Former Senator Lincoln Chafee (R-RI) is now a political Independent and helped spearhead with former Bush 2000 campaign New York co-chair Rita Hauser and former Congressman Jim Leach “Republicans for Obama.”
I think that there is a very good chance that Chafee could end up as a senior member of an Obama administration — or even more interestingly, he may be preparing himself for a bid as an Independent to run for the governorship of Rhode Island.
I spent a few minutes with him yesterday talking about the current policy and political terrain as well as his recently released book, Against the Tide: How a Compliant Congress Empowered a Reckless President.
A more full version of Lincoln Chafee’s talk at the New America Foundation yesterday titled “What Patriotism Looks LIke” can be viewed here. His comments about Sarah Palin in the Q&A were ‘colorful’. (the Palin comments come about 53:08. He calls Sarah Palin a “cocky whacko.”)
But in the interview above, Chafee said this about Sarah Palin:
I do think she is dangerous for the future of the country having such limited experience and sharing that aggressive, belligerent approach to the world.
That’s not in our long term best interests. It’s a dangerous planet — nuclear weapons — a
tremendous capacity of destruction exists.
It’s going to take some wisdom and ability to see gray sometimes, and lessons of the Cold War are that sometimes containment can work.
New generations come along, the Gorbachevs come along — and we haven’t fired missiles at each other and killed each other.
That’s the lesson of the Cold War we seem to have ignored, Lessons that worked.
Chapter 13 — the chapter of Chafee’s book — on the John Bolton battle in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee is my favorite.
More later.
— Steve Clemons
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