Joe Hallett: Restored U.S. admiration abroad seen in an Obama presidency
From 1962 to 1964, I
was Bill Bradley.
At that time, Bradley was a small-town kid from Missouri playing basketball at Princeton University before going to the NBA's New York Knicks en route to becoming one of the greatest players in the history of the game.
I, too, was in the NBA -- the National Barnball Association. A small-town kid, I spent endless hours on the basketball court in Roger Rice's barn -- Rice Arena -- outside Wauseon, emulating my idol at Princeton. On the rare occasions when my high-arcing jump shot swished through the net, I would simply say to my buddies, "Bradley!"
"You might have wanted to be Bill Bradley, but I wanted to be Hopalong Cassidy," Bradley said on Thursday, as we sat before an Ohio State University audience thrilled that Bradley's boyhood hero was a Buckeye football legend. Bradley hadn't spent all those years in big arenas and then another 18 in the U.S. Senate without learning how to play to the home crowd.
Bradley had been invited to OSU by the Center for U.S. Global Engagement, the John Glenn School of Public Affairs and the Columbus Council on World Affairs to discuss the foreign-policy challenges facing President-elect Barack Obama. I was the moderator, brash enough at one point to suggest that Bradley couldn't block my hook shot.
"Is there a gym open around here?" he asked.
Between the basketball banter, Bradley exhibited a worldview with an astuteness that captivated the audience and illustrated why he was a serious contender in 2000 for the Democratic presidential nomination. He said that even with the challenges of two wars and an economic crisis, Obama's presidency offers an opportunity to restore America's image around the world.
"Here is a positive event that reaffirms the resilience and strength of the American democracy and the ability of the country to make a U-turn in the middle of difficult times," Bradley said. "And, of course, there is the symbolic importance of Barack Obama being the first African-American president. So this now opens up the possibility where the world is now listening in a way it wasn't a year ago."
Just as I wanted to be Bradley and he wanted to be Cassidy, Bradley said Obama offers an alternative to Muslim children who too often have named Osama bin Laden as their hero.
"I can guarantee you after the presidential election that there are millions of Muslim kids all over the world that want to be Barack Obama. His election produced so much good will in the world that it buys us space and time."
What should Obama do with that space and time to regain the world's respect?
"Let America be America," Bradley said, contending that Obama should establish his own doctrine that supplants President George W. Bush's militarism with a measured military, diplomatic and economic approach to the world, one also with "a moral dimension" to lead by example.
"Specifically, we ought to abandon the unilateral approach to the world that we've had the last eight years, which is, 'We know what to do, and we're going to do it and we don't need you.' "
Bradley said improving relations with Russia is critical, contending that the Clinton and Bush administrations had "blown the Russian relationship over the last 16 years," beginning in the 1990s, when the U.S. did little to help Russia while it was suffering an economic depression.
"What did we do with Russia when it was down?" he said. "Nothing. We kicked them when they were down. How did we kick them? We expanded NATO. What is NATO? A military alliance. Why was it created? To counter the Soviet threat. The Soviet Union is gone. Why isn't NATO?"
The U.S. needs Russia's help to control nuclear-weapons proliferation, to thwart Iran's nuclear ambition and to fight Islamic terrorism, Bradley said. "There are a lot of things we can work on, but we've got to stop sticking them in the eye in order to form a new partnership."
When Obama delivers his Inaugural Address on Jan. 20, Bradley said, "more people will be listening to that speech, I think, than any speech in the history of man. It will be a moment."
A moment, hopefully, when America again becomes the world's idol.
Joe Hallett is senior editor at The Dispatch.
jhallett@dispatch.com
