berita berita terkini

Now that Barack Obama has claimed the presidency, it’s natural to wonder how and with whom he will govern. To pull America out of the multiple and mounting crises that it now confronts, he needs the House and Senate to be a well-oiled legislative machine. The fresh wave of Democratic candidates that surged into Congress this election is a good first sign that change is coming to Washington.

In January, Democrats will begin the 111th Congress with more members than any party has held in 14 years. And in many cases it was unprecedented minority turnout that bequeathed President-elect Barack Obama a Congress that will have his back.

Suffice it to say, history brought company. Black turnout on Tuesday was seismic; roughly 17 million—and counting—African Americans voters elevated their share of the electorate from 11 percent in 2004 to 13 percent this cycle. (All non-white voters made up 26 percent of the electorate, another record.) Obama won 96 percent of the black vote, banking almost the entire 17 million into his vote total of nearly 64 million votes—itself the highest ever in American presidential politics.

In the days before the election, a Florida GOP county chairman, worried about the energized black electorate, circulated a nasty e-mail to Republicans about “the threat” of “carloads of black Obama supporters coming from the inner city to cast their votes.”

It was that enthusiasm that made the difference. Florida, where more than half a million black registered voters stayed home in 2004, went to Obama handily on the strength of the increase in black participation—22 percent of early voters were black, though they comprise only 13 percent of the state’s voters. Similar turnout gains were reported in Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas and Virginia.

But blacks didn’t run up the popular vote total just for Obama. North Carolina, where relatively unknown state legislator Kay Hagan ousted incumbent Republican Elizabeth Dole by a healthy 8-point margin, is the biggest testament to the impact of increased black organizing and participation. Much of Hagan’s support came from new voters and black voters—about a quarter of the state’s population—voting Democratic straight down the ticket. The massive black registration and get-out-the-vote push from Team Obama—begun prior to an impressive primary win in early May and strengthened throughout the summer—proved enough to overcome the state’s natural conservatism and seize the seat once held by Jesse Helms. It paid dividends in other ways: Two years ago, congressional candidate Larry Kissell lost to five-term Republican Robin Hayes by 329 votes in the 8th district; this year the uptick in Democratic voting gave Kissell a 10-point victory over Hayes.

Other races, particularly in southern states, followed the same trend. In Louisiana, Mary Landrieu had been called the “most vulnerable” Senate Democrat up for re-election. Yet as Democratic turnout projections became clearer (early voting, dominated by black voters, was at 169 percent of the 2004 total), she began to pull away. And though Democrats Donald Cazayoux, Bruce Lunsford and Ronnie Musgrove all lost, black Democratic votes gave each of them a fighting chance in heavily red states (Louisiana, Kentucky and Mississippi, respectively). Black turnout in Cincinnati helped flip the seat of longtime conservative congressman Steve Chabot, part of the GOP class of 1994, to Democrat Steve Driehaus. In Mississippi, freshman congressman Travis Childers held onto the seat he won in a special election in May—one of the early harbingers of the Democratic landslide of Tuesday night.

Another state to keep an eye on is Georgia, where Republican Sen. Saxby Chambliss continues to fend off a strong Democratic challenge. Even though Chambliss is ahead of his Democratic opponent, Jim Martin, he won less than 50 percent of the vote and by Georgia law must face a runoff on Dec. 2 if those numbers hold. Paper ballots were still being counted. This would be the same Chambliss who, just days before the election, fretted to a white crowd that “the other folks are voting.” He presumably meant black residents of Georgia—and he was absolutely right. Black participation dwarfed 2004 turnout numbers. By the Saturday before Election Day, some 31 percent of registered voters had already cast ballots—with black voters making up a majority of these votes. This was enough to put Martin within striking distance of the incumbent Chambliss.

The coattail effect cuts both ways. In Virginia, popular former governor and Senate candidate Mark Warner was able to help Obama further up the ballot in regions where he attracted moderate, predominantly white voters to the Democratic side. This, coupled with solid black turnout, especially around Richmond and in the Washington, D.C., exurbs, helped give Obama a clear 5-point margin of victory in a state that had not been carried by a Democratic presidential nominee since 1964. Democrats also picked up two GOP House seats in military-heavy Virginia Beach and in the rapidly diversifying Fairfax County in northern Virginia.

