming into office - including what to do in Afghanistan - were intractable problems that belied easy solutions. What we learn from Gates is a bit more about the tensions behind the scenes during that decision-making process. Going forward, we're likely to see some of the same tensions come into play as he continues efforts to end the war on al Qaeda, bring our troops home from Afghanistan, give diplomacy a chance in Iran, and reform the practices of the NSA.

In light of all that, I am reminded that a break from the U.S. hegemony of the past means that these foreign policy questions are going to be complicated and that any president will have to deal with the world as it is rather than as we want it to be. That will lead to both failures and successes. We must evaluate our Commander-in-Chief on how they manage the tensions that exist not only around the globe, but here at home - even within their own administration. And so contrary to what some are suggesting, I find that Gates' account enlightens us about the complexity involved in being this country's Commander-in Chief and I am once again impressed with the job President Obama is doing.

The populist committed to dealing with income inequality: President Obama

Sometimes I get really tired of reading the lazy superficial political analysis of many of our so-called "liberal" pundits. This time its E. J. Dionne who joins the chorus of people suggesting that newly inaugurated Mayor Bill de Blasio joins Senator Elizabeth Warren in sparking a resurgent left to combat the radical right. In his view, politics sounds like a game of tug-o-war and the problem has been a lack of muscle on the left forming a counter-weight to the lunacy on the right.

For a long time, the American conversation has been terribly distorted because an active, uncompromising political right has not had to face a comparably influential left. As a result, our entire debate has been dragged in a conservative direction, meaning that the center has been pulled that way, too.

If you listen carefully to what he's saying, its all an either/or struggle and if the left got as uncompromising as the right, we'd wind up somewhere in the middle. Yeah, right. I guess it never dawns on these people that that's exactly what the strategists on the right want...total gridlock that sends everyone away screaming "a pox on both your houses!" Or perhaps Dionne just thinks that the Republicans have been fooling us all these years with their commitment to total obstruction and that they would have caved in their demands if only there had been a more uncompromising left. That's why I call this kind of analysis lazy. I doubt he's even bothered to think it through. Its a theory that sounds good in abstract. But when you go beyond the superficial, it makes zero sense.

Of course Dionne trots out the tired old lefty arguments to bolster his case about how Obamacare was simply a give-away to the insurance companies with - GASP - no public option.

Obamacare is complex because the government is trying to create a marketplace in which people shop for private insurance and receive government subsidies if they need them. It goes to a lot of trouble to preserve the private insurance market. The system does not even include a government plan as one option among many.

There is no mention of the fact that Obamacare begins the process of decoupling health insurance from employment, includes the largest expansion of Medicaid in the program's history, or initiates huge changes to the private insurance business model (no exclusion for pre-esisting conditions, no medical underwriting, no lifetime limits, guaranteed essential benefits and overhead/profit limited to 15% of premium dollars). What we got is the most sweeping progressive change to health care in our country's history after over 100 years of failed attempts. But in Dionne's eyes, it was all just a cave to the uncompromising right.

Dionne goes on to herald the populism of politicians like de Blasio for talking about income inequality. And like Peter Beinart (who started this whole meme) he totally misses that the populism was also fueled by the new Mayor's gorgeous bi-racial family and his promise to end the ridiculous stop and frisk policies of his predecessor. In other words, de Blasio energized the Obama coalition in New York City...big time! You want leftist populism - that's where you're going to find it in this country's future. Our mostly white punditry keeps missing that one.

If you want to find a national figure that has championed populism to take on the issue of income inequality, you need look no further than our current President. As I've demonstrated before, tackling those issues is something President Obama has talked about from the beginning and is the reason he ran in the first place. Campaigns that were fueled by small donors, efforts to build on that with OFA and a message that "nothing can stand in the way of millions of voices calling for change" might not rely on the word "populism," but no one can doubt that it is at the heart of what he has been committed to from day one.

So I welcome these new faces like Mayor de Blasio and Senator Warren to the table. But lets not forget who set it in the first place. That would be the guy who threw out the failed tug-o-war gridlock way of thinking about politics and built a coalition to actually get some real stuff done.

Mandela the pragmatist

One of the problems with putting people up on a pedestal is that they become ethereal. From everything I've read about Nelson Mandela, he was a uniquely confident but humble man. One of his most famous quotes is "I am not a saint, unless you think of a saint as a sinner who keeps on trying."

Far from ethereal, according to his biographer Richard Stengel, Mandela was grounded in the long view while being a master tactician and pragmatist. Here are some excerpts from Stengel's identification of Mandela's 8 lessons of leadership:

Mandela is the closest thing the world has to a secular saint, but he would be the first to admit that he is something far more pedestrian: a politician. He overthrew apartheid and created a nonracial democratic South Africa by knowing precisely when and how to transition between his roles as warrior, martyr, diplomat and statesman. Uncomfortable with abstract philosophical concepts, he would often say to me that an issue "was not a question of principle; it was a question of tactics." He is a master tactician...

His unwavering principle — the overthrow of apartheid and the achievement of one man, one vote — was immutable, but almost anything that helped him get to that goal he regarded as a tactic. He is the most pragmatic of idealists.

"He's a historical man," says Ramaphosa. "He was thinking way ahead of us. He has posterity in mind: How will they view what we've done?" Prison gave him the ability to take the long view. It had to; there was no other view possible. He was thinking in terms of not days and weeks but decades. He knew history was on his side, that the result was inevitable; it was just a question of how soon and how it would be achieved. "Things will be better in the long run," he sometimes said. He always played for the long run...

Mandela loved to reminisce about his boyhood and his lazy afternoons herding cattle. "You know," he would say, "you can only lead them from behind." He would then raise his eyebrows to make sure I got the analogy.

