Le chroniqueur Steve Clemons, tr\u00e8s \u00e9cout\u00e9 \u00e0 Washington, \u00e9ventuellement relais d’influence pour les Fran\u00e7ais<\/a>, est plut\u00f4t de tendance r\u00e9publicaine mod\u00e9r\u00e9e et r\u00e9aliste. Son homme politique favori est le s\u00e9nateur (r\u00e9publicain) Chuck Hagel<\/a>, qui n’est pas dans la course \u00e0 la pr\u00e9sidence (mais que Clemons aimerait voir \u00e0 un poste de responsabilit\u00e9 de la prochaine pr\u00e9sidence, y compris une pr\u00e9sidence Hillary Clinton<\/a>…). Clemons donne assez peu souvent des avis circonstanci\u00e9s sur les d\u00e9mocrates. Il le fait cette fois, dans une chronique tr\u00e8s int\u00e9ressante en date du 17 d\u00e9cembre<\/a>, o\u00f9 il compare les deux favoris d\u00e9mocrates, notamment d’apr\u00e8s son exp\u00e9rience et ses rencontres avec eux. Il s’agit plut\u00f4t d’un avis de technicien du travail politique \u00e0 Washington, mais aussi d’un avis de sp\u00e9cialiste de politique ext\u00e9rieure, d’un homme (Clemons) qui a \u00e9t\u00e9 longtemps conseiller de politique ext\u00e9rieure du s\u00e9nateur r\u00e9publicain Jeff Bingaman.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \tVerdict sans appel: Hillary est une formidable machine politique certes mais elle a surtout un v\u00e9ritable esprit politique, avec ses id\u00e9es propres, ses conceptions, ses orientations. On comprend que Clemons juge, toutes opinions de parti mises \u00e0 part, qu’elle ferait une formidable pr\u00e9sidente. Obama, par contre, bien que tr\u00e8s intelligent, appara\u00eet bien superficiel \u00e0 Clemons et sans v\u00e9ritable go\u00fbt pour les grandes affaires politiques. Clemons donne notamment l’exemple, qui nous int\u00e9resse sp\u00e9cialement, du travail d’Obama \u00e0 la t\u00eate de la sous-commission (Europe) de la Commission s\u00e9natoriale des Relations Ext\u00e9rieures: quasiment nul, avec aucune audition depuis qu’il en est le pr\u00e9sident. Clemons estime que Obama est moins bon dans ses discours de politique ext\u00e9rieure inspir\u00e9s par l’ancien conseiller de s\u00e9curit\u00e9 du pr\u00e9sident Bill Clinton, Antony Lake, que dans ceux qui sont inspir\u00e9s par l’ancien conseiller de s\u00e9curit\u00e9 nationale du pr\u00e9sident Carter, Zbigniew Brzezinski Le simple fait que Obama puisse, de cette fa\u00e7on, changer d’orientation et de capacit\u00e9 au gr\u00e9 d’influences n’est pas encourageant.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00abThat said, there is a great deal I do admire in Hillary Clinton and one of the things that simply can’t be disputed is her work ethic. I’ve met her a number of times, usually at receptions and each time I decided not to waste the moment with trivial banter but to throw an idea at her or mention a person or issue that would help me understand how real, how informed, or alternatively how contrived she was.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00bbEvery single time she jumped on the issue I brought up and expressed two or three dimensions to the issue that showed she was deeply steeped in this or that policy. In my New America Foundation role, I helped build and support programs as diverse as debates about genetic scientific advancements to family work issues, health care, and wireless spectrum not to mention my own core interests in foreign policy, national security\/defense issues, and international economic policy. Hillary Clinton and I have had quick encounters that involved her sharing incredibly diverse and serious policy commentary.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00bbThe last time I had such a discussion with her was after she had won her last Senate race in New York, and she and Bill Clinton were a bit early to a UN Foundation reception honoring Muhammad Yunus. We had a really interesting discussion about what should be on a roster of 21st century threats and how our national security and foreign policy resources should be reorganized to deal with future challenges rather than keeping vested interests tied to old threats well funded. Her quick grasp of what I was trying to get at and a detailed response that was serious and level-headed really surprised me as I’m used to politicians who typically have to fake their way through detail.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00bbI get the sense that Barack Obama is also extremely intelligent, though I’ve not had the same kind of encounters with him that I have had with Hillary Clinton and thus can’t give personal commentary.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00bbBut I am convinced of something about Hillary Clinton’s commitment to use every lever and every aspect of government machinery to push her legislative and policy work that I’m disappointed to say that I can’t find as strongly in Barack Obama’s profile. My concern has to do with the fact that as Chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations’ Subcommittee on Europe, Obama has held zero hearings at least that is how the record appears to me.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00bbCompare this to the House Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Europe, which is having constant hearings or to the Senate Subcommittee’s work before Obama became Chair or to a comparative commitment of Hillary Clinton on a Subcommittee she chairs, and the zero hearing detail is disconcerting.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t()<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00bbSenator Obama has a great team. Some of his staff are friends and former colleagues of mine though i can say the same about every one of the presidential candidates in both parties.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00bbBut his not calling any hearings in a Senate Subcommittee he chairs ought to raise some questions that he needs to respond to. His Subcommittee deals with Europe, with NATO, with various related political and security matters and he’s got the gavel and can set the agenda.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00bbGiven the stress NATO is experiencing today on many fronts from the question of Europe’s evolving security identity, to NATO’s deployments in Afghanistan, to the evolving question of how to deal with Russia, Kosovo, and other common challenges it seems inconceivable that Senator Obama would not want to highlight important policy concerns by way of hearings.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00bbI hope Senator Obama looks at this post as something to respond constructively to as we need to understand how this gap would be fixed or translate into a White House setting.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00bbBut while I want Hillary Clinton to get more creative (and Nixonian, in the good sense) in looking at foreign policy deal-making through a different lens, particularly on Israel\/Palestine matters and Cuba which are important opportunities to telegraph change in America’s posture to the rest of the world I want to commend the fact that she does work every aspect of the legislative machinery and knows these policy issues well.<\/em>\u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \tMis en ligne le 20 d\u00e9cembre 2007 \u00e0 14H23<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Le chroniqueur Steve Clemons, tr\u00e8s \u00e9cout\u00e9 \u00e0 Washington, \u00e9ventuellement relais d’influence pour les Fran\u00e7ais, est plut\u00f4t de tendance r\u00e9publicaine mod\u00e9r\u00e9e et r\u00e9aliste. Son homme politique favori est le s\u00e9nateur (r\u00e9publicain) Chuck Hagel, qui n’est pas dans la course \u00e0 la pr\u00e9sidence (mais que Clemons aimerait voir \u00e0 un poste de responsabilit\u00e9 de la prochaine pr\u00e9sidence,… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[6179,934,3278,6208],"class_list":["post-69524","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bloc-notes","tag-clemons","tag-clinton","tag-hillary","tag-obama"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69524","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69524"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69524\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}