floridagal, Author at Progress Pond

Democrats for Life and Third Way are at it again.

After the fundraising call from the DCCC yesterday through the Telefund group, I have been seething inside. I posted about it. I have not gotten over it because I saw two new realities that my rather naive view of politics is having a heck of a lot of trouble taking in.

Reality #1: When I mentioned we donated to the DNC because of Howard Dean, and also were members of DFA….her mood changed for the worse. Before then we had just been chatting about things in a friendly manner.

Reality #2: When I said I feared the party was going to give in on women’s issues to get more members this time, then it really got bad. I was not even allowed to tell her how much we did locally. It went downhill. The tone and her words, that no one was willing to give up their issues, made it clear I was right about the intent. She was furious, angry, that I was so presumptive as to differ on this.

I intend to keep eyes out now for what women are facing. I do a search regularly on the Democrats for Life group which is gaining access to the party now with Governor Dean’s permission. Love you, Gov, but that is not playing well with many of us.
The Democrats for Life refused to endorse Kerry last year. I found this article today about them. I do not trust them to just want a say in the party, I think they are sort of taking over women’s issues. Some of them are very extremist in their views. The head of the Florida chapter even wrote an article about Kerry called:

Could Kerry be the ‘Hitler of the Unborn’?

I have been accused by more than one Kerry Democrat of being mean-spirited when I refer to John Kerry as the “Hitler of the Unborn.” I don’t use those words lightly. I have carefully considered his voting record on the life issues. I have listened carefully about the promises he intends to keep to Planned Parenthood, NOW, NARAL, and EMILY’s List. Kerry Democrats would have us believe that abortions will continue to drop under Kerry’s administration, but logic tells me that when he revokes the Mexico City Policy with his first promised Executive Order, millions of abortions will occur worldwide through the use of American tax dollars. I see clear parallels between Adolf Hitler’s master plan and John Kerry’s moral relativism concerning the value of human life. Therefore, I feel this image of Kerry as the new “Adolph Hitler” is justified.

Last I heard Ms Mierzwa was still president of the Florida chapter of Democrats for Life, and still ranting like a fool.

I ran across this article today which tells more about Howard’s meeting with the Democrats for Life, and it also points out that Planned Parenthood is going to let us down as well. Don’t get me wrong. I know this is not just about abortion, per se. This is about women’s rights in general.

It won’t take much to go to the next level. This group is more religious in nature than it is political. They are misrepresenting the percentage of people who do not believe in a woman’s rights to have one. The next step will be forbidding certain types of birth control based on their view that life begins at conception. Then there will be other areas involving women on which the line could be crossed. The groups like this believe as a rule that a woman needs to be in the home while her children are young, and they do not for a moment hesitate to put a woman on a guilt trip if she chooses a career as well.

Pro-abortion groups realize `choice’ isn’t selling in U.S. politics

NEW YORK, N.Y. — Since the Democratic defeat in the last election, the party’s spin doctors have been crafting a new approach to abortion to get their abortion rights message across, Life Site News, an online news agency reported.

Democratic think tank, the Third Way, billing itself as a “strategy center for progressives” attempting to reverse the social tide in the United States toward traditional values, said that the Democrat party and abortion groups need to change their rhetoric.
After its success in moving the Democrats to the center on gun control, the think tank is now focusing on abortion with “a series of briefing papers on abortion, with policy and messaging that will help progressives win the war of ideas.”

Newsweek magazine obtained a brief from the Third Way that shows the country is locked into polarized positions, but that most of the public falls into the undecided category which the brief calls, “grays.”

“We’ve now gotten locked in a frame and policies for 30 years that speak to the polars but don’t speak to the grays,” said Third Way president Jon Cowan.

And this part breaks my heart because I know Howard Dean is sincerely for a woman’s right to choose. I hate that he is allowing himself and women to be manipulated by language. I don’t think he knows that this group for what it really is. I am furious to see George Lakoff’s words which are mentioned in this article. I have loved his works, have his book, appreciate much of his framing. In this article he goes overboard, I think.

Last month, DNC party chairman Howard Dean met with the group, Democrats for Life, an organization of Democrats attempting to move the party away from its support of abortion while returning it to its pre-1960’s roots. Dean said he wanted to “reframe” the issue to make it more palatable.

