Monday, August 13, 2007

Gary Hart Weighs in on Obama-Clinton Spat

Sen. Gary Hart, Chairman of Council for a Livable World (the Center’s sister organization), weighed in on the Obama-Clinton spat on the Huffington Post recently.

(Click here for a recap of the recent debate over Obama’s comments and here for the Center’s thoughts on it.)

A veteran of both national security issues and presidential politics, Hart begins…

Should presidents, or for that matter presidential candidates, be open, honest, and straightforward about how they would conduct foreign and defense policy or should they reserve space for what in the Cold and post-Cold War worlds have come to be known as covert operations?

He later continues,

As something of a veteran, seasoned or unseasoned, of the covert world of the 20th century and as one who peeked far enough into the 21st to see terrorists coming, this is a question Americans and their candidates should seriously address. Those who have the advantage of living in the world of black and white find this question, as with many others, easy to answer. The whites say that all our actions should be transparent. The blacks say do whatever is expedient at the moment and presume no one will notice. The rest of us, as usual, see the global village in patters of plaid and shades of gray.

Intrigued? Click here to read Hart’s complete post.

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