To Beat the Drum (or the Horse) Further Posted by Michael Signer

So, the military benefits issue has been exploding all over the place, and all the 2008 Presidential playas (or so they think) are claiming credit for a lot of recent Congressional activity.  Just today, I got an e-mail from the John Kerry machine -- gearing up already.  To wit:

Yesterday, I put our values to a vote -- advancing two key elements of our Military Families Bill of Rights. Their successful passage produced a dramatic victory for military families that have sacrificed so much for our country.

You made it happen. By giving voice to our values over months of effort, the johnkerry.com community moved military families closer to the help they so richly deserve.

We succeeded in getting the Republican Senate to allow military families who have lost a loved one to remain in military housing for a full year, not the current 180 days. Then we got the Republican Senate to agree to assure that all military families receive a total of $500,000 in death benefits when a loved one dies in service to America.

These measures passed, in no small part, because I was able to read some of the more than 3000 personal stories that johnkerry.com community members shared in response to my call for help.

Several Senators were so moved that they asked on the spot to be added as co-sponsors. We still have work to do. The bill now goes to the House of Representatives where we'll have to press for action.

But, right now, I just want to thank you. We gave voice to our values and won.

Together,

John Kerry

And then yesterday, an e-mail from Wesley Clark:

Dear Friend,

The American people have a strong tradition of honoring our war veterans.  And Democrats have always led the fight to give our veterans what they deserve for their brave service to our country.  The time has come for us to do it again.

We all may not agree with the causes of this current war in Iraq, but we all agree that the brave men and women fighting it, and their families, deserve more than we can ever give them.

Now we must focus attention on our veterans and military retirees who have seen the government cut medical benefits, close VA hospitals, double tax disability payments, and more than double prescription drug co-payments, while requiring veterans to pay an annual enrollment fee of $250 to use government health services in the 2006 budget.

All of these costs add up to a "GI Tax" on our soldiers and veterans.  And it's time to end that "GI Tax" -- once and for all.  I need your help!

I was proud to join House Leaders Nancy Pelosi, Ike Skelton, Lane Evans, and Jon Salazar on Capitol Hill yesterday to unveil the new GI Bill of Rights for the 21st Century.  From the original GI Bill, signed by Franklin Roosevelt, it's always been up to a grateful nation to stand up for veterans and their families.  Now it's our turn -- so please help.

So, to take these e-missives at face value, it looks like folks are following my and Lorelei's  ideas for re-allying progressives and the military.  Or are they?  Is there a sustained, well-thought-through platform underlying these momentary legislative blips?  Does the DNC have what it takes to build such episodic flirting into a marriage?  Is there an underlying theme (with teeth and legs), e.g., we're moving toward our middle-class military folks, aggressively showing them we're on their side, and that the nature of the left is to work for the people who need help? 

I hope my choice of the Rhetorical Question Device doesn't too obviously expose my own sneaking suspicion that a "Yes" for all is hardly in the offing.

Some of the responses to my earlier post on health benefits for veterans were interesting.  Don Birchler, Ph.D., wrote the following:

I am an analyst for the Navy and worked in the Navy's assessment office for one year. During that time we looked at the Navy/military health benefit. And I can tell you that it is a very rich benefit that most Americans will only DREAM of having. It really is the closest thing to socialized medicine in this country. Throw on top of that the annuity that many of them receive after 20 years and it hardly clear that they are in financial hardship.

Hm.  Hard to know where to start, except that the slam about "the closest thing to socialized medicine"... this is ideology, folks, as pure as the driven snow, and I wonder if Dr. Birchler has unwittingly exposed the true, anti-New Deal, radical-right underpinnings of this policy... and then, the condescension in "it is a very rich benefit that most Americans will only DREAM of having" -- well, I'd rather have a dream be the incentive for joining our armed services than a nightmare...

