"Bush Has Made Us Vulnerable: Two incompetently prosecuted wars have undermined our deterrent"

Bush Has Made Us Vulnerable, by Mark Helprin
Two incompetently prosecuted wars have undermined our deterrent

In his great Civil War history, "Decision in the West," Albert Castel describes the last Confederate hope of victory. If in 1864 the Confederate armies continue to exact a steep cost from the North, "the majority of Northerners will decide that going on with the war is not worth the financial and human cost and so will replace Lincoln and the Republicans with a Democratic president and Congress committed to stopping hostilities and instituting peace negotiations." He cites the resolution of the Confederate Congress that: "Brave and learned men in the North have spoken out against the usurpations and cruelties daily practiced. The success of these men over the radical and despotic faction which now rules the North may open the way to . . . a cessation of this bloody and unnecessary war." Plus ça change . . . .

The administrations of George W. Bush have virtually assured such a displacement by catastrophically throwing the country off balance, both politically and financially, while breaking the nation's sword in an inconclusive seven-year struggle against a ragtag enemy in two small bankrupt states. Their one great accomplishment -- no subsequent attacks on American soil thus far -- has been offset by the stunningly incompetent prosecution of the war. It could be no other way, with war aims that inexplicably danced up and down the scale, from "ending tyranny in the world," to reforging in a matter of months (with 130,000 troops) the political culture of the Arabs, to establishing a democracy in Iraq, to only reducing violence, to merely holding on in our cantonments until we withdraw.

This confusion has come at the price of transforming the military into a light and hollow semi-gendarmerie focused on irregular warfare and ill-equipped to deter the development and resurgence of the conventional and strategic forces of China and Russia, while begging challenges from rivals or enemies no longer constrained by our former reserves of strength. For seven years we failed to devise effective policy or make intelligent arguments for policies that were worth pursuing. Thus we capriciously forfeited the domestic and international political equilibrium without which alliances break apart and wars are seldom won.

The pity is that the war could have been successful and this equilibrium sustained had we struck immediately, preserving the link with September 11th; had we disciplined our objective to forcing upon regimes that nurture terrorism the choice of routing it out with their ruthless secret services or suffering the destruction of the means to power for which they live; had we husbanded our forces in the highly developed military areas of northern Saudi Arabia after deposing Saddam Hussein, where as a fleet in being they would suffer no casualties and remain at the ready to reach Baghdad, Damascus, or Riyadh in three days; and had we taken strong and effective measures for our domestic protection while striving to stay within constitutional limits and eloquently explaining the necessity -- as has always been the case in war -- for sometimes exceeding them. Today's progressives apologize to the world for America's treatment of terrorists (not a single one of whom has been executed). Franklin Roosevelt, when faced with German saboteurs (who had caused not a single casualty), had them electrocuted and buried in numbered graves next to a sewage plant.

The counterpart to Republican incompetence has been a Democratic opposition warped by sentiment. The deaths of thousands of Americans in attacks upon our embassies, warships, military barracks, civil aviation, capital, and largest city were not a criminal matter but an act of war made possible by governments and legions of enablers in the Arab world. Nothing short of war -- although not the war we have waged -- could have been sufficient in response. The opposition is embarrassed by patriotism and American self-interest, but above all it is blind to the gravity of the matter. Though scattered terrorists allied with militarily insignificant states are not, as some conservatives assert, closely analogous to Nazi Germany, the accessibility of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons makes the destructive capacity of these antagonists unfortunately similar -- a fact, especially in regard to Iran, that is persistently whistled away by the Left.

An existential threat of such magnitude cannot be averted by imagining that it is the work of one man and will disappear with his death; by mousefully pleasing the rest of the world; by hopefully excluding the tools of war; or by diplomacy without the potential of force, which is like a policeman without a gun, something that doesn't work anymore even in Britain. The Right should have labored to exhaustion to forge a coalition, and the Left should have been willing to proceed without one. The Right should have been more respectful of constitutional protections, and the Left should have joined in making temporary and clearly defined exceptions. In short, the Right should have had the wit to fight, and the Left should have had the will to fight.

