The Clinton Doctrine

In a time of constant press availability, hourly tweets and Facebook posts, and YouTube videos for every small occasion, it is increasingly rare that a truly important speech is made, that words are spoken that themselves have the power to transform both the present mindset and the future path. Yesterday in Geneva, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton gave one of the most important speeches in recent history, and perhaps the most important declaration ever for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered community. Speaking on behalf of President Obama and the United States of America, Secretary Clinton harkened back to her landmark 1995 speech in Beijing, and declared “gay rights are human rights, and human rights are gay rights.” Much as the statement “all men are created equal” seems today plainly obvious, 1776 was the first time anyone bothered to write that down, similarly, yesterday was the first time in history that a world power bothered to articulate that seemingly obvious truth as fundamental policy.

In doing so, the Secretary of State eloquently and forcefully made the case yesterday for what I think it is fair to describe as the Clinton Doctrine. For a woman with an already long and distinguished legacy, an un-nuanced declaration that the most powerful nation on Earth is fully committed to the dignity, respect and equality of gays and lesbians is a fine addition. In many ways, it’s a fine addition because it is uniquely hers. Secretary Clinton has spent much of her career advocating for the rights of women and children, particularly in parts of the globe where they are all but nonexistent. However, while she undoubtedly has generated new attention for these issues and, as Secretary, put power behind words, these were always going to be paradigms of human rights that originated with someone else. Mrs. Clinton was improving a trail blazed by Susan B. Anthony and Eleanor Roosevelt. Yesterday, she blazed her own trail.

We have heard leaders give very positive and forward-thinking speeches in which gay rights have been mentioned before; we’ve seen the president laudably address the Human Rights Campaign twice; we’ve seen dozens of political leaders and celebrities speak for a few moments about how “it gets better.” And those are great – and historic. But Secretary Clinton’s speech was new ground. For the first time, a representative of the United States – not just of our government but of our people – spoke at length exclusively about gays and lesbians. In doing so, she addressed not merely the minimum rights under the law we deserve as equal members of the human race, but spoke about us as people, gave the world for a few moments an opportunity to think about how things feel from our perspective. She said many things that I, and I think millions of others, have been waiting to hear from a world leader for years.

It is nice to hear from a politician, usually in advance of an election or before a fundraiser, how he’ll fight for protection from hate crimes or increased spousal recognition. But the world – and much of our own country – desperately needed to hear a leader say that “The lives of gay people are shaped not only by laws, but by the treatment they receive every day from their families, from their neighbors.”

Hillary Clinton said that yesterday.

We needed to hear a world leader (and a straight leader) say, “We need to ask ourselves, "How would it feel if it were a crime to love the person I love? How would it feel to be discriminated against for something about myself that I cannot change?"”

Hillary Clinton said that yesterday.

We needed a leader to say, “in reality, gay people are born into and belong to every society in the world. They are all ages, all races, all faiths; they are doctors and teachers, farmers and bankers, soldiers and athletes; and whether we know it, or whether we acknowledge it, they are our family, our friends, and our neighbors.”

Hillary Clinton said that yesterday.

Believe it or not, for anyone who listens to her speech, that may be the very first time they have heard someone tell them those simple truths. Secretary Clinton made a very personal case to the world in a way that only someone known throughout the world and held in such esteem really can. And at its core, that’s all this is: personal. The barriers to equality and acceptance fall when you know someone you love is gay.

Secretary Clinton also made the case in historic terms. She placed the struggle for LGBT equality squarely on par with the struggle for women’s rights and for the rights of African Americans, where it belongs. This speech removed any uncertainty about whether the United States as a government believed that to be the case. Additionally, language is important. By referring to us as “the LGBT community” – by simply referring to us as people – rather than the vernacular of emphasizing the word “homosexual” in much of the world (or “faggot” in much of this country), she used words to underscore that sex has relatively little to do with who we are as brothers and sisters in the human race.

When an historic speech is given, coupled with an historic policy such as the one issued by the President yesterday that Secretary Clinton was announcing, it is worth reflecting. The United States, for the first time in history, is both speaking to the world at length about the rights and gays and lesbians and using the power of our extensive foreign aid to impact the rights of gays and lesbians around the globe. It makes me both terribly proud of Secretary Clinton for making this speech and articulating this doctrine and of President Obama for issuing this policy and allowing the speech. It also makes me incredibly proud to be an American and privileged to live in this era.

(Watch the full video here: http://bcove.me/qs3211sh)

Laying a New Foundation

PHILADELPHIA – President Obama’s televised address to Congress next week is a big deal, and it is my fervent hope that The White House rises to the occasion. These sorts of appearances before a joint session are rare, underscoring the importance of what President Obama will have to say on Wednesday. And this particular address comes not only at a critical point for our country, but at a pivotal moment for the Democratic Party. After a resounding, once-in-a-generation rout of the Republican Party last November, the Democratic Party, true to its form, has managed to mangle its message and give the Republicans a clear, albeit illogical, path from the wilderness back to relevance. The GOP is steering the national debate, and in the process, again preventing health care from reaching millions of Americans.


