Hillary's Speech: What she needs to say

When Hillary Clinton addresses the Democratic Nation Convention tonight she needs to say the following:

"I, of all people, understand the disappointment, and yes the hurt felt by my supporters. But if you support me, if you support the goals which I've spent my life pursuing, then you must support and vote for Barack Obama."

Anything less is unacceptable if either Clinton seeks to have a political life within the Democratic party.

My bet is that Hillary understands this as well.

[UPDATE: Mission accomplished, great job Hillary!]

Paris Attacks

See more funny videos at Funny or Die

How sad is it that in McCain v. Hilton, Paris Hilton comes off as the mature one?

Reprehensible

"I had the courage and judgment to say that I would rather lose a political campaign than lose a war. It seems to me that Sen. Obama would rather lose the war in order to win a political campaign." Emphasis mine-CK

So much for taking the high ground. Expect more and worse as the wheels continue to fly off the straight talk express.

No, Obama's not that funny, but then neither is Maureen

OK, I get it.

After 7 years of a buffoon-in-chief in the form of GW, preceded by 8 years of Bill Clinton's tastes for both cheeseburgers and cheesy interns, the press has gotten used to an easily mock-able President.

So I suppose Maureen Dowd's lament over the lack of humor emanating from the Obama campaign is understandable. (Not that it's impossible to find. As Andy Borowitz demonstrates, even a lack of humor can be funny.)

But I don't see that Obama needs to be anything other than who and how he is, even at the risk of the "regular guy"-ness that people like Dowd insist we plebes crave. I, for one, don't want anyone approaching "regular" sitting in the Oval office come January. Nope, the person I want, and the country clearly needs as President should be exceptional, intelligent and, horror of horrors, serious.

The pundits and comedians are just going to have to work for their laughs this time around.

The Anti-Dumb Candidate

To all my compatriots on the left who are shaking their heads about Obama's latest "sell-out" I highly recommend Gail Collins' NYT column.

Think back. Why, exactly, did you prefer Obama over Hillary Clinton in the first place? Their policies were almost identical — except his health care proposal was more conservative. You liked Barack because you thought he could get us past the old brain-dead politics, right? He talked — and talked and talked — about how there were going to be no more red states and blue states, how he was going to bring Americans together, including Republicans and Democrats.

Exactly where did everybody think this gathering was going to take place? Left field?

When an extremely intelligent politician tells you over and over and over that he is tired of the take-no-prisoners politics of the last several decades, that he is going to get things done and build a “new consensus,” he is trying to explain that he is all about compromise. Even if he says it in that great Baracky way.

I suggest you read the whole thing (if only for the penguin story).

A coupla thoughts on recent Obama news

On public financing: Obama would be a fool not to use every advantage he can legitimately muster to win this election, and he's never struck me as a fool. As for going back on his "promise", said "promise" was pretty finely parsed. After 7 years of finely wrought arguments about what TORTURE means, I'm not too shocked by a politician walking a fine line on a campaign promise.

On helping to retire Hillary's debt: Welcome to politics. By helping Hill, the O-Man will help soothe some of HRC's followers, and as importantly encourage HER donors to give to him.

Count me as among those Democrats who are tired of losing elections because we were too proud to muss our hair and (God help us) actually engage in politics.

Obama Endorsement News

I know, I know, endorsements don't matter, Teddy K. couldn't even win Mass. for Obama, etc.

Still, ya gotta believe that some endorsements matter more than others.

(H/t to Lance Mannion)

Can you tell the difference?

Jump Al, Jump

I'm just sayin'.

A third party run for Ron Paul?

While most talk on the web concerned with possible third party candidates for the 2008 presidential election focuses on that dying species, the liberal Republican, mostly in the form of New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg and Nebraska Senator Chuck Hagel, I'd suggest keeping an eye on another type of Republican altogether, once (and future?) Libertarian Ron Paul.

Why, you ask, does your CaliBlogger think the still obscure Texas congressman might make a flanking run at the presidency?

First, of course is that Paul's consistently libertarian views put him at odds with Bush's Republican party which is increasingly authoritarian, Christianist, and interventionist. Paul doesn't just mouth platitudes about small government, he actually believes that government has no business meddling in foreign countries, has no business spying on its own citizens, and has no business monitoring what people do in their bedrooms, and who with.

