Change Comes to Washington (cont’)
The 2008 election cycle was marked by a thrilling upsurge of civic participation and citizen engagement, with millions of new voters, the explosion of small donor contributions, and a sharp rise in participation. All this could add up to a transformative moment. And yet the basic institutions of American democracy are broken. Public trust in the government has plunged to its lowest level since Watergate. The very institutions that we will rely on to translate public discontent into last change badly need repair.
With imagination and verve, the new president must not only focus on short-term, tangible policy "deliverables" but also on renewing the systems of democracy that empower ordinary citizens and make all other changes possible. Today's new wave of government reform should not try to purify the messy, inevitably rambunctious world of politics. It should seek changes to catalyze the participation of wider numbers of citizens.
In the spirit of wider participation, on the eve on Inauguration we have invited a wide array of writers and thinkers to weigh in on their thoughts and hopes for a new Administration. We asked what projects or initiatives-other than the necessary plans for economic recovery and stimulus-would show that America is truly headed in a new direction? And how can the new administration and Congress prove we're moving beyond business as usual in Washington? For fun we invited each contributor to suggest a theme song for the inaugural.
Their answers are surprising, dramatic, both practical and idealistic. Yet they all celebrate the promise of fresh leadership and new ideas whose time has come.
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Scott Horton | Lawrence J. Korb | Victor Navasky | Geoffrey R. Stone
Theodore C. Sorensen
Of Counsel, Paul Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP. Special Counsel, Advisor, and Primary Speechwriter to President John F. Kennedy. Author of Counselor: Life at the Edge of History.
For the band, I suggest "Happy Days are Here Again," or "High Hopes" (a theme song in the JFK campaign).
My first order of business suggestion (besides the economy) would be to void the Executive Orders, some of them secret, which have violated the Constitution or international law or statutory law.
Elizabeth Kolbert
Staff Writer, The New Yorker. Author of Field Notes from a Catastrophe: Man, Nature, and Climate Change.
Barack Obama should direct the Environmental Protection Agency to take the first steps toward regulating CO2 as a pollutant. This would send a signal to Congress that the Administration is serious about dealing with global warming, and would provide a strong incentive for legislative action.
The U.S. Supreme Court invited the EPA to regulate carbon dioxide last year, when it found, in the case of Massachusetts v. EPA, that the agency already had the power to do so under the Clean Air Act. The Bush Administration ignored&,dash;or really rejected—the invitation, by refusing to classify CO2 as a danger. Obama should direct the agency to issue a so-called "endangerment" finding; this, in turn, would initiate the rule-making process.
While everyone agrees that the best way to limit carbon emissions is through legislation, there just isn't any time to waste any more. Obama needs to make it clear that one way or another, he intends to bring emissions down.
Michael Massing
Journalist. Contributing Editor, Columbia Journalism Review.
When, back in November, the Brennan Center first asked me to jot down thoughts about new initiatives for the Obama administration, Israel had not yet launched its offensive against Gaza. Even then, I was going to single out the Israeli-Palestinian issue as a critical one for the new administration; the events of the last few weeks have only reinforced that idea. When it comes to repairing America's pummeled image in the world, nothing could do more than for the US government to push for a genuine and lasting solution to that festering mess.
Success would require both a more competent brand of diplomacy and a more even-handed approach than we've seen over the last eight years. There's little doubt about the Obama team's ability to provide the former. But taking a more balanced stand toward Israel and the Palestinians, and pressing Israel to put an immediate halt to all settlement expansion—a sine qua non for any progress toward a solution—would require a real show of political nerve.
During the transition, Barack Obama ostentatiously refrained from revealing his intentions on this issue. Once he takes office, though, he will no doubt quickly do so. Whether he decides to embrace the status quo or to make an audacious bid for a settlement will reveal much about the direction of his foreign policy, and about the prospects for America to win back the world's favor.
Katha Pollitt
Columnist, The Nation. Author of Learning to Drive: And Other Life Stories. Blogs at www.kathapollitt.com.
In the morning of his first day, the president should close Guantanamo and ban torture. Then, after lunch, he should spend a pleasant afternoon reversing—with a stroke of his pen—Bush's roughly 200 executive orders: the "gag rule" on abortion, limits on stem-cell research, permission to drill for oil and gas on federal lands, allowances for religious discrimination in hiring for government-funded faith-based programs and on and on.
Music for the Inaugural Ball? La Vie en Rose.
Scott Horton
Lawyer. Contributing Editor, Harper's
America forfeited its leadership when the Bush Administration, defying international law that the United States had largely crafted, turned to torture as a tool of choice in the "war on terror." The way back to the high ground is simple enough, and it starts with the repudiation of the practice and legacy of torture.
Three first-day orders for Obama to go into effect at noon on January 20:
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1.) The Bush torture program, still authorized for use by the CIA, is terminated. Intelligence services are to abide by the same guidelines used by the uniformed services in the Department of the Army's Field Manual. No torture. No exceptions.
