I am loathe to see much that is politically, socially or culturally viable from the 1996 film Independence Day.  It's not really my cup of tea - aliens invade in large vaginal spaceships to destroy the tall erect skyscrapers that are symbols of America's manhood.  America's manhood then strikes back with their phallic fighter jets and the only real collateral damage is against homosexuals, uppity women who don't listen to their husbands, and nerds.  It's like the cinematic version of a wedgie.

But when I read about this, from a videoconference with military and civilian personnel in Afghanistan, I couldn't help but be reminded of the final act of the film, in which dashing young non-partisan president Bill Pullman forsakes his personal safety to lead the final assault against those terrible femialiens, and his handlers don't do much in the way of stopping him:

"I must say, I'm a little envious," Bush said. "If I were slightly younger and not employed here, I think it would be a fantastic experience to be on the front lines of helping this young democracy succeed."

"It must be exciting for you ... in some ways romantic, in some ways, you know, confronting danger. You're really making history, and thanks," Bush said.

You know what, dude?  Go ahead.  I think, like in the movie, it would add just the right level of ridiculousness to this shameful international farce.

(Crossposted to my new blog: thedramatist.blogspot.com)

I have gotten somewhat mired on Foreign Policy in my Reader Blog posts - it's important, of course, but certainly not the topic du jour here at TPM.  So I'm going to move more to domestic politics and the election as it stands stateside.  I've been hearing some people talking about Kansas Democratic Governor Kathleen Sebelius as a possible running mate for Obama, even though he has made it clear that it is too early to be talking about such things.  I think there are several political advantages not only to Sebelius but to leaking a "shortlist."

Sebelius is probably best known recently to a national audience for providing the somewhat timidly voiced Democratic rebuttal to the President's last State of the Union address.  But in Kansas, she has forged an impressive political career for a Democrat in a largely Republican state.  She inherited a $1.1 billion deficit when she came into office and eliminated it, and Time Magazine declared her one of the five best governors in the country.  She provides a lot of nice counter-points to Obama, falling somewhat to the right of him, but she is also pro-choice (in Kansas, I say again) and anti-capital punishment.  She's pro-business, but was the first governor to refuse permits to businesses that wanted to build plants in her state that didn't agree to new emissions standards and has taken the coal industry to task for its environmental standards.  Personally, she's married to a judge, but has created her political career honestly on her own, first getting elected to the Kansas House of Representatives in 1986, then becoming the first Democratic insurance commissioner for the State of Kansas in 100 years.  She's hugely popular in her state and also, she looks fabulous in turquoise.

A very popular governor (with obvious executive experience) who is also a very believable, pragmatic, and successful feminist figure?  I'm sorry for seeming so excited but it's not to be reminded that out in the country there are actually many figures in politics with more positives than negatives.

There's been a lot of talk about her as his possible running mate, but I think that the Obama campaign, or someone associated with the Obama campaign, would be well served to mainstream these discussions.  The candidate doesn't have to be public, but surrogates should be.  I think that if you float a figure like Sebelius you start to to ease the tension created when people feel they have to choose between the identity politics ideals of  blacks and women.  For Clinton, who has run a somewhat anti-feminist campaign so far and can easily be accused of inflating her own record, Sebelius acts as a successful, experienced, and popular counterpoint.

Now, there are those who will say that it's too early - as Obama has said on the stump.  And there are those who will correctly remind that the running mate choice doesn't usually make that much of a difference.  But Clinton has already attempted to float the running mate possibility for political gain - she's the one talking about a Clinton/Obama ticket, essentially trying to ease the tension herself by presenting the idea that they will be getting both of them and taking the easy way out of the decision.  Even Obama supporters have taken up this argument, arguing that such a ticket is a possibility, but it should be the other way around, with Clinton as the VP.

My thought is - with popular and actually qualified possibilities like Sebelius...  Why should Obama have to settle for Clinton?