And I suppose the more pungent point is why was it OK, even laudable, for many military contractors in this public/private war to make lots of money, yet the people who actually fought the war... they don't deserve a "very rich benefit"??? 

I still don't understand why moderate progressives -- not the Michael Moore oil conspiracists, but regular old left-leaning jus' folks -- haven't made a bigger issue of war profiteering generally.  This is not just about Cheney/Halliburton.  In a sense, Cheney distracts from the larger issue, which is that this extremely expensive and inefficient war was and is being used simply as a way for Bush-friendly companies to make money.

Ack, alack.  It boggles the mind.

Doddging a Bolton Posted by Suzanne Nossel

I think Dodd has it right.  Not that I can make this argument myself, having authored a column on 10 Reasons to To Oppose Bolton, but he makes the case that even if one agrees with Bolton's views and accepts his style, the intimidation of intelligence analysts is in itself a disqualifier from the UN post.  Here's what he said tonight on the Newshour:

SEN. CHRISTOPHER DODD: Well, first of all, I can't speak for all Democrats on this, but let me tell you my reasons here. It has nothing to do with Mr. Bolton's substantive views, although I may disagree with him on many of these issues. But over my 24 years in the Senate, Jim, I've never voted against anyone because of their substantive views.

Much to the chagrin and disappointment of some of my fellow party members, I voted for John Tower, I voted for John Ashcroft. I can count on less than five fingers the number of people I've opposed where they have sought positions in a presidential cabinet. My opposition and my concern about Mr. Bolton therefore has nothing to do with Cuba, arms control, or the United Nations. In fact, I agree with some of Mr. Bolton's conclusions about the United Nations. I have no problem with that at all.

My concern is this: That on at least five different occasions over the past forty-eight months, Mr. Bolton, as an undersecretary of state at the State Department, tried to remove at least two intelligence analysts because they concluded different positions than Mr. Bolton wanted to express in public speeches.

In this day and age, where we know all the problems we have with the gathering of intelligence and the reliability of it, to promote someone who tried to fire two individuals because they gave an honest assessment of what the intelligence community felt was the right position on those matters, I think is wrong. I think it's the wrong message -- the wrong message to bring to the United Nations. I think it's the wrong message to send to other intelligence analysts, that you can be promoted; you can threaten people's jobs and get away with it. That's why I'm opposed to it.

You can read the rest of the interview (actually a debate with Senator George Allen, Republican of Virginia)  here.   The only flaw in Dodd's performance is his failure to go farther in questioning how an administration that purports to have made intelligence reform a top priority can look the other way upon learning that a nominee to a high profile post is prepared to ride roughshod over analysts who stand up for truthful and accurate interpretation of intelligence.

Bad Intel, Bad Policy Posted by Derek Chollet

We should all pay more attention to the recent report of the bipartisan presidential commission chaired by Laurence Silberman and Chuck Robb regarding U.S. intelligence and WMD threats.  It got a couple of days of buzz when it was released a few weeks ago -- especially for its no-nonsense conclusion that all the pre-war judgments about Iraq's WMD were "dead wrong" – but has pretty much dropped out of sight since.  At over 600 pages, it’s not exactly bedtime reading.

But like the 9-11 commission, this group has produced a rare kind of government report: compelling, hard-hitting, clear, provocative, and actually pretty entertaining.  But it is also really scary.  The commissioners conclude that there is no greater threat than the spread of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons (placing special emphasis on the threat from biological weapons, which they describe as the “greatest intelligence challenge”).  Yet they show with great detail that our intelligence community is not sufficiently trained, motivated, equipped, or organized to deal with these threats.  Even if we had an Administration intensely focused on the WMD threat, the limits of our intelligence capabilities would leave still leave us fighting with one hand tied behind our backs. 

