The Opposite Ways the GOP and Dems Choose a Nominee
• May 3, 2012

Since Franklin Roosevelt was president, Republicans and Democrats have created diametrically opposite methods for choosing their presidential nominees.

Republicans pick a nominee with deep roots in the party, usually a man who previously lost an a run for the presidency. Democrats pick a nominee with virtually no name recognition, shallow roots and who is running for the presidency for the first time.

Republicans know whom they are going to nominate. They go through the motions, but they select one of their own, a proven commodity, a person who has been running since before the previous election. Democrats nominees are a surprise to their own party, to their own voters, to the public and to the Republicans.

Republicans don’t emerge. They run, lose, run again and win. It’s called paying dues. Democratic nominees seem to emerge out of nowhere and have to battle “no experience” charges which continue even if they are elected.

Before Franklin Roosevelt was elected in 1932, the parties’ conventions selected their nominees, so all candidates had deep roots and internal party allegiances. Roosevelt had been Secretary of the Navy and Governor of New York. Entering his fourth election for president, however, Roosevelt changed vice presidents and selected a former clothing store operator, a political pawn, a little known senator. Harry Truman became president a month into Roosevelt’s fourth term, having spent very little time with Roosevelt and was completely unaware that an atomic bomb – that he would order dropped a few months later – was being produced.

Since then, the parties have followed their unique paths to the presidency.

In 1948, the Republicans anointed New York Governor Thomas Dewey, a presumable shoo-in. He was so far ahead, the pollsters quit taking the public pulse in September. Truman prevailed.

In 1952, both parties knew World War II hero, Dwight Eisenhower, would win and begged him to join their party. (Remember both parties pursuing Colin Powell?) Eisenhower picked the Republicans and cruised into the White House. Richard Nixon was his vice president.

In 1960, Nixon moved into position as the Republican nominee. The Democrats selected the little known, little accomplished, junior, but wealthy, Senator John Kennedy. Kennedy defeated his Senate boss, the inside-the-party favorite, Lyndon Johnson. Nixon lost, but he won the nomination – and the presidency – in 1968.

In 1976, President Ford, the country’s only non-elected president, faced a challenge for the Republican nomination. Ronald Reagan was a famous movie star, TV commentator and a popular governor of California, the largest and typically Democratic state. Ford beat him but lost to Jimmy Carter.

Four years later in 1980, Reagan returned and defeated George H. W. Bush for the nomination. George H. W. Bush was a Texas Republican whose father had been a U.S. senator. Bush had been a congressman, had lost a run for the Senate, and had been U.S. Ambassador to China. Reagan picked Bush as his vice president and defeated the sitting President Carter.

In 1988, George H. W. Bush was Mr. Republican Establishment, won the nomination and the election against Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis. Again, Michael Who?

In 2000, the Republicans nominated Texas Governor George W. Bush, who had defeated a popular Democratic governor in 1994. Had his name been George Walker instead of George Walker Bush, he would never have gone to Yale or Harvard, been given an ownership interest and the CEO position of the Texas Rangers major league baseball team and never have run for office. His last name was Bush, and his dad had been President. George W. Bush didn’t have to lose to win, but how establishment can a candidate be?

Since Roosevelt, the Democrats have selected Jimmy Who?, Bill Who? and Barack Huh?

In 1976, Jimmy Carter, better known as Jimmy Who, was a little known, peanut farmer who had served one term as Georgia’s governor. No one on the national scene had ever heard of him. He had a 1-percent name recognition rating going into the Iowa caucuses and defeated a slew of established Democrats for the nomination.

In 1992, establishment Democrats were afraid to run against George H. W. Bush’s 91-percent approval rating. Bill Clinton, another small-state governor who had given an awful speech at the 1988 Democratic National Convention, took the plunge. Most Americans probably cannot find Arkansas on a map. He faced ongoing charges of immoral behavior during the election (and during his presidency).

In 2008, Hilary Clinton had the nomination locked up, but Barak Obama who had served as a U.S. senator for a mere four years, surprised her, the nation and is now president.

