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There’s not a dime’s worth of difference
Dec 01, 2008
The media has been all abuzz with the formal announcement that Obama's former favorite foe has been appointed Secretary of State. But, most of that coverage has been focused on exaggerated disagreements during the presidential campaign and behind-the-scenes political maneuvering, all of which miss the point.
On policy, Obama and Hillary are not night and day, but more like 4:30 and 4:45.
“When it comes to foreign policy, Obama and Clinton agree far more than they disagree,” said John Isaacs, executive director of the Council for a Livable World. To paraphrase the late Alabama Governor George Wallace, Isaacs added: “There’s not a dime’s worth of difference between Obama and Clinton on foreign policy.”
Isaacs based his assessment on a thorough examination of Obama and Clinton’s Senate voting records; national security platforms as laid out in articles and op-eds; and responses to queries in debates, public appearances, and questionnaires.
Isaac's analysis compares and contrasts their policy positions on Iraq, Iran, nuclear weapons, missile defense, and other relevant foreign policy issues. Read his full analysis here.
It's Not Hillary, It's the Policy Stupid!
Dec 01, 2008
Lt. Gen. Robert Gard, the chairman of our sister organization just published an op-ed co-authored with former congressional Rep. Tom Andrews. With all the media attention that the Hillary as Secretary of State has been receiving, Tom and Gen. Gard take us back to what really matters, the policy.
It's Not Hillary, It's the Policy Stupid!
by Lt. Gen. Robert G. Gard Jr. (USA, Ret.) and Tom Andrews
The media obsession over who's in and who's out of consideration for the Obama Cabinet brings the admonition on the famous "War Room" wall of Bill Clinton's 1992 presidential campaign to mind: "It's the Economy Stupid!" Those of us eagerly awaiting relief from the debacle called the Bush administration should avoid getting swept up the in DC parlor game of who is getting what position in the new administration and focus instead on the fundamental changes we need the Obama administration to start making. In short, "It's the Policy Stupid!"
President Obama will begin his presidency with enormous good will from the American people and great hope from the world at large. It is imperative that he seize this opportunity by quickly moving his campaign pledges into bold and decisive action despite the opposition that surely awaits him.
Nukes! What are they good for? Absolutely nothing.
Nov 24, 2008
Arms control advocates finally felt like part of the popular group back in 2007 when 4 of the most respected former foreign policy officials made their “global zero” debut with a Wall Street Journal op-ed. It’s kind of like when the book nerd got invited to the cheerleader table – finally someone was accepting them for all they had to offer. And while the “No Nukes!” chant may still draw an image of protesting hippies for the most conservative of minds, in reality, the idea is making its way to the main stage – and with the approval of big-player Democrats and Republicans alike, including a nod from President-elect Obama.
In this recent piece from the Boston Globe, writer Drake Bennet highlights the progress that the “world free of nuclear weapons” movement has made just in the last two years.
The highlight (in my eyes) is below, or click here for the full article.
“Total nuclear disarmament - "getting to zero" in the arms-control argot - has become a mainstream cause. Voices from the heights of the American foreign policy establishment have begun to argue that, in a world of inevitably unruly globalization, increasing interest in nuclear energy, incomplete alliances, ambitious suicide terrorists, and ever-present human fallibility, it will never be enough to improve controls on the world's nuclear weapons, or to reduce their numbers. We have to commit to eliminating them altogether.
These arguments are being made not by popes and mahatmas and Greens but by former secretaries of state and secretaries of defense, by generals and nuclear scientists, Democrats and Republicans. The leaders of the new no-nuke movement are George Shultz, Henry Kissinger, William Perry, and Sam Nunn, four of the most respected figures in American foreign policy circles. Over the past two years, they have, in speeches, at arms-control conferences and, most prominently, in two widely circulated op-ed pieces, lent their authority to an idea that is still seen as fairly radical.
And there is evidence that these arguments are being taken seriously by the people who are going to be making decisions about nuclear policy in the new administration. On the campaign trail, Barack Obama repeatedly committed himself to a nuclear-free future. One of his key foreign policy advisers, Ivo Daalder, coauthored an article in the current issue of Foreign Affairs, a leading foreign policy journal, laying out a plan for how to get there.
No one is arguing that this is a goal that will be reached in the next eight years, but there's a sense that for the first time in a long while, real and significant movement in that direction is possible.”
Update on Franken Race
Nov 20, 2008
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UPDATE: Huffington Post reports that a recent political study shows that if unrecorded ballots are counted, Al Franken is highly likely to win. -------------------------------
We've been following two still-undecided Senate races closely (we've endorsed the challengers in both races, and our supporters have raised thousands for them): Jim Martin in Georgia (challenging Republican incumbent Sen. Saxby Chambliss) and Al Franken in Minnesota (challenging Rebublican incumbent Sen. Norm Coleman). Martin's race is headed for a run-off ending December 2, while Franken's race is likely headed to the courts as the state does a full re-count of all ballots. Currently, Norm Coleman is up by a mere 206 votes, and many predict that the recount will prove more ballots cast for Franken. With a race so close and a chance that Franken could indeed prove the winner, the former comedian is headed to Washington, D.C. to prepare for a possible win.
According to Minnesota's Start Tribune, Al Franken will meet this week with Senate Democrat leaders to fully brief them on the recount and the process and to discuss the upcoming legislative agenda. "If he should win this election, it would be irresponsible for him not to get ready to take office," said Franken spokeswoman Colleen Murray. "Minnesota deserves a senator who is ready to take office on Day One."
Drumroll please....
Nov 20, 2008
Thanks to all of you who entered our 2008 Elections Contest! Out of over 1,000 entries, we have our winners!