Secondly, Paul, unlike Ross Perot whose Reform Party was more personality cult than political organization, would presumably be running under the auspices of an existing party, the Libertarian.

And while small compared to the major parties, the Libertarian Party is the largest of US third parties, and most importantly, consistently shows the ability to put a candidate on the ballot in all 50 states.

Finally, perhaps because of his libertarian leanings, Ron Paul is an even rarer bird than the liberal Republican, a Republican with actual grassroots support.

While Republicans are typically funded through astroturf groups that are funded by just a few wealthy individuals or corporations, Paul is getting support and interest from that most democratic of modern amalgamations, the Internet. From the Washington Post:

Rep. Ron Paul is more popular on Facebook than Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). He's got more friends on MySpace than former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney. His MeetUp groups, with 11,924 members in 279 cities, are the biggest in the Republican field. And his official YouTube videos, including clips of his three debate appearances, have been viewed nearly 1.1 million times -- more than those of any other candidate, Republican or Democrat, except Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.).

No one's more surprised at this robust Web presence than Paul himself, a self-described "old-school," "pen-and-paper guy" who's serving his 10th congressional term and was the Libertarian Party's nominee for president in 1988.

"To tell you the truth, I hadn't heard about this YouTube and all the other Internet sites until supporters started gathering in them," confessed Paul, 71, who said that he's raised about $100,000 after each of the three debates. Not bad considering that his campaign had less than $10,000 when his exploratory committee was formed in mid-February. "I tell you I've never raised money as efficiently as that, in all my years in Congress, and all I'm doing is speaking my mind."

And someone who just speaks his mind would be a refreshing change for Republicans who are more adept at fear-mongering and feigning the sort of flat-earth ignorance that appeals to the knuckle-draggers that form the party's base.

Now to be clear, your CaliBlogger is far from enamored of some of Paul's rather extreme anti-government stances (eliminating the Department of Education), but someone who also advocates the repeal of the Patriot Act and the liquidation of the Department of Homeland Security, is at least demonstrating an appealing level of unaccustomed intellectual consistency.

And the fact that a Paul candidacy would continue the destruction of the crumbling Republican party is only and added side benefit.

Would you torture?

By the way, as a public service to Democratic presidential candidates (and Republicans too, if they would only listen), a good response to the Jack Bauer terrorism question does exist:

1. As president I would use every and all means available to the the most powerful nation on the planet to prevent and respond to any attack on the United States.
2. That being said, I would never seek short-term political benefit from using means that denigrate the memory and sacrifice of all those American patriots who have died in the name of liberty.

Further points can follow about the unlikelihood of the "24" scenario, the ineffectiveness of torture as a means to elicit truthful information, and the corrosive effect torture has not only on its victims, but on those that practice it, both the torturers and the nation they represent.

But the most powerful points must be made first, let me repeat:

1. As president I would use every and all means available to the the most powerful nation on the planet to prevent and respond to any attack on the United States.
2. That being said, I would never seek short-term political benefit from using means that denigrate the memory and sacrifice of all those American patriots who have died in the name of liberty.

Your CaliBlogger will never vote for or support any candidate who would say less.

UPDATE: I posted the above in the comments section over at Kevin Drumm's site in a discussion of the ethics of torture and asked for better suggestions, here's a response I received from lampwick:

What's wrong with your hypothetical response is that it's not emotionally satisfying at all; it's cliched and cerebral, like Dukakis' reaction when asked about how he would respond to news that his wife had been raped.

An emotionally satisfying answer would be 'No one under my command will torture enemy prisoners. Period. End of discussion' or 'Many Americans believe in the existence of the devil. Torture is pure evil, it is the devil's work, and I abhor and reject it.'

Cliched and cerebral? Moi?

But seriously, while I don't believe l's first suggestion to be sufficient for a hypothetical debate setting (as opposed to orders to one's generals, where it would be entirely appropriate) I think the second suggestion has some merit, especially when trying to appeal to that apparently large majority of Americans who believe in Evil with a capital E.

