Princeton Dean First Female To Head Clinton State Department’s Think Tank
February 5, 2009
by Gretchen Glasscock
|Reposted from Gretchen Glasscock’s blog, Advancing Women. Gretchen Glasscock is a co-founder and contributing writer to The New Agenda. Ed.
As NJ.com reports in “Princeton dean departs for Washington to work for Clinton,”
Anne-Marie Slaughter has resigned as dean of the prestigious Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs to serve the first female director of the State department’s Office of Policy Planning, reporting directly to new Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is very clearly building out a robust and experienced team to deal with the multi-pronged challenges the U.S. faces abroad. She immediately brought on board a successful peace negotiator, George Mitchell, to tackle the Mideast, and Todd Stern, who led the US delegation to the Kyoto talks in 1997, to work toward reaching agreements to reduce global pollution. Clinton reached outside of the State Department to discuss concerns regarding the global economic downturn and issues regarding China with Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner. We are sure to hear more about that.
And by bringing on Slaughter, an expert on global governance and American foreign policy, who co-chairs the Princeton Project on National Security, and serves on the board of the Council on Foreign Relations, Clinton is putting in place a philosophical underpinning which can guide the State Department’s actions, rather than simply “putting out whatever fire is burning brightest”. She also appears to be putting a stake in the ground about the termination of practices which erode civil rights, for any global citizen, and which undermine the core principles on which this country was founded.
Slaughter, said to be one of our country’s finest legal minds, in her most recent book The Idea that Is America: Keeping Faith with Our Values in a Dangerous World, explores the relationship between the United States’ power and the bedrock principles upon which our country rests. She lays out a vision that, despite aggression and adversity in the world, America should fight to retain its basic values of justice and tolerance in addition to liberty, democracy and equality. In other words, no Guantanamo Bay. No torture.
This shift in policy thinking at the highest levels suggests a paradigm shift in how America will deal with the rest of the world, the values which will come into play, and the more just and tolerant approach we might expect when dealing with other countries, even those who don’t always agree with us.
I, for one, see this as a very welcome change, and one which might bring more of our distant neighbors back into that circle of collaboration and trust on which so much of the world depends for safety and progress. For me anyway, the positive steps in this direction convince me of what the data suggests: women do approach politics, legislation and diplomacy with a bit kinder and more nurturing touch.
“women do approach politics, legislation and diplomacy with a bit kinder and more nurturing touch.”
Maybe, maybe not – History doesn’t fully support this assertion and make it clearly convincing but it is long overdue for women to give it their best shot having been denied the opportunity for so long.
“Clinton is putting in place a philosophical underpinning which can guide the State Department’s actions, rather than simply “putting out whatever fire is burning brightest”.
Some fires, like the ethnic cleansing in Bosnia and Kosovo and Saddam Hussein’s pillaging of Kuwait have to be put out with force. Let’s hope she has what it takes to stop the killing and raping in Darfur.
Perhaps OT but at hillaryis44.org and elsewhere I’m seeing a lot of confusion about ‘family planning’ vs ‘planned parenthood’ and what their services consist of, etc etc. Could someone really well-informed sort this out?
Thanks Gretchen for keeping us up to date on our Secretary of State. She’s very inspirational to watch. I’m sure you join alot of us in looking forward to following her trip to Asia next week.
goesh
Yes, exactly. My politics are such that I’m not of the mind that the priority is to make sure the rest of the world loves us. It’s one of many aspects of Obama’s presidency that scares the wits out of me. Every country’s top priority must be national security or all else is moot. And, like it or not, as you pointed out, fires do errupt in this complex world of good AND evil and they must be dealt with accordingly. Likewise, there are those in this world that would not mind doing us harm, lest we forget 9/11 was not so long ago. And with Samantha Powers on board seemingly tracking Clinton’s moves, my worry radar increases all that much more. So, I don’t view Ms. Slaughter as any automatic reason to cheer. Things are more complex than being able to reduce it all down to male or female. There ARE issues and many of us have alliances and sympathies that are not only aligned with women’s issues but with others, as well, creating a complex framework in which to live and make decisions, but this is life…
“She immediately brought on board a successful peace negotiator, George Mitchell, to tackle the Mideast.”