Right now, we have the worst of both worlds: an intelligence community that is not up to the challenge, and an Administration that talks a good game but is still not making counter-proliferation the priority it needs to be.  As Ash Carter points out, until we get the policy right, it really doesn’t matter if intelligence is imperfect.   Folks, I gotta tell you, we should be genuinely worried about getting hit with some sort of WMD device (for a very scary illustration of what this might be like, everyone should watch the recent HBO/BBC film “Dirty War”).  The American people understand the problem – according to the recent SPI/Marttila poll, 3 of the top 5 concerns most American have about the world have something to do with the spread of nuclear weapons.  So where's the outrage?  There’s a lot I really don’t understand about the Bush Administration, but not doing more to address the WMD threat – especially when we know what to do about it – is the most perplexing, and I think its greatest long-term failure. 

Redefining Progress Posted by Lorelei Kelly

Here are two books that each tell a story of post Cold War change from a military "ground truth" perspective and also bolster the claim that the military is a progressive institution--not in philosophy, but in action.

The Sling and the Stone: On War in the 21st Century by TX Hammes

Colonel Hammes describes how "Fourth Generation Warfare" or "4GW" has evolved over decades, with powerful military forces from economically advanced nations being defeated by seemingly weaker opponents. This book illustrates what is meant by asymmetric warfare....and points out how we, with our hardware and technology fixation...are using the wrong tools for today's wars.

The Mission: Waging War and Keeping Peace with America's Military by Dana Priest

This book shows how, over the past decade, the U.S. government has become increasingly reliant on the military to carry out foreign policy.

My post about progressives and the military needing each other generated both pushback and agreement.  The comments made me realize that this blog needs to help re-define what it means to be progressive and what are the values of any nascent "progressive movement." I, at least, need to understand this better before plunging into what a progressive security alternative looks like.

Here goes: Today's progressive still has a basic faith in people, participation and broadly shared well-being. However, given the degraded state of our democracy, and the increasing decadence of our political leadership, progressives can simply go back to basics and reclaim many of the democratic principles enshrined in our history like problem-solving, compromise and benign, pragmatic nationalism.  Blogs can claim the role of the progressive journalists of the last turn of the century, who documented the frenzy of institutional corruption and greed--and were motivated by a conviction that publicized facts would lead to social transformation. In other words, that truth would set us free.

Truth is a little more problematic nowadays, however. Current political leadership are virtuousos at "truth management" and polls have shown how a chunk of the population believe the product that's served up despite hard facts to the contrary. Karl Rove has truly turned corporate public relations into a governing philosophy.  So we have to learn a hard lesson, there's a worldview and then there's facts.  If you're a non-negotiable conservative, when the facts don't fit the worldview, you don't chuck the worldview, you jettison the facts.

Today's new progressive movement needs to be non-partisan but not apolitical. In short, it needs to rescue our democracy by claiming the wide terrain that has opened up in the middle of the political spectrum. This is the fundamental reason why the military and progressives need each other.  The market fundamentalism of the conservative movement--along with its anti-government rhetoric--has damaged cultural notions of sacrifice, common good and public service, the military's very reason for being.  This damage can be seen in the effects of privatization on the uniformed Americans serving in Iraq...where a private contractor earns several times more than a soldier.

The military institution--whose professional education system is steeped in American history and the labors involved in building a healthy democracy--looks more and more ideal as our civilian/public sector systems fail.   Internationally this holds true as well: American JAGs have become global human rights champions for their work defending the rights of prisoners in Guantanamo.

The conservative strategy of substituting public relations for a governing philosophy has impacted the military as well. Intentions aside, the military has allowed the public and elected leaders to persist in the belief that defense industry pronouncements equal professional military opinion. As a Hill staffer, I visited military installations--trailed by industry staff (and lobbyists) where Lockheed or Boeing reps answered all the gadget and hardware questions and the uniformed professionals were mostly silent. Strategy, doctrine and the challenges they were really facing in the world went unmentioned.  Military involvement in policymaking is always controversial, but somehow this inaction has helped lead us to where we are now: with lots of non working missile defense and not enough body armor.

