Colin Powell on The Huffington Post

Stephen Molton and Gus Russo: Spare Change

2008-11-19T17:35:08Z

The election of Barack Obama is, in part, a legacy of the sixties generation, an expression of its defining belief in equality, justice, and the prospects for world peace. The Politics of Paranoia has given way to a renewed hope, assertiveness, and (hopefully) participation. But as the Obama transition team begins its work, too little attention has been focused on the lessons to be learned from another youthful man to whom he has often been compared, President John F. Kennedy, whose capacity for inspiration notwithstanding, saw his administration crippled, and ultimately decapitated, by misadventures and meaningless warmongering in both Vietnam and Cuba - Kennedy's own father referred to Cuba as his son's "bone in the throat." Informed observers are holding their breaths in the hope that Obama avoids the pitfalls of his equally charming predecessor.

Although the charismatic Obama's lightning-fast ascendance has already invited the Camelot-"Bamelot" quips, there are in fact more serious considerations than Obama's JFK-like winning smile and his ability to properly pronounce complex words such as "nuclear." Obama, like Kennedy, enters the fray at an especially perilous time, remarkably similar, and every bit as challenging as the Cold War of Kennedy's 1961. And one can only hope that Obama fully grasps what very few have: the tragedies of Kennedy's presidency, including its untimely end, were the result a severely flawed foreign policy, co-managed by his brother, Robert, and a cadre of holdovers from the previous administration, such as über insiders Allen Dulles and Richard Bissell at CIA. These men, and others, convinced an already predisposed JFK of the need to continue a deadly policy towards "the commies." Young, bold, relatively inexperienced, and sensitive to charges of being "soft on Communism," JFK rubber-stamped a coup in Vietnam that resulted in the death of its head of state, and constantly tried to do the same in Cuba. The Cuban follies, it can now be concluded, backfired in the worst way in Dallas, with Kennedy's own assassination by a Castro sympathizer with vaporous ties to Cuba's intelligence service, the G2. The raison d'etre for this "blowback" is now apparent, or should be to those at the center of power.

Interviews conducted over the last couple of years make it more clear than ever that Kennedy suffered not only from horrible advice given him by what has sarcastically been dubbed "the Best and the Brightest," but also from an over-confidence (hubris?) that resulted from his against-all-odds victory. Consider that when Kennedy assumed office, he followed a two-term Republican, who, with an aggressive, albeit below-the-radar foreign policy in places like Iran, Guatemala and Cuba, set Kennedy up to address issues that might have confounded even the most seasoned policy wonks. But the parallels to 2008 are even more acute.

In his effort to recruit the most current experts to ease his transition, Kennedy staffed key intelligence positions with those tied to President Eisenhower. Keeping much of Dwight Eisenhower's gung-ho spy apparatus in place was, in hindsight, Kennedy's greatest miscalculation. Consequently, his acquiescence to the most extreme sanctions against his perceived enemies dwarfed all his other more inspirational efforts. Old-school politics played a role also: had Kennedy survived his first term, a successful second bid was far from a lock, as the Republican opposition was hitting hard at the various foreign quagmires he had championed in order to win in the first place. Somewhat disturbingly, Barack Obama, as noted recently by long time CIA analyst Melvin Goodman (Baltimore Sun, 11-14-2008), has likewise reached out to some of the more flagrant architects of George W. Bush's failed foreign policy to vet, if not form, his national intelligence staff, among them George Tenet, John McLaughlin, John O. Brennan, and Jami A. Miscik. These advisers, Goodman noted, "were actively engaged in implementing and defending the CIA's corrupt activities during the Bush presidency." They tarnished the US for generations by justifying torture, and twisted intelligence data that ultimately led to Secretary of State Colin Powell's laughable case-for-war speech at the United Nations in 2003.

Barack Obama, like Jack Kennedy, combines great intellect, good looks, and grace. Unlike Kennedy, Obama seems uncluttered by the moral baggage that added to Kennedy's miseries. Obama has one other advantage over Kennedy, and that is historical precedent. The only question is, does the President-elect get it? One can only hope, as we do, that the new president will embody real change, a term we heard ad nauseum for the last two years, by bringing in a new generation of intelligence executives, with no baggage, and especially no links to the tragic policies of a previous administration.

Gus Russo and Stephen Molton are the authors of Brothers in Arms: The Kennedys, the Castros, and the Politics of Murder (Bloomsbury 2008).

Steve Clemons: What Barack Obama Should Learn From Dick Cheney

2008-11-12T10:23:27Z

Barack Obama should keep his smile and not adopt the scowl that Vice President Richard Cheney often deployed to tenderize his victims, but he should pay careful attention to the way that Cheney animated hundreds of followers to move the Cheney agenda across the national security bureaucracy.

If one were to score "influence" within the G.W. Bush administration, Cheney would get top prize -- higher than G.W. Bush himself.

No one knows how the incumbent President Bush makes decisions. He's not consistent. He holds his cards close -- and sometimes tilts one way, sometimes another. Swagger is the defining characteristic of Bush's decisions -- not necessarily logic, or at least not a logical line that I can discern.

Condoleezza Rice has a few followers who do understand her approach to problems -- but she never worked to build a significant following.

Colin Powell, who advised caution and a review of every scenario in responding to a serious challenges, tended to matter when he was in the room -- and not, when he wasn't.

But as I have written previously and as Barton Gellman chronicles in his important new book Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency, Cheney succeeded in not only getting people loyal and beholden to him appointed throughout the vast wings of the country's national security and intelligence bureaucracies, he and his close team of David Addington, Scooter Libby and John Hannah conveyed a template for approaching the world and agitating for an expansion of Executive Branch authority in comparison to other branches of government.

Cheneyism is disdainful of international institutions like the UN, viewed Europe and other states essentially as supplicants of American power, pushed hard the "unitary executive" notion of presidential authority, reinstituted the secrecy regime to levels greater than Reagan's CIA chief Bill Casey, promoted taking the gloves off" in American demonstrations of power abroad and in the interrogation room, endorsed torture and viewed the Geneva Accords as rules for the weak, despised regulation of business and industry -- particularly the oil, forestry and steel industries.

There are many other dimensions to Cheneyism, but what is important is that his followers understood how Cheney thought and how he would respond to a problem or policy issues.

Dick Cheney has been the most powerful actor in the Bush administration because Cheney didn't have to tell people hierarchically or by Rumsfeld-style "snow flake memos" what to do or how to think. They knew. And if they didn't, Cheney might call and simply ask a loaded question of a bureaucrat -- even a person very far down the pecking order of an agency or department -- as to why he or she hadn't thought of an alternative way [the Cheney way] of doing something.

Now to think about the new team moving into 1600 Pennsylvania.

According to some reports, Barack Obama seems to think that his intellectual, policy formulation and speechwriting skills are better than those around him -- or so goes that narrative in a recent New Yorker article by Ryan Lizza:

Obama, who is not without an ego, regarded himself as just as gifted as his top strategists in the art and practice of politics. Patrick Gaspard, the campaign's political director, said that when, in early 2007, he interviewed for a job with Obama and Plouffe, Obama said that he liked being surrounded by people who expressed strong opinions, but he also said, "I think that I'm a better speechwriter than my speechwriters. I know more about policies on any particular issue than my policy directors. And I'll tell you right now that I'm gonna think I'm a better political director than my political director."

