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Anne Marie Slaughter and John McCain
The debate about Fareed Zarakia's book, "The Post-American World," has resurrected one of the very worst ideas hatched by Anne Marie Slaughter -- a "concert of democracies" that will be empowered to act when the United Nations can't or won't.
Anne Marie Slaughter would like a job advising the next Democratic president. Many of us have argued that Slaughter, who supports pre-emptive military action, supported the invasion of Iraq (but not the execution of it) and opposes withdrawing our forces from Iraq now, is actually too conservative a foreign policy thinker to serve in a Democratic administration.
Well, here's proof, including a blunder by John McCain, age 847 that Anne Marie Slaughter is to the right of the Democratic mainstream. John McCain wants to have a "League of Nations," but what he meant was a "League of Democracies." It's the Republicans, who have caused so many foreign policy disasters in 8 years, who are the first to take up Slaughter's cause.
Let's all keep that in mind as the debate around Fareed Zakaria's book continues.
Comments (11)
Just out of curiosity do you think McCain is too old for the job?
May 7, 2008 5:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
Guilty!
May 7, 2008 6:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
What an unfortunate last name. I guess it matches her viewpoint though.
May 7, 2008 5:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
See the last name tells you exactly why Nature Boy doesn't like her.
May 7, 2008 6:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
If Anne Marie were to start all of her posts with a hearty "Listen up, maggots!" I might like her.
May 7, 2008 6:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm not sure if I had a chance to ask you whether or not you saw Jesse "The Mind" Ventura on his recent television appearances. If you did, what did you think?
May 7, 2008 6:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
I haven't seen Ventura lately. What's he been up to?
May 7, 2008 7:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
He did Larry King and Colbert. I thought that the Larry King appearance was worth watching:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=-YT4UUVzxG8
May 7, 2008 7:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
I love it. The moneyquote is: "How come a government worker has to retire at age 65 and John McCain can run for president at age 72?"
Only thing is, he got the age wrong. It's 847.
May 7, 2008 7:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
There are two significant problems with the concert of democracies "ideas" of Slaughter, et.al. As numerous commenters have noted the purpose of the proposal is basically to gut the United Nations in its present role as a "peace" organization and substitute for it a widened police role for the US military with their British sycophants in tow and give the increased police/military role greater credibility than the present outlaw actions of Bush/Cheney (with support from Slaughter and friends) can garner. While the goals of this proposal are appalling and dangerous, Slaughter seems to be incapable of recognizing that the historical moment for her proposal to expand American-led aggression has long passed; the proposal is entirely transparent; no one is buying the professed aims of the New American Century. So we have the ludicrous spectacle of the Princeton professor desperately trying to sell an empty "idea" and dress it up with marketing slogans. The United Nations is an imperfect organization; it is infinitely preferable to the institutional construct of liberal warhawks; the neocons at least tell one straight out how they plan to dominate and re-order the world. The liberal warhawks follow the same policies just with greater hypocrisy and lies.
May 9, 2008 12:00 AM | Reply | Permalink
It may be remembered that the United Nations have become a lot more imperfect due to actions by the democratically elected government of the United States.
There was a window of opportunity in the 1990s - and now that window is history.
What's done can not be undone.
May 9, 2008 3:03 AM | Reply | Permalink
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