Re: Who are we?

Description: Where are the Lincolns, the Jeffersons, the Washingtons?

Question: What is your favorite period in American history?

Transcript: I guess all Americans have a favorite period of American history. Mine is the period of the founding fathers. I’ve really been quite enchanted by that. We were a very small country – four or five million people – but we produced in the period of a few years a flowering of political genius. Just remarkable, I think unprecedented really in the history of the world. And I like all of them I guess. I’ve read a good bit about them. They’re giants. But my particular favorite is James Madison. Madison, of course, did not have all that successful a tenure as president, but he was the father of the Constitution. And I’ve been kind of attracted to him because I’ve always felt that he could never have gotten elected to Congress. He was a small man, about 5-foot tall. He had a pock-marked face. He was a lousy speaker. On television he would have been disaster; but he was a political genius because he was able to put together, if you will, large portions of the Constitution. So my interest has really been with the founding fathers. I have others I admire. Lincoln, of course like all Americans, I admire; but the founding fathers I feel a deep, deep sense of appreciation for because of what they did.

Question: Is there a gap in leadership today?

Transcript: Well the question I would repeatedly get when I was conducting public meetings in Indiana was, “Where are the leaders?” It’s the question you just asked, and I think it’s on the minds of an awful lot of Americans. Where are the Lincolns, the Jeffersons, the Washingtons? I don’t know whether I know the answer to that, but I think part of the answer may be that the country is just a lot more complicated, a lot more difficult to govern today because of its size; because of its diversity; because of the acceleration, if you would, of life. And the political skill that is most needed in this presidential election or any political election, from my point of view, is the ability to build a consensus behind a solution. It’s not very hard, really, to walk into a room of people where you’re discussing a difficult issue and blow it apart. I know it’s not very hard because I’ve done it on a few occasions. What is really hard is to walk into that room and to build a consensus behind a solution to the problem that you’re talking about. That is political skill, and that is the skill most needed in this great, big, diverse, complicated country with all of these conflicting interests that we have. Consensus building – that’s what I look for in a politician.

Question: How has the U.S. used its power?

Transcript: I think we’ve got a lot of work to do. I think we’ve had quite a setback, and we have not used that power as wisely, and prudently and effectively as we should have used it – particularly with regard to the war in Iraq. But this is behind us now, and we are where we are. We can’t change recent events and recent history. So I think we have to apply American power pragmatically, realistically. We have to make sure that we do not set goals for ourselves that we cannot achieve. When President Bush said we’re going to end tyranny in the world, that is idealism beyond reach. When President Kennedy said we must bear any burden, that is beyond reach. It’s an ideal, but the problem is matching resources to achieve your goal. And Americans, I think, have tended to overreach in the world, and to think that our power is so great that we can achieve all kinds of things. I have become impressed with the limitations of American power, and with the necessity of matching our goals with the means to achieve those goals; and to apply for ourselves pragmatic objectives around the world – achievable objectives. And to think that we can suddenly make democracy bloom in Saudi Arabia, and in Egypt, and in Pakistan is a stretch. We can’t do it. But I am also impressed that American ideals are good and solid. But we cannot accomplish them without a lot of help. If you sit down and try to name the most difficult problems that bother you – I don’t know what they might be . . . climate change, drugs, conflicts of all kinds, rising tensions in the world, HIV/AIDS, whatever . . . nuclear proliferation – you have to be impressed, I think, with the fact that you cannot achieve those goals by yourself. We have to have help. As big as we are, as smart as we are, as rich as we are, we need help. And we have to learn to work together. The great genius of American diplomacy came about, at least in my lifetime, after World War II when the idealism of the American people was captured pragmatically, and we rebuilt Europe with the Marshall Plan – Europeans leading the way, of course, but with our help. And we had this flowering of diplomacy. The World Bank, the IMF, what eventually became the WTO – the World Trade Organization – the United Nations. In other words, we advanced American interests, but we did it by cooperating with other countries around the world. We did not say, “This is the way it’s going to be. It’s going to be the American model. We’re going to do it our way. We’re going to impose it upon you.” We rejected that, and we took the generosity of the American public. Just think for a moment. We defeated Japan and Germany. They were the great evil – Adolf Hitler, Tojo – some people will remember that – the Emperor of Japan. After the war, we immediately turned around – immediately – and gave aid to those countries. What a remarkable thing. Think of that. We gave aid to the people we had been fighting for years. Well how do you capture that spirit again? That generosity? That pragmatism? That ability to advance your interests, but also include the interests of others? That’s the great challenge for us.

Question: How is this generation different than the Greatest Generation?

Transcript: You’d have to say leadership, I believe. You’d have to say that we’ve lost a little bit of that imagination that our predecessors had after World War II. We lack their generosity of spirit, their magnanimity. We’ve got to try to recapture that. If we’re really going to be the leader of the world, we can’t sit down at the international conference table and say, “Okay this is the agenda. We’re going to dictate the agenda.” We’ve got to sit down at that table and promote our agenda, whatever it may be – fighting terrorism or whatever – but we’ve also got to sit there and listen to what the other side has to say. We don’t necessarily have to agree with it. We don’t have to make a lot of concessions. But you do have to try to learn to understand it; to accommodate it, if possible; and if not, to find areas where you can agree and work on those where you cannot agree.

Recorded on: 7/5/07