EU-DIGEST

US Foreign policy hawks launch new campaign against Obama - by Jim Lobe

Just days after the Nobel Committee in Oslo awarded Barack Obama its coveted peace prize, two of Washington's most prominent foreign policy hawks launched a new group and ad campaign designed to depict the president as weak and defend the more aggressive policies of his predecessor, George W. Bush. The new group, Keep America Safe, was co-founded by neo-conservative heavyweight William Kristol, who also edits The Weekly Standard; and Elisabeth (Liz) Cheney, the outspoken daughter of Bush's vice president, Dick Cheney, who is believed to harbor political ambitions of her own. “Amidst the great challenges to America's security and prosperity, the current administration too often seems uncertain, wishful, irresolute, and unwilling to stand up for America, our allies and our interests,” according to the mission statement of the new group, whose third founder-director, Debra Burlingame, is also co-founder of 9/11 Families for a Safe and Strong America.

Labels: US. Political

How Drug-Industry Lobbyists Got Their Way on Health Care in America - by Karin Tumulty and Michael Scherer

The drug industry's legion of registered lobbyists numbers 1,228, or 2.3 for every member of Congress. And its campaign contributions to current members of Waxman's committee have totaled $2.6 million over the past three years. The return on that investment has been considerable, both in the House and in the Senate. "We've done very well," says lobbyist Jim Greenwood, a former Republican Congressman from Pennsylvania who was a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee and now heads the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO). "We carried a majority of the Democrats and a majority of the Republicans in each of the committees, and by very clear margins."

Whether the broader public is benefiting from the industry's success is less clear. How Greenwood's group has scored decisive early victories on an obscure but crucial health-care provision is a case study in how interest groups are shaping the contours of health-care reform — and why that's not necessarily good news for consumers.

Labels: Health Care, US. Political

US Political developments: Obama Tilts to Center, Inviting a Clash of Ideas - by David Sanger

President-elect Barack Obama won the Democratic nomination with the enthusiastic support of the left wing of his party, fueled by his vehement opposition to the decision to invade Iraq and by one of the most liberal voting records in the Senate.Now, his reported selections for two of the major positions in his cabinet — Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton as secretary of state and Timothy F. Geithner as secretary of the Treasury — suggest that Mr. Obama is planning to govern from the center-right of his party, surrounding himself with pragmatists rather than ideologues. The reason, several of Mr. Obama’s transition team members say, is that they believe that the new administration will have no time for a learning curve. With the country facing a deep recession or worse, global market turmoil, chaos in Pakistan and a worsening war in Afghanistan, “there’s going to be no time for experimentation,” a member of the Obama foreign policy team said. That explains Mr. Obama’s first selection: Rahm Emanuel, another centrist Democrat and former member of the Clinton White House, as his chief of staff.

In some ways, the choices made so far are reminiscent of the way the last senator to be elected president, John F. Kennedy, chose a cabinet. As president-elect, Kennedy soon picked three top officials significantly more conservative than he was: Dean Rusk as secretary of state, Robert S. McNamara as secretary of defense and C. Douglas Dillon, a Republican, as secretary of the Treasury. They helped him navigate the Cuban missile crisis, but also got him bogged down in Vietnam.

Labels: Obama Cabinet, Rap, US. Political

Bush accelerated U.S. decline - by Jean Pierre Lehmann

Jean-Pierre Lehmann, a professor of international political economy at IMD, has said, “I share the opinion of those who see Bush as one of the worst presidents the U.S. has had. Although the U.S. relative decline was perhaps inevitable, Bush has accelerated this process in many ways: economically, politically, morally.” In a recent interview with the Mehr News Agency, Lehmann added, “The catastrophic Middle East policy of the Bush administration is both a cause and a reflection of this phenomenon. Many things have been made worse, nothing has been accomplished on the positive side. The policy has also been riddled with contradictions.” On the U.S. policy toward Iran, he stated, “The main mistake of the U.S., ie not just Bush's, is not to have re-established diplomatic relations with Iran. Diplomatic relations exist not just for countries that happen to agree with each other, but especially for those that do not agree, so that they can continue dialogue. Even during the worst times of the cold war, Russia and U.S. maintained diplomatic relations.”

Labels: George Bush, US. Political

A post-Bush America is not about to fall at Europe's feet - by Martin Kettle

If a week is a long time in politics, a year is an eternity. Yet this is an important time to look ahead. In 12 months we will at last know who is to succeed George Bush in the White House. Right now, the outcome of that contest is difficult to predict. Nevertheless the election will shape the context of international affairs until well into the coming decade. For those who want to set a course for Britain and Europe during those years, it is not too soon to start thinking and preparing. For the moment, what is important is to recognize two things. The first is that the November 2008 election is absolutely not a shoo-in for the Democrats, despite their strong general poll position and Bush's unpopularity. A President Rudy Giuliani or a President Mitt Romney remains as open a possibility as a President Hillary Clinton or a President Barack Obama. The second is that the new US administration, of whatever party stripe, will preside over a far less benign political moment for the world than many, not least in our continent, currently assume.

If that analysis is right, it means two big things for Europe. First, European nations must build up defence capacity, not run it down. Second, Europe must integrate its military more. This poses existential choices for many European countries, and for Britain it goes like this: if we want to play a role in addressing the world's security challenges, we cannot do it on our own. Nor, after the political humiliation of Iraq, can we do it as bag carrier to an increasingly wary US. We can best do it as Europeans, by ensuring that Europe does its share and that all Europeans, Britain included, invest in it. But perhaps, like Americans after Bush, we're all now in the mood just to stay at home for a while.

Labels: US, US. Political

First Maltese coffee shop chain to hit Europe - by Kurt Farrugia

In just under ten years three entrepreneurial Gozitan brothers, Alex, Mario and Anthony Scicluna have managed to set up one of the most trendy coffee-shops in Gozo, move to open another two outlets in Malta and are now ready to hit Europe by making their brand a franchise and selling it to Eastern European Countries.

Labels: Britain, EU, France, Germany, Press, Sarkozy, US, US. Political

White House now exercising power without influence

To understand how embattled President Bush has become, consider the difference between power and influence.

During President Bill Clinton's final six years, the Republican-led majority in Congress issued more than 1,000 subpoenas to the White House; during Mr. Bush's first term, the Republicans issued none. Of course, this is the same Republican majority that took 140 hours of sworn testimony about alleged misuse of the Clintons' Christmas card list but a mere 12 hours on the Abu Ghraib prison scandal.

Labels: Bush, Influence, US. Political