How About I Talk About Something I Like?

I don't know if John Edwards won the election today, considering his chief rivals voted against the supplemental. But this week has been an extremely good week for him, as he outlined a strategy for how America can return to the world community again instead of being its largest rogue state. The speech he gave at the Council on Foreign Relations was notable for how it looked at the current state of our politics, with its sloganeering and appeals to American exceptionalism, are a game which he will not play. He made these remarks knowing full well that he would be assailed by the little authoritarians on the right, which he was. And he fought right back and let them have it afterwards.

Here's an excerpt from the CFR speech:

The core of this presidency has been a political doctrine that George Bush calls the "Global War on Terror." He has used this doctrine like a sledgehammer to justify the worst abuses and biggest mistakes of his administration, from Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib, to the war in Iraq. The worst thing about the Global War on Terror approach is that it has backfired—our military has been strained to the breaking point and the threat from terrorism has grown.

We need a post-Bush, post-9/11, post-Iraq American military that is mission-focused on protecting Americans from 21st century threats, not misused for discredited ideological pursuits. We need to recognize that we have far more powerful weapons available to us than just bombs, and we need to bring them to bear. We need to reengage the world with the full weight of our moral leadership.

What we need is not more slogans but a comprehensive strategy to deal with the complex challenge of both delivering justice and being just. Not hard power. Not soft power. Smart power.

This fundamentally rejects the entire "war on terror" frame in favor of a smart power frame that recognizes that America has a global responsibility, but must lead morally for it to have any purpose. It's a hopeful vision, and after the last eight years maybe a little too rose-colored. But I don't think this country can get by being isolationist in a world of Darfurs and Bosnias and Rwandas. We need to rethink our place in the world and understand that we take away the power of grievance from the radical jihadists when we try to lift up instead of tear down.

Of course, Edwards was dead on the mark on Iraq.

The president has played political brinksmanship over the war in Iraq time and time again. He refuses to acknowledge the futility of his approach, disregards the clear message sent by the American people last fall, and falsely claims that the only way for Congress to support the troops is to prolong the war. That's just not true. Congress can support the troops and end the war, which is exactly what the bill they sent the president last month would have done. When the president vetoed that bill, it was the president alone who was blocking support for the troops. Nobody else.

Any compromise that funds the war through the end of the fiscal year isn't a compromise at all, it's a capitulation. As I have said repeatedly, Congress should send the president the same bill he vetoed again and again until he realizes he has no choice but to start bringing our troops home.

Well, they didn't. But that was the correct strategy, that or telling the Republicans there will be no more votes on funding unless they get a discharge petition signed by 218 members of Congress, forcing the minority into the majority and pinning the blame for the blank check squarely on them.

But let me go back to Edwards' assailing of the "war on terror" myth. This might as well have come off of a blog:

The war on terror is a slogan designed only for politics, not a strategy to make America safe. It's a bumper sticker, not a plan. It has damaged our alliances and weakened our standing in the world. As a political "frame," it's been used to justify everything from the Iraq War to Guantanamo to illegal spying on the American people. It's even been used by this White House as a partisan weapon to bludgeon their political opponents. Whether by manipulating threat levels leading up to elections, or by deeming opponents "weak on terror," they have shown no hesitation whatsoever about using fear to divide.

But the worst thing about this slogan is that it hasn't worked. The so-called "war" has created even more terrorism—as we have seen so tragically in Iraq. The State Department itself recently released a study showing that worldwide terrorism has increased 25% in 2006, including a 40% surge in civilian fatalities.

Edwards is clear-eyed enough to look at the phrase IN PRACTICE and determine that it lacks meaning. It was obvious as soon as other authoritarians like Putin started using "war on terror" to justify their consolidation of power that this was not a helpful way to look at a multifaceted problem. Furthermore, he looked to the past and drew the right lessons:

Bush defenders have tried to crown him the love child of Winston Churchill and Harry Truman, full of steely resolve and great moral clarity. But of course, Churchill and Truman understood that managing the post-war peace was just as important and winning the military conflict. Likewise, American foreign policy in the first two decades of the Cold War relied on a combination of military might and more liberal interventionist measures—student exchanges, foreign assistance, and so forth. There's no reason to cede ground on "strong foreign policy" to a bunch of Republicans who want us to hide under the covers every time the President de-classifies a two-year old conversation.

Unfortunately, our lizard brains are still so saturated with this nonsensical, bipolar view of the world, that too many of us can't conceive of a foreign policy that's not grounded in an enemy, one that considers George Marshall to have done far more for world peace than an MX missile. The White House, Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani let loose with their own attacks, saying that Edwards isn't facing reality and is in denial. Medium John summed up these attacks with one killer phrase:

"George Bush has made America less safe and less respected in the world. What we are seeing now in this campaign is John McCain, Rudy Giuliani and the other Republicans running for president of the United States are trying to be a bigger, badder George Bush. Is that really what America wants over the next four years?"

That's friggin' beautiful. It yokes the GOP candidates to an unpopular President, and shows that they are wedded to this wrong-headed, deliberately stupid, fearmongering policy that ought to be rejected by the entire nation. Edwards is showing real leadership here by sticking his neck out on this.

UPDATE: Edwards sent this to my inbox:

About an hour ago, the Senate caved to President Bush and sent him another blank check to continue the war in Iraq.

This is a serious blow for all of us, but no one lost more today than the troops in the field who continue to sacrifice so nobly and their families still waiting back home.

It's a hard moment, but you and I don't have the luxury of getting discouraged. We must remember: This is not over. For those of us committed to change, it has only begun.

This weekend, thousands of us will take action in our communities to support the troops and end the war. We will speak out in public. We will send care packages to soldiers in Iraq. We will gather letters for Congress and the president. And on Memorial Day, we will remember and honor those who sacrificed everything for their nation.

You can do a lot worse than running against the Senate right now. Support the Troops, End The War. I'll be out there this Memorial Day.

UPDATE II: Of course, the best news of the week for the Edwards campaign is that Bob Shrum bashed him in some book of his, making it extremely unlikely that "The Cooler" himself will ever work for him.