Hagel: Rudeness in Politics Must End

Former U.S. Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska delivers the third annual Eugene J. McCarthy Lecture on Wednesday in the Stephen B. Humphrey Theater at St. John's University. (Jason Wachter, jwachter@stcloudtimes.com)


By Dave Aeikens • daeikens@stcloudtimes.com • September 24, 2009

COLLEGEVILLE —

Former U.S. Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska said the political discourse in the country has turned so poor that it threatens democracy and America's international standing.

Hagel spoke for about 40 minutes Wednesday night at the Eugene J. McCarthy Lecture at St. John's University. Hagel, who served in the Senate from 1997-2009, was the first Republican senator to speak out against the Iraq war.

"I am concerned our country has lost a good deal of what Eugene McCarthy is all about," Hagel said.

Addressing an audience of more than 400 students and other guests that included McCarthy's family and former U.S. Sen. Dave Durenberger and former U.S. Rep. Mark Kennedy, Hagel questioned whether the country will allow rudeness to take over the political system.

"Public discourse has gotten so raw, so rude, so embarrassing it has really debased our system," Hagel said.

He said any fool can stand up and scream and any fool can stand up and call names.

"It takes conscience and courage to find a solution to a problem," Hagel said.

The world is as combustible and interconnected as it has ever been, Hagel said. But the U.S. has great capacity to solve the problems of the world.

"We will never get there if we so debase the process we use to get there," Hagel said.

Hagel pointed to the tenor in the debate on health care policy changes as an example of where the public discourse has gone off the tracks. He said the screaming and rudeness has to stop.

"This is not what a civilized society does," Hagel said.

Hagel said McCarthy, a St. John's graduate from Watkins who served in the U.S. House and U.S. Senate, worked to solve problems and disagreed with others in a respectful and honorable way. McCarthy in 1967 was among the first to challenge President Lyndon Johnson, a fellow Democrat, on the U.S. policy in Vietnam.

"That is another dimension on why McCarthy was so important at a very important time," Hagel said.

Hagel said President Obama is confronting more problems than Abraham Lincoln.

He said he has seen how the country has lost its ability to self-govern because it is paralyzed by partisanship.

"We have to bring some semblance back of a governing coalition in the country," Hagel said.

Is the Media ‘Fairness Doctrine’ Fair?

Is the Media ‘Fairness Doctrine’ Fair?

Can our government ensure balance in viewpoints better than the media market?


COLLEGEVILLE, Minn. – David Rehr, Ph.D., the former president and CEO of the National Association of Broadcasters and a 1981 graduate of Saint John’s University, speaks on “Is the Media ‘Fairness Doctrine’ Fair?” at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 6 at the Alumni Lounge, Quadrangle Building, Saint John’s University.
His appearance, sponsored by The Eugene J. McCarthy Center for Public Policy and Civic Engagement at the College of Saint Benedict and Saint John’s University, is free and open to the public.
The Fairness Doctrine was a policy of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission introduced in 1949 that required the holders of broadcast licenses to present controversial issues of public importance and to do so in a manner that was (in the FCC’s view) honest, equitable and balanced. In 1987, the FCC abolished the Fairness Doctrine.
No legislation has been introduced in the current Congress to reintroduce the doctrine. But prominent legislative leaders and former Presidents have called for its reinstatement. It could also be reinstated by a simple majority vote of the five members of the Federal Communication Commission (FCC) or through other FCC regulatory orders.
Rehr will review the history of the doctrine and argue that the federal government should not regulate media fairness or balance. “It was a mistake to ever institute the doctrine and we must prevent any attempt, directly or indirectly, to regulate speech under the guise of balance.” Rehr contends. Dr. Rehr will argue that in the past both Republicans and Democrats have used the doctrine to suppress their opponents speech.
Any FCC regulation or law which has the outcome of restricting political speech must be opposed by the citizenry with vigor.
Rehr will make the positive case that technology and market competition is generating a better informed electorate than ever before in the history of the nation.
Rehr earned a bachelor of science degree from SJU in business administration, and went on to earn master’s and doctorate degrees in economics from George Mason University. He has served as a member of the SJU Board of Regents since 2007.
Prior to joining the National Association of Broadcasters in December 2005, Rehr worked as the president of the National Beer Wholesalers Association and as a chief lobbyist to the U.S. House of Representatives for the National Federation of Independent Business. Rehr has been ranked by Beacham’s Guide to Key Lobbyists as one of the 125 most influential lobbyists in Washington, D.C., was listed in Washington Life magazine’s “Power 100” list in 2007 and was annually listed as a “Top Association Lobbyist” by The Hill publication.