When Democrats nominate mainstream candidates, they lose. Vice Presidents Hubert Humphrey, Walter Mondale and Al Gore couldn’t get to the finish line.

What does this mean? The only Republicans running now who have a chance to win are Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich. Romney ran in 2004 and lost. He’s ripe. Gingrich talks about being a Washington outsider, but he lives there and is trying to ride President Reagan’s coattails.

Rick Santorum is not and Jon Huntsman was not really running this year. They are running for the Republican nomination in 2016. Whom will they run against? Some Democrat who has a 1-percent name recognition right now.

Does the President Really Matter?
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From now until November, all of us will be bombarded in print and on the airwaves with political campaign ads, polling numbers, social media advocacy, vitriol and validation.  All focused on the election of one individual to a single office, the President of the United States.  

But in the grand scheme of things, as you watch these campaign commercials, ask yourself this simple question:  Does the president really matter? 

Think about it for just a second. 

There are those who are reasonably certain that the president they elect will be their personal salvation — rendering their household bills suddenly affordable, putting cheap gas in the tanks of their SUVs, reducing crime in their neighborhoods and taking them off the unemployment rolls. 

The perception of the president as having absolute power over one’s life is nothing new.  But it is a naive and polarizing view. 

In the 1840s, Scottish writer Thomas Carlyle wrote that “the history of the world is but the biography of great men.”  Writing about men like Muhammad, Luther and Napoleon, Carlyle theorized that heroic men shape history through both their personal attributes and via divine inspiration — that all great events turned on the great decisions of great men. 

If the entire country defines the chief executive’s span of responsibility, can a president be held accountable for everything that the nation does or fails to do? 

Credit or blame, in their cumulative form, generally define a presidency.  Both are spun wildly by pundits in countless venues with countless agendas.  But the reality is that a president actually has far less influence on our daily lives than we may give him credit.  The president is routinely described as the most powerful person in the world.  It is, after all, the president who creates budgets, develops domestic policy, energy policy and conducts foreign policy.  The president nominates Supreme Court and Federal judges.  He sets legislative agendas and has veto power over congressionally passed bills. 

But they never do so in a vacuum.  There are countless countervailing, equalizing forces that face every presidential decision — from sending troops into a war zone to submitting a budget resolution.  He must face congressional opposition, media scrutiny, lobbyists, foreign leaders and Supreme Court decisions. 

We routinely elect our presidents under the promise of “change.”  But presidents are seldom the sole catalysts for change.  They get plenty of help along the way.  They can help set the conditions for progress, but they rarely directly cause it to occur.  If a president goes too far with a policy, opposition sets in, and the intended action is voted down or modified in some way.  In the longer term, if he goes way too far or doesn’t do enough, he’s not re-elected.  The president submits a budget for the nation, but Congress must pass it.  When Congress passes a budget resolution, even when he opposes it, the president has no choice but to spend the money. 

What was the last presidential decision that affected you?  Most of us will be hard-pressed to think of even one. 

Certainly, for our servicemen and women and their families, the question will be readily answered with whatever theater of war to which they or their loved ones have deployed.  For those who have been injured or killed, the loss of life or limb cannot be reversed or changed.  And so, for the 1 percent of our nation who serve, the president and the decisions he makes as commander-in-chief, matter a great deal. 

For everyone else, whoever is president affects our lives to a far lesser extent than we may believe.  We may agree or disagree with a president’s policies, but precious few of those policies represent original thought.  Chances are, for each policy cited, other presidents before them have espoused something very similar.  Agendas may matter far more than the president himself. 

So, here’s a quick drill for you.  Answer this quickly:  Who are the truly great presidents? 

Maybe you answered with names like Washington, Lincoln, Jefferson, FDR.  Those Americans born before 1963 may point to President John F. Kennedy, based on the decisions he made during the Cuban Missile Crisis, that played a principal role in averting a global nuclear war. Whomever you picked, chances are, those presidents likely did indeed do great things — created the conditions for our democracy, preserved the Union, averted nuclear war, etc.  But whoever were your top picks, it’s likely that your list represents only a fraction of the 44 U. S. presidents.    

