Legal Commentary

Foreign Policy Common Law

By Big Tent Democrat

This column in the WaPo today is quite good:

James Monroe had one, and so should we. That seems to be the theory behind the rampant and premature speculation among national security wonks about what kind of new doctrine President Obama or President McCain would use to guide U.S. foreign policy. But let's not get carried away thinking about what a McCain or Obama doctrine might be. In today's complex world, a president doesn't need to have a one-size-fits-all template for handling foreign affairs. In fact, the next president would be better off without one.

Indeed. Enough with the doctrines. More . .

I actually liked Sandy Berger's description of the Clinton Administration process by the second term:

Ultimately, the Clinton team came to embrace the view that deeds mattered more than words. During the 1999 war over Kosovo, Clinton officials rebuffed pressures from the media and the foreign policy cognoscenti to couch the conflict in terms of a new foreign policy doctrine -- which senior administration aides referred to dismissively as the D-word. "We tried to establish common law rather than canon law," then-national security adviser Sandy Berger told us. "We set out to build a new role for the U.S. in the world by experience rather than doctrine."

I liked that. It also reminds me of a disagreement I had with Stirling Newberry and his insistence that Obama needed a theory of the world:

I have had enough with leaders with theories of the world. Give me some leaders who pay attention to facts, look for policies that might work, and can actually think themselves out of a paperbag and I think I can live with the not having a theory of the world. . . .

And this is where Stirling and differ on Obama - Obama does not need a theory of the world - he needs a theory of politics that deals with the real political world of today. . . . I do not have a problem with Obama's theory of governance. I have a problem with his theory of politics.

Speaking for me only

Full post as published by TalkLeft on July 13, 2008 (boomark / email).