In two out of the last three years, the only budgets that have passed in Congress within the fiscal year are the defense bills.  If all Congress is willing to fund is defense, then pretty soon everything is going to become a security issue.  This should frighten every American, left, right and center.

Progressives need to stand together to turn back the contagion of institutional pyromania unleashed on our federal government by conservatives.  Getting to know and understand the military, its history, culture and needs will hopefully lead to a more balanced and mutual respect.  This is an important first step in any progressive security alternative.

Something for Everyone Posted by Heather Hurlburt

Wherein we join Derek in piling on the Europeans; blast trade orthodoxy of all kinds; show some love to our readers; and inaugurate the democracyarsenal politix reading list.

Re Derek's report from the junkets of Europe:  shortly before the election last fall, a European diplomat, from a country that sent troops to Iraq, told me that his European colleagues were rooting for Kerry without considering how quickly we would come knocking if Kerry won.

I used to lie awake at night worrying -- and I assume folks with no nursing baby but lots of foreign policy responsibility did too -- about what Kerry's first six months would have looked like.  He would have had to return troops to Iraq, as Bush did.  He would have had to deal with the pre-vote uptick in insurgent attacks.  He would have found some allies willing to make nice noises about more troops, but likely not in time to do much good.

So here's where I think there's no point in agonizing too much about Europeans' Bush obsession:  for that subset of Europeans who define themselves as "not America," Bush is such a godsend that, if he didn't exist, they'd have to invent him.  And they do, as anyone who has ever spent much time being subjected to European cliches about America knows.  Freedom fries, schmeedom fries -- the Europeans give as good as they get when it comes to transatlantic stereotyping.   

As a final bonbon for the Europe-watchers among us, I have been enjoying the delicious ridiculousness of the situation in which the other Perm Four favor a German seat on the Security Council and the sober, rational Americans are left looking at the EU, which says it coordinates foreign policy among the UK, France, Germany and the rest of them, and saying, "hey, this doesn't make any sense."

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Suzanne's Top 10 mentioned trade policy the other day.  I think the actual mythology problem is broader than she suggests:  both pro-trade idealogues and protectionism purists are working from models that are outdated, don't reflect economic reality and don't represent actual swathes of voting Americans.  Foreign policy progressives ought to get their minds opened on this one for two reasons.  Overseas, trade has the potential to help or undnermine so much of what we are trying to do.  Imagine, for example, if the end of clothing and fabric duties kills off what's left of Pakistan's fabric and garment industry, sending that many more young men to extremist madrasas for hope. 

At home, anybody trying to put a progressive coalition together to govern, much less win elections, is going to have to grapple with the threatened textile, auto and agricultural industries on the one hand, and the copyright-protecting pharmaceutical and entertainment industries on the other.  Not to mention their workers and voters in key swing states such as Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania.

That same pre-election PIPA poll that I cited earlier this week found that 93 percent of Bush voters favored labor and environmental standards in trade agreements.  So deviation from free trade orthodoxy is not a fringe point of view and not limited to union members.  (It's still the case, by the way, that about one in four voters, not likely voters but people who really pull the levers, comes from a union household.)

None other than Bill Clinton said at Davos in 2000:  "Those who heard a wake-up call on the streets of Seattle were right."

In some parts of the developing world, farmers and their families are literally dying for lack of open trade to sell their goods at decent prices; elsewhere, though, free trade is hurting coffee farmers, garment workers and even Chinese factory workers.  Trade policy is no panacea -- economists will tell you that there are always sectoral winners and losers -- and while progressives shouldn't fear trade, we needn't fetishize it either.

Both parties are really stuck right now, to my mind, between ideological free-traders and old-style protectionists.  Meanwhile, we don't have free trade, never have, and never will, given what it would do to Florida sugar and orange growers, just to name two commodities of many.And the 1990s "Washington consensus" of expert advice for emerging economies, including extreme free-trade prescriptions, has quietly been walked back by the World Bank and IMF, and more loudly abandoned by countries in Latin America and elsewhere.

