John F. Kennedy once called Theodore Sorensen his “intellectual blood bank,” and when the former JFK aide appeared at the Alumnae House of Vassar College to speak on behalf of presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama on Monday, Nov. 26, he demonstrated that time has not deprived him of any of his ability to infuse people with ideas, a sense of the urgency of national issues, public spirit and even laughter.
Sorensen, the distinguished foreign policy expert, international lawyer, and author who is most remembered as Kennedy’s special counsel and adviser and primary speechwriter, enthralled about 100 people as he moved easily between praise for Obama, warnings about the state of the world, and witty, elegant humor.
“As some of you know, I don’t see very well, but don’t worry about that – I have more vision than the current president of the United States,” he began amidst general hilarity, which soon subsided as Sorensen began to detail what he felt was the price of this myopia.
“America is a country in danger,” he continued. “Under George W. Bush, we set the worst possible precedent of a pre-emptive war against another country. We antagonized 1.3 billion Muslims, a considerable percentage of which are willing to be suicide bombers. And the United States is a country that is not very well able to defend itself against suicide bombers.”
Going on to address the question of rivalries between the rising number of countries which have nuclear weapons or are actively trying to acquire them, Sorensen said, “Once we enter that world, you get the possibility that nations that feel threatened will actually consider a nuclear first strike. It’s a scary world in which we live, and the conventional thinking hung over from the Cold War is not able to deal with it. I want to make sure we change that thinking, and bring in new, fresh ideas.”
And for Ted Sorensen, the best way of doing that is putting Barack Obama and his team in the White House.
“Hillary Clinton says that she is a more qualified candidate because she has more experience in Washington,” he explained. “Well, experience is not enough – what’s needed most of all is judgment. Kennedy resolved the Cuban Missile Crisis without firing a shot because he had superb judgment. Obama showed superb judgment when, alone of all the major presidential candidates, he opposed the Iraq War, which is the most serious mistake in the history of American foreign policy – a mindless, needless war. We must retake the White House and bring back sanity to foreign policy, public policy, health policy, fiscal policy.”
Foreign policy key
As a veteran of an administration which was famous for the intellectual caliber of its advisers, which besides him included such luminaries as Arthur Schlesinger Jr. and Chester Bowles, Sorensen placed heavy emphasis on the quality of Obama’s team, especially in foreign policy.
“Anthony Lake, Susan Rice, Zbigniew Brzezinski – these are brilliant people who have unconventional thinking and fresh ideas,” he said.
While lauding the qualifications of Obama and his people, Sorensen stressed that the Illinois senator has another key strength – he is electable.
“Obama is the most able to win, and as a Democrat, I’m tired of losing. Hillary Clinton is an intelligent and capable woman, but she is also divisive, carries a lot of baggage with her and turns a lot of people off. If Obama can win in Iowa, which is 96 percent white, it will have the same electrifying effect on the country as when John Kennedy won in West Virginia, which is overwhelmingly Protestant, in early 1960.”
When fielding questions from the audience, Sorensen affirmed that not only is Obama a man who has and can overcome prejudice, but he is one who is sensitive to its victims.
“I am a Muslim in this community, and I find myself targeted because I converted,” said Frances Hassan Mohammad Saad, a Poughkeepsie resident. “How does he (Obama) stand on the Muslims in the United States ? We face discrimination everyday.”
Sorensen replied that, “Barack is not opposed to Muslims or anyone else,” and went on to note that Obama, who is Christian, had himself faced criticism because his middle name is “Hussein.”
“That’s like criticizing Bush because his former chief political adviser, Karl Rove, had the same first name as the founder of modern communism,” Sorensen concluded, having again raised laughter amongst his listeners.
Speaking to the Dutchess Beat after the event, Sorensen said that as he himself was not a member of Obama’s foreign policy team, he could not specifically answer in detail the question of how the candidate’s approach to the Muslim world would be different than current American policy.
“But I will give you my opinion as to how this problem should be dealt with. I was involved in the U.S. prevailing in the Cold War. And how did we do that? We didn’t prevail by killing all the communists. We won by articulating a superior vision of the future for mankind than the Soviets did, and by reaching out to and working with moderates and modernizers. Sooner or later, we must take this approach to the Muslim world. And Obama is the man who can do this.”