In the West, minority participation also played a large role in delivering much-coveted Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada into the Obama column. Nearly 66 percent of Latinos supported Obama, cutting into John McCain’s share of that vote compared with George W. Bush’s; in 2004, Bush took two of every five Latino votes. Down ballot, this means that such long-serving conservatives as Rep. Marilyn Musgrave in Colorado and Rep. Jon Porter in Nevada are out. In New Mexico, all three of the state’s congressional seats are suddenly blue.

The Democratic surge was clearly not limited to just black voters. In Montana, Vermont and Nebraska, where there are virtually no black voters, Democrats made an average gain of about 8 points over their 2004 performance. And it’s unclear whether black turnout will remain as potent an electoral force past Obama’s historic run. But in 2008, the impact of a 2 percent national increase in representation was significant and decisive.

What about the future? First, Tuesday’s results mean that redistricting after the 2010 Census will benefit Democrats. Second, Obama’s victory could shake the presumption that black politicians such as Artur Davis and Harold Ford Jr., rumored to be contemplating runs in Alabama and Tennessee, cannot win statewide races in the South.

Most importantly, by helping to cement the progressive congressional shift that began in 2006, especially in the Senate, minority voters may have improved the chances that Washington will actually get something done this time around.

Berbagi

It’s become something of a parlor game for the chattering class to compare President-elect Barack Obama to the pantheon of presidents.

Is Obama the second coming of Abraham Lincoln? A recent Newsweek magazine cover cast Honest Abe’s long shadow behind the incoming president’s silhouette. Inside, writers Evan Thomas and Richard Wolffe found the parallels between the two men irresistible. “It is the season to compare Barack Obama to Abraham Lincoln,” they wrote. “Two thin men from rude beginnings, relatively new to Washington but wise to the world, bring the nation together to face a crisis.”

Or is Obama the reincarnation of Franklin D. Roosevelt? Time magazine thinks so, putting a fused portrait of the two men on its cover.

At times, even Obama encourages the idea that he’s channeling both of those beloved presidents. He often compares himself to Lincoln, invoking the Great Emancipator in speeches and in his very open effort to choose a cabinet with echoes of Lincoln’s “team of rivals.”
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He also claims Roosevelt as a mentor. “What you see in FDR that I hope my team can emulate, is not always getting it right, but projecting a sense of confidence, and a willingness to try things, and experiment in order to get people working again,” Obama said.

Enough already with the dead white presidents. There’s an equally—perhaps more—apt yardstick by which to measure Obama: South Africa’s Nelson Mandela.

Similar to Mandela’s 1994 election as the first black president of South Africa, Obama’s victory as the first black U.S. president is a globally recognized historical moment. But the similarities between the two men extend beyond skin color or prideful racial milestones.

Mandela was an international figure, admired abroad even more than at home, which made him and his “change” policies all more palatable for domestic consumption.

Just as Obama will, Mandela took over in his country during a period of fierce financial stress, debilitating social divisions and worldwide revulsion at the ruling party’s refusal to change its discredited policies. And, pushing the analogy to the limit, South Africa was even at war—a civil war that raged in impoverished township streets—that further divided the country at home and alienated it abroad.

Confident in his own skin, Mandela assumed black South African’s allegiance and affection. But he understood equally well that he had to prove himself to skeptical whites, if he was to keep the country from flying off in divergent directions. His early moves as president revealed the deft leadership qualities that kept his base with him and expanded his popularity among critics.

Mandela smiled a lot. That smile spoke volumes, setting aside the fears of the minority white population, convincing them that he meant them no harm. He proclaimed himself South African uber alles, above all else.

“We place our vision of change on the table not as conquerors but as fellow citizens,” Mandela said in a speech before 80,000 supporters who gathered in Cape Town to celebrate his election.

Mandela demonstrated his concept of national unity by giving his defeated rivals powerful portfolios in his African National Congress cabinet. He named former President F.W. deKlerk, who presided over the apartheid-loving National Party and came in second in the 1994 election, one of two deputy presidents. He named three other rivals to senior administration posts, including Home Affairs minister Mangosuthu Buthelezi of the Inkatha Freedom Party and Finance minister Derek Keys of the National Party.

One especially controversial appointment was the choice of Pik Botha as minister of Minerals and Energy, a fiscally important post in the diamond-based economy of the country. Botha was a widely disliked figure among black South Africans and within the global community of anti-apartheid activists because he had long served as foreign minister to President deKlerk and former President P.W. Botha (no relation).