GOP debate: Big win for ignorance and torture

Two points on the GOP debate.

First, I find it incredible that the Fox audience, and the vast majority of MSM commentators, applauded Giuliani's take-down of Ron Paul for suggesting that al Qaeda's attacks were in some way a reaction to US policy in the mid-east.

The distance from reality that suggests is truly scary.

Further, I'm stunned at just how many people seem to be OK with torture. Not surprised mind you, I've always suspected that the lip service pay to freedom and the rule of law was about as deep as a yellow ribbon.

But for those of you who think American values has meaning beyond militarism, corporatism and gay-bashing, I recommend a couple of articles, yet again, exposing the damage torture does to both the tortured and the torturers.

Though I'm not a big believer in Evil since I think that minimizes the extent to which average people can commit acts that are themselves evil, Andrew Sullivan makes the case that torture is not only evil, but represents a threat to America which no terrorist could possibly match.

The evil of torture is therefore not just a moral one. It is a political one. A constitutional republic dedicated before everything to the protection of liberty cannot legalize torture and remain a constitutional republic. It imports into itself a tumor of pure tyranny. That tumor, we know from history, always always spreads, as it has spread in the US military these past shameful years. The fact that hefty proportions of US soldiers now support its use as a routine matter reveals how deep the rot has already gone. The fact that now a majority of Republican candidates proudly support such torture has rendered the GOP the party most inimical to liberty in America. When you combine torture's evil with the claims of the hard right that a president can ignore all laws and all treaties in wartime, and that "wartime" is now permanent, you have laid the ground for the abolition of the American experiment in self-government. Imagine another terror attack, with Rudy Giuliani as president, and a mandate to arrest and torture at will, with no need to follow or even address the rule of law. We would no longer be a republic. We would be in a protectorate of one man.

And in the Washington Post, no lesser personages than former Marine Commandant Charles C. Krulak and former Central Command commander-in-chief Joseph P. Hoar provide an analysis of how the use of torture both degrades our military and succors the terrorists.

As has happened with every other nation that has tried to engage in a little bit of torture -- only for the toughest cases, only when nothing else works -- the abuse spread like wildfire, and every captured prisoner became the key to defusing a potential ticking time bomb. Our soldiers in Iraq confront real "ticking time bomb" situations every day, in the form of improvised explosive devices, and any degree of "flexibility" about torture at the top drops down the chain of command like a stone -- the rare exception fast becoming the rule.

To understand the impact this has had on the ground, look at the military's mental health assessment report released earlier this month. The study shows a disturbing level of tolerance for abuse of prisoners in some situations. This underscores what we know as military professionals: Complex situational ethics cannot be applied during the stress of combat. The rules must be firm and absolute; if torture is broached as a possibility, it will become a reality.

This has had disastrous consequences. Revelations of abuse feed what the Army's new counterinsurgency manual, which was drafted under the command of Gen. David Petraeus, calls the "recuperative power" of the terrorist enemy.

Former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld once wondered aloud whether we were creating more terrorists than we were killing. In counterinsurgency doctrine, that is precisely the right question. Victory in this kind of war comes when the enemy loses legitimacy in the society from which it seeks recruits and thus loses its "recuperative power."

The torture methods that Tenet defends have nurtured the recuperative power of the enemy. This war will be won or lost not on the battlefield but in the minds of potential supporters who have not yet thrown in their lot with the enemy. If we forfeit our values by signaling that they are negotiable in situations of grave or imminent danger, we drive those undecideds into the arms of the enemy. This way lies defeat, and we are well down the road to it.

Both pieces should be read in full, and frankly memorized if possible. As the GOP debate showed, significant portions of our country are still ruled by fear and misinformation from those who seek to use that fear for their own political benefit.

But fear can be combated, not with bravado and volume, but with reason and knowledge. And for those of us in the reality-based world, reason and knowledge serve as our best armor against the forces within America which would betray its promise for an illusory promise of safety.

[And kudos to John McCain, for standing against torture. How has the GOP fallen that such a stand would be controversial?]

Bill Richardson's job interview

Ever have a tune float around in your head for no apparent reason? Happens to me all the time. Sometimes for long periods of time.