Somebody is going to figure out a smart new middle ground on this issue.  It will include real supports for workers who lose their jobs, not tiny hikes in assistance to community colleges.  It will reverse US intellectual property policies that block life-saving medicines from the people who need them, and may eventually even restrict how we get healthcare here at home.  It will include some global re-thinking about where freer trade is working in favor of stability and freedom and where it is not.

It should be progressives who figure this out.  But the more we cling to old orthodoxy and tell ourselves not even to talk about trade, the more likely it is that smart conservatives will beat us to the punch.   

They could do worse than go back and look at Clinton as a place to start.  And one thing Clinton was too smart ever to do was stick outdated labels on his progressive allies.   

I'm looking forward to hearing what Derek, whose former employer represented a whole lot of un-and under-employed former millworkers, has to say on this one.  I for one thought Edwards did a nice job of connecting with real folks' concerns on this without grossly pandering.

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I'm guessing I speak for all five weapons in democracyarsenal when I say that the response has been just amazing... and gratifying.  I want to make a habit of responding to at least some of the comments and emails we get.

So, Ezra asked me for five books that every aspiring political writer should read.  I'll offer one, to get us started, and then invite fellow bloggers and readers to jump in with suggestions for the democracyarsenal reading list.

What I Saw at the Revolution:  A Political Life in the Reagan Era by Peggy Noonan.

Her politics are not mine.  But this book is beautifully-written, vivid and real -- about how young people get their politics, and their jobs; how movements, specifically Ronald Reagan's, form; and how lofty and petty the world of White House politics can simultaneously be.  I don't believe it's been equalled.

Other submissions?

Screwed on Bolton Posted by Suzanne Nossel

Pretty disheartening stuff on Bolton.  A staunch conservative risks his career to come forward and say that Bolton is a “serial abuser” of underlings who challenge his views.  Steve Clemons understandably thinks, upon hearing the testimony, that this will be the strike that moves the needle.  Yet this apparently does nothing to move conservatives on the SFRC off the idea that the President’s deserves "deference" in his choice of nominee.

Disturbing on a bunch of levels:

Perhaps the most important finding of the 9/11 Commission and the Silberman-Robb Reports (see attached) was that the U.S. intelligence establishment to take adequate account of dissenting views, and the need for steps to ensure that dissenters get a full hearing in future.  But when confronted with a nominee who seems to fit the worst of this pattern, the Senators look the other way.

Also, there’s no question that having an Ambassador with a track record of vindictiveness will have a chilling effect on the staff at USUN.  With 190 delegations to deal with, an Ambassador (as well as the mothership back at Main State) must rely on staff to pick up on attitudes and positions and help formulate strategy.  If Bolton is unwilling to brook dissenting views, cautious foreign and civil service officers will keep their mouths shut, limiting the quality of analysis that goes both to Bolton and to Washington.

I don’t know whether an analyst fired for refusing to clear inaccurate statements concerning U.S. intelligence would be able to invoke the protection of a whistleblower statute. 

But, particularly given the findings of the 9/11 and Silberman-Robb Commissions, it seems pretty clear that some form of protection is needed (never mind that the head of Bush’s Whistleblower Agency is himself under investigation by the FBI on charges of corruption and cronyism -- actually, you should mind, this too is a symptom of exactly the same problem that will lead to Bolton’s being confirmed despite today’s revelations . . . ).

In other words, if isn’t in violation of existing law, Bolton’s action in attempting to get the analyst booted probably ought to be.

According to Laura Rozen, there are more State staffers willing to come forward with similar stories.  But it doesn’t sound as though their testimony will make any difference. 

More Craziness: Now Bolton? Posted by Michael Signer

Senator Boxer today on Bolton:  "I think Mr. Bolton needs anger management at a minimum."

Wow, gloves off and game on.  Can anyone say Eagleton?

