Former Senator Bob Kerrey worries that Democrats could overplay their hand on taxes and spending.
Nebraska Liberal, New York Reactionary
Former Senator Bob Kerrey worries that Democrats could overplay their hand on taxes and spending.
By BARI WEISS
You can't help but notice the combination of photographs on Bob Kerrey's windowsill: a signed picture of Al Franken laughing at a campaign rally, a shot of Daniel Patrick Moynihan smiling in the Senate Office Building, and a black-and-white photo of Hannah Arendt presiding over a seminar. This intersection -- between politics and the perhaps even more rarified world of academia -- is where Mr. Kerrey has found himself over the past eight years since he left the Senate to become president of the New School.
Straddling disparate worlds, never quite fitting in, is something Bob Kerrey seems to revel in. ("I've gone from Nebraska, where people thought I was a liberal, to New York, where people think I'm a right-wing nutcase," he said in 2003 when the war in Iraq began.) And so in theory, the university in Greenwich Village seemed like a perfect fit for a man who's at turns described as contrarian, free-thinking, and, yes, a maverick.
The New School's animating spirit is contrarian: It was founded in 1919 in part by several Columbia professors who were fired when they refused to take loyalty oaths. When Hitler came to power in the 1930s, the school became a haven for European Jewish refugees like Arendt and Leo Strauss, who created its graduate program, originally called the University in Exile.
The past eight years with Mr. Kerrey at the helm have certainly had their successes. As he puts it: "We've really changed the nature of the university from a holding company with eight divisions into a real university." The endowment has grown to $180 million from $90 million in 2001 (after reaching a peak of $232 million last September), the number of full-time faculty has doubled to 351, and the students "are more talented, and more capable than they were eight years ago," he says.
But from the beginning Mr. Kerrey faced a highly disorganized institution with an entrenched faculty suspicious of his commitment to the job. His views on foreign policy only added insult to injury. When he came out in support of the Iraq War, his office became the site of regular student protests. Inviting John McCain to speak at graduation in 2006 didn't win him many fans among the student body. After a tumultuous year of a no-confidence vote from the faculty and a slew of student occupations aimed at overthrowing Western hegemony and his presidency, Mr. Kerrey recently announced that in 2011 he'll step down.
So when I sit down with him in his West Village office on a morning following graduation, the natural place to begin is to ask if he's going back into politics. "I never really left," he says. "I've been engaged in issues." I press him a bit more: How about mayor of New York, an idea he flirted with in 2005? He laughs, "No." And then: "But if you'd have asked me two years before I ran for governor in '82, I'd have told you no. Two years before I ran for Senate, I would have said no. So it's not impossible."
As a senator, Mr. Kerrey was famous for his willingness to be frank. He's maintained his candor. Unlike many other university presidents, he hasn't hesitated to weigh in on contentious public debates.
Five days before Barack Obama was elected president, for example, Mr. Kerrey, a Clinton-turned-Obama supporter, warned of the following in the Daily News: "By my lights the primary threat to the success of a President Obama will come from some Democrats who, emboldened by the size of their congressional majority, may try to kill trade agreements, raise taxes in ways that will destroy jobs, repeal the Patriot Act and spend and regulate to high heaven." Has this come true, I ask? "Well, we'll find out in November 2010," he quips.
He points to Bill Clinton's first term as an example of liberal overreach on the part of a Democratic president. "Democrats found out in November 1994 that it's not what the country wanted," he says. "The warning signs were there, the warning signs were delivered to the White House. The Deficit Reduction Act of 1993 was loaded up with taxes -- the largest tax increase in the history of the country. I voted for it and survived it. But the majority of the House and the majority of the Senate didn't. The House and Senate both switched over [to the GOP] and Bill Clinton famously went to Texas not long after and said he didn't want to raise taxes and he was against it, but he went along with it."
Mr. Kerrey doesn't necessarily think this president will find himself similarly backtracking in two years. Public attitude, he believes, has changed dramatically. "There is a big difference between today and 1993 in that people are very, very angry at the laissez-faire market presumptions of the Federal Reserve and the banking regulations. And they're demanding government intervention on a scale that I haven't seen in my lifetime," he says.