Needless to say, there was even more teeth-gnashing over the Botha appointment and the other Nats than can be heard today over Obama’s choice of Clinton-era appointees to his cabinet.

But Mandela had a plan to win over his critics: Kill them with kindness and cooperation. And guess what? It worked.

While some on Mandela’s left quietly grumbled (notably his estranged wife, Winnie Mandela, who was also included in the first post-apartheid cabinet), those on the right drowned them out with applause.

In 1994, the far-right National Review rarely offered a kind word about black South Africa’s freedom struggle. But it did consider incoming President Mandela as the “Indispensable Man.”

History anoints such indispensable leaders. At other dire moments in history, Lincoln and Roosevelt proved to be the tonic for this nation’s ills. Now the Oval Office belongs to Obama.

Since winning his election, the president-elect has been as solid and sure-footed as he was during the campaign. He’s sought out the best minds and surrounded himself with talented, if not universally popular, advisers. He’s slowly and deliberately set in motion a plan to turn campaign talk into real policies of his administration. And he’s reminded a Bush-weary nation that one president serves at a time, a tease to the change that’s on the way.

But the qualities that will make Obama a good, if not great, president demand that he resists limiting himself and the nation to an American-only standard. Exemplars of historic leadership can—and often do—come from beyond our borders. Mandela’s intelligence, oratorical skills and global embrace allowed South Africa to remain intact and prosper at a critical juncture in his nation’s history.

Obama would be wise to follow his example.

Berbagi

The idea is to find the right match. Soul mates or perhaps a team of rivals? If only there were an eHarmony for presidential transitions, Thomas Jefferson might get matched with Condoleezza Rice: “Widower, nation’s first SoS, seeks SBF, preferably also former SoS, for ‘diplomatic’ liaison at country estate. Turn-ons include long trips to France; turn-offs include ‘preemptive’ war and Sudoku.”

Well, maybe not…

But somewhere between the respective talents of our first and latest secretaries of state lies the key to understanding the logic of the Obama foreign policy team. On one hand, the author of the Declaration of Independence might have been a bit overqualified, and on the other, Condi, the Russian-speaking Cold War theorist might have been just a tad overmatched by Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq.

Obama’s biggest problem regarding diplomacy is that he’ll always be sending the second-best person to do the job. Any other president would want to send Obama as a special envoy to smooth things out in India and Pakistan after the Mumbai siege because if you combine Jay-Z’s world-beating, New Jack CEO vibe with Bill Clinton’s Oxford-tinged, “This-kebab-is-delicious!” populism, you have Obama’s worldwide appeal wrapped up in a sepia-toned nutshell.
Click Here

Obama can’t be everywhere at once. He’s bringing in a team that has the chops to get the job done without his day-to-day micromanagement: Sen. Hillary Clinton at State; Obama campaign adviser and former Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Dr. Susan Rice as U.N. Ambassador; Bush holdover Sec. Robert Gates at Defense, and former U.S. Marine Corps Commandant and Supreme Allied Commander in Europe Gen. Jim Jones in the White House as national security adviser. Here’s why it could work:

Madame Secrétaire

Foreign policy mavens Tom Friedman and David Ignatius don’t love it. They anticipate cognitive dissonance between Clinton, the consummate insider, and Obama, the wunderkind. Ignatius warns against “subcontracting” Obama’s agenda to Clinton, and Friedman points out that foreign leaders can see daylight between the views of the president and the secretary of state “from 1,000 miles away”—valid points, to be sure.

But if one thing was demonstrated in 2008, it is that Obama is no rookie when it comes to dealing with foreign leaders. And skeptics might reflect on the events of 2002, when then Secretary of State Colin Powell—with years of experience and a war hero’s reservoir of goodwill—wound up behind a microphone at the U.N. General Assembly, pitching the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld war plan with a bootleg PowerPoint presentation. The lesson, then and now, is that a strong president will make the final call, even when the secretary of state has an independent political platform.

Five of the first eight presidents were secretaries of state. If Clinton wants to run for president in 2016, it’s as good a résumé item as any for her. The hitch is that she’s won’t even be the second woman to hold the post, so there’s no historic “first” feather for her cap. She’s going to have to get things done, not just hype her own brand, if she wants to gain anything from her tenure at Foggy Bottom. And that’s how it fits together for Obama. She advances her own cause by advancing his.

