Wow, it has been a busy week. Last night we headed over to Busboys and Poets on 14th & V for our second lecture from the Center for American Progress. This one was about defining Progressive Foreign Policy, and it had Spencer Ackerman and Brian Katulis. In describing the event to Sam I said this series feels like you are sitting in on a staff meeting of a think tank. In other words it is assumed you already know what everyone is talking about. In that light, this was not really a lecture describing what progressive foreign policy is to a someone who does not know what it is, or even to draw sharp distinctions between it and Bush Doctrine policy, as several questioners pointed out. It feels more like a bunch of people sitting in a bar intellectualizing. If anything, the speakers did talk a little about drawing a distinction between idealized progressive foreign policy and the Obama Doctrine, such as the problem with drone strikes in Pakistan, intervention in Sudan, and a bit about deescalating in Afghanistan.
Depending on what the ultimate goal of this particular forum is, that could be fine. Much of the audience is young, probably students and recent grads, and being in DC, many of them are looking a careers in government or policy. So a forum like this that makes the audience positively attuned to CAP and can extend the CAP sphere of influence when the audience actually gets those jobs. Just a guess.
I started to get a headache towards the end, otherwise I definitely think I would have enjoyed sticking around to talk to the presenters and audience members afterwards.
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