2 St. John’s alumni to be honored for public service

September 10, 2009

2 St. John’s alumni to be honored for public service
Men will receive the first Eugene McCarthy Public Service Award

St. Cloud Times staff report

COLLEGEVILLE — St. John’s University will honor two alumni posthumously for their public service.

John Brandl and Gerald Christenson will receive the first Eugene McCarthy Distinguished Public Service Award during the third annual McCarthy Lecture and Dinner on Sept. 23.
Brandl served in the administration of President Lyndon Johnson in the 1960s, first as an analyst with the Defense Department and later as a deputy assistant secretary in the Department of Health, Education and Welfare. He later served 12 years in the Minnesota Legislature representing parts of south Minneapolis.

Brandl also was a regent at St. John’s from 1991-2000 and helped launch the Eugene J. McCarthy Center for Public Policy and Civic Engagement. He was a distinguished professor of public policy at St. John’s and the College of St. Benedict, and a professor and former dean of the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota.

Christenson, a native of Litchfield, helped design the Minnesota school funding system known as the “Minnesota Miracle” because it made the state responsible for most public education funding. He helped create a federal youth employment program during the 1960s and was chancellor of the Minnesota community college system.

He was also the first commissioner of the state’s Department of Finance, and instituted the revenue forecast.

Christenson was a chief of staff for Fourth District Congressman Joe Karth and a candidate for lieutenant governor in 1966.
Brandl died in 2008; Christenson in 2005.

Former Sen. Chuck Hagel to speak in Collegeville, Minn.

Star Tribune

Last update: September 3, 2009 - 8:52 PM

Former U.S. Sen. Chuck Hagel will deliver the annual Eugene McCarthy Lecture at St. John's University in Collegeville, Minn., this month. The speech by Hagel represents something of a historical convergence: Dedicated to the memory of one of the most trenchant Democratic opponents of the Vietnam War, it's being delivered by the first Republican senator to oppose the war in Iraq. McCarthy, whose 1968 presidential run effectively toppled President Lyndon Johnson, attended St. John's and was a member of the Benedictine community at St. John's Abbey. He served in Congress from 1949 until 1971. Hagel represented Nebraska in the Senate from 1997 until this year. A Vietnam veteran, he was considered a maverick in the GOP and his name was floated last year as a potential running mate or Cabinet member for President Obama.

The lecture, which is free and open to the public,
will be held at 7:30 p.m. Sept. 23.

BOB VON STERNBERG

The Limits Of Force:

Iraq and Afghanistan Aren't Ours to Win or Lose

Washington Post - Chuck Hagel

The other night I watched the film “The Deer Hunter.” Afterward, I remembered why it took me so many years to be able to watch Vietnam movies.

It all came tumbling back — the tragedy, the innocent victims, the waste. Too often in Washington we tend to see foreign policy as an abstraction, with little understanding of what we are committing our country to: the complications and consequences of endeavors. It is easy to get into war, not so easy to get out. Vietnam lasted more than 10 years; soon, we will slip into our ninth year in Afghanistan. We have been in Iraq for almost seven years.