Gates Locked

The plan to leave Gates at the Department of Defense has probably been brewing for a while—Obama always knew he’d have to have a Republican somewhere in his Cabinet—and anyone who managed to tidy up some of Don “Kickin’ it with Saddam” Rumsfeld’s mess in Iraq might wind up being useful for a couple more years.

Retaining Gates sends a message to the military brass that Obama doesn’t plan to tinker with things that aren’t broken and signals that policy changes don’t always require personnel changes. Hopefully, Obama will set things back to how they’re supposed to be—presidents set policy and the pros at the Pentagon figure out the best way to carry it out.

Rice, Redux

Susan Rice, in terms of credentials and personal relationship with Obama is roughly the equivalent of outgoing Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice or former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright—well-connected bureaucrats without political constituencies of their own. We’d have been better off if President Clinton had left Albright as his Ambassador to the U.N., and if President Bush had appointed Condi Rice as his, rather than throwing her into the deep end as national security adviser and secretary of state. Obama was right to check his personal comfort level at the door and stash Rice at the U.N. for now. If Clinton can’t get things done by 2012, Rice will be ready for a call up to the bigs.

” Kool Aide ”

While it’s harder for a layman to get a feel for what Gen. Jim Jones will be like as national security adviser, that’s probably a good thing. We’ve had too many famous national security advisers in recent years, writing memoirs and snitching on former colleagues. It seems like these days no one can be counted on to come in, collect a paycheck and quietly pave the way in the developing world for Taco Bell, Windows Vista and Sasha Fierce. National security adviser is the kind of position that should be feared silently, like Al Neri or Chris Partlow. With Jones, we may just have our man. Don’t sleep on this guy…literally.

Obama won’t be playing Stratego or Risk when January 20, 2009 rolls around. The list of global crises facing the incoming administration is daunting—terrorism, rogue nukes, pirates on the high seas (really—pirates). But when you take Obama’s A-list foreign policy/national defense team, throw in former Foreign Relations Committee Chair and Vice President-elect Joe Biden, current Foreign Relations Committee Chair Sen. John Kerry and his quad-lingual, white “African-American” wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, Obama might just be in a situation where he can delegate and still cover a lot of ground. If Rice and the Kerrys cover sub-Saharan Africa, Biden covers the former Soviet bloc, Gates ties things up in Iraq, President Obama himself holds down “South Central” (the Tehran-Kabul-Islamabad-New Delhi circuit), Jones covers Israel and the Arab world, and former Vice President Al Gore takes care of Mother Earth, then that would leave, roughly, France, for Hillary Clinton to take care of, and she’ll do just fine.

Berbagi

It’s become something of a parlor game for the chattering class to compare President-elect Barack Obama to the pantheon of presidents.

Is Obama the second coming of Abraham Lincoln? A recent Newsweek magazine cover cast Honest Abe’s long shadow behind the incoming president’s silhouette. Inside, writers Evan Thomas and Richard Wolffe found the parallels between the two men irresistible. “It is the season to compare Barack Obama to Abraham Lincoln,” they wrote. “Two thin men from rude beginnings, relatively new to Washington but wise to the world, bring the nation together to face a crisis.”

Or is Obama the reincarnation of Franklin D. Roosevelt? Time magazine thinks so, putting a fused portrait of the two men on its cover.

At times, even Obama encourages the idea that he’s channeling both of those beloved presidents. He often compares himself to Lincoln, invoking the Great Emancipator in speeches and in his very open effort to choose a cabinet with echoes of Lincoln’s “team of rivals.”

He also claims Roosevelt as a mentor. “What you see in FDR that I hope my team can emulate, is not always getting it right, but projecting a sense of confidence, and a willingness to try things, and experiment in order to get people working again,” Obama said.

Enough already with the dead white presidents. There’s an equally—perhaps more—apt yardstick by which to measure Obama: South Africa’s Nelson Mandela.

Similar to Mandela’s 1994 election as the first black president of South Africa, Obama’s victory as the first black U.S. president is a globally recognized historical moment. But the similarities between the two men extend beyond skin color or prideful racial milestones.

Mandela was an international figure, admired abroad even more than at home, which made him and his “change” policies all more palatable for domestic consumption.