Arguably the most expansive intervention currently up for debate is health-care reform. Mr. Kerrey believes that today's model is unsustainable -- and feels passionately about delinking coverage with employment. But he's so far unimpressed with the proposals on offer. Mr. Kerrey says he's "personally worried" that Sens. Ted Kennedy and Max Baucus's health-care proposals will cost trillions of dollars over the next decades and "still leave tens of millions of uninsured Americans lying in the breach."
Despite such policy initiatives, he doesn't think his party has "shifted significantly to the left." There are important developments, he points out, like the "rising power of the black caucus," a phenomenon he views as a "very very big story and a big change." But, at least for the time being, "I don't look at Obama and think he's a dramatic shift to the left at all. I think he's still trying to keep . . . as close as possible to the center."
Mr. Kerrey has much praise for the president -- at least for his personal qualities and his image. When he was campaigning for candidate Obama, he made the argument to foreign-policy hawks that "If you really believe in the Iraq war and want it to have a good outcome, you gotta vote for Obama." It's not just about the fact that his middle name is Hussein, though Mr. Kerrey believes it's a "huge asset" that "gives room to moderates" in the Muslim world. It's also "because of his capacity to process complicated things and his willingness to do the right thing once he's figured it out. And he's demonstrated that on the job as far as I'm concerned."
He thinks that Mr. Obama has "put together a phenomenal team," and that his transition to power was the "most efficient since Eisenhower's first in '52." He praises choices like keeping on Defense Secretary Bob Gates and bringing in National Security Adviser Jim Jones, which he views "not as token gestures," but as real reflections of Mr. Obama's commitment to surrounding himself with the most competent people. Putting Gen. Stanley McChrystal in charge of Afghanistan was the right move, as was allowing him to put together his own team, which Mr. Kerrey says was "like the authority Marshall was given in the second world war."
But when it comes to Mr. Obama's fundamental ideas about foreign policy, Mr. Kerrey is far more critical. Take Mr. Obama's stance on the idea of wars of necessity and wars of choice. By his lights, Afghanistan is a war of necessity while Iraq is a war of choice. "I would disagree with the president when he says Afghanistan's not a war of choice," Mr. Kerrey says. "It certainly is a war of choice and I think it's a sound decision."
"I think he's got this problem with Iraq," he adds. "Because he says certainly we're better off without Saddam Hussein. Well, that's acknowledging that there was something good about the cause."
Despite this difference, Mr. Kerrey doesn't think the president has gone soft on foreign policy. "I think he's maintained a lot of Bush's policies." Moreover, the "fundamental presumption -- that al Qaeda and terrorism is an existential threat -- remains."
Mr. Kerrey's views on foreign policy are informed not just by his years in Washington but by his service as a Navy SEAL in Vietnam, where he earned the medal of honor. Knowing it firsthand, Mr. Kerrey says that he "hates war" and is a "true peacenik." His philosophy effectively illustrates, though, the difference between peacenik and pacifist.
"One of the assertions that's oftentimes made by the left is that the U.S. is an imperial power and we've got to pull back from the rest of the world," Mr Kerrey says.
"Well, ok. How did you feel about Bosnia? Oh, we had to do that. How about Somalia? Oh, we had to do that. How about Rwanda? Well, we shoulda done that. The problem is that there are times when the only thing that keeps people from killing each other is the presence of a U.S. military force. It's the only thing that gets the job done. And so, that's where I become hawkish."
Aside from a few heirs to Scoop Jackson (most notably Sen. Joe Lieberman), Democratic politicians don't often make such blunt observations these days. Maybe they silently agree with Mr. Kerrey about the value of the careful but strong use of American power. And maybe they'll even be made to show it soon in Sudan, North Korea, or elsewhere.
But if President Obama's recent meekness toward Russia and Iran is indicative of what we can expect for years to come, then centrists like Mr. Kerrey may stop being so open-minded toward their party's standard-bearer.
Whether this happens -- and whether it's before or after November 2010 -- is up to the president.
Ms. Weiss is an assistant editorial features editor at the Journal.
Editor's comment: We loved Bob Kerry when I lived in Nebraska, except when he let Debra Winger drive the car assigned to him as Governor and she wrecked it!
