WP: Foreign Policy Team Takes Center Stage

Advisers Gain New Importance in Campaign

James P. Rubin has appeared on more than 60 national and foreign television shows over the past few weeks to outline Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kerry's positions on foreign policy issues, from Iraq to North Korea, terrorism to weapons proliferation.

But don't try to find Rubin, who was a State Department spokesman in the Clinton administration, at Kerry headquarters. The telephone operators say he doesn't work there. And even if they did have his name, they would be hard pressed to locate him in the noisy construction zone where the campaign is racing to carve out offices for Rubin and other recent arrivals to Kerry's foreign policy staff.

With Iraq and other world hot spots emerging as pivotal election issues, the Kerry campaign is going through serious growth spurts -- and growing pains.

(snip)

Since Kerry wrapped up the presidential nomination in March, however, many of the Democratic Party all-stars have signed on and are injecting new energy. Now in the midst of an 11-day blitz on foreign policy, Kerry is also being advised by former secretary of state Madeleine K. Albright, former U.N. ambassadors Richard C. Holbrooke and Bill Richardson, former defense secretary William J. Perry, former Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Gen. John M. Shalikashvili, former NATO commander Gen. Wesley K. Clark, and Sen. Joseph R. Biden (Del.), ranking Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee.

Rubin likened it to a government-in-exile since most served in the Clinton administration -- a stark contrast to the previous two Democratic presidents, who faced building staffs and formulating positions after long periods of the party being out of power.

more…
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A1438-2004May29.html

he's like an ethnic JFK Jr.

Plus he's smart, speaks well in public, doesn't take guff and he helped out Clark tremendously during his campaign.

Post script: "government in exile" that phrase should get used more often by Kerry's campaign. In November.. the Democrats will take their rightful place on the world stage.

Off to read the whole article...

from Gilbert and Sullivan... I LOVE it!!! Especially compared to the overwrought term Junior's crew uses "Vulcans".

By the way, you know that Vulcan was cuckolded by his wife Venus. She was having an affair with Mars.

..........................................................................................................................................................................

Kerry's staff jokingly calls the inner circle the Pooh-bahs, a term from the 1885 Gilbert
and Sullivan opera "The Mikado." The word originally meant
"Lord-High-Everything-Else" and has come to signify a person of great influence or
high position.

The Pooh-bahs are increasingly visible in taking on the Vulcans, the more serious name
given George W. Bush's foreign policy team during the 2000 campaign. The term
"Vulcans" came from a statue in Condoleezza Rice's home town of Birmingham, which
captured the strength and determination they sought to portray. The Vulcans included
Rice, Paul D. Wolfowitz, Richard N. Perle, Richard L. Armitage, Robert D. Blackwill,
Stephen J. Hadley and others -- most best known later for crafting Iraq policy.

Although some Kerry staff aides cringe at their nickname, Holbrooke jested upon
hearing that he is called a Pooh-bah, "It's the highest rank I've ever held, and I hope by
the end of the campaign to be promoted to pasha."

The Pooh-bahs' strategy is a division of labor; they play the bad cop to Kerry's good
cop.

And besides that, if given a choice between Jamie or Richard Holbrooke, I would have one helluva time trying to decide! So, realistically, I just love both of 'em, plus I admire all the others mentioned!

That is a pretty high-powered group of advisors and very effective ones too.

:kick:

:D

:)

from the last 2 paragraphs of the WaPo article referenced in this thread's original message, we get the focus of Kerry's 4 STRATEGIC goals about foreign policy:

<snip>
"He is his own best foreign policy adviser," Berger said. "He feels very secure in what he knows and doesn't feel compelled to show everyone how smart he is."

For now, the Kerry campaign's primary foreign policy focus is on four issues: Iraq, the Middle East, terrorism and nonproliferation.
<snip>


and, from this story:

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2004/05/28/unveiling_foreign_policy_kerry_has_tough_words_for_bush/

we get the TACTICAL details of HOW a Kerry administration would achieve the 4 foreign policy strategic goals listed above:

<snip>
Kerry laid out four ''new imperatives" that would distinguish his approach from that of President Bush.

While saying that the United States must preserve the right to strike first if threatened, Kerry called for launching a new era of alliances reminiscent of those used in World War II; modernizing the military to fight more elusive threats such as terrorists; utilizing nonmilitary means such as diplomacy, intelligence gathering, and economic sanctions and incentives to advance US causes; and weaning America from its dependence on Middle East oil to avoid being subject to the whims of foreign powers.
<snip>

This is headline written in a way that noone will read the story, imho.

...but far better than Bush criminal neo-cons.

Hi Folks,

We had another thread going before this one that mentioned Kerry's name in the title, but it got shut and routed to this one, so I am copying my earlier post to here since it has lots more on Rubin.

Foreign Policy Team Takes Center Stage
Advisers Gain New Importance in Campaign
By Robin Wright
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, May 30, 2004; Page A08

James P. Rubin has appeared on more than 60 national and foreign television shows over the past few weeks to outline Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kerry's positions on foreign policy issues, from Iraq to North Korea, terrorism to weapons proliferation.

A LOT OF THE REST of this article is fluff and not informative about positions the advisers may take.

-------

Here is some very intelligent analysis by Rubin of how Bush shot to pieces the goodwill that America had around the world after 9/11:

Stumbling Into War
James P. Rubin
From Foreign Affairs, September/October 2003

Summary: Why did most of the world abandon Washington when it went after Saddam Hussein? The war in Iraq could never have been an easy sell, but nor should it have been such a difficult one. The Bush administration badly botched the prewar maneuvering, presenting a textbook study in how not to wage a diplomatic campaign.

James P. Rubin is a Visiting Professor of International Relations at the London School of Economics and was Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs from 1997 to 2000.

A DIPLOMATIC POSTMORTEM

After the attacks of September 11, 2001, the United States put together a historic, worldwide coalition to overthrow the Taliban in Afghanistan and destroy al Qaeda. China, India, Japan, Pakistan, and Russia all supported the enterprise, as did Europe. The subsequent war may have scattered al Qaeda rather than destroyed it -- key operatives remain at large today -- but the mission was widely seen as a success.

Eighteen months later, the Bush administration went to war again, this time to overthrow Saddam Hussein. On this occasion, however, most of the same countries that had backed the United States in Afghanistan bluntly opposed the campaign -- as, indeed, did most of the world. Washington's failure to muster international support to depose a despised dictator was a stunning diplomatic defeat -- a failure that has not only made it harder to attract foreign troop contributions to help stabilize post-Saddam Iraq, but will more generally damage U.S. foreign policy for years to come.

---------

I LIKE THIS PART... since resolving the Israel/Palestine is key to getting a handle on lessening the dangers of terrorist response.

Rubin says some pages into his article:

A final reason for the loss of goodwill toward the United States was the White House's approach to peace in the Middle East. Although most of the world recognizes how difficult stopping Arab-Israeli violence will be, they expect the U.S. government to try. Bush's across-the-board support for Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, therefore, and his administration's lack of high-level engagement in the peace process prior to this summer made it hard for Washington to attract support for its war in Iraq. Blair, at least, understood this problem and pushed Bush hard to commit political capital to getting both the Palestinians and the Israelis to compromise. Although the White House did begin to move in this direction right before the invasion of Iraq began, its effort was too little and too late to repair the damage done by its two years of studied avoidance of this critical issue.

Go here to read entire article -- many will be impressed:

http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20030901faessay82504/james-p-rubin/stumb...