Yeah, there's a lots of analysis by pundits (see Washington Post analysis by Karen DeYoung) which declares that his policies are not much different from the "mainstream". But this is missing the forest for the trees.
Obama has a completely different world view compared to anyone else in the Washington beltway, and refreshingly so. Although he has in his "candidate cabinet" a few old-timers, he listens most of all to Samantha Power.
Samantha Power was until 2005 a professor at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, where she taught Human Rights and U.S. Foreign Policy (ISP-221). Before that she was a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist. But after Obama was elected to the U.S. Senate, she joined his team and has been stumping for him publicly and advising him privately ever since. The principles that Obama talks about are justice, human rights, and multilateralism, and they are ones that Obama and Power share.
Her interview in Salon from a couple of weeks ago is most instructive.
The line that gets Boston Brahmin most is on what we need to do about foreign policy:
[we] have to figure out a way to inject concern for human beings into our foreign policy.
1 comment:
I agree -- Obama's take on foreign policy is extremely refreshing. He is also keenly aware of exactly how much work needs to be done to reverse the damage wrought by 8 years of Bush.
In one of her many speeches, Hillary Clinton once said that Obama's years spent abroad didn't count for much--because they took place when he was very young.
Anyone who has read his memoir, Dreams From My Father, will know that hsi unique upbringing (including time spent abroad) has given him a very special perspective--one that is truly global.
That someone no less than Samantha Power fully supports him is simply amazing and heartening.
Post a Comment