Is Europe off the hook? Posted by Derek Chollet

One of the significant positive shifts of the Bush Administration’s second term foreign policy has been its approach toward Europe. Part of this is a reflection of the past -- after the first four years, it is hard to imagine how transatlantic relations could get any worse.

Yet as the Economist has recently pointed out, there has also been a notable change in the Bush Administration’s attitude toward Europe -- the Europeans are happy with the visits by President Bush and Secretary Rice and they praised the important speeches each delivered in Brussels and Paris respectively (the substance of both speeches American progressive internationalists could and should agree with).

Despite this charm offensive, the Europeans are still negatively obsessed with Bush -- I think they are more obsessed with him than most Democrats in the United States.  At a policy conference in Germany I attended last weekend, someone posed the question of what it meant to be European. The first answer offered: "not Bush." Now this was partly a joke, but it also received a round of hearty applause. In fact, many participants argued that Europe’s loathing of George Bush has done more to bring about European unity than anything else. Again, this is certainly a stretch, but has an element of truth.

This leads one to ask: if being anti-Bush is an important part of being a European, then what will being a European mean in 2008, after Bush is gone, or what would it have meant this year if John Kerry had won? (This is a good reminder for progressives as well -- it’s not good enough just to be against Bush, we need to stand for something).

Of course, the Europeans were shocked that Bush won reelection -- but in reality, this let many of their leaders off the hook. Oddly enough, while a Democratic victory would have created a great deal of goodwill between the two sides and made the Europeans much happier, Transatlantic relations would be more challenged today, not less. The reason is simple: Democrats have higher expectations of our European allies -- and quite possibly, these expectations are unrealistic.

For example, the progressive answer for Iraq is not to pull out tomorrow, but to get the Europeans and organizations like NATO more involved to ease the burdens on our troops and give the occupation greater legitimacy in the eyes of the Iraqi people and the world. Our belief is not that Bush has asserted too much leadership concerning Europe, but that he has asserted too little.

But what’s striking is how unprepared the Europeans would have been for this -- the limits of their military capabilities are well-known, but few in Europe seem to recognize that a Democratic Administration would have asked more of them. They still want to debate what happened three years ago in the run-up to the Iraq war, not what they can do to help us today in Iraq. I don’t think that this is good for them; but I know that it isn’t good for us.

Not Crazy, Just Chaotic Posted by Michael Signer

Very quickly -- as my billables are calling -- I also don't find either of the two hypotheses Suzanne discusses about the Administration's foreign policy compelling (is that slalom metaphor great, or what?)  To assume either that all the Administration officials are marionettes dangling under Rove's nimble fingers, or that the Administration is "schizophrenic," misses the underlying dynamic.

I have never believed in the Omnipotent Rove myth -- his politics are too heavy-handed, too broad-stroke and clumsy for that (Bush's popularity is too low, his victories too narrow, to convince me that Karl is a Svengali).  Instead, David Brooks' recent New York Times column "A House Divided, Strong", was more accurate:

Conservatives have not triumphed because they have built a disciplined and efficient message machine. Conservatives have thrived because they are split into feuding factions that squabble incessantly. As these factions have multiplied, more people have come to call themselves conservatives because they've found one faction to agree with.

So, instead of thinking of the Administration governed by Rove-as-Magician or Bush-as-Crazy-Man, imagine instead a loose, federalist republic riven with internal division between competing, rational states.  You have the Visionary State, filled with neocons like Wolfowitz, Feith, and Perle, who tend not to care about short-term political success, convinced as they are in the divine righteousness of their mission.  Then you have the Muscular State, dominated by realpolitikers like Condi, Rumsfeld, and Bolton, who want American might and ballsy exertions of it.  Finally, you have, well, Sweden, led by neo-Clintonian constructivists like Powell and -- well, who else? 