That’s why leadership matters, above all else. 

As politics becomes more and more polarizing, and as Americans are moved further and further to extremes, there will be many who attempt to attach the “Great Man” theory to the Office of the President. 

But don’t fall for it.  For even a second.

The Wealth of Presidents
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How rich is Mitt Romney compared to other presidents?

His most recent tax return reported about $8 million in interest and dividend income. If he’s earning 3 percent on his investments, that means he’s worth a cool quarter billion.

So, where would that rank? He’d be behind only President George Washington, but, unlike Washington and most wealthy presidents, Romney didn’t inherit his wealth. He earned it.

No. 1 — George Washington

George Washington was not only “first in the hearts of his countrymen,” but he was also the richest president in our nation’s history.

How do we measure Washington’s wealth? Measuring across centuries has its challenges. One approach is to estimate the value of his property when he was alive and adjust for inflation. Another is to look at his wealth as a percentage of gross domestic product. A third is to compare his income to the national budget. Each approach leads to huge numbers.

For the first 100 years of our nation, wealth was measured mostly by land and slaves. Washington inherited ten slaves from his father at age eleven. He eventually owned more than 8,000 acres of prime farmland near what is now Washington, D.C., and more than 300 slaves. His wife, Martha, was also very wealthy, both from her dowry and inheritance from her first husband, one of the wealthiest men in Virginia. She inherited one-third of his 17,000 acres of land and 300 slaves as well as $129,650 in Colonial Virginia currency estimated by historians at Washington and Lee University to be worth $6 million in 1986.

At the time of his death, Washington’s land, slaves, house, horses and personal belongings were worth about $525,000, which has been estimated to be worth $525 million today.

In 1996, a study to calculate the 100 richest people ever in the U.S. ranked Washington 59th, the only president on the list. His net worth was estimated to be 1/777, or 0.13 percent, of GDP. By that measure, John D. Rockefeller was the wealthiest American ever. His wealth equaled 1.5 percent of GDP. Bill Gates worth about $60 billion, or about 0.4 percent of GDP, would be in the top ten.

Washington’s salary as president was 2 percent of the Federal budget in 1789, which would amount to $60 billion today. To be fair, the budget was different 225 years ago, when there was no income tax and most federal government spending was defense. Even so, 2 percent of today’s defense budget would be $2 billion per year.

For his time, Washington was incredibly wealthy, but he didn’t have air conditioning or toilets. He got strep throat riding his horse in the snow and died two days later. Today, a common antibiotic would have had him back on his horse within days.

No. 2 — Thomas Jefferson

Like Washington, Thomas Jefferson also inherited thousands of acres of land and dozens of slaves from his father. Jefferson eventually accumulated 5,000 acres of land near Charlottesville, Va., and owned hundreds of slaves. His net worth, in today’s dollars, reached an estimated $200 million. But land isn’t cash, and Jefferson had trouble maintaining his real estate late in his life. Like eight of our presidents, he was arguably bankrupt at the time of his death.

No. 3 — Theodore Roosevelt

The third wealthiest President, Theodore Roosevelt, was a trust-fund baby. Like so many lottery winners, he made some stupid investments and lost much of it. Even so, he still had his 235-acre estate, “Sagamore Hill,” located on some of the most valuable real estate on Long Island where land is worth approximately $1 million an acre.

No. 4 — John F. Kennedy

No. 4, a tough call, is probably John Kennedy, another trust fund baby. The Kennedy fortune was estimated to be worth at least $1 billion. His father Joe Kennedy’s estate was estimated to be worth $500 million when he died in 1969. Among his investments was the Chicago Merchandise Mart purchased in 1945 for $12.5 million and sold in 1998 for $625 million. JFK’s $75 million share of that one investment – worth about $100 million today – was divided between Caroline and John, Jr. In addition, the Kennedy family owned other valuable properties in Florida and Massachusetts.

Though JFK never had to file federal disclosure reports, his brother Ted Kennedy’s reports provides guidance. In 2008, Ted Kennedy reported a net worth between $50 and $150 million after parting with millions in his divorce. Caroline Kennedy is also reportedly worth $400 million, mostly from inheritances from her parents and brother. So, JFK was very wealthy.