“He said he wanted to take ‘abortion’ out of the political lexicon,” former DNC head Steve Grossman said.

Lakoff, whom Newsweek called an “unofficial guru to beleaguered Democrats,” suggested that the new approach to abortion should be on “reducing unwanted pregnancies” and using the phrase “personal freedom.”

This suggestion has been eagerly adopted by NARAL, which introduced its new advertising strategy, using the phrase, ” ‘culture of freedom and responsibility’… soundly beats ‘culture of life.’ “

And note that NARAL is toeing the line now. All is well, don’t worry. The sad part is that I am a very moderate person, a Christian. I never had an abortion, but I remember when it was not legal. This group wants to take us back to the 60s. I don’t think we should let them.

I read in an article that the President of the National chapter of Democrats for Life is a featured speaker at the National Right to Life group convention this month. They are also very close with Feminists for Life. All together these groups are powerful.

DCCC Telefund caller belittled our efforts for the party, belittled our beliefs. Hung up on me.

I have a call in to the DCCC, trying to get an explanation for why I would have been treated this way. This is serious to me, it is uncalled for, and I will tell you why I say that.

In 2003 we were greatly disillusioned by our party, we knew things were wrong, we just had not figured out what yet.

When we became active in the Dean campaign, and I became more active on line….I began to be more aware of how the party had been taken over by the groups such as the DLC/PPI. Things began to fall into place in our minds.

I have noticed that we as women are going to be used as scapegoats this time so that the party can attract more of the ones on the right, more Republicans. Not just abortion rights, but birth control as well. Maybe other privacy rights I am not aware of as yet. I have no objection to welcoming others….I just don’t want it done at my expense.

I started out being nice, though it was the 3rd call from this Telefund group in two days. I was nice at first, and I have people to attest to that who were here with me. I tried to explain that we were already donating to the DNC regularly and generously, and to the DFA as well.

I informed her we were active on the ground in our area with the DEC and with DFA. We stand in malls to get petitions signed, we stand with peace groups. We attend meetings and take part in activities of all kinds.

I finally got out the words, carefully I thought, that I was afraid the DCCC and the DSCC were too willing to run candidates to just win, even though they did not support the rights of women.

I got what I call the full treatment, just like what is going on at another site. She was absolutely furious with me, how dare I not want to win. How dare I expect to win when all these “issues” were getting in the way. She said no group was willing to give an inch, and I said how about standing up for all of them.

OMG, that set her off. I was lectured and she raised her voice, and I raised mine. She did not seem to think what we did mattered unless we donated to the DCCC and Campaign for the 21st Century, or the DSCC. She kept using the word progressive as though I were the antithesis to it.

I felt bad for her, but I felt worse for me. The ladies who were cleaning today were ready to go, but signaled they would stay if I needed them…as I was crying by then. I motioned them to go.

I doubt I will hear back from the DCCC. The worst part is being told that donating to the DNC and DFA do not count as much as giving to the DCCC and DSCC.

I told her what Schumer did about Casey, how he called Rendell and they talked. Schumer knew Casey was anti-choice, anti-birth control, but he said we could no longer worry about that. He said the party could not afford to ask candidates to sign off on issues. There is a post at MyDD about this with audio. She told me I was being too (something)…I missed it, said repeat, and I was very upset. She could not believe I was upset over that.

She did not let me tell her in detail all we did for the party, she simply kept raising her voice so that I could not finish. I raised my voice as well, after she said she did not want to hear what I had to say, she had to call others who cared about the party. I told her she called my home, and that she should let me finish. She hung up.

I am sort of sick inside, sort of shaking. Is this what is coming down the road? This anger…where did it come from? Why is it not enough right now that we give to the DNC and DFA? Why is it not enough that we are active locally?

I hope it is ok to post this. In an ideal world, everyone could donate to all those groups. This is not an ideal world at all. We chose two groups to which to donate for now. I think we are good Democrats in every way, and this event has shaken me to my toes.

Howard Dean on Paula Zahn told Bush what must be in the speech.

