Salon.com > Andy Isaacson

Dining room diplomacy

Tue, 05 Dec 2006 13:00:00 +0000

One brisk evening last July, two Jews in Berkeley, Calif., discussed the Tunisian circus with a group of Arab artists over plates of polenta, summer squash and a confit of tomatoes that resembled clowns' noses. The incongruity of the occasion, while fighting engulfed Israel, Lebanon and Iraq, and summer heat blanketed the rest of America, was not lost on the diners. Around the table sat the founder of a clown school in San Francisco, and distinguished guests from Tunisia, Egypt, Qatar and Bahrain, who had arrived by invitation of the U.S government. I was their host.

The scene had overtones of citizen diplomacy. The State Department, among its many missions, is charged with spreading goodwill abroad. Recognizing that this effort is best waged inside the homeland, each year its field embassies handpick hundreds of "current or potential leaders" -- in government, media, education and other fields -- and invite them on a whirlwind tour of America to meet their professional counterparts and experience the country firsthand.

Here come the judges, again

Fri, 20 May 2005 23:53:00 +0000

Prepare for the not-so-magnificent seven. With Republicans poised to pull the trigger on the nuclear option, President Bush's right-wing nominees ride again.

Their return -- all were blocked in the Senate their first time around -- is propelling the government into a crisis, as they prepare to take seats in federal appeals courts, the second highest position in the judicial branch of government, beneath only the authority of the U.S. Supreme Court. Democrats oppose them for their extreme judicial and political philosophy, what they consider a conservative version of "judicial activism."

An assessment of the nominees' records suggests that all consider government regulation a central problem, while they view private enterprise and property a bedrock constitutional right. These nominees are the most visible examples of a judicial nomination trend that the Center for Investigative Reporting discovered in examining all appeals court and court of federal claims nominees during George W. Bush's first term as president.