David Gergen's Blog, page 15

Lack Of Intelligence

Obama Is A Clutch Player

 

Obama's stunning turnaround

By David Gergen, CNN Senior Political Analyst
December 22, 2010
(CNN) -- Voters who flocked to the Republican banner seven weeks ago are probably scratching their heads, wondering, "Who really won in November?" After handing the president and Congressional Democrats the worst drubbing in more than half a century, they can only watch in disbelief as Obama has reeled off a series of unexpected victories.

A new stimulus bill, repeal of "don't ask, don't tell," and now START -- who would have believed that this shirt-tail session of Congress would have been so triumphant? They call it "lame duck" but it was anything but lame.

What happened? One answer, I would submit, is that the president and his team found a better approach to governing: Instead of relying on the Democratic caucus in each chamber to deliver, they built up coalitions of their own that swayed public opinion in their direction and gave them leverage in Congress.

On the extension of tax breaks -- along with several other tax breaks the president wanted -- the White House cut a deal with Sen. Mitch McConnell and other Republicans. Liberal Democrats naturally cried foul, but the White House-GOP coalition sent a persuasive signal to the public that this was a reasonable compromise. Polls showed the public coming down in favor, and as night follows day, Congress voted the compromise into law. (Contrast how quickly the public turned against the health care reform when it was a Democrats-only bill.)

On "don't ask, don't tell," and on START, the White House had a different, but equally formidable, coalition that helped to turn the tide in the president's direction. The fact that Bob Gates -- one of the most respected defense chiefs in history -- and the chair of the Joint Chiefs, along with the poll of service members, came out in favor of repealing DADT made a huge difference in swaying both public opinion and Congress.

START appeared all but dead until the president assembled a group of Republican heavyweights -- from George H.W. Bush and Kissinger to Baker and Shultz -- whose vocal support for the treaty reversed the momentum.

In each case, there were also Senate stalwarts -- Joe Lieberman and Susan Collins on DADT, John Kerry on START -- who delivered, too.

From my biased perspective, I also thought the president was more effective because he seemingly played these fights more from the background than the foreground. We heard about him each day making phone calls, bringing in votes, but we didn't see him so constantly at the podium. It worked!

The net result is that President Obama has regained his mojo much more quickly than anyone, including his closest advisers, might have imagined. Even Bill Clinton did not bounce back from his mid-term defeat so quickly.

None of this means that the president has erased the meaning of the elections. Voters clearly wanted to put a brake on excess spending and government that seemed to be growing out of control. If the elections were held again today, I would imagine that the results would be much the same.

Less noticed in the hubbub about Obama's victories is how easily McConnell and company derailed the omnibus spending bill -- one that gagged in the throats of the public with its more than 6,700 earmarks. More to the point, the Republicans have now set up a pair of showdowns in the first few weeks of the new year -- one over lifting the debt ceiling that could come as early as February, the other when the new budget resolution expires in March. Either one could bring a shut-down of Washington -- and unlike the Clinton-Gingrich donnybrook of 1995, Republicans could well have the public on their side this time.

So, tough, tough fights lie ahead. But the surprise is that Obama now enters 2011 on a more even playing field -- and he and his team have shown a fresh approach to governing that could continue to serve them well in the new year.
- David Gergen

"No Labels" Session 2 on December 13,2010

No Labels is off to a promising start. Organizers are very good folks. West Virgina's new Senator Joe Manchin impressive, likable.Session two including conversation with Joe Scarborough, Mika Brzenzski, Senator Evan Bai,and Senator Joe Manchin.




Watch live streaming video from nolabelsorg

Richard Holbrooke "Larger Than Life"

(CNN) -- Richard C. Holbrooke, the high-octane diplomat who spearheaded the end of the Bosnian war and most recently served as the Obama administration's point man in the volatile Afghan-Pakistani war zone, has died, officials said.

The 69-year-old diplomat died Monday at George Washington University Hospital in Washington. He was admitted last Friday after feeling ill. Doctors performed surgery Saturday to repair a tear in his aorta.

One of the world's most recognizable diplomats, Holbrooke's career spanned from the Vietnam War-era to the war against the Taliban and al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan, coinciding with presidencies of the past five decades, from John F. Kennedy to Barack Obama.

He also worked as a journalist and an investment banker. But as a diplomat, he was plain-speaking, accessible, and known for his tough-mindedness.

"He was known as a bit of bull in a China shop," said Nic Robertson, CNN's senior international correspondent who knew and covered Holbrooke.


