who is Obama going to choose as his Secretary of State? we can get some idea from the type of people he's using for diplomacy now.
November 12, 2008, 1:01 pm Albright and Leach to Meet With Leaders Attending Economic Summit By Peter Baker CHICAGO — President-elect Barack Obama won't be attending this weekend's global economic summit hosted by President Bush, but he designated a bipartisan team of surrogates Wednesday to sit down with visiting foreign delegations on his behalf. Former Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright, who served under President Bill Clinton, and former Representative Jim Leach, a Republican from Iowa who endorsed Mr. Obama during the campaign, will get together in "unofficial meetings" with leaders or their advisers from some of the Group of 20 nations while they are in Washington, Mr. Obama's office said. "This weekend's summit is an important opportunity to hear from the leaders of many of the world's largest economies," Denis McDonough, Mr. Obama's senior foreign policy adviser, said in a statement. "President Bush should be commended for calling the summit. There is one president at a time, so the President-elect has asked Secretary Albright and Congressman Leach, an experienced and bipartisan team, to be available to meet with and listen to our friends and allies on his behalf." ... ---------------- I don't know much about Leach, except the following, from the Wikipedia: >The legislation he is perhaps best known for is the 1999 Gramm-Leach-Bliley >Act, one of the seminal pieces of banking legislation of the 20th century. The >Act repealed part of the 1933 Glass-Steagall Act which separated commercial >and investment banking. Glass-Steagall was passed in 1933 to curb excessive >risk-taking and conflicts of interests which contributed to the Great >Depression. The passage of Gramm-Leach-Bliley has been criticized as >contributing to the subprime mortgage crisis.< that doesn't say much about his diplomatic approach. From the same source: >As Chairman of the Arms Control and Foreign Policy Caucus, he pressed for a >Comprehensive Test Ban and led the first House debate on a nuclear freeze. He >objected to military unilateralism as reflected in the Iran-Contra policy of >the 1980s. He pushed for full funding of U.S. obligations to the United >Nations, supported U.S. re-entry into UNESCO, and opposed U.S. withdrawal from >the compulsory jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice. > While he supported the first Gulf War in 1991, Leach voted against the > authorization to use force against Iraq in 2002. He was one of only six House > Republicans to vote against the resolution.[1] Once the Congress committed to > war, however, he held that it would be folly to assume it could be funded > with tax cuts and therefore he was the only Republican to vote against the > 2003 tax cut.... > As a member of the minority [party] for his first nine terms, he became known > for the development of three unique, unusually substantive reports – one in > the 1980s calling for a more progressive approach to Central American > politics; a second in the early 1990s on reforming the United Nations written > for a national commission he legislatively established and later chaired; and > the third issued when he was ranking minority member of the Banking Committee > on the challenges of regulating derivatives.< It's just possible that GOPster Leach is less of a bloody-minded imperialist than the DP's Albright. -- Jim Devine / "Nobody told me there'd be days like these / Strange days indeed -- most peculiar, mama." -- JL. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