Just as Obama will, Mandela took over in his country during a period of fierce financial stress, debilitating social divisions and worldwide revulsion at the ruling party’s refusal to change its discredited policies. And, pushing the analogy to the limit, South Africa was even at war—a civil war that raged in impoverished township streets—that further divided the country at home and alienated it abroad.

Confident in his own skin, Mandela assumed black South African’s allegiance and affection. But he understood equally well that he had to prove himself to skeptical whites, if he was to keep the country from flying off in divergent directions. His early moves as president revealed the deft leadership qualities that kept his base with him and expanded his popularity among critics.

Mandela smiled a lot. That smile spoke volumes, setting aside the fears of the minority white population, convincing them that he meant them no harm. He proclaimed himself South African uber alles, above all else.

“We place our vision of change on the table not as conquerors but as fellow citizens,” Mandela said in a speech before 80,000 supporters who gathered in Cape Town to celebrate his election.

Mandela demonstrated his concept of national unity by giving his defeated rivals powerful portfolios in his African National Congress cabinet. He named former President F.W. deKlerk, who presided over the apartheid-loving National Party and came in second in the 1994 election, one of two deputy presidents. He named three other rivals to senior administration posts, including Home Affairs minister Mangosuthu Buthelezi of the Inkatha Freedom Party and Finance minister Derek Keys of the National Party.

One especially controversial appointment was the choice of Pik Botha as minister of Minerals and Energy, a fiscally important post in the diamond-based economy of the country. Botha was a widely disliked figure among black South Africans and within the global community of anti-apartheid activists because he had long served as foreign minister to President deKlerk and former President P.W. Botha (no relation).

Needless to say, there was even more teeth-gnashing over the Botha appointment and the other Nats than can be heard today over Obama’s choice of Clinton-era appointees to his cabinet.

But Mandela had a plan to win over his critics: Kill them with kindness and cooperation. And guess what? It worked.

While some on Mandela’s left quietly grumbled (notably his estranged wife, Winnie Mandela, who was also included in the first post-apartheid cabinet), those on the right drowned them out with applause.

In 1994, the far-right National Review rarely offered a kind word about black South Africa’s freedom struggle. But it did consider incoming President Mandela as the “Indispensable Man.”

History anoints such indispensable leaders. At other dire moments in history, Lincoln and Roosevelt proved to be the tonic for this nation’s ills. Now the Oval Office belongs to Obama.

Since winning his election, the president-elect has been as solid and sure-footed as he was during the campaign. He’s sought out the best minds and surrounded himself with talented, if not universally popular, advisers. He’s slowly and deliberately set in motion a plan to turn campaign talk into real policies of his administration. And he’s reminded a Bush-weary nation that one president serves at a time, a tease to the change that’s on the way.

But the qualities that will make Obama a good, if not great, president demand that he resists limiting himself and the nation to an American-only standard. Exemplars of historic leadership can—and often do—come from beyond our borders. Mandela’s intelligence, oratorical skills and global embrace allowed South Africa to remain intact and prosper at a critical juncture in his nation’s history.

Obama would be wise to follow his example.

Berbagi

The idea is to find the right match. Soul mates or perhaps a team of rivals? If only there were an eHarmony for presidential transitions, Thomas Jefferson might get matched with Condoleezza Rice: “Widower, nation’s first SoS, seeks SBF, preferably also former SoS, for ‘diplomatic’ liaison at country estate. Turn-ons include long trips to France; turn-offs include ‘preemptive’ war and Sudoku.”

Well, maybe not…

But somewhere between the respective talents of our first and latest secretaries of state lies the key to understanding the logic of the Obama foreign policy team. On one hand, the author of the Declaration of Independence might have been a bit overqualified, and on the other, Condi, the Russian-speaking Cold War theorist might have been just a tad overmatched by Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq.

Obama’s biggest problem regarding diplomacy is that he’ll always be sending the second-best person to do the job. Any other president would want to send Obama as a special envoy to smooth things out in India and Pakistan after the Mumbai siege because if you combine Jay-Z’s world-beating, New Jack CEO vibe with Bill Clinton’s Oxford-tinged, “This-kebab-is-delicious!” populism, you have Obama’s worldwide appeal wrapped up in a sepia-toned nutshell.

