Obama Cabinet on The Huffington Post

Behind The Scenes White House VIDEO: History And Significance Of The Cabinet

2009-12-14T18:04:37Z

The White House blog has released a rare behind-the-scenes video showing how a White House cabinet meeting comes together. (Hint: there are a lot of Post-it notes involved.)

From the blog:

The President has stated on many occasions that one of his proudest accomplishments has been assembling a Cabinet of such high caliber. As the Cabinet Secretary in the White House, I have the privilege of interacting with this amazing group every day, and can attest first-hand that his pride is more than merited. Every day, the President calls on the Cabinet to provide him with advice on pressing national and international issues. He also values their work in running the federal departments and agencies, ensuring that the government always works on behalf of the American people.

Since the country's founding, Presidents have been meeting behind closed doors with their Cabinets. That's to be expected, since it's important for the President to be able to speak candidly with his most trusted advisers. Indeed, a Cabinet meeting is so critical to the functioning of our government that it's one of the rare occasions that the entire Cabinet is allowed by Secret Service to be in the same place at the same time. However, in keeping with President Obama's commitment to openness and transparency, we wanted to give the public a rare, behind-the-scenes look at how a Cabinet meeting comes together:

PolitiFact : Glenn Beck Wrong On Claim About Obama Cabinet

2009-12-02T20:10:00Z

Fox News talk show host Glenn Beck has seized on a claim circulating on the Internet to argue that the Obama administration has little understanding of American business and is too focused on expanding government.

Caryl Rivers: The Paranoids Are Right About Barack

2009-10-27T12:04:49Z

The Tea Party folks are hitting the road again, with their signs proclaiming that President Obama has plans to turn the US into a socialist state, that he's putting together death squads to murder Grannies and dispatching black helicopters to abduct those who disagree with him.

This does indeed sound paranoid, but I have discovered there's some truth to it. Evidence of this comes in the transcript of a recent Obama cabinet meeting, leaked to this reporter by an anonymous source:

PRESIDENT OBAMA: OK everybody. We have a lot on our plate, so let's run through some items. First, there's the Granny Death Squads. Secretary Sebelius, how's that going?

SEBELIUS (HHS SECRETARY): Sir, we have purchased 500 car dealerships around the country that have gone out of business.

OBAMA: What will we do with those?

SEBELIUS: We could save money because all the dealerships have hydraulic lifts. Remember the old clunker Buicks and Pontiacs people turned in? We could drop them on the grannies, killing two birds with one stone.

OBAMA: So to speak.

SEBELIUS: Yes, Mr. President.

OBAMA: That sounds a little inhumane. Do we have a backup plan?

SEBELIUS: We could order up a batch of the stuff they use in shelters to put down crazy pit bulls.

OBAMA: Much better. Now, about education. Secretary Duncan, how are we proceeding with the re-education camps to make America's kids all socialists?

DUNCAN: (EDUCATION SECRETARY) We have a contract with the Children's Television Workshop for a new Muppet, Mao. He has red fur and when you wind him up, he warbles, 'Old McDonald had a collective farm, E-I-E-I-O.' Oscar the grouch will complain that religion is the opium of the masses. Fidel Castro will sing with Miss Piggy. Gay Teletubbies will carry purple purses.

OBAMA: What's socialist about that?

DUNCAN: Nothing, but they're really cute. And it will keep the gay rights groups happy until we repeal "Don't Ask, Don't tell."

OBAMA: How will we get parents to send their kids to our camps?

DUNCAN: Are you kidding, Mr. President? The camps are free for K through 6. Do you know how frazzled those parents are? They'd send their kids to free camps if they were run by space lizards.

HOLDER (ATTORNEY GENERAL): Mr. President?

OBAMA: Yes, Mr. Attorney General?

HOLDER: Did you see that congresswoman Michele Bachmann says the country is running out of rich people?

OBAMA: I did hear that, yes.

HOLDER: And she also said that the last time there was a Swine Flu outbreak was when another democrat, Jimmy Carter, was president.

OBAMA: Actually, it was under Gerald Ford.

HOLDER: Yes, but do you think she's on to us?

OBAMA: How could she know that we are slipping Swine Flu virus into the martinis at the national meeting of the Chamber of Commerce?

HOLDER: Only to those members who oppose our cap and trade energy bill.

GEITHNER (TREASURY SECRETARY): Mr. President!

OBAMA: Yes. Secretary Geithner. You seem upset.

GEITHNER: I don't think it's nice to kill rich people. Some of my best friends are rich people.

OBAMA: We aren't offing rich Democrats, Tim. Just Republicans. And the flu won't really kill them, just put them out of commission for a while.

GEITHNER: Well, that's different. But some Republicans are good guys. Like Hank Paulson.

OBAMA: Give me a list. But don't make it too long.

BENJAMIN (SURGEON GENERAL): Mr. President?

OBAMA: Yes, Dr. Benjamin?

BENJAMIN: I have an idea to keep the budget down. Since the secretary of HHS isn't going to use the gas guzzlers to kill grannies, maybe we can use them to transport pregnant 13-year-olds from their junior high school nurses' offices to abortion clinics.

OBAMA: Are they safe?

BENJAMIN: The clinics? Yes sir.

OBAMA: No, the cars.

BENJAMIN: Yeah, they're safe, they just use a lot of gas. But it's cheaper than ordering fleets of buses. And they'd draw less attention.

OBAMA: And we're not telling the kids' parents?

BENJAMIN: No. They'd get upset if they knew. Heck, these days you can hardly give a kid an aspirin without some crazy parent rushing in to sue the school district.

OBAMA: Now, Secretary Gates, how are we doing on procurement of the black helicopters?

GATES (DEFENSE SECRETARY): Do you mean the ones that will swoop down, grab members of the National Rifle Association and send them to be deprogrammed and turned into pacifists in Sweden?

OBAMA: Exactly.

GATES: Well, there is a snag.

OBAMA: What's that?

GATES: We tested the program out on Dick Cheney. He put down his rifle, but he's still shooting people in the face with Super Soakers. He got George Bush the other day and W was really teed off.

OBAMA: Back to the drawing board on that one, I guess.

GATES: Yes sir. We need the choppers for Afghanistan anyway.

OBAMA: OK people, I can see you are all working hard on the Obama agenda. That's it for now.

The cabinet members leave. President Obama gets up, strolls to the window in the oval office and looks out the window onto the Rose Garden. A big smile spreads across his face. He says, to no one in particular, "God, I love this job!"

Caryl Rivers is a professor of Journalism at Boston University and author of Selling Anxiety: How the News Media Scare Women.

Obama Golfs With Melody Barnes: Domestic Policy Adviser Is First Woman To Golf With President Obama

2009-10-25T20:53:18Z

President Obama headed for the links again Sunday, but this time a woman joined him on the green.

Melody Barnes, the president's chief domestic policy adviser, was part of Obama's group of four...

Duncan: Teen Deaths Not Caused By School Reform

2009-10-07T13:59:54Z

CHICAGO — U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and Education Secretary Arne Duncan on Wednesday pledged federal support to fight a surge in youth violence in Chicago and other cities, calling the brutal beating death of a teenager on the city's South Side a wake-up call for the country.

