America and the World in the Age of Obama
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America and the World in the Age of Obama Columns and articles by Ambassador Derek Shearer Table of Contents Preface Hillary As An Agent of Change 1 Change That Really Matters 5 Sex, Race and Presidential Politics 8 Why Bipartisanship is a False Hope 11 Balance of Payments: Homeland Insecurity 14 Economics and Presidential Politics—“It’s Globalization, Stupid” 16 Beyond Gotcha: In Search of Democratic Economics 18 Rebranding America: How to Win Friends Abroad and Influence Nations 21 Waiting for Obama: The First Global Election 23 The Proper Use of Bill and Hillary Clinton 26 Clintonism Without Clinton—It’s Deja Vu All Over Again 28 Russia and the West Under Clinton and Bush 30 What’s At Stake: The Future vs The Past 34 The Road Ahead: The First 100 Days and Beyond 37 The Shout Heard Round the World: Obama as Global Leader 41 An Obama Holiday: What to Give a Progressive President and His Team 47 Bye, Bye Bush, Hello Barack: A Door Opens in 2009 52 Hoops Rule: The President and the Hard Court 55 After the Stimulus: It’s Time for a New Foundation 57 Advice to the President: Abolish the Commerce Department 62 Money, Banking and Torture: It’s Just Shocking! 65 Give Hope A Chance: The Renewal of Summer 68 Obama’s America: What is Economic Growth For? 71 Obama’s First Year: A Nobel Effort 75 Joy to the World: Good-Bye Bing Crosby, Hello Bob Dylan 78 Passage to India: Monsoon Wedding Meets Slumdog Professor 84 The Occidental President: Obama and Teachable Moments 88 Happy Days Are Not Here Again: Obama, China and the Coming Great Contraction 92 Bridging the Enthusiasm Gap: Obama and the Conventional Wisdom 97 Winter of Discontent: Can Obama Get His Groove Back? 102 Obama and Rising Powers: Foreign Policy in Tough Economic Times 109 Thinking About Obama: How to Support the President in 2012 113 Memo to Occupy! How to Keep the Movement Alive, Spread the Message and Change 118 the World Looking for a Lady Gaga Xmas and Finding Justin Bieber: What to Gift Obama and 120 Occupy Bye-Bye LAX, Hello LIZ: Honoring Elizabeth Taylor and Rebranding Los Angeles Airport 125 Can Sports Save the World? Reflections of a Former Little Leaguer on Sports, 127 Diplomacy, and Globalization After Obama Wins: What to Expect, What to Work For 132 Celebrating the Season and Obama’s Victory: Will He Be a Great President? 137 The Politics of Permanent Confrontation 143 Obama's Second Term: Dead Already or Strategic Awareness? 145 When Obama and Xi Meet, Make It a Green Summit 148 The Ambassadude Abides: Mandela, Obama and the Arc of History 151 The Silly Season: The Fuss Over Graduation Speakers 155 Barack Obama and the Chocolate Factory: A Long Good-bye to a Messy 2014 157 All Hail Music Diplomacy: B.B. King Departs The Global Stage 161 War and Peace in a Jittery Nation: Obama’s Last Year and After 164 A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall: Obama Exits and Trump Takes Center Stage 168 US Soft Power Triumphs In Probe of Sepp Blatter’s Corrupt Casino 172 Play Ball, Not Make War 175 About the Author 182 Preface In 2007, at the invitation of my friend Arianna Huffington I began writing occasional political and economic commentary for her website, The Huffington Post. Most of these pieces deal with the presidency of Occidental College alumnus Barack Obama. Many describe course projects which my Oxy students undertook to analyze the policies of the Obama administration. Each December, I would reflect on the year’s events, and also highlight my favorite books and films. I was a friendly critic of the President and his administration. I tried to suggest constructive policies to further progressive goals, especially in the realm of the economy and US foreign policy. Rereading the pieces (which I have left as written at the time), I feel confident that my judgement on most matters has been confirmed by events. I like to think, as most commentators or former officials do, that had my advice been followed, the outcome of public affairs might have been different. However, unlike golf or some actors’ careers, there are few makeovers in history. Counter factuals might make for good science fiction or interesting parlor discussion, but usually it can sound like sour grapes. That’s not my intention in having these columns reproduced. I simply trust that there might be a few lessons for next the time a progressive government comes to power. In addition to my Huffington Post columns, this collection includes two articles that I wrote on sports, diplomacy and globalization. Since returning to Occidental from the Clinton administration in 2000, I indulged a lifelong passion