On the Partisan Divide and Keeping America Safe
Below is the transcript of an interview with White House hopeful Senator Barack Obama by Reader's Digest Washington Bureau Chief William Beaman.RD: Every candidate likes to say they’re going to bridge the partisan divide. And I’m curious what concrete things you could do to take this beyond the realm of rhetoric. Might you, for example, name people from the other party to key positions?Obama: Absolutely. I think one of the things we need to return to is a sense of public service that transcends party. And how you appoint is one of those signals. Because there’s no monopoly on wisdom in the Democratic Party. There are colleagues of mine in the Republican Party that I have great regard for, have technical expertise, and one of the things that I would like to see us do is return to a point where we’re making decisions based on reason and fact, and when you’re making decisions based on reason and fact and good judgment, usually you can bridge ideological divides because whatever our presuppositions, they are less important than the evidence before us. And that’s the kind of government where typically we’ve made progress in the past and I’d like to see us make progress in the future.
RD: A number of candidates have used the historical term “the indispensable nation” with regard to the United States, and they’re talking of course about the power and influence that we project around the world and can project. What would you like to do with that power and influence?
Obama: The first priority of any President has to be to keep the American people safe. And so part of our power has to be deployed to deal with a very real terrorist threat. We’ve seen what’s happened in London, and I think it would be naive to think that simply through diplomacy we’re going to deal with what is a set of ideologically driven fanatics. So we’ve got to deploy our power militarily. But what we also have to recognize is that keeping America safe involves giving other countries an investment in order. It’s preferable to work diplomatically than to stir up trouble. It’s important to make sure that the young people in their countries are succeeding and prospering and not just looking through the glass at our own success.
So when I look at how we’ll lead over the next several decades, what I’ll be looking for are opportunities for Americans to work on transnational threats that everybody has to be concerned about. Climate change and the issue of energy is an area where we have interests that we share with China and India because they’re having to develop rapidly and pollution is choking them. And if we can come up with cleaner energy strategies, that’s good for us, it’s good for them and good for the entire planet.
The issue of nuclear proliferation, an area where we can lead not only by forcing Iran and North Korea to stand down, but also by re-negotiating with Russia on the ways that we can bring our own nuclear stockpiles down.
And doubling our foreign aid budget and investing it strategically, and not in ways that lead to increased corruption or fattening the Swiss bank accounts of dictators but identifying areas like malaria medicine or schools or digging wells or making sure that women are getting the kinds of education they need to prosper. Those are all investments that over time can save us money, make us more secure and show to the world that we’re concerned with their human security, broadly defined. And that we’re not just concerned with ourselves. That’s usually how we best lead—that was true after World War II, that will be true in the future as well.
RD: Let me look at one important subset of this. The Iraq War has thrown into sharp relief just when we commit forces, when we choose a military response. Is there an Obama Doctrine—when it’s appropriate for the U.S. to use military force and when it’s not?
Obama: I discuss this in my book, The Audacity of Hope. We always have the right to engage militarily for our own self-defense and for our vital national interests. So I reject a false division between those who say we can only act multilaterally or we should just ignore the world. There are going to be times where we’ve got to act unilaterally. I think that, with respect to the Taliban in Afghanistan, had not the rest of the world agreed to go in, we would still have gone in because they were harboring people who killed U.S. citizens and were an imminent threat and danger.
But what I’ve also said is wherever we have the opportunity, and the threat is not imminent, it makes sense for us to build coalitions, for our own purposes. Because we’re more likely to gain legitimacy in the world and that means we’re going to get increased cooperation militarily in terms of air space or places to base or launch military actions. Subsequently, after we’ve won the war on the ground, people are going to be more invested in helping reconstruction and to rebuild nations. That will put less of a burden on our troops, less of a burden on our taxpayers, and we’re more likely to succeed and meet our objectives. And so, it’s a very utilitarian notion about why we should want other countries to be of help. We will be more successful. But have no doubt—there are going to be times when we have to act to protect our interests regardless of what the United Nations does.
On Iraq and Hillary Clinton
RD: What would the first one hundred days of an Obama presidency look like?Obama: My hope is that we have made progress on Iraq and we’ve seen enough Republican Congressmen and Senators conclude that the course we’re on isn’t sensible, that we’ve got a timetable in place and we’ve begun an orderly withdrawal of our combat troops. I’m not wildly optimistic, and so I anticipate that despite the efforts of myself and others over the next several months in the Senate, that we will still be dealing with Iraq. And my first job is to bring the Joint Chiefs of Staff in, and the commanders on the ground, and come up with a sensible plan that combines a change of course militarily with an aggressive ramping up of our diplomatic efforts. So that would be priority number one, because I don’t think we can make progress internationally so long as that cloud lingers over us.
And the second thing will be to introduce a universal health bill within the first 100 days. We put forward a rather specific plan about how we would save money, drastically reduce the cost of the system, gain efficiencies, improve quality, take the money that’s saved to provide coverage for those who need it. Part of that process would be re-negotiating the prescription drug bill, the Medicare drug bill, so that our seniors can start benefiting from lower costs of prescription drugs or at least we can close the doughnut hole that I think has been tough for them. I would make sure that we are providing Medicare and care for the chronically ill, that insurance companies are participating in the pools that we’ve set up and can’t discriminate on the basis of pre-existing conditions. So there are a whole host of steps, but my goal would be … and by the way, I’d want to present this plan not as a done deal but present a basic outline to work with Congress and members of both parties to get it done. And say to the insurance companies and drug companies. You can have a seat at the table -- you just can’t buy all the chips.
So that would be my number one domestic priority. In subsequent days, I would want to move aggressively on an energy bill because I think that’s another area where we have a potential convergence between national security hawks, environmental greens, people who are just concerned with their pocket book and what’s happening at the gas tank. I think we can really bring the country together around an aggressive energy plan that will involve increasing fuel efficiency standards, ratcheting down greenhouse gas emissions and setting up an auction for those emissions that generate monies we can use to create a very aggressive exploration for alternative fuels.
RD: Hillary Clinton has been saying a lot lately that she’s ready to be President. You’re her chief rival, and the implication to many is that she’s saying she’s ready, and you’re not. Do you think she has it exactly opposite—do you think you’re ready, and she’s not?
Obama: I think that I am prepared to bring about the changes that the country is looking for in a way that no other candidate in this political race can accomplish. When you say lead, the question is always where? And I have tremendous respect for Senator Clinton and the other candidates in the race, but I wouldn’t be in this race if I didn’t believe that I can lead us out of the political gridlock that has characterized us for more than just the last six years, that has characterized us for the last decade and a half. That’s the challenge before us. We’re not going to be able to make progress on any of these plans, any of these issues, any of these laundry lists that all of us lay out there unless we can get a working majority in this country. And I believe I’ve got the capacity to bring in new people into the process to bridge racial divisions, partisan divisions, divisions around faith, such that we can actually start getting some things done.
RD: Thank you
Obama: Thank you. I enjoyed it.