When West Berlin was an island surrounded by the German Democratic Republic, the name Kennedy was invoked by Berliners with almost religious feeling, especially after Dallas.  At the Freie Universitet, the John F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies was named, like so many other places around the world, after the fallen President.  Across the ocean, airports, highways, space centers — they were all transformed into markers for JFK’s legacy.  As a kid in New York, I remember my school was quickly renamed to JFK Junior High.

How will Ted Kennedy be remembered internationally?  It appears that America’s health care legislation, if it ever emerges from contentious debate to be passed by Congress, may bear the Kennedy name.  But in his nearly five decades of public life, did Ted Kennedy do anything on the international scene to prompt memorials?

In South Africa, Ted Kennedy will be remembered for his steadfast opposition to apartheid; in the Middle East, he will be recalled as an evenhanded proponent of peace between Israelis and Arabs; and, in the United Kingdom and in Ireland, Kennedy will be acknowledged as a Boston politician who helped to urge peaceful resolution of the Northern Ireland conflict.  Significant, yes.  But this was a politician of domestic social issues.

Still the Kennedy connection to Berlin will always remain special.  I had the pleasure as a U.S. Cultural Attache to visit the JFK Institute in the 1990s and recall that Bobby Kennedy’s daughter, Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, once visited the Institute.  But, as Dan Schorr reminds us, the first Kennedy brothers to visit Berlin were Bobby and Teddy, in 1962, where Teddy marked the birthday — his 30th — that made him eligible to run for the Senate seat that his oldest brother had vacated to become president.  It was one family, one clan, one brand.  A museum, “The Kennedys,” stands today on Pariser Platz, underlining the fact it is hard to celebrate just one Kennedy brother:  their histories were inseparable.

So, in February 1962, his brother Jack president, his brother Bobby Attorney General, Teddy Kennedy was an unaccomplished youngest brother of an elite American dynasty visiting a city encircled by Soviet troops.  Bobby made a speech, presaging the landmark speech JFK would make a year later.  Teddy was not the center of attention.  Within two years, Jack would be killed.  Another five years, and Bobby would be killed.

Teddy Kennedy, the Kennedy Berliners tended to overlook, would go on to serve another forty years in the U.S. Senate, never a president, never an international leader, but someone whom 80 of his Senate colleagues respected enough to come to rainy Boston today to pay their respects to.  He was given, as President Obama said, the gift of time that his brothers were denied.  He used that gift, not always well, but politically to good effect, which gave him a stature far beyond his promise as a young man.  JFK and Bobby left more institutions marked with their names, but Teddy left more legislation marked with his.

The second in a series of reports on America’s transition to green energy.

CHICAGO — Sometimes known as “The Windy City,” Chicago is the apt location this week for the world’s largest convention on wind energy.  “Wind Power 09″ is the annual meeting of the American Wind Energy Association, but such is the level of interest in America’s development of wind-generated electrical power, that the gathering has turned into an international meeting point for green power.  More than 19,000 participants, representing all the major international players in renewable energy, are in attendance this year.  A few years ago, only 2,000 were on hand.

Blade Runners

Thanks to the Obama Administration’s support for renewables, the wind and solar energy markets are enjoying unprecedented interest in the United States, a fact not lost on American and international wind turbine manufacturers.  Vestas (Denmark), Suzlon (India), Siemens (Germany) and GE came to this convention in force, along with hundreds of innovative mid-sized companies that are coming up with new designs for producing and distributing clean energy.  Last year, the U.S. passed Germany as the world’s largest producer of wind power, with about 28,000 MW now on line.  Although this is only about 2 per cent of total U.S. electrical supply, the new wind energy capacity added last year amounted to almost half of the total new power added across the U.S.  The trend line clearly favors renewables.

“We don’t need BP and we don’t need Shell,” T. Boone Pickens, the energy entrepreneur, told the conference yesterday.  “A few months from now, things are going to look a lot different.”  Pickens foresees Congressional approval by the end of August for Renewable Energy Standards (RES), a legislated mandate for the country to achieve 25 per cent of its electric power from renewable energy by 2025, similar to the standard already in effect in the EU.  The assumption is that a long-term federal mandate will attract investors still sitting on the sidelines.

Pickens as Oracle

Boone’s bullish advocacy for wind power (and for compressed natural gas to power the U.S. trucking industry)  has a few detractors, but not at this conference.  The 81-year-old has invested $60 million of his own money to develop wind projects and to gain popular support for his “Pickens Plan,” which argues that independence from imported oil is a national imperative.  The national security argument – beyond ecology and climate concerns – has helped to close the deal with the American public, which now supports renewables by large margins.  It also doesn’t hurt public acceptance that the industry has recruited retired General Wes Clark, former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO, as a kind of spokesman-advocate.  Clark is on the board of a wind turbine company (Netherlands-based EWT — Emergya Wind Technologies) and was another prominent speaker at the conference.  Other admired public figures and corporate leaders (such as Google CEO Eric Schmidt) are speaking out.  All that is left is for the economics of renewable energy to catch up and the nation’s power grid to be modernized.