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2.) The program of extraordinary renditions operated by the CIA, with the occasional support of other agencies, is terminated. No prisoner is to be held outside of the protection of the law. No prisoner is to be turned over to another nation, whether it "cooperates" with our intelligence operations or not, where it is more likely than not that the person will be tortured. Diplomatic assurances may not be used to overcome concerns that a person will be tortured unless the assurances are specific and credible and cause a fair fact-finder to believe that the person would not be tortured.
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3. ) The military commissions at Guantánamo shall stand down immediately. All proceedings shall terminate. A special review shall be undertaken with respect to sentences handed down by these tribunals.
President Obama should also constitute a commission of inquiry to examine the formation and implementation of policy connected with detainees in the "war on terror." The commission should have access to all government records and government employees and others may be compelled to appear before it and testify about matters within their knowledge. It should provide us with a comprehensive narrative of the Bush torture policy, identifying how torture came to be adopted as policy and the role of various administration actors in the process. It should secure and declassify critical documents relating to this process. And it should advise the president and Congress whether individuals should be pardoned or whether a special prosecutor should be appointed to look into matters as to which sufficient evidence of criminal conduct is uncovered.
Our nation's standing in the world has taken a beating for eight years. With these steps, Obama will undo the damage and restore the nation to its historical position of leadership.
Lawrence J. Korb
Senior Fellow at Center for American Progress. Senior Advisor to the Center for Defense Information. Author of A New National Security Strategy in an Age of Terrorists, Tyrants, and Weapons of Mass Destruction and Reshaping America's Military: Four Alternatives.
First, President Obama should fulfill his promise to remove all 14 combat brigades from Iraq within 16 months. This will convince the Iraqi people that we do not intend to occupy their country permanently; undermine the Al-Qaeda narrative that the U.S. is waging a war against Islam; provide an incentive to the Iraqi government to undertake meaningful political reconciliation; allow him to send more troops to Afghanistan; relieve the strain on the troops; and reduce significantly the $10 billion a month being spent on Iraq.
His campaign pledge to send two to three additional brigades to Afghanistan is necessary to prevent the situation from deteriorating further, but it will not be sufficient. Mr. Obama needs to seek more troops from NATO, establish a single unified military command for all the military forces, provide significant non-military assistance, and reach out to those members of the Taliban willing to join the political process. These steps must be accompanied by a diplomatic surge involving all of Iraq's neighbors, including Syria and Iran and all of Afghanistan's neighbors, including Pakistan, as well as such regional players as India and Saudi Arabia.
Second, Mr. Obama should help restore America's standing in the world by closing Guantanamo; joining the International Criminal Court (ICC) by re-signing the ICC treaty (which was signed by President Clinton and unsigned by President Bush); getting the Law of the Sea Treaty ratified; submitting the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty to the Senate for ratification (Clinton signed it but could not get two thirds of the Senate to approve it); sending a high level envoy to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) review conference; rejoining the discussions about the Kyoto Protocol; and normalizing low level diplomatic relations with Iran.
Victor Navasky
Publisher Emeritus, The Nation. Director, Delacorte Center of Magazine Journalism at Columbia's Graduate School of Journalism. Author of Mission Accomplished: Or How We Won the War in Iraq and A Matter of Opinion.
As newly elected President, Obama ought to personally go to the United Nations and announce that the era of UN-bashing is over, that henceforth we will pay our dues in a timely fashion, and no longer use the United Nations as a fig leaf to cover up what have really been unilateral US imperial initiatives. As token of our good faith he should offer to withdraw our troops from both Iraq and Afghanistan in favor of UN peacekeepers, request the UN to open negotiations with the Taliban, and offer to work with the United Nations to help set up a Marshall plan-type reconstruction and relief fund under UN auspices to help repair some of the damage we have inflicted on that part of the world, and pledge to work with and through appropriate international tribunals to bring Geneva-convention violators to justice.
Geoffrey R. Stone
Edward H. Levi Distinguished Service Professor of Law, University of Chicago
As one of his first acts of office, President Barack Obama should call for federal legislation ensuring equal rights for all persons in the United States regardless of sexual orientation.
As a candidate for United States senator from Illinois, Mr. Obama announced that, as "an African-American man" and "a child of an interracial marriage," I have "taken on the issue of civil rights for the LGBT community as if they were my own struggle because I believe strongly that the infringement of rights for any one group eventually endangers the rights enjoyed under law by the entire population." He proclaimed that he had worked for more than a decade "to expand civil liberties for the LGBT community including hate-crimes legislation, adoption rights and the extension of basic civil rights to protect LGBT persons from discrimination in housing, public accommodations, employment and credit," and promised that he would continue to "be an unapologetic voice for civil rights."
Now is the time for Mr. Obama to fulfill that promise—boldly, proudly and in the spirit of this nation's continuing struggle for equal justice for all persons. Specifically, he should call upon Congress immediately to enact the Employment Non-Discrimination Act and the Matthew Shepard National Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act, and to repeal the military's discriminatory "don't ask, don't tell" policy and the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, which he once rightly described as "abhorrent."
Mr. Obama should further call upon Congress to enact federal legislation recognizing equal rights for all persons, without regard to sexual orientation, in the fundamental realm of family rights, including equal treatment under federal law of all persons who are in a legally-recognized marriage, civil union, or domestic partnership.
Mr. Obama wanted to lead. Now, let him lead.