The topic below was originally posted on my blog, the Intrepid Liberal Journal.

Building consensus within America’s body politic and national security establishment for a new way forward with Muslims worldwide is a formidable challenge. Many Americans still don’t appreciate the complex nuances of Muslim society and remain stubbornly Islamophobic almost seven and half years after 9/11. Equally formidable is earning the goodwill of Muslims worldwide following the Iraq War as well as American atrocities perpetrated upon Islamic detainees at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib. Hopefully, President Obama’s historic election has finally opened a path for constructive conversation about how America can most effectively engage the Muslim world.

The CIA’s former point man on Islam, Emile Nakahleh, has vigorously entered this conversation with his new book, A Necessary Engagement: Reinventing America’s Relations With the Muslim World (Princeton University Press). From 1991 to 2006, Nakahleh served as the director of the Political Islam Strategic Analysis Program in the Directorate of Intelligence at the CIA. He holds a PhD in international relations and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

The topic below was originally posted on my blog, the Intrepid Liberal Journal.

Tomorrow, America honors the birthday of heroic civil rights activist Martin Luther King. Americans revere King across the political and ethnic spectrum for his wisdom, idealism, courage and practice of non-violent civil disobedience against the forces of racial oppression. Thanks in large part to the trailblazing efforts of King and his followers; America inaugurates its first black president the very next day when Barack Obama takes the oath of office on January 20th. Yet even as Americans celebrate the historical arc from Martin Luther King to Barack Obama, the scars of racial injustice remain woven into our country’s fabric.

Understandably, historians have overlooked the immediate aftermath of King’s assassination in a Memphis, Tennessee hotel on April 4th, 1968. The meaning of King’s life as well as the tragedy his loss represented has received considerable attention from historians and the body politic. Yet the immediate aftermath of King’s death was dwarfed by his iconic life as well as the assassination of Robert Kennedy and the violence that took place during the Democratic National Convention later that year.

The topic below was originally posted on my blog, the Intrepid Liberal Journal.

Words matter. Labels matter. Although it has become vogue to say, “Voters are tired of labels” they remain powerful. How we define the meaning of those labels is critical. Those of us who call ourselves “liberal” have learned this the hard way. As a liberal activist who slogged, blogged and endured, I find myself reflecting about the word “liberal” and the abuse it’s absorbed with Obama’s inauguration less then three weeks away.

It seems like only yesterday I volunteered for the Dukakis campaign in college as my candidate defensively denied he was a liberal. At the time voters associated the word “liberal” with convicted rapists. In the last days of the ’88 campaign, Dukakis finally declared himself a liberal and attempted to define it on his own terms. Alas, it was too little too late.

The topic below was originally posted on my blog, the Intrepid Liberal Journal.

Presidents define our country’s cultural ethos. Our cultural ethos impacts how large America’s economic pie is and whether the benefits and sacrifices are proportioned fairly. The Republican presidencies of Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Bush 41 and Bush 43, promoted a cultural ethos of hyper individualism that rationalized waging ruthless class warfare against the middle class, working poor, the unemployed poor, the very old and the very young. Liberals were lonely voices against the tide as predatory conservatism eroded protections for consumers and wage earners alike.

The topic below was originally posted yesterday on my blog, the Intrepid Liberal Journal.

Change is passé. Barack Obama squeezed all the juice out of the change orange since announcing his candidacy in February 2007. Personally, I never thought much of the “change you can believe in” slogan but there is no denying Obama went far with it.

However, Sarah Palin’s selection as McCain’s running mate has convinced the public change is coming no matter who wins. Even worse, the very same corporate media that complained Obama only offered “words” compared to Hillary Clinton’s policy specifics during the primary season now argue that McCain’s lack of specifics does not diminish his stature as a maverick. Is that fair? Of course not! But there is no sense whining about it. These are the cards we’ve been dealt.

So how do we change the narrative? The solution is to present the voting public with a stark choice: progress or calamity. Change vs. more of the same is stale and no longer resonates.

The topic below was originally posted in my blog, the Intrepid Liberal Journal and x-posted at The Wild, Wild Left, Out of Iraq Bloggers Caucus, The Independent Bloggers Alliance, The Peace Tree and World Wide Sawdust.

As many of you know by now, The Huffington Post reported yesterday that Senator Clinton slammed the activist organization Moveon.org at a fundraiser in February: