Posted on 11/19/2008 8:25:04 AM PST by stan_sipple
Ted Sorensen said Tuesday the election of Barack Obama makes him even more proud of his country and “more optimistic” about its future.
The president-elect is “up to any task, any challenge,” Sorensen said.
As one foreign statesman told him in a private letter, Sorensen said, “the day Obama walks into the White House, respect for the United States will rise immeasurably all over the world.”
The election of the country’s first black president “says good things about America,” Sorensen said.
Sorensen, who was chief adviser and speechwriter for President John F. Kennedy, was in Lincoln for a series of events headlined by a Tuesday night address to a full house of more than 2,000 at the Lied Center.
During a news conference prior to that E. N. Thompson Forum lecture, Sorensen confided that he once advised Obama to consider delaying any presidential ambitions until 2012 or 2016, or even later, since the next president would “inherit a country in bad shape.”
“But this was his moment,” Sorensen said.
Now, he said, Obama needs to gather “a ministry of talent” around him without regard to party affiliation or earlier opposition to him.
What is required are talented people who are “dedicated to this country’s national interest and nothing else,” Sorensen said.
Sen. Chuck Hagel is the ideal Republican choice for the Obama Cabinet, Sorensen said.
“Of all the Republicans who might fit, I think Hagel is at the top of the list,” Sorensen said.
“He’s not a narrow partisan (and) he has demonstrated statesmanship on foreign policy and national security.”
Sorensen said Hagel would be a good choice for secretary of defense.
Asked about Obama’s consideration of Sen. Hillary Clinton as secretary of state, Sorensen suggested Clinton would be “a great secretary of health and human services.”
Sorensen pointed to economic challenges first when discussing the “tough agenda” that lies ahead for Obama.
But energy, global warming and health care are also in line.
“Nebraska has a great deal to contribute” in terms of alternative energy options, he said, including biofuels and wind.
Sorensen said Obama will restore America’s use of diplomacy, including multilateral diplomacy, as the first resort in an international crisis rather than turning to military force.
“We can’t bomb our way into respect,” he said, or to “impose democracy on other countries.”
Gone will be the embrace of torture, indefinite detention, denial of habeas corpus and extraordinary rendition, he said.
Gone, Sorensen said, will be “eight years of shame and pain.”
In his Lied Center speech, Sorensen contrasted Kennedy’s actions during the 1962 Cuban missile crisis with President Bush’s decision to attack Iraq in 2003.
Kennedy, he said, respected international law, relied on a bipartisan foreign policy, consulted with allies, demanded and considered all options, exercised wise leadership, and informed the American people.
And, he said, Kennedy “communicated, or negotiated, with the enemy,” which in that case was the Soviet Union. The result was peaceful removal of Soviet missiles from Cuba, he said.
Asked how Kennedy might have responded differently to the terrorist attacks on America on Sept. 11, 2001, Sorensen said he likes to believe that Kennedy already would have “sought out moderates and modernists in Islam” to attempt to reconcile already visible differences.
And, he said, Kennedy would have reacted immediately to a CIA briefing report in August warning of an impending domestic attack by al Qaida instead of just “going to his ranch.”
Obama, he said, will be like Kennedy.
“Beginning next January we will have a new president with a creative mind, a compassionate heart and a courageous spirit,” he said.
Sorensen, who was born and educated in Lincoln, met with students at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln earlier in the day. He’ll be at Lincoln High School on Wednesday.
If he’s so confident about this, why does he need to come right out and tell us? Hmmmmmm!!!!!!
Yeah, let’s go with Ted Sorenson’s opinion, because, you know, Kennedy scored such high marks with the Bay of Pigs.
Memo to the Journal-Star management...
New draft policy:
Editor Skippy is not allowed to republish Onion articles as actual news stories.
Respect for the US will sink to a new low in this country.
Ted Sorensen: butt-boy for the buck-toothed
And assassinating Diem was brillant!
Another lame comparison to Kennedy.
Aside from a great inauguration speech (which Sorenson probably wrote), can someone tell me what Kennedy’s accomplishments were (no points for Peace Corps - welfare jobs for college students, and the host countries were begging for engineers and doctors, not “teachers”) other than his handling of the Cuban Missile Crisis, and I’ve heard rumblings that others were actually responsible for its success through their use of the back channels.
I wish John F. Kennedy were our President right now. He would cut taxes, not raise them. and our economy would be better for it.
“his handling of the Cuban Missile Crisis”
The `crisis’ came about following Kennedy’s feckless handling of the Cuban invasion resulting in the Bay of Pigs fiasco, the downing of F.G. Powers’ U-2 and then JFK’s weakness at the Vienna Conference.
Kruschev concluded (& reasonably I think) `We can run on this guy ...’.
So I’m not sure it’s fair to credit him with solving a problem he helped create: two superpowers standing at the nuclear brink for over a week.
Obama is cut from the same cloth, however, so it’s OK to be very afraid.
It seems like it was just yesterday when they were saying this about Bush. /s
Kennedy wasn’t that great. He was and is overhyped.
Gagging is too mild. Hagel would be a disaster. I am retired military having been both enlisted and officer. I have always disliked this idea that because someone had a military background and/or combat experience is better suited lead the military. Too many who are considered have experience like Hagel, a tour of combat are incompetent to lead anything. Serving in the military, even for a career, does not make you qualified to lead the military. Generals like Powell or Clark are political climbers who achieved high rank by way of influence both inside and outside of the military. Should you have a basic understanding of the military — absolutely but you also need to understand history and a lot of other things as well. The best suited civilian to be SecDef might be a senior analyst, a business leader with proven LEADERSHIP skills not just management skills. Leaders lead people, managers manage things and processes. Within the military most of the time the real leaders rise no further than field grade because they are leading instead of making political connections and doing all of the right jobs.
I noticed Powell never got a division command. He admits some serious errors during his assistanct division command period at Fort Carson.
He may have not needed to command a division in the eyes of his sponsors. He would not be the first to be jumped in rank without having held all of the “key” jobs deemed necessary for promotion.
Of course, there are special promotion tracks for “transformational” military officers.
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