Finally!! Someone really writes about the huge beneficial factor a truly cross-cultural and internationally mobile childhood affords. In our book, Third Culture Kids: The Experience of Growing Up Among Worlds, Dave Pollock and I write that being a "cultural bridge" is one of the assets gained from such a childhood. A strong sense of confidence, of ability to think "outside the boxes" are others. One huge challenge, however, is that the large world view which is such a gift can make others think we are unpatriotic. Looks like your writers got them all!! Good job!
A Man at Home in the World
Email To A Friend
Please fill in the following information and we'll email this link.
SPONSORED BY
Touting his worldliness remains politically risky for Obama. Americans, as they have been for 200 years, are suspicious of foreign influence—recall that some mocked John Kerry because he spoke French. Obama's sensitivity to foreign grievances is likely to become a talking point for the GOP, which will question his priorities as commander in chief. Former JFK adviser Newton Minow says Obama reminds him of a young Kennedy. But Minow is wary of the fate of Adlai Stevenson, the Illinois governor and Democratic nominee in 1952 and '56 who, like Obama, was seen as brilliant and eloquent but a little too … exotic. "I remember after Adlai lost, he said to me: 'I could have carried England and France'," Minow jokes. The more Obama-mania sweeps countries around the world, the more suspicious his background becomes to some Americans.
Obama's supporters say it's slanderous to suggest that he wouldn't have his priorities straight as president. "I've never met a person anywhere in and out of public life who is more focused on America and its interests," says McPeak. Adds Sarah Sewall of Harvard, Obama's counterinsurgency adviser: "He's really clear about this. He says the first thing I'm supposed to do is keep Americans safe. All these people who would imply that [he's not tough enough] are the same people who jumped all over him about his comments about Pakistan and bombing." (Obama was criticized for being too aggressive when he declared last August, "If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President [Pervez] Musharraf won't act, we will.") Obama, who has called for two extra U.S. Army brigades to be deployed to Afghanistan, says that in places like Pakistan, America must do both—win over the people by supporting democracy and hit the terrorists harder.
His supporters know that's a fine line, though. "He's not saying, 'Gee, I should go talk with Al Qaeda and I can persuade bin Laden not to go to war with us.' He's saying 'I'll move in two brigades and if the Pakistanis don't get him, I will'," says former Navy secretary Richard Danzig, another top adviser. "This is not a soft position." At the same time, Danzig admits, "the feeling that there is a common humanity," even with adversaries, "is deep in his own personal experience and his DNA. And there's always the risk that you don't quite get [the balance] right."
With Erika Kinetz in Jakarta and Sarah Kliff in New York
© 2008
Discuss