Both failed. The country is exhausted, divided, and improperly protected, and will remain so if the new president and administration are merely another face of the same sterile duality. To avoid the costs of a stalled financial system, the two parties -- after an entire day of reflection -- committed to the expenditure of what with its trailing ends will probably be $1.5 trillion in this fiscal year alone.

But the costs of not reacting to China's military expansion, which could lead to its hegemony in the Pacific; or of ignoring a Russian resurgence, which could result in a new Cold War and Russian domination of Europe; or of suffering a nuclear detonation in New York, Washington, or any other major American city, would be so great as to be, apparently, unimaginable to us now. Which is why, perhaps, we have not even begun to think about marshaling the resources, concentration, deliberation, risk, sacrifice, and compromise necessary to avert them. This is the great decision to which the West is completely blind, and for neglect of which it will in the future grieve exceedingly.

Mr. Helprin, a senior fellow at the Claremont Institute, is the author of, among other works, "Winter's Tale" (Harcourt) and "A Soldier of the Great War" (Harcourt).

Bret Stephens: Let's Buy Pakistan's Nukes

Let's Buy Pakistan's Nukes, by Bret Stephens

Every visitor to Pakistan has seen them: 20-foot tall roadside replicas of a remote mountain where, a decade ago, Pakistan conducted its first overt nuclear tests. This is what the country's leaders -- military, secular, Islamist -- consider their greatest achievement.

So here's a modest proposal: Let's buy their arsenal.

A.Q. Khan, father of Pakistan's nuclear program (and midwife to a few others), likes to point out what a feat it was that a country "where we can't even make a bicycle chain" could succeed at such an immense technological task. He exaggerates somewhat: Pakistan got its bomb largely through a combination of industrial theft, systematic violation of Western export controls, and a blueprint of a weapon courtesy of Beijing.

Still, give Mr. Khan this: Thanks partly to his efforts, a country that has impoverished the great mass of its own people, corruptly enriched a tiny handful of elites, served as a base of terrorism against its neighbors, lost control of its intelligence services, radicalized untold numbers of Muslims in its madrassas, handed the presidency to a man known as Mr. 10%, and proliferated nuclear technology to Libya and Iran (among others) has, nevertheless, made itself a power to be reckoned with. Congratulations.

But if Pakistanis thought a bomb would be a net national asset, they miscalculated. Yes, Islamabad gained parity with its adversaries in New Delhi, gained prestige in the Muslim world, and gained a day of national pride, celebrated every May 28.

What Pakistan didn't gain was greater security. "The most significant reality was that the bomb promoted a culture of violence which . . . acquired the form of a monster with innumerable heads of terror," wrote Pakistani nuclear physicist Pervez Hoodbhoy earlier this year. "Because of this bomb, we can definitely destroy India and be destroyed in its response. But its function is limited to this."

In 2007, some 1,500 Pakistani civilians were killed in terrorist attacks. None of those attacks were perpetrated by India or any other country against which Pakistan's warheads could be targeted, unless it aimed at itself. But Pakistan's nuclear arsenal has made it an inviting target for the jihadists who blew up Islamabad's Marriott hotel in September and would gladly blow up the rest of the capital as a prelude to taking it over.

The day that happens may not be so very far off. President Asif Ali Zardari was recently in the U.S. asking for $100 billion to stave off economic collapse. So far, the international community has ponied up about $15 billion. That puts Mr. Zardari $85 billion shy of his fund-raising target. Meantime, the average Taliban foot soldier brings home monthly wages that are 30% higher than uniformed Pakistani security personnel.

Preventing the disintegration of Pakistan, perhaps in the wake of a war with India (how much restraint will New Delhi show after the next Mumbai-style atrocity?), will be the Obama administration's most urgent foreign-policy challenge. Since Mr. Obama has already committed a trillion or so in new domestic spending, what's $100 billion in the cause of saving the world?