No. 5 — Andrew Jackson

Andrew Jackson, the people’s president, was No. 5 with a net worth of about $120 million. An orphan and the first president to come from humble beginnings, Jackson married wealth and earned more. He joined the Continental Army at age 13. After the war, he studied law in Salisbury, N.C., and moved to Tennessee where he married a divorcee, whose father was wealthy and politically connected. Jackson became a gentleman, a general in the U.S. Army and a politician. After the War of 1812, Jackson “negotiated” the resettlement westward of various Indian tribes. Jackson made a fortune in the ensuing land grab. It raised ethical eyebrows, but the political climate of the times was far different than today.

Jackson’s wealth included his 1,000-acre homestead in Nashville, Tenn., “The Hermitage,” a cotton farm operated by slaves. He owned more than 500 slaves in his lifetime, including 150 at his death.

The Next Five

Rounding out the top ten wealthiest presidents are James Madison and Lyndon Johnson at about $100 million, Herbert Hoover at $75 million, Franklin Roosevelt at $60 million, and John Tyler at $50 million.

Like those of their generation, Madison and Tyler’s wealth was in land and slaves. Roosevelt, like his cousin, Teddy, inherited his wealth. Lyndon Johnson was a poor boy, but while in Congress, he and his wife, Lady Bird, purchased a small radio station in Austin, Texas. With a series of favorable rulings by the Federal Communications Commission, that radio station grew into a large regional broadcasting company that included radio, television and cable.

An orphan before age ten, Herbert Hoover was passed around between relatives. He teased that he was the first student at the newly established Stanford University where he studied geology, leading to a career and a fortune, in mining engineering. In today’s dollars, Hoover’s salary at one point reached $2.5 million. At approximately age 40, Hoover left the business world and dedicated his life to public service, where he refused any salary to avoid the appearance that he was seeking public office for money. As secretary of commerce and president, the law required Hoover to accept his salary. He gave it away, some to his political appointees whom he thought were underpaid and the rest to charity. (Kennedy was the only other president to donate his salary.)

That’s the top ten. If Mitt Romney wins the presidency, John Tyler would be bumped off.

Moving Up the List: Bill (and Hillary) Clinton

Bill Clinton left the White House millions in debt because of accumulated legal fees. Since leaving the presidency, however, he has earned a net worth that is estimated to be approaching $80 million. Hillary Clinton’s most recent public reports as secretary of state put her net worth at $30 to 35 million. Together, their net worth would put them in the top five, and their wealth is growing.

Moving the Clintons into the top ten would bump Franklin Roosevelt off the list.

A Century of Poor Presidents

As the national debate over slavery heated up, the wealth of presidents declined. For almost the next 100 years, from 1857 until 1952, the ten poorest presidents served. Other than the Roosevelts and Hoover, only one president, Grover Cleveland, accumulated any real wealth, about $25 million, from inheritance, law practice and an estate he purchased near Princeton.

Harry Truman almost went bankrupt as a haberdasher, a clothing salesman. Instead of declaring bankruptcy, he spent the rest of his life repaying those debts. When Truman returned home to Independence, Mo., after his presidency, he was 69 and unemployed. His only income was $112 per month from his U.S. Army Reserve pension. He had saved 20 to 25 percent of his presidential salary, about $150,000, over eight years. When federal retirement benefits were expanded during his term, he excluded the president.

Truman foreswore all attempts to “cash in” when he left the presidency and turned down several offers to serve on corporate boards, believing it would demean the Office of the Presidency. When Congress learned that Truman was paying for his own stamps and licking them without any administrative assistance, it passed the Former Presidents Act, providing an annual pension and gave it to him retroactively. President Hoover, who didn’t need the pension, accepted it to avoid embarrassing Truman.