Paula in all her snideness interviewed him just before Bush spoke. I was very impressed that he got his points across so clearly and quickly, and she sounded so purely awful.

Here are his points:
Three main points Dean said Bush’s speech must contain:

FEMA must again become an independent agency as it was under Bill Clinton.
Don’t pass an extension of the estate tax. Use that money (750 billion?) to rebuild the gulf coast.
Either postpone the bankruptcy bill for a whole year for everyone or exempt the people in the coastal areas hit by Katrina from the bill. He said they would be in debt for the rest of their lives.

That woman actually had the nerve to say that those people were also poor when Clinton was president.

Evacuation is taking chances. Safer in home or on jammed highway with nowhere to stay.

We went through 3 hurricanes last year with the eyes only a few miles away. Central Florida was hit very hard.

Before Frances I remember that motels and hotels up as far as Tennessee were booked up. People just got in their cars and went. Many got caught on highways that were backed up and ended up staying in all kinds of shelter near where they were on the highways.

By the time people knew they had to evacuate, it was almost too late. By that time people in inland areas like us are praying that our homes will be preserved. People in coastal areas by that time are having to decide something very vital…do they stay home and take a chance or do they get on the road with most likely jammed highways and nowhere to go.
Here is the thing I never see mentioned. When a major storm is threatening, it is hard to find gas for your car. Two days before Jeanne, the 3rd storm, hit our area, there was no gas to be found. How does one evacuate from an area when they can not get gas for their car?

Whenever a hurricane threatens an area of Florida, the stores run out of stock quickly. Days before. Katrina hit South Florida, our area was not touched. However the stores were short on just about everything, and gas lines were long.

I guess I just get tired of all the platitudes about how easy it is to evacuate when they say to do so. It is not easy. Sometimes you have to make a choice to stay in your home or get caught on the road.

The days after Jeanne hit us last year we had empty grocery stores, no electricity for days, no way to find out if any restaurants were open and serving. Right wing owns the radio waves here, and they did not want to give up regular programming. They did it for 6 hours after Jeanne, then they said back to regular programs.

We thought about evacuating before Jeanne, though we live 40 something miles from the coast. We quickly changed our minds. There was no where to stop on the way to our children’s home in other states. The highways were bumper to bumper for miles.

Evacuating from Florida with its long coastline is a virtual impossibility.

Just a few unorganized thoughts that came into my brain as they have blamed the victims of Katrina on the Gulf Coast. I have felt for them, as we had to decide that 3 times last year. We were lucky, many were not.

FEMA refusing to pay for Katrina’s damage to Florida, so both parties file a bill to force the aid.

There is a bi-partisan bill being filed by Florida congress members to require FEMA to pay for the damage by Katrina. This is an update to a previous diary I posted, pointing out that FEMA is asking for money to be paid back from last year’s hurricanes. AND that even worse they are denying aid now to victims of Katrina when it hit Florida on its way to New Orleans.

Bill Made to Force FEMA Aid in State

The agency has said it will not pay for damage done by Katrina when it first landed in Florida.

By MICHELLE SPITZER

The Associated Press

MIAMI — Since Hurricane Katrina ripped the porch roof off Dorothy Rothbauer’s mobile home in Davie, all the 88 year old wants to do is cry.

“This is the worst thing that has ever happened to me,” Rothbauer said Monday.

Luckily, Rotherbauer is a saver and had money stashed away that she’ll use for repairs. But many residents whose homes were damaged by Katrina do not have the same option as Rotherbauer and were hoping to get assistance from the government.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency refused individual assistance to Floridians after local, state and federal inspectors found that damage in South Florida wasn’t extensive enough. The state is appealing the decision.

In addition, the state’s congressional delegation filed a bill Monday that would direct FEMA to provide assistance to Floridians who suffered damage from Hurricane Katrina. All 25 members of Florida’s U.S. House delegation are sponsors.

Katrina hit Florida on August 25 as a Category One story. It does not sound bad after being hit by Cats 3 and 4 last…4 of them just in Florida. However, the people affected are hurting. Kudos to these congressmen and congresswomen who crossed party lines to present this bill.

“This legislation does not ask for something unusual,” said U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla. “It only asks to right the wrong done by FEMA to people who suffered damage as a result of Hurricane Katrina.”