Crossposted in my new blog: thedramatist.blogspot.com

Interesting story that showed up this morning: Bernard Kouchner, the progressive French humanitarian, founder of Médecins Sans Frontières, former UN envoy to Kosovo, and Nicolas Sarkozy's unlikely Foreign Minister, talked with the International Herald Tribune and others at the launch of the Forum for New Diplomacy in Paris.

Asked whether the United States could repair the damage it has suffered to its reputation during the Bush presidency and especially since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, Kouchner replied, "It will never be as it was before."

"I think the magic is over," he continued, in what amounted to a sober assessment from one of the strongest supporters in France of the United States.

U.S. military supremacy endures, Kouchner noted, and the new president "will decide what to do - there are many means to re-establish the image." But even that, he predicted, "will take time."

I've been saying on here that this, at least to me, is a very important issue in the campaign, even if it is not an issue that seems on the minds of most voters.  Obviously the economy is tanking - we say we're on the verge of a recession when by all accounts we seem to already be in one, only staying afloat on the back of a weak rhetoric that imagines that "things could get much worse."  Foreign policy issues, at least to most Americans, seem to stop at the edge of how it affects their families and friends who are immediately affected by the Iraq war.  With the disastrous failure of that policy, the instinct for these Americans is to become isolationist (a bad idea).  Foreign policy issues seem to fall under that "bourgeois" category of things that only people who have all their other problems solved can afford to worry about.

I don't buy this.  Much of America's predominance, power, security, and safety have been shakily maintained in the 20th century because of how the rest of the world sees our internal and external actions.  Our greatest foreign policy successes have been a beacon that others want to emulate - when we have inspired, through disseminating our ideas or ideals, oppressed people to rise up in self-determination.  Our greatest foreign policy blunders have been when we have ignored the power of international public opinion and demonstrated either a double standard regarding human rights or a contradiction to our values.  And these rising and falling levels of international image in an increasingly globalized society affect the economic well-being and security of even those not "bourgeois."

I don't know if its as bleak as Kouchner describes.  I think perceptions are generational.  A whole swath of the Muslim world can be inflamed against us just as their children (as was reported in the NY Times about a week ago) are feeling disenfranchised from radicals.  These are the people we should be targetting with a radical break from the diplomacy and the militarism of the past.  A president can do this.  The candidates should be taking a leadership role, saying that we need to encourage democracy as a reparative - not using the language of George W. Bush, diplomatic exceptionalism (not meeting with leaders), and "commander-in-chief", but rather by demonstrating a willingness to be internationalists.

The United States should never allow itself, for example, to put itself in a situation like the recent one with China, where the US issued a report criticizing their human rights record, and China turns right back around and issued a long report accusing the US of being just as bad a human rights offender.  Regardless of the leg they have to stand on in that regard, the US response was tepid - basically it said that yes, maybe we are a violator of human rights.  But we have free speech so at least we could talk about it if we wanted to.

That is unacceptable.  That makes us less safe, and that creates problems more difficult and challenging than others getting far more play in this election. 

Now, I've said I am an Obama supporter.  I am a supporter of his partially because he makes a good amount of proposals to combat the declining American image abroad.  I am also a supporter of his because I feel that Hillary has not be able to prove to me that she is thinking about these problems.  She seems, like I've said, to be a strict statist, and overwhelmingly statist positions usually result in those foreign policy blunders above.

Of course, in deference to the Hillary supporters, I wonder if this is just because, like a large amount of the American public, she wrongly thinks this isn't as important to talk about.  Certainly she spends a lot more time talking about those bread-and-butter, kitchen-table, "insert-cliche-here" issues.  So I would ask her supporters to express to me the ways that she is going to combat this growing problem.  What will she do to win the war for hearts and minds abroad?  How can she bring the magic back?

Because there was magic.  It may feel like some alternate past history, or science fiction, but it did exist.  And it kept us safe and idealistic and was a force for benevolence.  And I think it's important that we talk about how we bring it back.