Each of the major wind power “powers” – U.S., Germany, Spain, China – possesses certain advantages.  The U.S. is the largest wind power producer, Germany has most experience, Spain has the highest production per capita, and China has the potential to dwarf other producers in the future.   All these countries are well represented at Wind Power 09.  At the moment, the American market is center stage.  Vestas is building a substantial manufacturing facility in Colorado.  Last week, Siemens announced a wind turbine manufacturing facility in Kansas.

As James Baker once famously said about the argument for liberating Kuwait in the first Gulf War, it all comes down to jobs, jobs, jobs.  In the midst of a national recession last year, the wind power industry added 35,000 jobs to the U.S. economy.  If the wind industry expands to the recommended RES quota over the next two decades, 500,000 jobs will be created in the U.S.  The U.S. states with significant wind potential (Iowa, Minnesota) or the greatest idle manufacturing capacity (Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Pennsylvania) are aggressively pursuing investors and project developers.

The governors of four Midwestern U.S. states (Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin and Iowa) came to promote their respective states as the best sites for new wind turbine plants.  Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm said she wanted her state, which has the nation’s highest unemployment rate (more than 11 per cent), to go from being the “poster child” for jobs lost in the “rust belt,” to the leader of a new “green belt.”

Granholm: "A New Poster Child?"

The transformation of the American energy industry landscape will transform the physical landscape of the rural American Great Plains as well.  From Texas (America’s largest producer of wind power) to North Dakota, communities that have lost population in recent decades now stand to gain jobs as wind farms appear on the horizon.  This part of America will come to resemble nothing so much as the Landschaft of flat, northern Germany, where the crops farmers plant are not nearly so interesting as the power being reaped.

Photos by Joshua Lott/AWEA

John McCain has not always been the Republican party's sweetheart. He was George W. Bush's adversary for the nomination in 2000, a fierce advocate against the use of torture practices of detainees, and one of the few Republican candidates to take a hard line on immigration in the 2008 primary season. But now, as the party's anticipated nominee, he campaigns on behalf of the party and its legacy.

McCain is known for his “maverick,” and “straight-talking” ways, but from speech to speech McCain presses on, carrying the conservative moniker. On his recent fundraising trip to California, he received the endorsement of Nancy Reagan. A staunch supporter of the surge in Iraq, McCain's Iraq policy has come under fire and his positions on domestic and economic affairs solidify McCain towards the right of the American political spectrum. At his core, however, he is a moderate–a label which his recent foreign policy address to the World Affairs Council in Los Angeles solidifies.

In such a world, where power of all kinds is more widely and evenly distributed, the United States cannot lead by virtue of its power alone.

Is the era of Republican realism over?

[America] must be strong politically, economically, and militarily. But we must also lead by attracting others to our cause, by demonstrating once again the virtues of freedom and democracy, by defending the rules of international civilized society and by creating the new international institutions necessary to advance the peace and freedoms we cherish.

When was the last time a high-level Republican politician advocated not just for the support, but for the creation of new international institutions? In just one speech, McCain has brought to an end any party notions of “with us or against us”:

Our great power does not mean we can do whatever we want whenever we want, nor should we assume we have all the wisdom and knowledge necessary to succeed. We need to listen to the views and respect the collective will of our democratic allies. When we believe international action is necessary, whether military, economic, or diplomatic, we will try to persuade our friends that we are right. But we, in return, must be willing to be persuaded by them.

This is likely to be one of many foreign policy speeches the candidate gives as he seeks a win in November's election, but its diversion from the Bush Republican mainstream is noteworthy. (Granted, he delivered the speech in California to an internationalist crowd, though) perhaps the maverick title holds, for McCain certainly seems to have chosen the Republican road less traveled.

Photo by Flickr user pingnews.com used under a Creative Commons license

LOS ANGELES , The sprawling coastal megapolis of Southern California continues to battle fires in its arid chaparral-filled hillsides, so for the moment the local focus is not on politics or elections but on disaster relief and providing shelter for a half million displaced residents. But Hurricane Katrina proved that a botched relief effort can have enormous repercussions on national politics and even international relations. As the President visits the disaster area tomorrow, accompanied by Governor Schwarzenegger, comparisons with Katrina will be hard to avoid. Both men are oddly in the background of the 2008 elections landscape , the unpopular Bush shunned by Republican candidates to replace him, Schwarzenegger a victim of his foreign birth. Amidst the natural tragedy, political ironies are inescapable: Schwarzenegger has a "Giuliani moment" but can't run for higher office while President Bush, learning from Katrina, will be faulted for treating San Diego better than New Orleans.