This is the deal I have in mind. The government of Pakistan would verifiably eliminate its entire nuclear stockpile and the industrial base that sustains it. In exchange, the U.S. and other Western donors would agree to a $100 billion economic package, administered by an independent authority and disbursed over 10 years, on condition that Pakistan remain a democratic and secular state (no military rulers; no Sharia law). It would supplement that package with military aid similar to what the U.S. provides Israel: F-35 fighters, M-1 tanks, Apache helicopters. The U.S. would also extend its nuclear umbrella to Pakistan, just as Hillary Clinton now proposes to do for Israel.

A pipe dream? Not necessarily. People forget that the world has subtracted more nuclear powers over the past two decades than it has added: Kazakhstan, Belarus, Ukraine and South Africa all voluntarily relinquished their stockpiles in the 1990s. Libya did away with its program in 2003 when Moammar Gadhafi concluded that a bomb would be a net liability, and that he had more to gain by coming to terms with the West.

There's no compelling reason Mr. Zardari and his military brass shouldn't reach the same conclusion, assuming excellent terms and desperate circumstances. Sure, a large segment of Pakistanis will never agree. Others, who have subsisted on a diet of leaves and grass so Pakistan could have its bomb, might take a more pragmatic view.

The tragedy of Pakistan is that it remains a country that can't do the basics, like make a bicycle chain. If what its leaders want is prestige, prosperity and lasting security, they could start by creating an economy that can make one -- while unlearning how to make the bomb.

Science Mag: John Holdren to be Nominated as Obama's Science Adviser

Science reports:

Strong indications are that President-elect Barack Obama has picked physicist John Holdren to be the president's science adviser.

A top adviser to the Obama campaign and international expert on energy and climate, Holdren would bolster Obama's team in those areas. Both are crowded portfolios. Obama has already created a new position to coordinate energy issues in the White House staffed by well-connected Carol Browner, former head of the Environmental Protection Agency, and nominated a Nobel-prize winning physicist, Steve Chu, to head the Department of Energy. That could complicate how the Office of Science and Technology Policy, which Holdren will run, will manage energy and environmental policy. "OSTP will have to be redefined in relation to these other centers of formulating policy," says current White House science adviser Jack Marburger.

Holdren had been planning to attend a staff meeting this morning with colleagues at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, where he heads the technology and science program. But instead, he flew today to Chicago to meet with the transition team and prepare for the announcement; initial plans are to release the official news of the appointment on a weekly radio program that Obama records and will be broadcast on Saturday. The transition office declined to comment.

Holdren is well known for his work on energy, climate change, and nuclear proliferation. Trained in fluid dynamics and plasma physics, Holdren branched out into policy early in his career. He has led the Woods Hole Research Center for the past 3 years and served as president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (which publishes ScienceInsider) in 2006.

—Eli Kintisch

CNN's Zain Verjee interview: State Secretary Condi Rice

MRC's transcript of CNN correspondent Zain Verjee interview with State Secretary Condi Rice, aired on Wednesday night’s Anderson Cooper 360:

VERJEE: Staying in Iraq, the shoe-throwing incident, it was really a symbol in so many ways in the Arab world of utter contempt for President Bush.

RICE: And it was one journalist among several who were sitting there respectfully, and I hope it isn’t allowed over time to obscure the fact that this was the President of the United States standing in Baghdad next to the democratically elected Shia Prime Minister of a multi-confessional Iraq that has just signed agreements of friendship and cooperation with the United States for the long term.

VERJEE: But the man may have been one journalist, but he was viewed throughout much of the Arab world as a real hero.

RICE: Oh, I –

VERJEE: My question is –

RICE: I have heard so many people –

VERJEE: My question to you is: Does it bother you that with all the diplomacy that you’ve done, President Bush’s policies, the policies that you’ve carried out that the U.S. is so loathed around the world?

RICE: Zain, the United States is not loathed. The policies of the United States are sometimes not liked. People don’t like that we’ve had to say hard things and do hard things about terrorism. People don’t like that we’ve spoken fiercely for the right of Israel to defend itself at the same time that we’ve advocated for a Palestinian state. But I have to go back. So many people in and around when that incident happened told me how embarrassed they were by the fact that that had happened. But the crux –

VERJEE: But didn’t it upset you? Didn’t it?