On March 2nd, the Washington Post online published a Q&A with Barack Obama regarding his foreign policy positions.  Much of it is similar to what we've heard previously in speeches and in the debates, regarding the redistribution of troops from Iraq to Afghanistan, opening up diplomatic possibilities with adversaries, enforcing the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and increasing funding for the National Endowment for Democracy.  One point that I have been impressed with in my own readings about Obama's position but hasn't gotten as much play in the recent campaign is highlighted early in the Q&A:

Q. You have said that within your first 100 days in office, you would give a major speech in a "major Islamic forum" in which you will "redefine our struggle." What is that redefinition? What would be the substance of that speech?

A. As president of the United States, I will directly address the people of the Muslim world to make it clear that the United States is not at war with Islam, that our enemy is al-Qaeda and its tactical and ideological affiliates, and that our struggle is shared. In this speech, I will make it clear that the United States rejects torture -- without equivocation, and will close Guantanamo. I will make it clear that the United States stands ready to support those who reject violence with closer security cooperation; an agenda of hope -- backed by increased foreign assistance -- to support justice, development and democracy in the Muslim world; and a new program of outreach to strengthen ties between the American people and people in Muslim countries. I will also make it clear that we will expect greater cooperation from Muslim countries; and that the United States will always stand for basic human rights -- including the rights of women -- and reject the scourge of anti-Semitism. Simply put, I will say that we are on the side of the aspirations of all peace-loving Muslims, and together we must build a new spirit of partnership to combat terrorists who threaten our common security.

This speech that he talks about is tied up with another one of his proposals: the America's Voice Initiative, part of his larger service iniative, meant to expand public diplomacy abroad - sending fluent language speakers, human rights workers, teachers, engineers, and other workers to help to change the damaged perception of America among other communities.  These proposals offer the promise that Barack Obama could be the most effective public diplomacy president since Reagan, and offer one of the most convincing distinctions between him and Hillary Clinton: she, in comparison, is severely lacking in her public diplomacy proposals.  For all her foreign policy wonkiness, her positions can be spun abroad as being statist.  It's easy for important populations (like those in the Muslim world) to perceive her as being just as arrogant as Bush.

And while Obama has talked about the proposals, he's been a little more reticent of late with this point than with some of his other proposals.  I wonder if this is fallout from the baseless smear that he is a secret Muslim Manchurian Candidate.  We all know that he is a Christian, that is a fact (well, all of us except Hillary, who believes he is a Christian "as far as she knows"), but the effectiveness and the danger of the smear have possibly pushed Obama's talking points about the war of ideas in the Muslim world somewhat into the closet.  This is ironic, as it demonstrates just how far we have to go towards building understanding with Islam.  We're perceived in the Muslim world as a racist country who persecutes Muslims - how can we change that perception if the worst thing you can call a man running for president is a Muslim?

The McCain and Clinton campaigns have both trafficked in this smear to varying degrees.  They may perceive it as attacking just one man, and those of us informed about the campaign have dismissed it as petty and ridiculous.  But we should not underestimate the damage that this smear itself can have on our national interests and national security.  It has affected how we speak about issues and how we judge important challenges to the American people, and could have global effects when disseminated to other communities.

Perhaps this is the way that we should be talking about the smear, next time some radio host says Barack Obama's middle name with a sneer, or next time Clinton wades into misinformation about Obama's faith in an interviews; or Hell, even when the Obama campaign feels a little uneasy about bringing up this potentially vital proposal in speeches or debates.  It's not just that it's incorrect.  It's not just that it's another part of negative campaigning.

Not to sound hyperbolic, but these words and actions endanger the nation by being another confirmation of radical Islam's teachings about the United States.  And anyone, Clinton or McCain or their surrogates - who spreads them isn't just being unfair - they're making us less safe.