But neither offered specifics or outlined any new strategies on how the government would help quell the increase in the number of violent deaths among teens.

"Dancing With The Czars": Dems Mock GOP, Glenn Beck Over Czar Obsession

2009-09-16T21:23:38Z

Over the past few days, I've written about the wildly outsized claims of czars in the Obama administration undermining the government. Republican Senators are sending letters and GOP House members are holding up posters and attempting to pass thoroughly baffling bills to prevent the Obama White House from appointing advisers.

These elected officials seem to be unaware of some basic facts. Many of the people they insist need to be confirmed by the Senate already have been confirmed. Many of the people they consider to be holding unprecedented appointments are merely filling well-established positions. In some cases, these lawmakers seem to have forgotten that they themselves passed laws that mandated the appointments. And in a few cases, they just select some established functionary at random -- like a State Department envoy or the Deputy Secretary of the Interior -- and call that guy a "czar" just for fun!

All of these fears and complaints are indicative of either a powerful desire to mislead or an advanced mental disease that hopefully Dr. Charles Boustany will be able to treat, with some sort of Louisiana voodoo poultice.

And of course, it's always worth pointing out that "czars" (the term itself being nothing more than a media shorthand standing in for long government titles and/or complex portfolios) have been a fact of life in American politics since the Nixon administration. And it's equally worth pointing out that the Bush administration itself deployed a veritable flotilla of czars.

The latter point is being made abundantly clear in a new Democratic National Committee ad entitled "Dancing With The Czars," which employs the services of Fox News's own Glenn Beck to elucidate some of the 47 Bush czars that walked the face of the earth before the Obama administration came to the White House.

"With apologies to Tom DeLay, and despite the railing you're hearing from the Republican caucus room and Fox News, the GOP has been 'dancing with czars' for a very long time. The unmitigated hypocrisy of these attacks not only speaks to the credibility of this manufactured controversy, but to the inability of the Republican party to say no to the marching orders doled out by Glenn Beck and the far right's noise machine," said DNC National Press Secretary Hari Sevugan.

[WATCH]

[Would you like to follow me on Twitter? Because why not? Also, please send tips to tv@huffingtonpost.com -- learn more about our media monitoring project here.]

Barney Frank Is Interested In Cabinet Post

2009-09-07T22:22:58Z

Rep. Barney Frank is interested in capping his political career as a member of the president's Cabinet, according to a new biography of the Financial Services Committee chairman.

Mark Klempner: Hope 2.0: Standing With Obama Over the Long Haul

2009-08-25T11:06:31Z

When Bush was inaugurated in 2000, conservatives championed him. Our man is in the White House, they gloated, and right-wing commentators would snap at the feet of his detractors like guard dogs. This loyalty did not taper off until after it was generally accepted that Bush had made a mess of Iraq, the economy, and our civil liberties.

Even in July 2007 when Bush's approval rating had dropped to an all-time low of 29 percent, Bill Kristol opened a Washington Post op-ed with, "I suppose I'll merely expose myself to harmless ridicule if I make the following assertion: George W. Bush's presidency will probably be a successful one."

Compare this to Kevin Baker's erudite critique of Obama's economic plan in last month's Harper's. Entitled Barack Hoover Obama: The Best and the Brightest Blow It Again, it concludes that Obama is "bound to fail. " And, as if to underscore Harper's fashionable cynicism, the cover shows a digitally disfigured Obama sporting Hoover-like jowls.

It's not that I object to critical thinking. We need it. We don't want to follow in the footsteps of Bush's flag-waving lemmings and walk with Obama over the cliff of an ill-conceived "change." Yet, while we're reminding Obama of his promises and scrutinizing him on his decisions, we need to stand with him.

The fact is, Obama had barely been sworn in before certain leftist bloggers and commentators began to bash him. It's as if they expected Obama to ram through a far left agenda in the same way that Bush rammed through a far right one.

Did progressives like it when he did that? No, it infuriated us. The backlash was one of the reasons why record numbers turned out to vote for Obama. But now it was our turn -- or so some thought.

Apparently they were not listening when Obama vowed to unify the country. Apparently some of them expected him to lie like Bush when he promised to work in a bipartisan way. And some must have thought it was just rhetoric when he spoke of "the audacity of hope."

The sad truth is that many of us are not hopeful. Despite our temporary elation when Obama became President, we haven't been able to shake our chronic pessimism and cynicism.

Whereas our analogues on the right used to effuse over how W. was doing a helluva job even as the country went to hell, we mutter or post disparaging comments about how Obama has let us down. Though he's accomplished some great things in his first seven months, none of it meets our unrealistically high expectations. What we don't get is that, under the circumstances, there's not much difference between being hypercritical and hypocritical.

I mean, could any of us do better? For decades, Massachusetts liberals worked for statewide universal health care and only recently succeeded to a limited degree. And yet some of us expect Obama to score a public health care system for the entire country without making any significant compromises.

Sure, it's hard to watch Obama's ideas get diluted and convoluted. Even his cabinet choices ticked off many lefty activists. But Obama is a radical centrist, not a radical. He needs us to push the perceived middle to the left. Above all, he needs to hear our voices above the relentless well-oiled hum of the corporatists who infest and hover around both parties.

This is just the beginning of a journey that's going to last four and possibly eight years. But if the outcomes progressives want are going to fully materialize, we will have to work harder than ever -- so hard that we'll later realize that our efforts to get Obama elected were merely a warm up. And we're going to have to pull together. As political filmmaker Eugene Jarecki warns, "Don't you dare go MIA during the Obama presidency."

Back in 2006, Obama wrote that what our country needs are citizens "reengaged in the project of national renewal." In his 2008 Democratic Convention speech, he said, "This election has never been about me. It's been about you." And currently emblazoned on his citizen activism website is the following quote: "I'm asking you to believe. Not just in my ability to bring about real change in Washington ... I'm asking you to believe in yours."

So why can't we own this presidency? Obama is not responsible for the corruption and gridlock in our political system. These hindrances to real change are tying his hands as much as they are tying ours. Together we can begin to liberate ourselves. But not if we decide that Obama, too, is part of the problem.

Liberal boomers grew up defining themselves in opposition to things: Nixon, the Vietnam War, unequal treatment of women and blacks. While our conservative counterparts were playing team sports and learning to function in a well-defined hierarchy, we were listening to Bob Dylan and learning to question and mistrust authority.

Both perspectives have their strengths, but liberal boomers need now to cultivate the kind of flexibility that Obama demonstrates: an ability to transcend liberal and conservative thinking and pursue a new path based on what works.

During the lead up to the election, liberals could stay in their ideological comfort zone as they worked to get out the vote. To succeed now, we will have to step outside our bubble, back away from some of our entrenched positions, and shelve some of our dogmas. We will have to learn to communicate with people with whom we vehemently disagree in order to get things done -- increment by hard-fought increment -- for the common good.