Obama may very well be as skilled and confident as this passage suggests -- but if he follows that line of logic too far -- he'll end up hamstrung with a huge bureaucracy that won't necessarily understand the "Obama Way".

Others might emerge in Obama's White House with more power than he does to motivate and animate others because they may be more successful at communicating and telegraphing how to approach complex problems and challenges. Of those who are rumored to possibly be in the first Obama cabinet, potential holdover Defense Secretary Robert Gates comes to mind.

At a New America Foundation economic policy event that featured the economic advisers to John McCain, Hillary Clinton, John Edwards and Barack Obama, Obama's adviser Austan Goolsbee made the seemingly sensible suggestion that when confronting complex trade and economic treaties, Obama would weigh each one on its merits. His basic point was that trade deals -- even deals that seemingly promoted free trade -- were hundreds, sometimes thousands, of pages long. They were not all the same and Obama would support some and not others.

On one level, this suggests flexibility. On another, this possible management approach suggests a micro-focus on policy that Obama can't afford. Jimmy Carter was a compulsive micro-manager, and it severely handicapped his presidency. Goolsbee's comment also implies that Obama may not be ready to telegraph to his Cabinet Secretaries, Deputy Secretaries, and others the DNA of his generic decisionmaking approach.

To be as successful as Dick Cheney was in influencing action in government, Obama is going to need to telegraph the secrets of "Obama-ism" to his people.

If not, we'll have an ad hoc presidency, a reactive presidency, a micromanaged presidency, or a presidency hijacked by others who slyly follow Cheney's approach.

So keep the smile, President-elect Obama, but begin to think about how you clearly convey to your team criteria for decision-making and a guide for responses to complex, unexpected challenges.

I have learned a lot from watching how the Project for a New American Century became so successful and consequential in a remarkably short period of time.

Barack Obama -- who ran a very large, successful campaign operation that empowered many -- should in governing nonetheless look to Vice President Cheney's example to understand how a pro -- even one who so damaged the interests of the nation -- managed power and purpose while in office.

-- Steve Clemons publishes the popular political blog, The Washington Note

Phil Bronstein: Bush: Breaking Racial Barriers

2008-11-11T16:56:13Z

Seeing Barack Obama and George W. Bush together Monday, acting all cordial, made me realize it was probably time to put down those commemorative post-election Chronicles for a minute, hit the pause button on our tear into the future and give the outgoing President the credit he deserves for helping elect the incoming President.

I don't mean because Mr. Bush hit an all-time high disapproval rating, according to the polls in the liberal media. Yes, his unpopularity and policies helped the Democrats a lot.

But I'm talking about the impact on citizen state of mind when Mr. Bush appointed not one but two African-American Secretaries of State and the first African-American as Secretary of Education like it wasn't any big deal. He also named the first Mexican-American as Attorney General.

It doesn't matter what you thought of Ms. Rice or Mr. Powell or the others as public servants. (The Chronicle had a huge beef with Alberto Gonzalez over the BALCO case.) Here was a very conservative good old Texas fundamentalist Republican breaking a racial barrier without even blinking, like it was the most natural thing to do and not some monumental moment in our cultural or political history.

If you don't think that made the election of the first African-American president go down a little easier for some voters, think about it just a little more. I'll wait.

Alexander Russo: Uncertainty Over Obama Education Adviser

2008-11-10T12:06:14Z

The general public may only want to know what kind of puppy the Obama girls are going to get and where they're going to go to school. The big-time pundits may be focused in on the pros and cons of a stimulus package and John Kerry as a candidate for State Department.

In education circles, however, there's no hotter topic than who is going to be the next Secretary of Education--and if it's going to be Linda Darling-Hammond, a Stanford professor known for her focus on teacher quality and her early opposition to the popular teacher recruitment program called Teach For America.

The controversy surrounding her candidacy says as much about Obama as it does about Darling- Hammond.

There are at present several people who are considered possible picks for the Education job, including Chicago schools chief Arne Duncan, Arizona governor Janet Napolitano, and former Secretary of State Colin Powell. Though the decision could be announced as soon as this week, no one outside the Obama camp knows.

The possibility of Darling-Hammond being named Secretary has emerged as an especially worrisome possibility among a small but vocal group of younger, reform-minded advocates who supported Obama because he seemed reform-minded on education issues like charter schools, performance pay, and accountability. These reformistas seem to perceive Darling-Hammond as a touchy-feely anti-accountability figure who will destroy any chances that Obama will follow through on any of these initiatives.

"On every issue relating to education, Darling-Hammond is far from a reformer," wrote one pro-charter organization called the Center on Education Reform, "She has a clear and proud record of supporting the existing track for training and paying teachers, and believes governance changes--like charter schools--are a side issue."

"These prototypical ed school types have typically never worked a day in their lives in the private sector and are oblivious to (or enemies of) things that, in the real world, drive success or failure," wrote Whitney Tilson, a pro-Obama hedge fund manager, nearly a year ago when Darling-Hammond's involvement in the campaign first came to light.

Yes, Darling-Hammond is an ed school professor who talks in nuanced, academic terms--not scripted talking points (see her debate here). Yes, she was among the first and most prominent critics of Teach For America--and still favors a more intensive, residency-based approach to training new teachers.

But she also has authored a recent study that acknowledged T.F.A. teachers were in some ways better than traditional teachers. And she has helped start several charter schools in California. Darling-Hammond says there's no real daylight between her positions and Obama's policy proposals, and I haven't seen any convincing evidence to contradict that claim.

So what's going on then? Part of it is just a knee-jerk response against someone who dared criticize T.F.A., the reformistas' most cherished accomplishment to date. Another part of it may be the desire for a younger, fresher name picked from their own ranks--D.C. superintendent Michelle Rhee, or New Leaders founder Jon Schnur.

But the biggest issue is that the reform-minded camp isn't sure that Obama is really with them. Even after a long campaign, there's still tremendous uncertainty about just how strong Obama's commitment is. They are not the first to experience this kind of uncertainty. Local school control advocates in Chicago had much the same experience with Obama 10 years ago, struggling to convince themselves that Obama was with them on an issue of intense debate within the Democratic party.

Of course, none of this means that Darling-Hammond will be the Obama pick for Education Secretary, or that she necessarily would be the most effective choice. It's unclear how strong are her political and administrative skills. Academics sometimes fare poorly in the "gotcha" world of politics where stray comments can turn into major fiascoes. Warranted or not, picking her would create immediate tensions with reform-minded school advocates.

Odds are it will be someone else--not her, and not one of the young guns, either.

Whatever the outcome, it's clear that education advocates who supported Obama because of his change agenda are frustrated and confused that Darling-Hammond's name is even part of the discussion. What kind of an education President Obama will be remains a mystery for now.

Harry Shearer: You Save Us, We Redeem You

2008-11-10T02:39:12Z

At a Sunday night live broadcast of KCRW's "Left, Right and Center" an audience member asked the panel (Tony Blankley, Bob Scheer, Matt Miller and Arianna Huffington) what role they thought Colin Powell should play in the new Obama Administration. Surprisingly, three of the panelists, including the Proprietress, allowed themselves to say that Powell had not paid sufficient penance, shown sufficient remorse, for his role in paving the way to the Iraq War. Blankley, expressing surprise at the near-unanimous disdain, suggested Powell for Secretary of Education, an interesting choice considering that conservatives used to advocate shutting down that department.