for sports by occasionally teaching a course on sports and diplomacy. It was a break from bleaker issues such as the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria or our fraught relationships with Russia and China. The article from the Harvard International Review is a summary of my research that I’ve given as an illustrated lecture to university audiences, including at the Kennedy School of Government. My wife Sue Toigo, Oxy ’69, kindly read and corrected my Huffington Post columns before I posted them. Occidental diplomacy major William Butenschoen provided invaluable assistance assembling this collection and preparing it for print publication. He has also been an outstanding research assistant in preparing talks on the 2016 Presidential election that I delivered in Oxford, Berlin, Amsterdam, and at universities in New Zealand, China, and Canada during the campaign year. My thanks also goes to Adriana Lim, Marisa MacAskill, and Chamnan Lim, administrators at the McKinnon Center for Global Affairs during the past decade, who have been wonderful collaborators in all of my work at Occidental. This book is dedicated to my grandchildren Viggo and Jasmine in hopes that they might have an interest some day in reading what their grandfather had to say about the age of Obama. — Derek Shearer Occidental College, March 2017 Hillary As An Agent of Change December 10, 2007—Huffington Post Is Senator Hillary Clinton ready to serve as to Helsinki. I organized a meeting of what the president? And, if elected would she be an Finnish press called “the most powerful agent of change or a protector of the status women in the country” to talk with her at my quo? official residence. In Finland at the time, the Foreign Minister, Defense Minister, Speaker of I have known Hillary Clinton since she first the Parliament and head of the National Bank met my friend Bill Clinton at Yale Law School were all women. They came to meet the First and he fell head over heels in love with her. I Lady along with a few leading women had met Bill at Oxford when he was rooming entrepreneurs and business executives, and as a Rhodes Scholar with my brother-in-law. top editors and authors. For more than two Bill brought Hillary to my family home in Los hours, they discussed public policy and Angeles, where we spent many hours talking politics. The lively discussion ranged from the about the changes taking place in the US in details of Finnish health policy to the the 1960s and prospects for progressive difficulties that women face in the political reform. Polls show that by virtue of her arena. These women viewed Hillary as an political experience and her recognized important political figure in her own right. She talents, people recognize that Hillary is had no aides to prompt her or hand her cue almost uniquely ready to serve as president cards. Afterwards, many of the women told and as commander-in-chief, even among me how impressed they were with her, and those who politically oppose her. But I also that they hoped that one day she would run have good reasons for believing that were for president. she to be elected, she would be an even more effective and accomplished president On that visit, I also accompanied Hillary to a than her husband. Because of her abilities one-on-one meeting with Martti Ahtisaari, the and sensibilities, and the likely circumstances President of Finland, and an accomplished of her winning, Hillary would be a strong UN diplomat. The conversation with the leader who manages change in the public president went on for two hours and ranged interest-at home and abroad—in the manner over complex issues of European security and of FDR or Harry Truman. She is, in fact, the US foreign policy. It was very much a true heir to the New Deal tradition of the discussion of equals in intelligence. Democratic Party, but for a new era. Hillary also won over my skeptical staff at the This opinion, I believe, is reality-based, not US embassy, many of whom had read the simply the wishful thinking of an old friend. I negative US press about her and expected have had the opportunity to see her up close that she would be a kind of shrewish Dragon as a political actor on the world and national Lady. In fact, she charmed everyone at the stage and to observe her evolution over embassy with her openness, her sense of decades. humor, and her natural kindness. She took the time to ask personal questions of my staff, While serving as US Ambassador to Finland in and to thank them for their service—from the the 1990s, I hosted Hillary for a two-day visit !1 political officers and military attaches to my Many political pundits said that she would fall cook and driver.