Those are two concepts I don’t normally group together, which is a major reason why I’ve never been as enthusiastic about her candidacy as I always was about Joe’s.
This is where Jennifer Rubin’s other good column from the last two days comes in: “The foreign policy hawk in the race? That would be Kamala Harris.”
Mind you, it’s no great distinction, when the only other person in the race is the famously malevolent ignoramus whose name I will not mention here, as that is unnecessary.
But there’s more here than that.
Ms. Rubin notes:
Don’t take my word for it. “It is a speech Ronald Reagan could have given,” Liz Cheney said on ABC’s “This Week” regarding Harris’s keynote address at the Democratic National Convention. “It is a speech George Bush could have given. It’s very much an embrace and an understanding of the exceptional nature of this great nation, a love of America, a recognition that America is a special place.” Cheney went on to condemn former president Donald Trump’s plan for across-the-board, massive tariffs that “will choke off global trade, will likely lead us down the path that we’ve seen before, for example, in the 1930s … [to] a depression.”
Cheney said that when it comes to “fundamental alliances, when it comes to the importance of NATO, for example, and how important it is for the United States to lead in the world, we’ve seen a sea change.” In other words, those Republicans who during the Cold War ridiculed Democratic fecklessness, showed timidity toward America’s enemies and pooh-poohed the United States as a force for good in the world should now be backing Harris. Remarkably, Cheney affirmed that “if you’re talking about a national security set of issues and you care about America’s leadership role in the world, a vote for Vice President Harris is the right vote to make this time around.”…
Mind you, “Reaganesque” is not normally a word that sets my heart aflutter. If you’d known me 40 years ago, you’d understand that. To say that I was not a fan is an extreme understatement. But this is the way Republicans talk when they’re praising someone, particularly when they’re holding that person up for the admiration of other Republicans.
For me, it’s very reassuring. The column could have compared the veep to FDR, Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Carter, Clinton or Obama. What she’s saying to me is, she understands the post-1945 nonpartisan consensus of our nation’s leaders as to the role our country must play to keep from having a World War III. And it’s not just about being a “hawk;” it’s about playing the prime leadership role around the globe in economic and humanitarian terms, and championing liberal democracy everywhere.
I’d have realized this earlier, but as you know, I didn’t follow the convention.
Kamala Harris is up against someone who is determined to rend and destroy America’s role and our ability to play it. I know the veep does not want to do that, so the choice between the two is obvious. So I had seen little need to follow this race closely. Therefore I had not until now noticed much to indicate that Harris would be a positive force on this front, instead of merely a harmless, neutral one.
Now that won’t be reassuring to some of you, but you’re mostly probably going to vote for her anyway. If you’re planning to vote for the other option, you’re a lost cause anyway. Which is why you probably won’t hear all that much about it in tonight’s debate.
But it means a lot to me, because to me, this is what we elect presidents for.
Back at the beginning of 2008, we were trying to decide on our candidate for the Democratic nomination, and I was already leaning toward Barack Obama. But I was very concerned about his lack of foreign policy experience, even more than about his lack of experience in Washington.
Mike Fitts posed my main question (it’s the one we always asked first of presidential candidates) to the young senator during our endorsement interview, and you hear his answer at about the two-minute mark in this clip taken with my old low-res Canon. It’s basically what Kamala Harris said in the speech Ms. Rubin is citing.
It was good to hear then, and it’s good to hear now..
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On the other hand…
as reported recently on NPR, an examination of the foreign policy views of those Harris has chosen to serve as her senior foreign policy advisors shows that they favor a “humbler” role for the US in international affairs, a better appreciation of the limits to US power and an end to the “messianic policy” of transforming/overthrowing regimes and remaking the world in our image. This is a view I generally agree with. And it logically follows that, if this is the approach taken we will have to either seek to contain/isolate those countries and other foreign actors that pose problems or, to one degree or another, negotiate with them, even if it is distasteful to do so.
Well, that will be unfortunate — for the whole world — if that view predominates. Especially since I’ve been counting on the people around her to keep her on course, given her lack of experience.
But we can’t always get what we want, can we? At this point, the main thing to concentrate on is that the words “Trump wins” will be the sound of a toilet flushing down this nation, and the world.
Yours is a commonly held view. For decades, it has been common currency among Democrats, and now it is among Republicans. Which is why I sift for nonisolationist views when looking at candidates for this position. They are increasingly rare, but for me, that’s an essential ingredient for a president to possess.
And in light of the comments Ms. Rubin brings to our attention, I am more encouraged than I was…
There was an interesting op-ed in NYT on (I think) 9/01 about how little Reagan is actually revered by today’s brand of republicans.
Oh, indeed.
I completely reject the label “isolationist.” Like those profiled in Hirsh’s piece for Foreign Policy, I am a thoroughgoing internationalist. Just not the sort who dreams of moral grandeur and loses sight of real strictures on power projection, unlike those who hold onto visions of missions that could have been accomplished in Afghanistan, Iraq, Vietnam and beyond. In this context, “commonly held” is no vice, and uncommonly quixotic is no virtue.
I wasn’t thinking of you when I said “isolationist.” I was thinking about candidates I’ve interviewed. There seems little question that isolationism is rampant on both the right and left these days.
As for “moral grandeur,” you do me too much honor. I’m thinking more in terms of the responsibility that has been ours since 1945. My questions of candidates along those lines look to see whether they accept that responsibility. Increasingly these days, we see people run for office who are wholly unaware that such a responsibility exists. And I remain quite proud of my nation and its allies for having accepted that mantle in the late ’40s and thereafter. Their failure to do so after 1918 had led to disaster. I’m thinking of the Marshall Plan, NATO and other international arrangements, the Berlin airlift, and so on.
Speaking of that, have you been back to Germany lately? I still haven’t been. I had planned to slip across the border on a day trip we had planned to Nijmegen this summer, but we had to cancel that outing. That was a disappointment, although overall we had a tremendous experience…
The responsibility we’ve taken to be ours since 1945 has not infrequently led us to overestimate our capacity to achieve what some have thought that responsibility entails. There lies the problem. some have acted irresponsibly in pursuing what they saw as “our” responsibility. So it’s not a matter of accepting responsibility. Except for very special case of Donald Trump, who accepts responsibility for nothing.
i go to Germany every year, because I have family there.
Well, I envy you. Where do you go?
Munich
By the way, I’m sorry about having said, in my lede, the opposite of what I meant to say.
This post originally started, “Those are two concepts I normally group together.” There was supposed to be a “don’t” before “normally.” As it says now. I didn’t notice that omission until this morning. I guess I was in too much of a hurry to get this posted before the debate last night…