Just as an fyi, many Jews do not view Mitchell as a successful peace negotiator. He is bad news for Israel in the eyes of many, just so this perspective is part of this thread.
OT question:
Summary: “A Senate panel postponed a scheduled vote Thursday on President Obama’s nomination of Representative Hilda L. Solis as labor secretary, a day after questions were raised about tax liens against her husband’s business.”
Story here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02.....tml?ref=us
Question:
Do nominations of men also get held up over wives’ tax issues? Or is this a “women only matter with respect to their husbands” and “women don’t do anything serious with money anyway” thing?
Digger – I have wondered that myself as a pattern seems to be emerging. (Wasn’t that part of Ferraro’s problems back in the day?)
Research anyone????
Anna,
You wrote, “There ARE issues and many of us have alliances and sympathies that are not only aligned with women’s issues but with others, as well, creating a complex framework in which to live and make decisions.”
I agree; but is it possible to set aside some of those other issues to work together on other, shared goals? Understanding that those “other issues” aren’t exactly trifles… abortion, guns, religion, military, sex, etc, etc.
I think its really difficult, but it can be done. Politics makes for strange bedfellows, we’ve all seen it in action; time for some strange bedsisters in politics too! (which, can I say, sounds like more fun anyhow?)
Digger – Sorry, but there are some issues that trump others, places where a line gets drawn in the sand beyond which I cannot cross. It’s called having a world view. So, I do my best, find common ground where I can, and work within those areas that I have a passion and commitment that is deep and lasting. It’s hard and complex.
ugh – a grammatically pitiful post…
Anna,
Yes, Geraldine Ferraro was attacked through her husband. The GOP made a big investigation of his real estate/investment business looking for anything they could, er, investigate and make sound unethical. This was unprecedented at the time and a great grief to him.
Ferraro was also made a target by rightwing and/or anti-abortion people; they did well-organized alerts about everywhere she was going to be appearing so they could go and demonstrate against her. It was awful, like the hatred of Hillary later.
I don’t know what Ferraro’s actual position was on abortion or other issues that might have angered them. But between this and the investigation of her husband, it was definitely a pile on and destroy thing. Perhaps worse than with Palin….
Anna,
From your earlier posts:
“Just as an fyi, many Jews do not view Mitchell as a successful peace negotiator. He is bad news for Israel in the eyes of many, just so this perspective is part of this thread.”
“Digger – Sorry, but there are some issues that trump others, places where a line gets drawn in the sand beyond which I cannot cross. It’s called having a world view.”
This is not intended to be a personal attack. I think that all people have a “world view” of some sort and lines that they are not willing to cross. For some it involves Race, and Race trumps Gender. For some it is Religion, and Religion trumps Gender. For some it is Ethnic Identity, and Ethnic Identity trumps Gender. For some others it is a Political Ideology, and their Ideology trumps Gender.
My understanding is that this group of people is trying to find ways to express Gender issues as being equal to anyll of these other issues.
The way that I try to view it is, when a woman is beaten, raped and murdered that is an atrocity regardless her race, religion, ethnic identity or political ideology. The same holds true with regard to denial of basic human rights for women, expressed as an injustice rather than an atrocity.
John
I agree with most of your third paragraph, though not entirely sure that everyone truly does have a world view, but that’s ok…
Not sure what your point is regarding your last two paragraphs with regards to my posts that you quoted.
Anna,
First, let me say that apparently I was unsure whether I wanted to say any or all and came up with anyll, whatever that might be.
I took the flow of your comments, relative to Digger’s, to mean that there is no possibility of working on shared goals that involve Clinton, Mitchell and/or Slaughter because of your perspective of them relative to national security and policy relating to Israel. It is my hope that to the extent that any or all of these people do work that will improve the lives of women in the world that the people who support TNA would support those efforts.
The second to last paragraph was simply my understanding of the basic purpose of TNA. The last paragraph is part of my personal view of human rights as a subject matter. Together I think they express why I would hope that the people mentioned above would receive support under certain circumstances.
John
Re: the ideas expressed in your second paragraph: I think you made an assumption and stretched my points too broadly. I was merely offering a different perspective on some of what the post put forth, but did not mean to imply that because of that perspecive I would blanketly not want to support any of Clinton’s efforts as SOS, particularly as they pertain to women’s rights.
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