It's not going to be easy; in fact, it's already gotten downright ugly. But, as Obama pointed out last week, it was no less ugly when Franklin Delano Roosevelt tried to establish Social Security, or when John F. Kennedy, and later, Lyndon Johnson, tried to establish Medicare.

Earlier this month in Grand Junction, Obama reiterated that change comes from the bottom up, not the top down, and closed by saying, "If you want a different future -- a brighter future -- I need your help." Will we help him seize that brighter future for us, or roll our eyes and turn smugly away?

Rahm Emanuel "Most Influential White House Chief Of Staff In A Generation"?

2009-08-15T20:56:16Z

Seven months after moving into his office in the West Wing, Mr. Emanuel is emerging as perhaps the most influential White House chief of staff in a generation. But with his prominence in almost everything important going on in Washington comes a high degree of risk.

Obama's Cabinet Will Retreat To Blair House For Report Cards, "Bonding"

2009-07-28T16:23:52Z

Aides promise that there will be no trust circles or "sharing" exercises, but President Obama's Cabinet will gather Friday and Saturday to mark the administration's sixth month in office with a high-level retreat.[...]

Two sources characterized the session as an attempt at "bonding." Another said the gathering, which a top aide said has been long-planned, would be modeled after similar corporate events designed to provide an assessment of how the administration is doing halfway through the year.

Obama's Cabinet To Retreat To Blair House For "Bonding" Session

2009-07-28T16:22:34Z

Stuart Whatley: Obama's Agenda: Hope, Change and Lobby-Centricity

2009-07-02T15:00:40Z

President Obama's self-imposed rule against lobbyists in his administration, and the method whereby he is now implementing his progressive agenda, hews toward a rather perverse irony, if not hypocrisy. He is admirably abiding by his anti-lobby diktat in most administrative nominations (with just a few small exceptions); and yet, he is simultaneously handing over his most important policy initiatives, through Congress, to the very special interests he feigns to keeps at arm's-length, furnishing them with a golden opportunity to sabotage the types of real reform they fear most. Don't let a crisis go to waste? K Street is taking that apercu to heart.

A number of observers have touched on Obama's "Congress-centricity" -- that he's given his 535 former colleagues on Capitol Hill the role of actually formulating all of his policies while he sets the broader vision for them to follow. For his part, David Brooks attributes the administration's surrendering of the legislative authorship to Democrats' failure to pass health care reform during the Clinton years -- when it was drafted behind closed doors in the White House, only to be shot down in Congress.

And of course, what is "Congress-centric" is also "lobbyist-centric" to an equal or even greater degree. Executive branch officials may be forcibly insulated from lobbyist influence, but the policies they will be enforcing will carry the stench of special interests through and through. A prime example is a recent bill to reform federal regulators' bank takeover powers that was written by the finance lobby's lawyers.

And it doesn't stop there. Lobbyists are demonstrating their clout in influencing Obama's progressive agenda and economic rescue measures day by day in the halls of Congress. In April, a crucial cramdown bankruptcy reform bill was quashed by Democrats who couldn't stand strong to a last-minute bank lobby surge. For health care reform, lobbying efforts occluded the legislative route for single-payer early on, and have since succeeded (as of this writing) in challenging a government-run insurance program to compete with the private sector*. And in cap-and-trade, Obama's original and promising plan to auction off 100 percent of the emissions allowance has since been watered down to a piffling 15 percent, with 85 percent being disbursed for free like alms to the poor.

In particular, the debate over health care and cap-and-trade now transpiring in Congress has been an all-out legislator-lobbyist orgy of disappointment, leaving each historic policy proposal vapidly deflated. And though "don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good" makes for a usually-wise platitude, Voltaire wasn't dealing with the exorbitance of American health care or the ecological cataclysm of global warming. Moreover, to classify the draft bills in their current states as "good" is potentially dangerous. If Potemkin village versions of each bill are to pass, it means symbolic reform will occur at the expense of real reform. And while special interest prima donnas toast to their invincibility, the inadequate policies will remain as political eyesores for those who had let them pass when the time for real reform is again called for.

Obama may have a vision, but Congress must get by with astigmatism. Being all too familiar with this, one must wonder why the administration is allowing its agenda to be sullied and sundered before its very eyes. And this isn't to say the White House is taking a hands-off approach. Quite the contrary, Obama's White House has actively courted more members of Congress so far than any other president in recent history. It's too bad such promising policies keep surfacing from the muck of the Swamp as lobbyist-infused let-downs. And with each new instance, the ironic hypocrisy of Obama's ardent anti-lobbyist stance rings truer.

One reason may be that Obama is still sympathetic to his former job. Laws are technically meant to come from the legislature, so he is leaving it up to legislators, out of respect for the system, to take the initiative from start to finish. The problem is that radical change (the type that got him elected) doesn't mix with respect for the "system", especially when the system itself is in need of some overhauls, namely in campaign financing.

Kevin Baker argues in Harper's that Obama's reticence could make him more like Hoover--an admirable thinker, no doubt--than like Roosevelt--a president who eventually embraced the need for radical change. And The Economist's Lexington column this week, quoting Arthur Schlesinger, warns of the presidential mediocrity--not greatness--that comes with too much deference to Congress.

Obama is circumventing his own touted position against special interests by outsourcing his entire platform to Congress, much to the detriment of what is meant to be an historic progressive moment. Unless the administration forgoes the willful ignorance or cynical cognizance that is allowing its agenda to be sandbagged by the same old usual suspects, these recent warnings will have been in vain.

*UPDATE: The unveiling of Senator Kennedy's health care bill today after this writing--which includes a public option and will cost just over $600--bodes well, and certainly far better than what we've seen in the banking and carbon emission sectors.

Behind The Scenes With Obama's Cabinet (SLIDESHOW)

2009-06-30T17:06:32Z

Cabinet members: they're more than just bureaucratic figureheads. They will also paint your house, fertilize your lawn and serve you lunch, as revealed by behind-the-scenes photographs of your favorite secretaries released by the White House.

Office of Personnel Management Director John Berry looks deeply uncomfortable announcing a new food drive and Secretary Geithner provides his most practical handout to date. Check out the slideshow below:

Frank Naif: Despite Reform Pledges, Panetta Enables CIA's Bad Old Habits

2009-06-24T09:47:38Z

Over the past few weeks, Leon Panetta has emerged as an obstacle to real reform and accountability at the CIA. Rather than exerting strong leadership, Panetta is toeing the line on CIA's pet parochial concerns, such as protecting CIA officers and contractors from investigative scrutiny and insisting on suppression of information widely known via media coverage.

When the Obama transition team named Leon Panetta as CIA Director earlier this year, his advocates portrayed him as a no-nonsense Beltway veteran who would 'fix' the CIA, which had been beset by a series of embarrassing intelligence failures and scandals, starting with 9/11, continuing on to the Iraqi WMDs, and a global, mistake-riddled program of torture and extrajudicial detention of terrorist suspects.