As a boy, Mandela was greatly influenced by Jongintaba, the tribal king who raised him. When Jongintaba had meetings of his court, the men gathered in a circle, and only after all had spoken did the king begin to speak. The chief's job, Mandela said, was not to tell people what to do but to form a consensus. "Don't enter the debate too early," he used to say...

Mandela was a lawyer, and in prison he helped the warders with their legal problems. They were far less educated and worldly than he, and it was extraordinary to them that a black man was willing and able to help them. These were "the most ruthless and brutal of the apartheid regime's characters," says Allister Sparks, the great South African historian, and he "realized that even the worst and crudest could be negotiated with."...

Mandela believed that embracing his rivals was a way of controlling them: they were more dangerous on their own than within his circle of influence. He cherished loyalty, but he was never obsessed by it. After all, he used to say, "people act in their own interest." It was simply a fact of human nature, not a flaw or a defect. The flip side of being an optimist — and he is one — is trusting people too much. But Mandela recognized that the way to deal with those he didn't trust was to neutralize them with charm...

Mandela is comfortable with contradiction. As a politician, he was a pragmatist who saw the world as infinitely nuanced...Every problem has many causes. While he was indisputably and clearly against apartheid, the causes of apartheid were complex. They were historical, sociological and psychological. Mandela's calculus was always, What is the end that I seek, and what is the most practical way to get there?...

Knowing how to abandon a failed idea, task or relationship is often the most difficult kind of decision a leader has to make. In many ways, Mandela's greatest legacy as President of South Africa is the way he chose to leave it. When he was elected in 1994, Mandela probably could have pressed to be President for life — and there were many who felt that in return for his years in prison, that was the least South Africa could do..."His job was to set the course," says Ramaphosa, "not to steer the ship." He knows that leaders lead as much by what they choose not to do as what they do.

While looking for images to go with this post, I was struck by the power of Nelson Mandela's smile. It reaches out and grabs you and is there in his eyes even when not present on his lips.

I believe that Mandela was a truly joyful man. But according to Stengel, that smile had a pragmatic role to play as well.

When Mandela was running for the presidency in 1994, he knew that symbols mattered as much as substance. He was never a great public speaker, and people often tuned out what he was saying after the first few minutes. But it was the iconography that people understood. When he was on a platform, he would always do the toyi-toyi, the township dance that was an emblem of the struggle. But more important was that dazzling, beatific, all-inclusive smile. For white South Africans, the smile symbolized Mandela's lack of bitterness and suggested that he was sympathetic to them. To black voters, it said, I am the happy warrior, and we will triumph. The ubiquitous ANC election poster was simply his smiling face. "The smile," says Ramaphosa, "was the message."

So while we venerate Nelson Mandela, let us not forget that he was a man who was grounded in what it took to engage in the struggle and win. Those are lessons in life and leadership we can all emulate.

Why the most liberal president in a generation is driving some progressives bonkers

Just as President Obama is taking huge steps to walk back the imperial presidency and making tremendous strides on issues like health care reform and LGBT rights and ending the war on drugs and fighting to curb climate change and ending the perpetual war and taking on the NRA and fighting for immigration reform and trying to curb the rising costs of college tuition and proposing things like a minimum wage increase along with universal day care, there is a group of progressives who have gone absolutely bonkers with their conspiracy theories about him. As Bob Cesca points out this morning, many of them are are so deranged that they're staring to line up with tea party libertarians to destroy the Democratic Party.

Its no wonder that many of us are saying "WTH? Why now? You want to jump ship just when we're starting to make some progress?"

To be honest, I've been trying to understand this particular variety of Obama Derangement Syndrome for quite a while now. It doesn't speak well to the potential for what the late Sen. Paul Wellstone called "the democratic wing of the Democratic Party." Politically, that's where I've tended to find my "home" for years now. But I find that I have almost nothing in common with them these days.

The only thing I can make of it is that these folks never contemplated what it means to be on the inside of the political game as opposed to the outside. They got so used to being cynical about government that they don't know what it means to actually govern. So even when we've got someone in a power position on the inside, the cynicism prevails and their only recourse politically is a freefall into libertarianism.

Due to the fact that this is a really big country with lots of divergent views on politics combined with the fact that we still have at least the vestiges of a democratic republic, governing is always going to be about compromise and incremental steps towards change. If someone like Sen. Bernie Sanders could get elected president, much less actually govern when he got there, I suspect he would have given it a go by now. I'll at least give him credit for knowing better.

The other thing these folks seem to have missed is that they never learned the historical lesson about how outside activists have actually accomplished change. President Obama remembers:

Everyone who realizes what those glorious patriots knew on that day -- that change does not come from Washington, but to Washington; that change has always been built on our willingness, We The People, to take on the mantle of citizenship.

While they spend their time ranting about what President Obama has/has not done,  the real change agents in our past spent their time convincing the people that change was necessary. And eventually the politicians took note. As the saying goes..."when the people lead, the leaders will follow." That's how democracy works.

What I learned a few years ago from Al Giordano is that to be that kind of change agent is inglorious work often done in the trenches rather than in the spotlight. These folks thought President Obama was going to do it all for them. And when that road got difficult and strewn with too many compromises, they started abandoning ship. A moment in the sun (ie, on the Daily Kos recommended list LOL) with their ranting and raging was the alternative course they took.

Sometimes I can despair about what this means for the future of the "democratic wing of the Democratic Party." And then I remember the group President Obama was talking to here.



In addition to what he accomplishes in office to slowly turn this ship of state in a more progressive direction, they will be his legacy.