RICE: No, no, only that the focus of those who are supposed to be reporting for history didn’t focus on the historical moment, which is that this was the President of the United States in Baghdad, for goodness’ sakes, with a freely elected prime minister in a show of friendship. It didn’t get reported that the Iraqi band spent apparently several – all night trying to learn our national anthem and did it really rather well.

Other questions Verjee made:

-- "What about North Korea? At every step in this deal, the North Koreans have made promises, they’ve broken them, they’ve made demands, you’ve made concessions, you’ve moved your red lines. Your critics say that really what happened was, was the North Koreans were just playing you like a violin."

-- "What about the Middle East? You really put in a lot of effort. And made progress when it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But do you ever think to yourself, gosh, you know, I really wish that we started this kind of engagement a long time ago at the beginning of the Bush Administration, not toward the end? Do you ever think about that?"

-- "The worst breach of national security in the history of the United States came under your watch....Did you ever consider resigning?"

-- "One of the issues raised by some of your critics, they say that as National Security Advisor you were really steamrolled by Vice President Cheney, by former Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, and didn’t present a broad enough view to the President. Do you think you did?" Rice replied: "Certainly, the principals had their say, and as National Security Advisor I faithfully presented to the President what his principals were thinking – all of them."

Verjee wrapped up the interview by asking if Rice voted for Obama (she avoided an answer) and "Was Sarah Palin a bad choice?" (Rice praised her as historic for women.)


h/t: Tim Graham, Director of Media Analysis at the Media Research Center

"I know, I know there are reasons not to love this country, and to fear her"

Sent to Anna Bosch's blog in the federally owned Spanish radio and TV company, RTVE:

hola, cuatro apuntes acerca de lo que vemos en este blog:

1 A partir de la lectura de la presentación de Da. Anna Bosch (Perfil):

"…Ya, ya sé que hay razones para no querer a este país, y para temerlo, pero entiendo que sería redundante enumerarlas porque, según todas las encuestas y sondeos, las tenéis muy, muy presentes. Citando un clásico de Hollywood, nobody's perfect."

Primera idea: no nos imaginamos un corresponsal de la emisora sostenida con dinero del contribuyente trabajando en, digamos, Corea del Norte, o Libia antes de renunciar a su programa nuclear militar, o Afghanistan con los taliban, y que se pudiera considerar neutral escribiendo algo como lo que acabamos de citar. ¿No sería mejor, por parecer neutral, evitar pronunciamientos así?

2 Respecto a lo de "Con la inclusión de Sarah Palin en el ticket y las perspectivas de derrota la campaña de John McCain ha virado a la derecha, a la extrema derecha" ("Una de las dos Américas ha de helarte el corazón"), segunda idea: ¿no parece raro que alguien que trabaja para, entre otras cosas, dejar un registro al que acudan los historiadores en el futuro escriba lo de "extrema derecha"?

3 Respecto a "en algunos actos de Palin han abundados gritos o comentarios del público que asustan. Gritos de "que lo maten" "traidor" "terrorista" referidos a Barack Obama" ("Una de las dos Américas ha de helarte el corazón"), lo que recuerdamos de esas alegaciones es que:

according to Secret Service spokesman Malcolm Wiley [...] "The Secret Service did not hear any threatening statements directed at targets under its protection and no threatening statements were reported to us by law enforcement or citizens at the event," Wiley told Radar. Also unclear: whether the remark was directed at Obama or Ayers if the words were actually "kill" and "him."

Yo particularmente no he visto aún rectificación de Dana Milbank, Washington Post, pero, tercera idea, como tantas otras veces, sirva esto para que aprendamos más prudencia, más paciencia, y no citar como verdades históricas cosas que nos dicen nuestros amigos o colegas, 98% de los cuales piensan de política como nosotros mismos.