Panetta's deeds and words, however, show that he has become a creature of CIA culture.
Several weeks ago, Mark Hosenball of Newsweek reported that Panetta limited CIA information requested by the Senate intelligence committee as part of its probe into detentions and interrogations. Although Panetta had wanted to release all relevant information to the Senate committee, senior clandestine service officers persuaded him to inform the Senate that the CIA would release only redacted documents to investigators. Panetta also indicated to the Senate panel that the CIA would stall, with the excuse that the CIA would have to review over 10 million documents.

Congress isn't the only branch of government to get the brush-off from CIA Chief Panetta.
Last week, Panetta requested that a Federal judge stop the release of documents detailing the interrogation and torture of terrorist suspects held by the CIA in secret overseas prisons. Panetta's filing cited the possibility of inflamed anti-American sentiment, much as President Obama claimed when he stopped the release of a new batch of photos documenting abuse of detainees in US custody in Iraq. Never mind that that much of the content of the documents is already known from press reports and foreign government documents.

Panetta is also helping bolster the CIA's reputation for not getting along with other spy agencies.
Last month, Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair informed the intelligence community that the DNI office would choose which senior US intelligence officers to head up US intelligence missions overseas. The move ran counter to a long-standing tradition that CIA station chiefs always act as the senior US intelligence official in a foreign country.

DNI Blair reasoned that in specific cases, placing officials from intelligence community agencies other than the CIA would make more sense. For example, the DNI might want to install a senior Drug Enforcement Agency officer in a Latin American country where counternarcotics is the focus, or put a National Security Agency officer in charge in an allied country that shares eavesdropping information with the US, such as the United Kingdom or New Zealand

In response, Panetta told CIA employees to ignore Blair's directive.

CIA rank-and-file have long felt slighted by the DNI office, which was created in the wake of 9/11 intelligence failures and has effectively diminished the CIA's leadership role in the intelligence community. Panetta's rebuff of the DNI was intended to assuage CIA hallway concerns about decreasing relevancy, but it has had the effect of creating a bureaucratic impasse between the DNI and CIA that is undoubtedly distracting from more substantive intelligence matters, such as finding Osama Bin Laden, or foiling the next terrorist attack.

An expansive New Yorker article by Jane Mayer offers more detail about how Panetta converted from CIA reformer to CIA excuse-maker. Mayer reports that protecting CIA employees from unfair prosecution and career-ending investigations is one motivation for not holding CIA officers more accountable for abuses.

But the main reason for Panetta's switch from supporting a thorough and transparent investigation into CIA abuses is pure Washington politics: the Obama White House thinks a truth commission or prosecutions would appear "vindictive, and possibly, inflam[matory]."
Panetta told Mayer, "It was the president who basically said, 'If I do this, it will look like I'm trying to go after Cheney and Bush'. . . he just didn't think it made sense. And then everybody kind of backed away from it."

Protection of junior and mid-level CIA personnel from politically motivated prosecution is a laudable by-product of Obama administration jockeying for a moral advantage over political rivals. After all, these are the government employees who can least afford to 'lawyer up.'

Unfortunately, Mayer and others have reported that the CIA under Panetta has failed to discipline field officers whose incompetence resulted in some of the most embarrassing and avoidable episodes of the extraordinary rendition program.

Mayer cites the case of the CIA officer responsible for the abduction and imprisonment of Khaled el-Masri, a German national whom the CIA mistakenly took into custody in Macedonia and then airlifted to a dank prison in Afghanistan. Masri spent some five months in CIA captivity, even though the team that abducted him knew almost immediately that they had nabbed an innocent man. Mayer's sources say that the CIA officer in charge has never been disciplined, and indeed has since earned two promotions.

Another rendition-gone-wrong is the now infamous 'Italian Job.' Investigative reporter Matthew Cole reported in the March 2007 GQ how a CIA team kidnapped Abu Omar, a small-time Islamic extremist cleric, from a street in Milan, Italy in 2003. The operation was poorly coordinated between CIA and Italian security services, and as a result, 13 US government employees (presumed by Italian authorities to be CIA) are currently on trial in absentia over the Abu Omar kidnapping. According to Cole, the senior officer in that case, Jeff Castelli, has also been promoted--twice. Italian and US press reports separately identify Castelli as CIA's former Rome Station Chief.

Meanwhile, detainee deaths that occurred on the CIA's watch have also gone uninvestigated, let alone unpunished.

In one sense, Panetta is doing the right thing by his new charges at the CIA. The history of politicians betraying intelligence officers is long and bipartisan, and Panetta is making good on a promise to protect rank-and-file employees from litigation and/or prosecution. Many CIA officers believe that they performed their duties in the War on Terrorism in good faith, with appropriate legal cover from policy makers (read: White House, National Security Council, Department of Justice).

However, Panetta is not protecting the CIA's long-term interests by sweeping homicides, naked incompetence, and knowing violations of human decency under the rug -- or by avoiding a full accounting of the past eight years. His efforts at limiting outside scrutiny in order to preserve morale and discipline must be accompanied by a visible program of self-policing and transparency.

A sustained campaign of shielding the CIA from accountability will ultimately doom the agency to even more marginalization than it has endured since the advent of the Office of the DNI and blistering criticisms of CIA failures related to 9/11 and Iraqi WMDs. Other Federal agencies and foreign governments will become wary of dealing with the CIA, and it will lose out on attracting the best young people to replenish its ranks of operations officers and analysts.

And finally, the CIA's current path is likely to result in extremely troubled relations with Congress. In the past, the House and Senate intelligence committees used the legislative branch's funding and lawmaking power to control or eliminate specific intelligence activities.

It worked on cutting back Contra funding in the 90s, and it could work on renditions and overseas prisons in the 21st century.

Cross-posted from examiner.com

Stephen Zunes: Hillary Clinton's First 100 Days

2009-05-25T18:00:48Z

Hillary Clinton has received mixed though generally favorable reviews, both internationally and domestically, during her first 100 days as secretary of state. Public opinion polls in the United States give her a more than 70 percent-positive rating.

Still, concerns linger regarding her eight years in the Senate, during which she supported some of the more controversial initiatives of the Bush administration, such as the U.S. invasion of Iraq, criticisms of the World Court and United Nations, and defense of Israeli occupation policies and military offenses against its neighbors.

Clinton has been slow to appoint a number of key officials, including regional assistant secretaries, and many of the appointments she has made have been of center-right veterans of the foreign policy establishment, many of whom were prominent in her husband's administration -- not the younger, more innovative figures many had hoped to see. Indeed, given that Barack Obama as a candidate promised not just to end the war in Iraq but to "end the mindset that led to the war in Iraq," the prominent State Department roles given to supporters of the illegal invasion of that oil-rich country have been disturbing.

In certain ways, Clinton's path has been made easier simply by the fact that her boss is not George W. Bush. Indeed, the enthusiasm overseas for Obama's election has been unprecedented. Yet the penchant for unilateralism and disregard for the views of its allies for which the Bush administration became so notorious was also in evidence during her husband's administration, such as the Clinton administration's support for Israeli occupation policies, the enactment of the embargo of Cuba, and the continuation of draconian sanctions, accompanied by unauthorized air strikes, against Iraq, which resulted in hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths.