Wasserman Schultz was joined at a press conference by U.S. Reps. Mario Diaz-Balart and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, both Republicans. Miami-Dade County commissioners Dennis Moss and Sally Heyman also attended.

“Storms don’t know state boundaries,” Wasserman Schultz said. “So FEMA should not know state boundaries.”

FEMA does not have a good track record here. These articles from a previous diary show a lot of their incompetence.

This article shows that the people who are caught in a Category I hurricane will be victims not only of the storm, but of FEMA’s own fears.

Genuine storm victims pay for FEMA’s past mistakes

But in the case of Hurricane Katrina, FEMA’s renewed devotion to detail means some legitimate storm victims might not get much-needed relief.

The type of disaster declared by President Bush for Broward and Miami-Dade on Sunday, three days after the storm hit, means local governments will get reimbursed for certain expenses, such as emergency personnel overtime and debris removal.

But individuals and homeowners impacted by Katrina are on their own.

As of Monday, FEMA had declined to activate its individual assistance programs, which bring up to $26,200 per household for uninsured damages, repairs and temporary lodging.”

There is more about this, and people will be hurt by these policy shifts from storm to storm. I guess that’s what we get for having a president who hires an Arabian horse guy to lead our emergency management.

Destruction not bad enough for FEMA

“Wednesday, FEMA told Ibanez – and hundreds of other Katrina victims in South Florida – that they aren’t giving individuals there money for repairs or relocation.

“They said this is not a disaster zone,” she said, in Spanish.”

FEMA officials said that local and state governments, along with volunteer and charity groups, have the capability of helping people like Ibanez in Miami-Dade, Broward and Monroe Counties.

South Florida officials disagree and are livid. They can give families a meal or two, but say they are incapable of providing semi-permanent housing or financial aid.

“We’re not geared for the long term,” said Don DiPetrillo, Davie’s fire chief and emergency management coordinator. “I’m not sure if the county is geared for that.”

Then, to add insult to injury, FEMA is asking that many Floridians pay them back…yes, I said pay them back. They goofed, and they are going to make Floridians who went through two storms last year pay them back.

Payback Time for Hurricane Victims in Florida

AP) The Federal Emergency Management Agency has asked thousands of Floridians whose homes were damaged by last summer’s four hurricanes to give back more than $27 million in aid overpayments.

FEMA earlier this year began mailing letters to residents in efforts to recoup the overpayments from people who received federal aid after Hurricanes Charley, Frances, Ivan and Jeanne hit Florida last August and September.

According to data supplied to The News-Press of Fort Myers through a Freedom of Information Act request, the agency detailed 6,579 cases in which they say people owe a total of $27.2 million.

I call this one “damage is whatever FEMA says it is.”

FEMA May Not Assist Individuals

FEMA is giving aid to local governments, but has yet to decide on helping individual storm victims. One reason: criticism that it was overly generous last year.

But damage to individual homes in South Florida is spotty and scattered. And emergency managers in Miami-Dade and Broward have worked to help FEMA inspectors find all the trouble spots in the two large counties.

”There was more widespread flooding, but apparently the flooding did not go into a lot of homes,” said Craig Fugate, director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management. “Most of the damage that the [FEMA] staff has seen has been very isolated.”

FEMA uses a complex, shifting formula to make its decision. Emergency managers say FEMA needs to identify anywhere from 100 to 800 homes with major damage to send help. FEMA says there’s no magic number.”

Sounds good on paper unless you are one of the individuals who fall between the cracks, so to speak. Some of the people who being asked to pay back are not even through getting their homes repaired from last year’s hurricanes and were within the legal guidelines. I don’t see much of Jeb speaking out on this. He has been hunkered down with insurance companies and developers figuring out best how to screw those with houses on the coastline. They will now require they have 3 separate policies….wind, flood, and other..regular coverage.

South Florida was hit by a hurricane, and FEMA changed the rules mid game. No way in hell to tell what they will do in New Orleans.

The Captain Lets Down the Ship….another Republican publicly turns on Bush.

You know how in your local paper you have certain people who get published a lot? You know, the kind you wonder about what connections they have because what they say seems to mean so little.

