On numerous levels, the United States continues to fall farther behind China in public diplomacy. This is yet another indication that, for all its protestations about its commitment to reach out to foreign publics, the U.S. government is unwilling to commit the resources needed to do so effectively.

Within the U.S. Congress, the most thoughtful and persistent champion of public diplomacy is Senator Richard Lugar, ranking Republican member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. In a report released February 15, Senator Lugar noted that "in the same way that our trade with China is out of balance, it is clear to even the casual observer that when it comes to interacting directly with the other nation's public we are in another lop-sided contest."

More...

I recently proposed a modest Green Agenda for the Obama Administration and the next Congress. While much of the agenda is positive and forward moving, a key element of the agenda is defensive: protecting the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency against the mindless onslaught of the radical right wing. I admit I am not an unbiased observer of EPA. I first worked EPA in 1977, when I helped staff a task force on public participation in EPA's water programs. After graduate school, I worked for EPA in 1980 and 1981, developing the community relations program for Superfund, and in the 1990's I worked as a consultant to Ron Brand, the visionary founder of EPA's Office of Underground Storage Tanks.

I've been in and around EPA for most of my career and it is an agency filled with talented and dedicated scientists, lawyers, administrators and other experts. Its organizational culture is not without flaws, but for four decades it has taken the lead in reducing our economy's impact on our natural environment. It has managed the trick of allowing our economy to grow while reducing many key pollutants.

More...

Earlier this week, HBO aired the critically acclaimed documentary Miracle (2001), which took us back through all the elements leading up to Team USA's "Miracle On Ice" Gold medal performance in hockey at Lake Placid in 1980. The story lines for that team and those events still transcend time.

As we know, "Miracle on Ice" told the story of the dogged, underdog, youthful Americans battling the evil Soviet Empire, and how their hard work and success captured a nation and helped turn the tide of negativity in the United States at the time. It was a great example of the power of sport, and was a great time for American sport on an international stage, especially with the games on U.S. soil. In so many ways, the ebb and flow of life has changed time and again since those days in Lake Placid. The dominance of the Soviet Union has come and gone along with so many changes in our everyday lives, both positive and negative. Our focus is on adversaries of a much more stealth nature today, ones that are probably more dangerous and deadly than whatever was faced during the Cold War.

More...

President Obama is a gentleman, deliberative, conciliatory, and diplomatic, believes to the nth degree in bipartisanship, has never stooped to down and dirty name calling, bashing, and trashing his political opponents and even outright avowed political enemies. There is no record that the Obama White House encouraged counter rallies, marches, demonstrations, complete with grotesque personally insulting, derogatory caricatures of his opponents on signs and placards, or waved flags and symbols that mocked and taunted his opponents.

He certainly has never uttered a word that sworn enemies and loathers of his policies and him did not have the right to their views, or worse that they were alien, foreign, and dangerous to American values and ideals. He's acted courtly, presidential, and stood above the hate fray aimed at him at every moment of his administration. His acts toward his avowed political enemies have been the diametric opposite of what they have slugged him with. Yet, Obama is coming perilously close to going one step further, a step that poses mortal political danger to him if he takes it. And that is to embolden his sworn enemies to escalate their campaign of lies, distortions, vilification, and hate against him.

More...