Additionally, however, is the toll the internal divisions of the Democratic Party are hurting both the president and the Democrats. If health care fails, we can surely blame it on the Republicans, but there truly is nobody to blame except for moderate Democrats – people like Ben Nelson, Blanche Lincoln, Mary Landrieu and Max Baucus.


But the divisions within the party that have long existed but went on seeming hiatus for the Obama presidential honeymoon, are back in forms beyond the moderate Dems in the Senate. A big reason that the President’s poll numbers have recently plummeted is a significant drop in job approval from liberal voters and young voters, alike. Liberals and young people (often coterminous) are frustrated with the Administration’s eagerness to compromise on health care, irritated by the apparent desire to achieve bipartisanship over progress and tiring of the failure to withdraw more troops from Iraq or pass bills such as a repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”


The President should take a cue from the late Speaker Tip O’Neill and remember to “dance with the one that brung ya.” He needs to articulate a plan for health insurance reform – and later for the rest of the “Change” we were promised – and unite the Democratic supermajority in the Senate and the Democratic House behind it. If he can get certain Republicans like Olympia Snowe on board for some it, great. But if not, so be it; He needs to accomplish something, with or without the Republican Party. And his Democratic base will be much more satisfied and eager to go work for candidates in 2010 if he does it without.


Obama is inclined towards compromise and bipartisanship and breaking down the divisions that have torn us apart in the past. That was central to his campaign in 2008, but it’s simply not realistic and it’s important for him to govern in the world in which we live, not an ideal world. This Republican Party and these Republican voters are not looking to compromise or unite; they are looking to destroy and divide. And they are utterly effective at both of those.


Meanwhile, the Democrats are terrible at marketing. The Republican Party managed to sell effectively sell a horrendous war by making it seem necessary for our survival. They might have, again, destroyed hope of health insurance reform by making it seem like a sure roadblock to our survival. They get everyone on the same page, using understandable (if wrong) concepts such as “death panels.” The Democrats, on the other hand, are barely in the same book and using concepts such as “access and affordability for every American while not restricting the choice and free market growth of any person or company.” It’s time for a winning sales pitch.


President Obama needs to make an unprecedented sales pitch on Wednesday. He needs to sell both the men and women sitting in front of him and the millions watching on television. (And Twittering it, for that matter.) By the time the speech concludes on Wednesday, it needs to be readily apparent that the situation is different than it is today. He needs to give the sort of address that historians look back on as a turning point. Fortunately, that is precisely what President Obama is best at.


This turning point is for not only the health care debate, but as I said earlier, the political atmosphere and the country itself. The President needs to lay a “New Foundation.” For the first several months of his administration, he has used this phrase with some regularity and it has not yet caught on as his trademark, as his “New Deal” or “Great Society.” Decades later, people fondly point to both of those sets of programs even if they cannot name a single element of either the “New Deal” or “Great Society.” They were bold, beneficial and transformative.


We need not simply such a program in the United States at this moment, but such a feeling. The sense that we are truly beginning anew. That the President has watched the bitterness brewing over the past decades displayed at town hall meetings and on cable television over this past summer and he has said, “enough.” That the President has heard too many horror stories about our health care system, seen too many die from lack of coverage and he has said, “enough.” That he has watched as his party’s noble goal has been morphed into a caricature of a death squad, and he has said, “enough.” Enough already.


It is time to lay a New Foundation. And it can begin on Wednesday night.

An hour well spent

In my post from last night, I commented on how President Obama's press conference last night was long. Really long. And shortly after I posted it, I got thinking about how it's both appropriate and important that it lasted as long as it did. The country is in a very serious crisis and the American people need to be engaged and aware in a way unlike anything most of us are accustomed to. We can take an hour out of our lives to sit and carefully listen to the president of the United States explain the situation and answer questions about it.

It's in many ways symbolic of what got us into this mess. For example, last night at 8 pm eastern, millions of Americans were missing out on favorite television shows, such as The Bachelor, because the President was speaking. During the '90s and much of the current decade, our self-involvement and our mutual carelessness said it was more important to spend an hour watching reality television than taking the time to get a grip on our reality by way of a national leader.

And why shouldn't it have been? During the Clinton administration, Americans were doing very well economically, the government was balancing its budget and American troops were out of harms way...what could the president have to say that is so important? And then during the Bush administration, when things were suddenly serious again, with wars raging and corruption rampant, we had a president who hated the idea of a press conference almost as much as the American people hate Bernie Madoff. We got nothing important out of his press conferences or speeches, so why listen? Well, those days are over, and it's time to start listening - really listening - to what our leaders have to say.

The American people may not always like or agree with what President Obama has to say, but you have got to give the man one thing - no answer last night was intentionally misleading. The Bush years (and yes, also the Clinton years) were a game of avoiding giving a straight answer to a reporter's question. President Obama last night actually answered the questions. And answered, and answered, and answered. But we needed answers, and we needed really long ones, because this crisis will be longer if we insist on the evasive, short answers.

