“‘I disagree with Obama on the war but I don’t think it is a test of his patriotism,’ Martin says. ‘Obama has a message of hope for the country.‘” Come on aboard, you won’t hurt the horse: Disillusioned Republicans wander over to the Obama bandwagon, including “Power and Weakness” author Robert Kagan. “In an article in the Washington Post, Kagan wrote approvingly that a keynote speech by Obama at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs was ‘pure John Kennedy’, a neocon hero of the cold war…’Personally, I liked it,’ Kagan wrote.” And, really, after seeing what the Republicans have to offer at the first debate last week, can you blame him or anyone else for defecting?
Tag: Robert Kagan
A Lack of Liberal Imagination.
Paul Berman of TNR writes on what Dubya could learn from Lincoln, explicitly refuting the Kagan “Power and Weakness” piece linked the other day. (For their part, National Review is offering up Madison instead.)
When (Old New and New Old) Worlds Collide.
I am very late to the table with this link, but oh well. A friend of mine in the department passed along this recent controversial essay, Robert Kagan’s “Power and Weakness”, on the philosophical underpinnings of foreign policy differences between Europe and the US today. I don’t agree with everything he has to say (the Morrison and Worley responses here point out some key flaws, for example – is all of transatlantic difference really reducible to a question of disparate power?), but it is food for thought nonetheless.