"When he makes deals the crockery tends to get broken," Robertson said.

Holbrooke was best known for being "the chief architect of the 1995 Dayton Peace Agreement" that ended the Bosnian war -- the deadly ethnic conflict in the 1990s that erupted during the breakup of Yugoslavia.

Serving President Bill Clinton as assistant secretary of state for Europe from 1994 to 1996, Americans got a taste of Holbrooke's drive and intellect, as typified in this remark from "To End a War" -- his memoir of the Dayton negotiations.

"The negotiations were simultaneously cerebral and physical, abstract and personal, something like a combination of chess and mountain climbing," he wrote.

After President Obama took office in 2008, Holbrooke took one of the toughest diplomatic assignments -- U.S. special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, the region Obama regards as center of the war on terrorism.

"The environment was different," Robertson said.

Holbrooke's assertive style worked in the Balkans, but it brought perils for diplomats in Afghanistan and Pakistan, where long stretches of chatting and tea-drinking are the norm.

"Once you've insulted someone that's it, your relationship is probably never going to recover," Robertson said.

He was frank in his assessments about the region and officials in both countries regarded him as abrasive, including Afghan President Hamid Karzai. in April of 2009, there were reports of a heated argument between Holbrooke and Karzai after alleged fraud in the Afghan presidential election.

In an October interview with CNN, Holbrooke cautioned patience in the struggle against the militants and for democracy in the so-called AfPak region, a mission that he said was of the "most vital importance to our national security interests."

"We are determined to see it through," he said, and he made reference to the Vietnam War and the Dayton Accords in his insights.

"I'm not in the spin patrol of the people who are giddy with optimism on the op-ed pages of some papers or the people who say it's another Vietnam and it's hopeless," he said. "It's certainly not another Vietnam, for reasons you and I discussed before.

"And it is certainly not hopeless. But anyone who doesn't recognize what a daunting task it is is misleading. And the American public should understand that this is not going to be solved overnight. ... it is going to be a difficult struggle. It has a political component, where you're not trying to win this war militarily, and a Dayton-type negotiation is also very unlikely."

A graduate of Brown University, Holbrooke's experience extended from Vietnam to the post-9/11 era.

He joined the Foreign Service in 1962 and served in Vietnam, a job that included a tour of duty in the Mekong Delta for the Agency for International Development.

In the 1960s, he worked on Vietnam issues at the Lyndon B. Johnson White House, wrote a volume of the Pentagon Papers, and had been part of the American delegation to the Paris peace talks over Vietnam.

From 1970 to 1972, he was the Peace Corps director in Morocco and served as managing editor of Foreign Policy from 1972 to 1977.

During the Carter administration, Holbrooke was assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, and was in charge of U.S. ties with China when that relationship was "normalized in December of 1978," the State Department said.

He later held senior positions at two leading Wall Street firms, Credit Suisse First Boston, where he was vice chairman; and Lehman Brothers, where he was managing director.

Along with his negotiation of the Dayton peace agreement, Holbrooke also served as "special envoy to Bosnia and Kosovo" and special envoy to Cyprus on a pro-bono basis while as a private citizen.

Over the years, he commented on this and other major events in the Balkans with candor.

For example, when former Yugoslav strongman Slobodan Milosevic died in prison in 2006, Holbrooke said, "His actions led to the deaths of over 300,000 people, four wars, the destruction of stability in southeastern Europe, the creation of criminal gangs. Let's talk about the victims of his actions; he was never going to see daylight again and that was appropriate and now he's gone."

When Bosnia Serb leader Radovan Karadzic was caught in 2008, Holbrooke hailed it as a "historic day."

"One of the worst men in the world, the Osama bin Laden of Europe, has finally been captured. A major, major thug has been removed from the public scene.

"He was at large because the Yugoslav army was protecting him. But this guy in my view was worse than Milosevic ... he was the intellectual leader," Holbrooke said.

When he visited Bosnia in 2008, the memories of his own family history -- when his Jewish grandfather fled Germany after Hitler took power -- and the ethnic cleansing of Muslims in Bosnia prompted him to reflect.

"I thought I'm seeing a color remake of the black-and-white scenes we'd seen in World War II of Jews signing away their property at the point of a gun and then being shipped off to who knows where," Holbrooke said.

"I don't think you have to be Jewish to understand that what you're seeing was a genuine crime against humanity. The Europeans were doing nothing, and the Americans were doing less," he said.