Me, I've long foreseen a more useful role for the tainted patron saint of failed wars. A couple years ago, when New Orleans was pondering its inability to motivate the political class to take seriously the city's dual needs--a full investigation of the design and construction flaws (and other problems) that led to the Katrina-related flooding, and a comprehensive program of flood protection and wetlands restoration to prevent a recurrence--I thought Colin Powell would be the perfect replacement for the then-incumbent Gulf Recovery Czar. Surely you remember the Czar. (Hint: Donald Powell, no relation) The pairing of a wounded city seeking national empathy and a fallen hero seeking redemption seemed to me sort of perfect.

It still does. The city, still wounded, hopes not to fall below Rwanda on the nation's to-do list, and General Powell, still tainted, could use a cause bigger than just making us forget photos of mobile bioweapons vans. Sunday's Times-Picayune reminds us that Bush's Gulf recovery office goes out of business in February, and it reminds us why that office was so ineffectual:

(It) was hamstrung, the two officials said, because the president didn't give it the authority to command or overrule recalcitrant federal agencies.

"The most important thing, whether you keep the office going or appoint a coordinator, is to have the president let it be known that the person is speaking for him and has the authority to get things done," said one of the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

In other words, do what President Bush promised in Jackson Square that he would do. General Powell would carry that authority among a bureaucracy possibly not burdened with memories of certain UN appearances. President-elect Obama could do both New Orleans and Powell a favor.

PS: For commenters crass enough to suggest that New Orleans deserves inattention because Dollar Bill Jefferson might still be re-elected, three words: Senator Ted Stevens.

Arianna Huffington: The Winners and Losers of Campaign '08

2008-11-06T15:57:33Z

WINNERS:

The Davids - Axelrod and Plouffe: they spearheaded a near flawless campaign.

Katie Couric: her multi-part interview with Sarah Palin was the turning point in how the country saw Palin -- and by extension John McCain. And she did it in a way that left no room for accusations of being unfair or playing "Gotcha!"

Colin Powell, Scott McClellan, Ken Adelman, Chris Buckley, Kenneth Duberstein, et al: crossing party lines to endorse the eventual winner can't hurt the rep.

Saturday Night Live: went from "Is that still on?" to Must See TV (or, at least, Must See on YouTubeTV)

Tina Fey: her take on Palin was pitch perfect; a comedy mugging for the ages. And with Palin's obvious weight loss during the campaign, she ended up looking more and more like her 30 Rock doppelganger.

Sarah Palin: lost an election but there has to be a reality show in her future.

Michelle Obama: smarts, grace, style, charm, and a serious "good mommy" vibe -- she's got the whole package.

The View: went from gal chat to political headline maker.

MSNBC: Keith, Rachel, Chris... they sent a collective tingle went up the leg of progressive viewers everywhere.

The Internet: click here.

LOSERS:

Joe Lieberman: failed to deliver Democrats, independents, or Jews. And on the way to losing his committee chairmanships.

Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Dick Morris, and hate-mongers everywhere: the stink didn't stick to Obama but it stuck to them.

Bill Clinton: it's gonna take a lot of work to repair the rep.

John McCain: see Bill Clinton.

Liddy Dole: see Clinton and McCain. Her "Godless" ad will be taught in What Not To Do poli sci classes for a century.

George W. Bush: the repudiation of his presidency was overwhelming and across-the-board.

The Republican Party: the emptiness of its philosophic underpinnings was exposed for all to see.

Joe the Plumber: the clock just hit 15 minutes, and the wakeup call will not be pleasant. Joe the Plumber, meet Clara Peller ("Where's the beef?!").

Okay, these are my picks... what are yours? Please post your winners and losers in the comments section below.

If you are in the San Francisco area, I will be speaking at the Web 2.0 Summit on Friday, November 7th.

Lee Camp: Barack Obama's Notes on His Potential Cabinet Leaked to Press

2008-11-06T13:28:49Z

Colin Powell: Secretary Of Education?

2008-11-05T17:30:08Z

Update - 11/6: MSNBC reported: "One person who will not be serving in an Obama administration: Colin Powell, who said he has not been approached by the transition team. He says he wants a new generation of leaders to step up and serve."

* * *

Colin Powell has been mentioned as a potential member of Barack Obama's cabinet, both for Secretary of Defense and Secretary of Education.

In his endorsement of Obama, Powell called for a greater focus on education.

"I think the American people and the gentlemen running for president will have to, early on, focus on education more than we have seen in the campaign so far. America has a terrible educational problem in the sense that we have too many youngsters not finishing school. A third of our kids don't finish high school, 50 percent of minorities don't finish high school. We've got to work on this, and my, my wife and I are leading a campaign with this purpose."

Powell is a founder of America's Promise Alliance, a coalition of businesses, educators, and others working to improve the health and well-being of children.

Read more about Obama's cabinet on the HuffPost Big News page.

Eric Margolis: Why I'm a Rogue Republican

2008-11-05T15:32:27Z

My old California pals Bob and Larry, who are both wealthy, bigwig Republicans, are not happy with me. They are accusing me of having become a liberal because of my criticism of President George Bush and my evident lack of enthusiasm for Sen. John McCain's Republicans.

My pals are wrong. I've been a lifelong Republican and plan to spend all Eternity as one. I enlisted in the US Army as an infantryman during the Vietnam War when so many of today's `patriotic' Republicans - the ones with those little American flag lapel pins - were dodging the draft or playing weekend warrior in the National Guard.

For decades, angry leftwing readers have branded me a `fascist hyena,' `CIA agent,' and `American imperialist.' Now Bob and Larry think I've gone off the lefty deep end because I opposed the ruinous wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and because I'm even grudgingly ready to pay higher taxes just to get the calamity-prone Republicans out of power.

As a lifelong, rock-ribbed Republican, I am more likely to become a Hari Krishna or Rosicrucian than a liberal Democrat!

So please call me a `rogue Republican.'

I've always been a moderate, conservative Eisenhower Republican who believes in small government, low taxes, saving, hard work, individual freedoms, and avoiding overseas adventures whenever possible.

As a child, I saw President Dwight Eisenhower's inauguration in Washington and treasure the memory to this day. For me, Eisenhower was the embodiment of America's finest qualities: courage, honesty, human decency, modesty and plain speaking. He warned Americans of the danger of the military-industrial complex, a term he coined, and called for global nuclear disarmament.

I've said it before and say it again: I like Ike. When Eisenhower was president, America was respected and admired around the non-Communist world.

I have high regard for Sen. John McCain and believe he would make a fine president. But he showed terrible judgment in picking Sarah Palin as Vice President, and by surrounding himself with neocon advisors like Sen. Joseph Lieberman, Randy Scheunemann, Elliot Abrams and other extremists who played a major role in creating the frightful foreign affairs mess the US now faces. They have made America hated around the globe.

Equally bad, today's Republicans are no longer a party of the democratic center. After the 9/11 attacks, Bush and Dick Cheney packed their administration with rabid neocon warmongers who drove the nation and Republican Party so far right it flirted at times with fascism.

