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Derek Chollet and James Goldgeier argue that the Bush administration's recent moves leftward represent the collapse of the conservative foreign policy establishment that has dominated our relations with the rest of the world for decades:
Over the last year, the Bush administration has undergone a sort of deathbed conversion to a traditional diplomacy characterized by working with allies and negotiating with enemies. None other than John Bolton, once Bush's UN ambassador and now one of his harshest critics from the right, has howled that the "Obama administration has begun six months early" and that the administration's shift represents "appeasement" and the "intellectual collapse" of Bush's foreign policy.But this shift is more than the product of a desperate president; it symbolizes the downfall of the conservative national-security establishment that has dominated the foreign-policy debate since the end of the Cold War.
And Courtney Martin asks if we're neglecting the next activist generation:
It's particularly unsettling that Obama wouldn't urge the donor base to support grass-roots community organizing when he himself was shaped by its philosophies and approach. If he's committed to a truly participatory democracy -- citizens acting on behalf of themselves, their families, their communities -- then he should be wholeheartedly supportive of independent organizations.Subscribe to our RSS feed to receive our articles as soon as they’re published.
--The Editors