Obama can’t be everywhere at once. He’s bringing in a team that has the chops to get the job done without his day-to-day micromanagement: Sen. Hillary Clinton at State; Obama campaign adviser and former Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Dr. Susan Rice as U.N. Ambassador; Bush holdover Sec. Robert Gates at Defense, and former U.S. Marine Corps Commandant and Supreme Allied Commander in Europe Gen. Jim Jones in the White House as national security adviser. Here’s why it could work:

Madame Secrétaire

Foreign policy mavens Tom Friedman and David Ignatius don’t love it. They anticipate cognitive dissonance between Clinton, the consummate insider, and Obama, the wunderkind. Ignatius warns against “subcontracting” Obama’s agenda to Clinton, and Friedman points out that foreign leaders can see daylight between the views of the president and the secretary of state “from 1,000 miles away”—valid points, to be sure.

But if one thing was demonstrated in 2008, it is that Obama is no rookie when it comes to dealing with foreign leaders. And skeptics might reflect on the events of 2002, when then Secretary of State Colin Powell—with years of experience and a war hero’s reservoir of goodwill—wound up behind a microphone at the U.N. General Assembly, pitching the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld war plan with a bootleg PowerPoint presentation. The lesson, then and now, is that a strong president will make the final call, even when the secretary of state has an independent political platform.

Five of the first eight presidents were secretaries of state. If Clinton wants to run for president in 2016, it’s as good a résumé item as any for her. The hitch is that she’s won’t even be the second woman to hold the post, so there’s no historic “first” feather for her cap. She’s going to have to get things done, not just hype her own brand, if she wants to gain anything from her tenure at Foggy Bottom. And that’s how it fits together for Obama. She advances her own cause by advancing his.

Gates Locked

The plan to leave Gates at the Department of Defense has probably been brewing for a while—Obama always knew he’d have to have a Republican somewhere in his Cabinet—and anyone who managed to tidy up some of Don “Kickin’ it with Saddam” Rumsfeld’s mess in Iraq might wind up being useful for a couple more years.

Retaining Gates sends a message to the military brass that Obama doesn’t plan to tinker with things that aren’t broken and signals that policy changes don’t always require personnel changes. Hopefully, Obama will set things back to how they’re supposed to be—presidents set policy and the pros at the Pentagon figure out the best way to carry it out.

Rice, Redux

Susan Rice, in terms of credentials and personal relationship with Obama is roughly the equivalent of outgoing Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice or former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright—well-connected bureaucrats without political constituencies of their own. We’d have been better off if President Clinton had left Albright as his Ambassador to the U.N., and if President Bush had appointed Condi Rice as his, rather than throwing her into the deep end as national security adviser and secretary of state. Obama was right to check his personal comfort level at the door and stash Rice at the U.N. for now. If Clinton can’t get things done by 2012, Rice will be ready for a call up to the bigs.

” Kool Aide ”

While it’s harder for a layman to get a feel for what Gen. Jim Jones will be like as national security adviser, that’s probably a good thing. We’ve had too many famous national security advisers in recent years, writing memoirs and snitching on former colleagues. It seems like these days no one can be counted on to come in, collect a paycheck and quietly pave the way in the developing world for Taco Bell, Windows Vista and Sasha Fierce. National security adviser is the kind of position that should be feared silently, like Al Neri or Chris Partlow. With Jones, we may just have our man. Don’t sleep on this guy…literally.

Obama won’t be playing Stratego or Risk when January 20, 2009 rolls around. The list of global crises facing the incoming administration is daunting—terrorism, rogue nukes, pirates on the high seas (really—pirates). But when you take Obama’s A-list foreign policy/national defense team, throw in former Foreign Relations Committee Chair and Vice President-elect Joe Biden, current Foreign Relations Committee Chair Sen. John Kerry and his quad-lingual, white “African-American” wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, Obama might just be in a situation where he can delegate and still cover a lot of ground. If Rice and the Kerrys cover sub-Saharan Africa, Biden covers the former Soviet bloc, Gates ties things up in Iraq, President Obama himself holds down “South Central” (the Tehran-Kabul-Islamabad-New Delhi circuit), Jones covers Israel and the Arab world, and former Vice President Al Gore takes care of Mother Earth, then that would leave, roughly, France, for Hillary Clinton to take care of, and she’ll do just fine.

Berbagi