In 1966, David Post bought a Volkswagen minivan for a camping trip across America with friends. They stopped at President Truman’s home in Independence, Mo. A big black car was parked on the street with about ten persons standing beside Truman’s white picket fence. They learned that Vice President Hubert Humphrey was visiting President Truman. When he left the home and came to the sidewalk, the vice president chatted with them. President Truman stood on the porch about 40 feet away and waved as if it were any other day. Other than Humphrey’s driver, there was no security detail. It was a different day.

Big Benefits of Early Childhood Education
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On Feb. 16, the D.C. Council Committee of the Whole will hold a public hearing commencing at 10 a.m. on a bill (Bill-19-0566) I introduced titled, the “Early Childhood Education Act of 2011.” I invite you to come and testify.

If enacted, this bill will ensure a curriculum is created and implemented that guarantees a reasonable expectation that our three- and four-year-old children are adequately prepared for entry and achievement in the District of Columbia Public Schools kindergarten program. In addition, the bill will ensure a curriculum is created and implemented that guarantees a reasonable expectation that our third grade children will be able to read independently and be able to add, subtract, multiply, and divide upon being promoted to the fourth grade.

Currently, there are 10,000 preschoolers enrolled in our early childhood education program. There is also a large population of children enrolled in kindergarten, first, second and third grades. Before standardized testing begins in the fourth grade, we must ensure that our children are equipped with the basic tools to succeed by being able to read independently and add, subtract, multiply and divide upon entering the fourth grade.
According to the curriculum timetable in schools, the formative years is the time when a child is learning how to read and learning the basics of mathematics. In the fourth grade, the curriculum changes and a child is expected to read for comprehension and is no longer expected to learn the basics of how to read. The fourth grade also introduces a child to mathematical concepts such as fractions and decimals in preparation for algebra and so on.

According to the United States Department of Education, a child who has not mastered the basic foundation for education upon entering the fourth grade will have a high probability of having contact with the criminal justice system. Research indicates two-thirds of students who cannot read proficiently by the fourth grade will end up in jail or on public assistance. Moreover, several states forecast needed prison growth based on third grade reading scores. Clearly, we must do everything within our power to avert our children from having contact with the criminal justice system, by putting in place support systems that help children meet educational standards.

As community residents, parents, grandparents, educators, teachers and taxpayers, we have a vested interest in improving educational standards within our community. As taxpayers, we deserve a return on our investment with efficient and effective high-quality learning environments in which all District children are the beneficiaries.

Education is the starting line to a life of productivity. Please join me in providing our children with a curriculum designed to provide them with the opportunity to have a great start in life.

Business Group Celebrates Valentine’s Day with ‘Heart-to-Heart Networking’
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The day after Valentine’s Day was as good a day as any for the Georgetown Business Association to hold its monthly get-together, calling it a “heart-to-heart networking reception.” The group packed the upstairs at Cafe Milano Feb. 15 with warmth — and with hors d’oeuvres by the famed Prospect Street restaurant and drinks by the GBA. Brian Armstrong thanked the happy, talkative crowd and said that GBA’s March reception would be held at Sequoia Restaurant. [gallery ids="100496,118101,118092,118049,118085,118060,118078,118069" nav="thumbs"]

No Dodos, Bush and Obama Stopped a Depression
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Forty years ago, I won what became my family’s first “Dodo of the Year” award. Instead of calling me an unmitigated idiot, my father called me a dodo, after the now-extinct bird famous for being too stupid not to run away from, but toward, its captors who then killed it.

Before each new year, while doing resolutions, my dad sought nominations for new “Dodos,” and an annual ritual was born.

My act of dodo-ism was parking my car on the hill on Main Street and failing to engage the parking brake. As I got out of the car, it began to roll backwards across four lanes of traffic. After making a useless effort to stop it, all I could do was watch helplessly. Fortunately, no cars were coming in either direction, and brick planters across the street stopped my car from crashing through two stores.

Had I not jumped out of the path of my runaway car, it would have crushed me. My dad may have had to bury me, but he still rightly would have called me a dodo. Instead, we had an honest conversation about the virtues of emergency brakes on hills.

