Cast your mind back to the 2000 Election. Lots of yammer-yammer about Social Security. Abortion. Gun Control. The Clinton Economy. The Clinton Scandals.<\/p>\n
What didn’t you hear about?<\/p>\n
Foreign Policy.<\/i><\/p>\n
The US public hates to talk about foreign policy. Because it’s scary. It requires thought, and education, and difficult decisions. It requires considering other viewpoints. It requires deciding the extent to which we should impose our beliefs on others, negotiate them, or simply let others do what they will — all of the above for good and for evil.<\/p>\n
That’s not to say that foreign policy hasn’t been critical across all our past administrations. Viet Nam. Detente. Iran. Tienmin Square. Ethiopia. Iraq. The collapse of the Eastern Bloc. The Balkins. And, everyone’s favorite, Israel and the Palestinians. <\/p>\n
Every president has had to face US obligations to and interests in the world. But aside from some joking about Dubya not knowing how to pronounce the names of foreign countries, let alone foreign leaders, there was almost nothing in Election 2000(TM) that had anything to do with matters outside of US borders.<\/p>\n
Well, matters outside of US borders have now crossed our borders.<\/p>\n
I wonder how future presidential elections will be different. Or if.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Cast your mind back to the 2000 Election. Lots of yammer-yammer about Social Security. Abortion. Gun Control. The Clinton Economy. The Clinton Scandals. What didn’t you hear about? Foreign Policy….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[10,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1098","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geopolitical-brouhaha","category-politics-law"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":50052,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/04\/13\/alas-the-2016-election-in-a-nutshell.html","url_meta":{"origin":1098,"position":0},"title":"Alas, the 2016 Election in a Nutshell","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 13-Apr-15 5:42am","format":false,"excerpt":"It's possibly too early to consider Clinton's nomination a done deal, but that's the way I would bet. And given that ...The article offers up every tired cliche for compromising on progressive principles in the face of electoral reality, but they're tired because they keep coming up and they remain\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2889,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2002\/09\/09\/stability.html","url_meta":{"origin":1098,"position":1},"title":"Stability","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 9-Sep-02 10:28am","format":false,"excerpt":"Should stability be the be-all and end-all of the US foreign policy? Based on how our pursuit of stability has tended to betray our core values on behalf of dictators,...","rel":"","context":"In "Geopolitical Brouhaha"","block_context":{"text":"Geopolitical Brouhaha","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/geopolitical-brouhaha"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":26870,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/03\/06\/yet-another-foreign-policy-dolt-running-for-the-gop-nomination.html","url_meta":{"origin":1098,"position":2},"title":"Yet another foreign-policy dolt running for the GOP nomination","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 6-Mar-12 2:09pm","format":false,"excerpt":"And, apparently, winning.So let me get this straight: right now, probably the most important (certainly the most talked-about) foreign policy challenge for the United States is what to do about Iran. You would think, you would hope, that the leading contender for the nomination would be so fully briefed on\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":30797,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/10\/23\/speaking-of-foreign-policy-and-the-candidates.html","url_meta":{"origin":1098,"position":3},"title":"Speaking of foreign policy and the candidates","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 23-Oct-12 9:09pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Of course, that people polled in both China and France prefer Obama to Romney probably wouldn't do Obama much good among the American electorate. In fact, probably the opposite.(Not surprising the Pakistanis are the only ones polled who prefer Obama less. That's because Romney isn't lobbing drones into their country.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":41627,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/04\/08\/ignorance-is-foreign-policy-bliss.html","url_meta":{"origin":1098,"position":4},"title":"Ignorance Is (Foreign Policy) Bliss","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 8-Apr-14 8:26am","format":false,"excerpt":"The further off people are from knowing where the Ukraine actually is, the more favorable they are toward\u00a0military intervention there. Hell of a way to run a superpower.(h\/t +Kee Hinckley)Reshared post from +David BrinOnly one out of six Americans can find Ukraine on a map. Even worse: the farther their\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1163,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2001\/10\/05\/to_yammer_or_no.html","url_meta":{"origin":1098,"position":5},"title":"To yammer, or not to yammer","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 5-Oct-01 9:28am","format":false,"excerpt":"Victory Blog cites a Slate article on \"War and Commentary.\" The article touches on what responsibilities a commentator, editorialist, or writer in general has during a time of crisis, both...","rel":"","context":"In "Fourth Estate"","block_context":{"text":"Fourth Estate","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/fourth-estate"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1098","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1098"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1098\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1098"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1098"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1098"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}