When I hear `Republican' these days, the words that comes to my mind are: arrogance, ignorance, and just plain dumbness.

Religious fundamentalists have become the bedrock of the Bush presidency. Today, 44-50% of Republican voters call themselves born-again Christian fundamentalists who believe every word of the Bible is true. Their most urgent foreign policy goal is to recreate Biblical Israel so their Messiah can return and destroy the planet.

That is no longer my party. The Grand Old Republican Party of Lincoln and Eisenhower has been hijacked by America's rural heartland and the southern-fried Bible Belt. The Republican Party no longer primarily speaks for most educated, worldly, city-dwelling Americans.

McCain's choice of an evangelical Christian ultra conservative, Gov. Sarah Palin, a woman of stunning vulgarity and ignorance, is testimony to the dumbing down of the party and its transformation into a populist religious movement. But he may have had to do so. Without Palin, many on the Christian right, cool about McCain, would not have even voted, assuring his defeat.

Note to Bob and Larry: I haven't changed my politics and remain firmly in the center. But the Republican Party has lurched so far to the right that the old center looks like the left to many Republicans. My party abandoned me in the year 2000.

Barack Obama is dead wrong to propose raising taxes or sending more troops to Afghanistan, an ignoble conflict he mislabels `the good war.' But he certainly is no socialist, as Palin charges. Nationalizing the nation's banks is socialist. Urging world domination neocon-style is National Socialist.

Raising taxes for the wealthy is not socialist, just a Democratic Party shibboleth that has been proven counter-productive time and again.

Republicans disgraced the nation by all their lies about Iraq, endorsing torture, assassinations, Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, secret prisons, kidnapping, kangaroo courts, spying on US citizens and undermining America's Constitution. Too many cowardly Democrats joined this lynch mob. Such vile behavior made me ashamed to call myself an American.

The Republican Party now speaks for many rich fat cats, the military-industrial-petroleum complex, and some of the least educated, most backwards, most prejudiced Americans. McCain and Palin have shamelessly stoked anti-black, anti-Muslim and anti-foreign hatred and fear among them during this campaign. So, to a lesser degree, did Hilary Clinton.

Gen. Colin Powell did the right thing by breaking with John McCain, denouncing racism and Islamophobia, and warning of the party's lurch to the far right. However, I wish he had also come clean regarding all the lies about Iraq he delivered at the UN. The good general still owes us an explanation.

America desperately needs a reborn, moderate Republican Party freed from narrow-minded religious ideology and ruralism that will return the nation to its former democratic values and multilateral policies. This was the United States the world used to respect.

Dr. Tian Dayton: An Integrated National Psyche

2008-11-05T09:05:47Z

Integration is a word often used by psychologists to describe a psychological state in which we are consciously consolidating the various parts of our inner world into a coherent whole. The thought behind "psychological integration" is that a lack of it is weakening to the self. That if parts of our larger "self" are banished from consciousness; we suffer an essential lack of inner wholeness. When we disown parts of ourselves we undermine our own ability to see and own the full picture, to make intelligent choices that take all of our various sides into account. We make it harder for ourselves to follow through on our own decisions because we aren't working with and mobilizing all of our parts. Valuable psychic energy that could be used in service of our own forward movement gets held in an unconscious, psychic frozenness. Certainly this same theory can apply to a country.

Last night, through the election of an African-American president, we are, as a country, allowing parts of our national psyche to become integrated into a coherent whole, into a working model of our national self. It is a stunning moment in our history as a country no matter what our political leanings. The idea behind psychic integration is that it makes the individual healthier and more whole, that it allows for previously tied up emotional, psychic and hence physical energy to become mobilized in service of the self, in service of moving forward into more of life. It seems no great stretch to apply these same principles to our national psyche. While parts of our population are disowned, don't we drain our own potential energy and intelligence as a national being? What ever our political leanings and preferences, we are a society of many races, this is who we are. Following this line of thinking, last night we became more of who we are, we allowed the hidden and banished parts of national psyche to be integrated into a coherent whole in service of a more fully integrated self.

Two very meaningful and historic speeches were given last night. John McCain's speech was a powerful and moving call for psychic integration. Whatever the campaign was or wasn't, last night he did not foster or encourage the fracturing of our psychic energies, he did not allow us to boo or hate parts of who we are, rather he called for a kind of acceptance and integration of our national psyche in service of our self as a nation. His words, "we are Americans, we don't give up" took on a new meaning, especially coming from someone who did not give up under circumstances that most of us can never even allow ourselves to imagine.

Last night Barack Obama's very presence on stage along with Joe Biden's family was a speech in itself, it said what words cannot touch and what history has not known how to manage. It allowed us to become whole, to consciously integrate who we already are, to bring split off parts of ourselves under our conscious control and to take responsibility for them so that we can mobilize heretofore tied up psychic energy toward the task of moving forward. Obama's words "yes we can," echoed toward a future that we are daring to imagine that we can co-create. Whatever our political leanings, last night we became a more integrated, coherent and whole national psyche.

Read more reaction from HuffPost bloggers to Barack Obama's victory in the 2008 presidential election

Joshuah Bearman: Turning Back the Torches of the GOP

2008-11-04T16:57:27Z

The Pompano Beach McCain field office, like almost everything else in Florida, is housed in a strip mall. There's a guy waving a flag out front, but inside traffic is light. I've been hearing about empty McCain offices, sapped of enthusiasm, but this one has a few true believers left. "We're still high on the rally down in Miami last week," says one of the volunteer coordinators. "There were a lot of Hispanics there, and it was good to hear them sing the Star Spangled Banner." She's wearing a McCain memorabilia dog tag. Then she adds, "Oh, you know else was there? The Jewish. They turned out in droves."

Then Tim McClellan, the Northeast Broward Regional Field Manager, appears. Tim is a former businessman originally from Michigan. I'm here with Steve Elliott and Benjy Sarlin and we all agree that Tim is a nice guy, forthright and friendly, which you don't usually find in any political office during a campaign. He's also certifiably through the Looking Glass. After we ask a few questions about bread and butter Republican issues like terrorism, Tim quickly segues to crack pot conjecture that Obama is not a citizen.

"That's an internet rumor," I say. "Obama produced his birth certificate."

"But there's no seal on his birth certificate and the font is wrong."

This is the latest twist in the ongoing internet rumor, one being promoted not far away, at this very moment, by a lunatic fringe blogger named Pam Geller at a rally in Palm Beach. The worst thing that ever happened to the conspiratorial right is that they got it right once, with the Dan Rather documents. Now, they chase every rabbit down the hole.

Obama's birth certificate has been verified by the State of Hawaii and multiple news organizations. But that's not good enough by Tim. For him, the better source of fact is a lawsuit by Philip J. Berg, a longtime paranoiac gadfly who has also filed lawsuits demanding "the truth about 9/11." Berg has filed so many lawsuits, as it happens, that the very lawsuit Tim cites was thrown out as frivolous. Nevertheless, Tim says, he fully expects that "the US Supreme Court will prove that Obama's not a citizen."