This is one of those people. Until recently, all he did was write scathing letters about Democrats, praise Bush to the heavens. He is the kind that people write to the paper about in droves, disputing his ignorance of issues.

Well, read this and enjoy. It is a beautiful thing to behold.

The Captain Lets Down Nation

Captain Lets Down Nation

Andrew Jackson got the British out of New Orleans in less than 24 hours.

The most powerful nation on Earth and its military could not even restore law and order in the city for four days.

When a patient dies in surgery, the operating surgeon is held responsible. It is called the Captain of the Ship Doctrine.

And there is even more. Dr. Sear is truly fed up, and I do love it.

Captain of the Ship Doctrine.

It doesn’t matter if the anesthesiologist fell asleep, the scrub nurse miscounted the instruments or the blood bank gave you the wrong blood. As leader of the team, it is your burden.

If I as a pathologist make the wrong diagnosis, the same is true. I lose my job. That has happened in Polk County. A running back fumbles the ball, a CEO bankrupts the company — it’s their fault.

Two days prior to the landfall of Hurricane Katrina, anyone who watched the Weather Channel knew that a Category 5 hurricane had the Big Easy in its sights. Numerous studies had predicted the outcome. And, yet, FEMA, an emergency-response agency, made no provision for the worst-case scenario.

The day after this disaster, FEMA was turning down offers of aid from everyone, including Mayor Daley of Chicago. The commander in chief of our military could not even get a battalion of Army Rangers in the next day to restore order. Consequently, thousands of our citizens, mostly poor and black, were forced to live in filth and terror for days thereafter.

This was disgraceful and inexcusable. I’m sorry, captain, you fumbled the ball. Your appointees failed you.

Where was smart aleck Don Rumsfeld with his mobile military? John Ashcroft can cover nude statues in the Department of Justice, but we can’t pick up bodies in New Orleans? Where was your director of FEMA? He should be fired forthwith [he has been reassigned]. And, most importantly, where were you, sir, after the costliest natural disaster in our history?

I have been a loyal and steadfast Republican all my life, but this makes me wonder, is it time for a change?

OWEN SEAR, M.D.

Winter Haven

And just for good measure, a very short, very potent letter from a friend and fellow DFAer here. She and her husband are prolific letter writers.

Published Monday, September 12, 2005

Lost in Iraq, Needed on Coast

Remember the $9 billion lost in Iraq that the Republicans will not investigate? Think if we had that money today for New Orleans and the Gulf Coast.

PRISCILLA KRIMM
Lakeland

Howard Dean just took a stand against John Roberts on CNN.

It was an interview with Wolf Blitzer in the very loud and splashy Situation Room. Howard though was calm and in total control of the interview.

He tied John Roberts record to the lack of caring about 80% of our population. When asked if the Democrats should approve of him, he said “no.” Very clearly.

The other day Howard Dean tied the rescue in New Orleans to skin color, age, and economics. Laura Bush said that was disgusting.

Wolf asked Howard if he thought President Bush cared about people, and Howard Dean said no. He said it did not matter what one said, it mattered what one did.

He did not back down, and he stood for most of America today. Actually in my mind sometimes, I still think he is my president.

Low income housing won’t be rebuilt, most likely. Words of Gingrich and Barb Bush.

Here is his quote from Newshounds.

Newt Gingrich appeared on Hannity & Colmes last night (9/7/05) to rebut Howard Dean’s remark that poor people and blacks suffered worse from Hurricane Katrina. Gingrich’s response suggested that, in his view, the evacuees may be better off having been forced to flee their homes.

Gingrich answered: “We ought to be inventing a way so that those people who were driven out of public housing don’t return back to the totally inadequate public housing of the past but have a better future. Those children who are now scattered across America – we have to worry about their getting a real education and, candidly, in some cases they may get a better education, if we put our minds to it, than they would have gotten trapped in areas of poverty, with schools that were failing, with nobody in the community who was able to be a role model so I think the time right now is to look forward in a positive way… and how are we gonna fix the bureaucracies that so clearly failed?”