If only we could do the same in this presidential election with all the screeching about jobs losses and bailouts.
In February 2008, 137.9 million Americans had jobs, a national high. In January 2009, 133.5 million people had jobs, a loss of 4.4 million jobs during the last year of President George W. Bush’s presidency.

In January 2010, at the end of President Barack Obama’s first year in office when jobs started to climb back up, another 4.3 million had lost jobs, leaving 129.2 million Americans employed. Both 2008 and 2009 saw similar losses, though technically, a few more were lost during Bush’s last year.

November 2008 and January 2009, both under Bush’s watch, were the two worst months of this recession, when more than 800,000 jobs were lost. February and March 2009, President Obama’s first two months in office, were the next two worst months.

Like my inability to stop my car rolling down the street, no one – a president, a Treasury secretary, a Fed chairman – could have stopped the job-loss express either immediately or within two months.

At the beginning of the Great Depression, President Herbert Hoover’s laissez-faire, leave-it-to-the-markets policy believed government should get out of the way and allow markets to fix the problem. At the same time, the Fed did nothing to stimulate the economy. The result? Unemployment jumped from 4.2 percent in 1928 to 8.7 percent in 1930 – very similar to President Bush’s last year in office – and with no government intervention, unemployment continued to rise until it hit 25 percent in 1933.

When Franklin Roosevelt became president in March 1933, he immediately closed the banks, instituted banking reforms and initiated a broad range of government programs. The bleeding stopped within a year – similar to President Obama’s first year. Though growth remained anemic under Roosevelt, unemployment trickled down to 17 percent in 1939 when the industrial production required by World War II pulled the country out of the Great Depression.

This time, Presidents Bush and Obama sought and received $700 and $800 billion, respectively, and the Fed kept money flowing. It stopped a depression.

Memories get fuzzy – or selective – in the heat of a presidential election. The various presidential candidates are arguing that the bailouts were failures, that Obama is the cause of the job losses, and that the Fed should be eliminated. In effect, they are arguing for Hoover’s laissez-faire policies.

When President Bush looked down the black hole of “laissez-faire,” he famously said, “This sucker could go down,” asked for $700 billion and cut the checks. Had President Bush done nothing, the two largest U.S. banks and two of the three U.S. auto companies – Citibank, Bank of America, GM and Chrysler – would have disappeared. Heaven knows what catastrophe would have followed. Yet, the presidential candidates, in effect, are suggesting that would have been better.

Like Roosevelt, Presidents Bush and Obama, and the Fed, took dramatic action. They saved a now-thriving auto industry. Our banks are recovering. More than 3 million new jobs have been created in the last two years. Government can do good.

When my car was going to crush me, I jumped out of the way. Presidents Bush and Obama had the courage to step in front of failing banks, collapsing car companies, and a landslide of job losses and try to stop them. Had they followed my example, they, too, could have won “Dodo of the Year.”

R2P: The New Obama Doctrine?
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“More and more, we all confront difficult questions about how to prevent the slaughter of civilians by their own government, or to stop a civil war whose violence and suffering can engulf an entire region. I believe that force can be justified on humanitarian grounds. . . . Inaction tears at our conscience and can lead to more costly intervention later. That’s why all responsible nations must embrace the role that militaries with a clear mandate can play to keep the peace.” — President Barack Obama

This statement from President Obama could easily be applied to the emerging civil war in Syria, but they were actually spoken at the outset of his administration, on the occasion of his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance. In his speech, he spoke eloquently about “just war,” and “the choice between armed intervention and complicity in oppression.” Both of these messages implicitly embrace an internationalist philosophy that’s widely become known as “Responsibility to Protect,” or “R2P.”

A little over a decade ago, the phrase “responsibility to protect” was introduced by an international commission in an effort to recast the doctrines of “right to intervene” and “obligation to intervene,” while still preserving the intent to act decisively in humanitarian crises. R2P quickly assumed the status of a “norm” (rather than a law) for the United Nations in preventing mass atrocities of the kind witnessed in Rwanda and Bosnia.

A year ago, in his speech justifying the U.S. intervention in Libya, Obama announced that Libya’s assault against its civilian population created a “responsibility” for the international community, stating that “when our interests and values are at stake, we have a responsibility to act.”