The Hour Long Press Conference

The President just concluded his first prime-time press conference since taking office, and it's a startling contrast to the pressers of the past 8 years. It was clear, thoughtful, honest, articulate...just great overall. It was also very, very long. He spent 57 minutes on the air, during prime time. I bet the networks were thrilled. But it was as close to a home run of a sales pitch as one could hope for. If any American watching tonight was undecided about the stimulus or confused about the economic situation, the Professor-President went to great lengths to change that.

His answer below is the argument that the filter of the news media has prevented from being fully articulated, and it's a compelling argument for not just the stimulus, but other crucial goals of this administration:

This is another concern that I've had in some of the arguments that I'm hearing. When people suggest that what a waste of money to make federal buildings more energy-efficient -- why would that be a waste of money? We're creating jobs immediately by retrofitting these buildings or weatherizing 2 million Americans' homes, as was called for in the package. So that right there creates economic stimulus, and we are saving taxpayers, when it comes to federal buildings, potentially $2 billion. In the case of homeowners, they will see more money in their pockets. And we're reducing our dependence on foreign oil in the Middle East. Why wouldn't we want to make that kind of investment?

The same applies when it comes to information technologies and health care. We know that health care is crippling businesses and making us less competitive, as well as breaking the banks of families all across America. And part of the reason is we've got the most inefficient health care system imaginable. We're still using paper. We're -- we're still filing things in triplicate. Nurses can't read the prescriptions that doctors -- that doctors have written out. Why wouldn't we want to put that on an -- put that on an electronic medical record that will reduce error rates, reduce our long-term cost of health care, and create jobs right now?

Education, yet another example. The suggestion is, why should the federal government be involved in school construction? Well, I visited a school down in South Carolina that was built in the 1850s. Kids are still learning in that school -- as best they can. When the -- when the railroad -- when the -- it's right next to a railroad, and when the train runs by the whole building shakes and the teacher has to stop teaching for a while. The -- the auditorium is completely broken down and they can't use it. So why wouldn't we want to build state-of-the-art schools with science labs that are teaching our kids the skills they need for the 21st century, that will enhance our economy and, by the way, right now will create jobs?

And this answer was possibly the clearest explanation I have heard from anyone as to how we ended up in the financial mess we're in today. I imagine a lot of Americans watching tonight had an "a-ha!" moment as this particular professor - the President - just had a breakthrough with his students:

Well, first of all, I don't think it's accurate to say that consumer spending got us into this mess. What got us into this mess initially were banks taking exorbitant, wild risks with other people's monies, based on shaky assets. And because of the enormous leverage, where they had $1 worth of assets and they were betting $30 on that $1, what we had was a crisis in the financial system.

That led to a contraction of credit, which in turn meant businesses couldn't make payroll or make inventories, which meant that everybody became uncertain about the future of the economy.

So people started making decisions accordingly, reducing investments, initiating layoffs, which in turn made things worse.

More tomorrow...

"The writer is president of the United States"

The President published the following op-ed in this morning's Washington Post


What Americans expect from Washington is action that matches the urgency they feel in their daily lives -- action that's swift, bold and wise enough for us to climb out of this crisis.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/04/AR2009020403174.html?hpid%3Dopinionsbox1&sub=AR

In the Room

I just had to post this.

The President of the United States

Quick web log post, since I haven't posted in a while, as I've been busy moving to Italy. Yesterday was an amazing day, both personally as well as for the country and the world. Barack Hussein Obama is the president of the United States of America. That still has not fully sunk in.

The mall has cleared out, the parade has ended and the balls are over. In a few moments the President will begin meeting with his economic and national security teams (Question: why isn't Secretary Clinton being included in the national security meeting on Iraq?). Now the real work begins. I'm waiting for the cabinet to be confirmed and to see what executive orders POTUS issues soon. There's going to need to be a lot to reverse what has happened over the past eight years.

Beyond that, the Congress has a lot to get moving on. For those of us on the political left, there is so very much we have been wanting to have accomplished since 1995. Let's start making it happen, folks.

Obama experiencing DC

The President-elect this afternoon stopped by a DC favorite - Ben's Chili Bowl - in the Cardozo neighborhood, with Mayor Adrian Fenty. It's great to see him out with the people and, after not spending much time in town as a Senator, experiencing what a great city Washington is. I hope that once in office he will forge a relationship with District residents.

Barack's BlackBerry

I genuinely feel for him on this; I'd be devastated if anyone tried to take away my BlackBerry. Many have tried, unsuccesfully

Speaking with CNBC Wednesday, President-elect Barack Obama explained that he is still fighting to hold onto the device despite the sea of lawyers who have warned him against keeping it.

I'm still clinging to my BlackBerry. They're going to pry it out of my hands.[...]
I don't know that I'll win, but I'm still--I'm still fighting it. And--but here's the point I was making, I guess, is that it's not just the flow of information. I mean, I can get somebody to print out clips for me, and I can read newspapers. What it has to do with is having mechanisms where you are interacting with people who are outside of the White House in a meaningful way. And I've got to look for every opportunity to do that--ways that aren't scripted, ways that aren't controlled, ways where, you know, people aren't just complimenting you or standing up when you enter into a room, ways of staying grounded.