Context will help understand why this is shocking. Tim is a paid McCain staffer questioning the citizenship of the Democratic presidential candidate. Such a thing would have never have happened in 2004. Bush's campaign, for all its faults, had discipline. First off, had you wandered into a Bush field office with a notebook someone would have taken you down with a flying tackle. And you certainly wouldn't have been able to quote the local honcho straying way off message. But what my encounter with Tim illuminates is even more troubling: he's not off message. With McCain swinging at shadows, like ACORN, Rashid Khalidi, and the liberal media that won't tell the truth, the entire republican apparatus has devolved into an insidious rumor mill. The sub rosa dirty work that once was the province of 527s is now the official line. Some time around six weeks ago, the party held hands, took a deep breath, and stepped off the cliff.

We visit several McCain visibilities nearby, and not one supporter is interested in the issues. They want to talk about "Obama's shady associations"; how his money was raised by the PLO; and the minorities who took down the economy via Fanny and Freddy. And not a single Florida Republican seems to sense the irony of complaining that Obama, who is seven points ahead nationally, will probably "steal the election."

Spending some time among the rank and file makes you realize that the last two weeks have not been about winning this election, but making the country ungovernable afterward. McCain himself infamously warned that the "fabric of Democracy" is threatened. If this true, it's backwards: democracy has been at least moderately damaged by McCain, one of whose own advisors recently acknowledged, after being unable to point to any actual instances of voter fraud, that the whole charge is a "perception" meant to "plant seeds of doubt." I guess the lesson McCain learned from the failure in Vietnam is scorched earth: if we can't have the country, no one can. Let's burn it down -- and poison the wells for good measure.

So far, this tactic seems to have backfired. Resurrecting the culture war and wrapping it in paranoid delusion has stripped the Republican party to its radioactive core. Any remaining moderates are gone. And when you lose not just David Brooks but David Frum, you officially sever all ties to reality. It is almost humorous to watch the remaining "intellectuals" on The Corner contort themselves into a rage in defense of Sarah Palin. If that's who they want as the standard bearer for the cause of Edmund Burke, Leo Strauss, and William F. Buckley, Jr., then the game really is over. This is why Colin Powell's earth-shattering endorsement of Obama was framed inside a detailed un-endorsement of today's Republican party. Remember Rove's "permanent Republican majority" of four years ago? Rove's own projection is that Obama will win 338 electoral votes. If he's right, the torch-wielding mob is about be turned back and into the countryside.

See also:

McCain at Midnight: The Last Stand
McCain-o-Ween
JoshuahbearmanHQ

Alex Geana: An Obituary for the Bush Administration

2008-11-04T14:24:38Z

In the final hours of this long election cycle, everyone is reflecting. Piecing together trend pieces and the last of the poll numbers, the reflections of this very long race and the inability for the current administration to focus on their legacy.

In the past eight years we've seen two wars rage, the melting away of our national reputation and the prevalence of age old market driven economic policy - shatter. The wilting of civil liberties, the nationalization of Wall Street, the rise of mega corporations, and finally the longing of days when giving the President a blow job, was grounds for impeachment.

The housing and Wall Street boom, which created wealth for very few; which only trickled debt to the impoverished, while widened the divide between the middle class and the entry level rich and the ability to attain the American Dream (house, car, kids, vacation). The culture produced restaurants that relished $750 Kobe Steaks on their exclusive menus, from cows massaged with care by Japanese herders. The catering of lavish parties. The ability for high-end designers like Gucci (under the guidance of Tom Ford) to sell $4,000 plus pet beds.

Finally collapse, because the leveraged wealth and the marginal trading on the backs of the poor could not be sustained. In truth the free market does work. Yet as Adam Smith reminded us, it needs to be managed. Or I'll add, nature has a way of doing it for us. We see this through our nations infrastructure, or approach to poverty, the administrations many attempts to pretend Global Warming and the shipping our nations wealth overseas, does not matter. It does. This is the great gift of the Bush Administration.

The nations voters are energized, the Democratic Party has found a candidate with backbone. Bush has whittled away the powers that bind the President with great affect. Now that power - will hopefully be handed to Obama, someone, who as Colin Powell states - has great judgment.

We are all starting to understand that we are interconnected. In the south they fly confederate flags and proudly display lawn signs with Barack Obama's name. The electorate is educating themselves as the founders had envisioned.

Even the pick of McCain as the Republican nominee, caused ripples through the party, he has drifted far from his former self. Yet in at one point he flirted with being a Democrat. He considered Joe Lieberman as a running mate for a good long time.

If the Republicans loose, which I hope they do. They will need to become inclusive. For the moderates in this great nation, have found, that their vote truly does matter, that they can affect change and provide us with hope by getting involved.

This is the great gift of the Bush administration, that apathy has fallen by the way side; citizens are once again active in government. This is George Bush's legacy. It might not be what he was hoping for, yet this is his gift to the nation. He's our Herbert Hoover. Because, without Hoover we could've never had Franklin D. Roosevelt.

For more commentary check, out my writing and follow on Twitter.

Read more Election Day Liveblogs, Reaction and Analysis from HuffPost Bloggers

Steve Clemons: My Vote Today: Barack Obama and Joe Biden

2008-11-03T21:11:35Z

Despite the pleas of a number of my favorite (and even not so favorite) readers, I have kept quiet until now about who I planned to vote for.

My support for any candidate or party is something I tend to keep on hold until getting very close to voting. I don't believe in unconditional support for anyone or any organized political institution.

There are also some issues I care about more than others, and my approach is subjective, dependent on ever changing postures and issues. I mull things over, reconsider, change course, and sometimes change back.

I have known and admired Senator John McCain since 1993. I have met Senator Barack Obama several times personally and have studied his record, habits, and words very closely. I have colleagues and friends who work at the highest levels in both organizations.

Despite my having applauded John McCain's political career and often brave policy positions many times in the past, I can't support him and his vice presidential running mate, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, tomorrow.

The reasons I can't support John McCain are three. First, despite having a credible and impressive record in the United States Senate on a great number of policy issues, he chose to make military and national security issues the primary foundation of his campaign. Rather than recruiting Colin Powell, Brent Scowcroft, James Baker, Brent Scowcroft, Richard Armitage, Chuck Hagel, Richard Lugar, Robert Zoellick and others to be the primary sculptors and advisers to his campaign, he neglected most of these and ignored others in favor of foreign policy hands that reflected militant neoconservatism and strident, pugnacious nationalism.

Rather than conveying that he was a national leader who understood war and peace and would be cautious with deployments of troops and American commitments, McCain telegraphed a "recklessness" when it came to U.S. foreign policy and key national security questions.

Secondly, amplifying this recklessness, John McCain failed to make competence and a clear understanding of what America's history and great debates and challenges are an absolute requisite for anyone he would put in line for the presidency. He chose Sarah Palin who I doubt knows much about the very DNA of the nation. I have heard no evidence of her knowledge or awareness of the founding fathers, the Federalist Papers, the Civil War, womens' suffrage, the civil rights battles of our near term history, or many other great debates and challenges in our past. I don't get the sense that she is ready in any serious way to drive the ship of the United States of America. I think had McCain selected Tim Pawlenty, Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, Joseph Lieberman, or even a Meg Whitman as his running mate -- this race would be tighter. Picking Palin was a reckless move -- amplifying significant doubts about John McCain's judgment.