When I came to the Senate in 1997, the world was being redefined by forces no single country controlled or understood. The implosion of the Soviet Union and a historic diffusion of economic and geopolitical power created new influences and established new global power centers — and new threats. The events of Sept. 11, 2001, shocked America into this reality. The Sept. 11 commission pointed out that the attacks were as much about failures of our intelligence and security systems as about the terrorists’ success. The U.S. response, engaging in two wars, was a 20th-century reaction to 21st-century realities. These wars have cost more than 5,100 American lives; more than 35,000 have been wounded; a trillion dollars has been spent, with billions more departing our Treasury each month. We forgot all the lessons of Vietnam and the preceding history.

No country today has the power to impose its will and values on other nations. As the new world order takes shape, America must lead by building coalitions of common interests, as we did after World War II. Then, international organizations such as the United Nations, NATO, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and GATT (now the World Trade Organization) — while flawed — established boundaries for human and government conduct and expectations that helped keep the world from drifting into World War III and generally made life better for most people worldwide during the second half of the 20th century. Our greatest threats today come from the regions left behind after World War II. Addressing these threats will require a foreign policy underpinned by engagement — in other words, active diplomacy, but not appeasement. We need a clearly defined strategy that accounts for the interconnectedness and the shared interests of all nations. Every great threat to the United States — whether economic, terrorism, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, health pandemics, environmental degradation, energy, or water and food shortages — also threatens our global partners and rivals. Accordingly, we cannot view U.S. involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan through a lens that sees only “winning” or “losing.” Iraq and Afghanistan are not America’s to win or lose. Win what? We can help them buy time, or develop, but we cannot control their fates. There are too many cultural, ethnic and religious dynamics at play in these regions for any one nation to control. For example, the future of Afghanistan is linked directly to Pakistan and what happens in the mountains along their border. Political accommodation and reconciliation in this region will determine the outcome.

Bogging down large armies in historically complex, dangerous areas ends in disaster. In Vietnam, we kept feeding more men, material and money into a corrupt Vietnamese government as our own leaders continued to deceive themselves and the American people. Today’s wars are quite different from Vietnam. But the Obama administration, Congress and the Pentagon must get this right because it will frame the global architecture for the next generation. We must put forward fresh thinking. We can no longer hold ourselves to narrow “single issue” engagement when dealing with nations such as China, Russia, India, Brazil, Turkey or South Korea. The United States needs all these countries and many more if we are to engage the most dangerous challenges — not one at a time, but all together. Our relationships with these nations have matured since World War II, as these nations have matured. Does anyone believe we will get to a responsible resolution on Iran without Russia? There’s a reason we are part of a Group of 20 rather than a G-8. Even the world’s largest economies cannot handle today’s problems alone.

Global collaboration does not mean retreating from our standards, values or sovereignty. Development of seamless networks of intelligence gathering and sharing, and strengthening alliances, diplomatic cooperation, trade and development can make the biggest long-term difference and have the most lasting impact on building a more stable and secure world. There really are people and organizations committed to destroying America, and we need an agile, flexible and strong military to face these threats. How, when and where we use force are as important as the decision to use it. Relying on the use of force as a centerpiece of our global strategy, as we have in recent years, is economically, strategically and politically unsustainable and will result in unnecessary tragedy — especially for the men and women, and their families, who serve our country.

Are our policies worthy of these Americans’ great sacrifices? That question must always be at the fore of our leaders’ decisions. Threats to America come from more than Afghanistan. Consider Yemen and Somalia. Are we prepared to put U.S. ground troops there? I doubt we would seriously consider putting forces in Pakistan, yet its vast Federally Administered Tribal Areas and mountainous western border harbor our most dangerous enemies today. We must shift our thinking, now, to pursue wiser courses of action and sharper, more relevant policies.
The president and his national security team should listen to recordings of conversations that President Lyndon B. Johnson had with Sen. Richard Russell about Vietnam, especially those in which LBJ told Russell that we could not win in Vietnam but that he did not want to pull out and be the first American president to lose a war. Difficult decisions with historic consequences are coming soon for President Obama.

The writer is a former Republican senator from Nebraska.