Sen. Hart Meets with Council Supporters and Activists

On May 8, 2008, the Council for a Livable World and the American Constitution Society hosted a discussion in Connecticut with Council Chairman and former Senator Gary Hart, who spoke to an audience of one hundred people, including Council supporters, local community and business leaders and progressive activists. The focus of the discussion was on U.S. foreign policy and the agenda and challenges ahead for the next administration.

A local blogger wrote about the event for his blog, the Orient Lodge. It can be read below.

Gary Hart Speaks in Hartford

Posted at Orient Lodge

Former U.S. Senator, Former Presidential Candidate and Author Gary Hart addressed a group of lawyers, legislators, candidates and activists this afternoon at the offices of Shipman and Goodwin in downtown Hartford this afternoon. Prior to Sen. Hart’s presentation, people gathered, shared sandwiches and discussions about the legislative session that has just ended. Folks more often seen wearing T-Shirts supporting one candidate or another put on their suits to join the discussion.

The event was sponsored by The Connecticut Lawyer Chapter of the American Constitution Society and the Council for a Livable World.

Sen. Hart started off by acknowledging that the priorities for a new administration would be a long and complex agenda, and he chose to focus on two key themes, security and the restoration of constitutional government in our county. The next president should start off his or her administration with a televised speech to the nation about the importance of our constitution and the checks and balances it is supposed to afford us. The next president should talk about why an independent judiciary is so important and about the dangers of the unitary executive theory that has been espoused by members of the current administration.

This should be followed by a speech to the United Nations, re-establishing the role of the United States as a country with a constitutional government that is respected worldwide.

In terms of security, he noted that we must move to a broader understanding of security. Security is not limited to what our military can provide. Security is dependent on wise responses to threats like global warming and economic upheaval.

During the introduction, Sen. Hart was introduced as a precursor to Sen. Obama and the first question that came up touched on Sen. Hart’s role as an ‘Atari Democrat’. Sen. Hart described the Atari Democrats to the audience as those candidates in 1984 that did well in the states that had been helped by the shift of the economy from being focused on manufacturing to an economy based on the information revolution. Vice President Mondale and other non-Atari Democrats did better in the states that were hurt by the changing economy.

Yet the focus of the question was whether or not our military was really doing better as a smarter, sleeker military, and how that applied to Iraq. Sen. Hart observed that going into Iraq was like kicking open a 1300 year old hornet’s nest and that it just doesn’t make sense to stick around until every hornet is somehow gotten back into the nest.

State Senate candidate John Hartwell expressed concern over the unitary executive theory and asked Sen. Hart to speak more about this. Sen. Hart spoke about the Church Committee set up after Watergate to investigate “Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities”. While there was disagreement about whether the intelligence community had gotten out of hand because of rogue agencies or was taking direction from various administrations, it was clear that some oversight was needed, and that brought about important laws like FISA.

It has been disturbing to see these laws circumvented or ignored and it was asked why there wasn’t a stronger outcry by bar associations, retired judges, law schools and others.

The questions continued to get tougher as one person asked if it will ever be possible for politicians to criticize Israel. Sen. Hart noted that there is vigorous debate within Israel about their policies and that failing to have a similar debate in the United States is not in Israel’s best interest. He noted that too often, here in the United States, supporting Israel is confused with supporting the policies of one of the political parties in Israel, Likud.

The next question was about why congress has not pursued impeachment. Sen. Hart claimed that impeachment would essentially shut down all other government action. Some suggested that with the current administration, this might not be a bad idea. He also noted that trying to get the average person to understand the importance of our constitutional government when everything needs to be reduced to a brief quote in the news is much more challenging than getting people to understand the 18 and ½ minutes of missing tape.

In closing, Sen. Hart observed that we have a system that eventually self corrects. As things happen more quickly in the twenty first century, there is some fear about our system not self correcting quickly enough. Part of the self-correction, he observed, should be a return of the Republican Party that he fought against when he was a Senator. That party believed in balance budgets, opposed intervention overseas, especially unilateral intervention, and didn’t believe that it should be policing our bedrooms.

Perhaps as the pendulum swings we will see a return of this sort of Republican. Sen. Hart spoke wisely and clearly about the issues, and perhaps part of the swing of the pendulum will see more people speaking more wisely and clearly about policy issues.

At the end of the talk, Gary Collins spoke about supporting groups like the Council for a Livable World and the the American Constitution Society. These are the sort of groups that may be key to helping us return to wise and clear discussions about policy issues. At least, that is what they did today.

Council Chairman Former Sen. Gary Hart with National Advisory Board member Tim Brennan.

Gary Hart with John Hartwell, a Connecticut democrat running for State Senate.

Former Sen. Hart with Council Board member Gary Collins, an arms control advocate from Connecticut.