Most recently, the U.S. dispatched a special operations force to Uganda to act against one of Africa’s most brutal guerrilla groups.

The precedents in word and deed clearly convey an active endorsement of R2P. However, the true test may lie ahead in our response to Syria’s ongoing repression.

R2P has evolved with a set of defining “pillars,” “thresholds” and “obligations.” Entire non-governmental organizations have since been built around R2P. It even has its own Twitter hash-tag with a host of followers, to include billionaire George Soros and actress Mia Farrow — all of the necessary marketing ingredients for a presidential doctrine, ready-made.

R2P has strong advocates within the Obama administration, including Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the UN, and Samantha Power, the National Security Council’s senior director, widely considered one of the principal architects of the Libya intervention.

In short, R2P shatters the premise that sovereignty, in the strict Westphalian sense is inviolable, arguing instead that it is a responsibility. According to R2P, every state has a responsibility to protect its population from mass atrocities. If they can’t do it themselves, the international community is obligated to assist them — even if they don’t want the help. Once peaceful measures like economic sanctions have failed, the international community has the responsibility to intervene militarily — but only as a last resort and only if the UN Security Council authorizes it.

In a narrative reminiscent of St. Augustine’s letter to Boniface outlining what would ultimately become the foundation for Just War theory, R2P advocates that all military interventions must fulfill six broad criteria:

• Just Cause
• Right Intention
• Final Resort
• Legitimate Authority
• Proportional Means
• Reasonable Prospect

Even a cursory review of President Obama’s speech justifying our Libya intervention last year shows a close alignment — even synchronization — with these criteria.

While circumventing Congress is nothing new for presidents, what is noteworthy in the case of Libya is Obama’s apparent effort to elevate R2P as a universal principle that not only trumps traditional perceptions of national sovereignty but also transcends the constitutional tenets that give Congress the sole authority to declare war.

Whether the president will declare his official sponsorship of R2P remains to be seen, but the language of his recent speeches and the actions of his administration make it clear that R2P is indeed a cornerstone of his foreign policy. A telling indicator will be whether he is willing to give R2P even more prominence by intervening militarily in Syria without UN Security Council approval.

While some may hail a unilateral NATO campaign against Syria as further strengthening R2P, the irony is that it could actually weaken it. Just as inconsistency or failure to act in humanitarian crises can diminish an R2P-based policy, any perception of “R2P-as-Subterfuge” for Western national self-interests (crushing the Iran-Syria-Hezbollah axis, for instance), could have devastating affects for the broad R2P construct, long term.

In the coming months, Obama’s action or inaction on Syria will largely determine whether R2P is to remain a UN norm or if it will ultimately emerge as the “Obama Doctrine.” It’s a topic being discussed by administration strategists — and the whispers outside the White House gates have already begun. Yet, a more fundamental, if not practical, question for those West Wing discussions will be whether an R2P policy is sustainable in a time when defense budgets are dramatically declining.

Help Returning Warriors and Have Fun at a St. Patrick’s Day Fundraiser
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Make your St. Patrick’s Day more than just an opportunity to party — remember our returning warriors and benefit the non-profit, Not Alone, at a hip, new restaurant.

The March 17 celebration at Todd and Ellen Gray’s Watershed Restaurant will raise funds for Not Alone, which is dedicated to supporting returning warriors, veterans and their families. One of the sponsors for the “You are not alone” party — which will feature Gray’s signature Eastern Seaboard-inspired cuisine, a specialty cocktail drink and an open bar — is the Georgetown Media Group, which produces the Georgetowner and the Downtowner newspapers.

Many of our returning warriors struggle with post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and suicidal thoughts. Not Alone is a national organization that offers a variety of programs, services and resources for warriors, veterans and their loved ones. It offers both on-line and off-line programs that can help restore hope for those who struggle. Not Alone recently launched a free, confidential and anonymous community service in and around Washington, D.C.

