Winter Break WK #2: “Leading in dangerous times”
David S. Broder
Washington Post
December 30, 2007
Once again, the cold, cruel outside world has intruded on the quiet of a holiday season. The assassination of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto two days after Christmas brought a shocking end to a time of peaceful celebration and shattered any sense of easy optimism for the new year.
Had it been only 24 hours since Mike Huckabee could joke with reporters in Iowa that when he was out hunting pheasant, he thought of the first three birds he brought down as bearing the names of his opponents in the presidential race? That joke died with Bhutto.
And suddenly, the real stakes in this protracted election contest seemed much larger, with the recognition that the choice the American people are about to make will have consequences far beyond those precinct caucuses in Iowa and the polling places in New Hampshire.
It is a dangerous world out there, especially for those who embody the hopes of their people and freedom’s friends in the places where extremism and repression are far too familiar.
American foreign policy has been preoccupied with Iraq for almost five years now, and the situation in Pakistan has deteriorated during that time. Pervez Musharraf, the strongman the United States has relied upon to keep order in the country, has become – like Vladimir Putin – as much of a problem as a prop.
In such places as Pakistan, the next president of the United States is likely to confront the most difficult challenges of the time, and the lives of many Americans will rest on those judgments.
There are many such places in this world. From Darfur to North Korea and from the Gaza Strip to the Kremlin, the will and the wisdom of the United States and its leadership are being tested every day. Osama bin Laden has escaped every trap the United States has set for him, and terrorists remain a menace to all Western nations.
In the Pakistan crisis, no one can be certain what experience or what temperament best equips a president to deal with the uncertainties of a Muslim society with a fragile democracy living under a form of martial law and now riven by controversy over the murder of a returned claimant to power – a person with her own controversial history.
But I have found myself thinking about something I was told many years ago by Bill Bradley, the former senator from New Jersey, before he ran for the Democratic presidential nomination against Al Gore in 2000. Bradley was explaining one day in his office why he had taken himself out of consideration as a running mate for Michael Dukakis in 1988. You shouldn’t run for vice president, he said, unless you thought you were ready to be president, and he didn’t consider himself ready.
Why not? He said he thought a president of the United States needed to know several other major countries “from the inside,” not just at a briefing-book level but from first-hand observation, so you understand the pressures on their leaders when you sit down to negotiate with them. Bradley had begun such studies in the Soviet Union, Japan, Germany and Mexico, he said, but had more to do in all four places, and China beckoned.
Then, he said, a president should know the leadership elites in this country – not just in politics, but in business, the professions, academia, labor – well enough that he would know where to go to staff his administration. And, he said, you needed to know the policy community well enough to be able to navigate for useful advice.
I thought then – and I still believe – that was as insightful a description of the desirable background for a president as I had ever heard. Bradley turned out to have his shortcomings as a campaigner, but his prescription for a president still seems right.
When all the fun and games are finished, Americans will be choosing a president for a dangerous time in a world that has more shocks to administer. I hope some of the folks in Iowa and New Hampshire are thinking about that.
This man seems to have a very negative opinion on the war and all that is going on in the Middle East right now. He also seems to think that our government is not really doing a very good job and that they should do a better on, these things I do not at all agree with but i do agree with some of the things that he says. I think that he is right about how the president should know a lot about other countries and know about their inner workings. This to me is kind of a no brainier. It seems like this is just something that people would aromatically look for though. I also think that a president that knows a lot of people and that knows that the people in all sorts of businesses, because it just makes since that the President would know people that would be good for his cabinet jobs. Its seems like that if he didn’t know someone who was good enough that the United States should just be able to appoint someone their self. I believe that this man and I have the same point of view about what the president should be like but not on the view of what was going on in the world and how we should handle it. Happy Iowa Caucus!
The article was split into two different sections I thought. The first section was about the death of the Pakistani Prime Minister, and the other section is about what a president should have. I will talk about each section. The first incident really does make it harder to choose the president of the United States. Now on top of all the other stuff the president is dealing with like the war in Iraq and other problems around the world he now has to deal with Pakistan. Its unfortunate the Mike Huckabee’s little joke about bird hunting and him knocking out his three top opponents had to be brought down by the actual death of a person that was so highly in charge. But what does this honestly mean now? Are the people of Iowa and New Hampshire really going to look at this event, and will it change the outcome of the election? Now for the other part of the article. I think Bill Bradley is correct when he says that the president should be familiar with other countries around the world. That way he could possibly deal with the countries better. He adds by saying the president should also know the elites in the countries. This is very true also; if the president is in good with all the elites from the other countries then maybe our country won’t be so filled with problems.
In response to Cody and Christine, I agree that a president should be well versed in the politics and business of foreign nations through a strong foreign policy, but I really don’t think that it’s possible in the world we live in. A president has to be well versed in so many other areas: domestic policy, economics, etc. I think this writer is pretty naive. Of course a president has to be informed and understand the workings of other countries, but in today’s world, we can’t expect our president to know everything. That’s why a president has advisers and cabinet members to assist him/ or her if Hillary can bounce back from Iowa. Presidents have to be generalists if they are expected to lead the free world. This article seemed so pointless to me. I found myself saying “duh” after every paragraph concerning Bradley’s opinions. The writer acted like he’d never thought a president should have those qualities. Jeez! However, it did provide some information I hadn’t heard. It seems that with the 2008 primaries and other current events, news like the assassination of a former prime minister goes un-noticed; which is a sad thing. But back to Cody and Christine, it may sound nice to have a president that knows other countries from the inside-out, but it just isn’t plausible. Our president has too many other areas to focus on without being a specialist on foreign policy.
Response to Corbin
I agree with you when you when you say that it doesn’t really seem possible for a president to well verse in the politics and business practices of foreign nations. But I wonder if we had a presidential candidate that was, would the American people notice a think differently about this person or would they he/she just be another presidential candidate to the people. On thing I do have to disagree with is when you say, that’s why a president has advisors and cabinet members. I think a president should know enough to be able to make decisions with out these people some times, because what if they don’t always have the people best interest in mind. Because isn’t that what a president is supposed to do, help the people. Overall I did not really like this article, he made this event seems extremely important when there have been a lot worse things happening during presidential elections. What about the Great Depression, World War II, and important things like that? One other thing is I am wondering why this is the first time I am hearing about this, things like this are important and should be talked about in the news, even if they don’t really effect us directly.