Reply #4: Kick.... [View All]

[slipslidingaway]

http://www.democracynow.org/2008/1/3/vote_for_change_atrocity_linked_us

"AMY GOODMAN: Presidential candidates are scrambling to win last-minute support in Iowa ahead of tonight’s caucus. Thousands of reporters have also descended on Iowa this week, covering everything from Mike Huckabee’s haircut to John Edwards’s rally with singer John Mellencamp.

But little attention has been paid to perhaps one of the most important aspects of the candidates: their advisers, the men and women who likely form the backbone of the candidate’s future cabinet if elected president...

KELLEY BEAUCAR VLAHOS: Well, it was becoming clear to me and to others here in Washington in certain circles that the advisers that were emerging for the campaigns, whether it be Democratic or Republican, were part of some seriously pro-establishment cliques. And I say “cliques,” because there is really no other way to describe it. But these cliques generally can be categorized as not only pro-establishment, but more pro-interventionist, whether it be the so-called liberal interventionists on the Democratic side or your war hawks on the Republican side.


But what became clear is that the candidates weren’t reaching outside of these establishment cliques and that they were getting no fresh ideas, no vision outside of these pretty standard parameters. And we thought—me and the editors thought it might be a good idea to explore a little bit under the surface about where these of advisers were coming from, in hopes of maybe deciphering where foreign policy might be going in the future..."