Watershed Restaurant, site of the St. Patrick’s Day party, is located in the NoMa neighborhood near Capitol Hill at 1225 First Street, N.E. The Restaurant Association Metropolitan Washington named Todd Gray “Chef of the Year” in 2011. He shares a passion for inventive interpretations of American cuisine with his wife Ellen. For readers of the Georgetowner and the Downtowner, tickets which cost $100 are discounted at $70 per person, or $125 for two tickets. For more information, visit www.NotAlone.com. [gallery ids="100529,119459" nav="thumbs"]

A Balanced Budget for D.C. Now, But What About Fiscal 2013?
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This week, the D.C. Council met at its annual retreat to review legislative priorities, receive briefings from various officials and make plans for the coming year. We also recently received the audit of the fiscal 2011 budget – known as the Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (“CAFR”), an event of particular interest to me as Chair of the Council’s Committee on Finance and Revenue. 

First, the good news from the fiscal 2011 CAFR: the District sustained its 15th annual balanced budget and unqualified “clean” audit. In short, our finances today are a far cry from the desperate straits we faced in the mid-1990s. The audit also confirmed we have no “material weaknesses” (we had two in fiscal 2008) and reduced our “significant deficiencies” from five to two. I am glad we have made meaningful progress on our internal control systems. Every year, the District spends millions of dollars on various audit functions – not only the CAFR, but also the operations of the D.C. Auditor and the Office of the Inspector General. A few years ago, we decided to pool all this information more systematically and bring in under-performing agencies to submit remediation plans to correct the deficiencies. This new approach has begun to pay off.

We finished fiscal 2011 with a surplus of nearly $240 million, which now resides in our savings accounts. While I am glad that our financial position remains so strong, this surplus has caused a lot of anger among the hundreds of thousands of District residents who were asked to pay a number of new taxes and fees in last year’s budget, which I voted against. Before we rush to spend this money on an ever-expanding government, I think we need to take a hard look at making more sustainable spending choices. We have already received briefings on the status of the current fiscal 2012 budget by Mayor Gray and are expecting the upcoming fiscal 2013 budget submission from the mayor in late March. While we have a windfall now, indications are that the mayor will seek to spend all of this money and more to address potential gaps in the budget if he does not begin to spend within his budget. 

Every year, seemingly, we face “spending pressures” in the middle of the fiscal year. As it is February, the mayor has the opportunity to review these problems and take corrective action so that we end fiscal 2012 with a balanced budget. A more difficult challenge will be the work of the mayor and the council to balance the fiscal 2013 budget. Unfortunately, the government has built in cost increases every year, so that we pass the biggest budget in our history each year in spite of the difficult economic climate. No other state goes through recessions without making tough spending choices as a result. Clearly, this spring we will have some very serious challenges facing us and many tough decisions to make. I hope that with your help we can convince the mayor and my colleagues to find efficiencies within existing agency budgets by making tough choices rather than simply increasing taxes every year.

Before the budget is released, we first go through the performance oversight process. Over the past two weeks, I have sent a number of questions to the agencies under my purview to collect data on agency structure and recent spending. After I review what has worked and what has not, I will be in a better position to make recommendations on adjustments to the agency budgets for next year. Thanks for your support during this process, and please feel free to contact my office as well as to my colleagues to share your views.

St. Patrick’s Day Parade in DC (photos)
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Constitution Ave. was a sea of green as Washington DC kicked off its annual St. Patrick’s Day Celebrations with a parade on Sunday March 11. Traditionally, the District hosts the parade on the Sunday preceding the actual St. Patrick’s Day which won’t arrive til March 17. The parade featured floats, Irish dancers, bands and military units. The grand marshall of this year’s parade was popular restaurateur Cathal Armstrong (Restaurant Eve, Virtue Feed and Grain). View our photos of the event by clicking on the photo icons below. [gallery ids="119788,119690,119682,119675,119665,119657,119649,119641,119632,119698,119706,119778,119769,119760,119752,119744,119733,119724,119714,119621,119611,119601,119494,119485,119797,119477,119803,119468,119809,119817,119504,119513,119591,119581,119572,119562,119553,119543,119533,119524,100530" nav="thumbs"]