Thirdly, I am a fan of some leading members of John McCain's team -- including Rick Davis, Trevor Potter, and Douglas Holtz-Eakin. I have seen them all in better times managing better challenges and issues. Holtz-Eakin is one of the least partisan economic policy players in Washington and has provocative, constructive ideas on a wide range of domestic policy issues. McCain allowed Senator Phil Gramm to squelch Holtz-Eakin's views and work early in the process and to make every answer to every problem the single refrain of "tax cuts." McCain was largely unprepared and had not thought through what were obvious fragilities in the U.S. economy.

This was a failure of leadership and judgment.

The reasons why I am voting for Barack Obama and Joe Biden are several.

I think Obama's limited record and the fact that so many have affixed their expectations and aspirations on his campaign -- despite the fact that these aspirations between different groups are in fundamental conflict with each other -- have made supporting Obama a challenge for me.

I'm not someone moved by the questions of race and identity about his past. I know others are, but these qualities of leadership and "breakthrough" are not so high on my list when voting for national leadership.

I admire sharp-edged thinking, the establishment of clear priorities, a commitment to move the nation's interests forward and the conceptualization of a broader global vision that may help to promote opportunity, stability and justice.

On the whole, Barack Obama has convinced me he is capable of seeing America's challenges in these terms -- though i think that there are a great many close advisers around him who want to continue the "third term" of the Clinton administration -- or whose vision is defined by inertia and incrementalism -- rather than the big leaps forward that Obama frequently flirts with.

This nation is at a pivot point in its history. We have to change and rethink things. We need to anticipate crises and tests of America's power -- exactly as Joe Biden suggested will happen. He is right.

America needs a new global social contract -- and a domestic social contract that reshuffles the costs, opportunities and responsibilities between our stakeholders at home and abroad. Winner-takes-all capitalism and unilateralist foreign policy has to be shelved. We need a "smart globalization," not manic neoliberalism.

America needs to re-engage, needs to end an idiotic, self-damaging Cold War against Cuba and its people; needs to put the Middle East Peace Business out of business and produce and impose if need be a two state solution that respects Israel's needs and Palestine's.

We need game changers with Syria, North Korea, Cuba, and Iran to offer them compelling reasons to take Libya-like tracks out of the international doghouse. We need to understand what Russia's and China's highest national priorities are and see if we can help them achieve what they want in exchange for helping us on Iran, nuclear proliferation, climate change, the global economy, and other important global causes.

We need to reconnect with and re-marry Europe because that partnership is vital to momentum and to being taken seriously anywhere else around the world. We need to respect the Arab world, the Muslim world, need to stop making false choices between our relations with the Saudis and other Arab states on one hand and Israel on the other.

We need to buy the opium product of Afghanistan and redirect the production targets of farmers and warlords there, deal with the Taliban, and do what needs to be done to help pragmatic leadership in Pakistan seduce its tribal regions to support national goals with the U.S. not antagonizing an anti-Western nationalism there.

We need to see the checks and balances of our form of democracy restored and the usurpation of unprecedented and dangerous powers by the White House rolled back. We need to pursue accountability for the collapse of trust at home and abroad and reform the nation's balloting process in order to make certain that citizen voices are heard restoring again a representative form of government.

I think that on the whole Barack Obama represents the kind of leader who knows that we need to find our own 21st century versions of John Maynard Keynes and Dean Acheson and have to regain global leverage as "systems designers" and "systems integrators", collaborating with other globally responsible stakeholders to re-engineer the world and create a new equilibrium.

These are terms that I think Obama thinks in -- and they are very much the kinds of benchmarks that inspire the work that Joe Biden and his team have done.

As I have written before, I am a great fan of Joe Biden's work and approach to problems. He takes risks with ideas -- and we need that.

Incrementalists are not jumping ahead and not taking the risks that tomorrow's challenges require of us -- and my hope is that Obama tempers himself and rejects the security blanket of taking too many personalities and too much thinking that will make his administration look like "Clinton III."

We'll see. I have concerns. I have hopes. But I want seriousness and a fresh run at getting America back on track to restoring health and solvency to its national security and economic portfolios.

To my regret, John McCain and Sarah Palin are not up to these challenges.

I believe that Barack Obama and Joe Biden may be -- and I hope to work with them, in my think tank role and in a constant run of constructive counsel here on this blog -- as they help move the nation out of the incredibly bad mess it is in.

-- Steve Clemons publishes the popular political blog, The Washington Note

Charlotte Hilton Andersen: Confessions of a Paid Voter

2008-11-03T17:58:59Z

The Democrats are trying to buy my vote -- literally -- and I think it might have worked.

It all started out so innocently. A phone call from a marketing group that I have worked for previously doing awesome things like taste-testing pizza and craptastic things like testing out maxi pads (oh yes I did!) in exchange for free product and money, told me about a "political focus group" in my area. I qualified and so showed up at the appointed hotel ballroom at the specified time wearing my most responsible looking outfit (I own exactly one). Once there, me and about one hundred other people -- all registered voters -- were wined and dined on a free buffet that I have not seen the like since Vegas. Afterward we were all ushered into a conference room and tortured with 2 hours of political ads. By that point dinner was sitting heavy in my stomach and all I wanted to do was sleep. But it quickly became apparent which party had bought me dinner and they weren't going to let me go with a peck on the cheek and a promise to call "sometime."

And so I sat. And watched. And twiddled a little dial that ranged from I-want-to-hang-you-in-effigy hatred (popular this season apparently) to I'm-naming-my-next-baby-after-you love. I got sloppy and a little punchy -- I was sitting next to a very entertaining elderly gentleman -- and swung my dial a little too wildly, thus earning me a spot on the special inquisition panel. Most of the guests were dismissed after the ad watching/dial twiddling/eye poking portion of the evening. But myself and about 10 others were asked to stay and talk. We got to talk about all the candidates -- whether we saw ads for them or not -- and the issues and our families and anything and everything else that the moderator deemed remotely relevant.

It was amazing! Never before had anyone cared about my political opinions. And I do have lots of them. But these people were rapt. They hung on my every word. Took notes. Recorded me. There was even The Man behind a one-way mirror, observing. For a girl who has got most of her election coverage from SNL, this was also an eye opening experience into the nuances of politics. Sure they were using me. But they wanted me. And that felt powerful.

Political power is not something I am accustomed to. Back when I turned 18, I first registered to vote as an Independent, not realizing that that is an actual political party rather than a license to vote willy nilly. And if there is one word to describe my voting habits it's "random" -- the only constant is that I always vote. The fact that I swing back and forth between conservative and liberal with such ease irritates my very closest friends and sends strangers into apoplexy. Why can't I just pick a party and/or ideology and stick to it? Can't I see that we are always right and they are always wrong?

Here's the thing: nobody is right. Or, rather, they're all right. No candidate has all the answers. They all lie. And yet, I also believe they all want to help this country. And I definitely think they know things that they're not telling me. So I've campaigned for Ralph Nader. I listened to Ron Paul's stump speeches. I've cheered on both Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin. And did so without feeling like a hypocrite. I really liked Mitt Romney. I adore Barack Obama. Part of me wishes Colin Powell would have run or even Condoleeza Rice as they both seem so competent and calm. Can I write in McCain's son? He amuses me.

