Fareed Zakaria is dreamy...

ive long been a fan of Fareed Zakaria, which is something like saying that i get turned on by reasonable foreign policy and diplomacy. the same could be said about optimistic but realistic approaches to most problems that face us.

i have had the privilege to have traveled outside of the country and to live in a city where people from all over the world live. i really like to engage people in all sorts of conversations, frequently political. im generally curious to find their opinion on things. some are more willing than others to engage in this type of talk. ill get in a cab and engage the driver in small talk, and try to mention some hot topic in the news and try to tie that in to the politics. i want to know what people different from me think. i want to know how they think. i want to know why they think what they do. and having met people from all over the globe, the one thing i can connect between them is that they are generally good and just want the best for themselves and those that they care about.

it seems people see the world as generally a good place, but some folks are messing with it. they frequently see Iraq and Darfur and other such tragedies as the exception, rather than the rule. they are optimistic about the future and about the world.

now comes the part where i get political. you knew it was coming. John McCain seems to hold a different view. he appears to see the world as a scary place that we must defend ourselves from. he follows the Bush lead of lumping states into categories of friendly or terrorist. he doesnt shy away from insulting superpowers like Russia(advocating removing them from the G8) and China (advocating keeping them out of the G8 and a proposed League of Nations, which is a whole other issue...).

Barack Obama has been called naive, idealistic, and foolish for wishing to sit down and talk, without conditions, to leaders of troubled countries. people criticize him and his speeches for being too grandiose. they say talk is cheap. its true. but there are times where the cheaper, talking option, is preferable. had we talked to Iraq there may have been a different outcome. if we can talk to Iran and North Korea we may be able to avoid the same fate with countries who are known to have nuclear capabilities.

Obama hasnt promised to know the answers. the answers are probably not known. you sit down and talk and find them. I think he shares my view that most people are good and if you get to know them and what makes them tick, you can find common ground and in it a kinship. its a lot more effective than being a hawkish blowhard and offending some friendly nations in the process of further giving the unfriendly nation your bashing more reason to dislike the US. the adage is to keep friends close, and enemies closer, and i think that foreign policy is one place where that holds true. keep open the lines of communication. lets start perceiving the world in a different way and maybe the world's perception of us will improve with it.

now that ive meandered and espoused my way off the initial topic of Fareed Zakaria, im going to bring him back into the conversation. he has an article in PostGlobal that i think says what i want to, but entirely more eloquently, especially the concluding paragraph.

In the end, the difference between Obama and McCain might come down to something beyond ideology -- temperament. McCain is a pessimist about the world, seeing it as a dark, dangerous place where, without the constant and vigorous application of American force, evil will triumph. Obama sees a world that is in many ways going our way. As nations develop, they become more modern and enmeshed in the international economic and political system. To him, countries like Iran and North Korea are holdouts against the tide of history. America's job is to push these progressive forces forward, using soft power more than hard, and to try to get the world's major powers to solve the world's major problems. Call him an Optimistic Realist, or a Realistic Optimist. But don't call him naive.