Despite this, Clinton has demonstrated that U.S. foreign policy under the Obama administration will be very different from that under Bush. In one of her first actions as secretary, she met with a large group of career State Department personnel -- well-regarded experts in their respective fields who were consistently ignored under the previous administration -- to thank them for their service and welcome their input.

On her trips abroad, she has put her experience as a campaigner to work, spending as much time listening as talking, trying to shore up the image of the United States, so badly damaged under the Bush administration. Her style is far more frank and open than the conservative intellectual Condoleezza Rice or the career military officer Colin Powell.

It is not unusual for a president to want to be his own secretary of state, but rarely has a secretary so badly wanted to be her own president. Despite this, she has demonstrated an ability to be a willing subordinate to the commander in chief.

Despite her decidedly hawkish record while on Capitol Hill, Clinton has shown herself willing to adjust to the more moderate policies of Obama. For example, despite her harsh criticism during the primary campaign of Obama's call to negotiate with Iran, it was Clinton herself who invited the Islamic Republic to take part in multiparty talks on Afghanistan.

Similarly, while in Israel, she raised concerns about Israel's mass demolition of Palestinians' homes and construction of new settlements in the occupied West Bank.

While referring to policies that constitute flagrant violations of international humanitarian law and a series of U.N. Security Council resolutions as simply being "unhelpful" is certainly an understatement, this was still more criticism of Israel than she ever said publicly during her eight years in the U.S. Senate.

Still, while most of the international community recognizes that a unified Palestinian Authority -- which would include moderate members of Hamas -- is necessary for the peace process to move forward, Clinton told Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on that same trip that a coalition government with a party that does not recognize Israel's right to exist would be unacceptable, even threatening to cut off all humanitarian aid. By contrast, she has expressed no similar concern that Israel's new coalition government is dominated by hard-line parties that oppose Palestine's right to exist, and has even pledged to continue sending billions of dollars in unconditional military and economic aid to that right-wing government.

Human-rights activists were disappointed in her deliberate downplaying of human-rights violations during her visit to China. And she has had awkward moments during her travels responding to questions about U.S. military bases, now in more than 130 countries around the world.

Yet she has also emphasized the importance of "soft power" -- the use of America's political, diplomatic, economic and human capital to advance the country's strategic interests -- rather than reliance primarily on military means. She has stressed the need for international action to fight climate change. And she gained the respect of many in Latin America by acknowledging, during a trip to Mexico, U.S. culpability in the violence in the northern part of that country resulting from the insatiable appetite of Americans for illegal drugs.

Unfortunately, the fundamental problems with U.S. foreign policy in the early 21st century, rooted in hegemonic aspirations and imperial designs, go far beyond what Secretary of State Clinton or even President Obama can change on their own. Even the most enlightened foreign affairs minister or prime minister in 19th-century London could not fundamentally change the character of the British Empire. For those of us desiring a more radical change in the United States' role in the world, we cannot simply hope for change emanating from Washington.

Instead, we must recognize our responsibility as citizens to bring about the change ourselves.

This article originally appeared in the May 11, 2009 edition of the National Catholic Reporter.

Jon Huntsman: China Ambassador

2009-05-15T23:36:36Z

WASHINGTON — With a reach across the political divide for Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman as ambassador to China, President Barack Obama may have sidelined for now a potentially formidable Republican moderate and possible White House challenger in 2012.

Yet Huntsman, who has upset the GOP's conservative base by supporting gay civil unions, may gain, too. The appointment, which requires Senate approval, gives him a chance to burnish his credentials and position himself as a viable presidential contender in 2016, if Obama appears to be a strong candidate for a second term in 2012.

Mitchell Bard: Obama's First 100 Days: Restoring the Good Name of the U.S.

2009-04-28T09:48:29Z

The media's obsession with grading Barack Obama's first 100 days in office amuses me. Sure, in calmer times, maybe it was reasonable to look at a new administration after a little more than three months and try and figure out what kind of presidency the country was in for. But even George W. Bush waited until August 2001 to severely limit when federal money could be used to fund stem cell research, planting his flag in the ground as a leader who would try and impose his religious beliefs (and lack of respect for science) on the nation.

But given the situation Obama inherited when he took over the Oval Office in January, the 100 days figure is particularly silly. After all, in 100 days you can't make a human being from scratch, play a baseball season, or even choose an American Idol. But after 100 days, the media wants to know if Obama has been able to clean up the laundry list of ills left to him by Bush. It's not a short menu, either: an unnecessary and damaging war that was launched with no plan for a resolution, a second war that was headed in the wrong direction thanks to Bush's obsession with the unnecessary war, the potential of Pakistan and its nuclear arsenal falling into the hands of the Taliban, an economy hemorrhaging jobs and creating challenging conditions for a big chunk of Americans, a soaring home foreclosure rate, a plummeting stock market (at the time of Obama's inauguration), a severely damaged financial system that was in danger of bringing the world's economy down, a melting planet, an energy policy (or lack thereof) that threatened the country's economy and national security, and a health-care system that allows tens of millions of Americans to go through life with no medical care, just to hit some highlights.

Oh, and Obama is supposed to solve these problems despite the fact that the Republicans, who have enough votes in the Senate to filibuster legislation, are intellectually bankrupt, with no new ideas to offer beyond "less taxes and less regulation," and who have crafted an identity solely based on opposing whatever Obama says or tries to do. (At this point, with the Republicans acting like bratty children, I am waiting for Obama to make use of the playground anti-mimicking trick of employing reverse psychology and announcing that he is in favor of the Republicans disagreeing with his policies, so that the knee-jerk GOP members will support him, just to be contrary.) And, to be fair, it's not like the members of Congress in his own party have always been supportive, often putting their parochial interests in front of Obama's national agenda (the set of ideas that led the American people to vote him into office by a landslide).

So the task awaiting Obama was massive. And yet, there is a rush to decide how he's doing after 100 days. He doesn't even have all his cabinet members in place yet, after all (partially his fault, but partially thanks to the petty delaying tactics of the Republicans).

Personally, while I can't say I have agreed with each and every decision Obama has made since taking office, on the whole, I think what he has accomplished in the first 100 days is remarkable. He ushered a nearly $1 trillion stimulus plan into law in record time, reversed a flood of reactionary Bush executive orders (including on stem cell research), and, in his budget, made clear that he wants priorities such as health care, green energy and education to be addressed. But despite my support for his work, I refuse on principal to give him a grade. It's just not fair. Donnie Walsh gets two years to revive the Knicks, but the president only gets 100 days to fix the country? (Granted, after Isiah Thomas gets done with an organization, it is a miracle if it still exists at all.)

But there is one area in which Obama has made such a dent in an awful Bush legacy, I will make an exception to my rule and hand out a grade. And it wasn't even an item on my list of debacles Obama inherited from Bush. But, in a way, it encompasses all of these items.