Like any loose federalist republic -- think Iraq right now, or pre-Civil War America, or pre-Bismarck Germany -- these factions fight, hard and rationally, to win discrete battles, and they each do win, from time to time.  The weak central government tries to arbitrate by handing out its support, and victories, serially.  Everyone wins from time to time -- but nobody wins permanently.  And so the Bush Administration -- weak, weird state that it is, staggers from one pattern to the next.

This is what happens when you have an intellectually unmoored President susceptible to faddish thinking, and very powerful inner advisors primarily interested in politics, rather than ideas.

It's chaotic, true -- but it isn't crazy.

UN-Huggers? Not Posted by Suzanne Nossel

Heather:  you raise some good points.  I am too tired right now to respond to more than two of them.

On the depth of support for the UN, you hone in on the telling interpretation of the polls that suggest most Bush supporters like treaties, and believe their President feels the same way.  You cite pollsters who opine that these voters screen out information at odds with their existing perceptions. 

This is entirely consistent with my argument that the support for treaties, institutions, and the UN is tissue-thin.  If the voters cared deeply about these issues, they wouldn't delude themselves about the President's hostility to them.  When Bush proposed a constitutional amendment against gay marriage, the Log Cabin Republicans could not longer live with the cognitive dissonance and withheld their support from the President.  But legions of other Republicans who don't consider themselves anti-gay but at the same time don't consider gay rights uppermost on the agenda, still back Bush.  People vote the issues that matter to them, and - as the pollsters point out - can be artful on rationalizing the rest.

Re: fear I totally agree.  We can't do fear, and we don't need to try.  To my deep consternation for purely personal reasons (we're renters), the pulsating boom in Manhattan real estate over the last 3 years is proof positive that Americans - including those closest to ground zero - are not afraid.  What we need is inspiration and a sense of progress in a positive direction.  But we may have to leave behind some of our myths first.

Is Bush's foreign policy schizophrenic? No. If it were, that would suggest moderates had real influence. Posted by Suzanne Nossel

There’s an interesting debate under way over at Opinio Juris (a terrific blog on international law, in case you don't know it) about whether the internal conflicts in the Bush Administration’s foreign policy represent a kind of schizophrenia or instead a coherent, carefully tailored response to a diverse array of issues. The argument dovetails with some discussion here about the contrast between what Derek maintains is a skilled and moderate set of second-term appointees, and the choice of extremist John Bolton as UN representative.

While Chris Borgen (full disclosure: a friend for 15 years) maintains that Bush’s willy-nilly swerving is the product of a split within Bush’s inner circle over the right means for executing foreign policy, Julian Ku counters that Bush is doing a slalom so methodical and sophisticated that its pattern is invisible to the naked-eye (Julian is too nuanced to use the word nuanced, but that’s what he means).

My view is that when the Administration feels that it can toss a cost-free bone to moderates, it does so. Thus the appointment of Colin Powell and the continuing support for Kofi Annan (which, as discussed here, may look magnanimous but is also a matter of self-interest). But the minute there is a cost – i.e. Powell beginning to question Iraq policy – the right-wing flank shuts it down.

During Bush’s first-term the appointment of Richard Haass to head the State Department’s Office of Policy Planning was widely touted as a sign of moderation and level-headedness within the ranks. Except that Haass had limited influence and his staff was, according to a friend of mine who was on it, left writing thoughtful memos that they knew would never be acted on. Will Bob Zoellick and Nick Burns meet the same fate? If they cross swords with the likes of Cheney and Rumsfeld, my guess is yes.

Does this mean that, apart from what have turned out to be pretty empty gestures, the Administration has a coherent foreign policy approach? Bush tries hard to come across as unswerving in his views and policies, but I don’t buy it. After all, his closest advisor, Condi Rice, foreswore nation-building right before Bush took office, and now styles herself as the champion of “staying the course” in Iraq and promoting freedom and democracy elsewhere.   WMD was the reason for invading Iraq, until that wore thin and the Administration seized on the idea of promoting democracy (something Wolfowitz had long talked about, but mostly to himself). 