Former Senator Bob Kerrey worries that Democrats could overplay their hand on taxes and spending.
By BARI WEISS
You can't help but notice the combination of photographs on Bob Kerrey's windowsill: a signed picture of Al Franken laughing at a campaign rally, a shot of Daniel Patrick Moynihan smiling in the Senate Office Building, and a black-and-white photo of Hannah Arendt presiding over a seminar. This intersection -- between politics and the perhaps even more rarified world of academia -- is where Mr. Kerrey has found himself over the past eight years since he left the Senate to become president of the New School.
Straddling disparate worlds, never quite fitting in, is something Bob Kerrey seems to revel in. ("I've gone from Nebraska, where people thought I was a liberal, to New York, where people think I'm a right-wing nutcase," he said in 2003 when the war in Iraq began.) And so in theory, the university in Greenwich Village seemed like a perfect fit for a man who's at turns described as contrarian, free-thinking, and, yes, a maverick.
The New School's animating spirit is contrarian: It was founded in 1919 in part by several Columbia professors who were fired when they refused to take loyalty oaths. When Hitler came to power in the 1930s, the school became a haven for European Jewish refugees like Arendt and Leo Strauss, who created its graduate program, originally called the University in Exile.
The past eight years with Mr. Kerrey at the helm have certainly had their successes. As he puts it: "We've really changed the nature of the university from a holding company with eight divisions into a real university." The endowment has grown to $180 million from $90 million in 2001 (after reaching a peak of $232 million last September), the number of full-time faculty has doubled to 351, and the students "are more talented, and more capable than they were eight years ago," he says.
But from the beginning Mr. Kerrey faced a highly disorganized institution with an entrenched faculty suspicious of his commitment to the job. His views on foreign policy only added insult to injury. When he came out in support of the Iraq War, his office became the site of regular student protests. Inviting John McCain to speak at graduation in 2006 didn't win him many fans among the student body. After a tumultuous year of a no-confidence vote from the faculty and a slew of student occupations aimed at overthrowing Western hegemony and his presidency, Mr. Kerrey recently announced that in 2011 he'll step down.
So when I sit down with him in his West Village office on a morning following graduation, the natural place to begin is to ask if he's going back into politics. "I never really left," he says. "I've been engaged in issues." I press him a bit more: How about mayor of New York, an idea he flirted with in 2005? He laughs, "No." And then: "But if you'd have asked me two years before I ran for governor in '82, I'd have told you no. Two years before I ran for Senate, I would have said no. So it's not impossible."
As a senator, Mr. Kerrey was famous for his willingness to be frank. He's maintained his candor. Unlike many other university presidents, he hasn't hesitated to weigh in on contentious public debates.
Five days before Barack Obama was elected president, for example, Mr. Kerrey, a Clinton-turned-Obama supporter, warned of the following in the Daily News: "By my lights the primary threat to the success of a President Obama will come from some Democrats who, emboldened by the size of their congressional majority, may try to kill trade agreements, raise taxes in ways that will destroy jobs, repeal the Patriot Act and spend and regulate to high heaven." Has this come true, I ask? "Well, we'll find out in November 2010," he quips.
He points to Bill Clinton's first term as an example of liberal overreach on the part of a Democratic president. "Democrats found out in November 1994 that it's not what the country wanted," he says. "The warning signs were there, the warning signs were delivered to the White House. The Deficit Reduction Act of 1993 was loaded up with taxes -- the largest tax increase in the history of the country. I voted for it and survived it. But the majority of the House and the majority of the Senate didn't. The House and Senate both switched over [to the GOP] and Bill Clinton famously went to Texas not long after and said he didn't want to raise taxes and he was against it, but he went along with it."
Mr. Kerrey doesn't necessarily think this president will find himself similarly backtracking in two years. Public attitude, he believes, has changed dramatically. "There is a big difference between today and 1993 in that people are very, very angry at the laissez-faire market presumptions of the Federal Reserve and the banking regulations. And they're demanding government intervention on a scale that I haven't seen in my lifetime," he says.