For all of the failures, embarrassments and acts of destruction of the Bush administration, in some ways, none was worse than the damage he did to the American identity. Bush showed utter disregard for the constitution and completely belittled the idea that America stands for justice and due process. And his arrogant attitude toward the world was counterproductive, leaving the United States isolated at a time when it most needed help. Between the invasion of Iraq, the torturing of prisoners, the illegal wiretapping, the outing of a CIA agent, the politicization of the Justice Department, the appointing of incompetent cronies to government positions (like the immortal "Brownie"), the castration of agencies meant to serve the public in an all-encompassing protection of business interests (like the head of the Consumer Product Safety Commission testifying to Congress that she opposed funding for more inspectors after it was discovered that toys made in China contained lead paint), and the handing out of government money to businesses in which administration officials had interests (sometimes via no-bid contracts), the Bush administration had tarnished everything that was great about the United States of America. He took a country we could be proud of, a country that strove to meet a higher standard, and tossed us into the gutter. Looking at the pictures from Abu Ghraib or reading the accounts from Guantanamo, it was hard to believe that we were looking at the actions of the U.S. government. That's not the America I was taught about in school.

(As an aside, I am not an end-justifies-the-mean guy, so even if Bush's repugnant policies made us safer, I would object. But we didn't even get that benefit. As we've learned again and again from the men responsible for interrogations, torture doesn't work, and Bush's policies, from the Iraq invasion -- with its human and financial costs -- to Guantanamo, created more terrorists and national security risks than they prevented.)

In his first 100 days, Obama has taken decisive action to show the world that the great side of America, the America that stands for justice and due process, the America that respects the rights of individuals, and the America that has served as an example and destination for people around the world, is trying to come back. Obama's appointments chose competence and expertise over cronyism. He reversed Bush's torture policies and released the completely bogus memos written to justify them. He announced early on that he would close Guantanamo and that we would withdraw from Iraq. He changed the tone of how we speak to our friends and enemies, showing that keeping an open mind is not the same as being weak. He instituted policies that sought to add transparency to government. And, most of all, he showed that he was a smart and competent leader, something that has been absent for the previous eight years.

In the subject area of acting to restore pride in America, I am willing to give Obama a grade: A.

Granted, there have been missteps. He was too slow to embrace the idea of prosecuting those who justified and approved of torture, for example. But when you consider the depths to which Bush had plunged the country in this regard, and the short period of time (the much ballyhooed 100 days) Obama has had to reverse the course of the nation, his achievement in this area has been quick, decisive and productive. He has proven that hope is more than just a poster. Or, as a friend of mine put it, it's nice to know a grown-up is back in charge.

Hopefully when the true final examination comes around in November 2012, and Obama's presidency is evaluated after ample time has gone by for his policies and decisions to be analyzed, he will fare as well. For the sake of the country, I hope he does. But for now, he's off to a pretty good start, even if it is only 100 days.

Dressing For Your First Cabinet Meeting: A Slideshow

2009-04-20T16:44:32Z

Getting dressed for one's first Cabinet meeting is probably not unlike getting dressed for the first day of school. See how Obama's staff decided to dress for their first formal gathering on Monday afternoon. Senior adviser Valerie Jarrett looked lovely in lavender while Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was radiant in saffron. OMB Director Peter Orszag, who Huffington Post readers nominated a White House hottie, went for traditional pinstripes.

Obama Budget Cuts: Will Order Cabinet to Quickly Cut $100 Million From Department Budgets

2009-04-20T08:36:57Z

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama on Monday ordered his Cabinet to find ways to slice spending by $100 million, but acknowledged it's a "drop in the bucket" and said there's a "confidence gap" that he needs to overcome. Just back from a Latin America summit, Obama told the first formal Cabinet meeting of his administration that vast spending to combat the economic crisis was "the right thing to do." But he also said taxpayers still need to know that every dollar they give the government is being spent wisely.

"We also have a deficit _ a confidence gap _ when it comes to the American people," he told reporters. "And we've got to earn their trust."

ProPublica: Secretary Salazar: The Everyman of Obama's Cabinet

2009-04-09T18:34:19Z

by Ben Protess, ProPublica

Within hours of href="http://www.propublica.org/article/check-out-the-obama-teams-financial-
filings-408">inviting you to peek at Team Obama's financial disclosures yesterday, we were flooded with responses from readers who dug into the 179 forms to flag interesting tidbits. (Now pat yourselves on the back.)

One unusual finding came from the disclosure of Ken Salazar, secretary of the Interior Department. It shows that he has up to $200,000 in outstanding debt, a sharp contrast to the many millionaires serving in Obama's cabinet and on his senior staff.

We were alerted to Salazar's disclosure by Jane Johnson, who in her e-mail to us noted, "Poor Ken is saddled with a bunch of student loans."

A call to Salazar's office clarified the matter.

Salazar, 54, has long since paid off his own student loans, so the debt represents loans he co-signed for his daughter's college expenses. The debt is listed at between $80,000 and $200,000, because the disclosures provide ranges, not specific numbers.

Another check of the forms showed that Bill Burton, Obama's deputy press secretary, also is paying back at least $15,000 in student loans from 1996.

It's probably not surprising that Salazar had to take out loans for his daughter's education, since he's been receiving a government paycheck for the last 10 years. He has a ranch and occasionally has had a private law practice, but he's also served two terms as Colorado's attorney general and has been in the U.S. Senate since 2005. Something also tells us he didn't get rich from his days as director of the Colorado Department of Natural Resources.

"Secretary Salazar is really committed to public service," his press secretary, Kendra Barkoff, told us. "He's doing this because he wants to make a difference."

Most of Obama's top staffers from Chicago, meanwhile, are worth a million dollars or more, according to a Chicago Tribune report today.

Obama’s chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel,
has benefitted from the revolving door between Washington and Wall Street. After leaving the Clinton administration in 1998 -- and before running for Congress in 2001 -- Emanuel made more than $16 million as an investment banker. Last year he made at least $168,107 on an investment portfolio worth between $4.5 million and $11 million.

If you have something you want us to flag, as Jane Johnson did, shoot us an e-mail and we'll highlight your findings. And, if rummaging through documents is your thing, send a note to our editor of distributed reporting, Amanda Michel. She’ll alert you for our next document project.

Ben Protess is a Fellow for ProPublica, America's largest investigative newsroom.

David O. Stewart: Putting "Justice" Back Into D.O.J.

2009-04-06T16:52:58Z

Sometimes the good news can slip right past us, so it's important to savor it when it happens. New Attorney General Eric Holder is the source of this month's cautious hope that the rule of law is returning to the Department of (irony intentionally withheld) Justice.

Several weeks ago, Holder set the hearts of rule-of-law junkies aflutter when he directed that the government abandon its long-held position that Ali Saleh Kahlah Al-Marri, a legal resident of Peoria, IL, could be detained indefinitely by the military without ever being charged with a crime. Now Al-Marri is preparing for trial in an Illinois federal court, just the way the Framers of the Constitution intended.

Last week the news was more startling: the Justice Department was throwing in the towel in its prosecution of longtime Republican Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska. Confronted with evidence of substantial misconduct by Stevens' prosecutors -- including the suppression of evidence that contradicted star government witnesses -- Holder directed that the charges be dismissed.