Congratulations to Tyler Wigg-Stevenson (see photo to the left), our first place winner who scored 24 out of 25 possible points for the contest. (Note: we took out the Minnesota Senate race and Ohio’s 15th district race from consideration, as both have still not been called.)
As with a lot of races this year, the results from our contest were close and our top two winners tied for the general questions, but Tyler came out on top after scoring the tiebreakers.
Our Biggest Threat?
Nov 20, 2008
In 2004, both Bush and Kerry called it the gravest threat facing the United States. This year on the campaign trail, President-elect Obama and Sen. McCain voiced their serious concerns on the issue of nuclear terrorism.
Our research Center recently produced a policy brief: "Understanding and Preventing Nuclear Terrorism."
Here's a few key excerpts:
Since the creation of the atomic bomb, government officials, scientists, and concerned citizens have been aware that weapons of mass destruction could fall into the hands of dangerous terrorist groups or rogue regimes. The rise of Al Qaeda and the events of September 11, however, brought the threat of nuclear terrorism into a whole new light for the United States. Suddenly, the detonation of a crude nuclear device in a major American metropolitan area no longer seemed like something out of a science fiction movie. Indeed, as President-Elect Barack Obama said during the 2008 presidential campaign, nuclear terrorism is “the gravest danger we face.”
[snip]
It is not the odds but the consequences of such an attack that propel nuclear terrorism to the top of the U.S. national security agenda. A March 2003 report by Harvard University’s Project on Managing the Atom found that if a ten-kiloton nuclear weapon, approximately the size of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima, were detonated at Manhattan’s Grand Central Station in New York, it would instantly kill over 500,000 people, injure hundreds of thousands, and cause over $1 trillion in direct damages.
[snip]
If the United States and countries around the world are serious about preventing a nuclear attack by a terrorist group, efforts to contain the threat at its source need serious attention. According to the Partnership for a Secure America, the biggest problem is the lack of coordination on counter-nuclear terrorism efforts across federal agencies. Congress tried to remedy this shortcoming in 2007 with H.R. 1, the 9/11 Commission Act, which created a White House Coordinator for the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism. Unfortunately, the Bush administration chose to ignore the law and never filled the position. Failures in coordination are similarly reflected at the international level, where bilateral and multilateral engagement to prevent nuclear terrorism is equally fragmented.
The Obama Administration: Who's In, Who's Out
Nov 17, 2008
John Isaacs, our executive director, is maintaining a list of who's in and who's out for key positions in the new Obama administration (No, we haven't penciled Hillary in yet). Right now, there are only 8 positions filled (see below), but check back daily as we expect more to be announced soon.
Key positions announced:
White House Chief of Staff: Rahm Emanuel
Deputy Chief of Staff: Jim Messina Deputy
Chief of Staff: Mona Sutphen
Senior adviser and intergovernmental relations and public liaison: Valerie Jarrett
Senior adviser to the President: Peter Rouse
Legislative affairs: Phil Schiliro
White House counsel: Gregory Craig
Vice President Chief of Staff: Ron Klain
Some Star Wars Talk
Nov 10, 2008
If you're anything like me, you're so eager for the "change" that you've been refreshing your Washington Post homepage every hour to see if any updates have come from the Obama administration. We know it will come, but after only a week after the elections, nothing has been laid out in too much detail.
The latest talk has been about missile defense -- which was pursued aggressively by the Bush administration. Will Obama pursue sites in Eastern Europe? Will he help ax the program that's been called his "first foreign policy test."
Plutomium Page over at Daily Kos wrote today about potential changes in national security strategy that the new President-Elect Obama could pursue, including missile defense. She cites analysis by Lt. Gen. Robert Gard, the chairman of our sister organization the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation.
Writes Plutomium Page:
Now, about cutting funding to national missile defense: bravo. Let's turn to Lt. Gen. Robert Gard...He's been talking about missile defense for a while now, and his latest analysis came out about three weeks ago.
[Gard states that] "Despite the Bush administration's investment of an estimated $60 billion since 2001, U.S. national missile defense continues to be an unnecessary and counterproductive enterprise. Testing objectives consistently are not met, cost overruns and scheduling delays are rampant, and relations between the United States and Russia are worse than at any time since the end of the Cold War, thanks in no small part to squabbling over the proposed third missile defense site in Europe."
He recommends three basic changes. Please click the link above for the details; basically, shift spending to systems countering existing threats, dissolve the Missile Defense Agency, and "spend political capital" on diplomacy.
For more on missile defense, check out this op-ed from Council staff Katie Mounts and Travis Sharp, and our resources over at the Center.
Chambliss Pulling Some Old Dirty Campaign Tricks Out of the Bag
Oct 29, 2008
With 6 days to go until election time, the Senate race in Georgia between incumbent Saxby Chambliss and Council-endorsed candidate Jim Martin is turning into one hot mess. The race, once considered a sailed ship for Republicans as Chambliss was expected to carry his seat in November, now has the attention of politicos on both sides, with both the RNC and the DNC pouring funds into the state.
This will be Chambliss’ first shot at re-election, and neither his team nor the RNC is going to let this go without a fight, and probably, a dirty one. Chambliss is well known for his dirty Karl Rove-style campaign tactics. In 2002, his campaign made ads that put his opponent's face – then incumbent Max Cleland – next to Osama Bin Laden's and Saddamm Hussein’s face, even though Cleland was a disabled Vietnam War veteran. Heck, even McCain found it “reprehensible.”
In 2003, McCain told the Washington Post this:
"I've never seen anything like that ad. Putting pictures of Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden next to a picture of a man who left three limbs on the battlefield -- it's worse than disgraceful, it's reprehensible."