The surest way to get me to not vote for your candidate is to spam me with political e-mails filled with half-truths, hyperbole and Armageddon. Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it) this year I've been spammed equally by acquaintances of both political sects and so I'm still dithering. But someone did buy me dinner. Although it remains to be seen how good a listener they truly are...

Stephen C. Rose: Barack Obama And The Righteous Wind

2008-11-02T14:43:55Z

By Stephen C. Rose

I doubt anyone remembers a Presidential candidate saying we have a righteous wind at our back, but these remarkable words are now part of Barack's closing stump speeches.

The phrase makes sense, given the Faustian drama we're in.

The McCain forces, believing wealth and success are divinely ordained to a small elect, circle their wagons as their one-time allies, anticipating the righteous wind, make little secret of retreat.

And we -- tired and believing -- listen for the tell-tale rumble. We are ready to resonate to it.

It is justice. And change. A dream long deferred. Utterly natural. Yes. And deserved.

We wish to forge a politics that reasons together and rights wrongs and achieves fairness for all.

A McCain campaign, mired in arm-waving, Wars-R-Us thinking, falls before this wind.

We have no right to universal rule. To permanent indebtedness. To endless inequity. To sanctioned abuse.

The righteous wind, when we can sense it, is renewable each day.

The Bible reminds us that it comforts. It is Beatitudinal. It can soothe grinding anxiety. It can clear debris. It makes the liberating exercise of responsibility and choice come alive.

Comfort is achieved by toppling the unjust and righting the wrong, from Guantanamo to the very bowels of our shattered justice system and our desecrated environment.

And, yes, the righteous wind unmuddies thought.

Good governance breaks tasks into doable acts. That is how Barack's mind works. How Colin Powell created loyalty at State.

Doable actions in a field cleared by a righteous wind.

Listen.

It is coming from the East. A West Wind. Yes. Heading toward you.

On Tuesday at dawn, a low rumble will waken Newfoundland.

Soon it will be be heard in the Keys. In Philadelphia. In the Virginias. Then over Asheville, Chattanooga, Birmingham. Past Selma and Meridian. Through Cincinnati and Toledo. Up past Wisconsin's lakes and down past Little Rock.

The righteous wind takes on musical cadences crossing the great river and coursing over plains toward Colorado, a jeweled barrier. Arriving there, it swirls through passes and dips down to the Four Corners, and up past Caspar, then Montana, all the way to Mount St. Helen's shadowed northern side.

Where suddenly it calms.

It wafts a kiss to California, to Alaska, to Hawaii, And says, Aloha.

Then the day is done.

But the righteous wind will resume tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.

For as long as we can hear it, feel it, go with it.

It has been a long time for the times to be a'changin'.

Send a Personal Email to Stephen C. Rose

Steve Clemons: Obama's Team Needs to Drop Phobia Towards Arab-Americans and Muslims

2008-10-31T08:39:20Z

A couple of well-placed insiders have told me that US Ambassador to the United Nations Zalmay Khalilzad is going to make a quick split after the November 4th election. Some think he is going to position himself to run for the presidency of Afghanistan -- which I sincerely hope he does not do. Others think he has lined up a financially lucrative perch at an investment house. The problem with the latter scenario is that I was informed by my sources of Khalizad's departure agenda before the financial meltdown.

Khalilzad has been an effective and important successor to John Bolton at the UN on a number of levels, but one aspect of his service and identity that rarely gets attention is that he is the highest-ranking Muslim in the Bush administration.

America needs Arab-Americans and Muslim-Americans in positions of responsibility in our government -- and not just dealing with Arab-American and Muslim issues. This is important as America needs to keep open the doors of civic opportunity to all Americans however hyphenated.

Yesterday, Justin Vogt of The New Yorker wrote a piece titled "Imagined Community" for the new Abu-Dhabi based The National. His article is one of the most serious and comprehensive discussions of the state of Arab-Americans in American politics I have read. I had a few quotes in the piece including the comment that "Both Muslims and Arab-Americans have been ill-treated in this political environment."

But the reason to read it is that we do need the 'likely' Obama administration to immediately suspend its generalized phobia of most things Muslim and Arab. McCain and Palin have been trying to slander Obama for relationships with "questionable" Arabs and have through a variety of means allowing a whisper campaign that he may be "Muslim."

I agree with Colin Powell. Why should it matter?! Muslims and Arab Americans are no less American than anyone else reading this blog -- or reading RedState.org or listening to Fox and Friends in the morning.

Although, shame on Tom Ridge for jumping on the bandwagon of hysterical demonization and slander of Columbia University Rashid Khalidi and Barack Obama even though Ridge said on Fox's show Tuesday morning that he knew nothing about Khalidi or what he had written or said -- but that this showed Obama's tendency to associate himself with terrorists and questionable people. That was outrageous.

Some of these Fox critics ought to dig into the founding entities of the Likud party in Israel and apply some historical objectivity.

-- Steve Clemons publishes the popular political blog, The Washington Note

Brian Normoyle: Liberal Media to Blame? Not This Time: Apostate Conservatives Nail Coffin Shut

2008-10-30T19:47:21Z

Nearly two years of presidential politics are finally coming to an end and it appears John McCain--out of "gimmicks du jour"--has decided to spend much of the final stretch blaming his failing bid on the Republicans' favorite whipping post: the media.

The campaign this week accused the LA Times of protecting Barack Obama because editors insist on honoring promises made to their sources. Late last month the venerable New York Times was in the cross hairs and, before that, campaign manager Rick Davis dubbed as "salacious" the media's vetting of Sarah Palin that so clearly hadn't been done by McCain himself.

In a FOX News interview earlier this month, campaign spokesman Tucker Bounds complained about media scrutiny of "Joe the Plumber"--the newest character in the three-act farce the campaign has become. Of course, McCain's "old buddy Joe" and the veracity of his narrative would have been merely a passing blip on media radar had the campaign not thoughtlessly forced him front-and-center in the final presidential debate as just another prop in their play.

Bounds huffed and puffed about "[Obama's] allies in the media"--otherwise known as journalists doing their job--but in so doing, he forgot McCain has a penchant for throwing otherwise ordinary persons under the bus by not properly vetting their "compelling" narratives before pitching them headfirst into the gladiator arena of national politics. If the campaign had done its job the way journalists are trying to do theirs in this election, the nation never would have heard of Sarah Palin or Samuel "Joe" Wurzelbacher.

We can hardly fault a struggling campaign for attempting to discredit the media and label them as biased, liberal or "in-the-tank" for Obama. Systematic liberal bias in the mainstream media is a dubious cultural myth, of course, but conservatives have successfully framed political discourse for decades by propagating it among a credulous base. This time, however, it is terribly disingenuous, if not utterly desperate, to denigrate journalists for honoring sources and doing their jobs. With less than a week before the election, complaining about a liberal media bias is as futile a tactic as is it trite. But more importantly, it belies a more significant and insurmountable problem for the campaign: apostate conservatives.

