奥巴马致力于民主党建设

奥巴马团队所面临的困境主要是就是否让前总统布什的得意手下破坏这个要把民主党发扬光大的想法。

Four years after President George W. Bush declared it the mission of America to spread democracy with the goal of "ending tyranny in our world," his successor's team has not picked up the mantle.

Since taking office, neither President Barack Obama nor his advisers have made much mention of democracy-building as a goal. While not directly repudiating Bush's grand, even grandiose vision, Obama appears poised to return to a more traditional American policy of dealing with the world as it is rather than as it might be.

The shift has been met with relief in Washington and much of the world, which never grew comfortable with Bush's missionary rhetoric, seeing it as alternately cynical or naïve. But it also underlines a sharp debate in Democratic circles about the future of Bush's vision.

Idealists, for lack of a better word, agree that democracy-building should be a core American value but pursued with more modesty, less volume and better understanding of the societies in question. The realists, on the other hand, are skeptical of assumptions that what works in America should necessarily be exported elsewhere, or that it should eclipse other American interests.

The essential tension for the Obama team is whether to let Bush's strong association discredit the very idea of spreading democracy.

"It's sadly ironic that an administration that put democracy promotion at the forefront of its foreign policy has created such controversy about what has been a bipartisan ambition," said Kenneth Wollack, president of the National Democratic Institute, a government-financed group, affiliated with the Democratic Party, that promotes democracy abroad.

Wollack noted that presidents of both parties embraced the idea of nurturing democracy overseas for decades before Bush came along, even if he made it more central to his mission statement. "Now the debate is where it ought to be on that agenda," Wollack said.