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The left's first "battle" think tank debuted yesterday with an impressive conference on security and peace, featuring a stellar line-up of mostly democratic, liberal and progressive speakers. The goal was to showcase the talent and resources of the new think tank and to create a forum to allow discussion of pragmatic alternatives to the Bush administration's policies, or as most speakers here commented, absence of policies and strategies for dealing with terrorism and the Iraq war.
Podesta’s
opening remarks included a mission statement, “to find progressive and
pragmatic solutions to significant domestic and international problems.”
The speakers included General Wesley Clark, , former national Security Advisors Sandy Berger and Zbigniew Brzezinski,, Joe Yellowcake Uranium Wilson, Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Joe Biden, former UN Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, former secretary of the Treasury Robert Rubin, Virginia Governor Mark Warner, Ted Sorenson, special counsel and advisor to John F. Kennedy and Robert Kuttner of The American Prospect magazine.
For more than a decade, the right wing has had a lock on the use of think tanks as policy promotion "political weapons." Unlike conventional think, research and publish think tanks, these "battle" think tanks invest a much higher percentage of their resources in promoting the policies they espouse-- through pundit and right wing media echo chambers, organizations focused to persuade and support specific demographic groups such as fundamentalist Christians, students, judges, state legislators, NRA members, NASCAR dads.
Earlier this year, John Podesta announced he was forming a left wing counterpart to these right wing think tanks-- the American Majority Institute. That original name has been morphed into the Center for American Progress (CAP.) The domain name was registered on July 14th by the American Majority institute. One might speculate whether it is coincidence that the letters are similar to the most visible Neocon think tank-- the PNAC-- Project for a New American Century, whose members, in the late '90s, during the Clinton years, consisted of a bunch of "formers" like the list of speakers for this conference. Of course now, those PNAC "formers" are running the US, with high positions in the White house, military and diplomatic corps.
Considering this was the CAP's first event they were ecstatic over the response. Spokesman Mike Pan, a senior policy analyst for the organization said that the hall, which could hold 400 for the luncheon had over 500 people and they'd had to shut down registrations two days before the event, the response had been so overwhelming. Between 750 and 800 people attended altogether, including people from the Bush administration, the diplomatic corps, from congress, from left and right wing think tanks, the press and former officials from past Democratic administrations. Some, like me, came to scope out the newest org on the progressive block. Others, like the diplomatic corps (Chile, Poland, Estonia) came to see who the emerging leaders on the left might be.
Some on the right came to collect ammunition to use to attack the newborn organization. Fox news, one of the first news organizations with a report showing up on google news, quoted Michael Franc, of the right wing Heritage Foundation, "You don't start off a think tank with focus groups and a spin team before you figure out what you stand for. You have to. Think tanks begin with an idea, or a set of ideas, with a mission to advance coherent ideas in Washington."
For a very new organization, with a very new (none had business cards, and most were on staff less than a month-- a senior staffer laughed, saying she was an old timer at two months on the job,) and unusually young staff, the CAP, allied with The American Prospect magazine and the Century Foundation put together a very polished, solid conference with not just the right names but the right political conference appurtenances.
Democratic Presidential contender Wesley Clark was not a candidate when he was invited to pariticipate in the conference. But his speech, broadcast from New Hampshire, where he took a break from stumping for the vote, was pure presidential aspiration. He said that the president and his administration have destroyed the unity of NATO and the standing of the US at the UN. "...this administration's reckless actions have depleted us of the national security asset we now need most: The moral authority we have enjoyed for most of our history."
In general, the conference participants, like the democratic primary candidates at their debates, engaged in a steady rain of Bush bashing (well deserved.) Even a former Bush administration employee of two and a half years, wh ovoted for Bush, Flynt Leverett, who was Senior Director for Middle East Affairs at the National Security Council, and a senior Middle Eastern CIA analyst said, "This administration does not have and is indeed incapable of developing a a strategy for a war on terror."
Joseph C. Wilson, the diplomatic corps whistleblower who told the world how the Bush administration trumped up unfounded charges of Saddam's nuclear threat spoke on a panel Beyond Regime Change: Winning the Peace. He described the Bush administration's anti-terrorist policy as a "whack a m ole" theory-- like the children's arcade game-- not really a plan, but a reaction to each event as it pops up.
Wilson went on to advise that what is need in Iraq is "we need to internationalize as quickly as possible so we get the Iraqis to see this is a global effort to help them. The UN is not enough. We need a lot of flags."
Wilson also described the need to bring in international help for Iraq, "We need to look at it as a business venture. When you have a vision and that vision is a failure and you go to outside equity partners... you give up seats on the board, give up power, and harmonize your vision with the investors vision."
Other panels covered weapons of mass destruction, homeland security, re-building alliances and anti-terrorism.
One reason I attended was I wanted to get a feel for whether Podesta's organization was progressive or just another voice for the centrist, almost right leaning DLC. From my conversations in the wings with some of the people in the sponsor organizations and others, and the words of the speakers, it appears that CAP really is a slightly progressive organization, that it is definitely not an arm of the DLC. That's great news. I overheard one spokesperson say that they describe themselves as "center left." That's okay by me.
A media person for the CAP told me there are about 35 staffers. Only a few are currently focused on the kind of promotion that the rightwing neocon think tanks do so well. Hopefully this will change as the CAP develops policies to promote. The rightwing think tanks also develop many support organizations for different demographic groups. Hopefully the CAP will do the same... soon. We need them to be fully up and running. Matter of fact, we need, like the right has, half a dozen or a dozen equally strong, well funded progressive organizations putting out policy promotion, fighting the political battles with equal "idea weaponry" to what the right has been using for years.
One tool that is up and running and looking good is the CAP's "progress report. In the first six days it was in existence 7,000 subscribers signed up for the daily news update, which editor David Sirota says aims to provide smart information about what's really going on. You can sign up for it here.
Bottom line, CAP is off to a strong start. Hopefully they'll set an example that will inspire progressive foundations and wealthy contributors to ante up more funds for CAP and for additional think tanks. The Progressive think tank arsenal is finally in existence. Now it needs to be fully stocked.
Rob Kall, rob@opednews.com is editor of OpEdNews.com , a liberal news and opinion website. He also organizes cutting edge meetings on neuroscience, positive psychology and the power, science, art and application of story.
Rob has written numerous articles on think tanks, including:
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