Newt Gingrich Suggests Hurricane Victims May Be Better Off As Evacuees
And of course we know Barbara Bush used almost the same words in discussing how lucky the refugees were:

President Bush battled criticism over the response to Hurricane Katrina, his mother declared it a success for evacuees who “were underprivileged anyway,” saying on Monday that many of the poor people she had seen while touring a Houston relocation site were faring better than before the storm hit.

“What I’m hearing, which is sort of scary, is they all want to stay in Texas,” Barbara Bush said in an interview on Monday with the radio program “Marketplace.” “Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality.”

“And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway,” she said, “so this is working very well for them.

Barbara Bush Calls Evacuees Better Off

Sounds like talking points to me. When you hear it from two of them, it is most likely talking points and part of a plan. A plan, I guess to figure out some other way to handle low income housing. I don’t pretend to know what they have in mind.

I posted earlier that they were not rebuilding low-income housing in the Charlotte County area hit so hard by Hurricane Charley. Last year 95% of housing like that, including trailer parks and housing centers was destroyed. A local station there has a video remembering it a year later. The person speaking says they won’t turn them out in the cold, or something to that effect. Here is the video.

One Year Later: FEMA City

Here is my previous diary about the destruction of the housing there. I believe, but can’t verify, that there are many still without homes in the Hardee County area of Florida where Charley wreaked such havoc. It is hard to find news about it, but rebuilding is slow there.

95% of low income housing destroyed in Charlotte County, Florida by Charley

Here is the gist of my diary:

Now after rambling, here is my point. I think the most tragic part of this will be the new homeless class from these hurricanes. Bottom line is that when low income housing was destroyed, nearly 95% in Charlotte County where Charlie veered ashore suddenly, they consciously decided not to rebuild it. Instead they are enriching the tax base by building nicer homes and new businesses.

The people in FEMA village there, some 500 trailers, will have to get out in February. This article shows their quandary, which basically is that they have nowhere to go.

Dean tells it like it is in Miami today. Ties race, age, and economic factors to New Orleans.

Howard Dean spoke to the National Baptist Comvention today in Miami. He said the words that needed to be said about the situation in New Orleans.

“Dean, in remarks interrupted several times by applause, charged that Republicans in Congress and the Bush administration have not done enough to combat poverty. The pictures of primarily black storm evacuees huddled at the dank Superdome and stranded on rooftops, Dean charged, showed “the ugly truth that skin color, age and economics played a significant role in who survived and who did not.”

“The question, 40 and 50 years after Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement, is: `How could this still be happening in America?’ ” Dean said, later adding: “We have not swept poverty away in this nation. We have simply swept it under the rug.”

He went on to say that Republicans were more interested in repealing the inheritance tax for the wealthiest Americans than hurricane relief. The estimated $750 billion cost of the tax cut, he said, would be better spent rebuilding the battered Gulf Coast.
He then had several more powerful quotes.

Dean, who refused to take questions from reporters, told the Baptist group meeting at a downtown hotel that he was speaking “not as chairman of the Democratic party, but as an American.”

Yet he repeatedly sought to lay claim to the so-called “morals” issue that some pollsters suggested cost Democrats the presidency in 2000. Moral issues, the new Democratic chief said, should apply to poverty and universal health insurance – not abortion and gay marriage – two issues with which some conservative black clergy side with the GOP.

“The moral choices in America are not about hot-button social issues that get everybody mad,” Dean said. “Moral choices are about making sure that folks don’t drown at a nursing home before they can get evacuated.”

Dean didn’t outright criticize the pace of federal recovery efforts – as other Democrats did Wednesday with vehemence – but he suggested that GOP priorities have made a bad situation worse.

“Americans deserve better from their leaders,” he said in remarks prepared for delivery.”

http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/nation/12584462.htm

Why are Democrats consulting with Norquist, Ashcroft, and Goldberg about terrorism and security?

I am not familiar with this group, and I did not get any vibes at first. Not really. They are holding a conference for two days now, and some of the speakers strike me as off key to be mixing with a lot of the Democrats here who are on the whole what I would call Clinton friends and allies. Here are a few I noticed speaking today who seemed out of place:

Terrorism, Security & America’s Purpose conference

Norms Under Stress – Is there a Civil Liberties Trade-Off in Fighting Terrorism? And what of the Debate on Rendition, Interrogations, and Detentions?