4 Cuarta idea: a lo mejor no es suficiente citar como medios que uno admira (por tanto, escucha/lee/vee más que los demás) los que aparecen en el perfil:

"El New York Times, el Washington Post, la NPR y la PBS…"

ya que no son medios bipartidistas ¿Puede ser que parte de la realidad se escape por no leer/ver/oír con igual frecuencia otros medios? La admiración sentida (después de Lauren Bacall, nada menos) ¿no es peligrosa para la objetividad?


Gracias por la oportunidad de expresar nuestras inquietudes,

Jorge Mata
Press Office
Bipartisan Alliance,
a Society for the Study and Defense of the US Constitution, where Republicans and Democrats meet.

Yale magazine: A Green Agenda for Obama's First 100 Days

Environmentalists offer the president-elect their advice on the priorities he should set for his administration.

Excerpts:

Rajendra K. Pachauri, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which was awarded the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize.

I believe the most important initiative that President Obama should undertake would be to announce an ambitious plan for reduction in emissions of greenhouse gases on par with what the European Union has put forward — namely the 20-20-20 plan. This would require the U.S. to cut its emissions by 20 percent over 1990 levels, as well as generate 20 percent of its electricity through renewable energy sources, by 2020. Everything else would flow out of this set of goals, because business and industry would take immediate action in developing new technologies and refining existing ones to make them economically viable before 2020.

One major area in which the new President could bring about a major structural change would be to strengthen passenger railway transport in the U.S. by providing low interest loans to build high-speed lines that would lure passengers away from air travel. Simultaneously, the new administration must mandate stringent mileage standards to produce energy-efficient cars. States and local governments should be provided with financial support to carry out energy-efficiency retrofits in existing buildings and ensure much higher targets of energy efficiency in new construction.

The U.S. should also donate liberally to the adaptation fund that hopefully will be part of the new agreement on climate change to be negotiated by the end of 2009 in Copenhagen. Several poor countries that bear no responsibility for the increase in greenhouse gases will need major resources to adapt to the impacts of climate change, and as a matter of international justice, the U.S. must play a large role in these adaptation efforts.

I would tell the new President that all these measures would not only meet the challenge of climate change and establish the willingness of the U.S. to be part of the solution, but would also ensure energy security for the U.S. in the future and create much-needed new employment.

Rove: Organizing the White House Is Obama's First Test

Organizing the White House Is Obama's First Test, by Karl Rove
All presidents come to realize how much structure matters

Excerpts:

As he organizes his presidency, Barack Obama continues to receive glowing reviews. Three out of four Americans approve of how he's handling his transition.

But organizing and operating the White House will be a much bigger challenge than he can possibly yet understand.

Consider national security. Mr. Obama's team has the advantage of inheriting procedures and structures that stretch back to President Harry Truman's 1947 reforms, which created the National Security Council. But there's historically been tension over the roles of the national security adviser and secretary of state. How that tension is resolved depends largely on the able National Security Adviser-designate, James Jones.

Mr. Jones has been Marine Corps commandant and NATO supreme allied commander, posts whose occupants are treated as demigods. How easily will he fit into a staff role? Will Mr. Jones see his responsibility as ensuring the president receives a broad range of options, or will he put a higher priority on advocating his own substantive views? Could Mr. Jones's personal relationship with so many top brass undermine Secretary Robert Gates's control of the Pentagon during what could be Mr. Gates's last year at Defense?

[...]

To this complicated mix Mr. Obama has added a White House energy and climate-change czar, former Clinton-era EPA Administrator Carol Browner. Which raises these questions: Will the EPA and its legions of experts still lead policy development, or will the new climate czar? Will the CEQ lose authority to Ms. Browner? There are many strong people in Mr. Obama's environmental arena. Who's in charge, and how will those relationships shake out?

Mr. Obama's new Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary, Tom Daschle, has never run anything but will have responsibility for one of the government's most complicated departments. And while Mr. Daschle may have lost his last campaign, he's lost none of his skill at internecine warfare. The wily Washington insider also grabbed the title of director of the White House Office of Health Reform. The creation of this new Daschle-led office clearly downgrades both the DPC and the National Economic Council, which have traditionally split White House action on health issues. [...]