In fact for most of this winter I've been walking around with the strains of California Dreamin' whisping about my brain.

Well, like all those brown leaves and gray skies, another thought keeps echoing in my mind, gosh its too bad Bill Richardson is stuck in the second tier of candidates 'cos, whatever his deficiencies as a campaigner, he'd sure make a good president.

I find it heartening that the governor has, at the very least, some very smart media people working for him.

And, as I've mentioned before, after 8 years of a know-nothing presidency, the country could really use a president who has a clue. Couldn't it?

So with no further ado, but with help from this new-fangled YouTube thingy, a couple more looks at Bill Richardson. (H/t Andrew Sullivan).



I find it heartening that the governor has, at the very least, some very smart media people working for him.

Republicans vie to choose 2008 presidential loser

A confession, I didn't watch the Republican debate last night.

I tried to, but I just couldn't, clicking off half way through Giuliani's first remark. I don't recall either the question or his answer, but I knew that moment that the next 90 minutes was going to be hell.

So, unlike all those rightwing parents out there who seem unable to do so, I clicked off the objectionable programming, opting instead for watching Anthony Bourdain snark his way through Malaysia (though truth be told, Mr. Bourdain was uncharacteristically unsnarky for this particular episode).

Now I realize that it's terribly intellectually dishonest of me not to give the opposition a chance to explain their positions on the myriad challenges facing our nation: how they would extricate us from the mess in Mesopotamia, how they would address our failing health care system, how they'd address the burgeoning potential disaster of global warming.

It turns out I needn't have bothered.

Apparently what I really missed was a 90-minute paean to Ronald Reagan, the last Republican anyone really liked.

From the Carpetbagger Report:

After any debate, the first and most natural question is “who won?” Last night, the winner was obvious: Ronald Reagan.

Look, I know Reagan is the only president of the 20th century that Republicans really like. And I know that the debate was being held at the Reagan Library in California. But over the course of 90 minutes, the candidates specifically referenced the 40th president 20 times. If you count more oblique references (Gilmore thanked “the president in whose name this library is named”), the number climbs to 25. If you include references to Reagan by debate moderator Chris Matthews, well, we get pretty close to triple digits.

And who was the loser? By the same reasoning it was George W. Bush. The leader of today's GOP garnered exactly zero mentions by his aspiring successors. (Seriously, I opened the transcript and did a ctrl+f search. The only references to W were my moderators, though one candidate mentioned HW and another mentioned Jeb).

What this tells me is that the GOP presidential candidates have no clue as to how to deal with the current state of the Republican party as it stands under Bush's decidership.

During today's WashingtonPost.com online chat I put that very question to Chris Cillizza:

Pasadena, Calif.[that's me]: Love your coverage Chris, love these chats. Six-hundred-pound gorilla in the room: Playing up Reagan seemed the obvious thing to do, but do you think any of these people have any clue as to how to deal with the, um, legacy being bequeathed to them by George W?

Chris Cillizza: It's a VERY fine line that all of these candidates have to walk.

On the one hand, expressing support for President Bush's surge in Iraq makes sense because most conservative Republicans -- those most likely to vote in primaries and caucuses -- still support the policy.

On the other, none of these candidates wants to be seen as the Bush heir in the race if they wind up becoming the nominee.

The challenge for every Republican candidate is to offer enough praise for Bush that it doesn't turn off those voters still supportive of the president while offering enough criticism of his policies that people know that they would follow a different course in the White House.

A VERY tough proposition.

Indeed.

The Republican party is still very much Bush's party: authoritarian, Christianist, interventionist, corporate. No Republican can win the nomination without appealing to the very groups and ideas that independents (and needless to say Democrats) find abhorrent. And as the chasm between the heart of the GOP and the rest of us grows wider it is becoming increasingly clear that it may be a well nigh impossible gap to bridge.

So while I'll always believe it's possible for Democratic leadership to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, none-the-less, barring an unforeseen major reformation of the GOP, the race for the Republican nomination seems increasingly more like a face-saving measure rather than a presidential campaign.

It's a race Republicans have to contest, regardless that a win seems far from remotely possible.