Traditional media conservatives abandoned John McCain like rats deserting a sinking ship. Andrew Sullivan questioned his integrity, Peggy Noonan and Kathleen Parker his judgment. William Kristol advocated McCain fire his entire campaign and start from scratch and even Charles Krauthammer seemed perplexed by his frenetic behavior while admitting Obama passes the Reagan presidential-mettle test. Stinging as those resounding critiques may be, the final nail in the campaign coffin may have been hammered in by endorsements.

Andrew Bacevich endorsed Obama in March and Wick Allison did it in September. Then there were the two iconic Christophers: Hitchins and Buckley, son of National Review founder William F. Buckley who is widely credited as the father of modern conservatism. The nation also heard earlier this month from the Chicago-Tribune, who endorsed a Democrat for president for the first time in the 161-year history of the paper. And this was all before the middle of October. As if it couldn't get any worse for McCain, none other than Colin Powell offered a full-throated, unequivocal and irrefutably measured endorsement of Obama on Meet the Press.

This repudiation by much of the right-of-center punditocracy spells doom for a candidate who was never a darling of conservatives to begin with--particularly among the evangelical right. Has McCain already lost the election? No. There still exists a shrinking possibility for a McCain squeaker, though getting there will be an uphill war (not battle) at this point. But with so many of their own admitting to McCain's inadequacy and his opponent's strengths, Republicans will not be able to blame a mythically liberal media for their failure to energize voters.

I have long considered the specter of a systematically liberal media to be a fable borne of right-wing polemics and paranoia. Invented as a strategy to win elections by fomenting distrust among the electorate, it later became an excuse for Republican failures. And when used to perpetuate a patrician v. plebeian mentality, it's a script perfect for aiding campaigns that win and justifying those that don't.

The Republican party historically casts themselves as the underdog party of Jesus, small government and real American patriotism, claiming to fight for the common man and branding academics and journalists as biased, elitist pigs (instant snobbery, just add education). They then rehash the hackneyed line about liberals and how much better they think they are than the working-class, and the result is a seemingly impervious battleship of electoral dominance.

This year, however--after Republicans beat the drums to an unnecessary war in Iraq and poorly prosecuted another in Afghanistan, after their Reaganomic stewardship led us to the most volatile economy we've seen in 80 years, now that their president has left America's international image and reputation in tatters and they've chosen a hopelessly clueless standard bearer and an impossibly unqualified VP nominee--some harsh reality seeped in and the vessel has started to sink, leaving many heretofore stalwart supporters of this party and this campaign to reverse course or jump ship altogether.

If McCain fails to pull this off on Tuesday, as seems likely to be the case, there will be a lot of blame to be shared by many groups. An imaginary liberal media, however, will not be one of them.

Obama's Secretary Of Defense: Colin Powell?

2008-10-30T16:09:10Z

***Check Back For Updates! For the latest news on the Obama cabinet, visit the Huffpo's Obama Cabinet Big News Page!***

***Update 11/5***

Rumors are flying about President-Elect Obama possible cabinet picks and Colin Powell's name keeps popping up. The Politico has a story about the "stars" who may be planned for Obama's cabinet.

Obama's transition planners are weighing several other celebrity-level political stars for Cabinet posts, including retired Gen. Colin L. Powell for secretary of defense or education, the officials said.

***

Colin Powell's recent endorsement of Barack Obama has fueled talks that the he may be Obama's Secretary of Defense or fill some other capacity in an Obama administration. Powell had been slightly disgraced following his time as Bush's Secretary of State, being a major force in selling the Iraq war to the United Nations, but his popularity remains high.

Several blogs have speculated that Powell will be Obama's Secretary of Defense.

Obama himself has also said that Powell will have a place in his administration:

"He will have a role as one of my advisers," Barack Obama said on NBC's Today in an interview aired Monday, a day after Powell, a four-star general and President Bush's former secretary of state, endorsed him.

"Whether he wants to take a formal role, whether that's a good fit for him, is something we'd have to discuss," Obama said.

Lt. General Robert G. Gard Jr. (USA, Ret.): Why I Won't Vote for John McCain

2008-10-28T15:35:30Z

Some people have been surprised by General Colin Powell's endorsement of Barack Obama. How could Powell, who served in several Republican administrations, endorse a Democrat over John McCain, a storied war hero?

As a lifelong military man, I too will be casting my vote for Barack Obama on Election Day. I deeply respect John McCain's service to our country. I admire his bravery as a prisoner of war, described by a fellow prisoner as similar to that demonstrated by hundreds of other U.S. prisoners in North Vietnam.

The fields of foreign and national security policy, however, are John McCain's disqualifying weaknesses, in my view. McCain has demonstrated clearly that he is a dedicated ideologue when it comes to foreign policy, unwilling to consider opinions or even credible evidence contrary to his preconceived notions.

His temperament, marked not only by impatience but also by rude and sometimes hostile behavior, would discourage advisors from bringing to his attention views that might not be consistent with his preconceptions. A President with this combination of significant shortcomings would be a dangerous commander-in-chief, posing an unacceptable risk to the security of the nation.

McCain has adopted, promoted, and sustained the position of the so-called neo-conservatives and ultra-nationalists who believe that the United States should capitalize on American military superiority to spread democracy abroad. Overthrowing the Iraqi government was seen as the first step in transforming the politics of the Middle East by converting governments in the region to democracies friendly to the United States and its interests. McCain reportedly has bragged in private conversations that he was the first neo-con.

McCain has been a consistent advocate of employing military force, as well as diplomatic and economic measures, to overthrow the governments of non-democratic states. In his 2000 presidential primary campaign, he promoted a strategy of "rogue state rollback." He has served as a long-term chair of the Republican Institute, an organization dedicated to promoting democracy in closed societies, even though most experts agree that viable democratic reforms cannot be imposed but must be generated locally.

Consistent with his ideological predispositions, McCain has gone so far as to advocate expelling Russia from the G-8, an organization of leading industrial nations established to coordinate international economic policies, in order "to improve their behavior" while adding Brazil and India to the organization but excluding China. This obviously would result in the alienation of Russia and China, resulting in a confrontational foreign policy rather than encouraging their cooperation on vital issues of international security and their integration into the international community.

The importance of McCain's temperament, should he become President, is apparently regarded as too politically incorrect to discuss. By his own admission, however, McCain has "a temper, to state the obvious, which I have tried to control with varying degrees of success because it does not always serve my interest or the public's." Of greater significance, he also has written: "Often my haste is a mistake, but I live with the consequences without complaint."

In matters of national security and foreign policy, however, it is the nation that will have to live with the consequences of McCain's temper and haste should he be elected President of the United States.

No President can be conversant with all the problems and issues he or she will face. More important than a specific set of experiences are high intelligence, good judgment, a steady and even temperament, and a willingness to consider options presented by advisors who have been selected for their expertise.

A few months ago, I met in a small group with Senator Obama in his office to discuss a contentious security issue. People with different, even opposite, views had been invited to attend. Obama listened carefully and asked penetrating questions, confirming my observations concerning his intelligence and temperament.

I believe that Barack Obama possesses the requisite qualifications to serve far more effectively as President of the United States and commander-in-chief of the U.S. military than his opponent, John McCain.

Lt. General Robert G. Gard, Jr. (U.S. Army, ret.) served in both Korea and Vietnam and is a former president of National Defense University. He is a member of the Vets for Obama steering committee.