Finally, the Obama team continues discussing how to use its campaign email list. According to press reports, the aim is to "place pressure on key legislators." But that raises problems beyond irritating representatives and senators who will resent the White House for making their lives more difficult. Ethics and election law expert Tom Josefiak of Holtzman Vogel PLLC says the Obama White House should reread the Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel's opinions about The Anti-Lobbying Act. One in 1988 warned: "We caution against grassroots appeals, even by the President, that involve substantial expenditures of appropriated funds." This suggests putting the email list on White House servers is a problem.

And who will direct and pay the organizers that the transition team may hire to lead these White House lobbying efforts? Former FEC Chairman Michael Toner, now of Bryan Cave LLP, says running a new grass-roots advocacy group out of the White House could create serious election-law difficulties. The FEC has imposed large civil penalties on some advocacy groups for failing to register as political committees and abide by hard-dollar contribution limits. Also, any White House advocacy group runs the risk of being treated as a Democratic National Committee affiliate, triggering shared contribution limits, reporting requirements, and a prohibition on soft-money contributions. Given Mr. Obama's professed support of campaign finance reform, he could ill afford any of these problems.

Mr. Obama is assembling a strong and intelligent team of people with muscular views and large personalities. Will the individual parts cohere into a well-functioning whole? Things that sound good often work less well in reality. Having served in the White House for nearly seven years and carefully studied how the modern presidency functions, it strikes me that some of Mr. Obama's steps may make smooth operations harder. [...]

Mr. Rove is the former senior adviser and deputy chief of staff to President George W. Bush.



About Karl Rove

Karl Rove served as Senior Advisor to President George W. Bush from 2000–2007 and Deputy Chief of Staff from 2004–2007. At the White House he oversaw the Offices of Strategic Initiatives, Political Affairs, Public Liaison, and Intergovernmental Affairs and was Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy, coordinating the White House policy making process.

Before Karl became known as "The Architect" of President Bush's 2000 and 2004 campaigns, he was president of Karl Rove + Company, an Austin-based public affairs firm that worked for Republican candidates, nonpartisan causes, and nonprofit groups. His clients included over 75 Republican U.S. Senate, Congressional and gubernatorial candidates in 24 states, as well as the Moderate Party of Sweden.

Karl writes a weekly op-ed for The Wall Street Journal, is a Newsweek columnist and is now writing a book to be published by Simon & Schuster. Email the author at Karl@Rove.com or visit him on the web at Rove.com.

Bush 43 vs. Clinton on Lower-Court Appointees

Bush 43 vs. Clinton on Lower-Court Appointees, by Ed Whelan, December 09, 2008. Excerpts:

I’ve already noted that President Bush’s total of [61] confirmed federal appellate appointees (which includes three of President Clinton’s nominees whom Bush renominated and appointed) is lower than Clinton’s total of 65. It’s also striking that there are roughly as many (and slightly more) Clinton federal appellate appointees in active service today, more than 15 years after his initial appointments and more than 8 years after his last ones, than there are Bush 43 appointees: [58] for Clinton, [57] for Bush. (Again, I’m counting in Bush’s total all three of Clinton’s nominees whom Bush renominated and appointed.) So much for the supposed predominance of Bush 43 appointees. [12/10 and 12/11 updates: I’ve tweaked the second sentence and corrected the numbers.]

The total federal district court numbers are even worse: 261 Bush appointees versus 305 Clinton appointees. Again, there are more Clinton-appointed federal district judges (258) than Bush district judges (253) still in active service.

All my data is drawn from the Federal Judicial Center’s database [...].

ABC News' Rick Klein: Obama Wants Fight with Gay Activists to Prove He's Moderate

ABC News' Rick Klein published this comment in his blog:

President-elect Barack Obama’s selection of Pastor Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at his inauguration has ignited a firestorm of criticism from the gay-rights community, where Warren is considered something of a sworn enemy.

Yet Obama’s response to a question about his selection of Warren seems to confirm one perception: that this is a fight that the president-elect isn’t necessarily sorry to be having.

[...]