(By the way, while writing this I remembered why I changed the channel. Virtually the first words out of Rudy's mouth were about America having the greatest health care system in the world. Seriously. If this is an example of the grasp the moderate branch of the GOP has on reality...)

Democratic debate: South Carolina

I've been busy, busy, busy, with the day job, and that's a good thing. However it does mean I tend to watch major events at 11:00 PM on dvr than live. So it was with the first Democratic presidential debate from South Carolina.

(New York Times debate transcript)

I've purposely avoided much commentary on the debate as to leave my first impressions as unspun as possible, and I'll be interested to see how others viewed the affair.

So, off the cuff, and in no discernible order, my thoughts...

First, and foremost, damn these folks are good, and so vastly superior to chimpy that I am tempted to wish for Adam Sandler's fast-forward remote. January 2009 can't come to soon.

Hillary wasn't smarmy. In fact when discussing specific policy issues she came off as nothing less than extremely competent.

Best response: wearing Republican antipathy as a badge of honor. I don't know how that would play with independents, but given the level of contempt with which Democrats view the current corporate-Christianist iteration of the GOP, that thought should play well with the base. It played well with me. She's still not my first choice, but she certainly didn't hurt herself.

Obama struck me as a bit flat, but I have to wonder, given the accounts of his soaring oratory, whether my expectations were a bit high. From reading press accounts one expects to hear Martin Luther King channeling Abraham Lincoln whenever he opens his mouth.

On the other hand he also didn't strike me as light on specifics (his main criticism to date). I wonder if his tendency to re-frame specific issues within their wider context (a good thing to my mind) tends to muddy his reactions among some viewers and the press.

Edwards won points in my book for not taking an obvious cheap swipe at Hillary, though he was mightily tempted by host Brian Williams. One hopes he would would be a little more willing to do so when debating Republicans.

He also has made great use of his time since 2004 to study issues and develop specific ideas on where the US should be going and the steps needed to get us there. He clearly seems the most wholly formed of the candidates.

Richardson also seemed to have some quite specific views on how best to deal with the challenges America faces, and though a little workmanlike, I've always been fond of the step 1, step 2, step 3 format for laying out policy objectives. It's a little dull, but it's also very clear.

Perhaps he was a little limited by the rapid-fire nature of the debate format, but I think Richardson still needs to find a way to use these opportunities to highlight the strongest overall resume among the field. He did manage to refer to his executive experience, but I think he needs to elucidate why that's so important, especially now given all the recent revelations as to how our MBA president is currently mis-managing the government.

Biden clearly gave the best response of the night by responding to Williams' question about his legendary loquacity and penchant for gaffes and whether he could provide sufficient focus for the American people to trust him with the presidency, answered with a simple "yes".

In fact it occurred to me, as it did with Kerry 3 years ago, that Biden would greatly benefit if his staff could arrange for a 30 second clock whenever the senator opens his mouth. Certainly his responses tonight, short and to the point, and clearly demonstrating his years of experience, were all the more impressive for their unaccustomed brevity.

Chris Dodd also was very strong on policy, though I found myself in agreement with most of his policy stances, I have to wonder, to be blunt, whether the country is really interested in electing another old white male as president this time around. I know how superficial that sounds, but there you go.

In times past I might have supported him as an older, mentor-type veep for a younger, more charismatic, though more inexperienced president. I suspect the results of the Bush/Cheney model have, however, poisoned that idea for some time to come.

Mike Gravel seemed to be working on sewing up the crotchety old man vote, which is too bad because I agree with his further left of center stances more than I do the more moderate front-runners.

But this is politics and presentation matters and coming off as the kind of guy who yells a kids riding their bikes on the sidewalk only plays into the "angry left" meme so well developed by the GOPers.

Dennis Kucinich seems to be solidifying his place as the Ralph Nader of the Democratic party: the guy you know is right about the issues, but who you also know will never be elected in this country in a million years.

Not surprisingly, Mrs. CaliBlogger, who is rather further left than yours truly liked him the most from a policy perspective.