Arguably the most expansive intervention currently up for debate is health-care reform. Mr. Kerrey believes that today's model is unsustainable -- and feels passionately about delinking coverage with employment. But he's so far unimpressed with the proposals on offer. Mr. Kerrey says he's "personally worried" that Sens. Ted Kennedy and Max Baucus's health-care proposals will cost trillions of dollars over the next decades and "still leave tens of millions of uninsured Americans lying in the breach."
Despite such policy initiatives, he doesn't think his party has "shifted significantly to the left." There are important developments, he points out, like the "rising power of the black caucus," a phenomenon he views as a "very very big story and a big change." But, at least for the time being, "I don't look at Obama and think he's a dramatic shift to the left at all. I think he's still trying to keep . . . as close as possible to the center."
Mr. Kerrey has much praise for the president -- at least for his personal qualities and his image. When he was campaigning for candidate Obama, he made the argument to foreign-policy hawks that "If you really believe in the Iraq war and want it to have a good outcome, you gotta vote for Obama." It's not just about the fact that his middle name is Hussein, though Mr. Kerrey believes it's a "huge asset" that "gives room to moderates" in the Muslim world. It's also "because of his capacity to process complicated things and his willingness to do the right thing once he's figured it out. And he's demonstrated that on the job as far as I'm concerned."
He thinks that Mr. Obama has "put together a phenomenal team," and that his transition to power was the "most efficient since Eisenhower's first in '52." He praises choices like keeping on Defense Secretary Bob Gates and bringing in National Security Adviser Jim Jones, which he views "not as token gestures," but as real reflections of Mr. Obama's commitment to surrounding himself with the most competent people. Putting Gen. Stanley McChrystal in charge of Afghanistan was the right move, as was allowing him to put together his own team, which Mr. Kerrey says was "like the authority Marshall was given in the second world war."
But when it comes to Mr. Obama's fundamental ideas about foreign policy, Mr. Kerrey is far more critical. Take Mr. Obama's stance on the idea of wars of necessity and wars of choice. By his lights, Afghanistan is a war of necessity while Iraq is a war of choice. "I would disagree with the president when he says Afghanistan's not a war of choice," Mr. Kerrey says. "It certainly is a war of choice and I think it's a sound decision."
"I think he's got this problem with Iraq," he adds. "Because he says certainly we're better off without Saddam Hussein. Well, that's acknowledging that there was something good about the cause."
Despite this difference, Mr. Kerrey doesn't think the president has gone soft on foreign policy. "I think he's maintained a lot of Bush's policies." Moreover, the "fundamental presumption -- that al Qaeda and terrorism is an existential threat -- remains."
Mr. Kerrey's views on foreign policy are informed not just by his years in Washington but by his service as a Navy SEAL in Vietnam, where he earned the medal of honor. Knowing it firsthand, Mr. Kerrey says that he "hates war" and is a "true peacenik." His philosophy effectively illustrates, though, the difference between peacenik and pacifist.
"One of the assertions that's oftentimes made by the left is that the U.S. is an imperial power and we've got to pull back from the rest of the world," Mr Kerrey says.
"Well, ok. How did you feel about Bosnia? Oh, we had to do that. How about Somalia? Oh, we had to do that. How about Rwanda? Well, we shoulda done that. The problem is that there are times when the only thing that keeps people from killing each other is the presence of a U.S. military force. It's the only thing that gets the job done. And so, that's where I become hawkish."
Aside from a few heirs to Scoop Jackson (most notably Sen. Joe Lieberman), Democratic politicians don't often make such blunt observations these days. Maybe they silently agree with Mr. Kerrey about the value of the careful but strong use of American power. And maybe they'll even be made to show it soon in Sudan, North Korea, or elsewhere.
But if President Obama's recent meekness toward Russia and Iran is indicative of what we can expect for years to come, then centrists like Mr. Kerrey may stop being so open-minded toward their party's standard-bearer.
Whether this happens -- and whether it's before or after November 2010 -- is up to the president.
Ms. Weiss is an assistant editorial features editor at the Journal.
Editor's comment: We loved Bob Kerry when I lived in Nebraska, except when he let Debra Winger drive the car assigned to him as Governor and she wrecked it!
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