Jonah Goldberg
Editor-at-Large, National Review Online and nationally syndicated columnist

Grover Norquist
President, Americans for Tax Reform and Member of the Board, American Conservative Union; and Member of the Board, National Rifle Association

The Hon. Lawrence Korb
Senior Fellow, Center for American Progress;
Senior Advisor, Center for Defense Information; and
Former Asst. Secretary of Defense in the Reagan Administration And Co-author (w/Robert Boorstin), Integrated Power: A National Security Strategy for the 21st Century

Reuel Marc Gerecht
Resident Fellow, American Foreign Policy, American Enterprise Institute
(Don’t know him, just saw the AEI)

Executive Session — Private Meeting
Roundtable on Guiding Principles in Considering Security Challenges in America
The Hon. John Ashcroft
Former Attorney General of the United States and Principal, The Ashcroft Group

The Hon. Chuck Hagel (R-NE)
U.S. Senator and Member, Senate Foreign Relations Committee

Francis Fukuyama
Academic Dean, Paul Nitze School of Advanced International Studies Johns Hopkins University
(Wasn’t he a guy who helped found the PNAC? Will have to look it up.)

To be frank, there are a lot of them I don’t know at all. There are a lot who look fine. It is just that the ones above are so out of place with a group that claims Democratic roots. I guess I am not very trusting anymore.
There is something about the conference at Tom Paine today:

America’s Purpose Conference Blog

The challenge of this conference was summed up well by Jim Steinberg of the Brookings Institution. He asked whether we are asking the right question when it comes to our national security strategy.

Steinberg said we must look at how the U.S. acts in the world–that thus far, we have not asked the right questions when it comes to the post-9/11 world. That, until we deal with the deeper issues that cause the major problems and threats we face, we are not going to have a strategy that secures our real national security interests.

Most of the first panel said as much. A few spoke as if they were asking the right questions and were not affected by Steinberg’s challenge.

But the worst offense was Joe Biden’s affirmation of George Bush’s grand strategy. As I write this, he’s still speaking, but he opened with the idea that the two priorities of the United States are, first, to win the struggle between freedom and radical fundamentalism. (Indeed, he is praising Bush now.) Second, he wants to keep WMD out of the hands of terrorists. In his search for common ground, Biden is blinded to the larger issues facing America.

It was clear Biden was going to parrot the Bush-lite concepts laid out by Peter Beinart last December as he begins to run for president. But now he has formally embraced it, and it looks like the Democrats are going to be in for quite a pre-election debate. I’ll write more after the next session, but I hope, for the republic, that Biden is open to listening to folks like Steinberg–who was brave enough to say he and others had it wrong.

There is a little more that is very interesting from the writer. I feel that way looking at the speakers for the conference. Who are the hawks? Who are the practical ones who realize our role needs to change in the world. Again, there are too many claiming to be in charge of the party’s agenda, and my head feels as though it will burst.

Robert Pape just dropped a bombshell on the conference, arguing that it was American military policy in the Muslim world that led to 9/11. Of course, the 9/11 Commission said as much, but it said so quietly.

Thinking about what just preceded this, Joe Biden’s embrace of the Bush Doctrine, I sit wondering if we are about to witness a real split in the American political system. Those who are willing to accept Pape’s analysis and deal with root causes like Steinberg said…versus those who would rather try to continue to feed America’s illusions.

Pape just did it again. He’s reading from an Al Qaeda strategy document written in 2003 that explains the Al Qaeda strategy and shows that their motive and intent are aligned: to get Western forces out of the Muslim world, stripping us of our allies.

Now he’s taking it the next step. He’s arguing that we need to rethink how we secure our regional interests in the Gulf. I’d argue that we need to rethink our interests completely, but this is the interim step. Now it’s out there.

Just trying to make sense of a group which includes such diversity and apparently trying to form a foreign policy. I think the Third Way is doing that as well as the PPI. They are both allied with the DLC.

Progressive Policy Institute

The Third Way

Should be a crowded foreign policy field and very interesting. But Jonah Goldberg? Grover Norquist? John Ashcroft?