The fight is an offshoot of a continuing struggle Obama has had with his left flank. His relationship with liberals in the Democratic Party has long stopped just this side of adulation, and some prominent gay-rights leaders have been skeptical about how aggressively he’s committed to their agenda.

Still, from an incoming administration that seems very much committed to governing from the center, could it be that this is a fight that is welcomed?

Time Magazine On Obama: 'His Genome Is Global, His Mind Is Innovative, His World Is Networked'

Time's Person of the Year 2008: excerpts of article by David Von Drehle.

Stop and look back at those last few words, because they are a telltale sign of Obama's pragmatism. A persistent question during the campaign -- it became the heart of John McCain's message in the closing weeks -- was whether Obama was some kind of radical, a terrorist-befriending socialist masquerading as Steady Freddy. As he builds his Administration, though, he is emerging as a leader who just wants to "get some things done."

[...]

Unveiling these and other picks at a series of daily press conferences, Obama assured the public that he wanted to move fast, so fast that trainloads of money might be ready for him to dispatch across the country with a stroke of his pen on Inauguration Day. The idea of another wave of spending horrifies America's surviving conservatives, but most economists support it -- some with enthusiasm, some with resignation. Obama realized that the stimulus package could be a vehicle for launching his broad domestic agenda. His ambitious campaign promises — to reform health care, cut taxes for low- and moderate-income earners and steer the U.S. toward a new energy economy — had seemed doomed by the yawning budget deficit (some $200 billion a month, according to the latest projections). But call these projects "stimulus," and suddenly a ship headed for the reef of economic disaster might sail through Congress flying the flag of economic recovery.

With even Republican economists talking about hundreds of billions in new spending, the sky's the limit. A dream of health-care reformers -- electronic medical records -- is now economic stimulus because Obama will pour money into hospitals for computers and clerical workers. His tax cut is stimulus because it puts spending money in the pockets of working Americans. His pledge to repair the nation's infrastructure is a stimulus plan for construction workers, while his energy strategy is stimulus for the people who will modernize government buildings, update public schools and improve the electrical grid.

[...]

Podesta had long been planning the return of a Democrat to the White House, and his think tank, the Center for American Progress, was already preparing detailed briefings on conditions in the various departments of government. As the financial system went into free fall in September, Podesta's team pressed the FBI to work overtime on security screenings of potential Obama nominees. Now, as he boarded a 6 a.m. flight to Chicago, Podesta carried a list of more than 100 candidates who had passed their background investigations and were ready for confirmation on Day One.

[...]

Obama had been pondering whether he should step to center stage or wait in the wings as the turbulent last months of the Bush Administration played out. His aides were all over the map. Some advised him to go quietly about his business in Chicago and insist that America has just one President at a time. For Obama to succeed, they argued, the country needed to see his Inauguration as a clean break, a new sunrise. Others floated the idea of immediately starting the First Hundred Days, perhaps asking George W. Bush to appoint Obama's choices to key offices so that they could get to work by late November.

[...]

They told Hart they were drawn to Obama's self-assured and calming personality. They felt he was "honest," a "straight shooter" -- in other words, a person who does what he says he will do. Their confidence in Obama wasn't starry-eyed; they hadn't been swept away by his stadium speeches. They saw a man who can get some things done, at a time when so many of their leaders, from Pennsylvania Avenue to Wall Street, cannot. He made moderates feel hopeful, and even among many core Republicans who did not ultimately vote for him, Obama inspired admiration. Viewing these comments through the results of his national surveys, Hart discerned a surge of good feeling that he had not seen in a generation: "a sense of real hope," he says, "and the kind of broad bipartisan support that has not been in evidence since the 1980 Reagan election."

[...]

A few days after this interview, Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich reminded the country that some aspects of politics will never change. Government is a human enterprise, after all, and Obama, like everyone else, is bound by its limits and subject to human frailty. Nevertheless, if he has shown anything this year, Obama has made it clear that he knows how to write new playbooks and do things in new ways. Which is a compelling quality right now. His arrival on the scene feels like a step into the next century -- his genome is global, his mind is innovative, his world is networked, and his spirit is democratic.

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