This, brothers and sisters, is a big deal. It takes a lot of work to nail a sitting senator, and it had to hurt to give up the convictions returned last fall by a District of Columbia jury.

In doing so, Holder gave every indication that he actually believes the statement painted on the wall outside the office of the Attorney General: ''The United States wins its point in court when justice is done.'' The new Attorney General is bound to have some rocky times during his term in office, but he's entitled to enjoy the thought that he has begun to retrieve the reputation and self-respect of an agency that was savaged by the last administration.

The litany of outrages from the last regime is long:

-- The politically-motivated firing of United States Attorneys;

-- The use of prosecutorial powers to suppress voter registration efforts;

-- The approval of torture;

-- The application of political litmus tests in the hiring of line attorneys, whose job performance should never turn on their political thinking;

-- the approval of unprecedented intrusions on personal communications of American citizens.

The current, bracing moment of DOJ glasnost should not obscure the problems that the Bush Justice Department brought front-and-center: When the president's lawyers are not independent of the president, there is a material risk that the rule of law will suffer.

This was one of several trenchant points set out by Prof. Garrett Epps in a recent article in The Atlantic. Epps urged the intriguing proposal that the Attorney General be elected directly by the people, to ensure that the nation's chief lawyer will not be the toady of the president. After all, forty-seven states elect their state attorneys general, so that approach is widely followed by . . . Americans!

Making the position elected, which would require a constitutional amendment, would surely change it in some ways, not all of which would be terrific. Political campaigns would focus on hot-button social issues like drug enforcement, the death penalty, terrorism, and abortion. Pandering will ensue. Then again, most of our political campaigns already have those characteristics.

An elective office will draw a different type of person than we are used to having as Attorney General. Candidates will have to be skilled in political persuasion, campaigning, and fund-raising. Also, fund-raising.

But the current system has given us Attorneys General who were (i) the president's brother (Robert Kennedy), and (ii) a presidential sidekick nicknamed "Fredo," evoking the hapless middle brother of the fictional Corleone clan (Alberto Gonzales). It's hard to think that Madison and Washington dreamed of a government whose chief legal officer would have those qualities.

Moreover, electing the attorney general would not strip the president of intimate legal advisers. With the metastatic growth of the Office of White House Counsel, President Obama can turn to upwards of 20 lawyers on delicate issues. Why shouldn't the people also have their own lawyer?

We are supposed to have a government of laws, not of men. An independent Department of Justice might turn out to embody the principles of justice all the time, not just when we are lucky enough to have an Attorney General dedicated to enforcing the rule of law.

Howard Winant: A Response to My Mom on Obama and the Economy

2009-04-06T16:36:33Z

A RESPONSE TO MY MOM ON OBAMA AND THE ECONOMY
(Note: she's 89 and something of a radical)

Hi Mom,

This is in response to your recent rant about the economy and Obama. Note Obama's remark to the bankers on April 3rd (as reported in Salon):

***
Friday, April 3, 2009 15:30 EDT
Quote of the day

President Obama, during his recent meeting with bank CEOs, as quoted by Politico:

"Be careful how you make those statements, gentlemen. The public isn't buying that.

My administration is the only thing between you and the pitchforks."

That's true, at least to an extent. And it shows something I've written about before, which is the advantage that the kind of populist outrage that's been directed at AIG can have for the Obama administration. There are, obviously, some pitfalls there, but at the same time, if done the right way, the administration can use the threat of those pitchforks to keep the banks in line and at least somewhat compliant.
-- Alex Koppelman
***

Not that I don't agree with you somewhat, but Obama's strategy is surely impelled by his perceptions of the politically necessary. Let's not forget that banks, hedge funds, insurance cos. etc. are the repositories of a lot of pension funds, 401Ks, etc. My TIAA and Fidelity retirement funds for example. And millions of workers (the ones whose pensions haven't already been ripped off, that is).

Remember too that if these guys go down (eg Citi, Rubin, Summers...) they'll take the economy down with them. We are in some sense hostages. Not only we in the US or we in the West, but also China, India, etc. The "bankrupting" that would ensue would put the 1930s depression in a favorable light. It wouldn't be literal bankrupting (hence the quotes) because no court on earth is big enough to work out those balance sheets. To consider just one case: If nuclear India is returned to impoverishment, from which it has only recently begun seriously to extract itself, what might be the political consequences of that?

In short the practical consequences of intervention can be huge, and it is vital to proceed carefully, and so to speak to employ "minders" from the old exploitative regime. Like a good parent, Obama must assure these clients that while he will discipline them, he still loves them. Then too, much of finance capital (the "enlightened" wing, the relative sane wing), were integrally involved with his campaign: major donors and advisors.

I'm quite grateful to have a dude like this running the show. Although I often don't agree with him I admire him and trust him more than I have any other president in my lifetime. The greatest was Lincoln; the next best was Roosevelt. I think Obama has the potential to be a president on their level.

Love,
Howie

****
Mom's Original message:

> I hope you watched Bill Moyer's journal tonight. Not only the discussion with William Black which gave us a harrowing picture of what is
> going on in the current administration, ( not much better than under Bush supporting the establishment to the detriment of
> openess) and the interviews with Glenn Greenwald (Salon) and Amy Goodman, both honored with the Izzy prize. How can we
> get the real information to Obama who just gets briefings. And why did he appoint such establishment figures. Sumner never
> was right, Bernanke is not better than Greenspan etc etc. The banking situation is a total disaster. I am sorry to miss Stewart
> and Colbert most of the time, I get too tired and fall asleep watching them. What I heard today reinforced my views that
> Obama needs better information and advisors. Just felt like letting off steam.
> Lots of love from Oma

Conservatives Holding Up Increasing Number Of Obama Nominees

2009-04-04T20:34:48Z

Conservatives in Congress and in the media are attempting to block or delay a growing number of critical nominees for what amount to ideological witch hunts and self-interested horse-trading. As the President attempts to deal with the significant legal and logistical questions surrounding two wars, closing Guantanamo Bay, and caring for our nation's veterans, the people Obama has picked to assist him with such issues are being forced to wait in the wings.

Mario Solis-Marich: Breaking News: MALDEF Leader Trasvina To Serve At HUD

2009-03-27T16:56:56Z

Long time Latino civil rights attorney, President and General Counsel of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund John Trasvina has been tapped by the White House to serve in HUD as the Assistant Secretary of Housing and Equal Opportunity.

Trasvina has led MALDEF since 2006 and is credited by many for returning the organization to national prominence.

MALDEF has been the cornerstone for legal activism on immigration discrimination and other civil rights issues for the consistently attacked Latino community. Because of its activism MALDEF has been a frequent target of known hate groups such as "FAIR" and the "Minute Men."

Ironically the Trasvina pick was being discreetly vetted while a few Latino organizations and misinformed Latino conservative pundits loudly complained that a former MALDEF attorney, Tom Saenz, had not passed the now legendary complex selection process employed by Obama officials. Saenz was passed up for a top position at the Justice Department.