It's impossible to imagine Cheney or Rumsfeld, the other key architects of the Bush foreign policy, making remarks anything like Rice's when she introduced Ruth Ginsberg at a recent American Society of International Law Conference.

My sense is that it works something like this: While there are some ideologues in the Bush Administration, their views are so unyielding that Bush and Rice don’t necessarily subscribe to their overarching ideology.

But at key moments where the President has needed to appear firm and decisive, the neo-con ideologues have proven very useful in proffering up concrete proposals and rationales (however trumped up) to back them up. Fearful of repeating his father’s mistakes by appearing weak or directionless, Bush has seized on the neo-con program at key moments including the period after 9/11. The moderates around him like Powell struggled to offer clear or resolute alternatives and, over time, neo-con influence grew.

While there was a major hiccup last year as Iraq sunk into chaos, neo-con credibility in the White House now seems to be back on the upswing. When moderates do fight back successfully, it tends to be on issues that either don’t matter to conservatives or are outside of public view (take the ICJ and Law of the Sea examples brought up at Opinio Juris). The ICC referral for Darfur was a case of the Administration being boxed into a corner by opponents at home and abroad (the same reason they went to the UN the very first time on Iraq in Fall of 2002 – the political heat became too powerful to resist).

So, signs of moderation are something less than schizophrenia.  When push comes to shove, the ideologues win out.  With less at stake for Bush politically in his second term, this may be less often, though I wouldn't count on it.

Upshot:  If confirmed, John Bolton is not going to China (not least because the Chinese wouldn’t have him).

Progressives Don't Do Fear Posted by Heather Hurlburt

Suzanne, I agree with 7 out of 10 of your "Top 10" below.  Number 3 is an especially timely rebuke to some people we know and love who think that alliances are a policy end, not a means. 

But the progressive-wonk mythology about nos. 1, 2 and 4 -- not coincidentally, all issues about how we relate to our base -- is the result of so many layers of misinterpretation, pseudo-science and elitism that we need to go back to basics.

There's no myth about the poll results -- Americans are firmly, though not irrationally, pro-UN, pro-cooperation and anti-policies that put the US in a lone sheriff role.  One of the best distillations of decades of polling and focus-grouping on the subject that I've ever seen is this article by Steve Kull of the University of Maryland's well-respected Project on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA), in the form of an interview with Ms./Mr. America.

The answer to the problem you cite, that Americans seem not to favor candidates that favor cooperative global policies, is not as simple as "never translate into political payback."

In fact, it seems that either voters assume their leaders share their beliefs, or (before this last cycle, anyway) simply don't get coverage of what candidates think on these issues and just give up.   This PIPA poll from last fall found that Bush voters favored US participation in the treaty banning land mines (66%), the International Criminal Court (75%), the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (68%), and even the Kyoto agreement on global warming (54%).  Intriguingly, majorities of Bush voters believed that Bush supported these international initiatives as well.  How did the pollsters explain this?  The public believes that Bush has done a good job of keeping them safe, and therefore assume he is a good guy enough to support the things they support.  The pollsters also suggest people actively screen out information to the contrary. 

So it isn't the case that the way to win elections is to cast the world even more gloomily than our opponents.  Besides, that is a game at which progressives will always be playing catchup -- and unsuccessfully.  We don't do fear very well, because a core tenet of progressivism, after all, is that there are good things out there to progress toward.

Think about what Clinton and Reagan had in common.  Each won the White House by offering an alternative, more appealing and more hopeful vision of the world in which Americans found ourselves, and the world to which we might aspire.  That's the place to steer toward, rhetorically and attitudinally -- though clearly, you can slot a wide range of actual policies into that tough-but-hopeful worldview. 

And remember, why did Bush even bother going to the UN before Iraq?  Why the bowing and scraping at various points subsequently?  Because somebody was reading the polls.