A visitor to Los Angeles is struck by this region's Hispanic character and complexion and, along with it, the salience of the Hispanic vote in next year's election. Bush did well with the Hispanic voters in 2000 and 2004, but this is one part of the electorate whose sympathies next year are hard to predict. The first Hispanic candidate, Bill Richardson, has run an oddly listless race. Non-Hispanic politicians tread carefully while, behind the scenes, many are preoccupied with the immigration issue. The Internet was awash yesterday with warnings about Senator Reid's maneuvers in the Senate on the so-called "DREAM" legislation to grant citizenship to the younger generation of foreign born (illegal) residents. Lou Dobbs, on CNN last night, was particularly strident, accusing both parties of "pandering" to the Hispanic community.

Immigration, of course, has a foreign policy dimension, as President Bush's speech on Cuba today in Washington illustrates. A Cuban reaching Florida's shores gets legal sanctuary, a Mexican fleeing poverty and chaos becomes an illegal immigrant in California. Austrian-born immigrant Arnold Schwarzenegger, watching from the election sidelines, probably has more than a few thoughts on the subject, as he ponders the Constitutional provision that keeps him out of the race.

Congress has not been very surefooted of late when it comes to declaring foreign policy by means of Congressional Resolution. The latest example comes in the form of H. Res. 106, passed last week by the House Foreign Affairs Committee, which condemns the Ottoman Empire's murderous behavior in 1915, when the Armenian population of eastern Anatolia was nearly extinguished.

After several days of repercussions that included Turkey recalling its ambassador and threatening to end bilateral military cooperation with the United States, there were signs today that the Democratic leadership in the House was planning to quietly shelve the resolution so it would not get voted on in the full House.

Now the U.S. is now in the baleful position of having worsened relations with Turkey without even getting points for principled action.

From the standpoint of current U.S. foreign policy, the timing of this whole affair could not have been worse. The Republic of Turkey is a key U.S. ally and partner. Ankara's cooperation and support are crucial to U.S. military activities in Iraq. Turkey represents a modern country with an Islamic majority that endorses the separation of mosque and state. Add to this the extremely sensitive situation on Turkey's border with Iraq, Turkey's restive attitude toward the Kurdish semi-state developing in northern Iraq, and the latest vote today by the Turkish parliament to authorize military incursions across the border to attack suspected PKK enclaves, and one is left with a sinking feeling about what may happen next.

This is not to say that Turkey should be allowed to deny the actions of the Ottoman Turks ninety years ago. But there are better ways , and much better timing , to achieve atonement and reconciliation.

It would also help if congressional resolutions were more consistent, and less politically expedient. Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D- CA) must have thought at first it would be easy to support this measure because her party is not in the White House and would not have to bear the consequences , at least not yet , for worsening US-Turkish relations. She appears now to be reconsidering.

For better or worse, when Democrats or Republicans control both the Executive Branch and Congress, Congress passes very few resolutions that are considered offensive to key allies. When power is divided in Washington, Congressional forays into foreign policy don't have the same consequences and it becomes easier to stand on "principle."

Perhaps more important, the temptation is great, during election seasons, to solicit votes by actions that appeal to ethnic voters. California, home to the largest part of America's Armenian diaspora, will be key to the outcome of the 2008 elections. Cambodia, Rwanda, Sudan , other sites of more recent genocides , are less present in America's immigrant/ethnic communities, or we might see more resolutions in this election season on their behalf.

As Congress recalculates its interest in this issue, it might also keep in mind its October 2002 Resolution supporting the Iraq war, which seems so hasty in light of subsequent events. When the U.S. moved ahead and invaded Iraq, the Turkish parliament opposed its own government and refused to authorize use of Turkish airspace for the U.S.-led invasion. Maybe Congress would do well to listen occasionally to its counterparts in Ankara.

If we are going to overhaul, change, or toss out the Electoral College, that is a discussion that we ought to have at a national level. Cynical attempts to manipulate politics for the sake of partisan gain, however, should simply be beyond the pale. Fortunately, it looks as if GOP proposals to choose California's presidential electors based on a proportion of the popular vote are not going to gain traction. 

Such ploys seem like even more of a naked grab for power when one remembers that in the wake of the 2000 and 2004 elections Republicans scoffed at the very idea that the Electoral College needs fixing and insisted that Democrats were crybabies for wanting to look anew at the system we use to elect the President.  The same thing can be said for Texas’ unporecedented statewide redistricting a few years back. Just try to imagine the reactions from the right if the party affiliations were switched in either of these scenarios.