For the sake of argument, I am going to take the Clinton campaign statements about the "Commander-in-Chief threshold" at face value. Clinton stated that both she and Senator McCain have passed it, while Senator Obama has not. Neither Clinton nor McCain have ever served in a position that would be considered the Commander-in-Chief - not even as a governor of a state that would consider that executive position the Commander-in-Chief of a National Guard. Howard Wolfson has even said that Obama has not passed the Commander-in-Chief threshold "at this time." In reading these statements, we can deduce that such a threshhold is not a real thing, but a statement of philosophy. So without any concrete experience, how are we defining what a Commander-in-Chief is? Which philosophy does Clinton believe? I don't think I need to mention that the idea has become somewhat impermanent of late.

In the Bush era, the Commander-in-Chief philosophy has been synonymous with the unitary executive theory, that pesky Poli Sci 101 term that holds that the President, and not any other government body, has power over administrative actions in the Executive Branch. George W. Bush expanded this past where previous presidents like Hamilton, Lincoln, and Truman took it to essentially say that military actions were unreviewable by any legislative body and that the military was essentially an arm of the Executive Branch of government. This is what the "Commander-in-Chief" has become in the modern lexicon: the ultimate Roman imperator from which all military power is disseminated downwards.

Naturally it will be the responsibility of the new president to undo this damaging paradigm - they will need to allow the legislative and judicial brances of government to reassert control if our democracy is to retain its health. In this situation, I think that in vetting these candidates we should ask exactly where the Commander-in-Chief threshold is. Is it where the Constitution places it, as a war-monitoring position, or is it where George w. Bush has placed it, as a war-making position? So far Hillary has not effectively made that distinction, instead saying that she has crossed the line and therefore should be president. But making this distinction is important, because having someone who has crossed the Commander in Chief threshold would be damaging to the country if that threshold is where Bush has placed the line.

There's been a big fight between the ideologues and the non-ideologues in the Democratic party, and by and large they have aligned behind the two separate candidates: the ideologues who essentially want to reverse the Bush situation and bring the traditional Democratic communities into power over Republican communities have aligned behind Hillary, and the non-ideologues who would like to bring a bipartisan unity between the two parties in an effort to redefine and pluralize the nature of left and right have aligned behind Obama. It is important that both sides understand, though, exactly how the government structure and the practice of power would be different with either candidate. Whereas on these bread-and-butter issues they may not be different, I believe Hillary and Obama have very different ideas about how their government would be run, and we haven't had enough discussion of this beyond the repeating of phrases and concepts like "Commander-in-Chief", "experience", "national security", and "change" which can mean very different things depending on who is saying them. When the meanings of words and concepts have been changed and warped by the previous president, I think it is important that we take some time to remind ourselves of the vocabulary and reestablish some definitions.

(If you like this post, please recommend it.  You can read some of my other posts/essays on TPM here.)

Like many who watched the television in horror back in 2005, I had hoped for a silver lining to the cloud that was Hurricane Katrina: perhaps the sudden, naked reality of the poverty that destroyed the lives of so many African Americans in New Orleans and the coming efforts to rebuild the city would allow us to have an important discussion in this country about the seemingly unbreakable bond between race and class. Now almost three years later, New Orleans is still in shambles, recovery efforts have been unfairly implemented, and we haven't had that important discussion about race. In fact, if Barack Obama ends up being the nominee for the Democrats, we may not get a discussion of Katrina in racial terms as much as in accountability terms. It would be quite foreseeable that Obama's handlers would steer the discussion away from the more racially divisive language to appeal to well-meaning whites who believe Obama is a post-racial candidate. (This is not a disparagement of Barack Obama, just a statement of political probabilities.) Accountability is much easier - we're more comfortable with blaming poor leadership and compartmentalizing the event rather than seeing this thing that already seemed too big as representative of an even larger problem.

Someone is talking about it, though. Last week, the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination issued a report and a request the United States government to stop the demolition of public housing units in New Orleans on the grounds that it violates the human rights of African Americans.

A number of reports suggest that federal, led by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and local government decisions concerning public housing in New Orleans would lead to the demolition of thousands of public housing units affecting approximately 5,000 families who were displaced by Hurricane Katrina. The demolition of the St. Bernard public housing development apparently commenced the week of 18 February 2008 and others are planned for the Lafitte, B.W. Cooper, and C.J. Peete public housing developments.

