The First 100 Days: What Ought to be Done Right Away?

A simple proposal: On day one, President Obama should announce that he will

1) Shut down Guantánamo

2) End rendition

3) Repudiate the Bush administration’s torture memos

Immediately, the United States will look different to the world, and Americans will feel different about themselves. These three acts would be in the post-partisan style that Obama favors: they would appeal as much to (genuinely) conservative lawyers as to liberals and leftists. Of course, taking such steps isn’t innovation so much as restoration, but given the illegalities of the last eight ... More

The First 100 Days: Home and Family

1. Revoke the global gag rule (imposed by Reagan, rescinded by Clinton, reimposed by Bush on his first business day in office) that denies American family-planning funds (USAID) to any clinic, NGO, or hospital the world over that performs abortions, mentions abortions in the context of contraceptive counseling, refers women to abortion providers, or lobbies its government for liberalized abortion laws. 

2. Oversee passage of the Convention to Eliminate Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). As a step that would generate enormous good will around the world, Obama should resubmit... More

The First 100 Days: Set the Right Tone

I have neither the knowledge nor expertise to suggest anything about economic and financial policy—the most pressing problems facing the nation—and I don’t share in the millennial fever that has gripped some commentators. So I offer instead a less soaring collection of hopes.

First, I hope that President Obama will find the right tone as well as words to rally the country, to describe the economic difficulties in plain but serious terms, to lay out the choices as he sees them, and to explain what specific actions he will take over the foreseeable future. Every president in ti... More

The First 100 Days: Human Rights/Women's Rights

First, close Guantánamo Bay prison.  A spate of recent articles has detailed the complexities of ending the grossly unconstitutional incarceration of alleged enemy combatants offshore. Others are in a far better position than I to propose legal solutions for the small number of truly dangerous characters, but I trust acceptable solutions—ones that balance security and constitutionality—can be found with far less damage to our international reputation and our own civil liberties traditions than we have suffered these last seven years.

Second, promote international women’s right... More

Bull Session with Rahm Emanuel

WHEN I was a senior at Sarah Lawrence College in 1978, I kept hearing things about this new kid named Rahm Emanuel. People were talking about him as some sort of big man on campus.

I met him just once, during a late-night bull session about politics at the Pub, a campus student center. The drinking age back then was eighteen, and the Pub served beer, so it was probably a beer-fueled bull session.

We had a gifted group of students at the time and the conversations tended to be pretty interesting. Among the people I was pallin’ around with were Ira Kaplan, who went on to... More

The Day After: Obama and China

OBAMA-MANIA IS gripping much of the world, and there are high hopes that an Obama presidency will restore faith in the American dream. In China, that dream was crushed by tanks in Tiananmen Square nearly two decades ago. Can Obama bring it back?

What we can say here in Beijing is that Obama’s victory hasn’t killed off the dream. As one graduate student in my department put it shortly before the election, “If Obama loses this game, I don’t know what I will say about democracy.” He was thrilled with Obama’s victory, drawing the implication that the change of guard shows “the importan... More

Things No One Talks About

AS PUNDITS dithered late last week over “the Bradley effect” and other racial clouds on Obama’s horizon, the candidate was making a difficult, possibly final, visit to the white mother of his white mother. Few commented on the implications of the fact that while racial identity runs deep in America, maternal bonding runs deeper. But maybe our Hollywood-besotted political culture requires the drama and sentiment in Obama’s farewell visit to “Toot” (the Hawaiian name for “grandma” is “Tutu“) to drive those implications home.

Sarah Palin claims that Obama ... More

Ten Foreign Policy Changes if Obama is Elected

ASSUME, FOR a moment, a Democratic victory since I can’t deal with anything else right now and the anxieties generated by the financial crisis and the unpopularity of the Iraq war actually make it likely. Obama enters the White House in 2009. How will American foreign policy change?

“Liberal internationalism” is the name that some of his advisors and various friendly intellectuals have chosen for the policies they hope he will adopt. But what does this mean? Here is a list of some of the things it might mean, though every item comes with a big question mark.  For the moment, I ... More

Palintology: Can John McCain's Running Mate Get the Hillary Votes?

Last Friday, the media were surprised when John McCain chose Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin to be his running mate.  I, too, was surprised, but as someone who grew up in Alaska and still has family there, I am not dismissive of Palin.  She is both talented and tough—a genuine conservative populist.

I met Sarah Palin in 2006 when she was a gubernatorial candidate in Alaska. She was opposing Governor Frank Murkowski in a bid to get on the GOP ticket. I was working as a waitress at the convention cent... More