My final thought for the moment is that while it was great to get the opportunity to hear from folks I never get to hear from, Dodd, Gravel, and Kucinich, and Biden greatly benefits from that 30 second clock thing, none of them (except maybe Biden) gave me an excuse to support them over the top tier candidates. And while it is early still, I find myself looking forward to smaller forums where the candidates can more fully explore the challenges this country faces after years of Republican corruption.

Bottom line though, I am now more than ever confidant that whoever wins the Democratic nomination will be worthy of my full support.

And that's a good feeling to have.

Bill Richardson: still worth a look

It's no particular secret that, as much as I like Edwards and Obama (and keep a chair at my table open, in case Al Gore shows up) I believe New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson should not be discounted.

Aside from Mr. Gore, Mr. Richardson's credentials place him head and shoulders above the current field as far as relevent experience goes. And while Americans don't, nor do I believe they should, select their presidents on resume alone, still, when combined with respectable fund-raising, should give hints of a candidate's viability.

Kevin Drum would seem to agree:

[D]idn't Bill Richardson do awfully well? Sure, $6 million looks anemic compared to the three frontrunners, but in absolute terms that's pretty impressive, isn't it? If he keeps it up, he'll have a plenty big enough war chest to wage a serious campaign.

I don't have any big point to make here. It just seems like Richardson deserves a little more attention for raising that kind of money with virtually no name recognition.

$6 million is still an awfully large amount of money at this stage of the game. It was John Edwards who raised eyebrows in 2003 when he posted the then ridiculously large amount of $7.4 million in his opening bid in 2003.

Sure, it's not Hill's $26 million, or Obama's $25 million, but believe it or not $6 million will buy you lots of face time in Iowa, New Hampshire, and Nevada, the sites of the first three referendums.

It's now up to Governor Richardson as to whether he'll be able to make the most of it.

April 4 roundup

I've been having an extraordinarily busy time at the day job, (not to worry, busy=$), but it's put a severe crimp in my energy and time reserves.

However, several of today's events demand at least a few words before I toss myself in bed.

First off is the resolution of the Iran/Britain hostage situation. Though a blow to warbloggers across the US, the rest of us are glad to see that these lads (and one lass) will be going home safely, with no shots fired and no apparent harm to civilization as we know it. Point to note, Syria was an important element in the resolution of this affair, maybe we should talk to them sometime.

Speaking of which, Speaker Nancy Pelosi is doing just that. And while BushCorp insists on standing in a corner in a childish snit, it's important for the world to see that indeed some adults do still work in Washington and are able to carry on as adults, dealing with problems as they are.

And speaking of problems, Hillary Clinton's claim to "inevitability" is taking body blows of late, most importantly from Obama who not only has virtually matched her dollar for dollar in fundraising, but also enjoys twice as many donating supporters.

Not only that, but John Edwards, holds a statistically significant lead over Clinton in the Iowa caucuses. Also newsworthy, from the same report, the top three Democrats (Edwards, Clinton, Obama) fared better than the best Republican, Rudy Giuliani.

And just because it's emblematic of this presidency, video of Darth Cheney keeping a close eye on his puppet, apprentice to the darkside, president:

Record fundraising

Blah, blah, blah Hillary, blah, Obama, blah, blah.

Sorry, but until they start publishing the identities of those to whom our prospective candidates have sold their souls, as well as the breakdowns on whether the dollars raised are for the general or the primary elections, and how much of those $s have already been spent, then I'll get interested.

Bill Richardson: Worth a look

As I've said before, there are no circumstances under which I can foresee voting for anyone other than the Democratic nominee for president. Certainly ANYONE in the Democratic field, up to and including Dennis Kucinich is vastly superior to the current occupant of the Oval Office.

That being said, I am currently leaning towards Bill Richardson, and, at the very least, hope he gets earnest consideration by other Democratic voters.

I can understand Hillary's appeal, with her immense warchest and connection to the previous Democratic president, but he stances and approach, for me smack too much of the Democratic party of the past, with its dedication to big money and special interests.

Obama still serves as the most inspirational Democrat in the race, and, along with John Edwards, strikes me as the future face of the party. But frankly, given the mess the current president is going to leave for the next, I'd prefer someone with more executive experience and international expertise.

To my mind Bill Richardson is someone who embodies both.