Additionally right wing groups thumped their chests as they took credit, apparently mistakenly, for "taking down" Saenz who, retrospectively, was not ultimately offered an appointed position because of reasons other than his past association with MALDEF. The Obama administration instead installed Tom Perez, another well known outspoken Latino advocate to lead the Civil Rights Division of DOJ, the position first thought to be targeted for Saenz.

The choice of Trasvina as Assistant HUD Secretary is sure to be seen as a victory by both the progressive and Latino communities. The appointment of Trasvina will also send a signal that HUD is returning as an aggressive advocate for increasing housing opportunities for all.

Trasvina is a graduate of Harvard University and Stanford Law School.

Diane Tucker: Joshua Cooper Ramo: Surprise! Global Financial Crisis Could Turn China Into A Superpower

2009-03-23T12:10:28Z

In the summer of 2007, the investor Bill Browder (of the $4 billion Hermitage Fund) spotted a small news item in his morning paper. For the first time an American auction of debt from leveraged buyout deals failed to draw enough bidders and had to be shut down. Browder recognized this seemingly insignificant event for what it was: the world had run out of its ability to absorb new debt. "This is it," he told Joshua Cooper Ramo via telephone. "This is the end. Now it will all start to unravel."

Joshua Cooper Ramo is a former foreign editor of Time magazine. Today as managing director of Kissinger Associates he splits his time between New York and Beijing, where he observed first hand how quickly the Chinese responded to early signs of the global banking crisis. Yesterday I spoke with Ramo about the possibility China might actually benefit from the world-wide financial meltdown.

You've said the global financial crisis could turn China into a superpower. How likely is that?

Joshua Cooper Ramo: If you had said a year ago that the Chinese banking system was more resilient than the American system, you would have been laughed out of the room. But the fact is, the Chinese banking system has been through so much stress during the last few decades, they are in a much better position than the U.S. to deal with the global financial crisis. The Chinese have been actively building systems that are capable of surviving all kinds of shocks, and they are more suspicious of markets than we are -- they see everything as having the potential for collapse. As a result, China has developed a more resilient command-and-control economy.

Some experts say there is a fundamental difference in the way people think depending on where they were raised, China or America. Do you think the Chinese are better able to see the big picture?

It's not so much that they see it better, just that they see it differently and take in a wider range of influence and possibility. At the University of Michigan, experimental psychologist Richard Nisbett recruited students to look at a series of pictures with complex backgrounds -- for example, a tiger in the woods. While the American students focused on the foreground object -- the tiger -- the Chinese students looked first at the background, probing the woods with their eyes. It would be too simplistic to say that the U.S. students stared at the tiger exclusively, but it is true that when Nisbett tested to see what they recalled, this was more or less the pattern that emerged. The Chinese students, on the other hand, found the environment much more powerful than any single object or individual. Context was everything.

Is the inability to understand context a growing problem for Americans?

Yes, I think it is. We often miss the fact that the problems or dangers we face are parts of a complete system and not just isolated blips of risk. For example, we thought we could contain the subprime crisis before we noticed our entire financial system was in trouble. We focused on removing Saddam before we understood all the forces swirling around him. Americans have a view of the world that is rooted in one of the most ancient concepts of Western thought: we believe that to understand something complex you must break it into smaller pieces. But this approach may no longer be suitable to today's world.

So China is better prepared for the unthinkable?

I think China is better prepared for the fact that things can go unthinkably bad or unthinkably good. Thirty years ago, who would have predicted the Chinese would lift 400 million people out of poverty? Twenty years ago, who would have predicted the Chinese would have two trillion dollars worth of foreign currency reserves on their balance sheet?

Aren't the Chinese facing urbanization problems that are unprecedented in scale and complexity?

There is no parallel in the West. The situation in China today is unique, so the Chinese will have to come up with a solution for themselves. So far the government is relatively happy with the pace of economic development, especially over the past decade. Their fiscal stimulus policies appear to be taking hold. Things are going better than anyone anticipated.

But aren't most of their manufactured products copied from the West?

The Chinese are moving rapidly to transcend copying. Many of the most interesting things being developed in China today you won't see anywhere else in the world -- the way their elevators operate, the kinds of advertising you see in their large cities, the unique internet communities they have.

China now has an underground base in the South China Sea that can launch nuclear submarines without being observed from the sky. Does the U.S. fail to appreciate just how quickly new technology is answered by newer technology?

It's less about tactical innovations like particular submarine bases and more about understanding the Chinese philosophy of war and conflict. The Chinese approach to warfare is very different from ours. Partly this is because they're a developing county and don't have the military strength that we do. But it is also a reflection of a different set of ideas about being indirect in confrontation. For example, rather than building 500 fighter planes to intercept every American fighter plane, they would try to take out our satellite navigation system. Frankly, I don't think the U.S. is prepared to deal with the way the Chinese are developing their military.

In your new book, The Age Of The Unthinkable, you said most U.S. discussions with China are shaped by the American desire for direct confrontation. I can't believe that tired old tactic works any more.

It doesn't. The lesson of the last ten years has been that when you confront China directly -- whether it's on human rights or issues surrounding Tibet or Taiwan -- you don't make much progress. Not only did we fail to move the Chinese in those areas, we made them nervous about cooperating with us in other areas. To have a productive relationship with China it's important to work across a large number of fronts all at once, as opposed to just picking areas where there is likely to be disagreement, which has been our habit in the past.

In your book -- which is a terrific read, by the way -- you argue that real power isn't always loaded into obvious implements like armies.

Today real power is the ability to adjust and come back strong when you're faced with an unexpected shock. That's because in the future we will be constantly surprised -- sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse. All of the things that are changing our world, like jet travel and violence and financial markets, are what make us modern and we accept the risks that go along with them. But they also make our world more interconnected, so now a shock to one part of the system presents a greater risk to other parts of the system. I like to say we need a global security strategy that looks like the human immune system. There's no question there are a lot of dangerous germs floating round. Our ability to survive depends on our ability to absorb those bugs and not let them knock us out.

Younger people tend to be more resilient. What does that say about President Obama's cabinet?

You hate to generalize, but I do think young people are more accepting of change. It's no accident that Obama won the presidency on the motto of change. The younger generation has seen so much change in their lifetime, they have a very different perspective. But it's really not about age. You can be 30 years old and very conservative. What matters most now is an innovative spirit and a belief that it is possible to have radical, disruptive change for the better.

You've recommended -- not entirely in jest -- that the U.S. create a National Skepticism Council. If we did, who would be on it?

People from outside the government who have expertise in information technology or science or the ability to speak Chinese or Arabic -- any expertise that is really relevant to today's world. Also, they should be out-of-the-box thinkers. The goal would be to examine any policy that sounds like a good idea, and poke holes in it. For instance, after 9/11 our reaction was to lash out and attack. But what if we had spent an equal amount of money building schools and hospitals in the region? The U.S. would be in a very different position today.

We need fresh minds thinking about interesting ideas that could inform the policy-making process. In addition, the U.S. and China must begin to work together at a level of depth that would have been unthinkable three or four years ago. Of course, by definition that would dramatically raise China's position in the world.

Joshua Cooper Ramo is the author of the new book The Age of the Unthinkable.