KOS AND FOREIGN POLICY. Chicago's McCormick Place, a convention center on Lakeshore Drive, is huge and sprawling. So big, in fact, that I saw two sparrows fly through a fourth-floor hallway shortly before the start of a YearlyKos panel entitled "Progressive Foreign Policy and its Importance for Elections and Activism" on Friday afternoon. Some of the ideas presented by the panelists, including Sarah Holewinski, executive director of CIVIC (Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict), an organization founded by human-rights worker Marla Ruzicka; Steven C. Clemons of The Washington Note; and Lorelei Kelly, director of the White House Project's Real Security Initiative who blogs for Huffington Post; were also on a large scale. "I'm going to stick to the large, big story -- what everyone likes to call the narrative," said Kelly, sweeping her hand through the air above her head. She said she hoped U.S. foreign policy would undergo a shift so both state and individual needs are recognized. "In other words, a strong army is important but so is education for girls," she explained. She urged the embracing of a new foreign policy that emphasizes "human security," an approach that incorporates both micro- and macro-level issues in geopolitics. Meanwhile, Clemons was refreshingly pragmatic. He talked about the role of blogging (a "vain, arrogant experience," as he put it) in the formulation of foreign policy. His goal, he explained, is not to reach the masses. He focuses instead on an elite group -- "the top one thousand decision makers in my field," he explained -- and tries to shape their views. He has been surprisingly effective, partly because he has the courage of his convictions (he compares himself to "the guy in front of the tank in Tiananmen Square") and partly because he has focused on discrete issues rather than enormous ones. He has, for example, helped influence the opinions of policymakers -- and, eventually, large numbers of Americans across the country -- about John R. Bolton and Paul Wolfowitz. Whether big or small, though, the ideas presented by the panelists were intriguing -- and perfect material for the bloggers in the audience. --Tara McKelvey