He worked from 1993 to 1994 as the U.S. ambassador to Germany and served as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations while a member of Clinton's Cabinet from 1999 to 2001.

He was an adviser to candidates, such as the presidential campaign of Sen. John Kerry in 2004.

The Obama administration swiftly appointed Holbrooke to the special representative job and Holbrooke dove in headfirst to tackle the challenges. One of them is the fact that the foes are diffused.

"A peace deal requires agreements, and you don't make agreements with your friends, you make agreements with your enemies," he told Fareed Zakaria in October.

He mentioned a range of militants groups, such as the Afghan Taliban, the Pakistani Taliban, the Haqqani Network, and Lashkar-e Tayyiba and noted that "an expert could add another 30."

"There's no Ho Chi Minh. There's no Slobodan Milosevic. There's no Palestinian Authority. There is a widely dispersed group of -- of people that we roughly call the enemy. There's al Qaeda, with which there's no possibility of any discussion at all."

"There is no clear single address that you go to," Holbrooke said.

Bill Clinton To The Rescue?

Hackett on Politics: It's nice to know some politicians can be candid

Impartial opinions rare, but valuable to our process
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Norwich Bulletin Posted Dec 11, 2010 @ 04:55 PM.fb_ltr { padding-top: 10px; }


A couple of weeks ago in this column, I expressed my feelings that what I believe is missing in our political system is the middle ground, political leaders capable of abandoning the hard-line political stance of party politics in favor of considering ideas based solely on their merits. In other words, the moderates who have been purged from the ranks of the Democratic and Republican parties.
It seems I may not be alone in that line of thinking.

Next week — Monday to be exact — a new organization is being launched. It's called No Labels and its purpose is to bring together those — regardless of political affiliation — who believe it's not a matter of moving to the right or left, but rather moving forward.

It's not a new political party. In fact, organizers aren't asking anyone to abandon their political affiliation — just put the party label aside when the campaigning is over and do what's best for America.

According to its press release, "No Labels believes that the answers to the challenges we face as a nation get lost in the political posturing that all too often results in nothing getting done to help the American people."

There's nothing in that statement that anyone can disagree with. However, in this politically-charged environment, I'm sure there are some who could find something in it to disagree with.
Political luminaries

The official launch will be held in New York City. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg is among the list of speakers scheduled to attend, along with U.S. Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, I-Conn., outgoing U.S. Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind., Republican and now independent Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, Ronald Reagan's former director of communications David Gergen and former Republican Virginia Congressman Tom Davis — among others.

Davis on street

I've had the pleasure of interviewing a few of those men through the years, including Gergen and Davis.
When I first met Davis, he was chairman of the Republican Congressional Campaign Committee, the highly political organization with the single-minded goal of electing Republicans to Congress — at any cost.

I met him again about a year later during a non-working trip to Washington, an unplanned meeting. We bumped into each other on the street, an opportunity to chat when he wasn't so focused on winning elections at any cost. In other words, it was a casual conversation about how things were going and not centered and completely focused on the "party line." It was refreshing.

Gergen at academy

Same with Gergen. I met him during a visit to the Coast Guard Academy where he was lecturing on foreign policy issues — and no one told him there was a reporter in the house.

When I introduced myself afterward, he expressed some concern that he might have said something that he might not otherwise have said if he knew I was there. I assured him that I didn't think he had. I'm not sure he believed me. He wasn't pushing the party line during his speech to the cadets — just an honest assessment of the world as he saw it. Also refreshing.

Which leads me back to my original premise of a couple of weeks ago — what's missing today are those who can put aside the party label and talk honestly about issues based on their merits.

Those people do exist and it's nice to see some of them coming together to champion the cause.

Ray Hackett is the Norwich Bulletin's editorial page editor. He has more than 20 years covering Connecticut politics. He can be reached at (860) 425-4225 or rhackett@norwichbulletin.comCopyright 2010 Norwich Bulletin. Some rights reserved [image error] <a href="http://a1.interclick.com/getInPageTar... src="http://a1.interclick.com/getInPageIma..." border="0"></a> <a href="http://data.ad.yieldmanager.net/click...?" target="_blank" ><img src="http://ad.doubleclick.net/ad/bb.gh.no...?" border="0" alt="" /></a>

Prince Of Pork To Control Purse Strings

National Leadership Index 2010

President Obama's Tax Deal

Ultimately,President Obama had to make the deal... Surprised he did so without a fight. As with health care, he is in danger of winning a bill and losing the politics.