From Robert Guttman, Director of the Center on Politics & Foreign Relations at Johns Hopkins, blogging at HuffPost:

Richardson is knowledgeable on the foreign policy issues of the day. His background as a congressman, United Nations Ambassador and Energy Secretary plus his frequent successful role as a roving diplomat who goes abroad to solve problems from Sudan to North Korea were readily apparent.

As he said in his talk, "I am a governor with foreign policy experience". Looking at the fact that four out of five of America's last presidents have been governors (Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush) and they have hailed from southern or southwestern states - Georgia, California, Arkansas and Texas - and you see in New Mexico Governor Richardson a competent and competitive Democratic candidate for president in 2008.

Richardson is exactly the sort of person one used to expect to get from Republicans, smart, tough, and competent. And I'm increasingly of the mind that he is exactly who the United States will need as its next president.

(Unless Al Gore decides to run.)

Bill Richardson: a clear vision on Iran

[x-posted at Daily Kos]

If the United States chose its presidents based on resumé alone, Bill Richardson would be the clear front-runner for 2008.

But Richardson, who is notably lacking in Obama's charisma, Hillary's name recognition and organization, or even Edward's boyish charm, is currently firmly ensconced in the dwindling (farewell Tom Vilsack, we hardly knew ye) second tier of potential Democratic nominees.

But regardless of his poll standings, I have no doubt that the New Mexican Governor, former UN ambassador, and Energy Secretary (see, I told you he has a great resumé) would may an excellent president.

One reason I believe that is his clear vision of America's place in the world and what needs to be done to improve that place.

In an op-ed in today's Washington Post, Richardson outlines his vision for dealing with an international crisis that, should it follow the trajectory which BushCorp™ seems to have mapped out for it, would indeed make the debacle in Iraq appear the mere comma W says it is:

The recent tentative agreement with North Korea over its nuclear program illustrates how diplomacy can work even with the most unsavory of regimes. Unfortunately, it took the Bush administration more than six years to commit to diplomacy. During that needless delay North Korea developed and tested nuclear weapons -- weapons its leaders still have not agreed to dismantle. Had we engaged the North Koreans earlier, instead of calling them "evil" and talking about "regime change," we might have prevented them from going nuclear. We could have, and should have, negotiated a better agreement, and sooner.

As the International Atomic Energy Agency just confirmed, Iran has once again defied the international community and is moving forward with its nuclear program, yet the Bush administration seems committed to repeating the mistakes it made with North Korea. Rather than directly engaging the Iranians about their nuclear program, President Bush refuses to talk, except to make threats. He has moved ships to the Persian Gulf region and claims, with scant evidence, that Iran is helping Iraqi insurgents kill Americans. This is not a strategy for peace. It is a strategy for war -- a war that Congress has not authorized. Most of our allies, and most Americans, don't believe this president, who has repeatedly cried wolf.

And while BushCorp™ continues to rely on its belief that diplomacy amounts it the issuance of threats and ultimata, Richardson proposes an approach to the issue that relies more on neurons than testosterone:

A better approach would be for the United States to engage directly with the Iranians and to lead a global diplomatic offensive to prevent them from building nuclear weapons. We need tough, direct negotiations, not just with Iran but also with our allies, especially Russia, to get them to support us in presenting Iran with credible carrots and sticks.

No nation has ever been forced to renounce nuclear weapons, but many have chosen to do so. The Iranians will not end their nuclear program because we threaten them and call them names. They will renounce nukes because we convince them that they will be safer and more prosperous if they do that than if they don't. This feat will take more than threats and insults. It will take skillful American diplomatic leadership. [Emphasis mine]

The article should be read in whole, but my point is that, whatever is lacking in candidate Richardson (and I'm not endorsing ANYONE at this point), he would none-the-less, be a vast improvement over the current administration, and is certainly worthy of consideration for the Democratic nomination.

As a commenter on the WaPo article puts it:

What a breath of fresh air. Finally, some level-headed, discerning experience talking. Exactly what this country has needed for the past six years. Not the deceit and recklessness of the dangerous boy scouts running the country who are happy to use our kids for their wars. Thanks, Governor. Such sanity shines through the clouds of war of these dark, tragic days.