Meaningful consultation and participation in decision-making of communities and families affected by these demolitions and related redevelopment proposals appears not to have taken place. While we understand the intention to replace the demolished housing, we understand that only a portion of the new housing units will be for residents in need of subsidized housing and the remainder will be offered at the market rate. Further, we understand that the new housing will not be available for a significant period of time nor will there be one for one replacement for housing units destroyed. These demolitions, therefore, could effectively deny thousands of African-American residents their right to return to housing from which they were displaced by the hurricane.

The authorities claim that the demolition of public housing is not intentionally discriminatory. Notwithstanding the validity of these claims, the lack of consultation with those affected and the disproportionate impact on poorer and predominantly African-American residents and former residents would result in the denial of internationally recognized human rights.

The UN has been involved for some time with the status of refugees from New Orleans, and have called several officials from the US government to testify in Geneva. In response to the report, Senator David Vitter (R-LA) issued a press release calling for Senate Foreign Relations Committee investigations of the UN for not focusing on the right priorities. An interesting point is made in the release:

 "What the U.N. has said here today is nothing new, nor does it offer any reasonable or constructive assistance to bring about a successful resolution to this issue.  It simply serves as another reminder that this organization is out of touch," said Vitter.  "Thankfully, this report has no authority.  But this report does serve one purpose: it serves as a useful glimpse of what the future holds if we allow the Law of the Sea Treaty to be ratified.  The LOST treaty would grant international organizations like the U.N. the legal authority to interfere in our matters – with possibly drastic consequences."

It goes without saying that we have a complicated relationship with the UN. We were one of the founding states, and our funding constitutes a huge portion of the UN budget. We have previously acted, however, to act as an exception to UN rules. We were one of the last developed countries to ratify the UN Convention on Genocide, for example, for fear that other states could retroactively accuse the US of genocide for its internal practices. It's not surprising that we have trouble with someone outside "our immediate family" criticizing us about our internal politics and culture. We think racism is a part of every day life in America, a seemingly incurable (but not untreatable) disease. Racist actions in America are systemic problems, not human rights issues.

Or are they? Perhaps we should embrace this, rather than questioning the motives or the focus of the UN. It could provide an opportunity to foster a discussion of race and poverty as a larger American problem, but could also be a leadership opportunity for the nation on human rights in general. Findings like these, whether we take them seriously or not, send messages abroad, and attacking the UN in committee or threatening to remove funding sends the wrong message when many of our international relationships are on a knife's edge.

If we want to pursue human rights issues internationally, especially those that align directly with our national interest, we will have trouble ratcheting support from our allies if our human rights wrinkle was ignored because we got to play by different rules. Multilateralism will be the name of the game from here on out if we want to get anything done, and we will make a better case to other nations if we take reports like this seriously. Our public diplomacy, additionally, is hurt if we are perceived to be a racist country (making Barack Obama the president will help, but it won't fix everything). How other countries perceive us does matter, and I believe this is something we should be talking about in the upcoming election. (Both Democratic candidates could use talking points on public diplomacy, something both of them, especially Hillary Clinton, lack.)

And it's quite possible that speaking of race in this country and using the language of human rights could be an important sobering discussion for the country, one that move us past the dismissive excuse that race discrimination is just an unfortunate part of American life. Maybe someone like Barack Obama could talk about this, framing it as a break from the past and a new way forward. Hillary Clinton could certainly use the opportunity to shore up support among African-Americans, a community she has become alienated from.

And for the American public at large, it would allow us to come to a greater global understanding of something whose magnitude we didn't fully realize until we saw it on the news: that the refugee crises, the poverty, and the class divisions we've seen in other countries happen here too, and for all it's exceptionalism, America is one nation in a world full of them.

(If you like this post, please recommend it.  You can read some of my other posts/essays on TPM here.)