Sorensen says Obama 'up to any task'

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By DON WALTON / Lincoln Journal Star

Ted Sorensen said Tuesday  the election of Barack Obama makes him even more proud of his country and “more optimistic” about its future.

The president-elect is “up to any task, any challenge,” Sorensen said.

As one foreign statesman told him in a private letter, Sorensen said, “the day Obama walks into the White House, respect for the United States will rise immeasurably all over the world.”

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Ted Sorensen talks politics Tuesday on the University of Nebraska-Lincoln campus. (Robert Becker)

Ted Sorensen talks politics Tuesday on the University of Nebraska-Lincoln campus. (Robert Becker)

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Ted Sorensen in Lincoln, 11.18.08

Listen is Ted Sorensen speaks with members of the media prior to his E.N. Thompson Forum appearance on Nov. 18, 2008. (JournalStar.com)...

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The election of the country’s first black president “says good things about America,” Sorensen said.

Sorensen, who was chief adviser and speechwriter for President John F. Kennedy, was in Lincoln for a series of events headlined by a Tuesday night address to a full house of more than 2,000 at the Lied Center.

During a news conference prior to that E. N. Thompson Forum lecture, Sorensen confided that he once advised Obama to consider delaying any presidential ambitions until 2012 or 2016, or even later, since the next president would “inherit a country in bad shape.”

“But this was his moment,” Sorensen said.

Now, he said, Obama needs to gather “a ministry of talent” around him without regard to party affiliation or earlier opposition to him. 

What is required are talented people who are “dedicated to this country’s national interest and nothing else,” Sorensen said.

Sen. Chuck Hagel is the ideal Republican choice for the Obama Cabinet, Sorensen said.

“Of all the Republicans who might fit, I think Hagel is at the top of the list,” Sorensen said.

“He’s not a narrow partisan (and) he has demonstrated statesmanship on foreign policy and national security.”

Sorensen said Hagel would be a good choice for secretary of defense.

Asked about Obama’s consideration of Sen. Hillary Clinton as secretary of state, Sorensen suggested Clinton would be “a great secretary of health and human services.”

Sorensen pointed to economic  challenges first when discussing the “tough agenda” that lies ahead for Obama.

But energy, global warming and health care are also in line.

“Nebraska has a great deal to contribute” in terms of alternative energy options, he said, including biofuels and wind.

Sorensen said Obama will restore America’s use of diplomacy, including multilateral diplomacy, as the first resort in an international crisis rather than turning to military force.

“We can’t bomb our way into respect,” he said, or to “impose democracy on other countries.”

Gone will be the embrace of torture, indefinite detention, denial of habeas corpus and extraordinary rendition, he said.

Gone, Sorensen said, will be “eight years of shame and pain.”

In his Lied Center speech, Sorensen contrasted Kennedy’s actions during the 1962 Cuban missile crisis with President Bush’s decision to attack Iraq in 2003.

Kennedy, he said, respected international law, relied on a bipartisan foreign policy, consulted with allies, demanded and considered all options, exercised wise leadership, and informed the American people.

And, he said, Kennedy “communicated, or negotiated, with the enemy,” which in that case was the Soviet Union. The result was peaceful removal of Soviet missiles from Cuba, he said.

Asked how Kennedy might have responded differently to the terrorist attacks on America on Sept. 11, 2001, Sorensen said he likes to believe that Kennedy already would have “sought out moderates and modernists in Islam” to attempt to reconcile already visible differences.

And, he said, Kennedy would have reacted immediately to a CIA briefing report in August warning of an impending domestic attack by al Qaida instead of just “going to his ranch.”

Obama, he said, will be like Kennedy.

“Beginning next January we will have a new president with a creative mind, a compassionate heart and a courageous spirit,” he said.

Sorensen, who was born and educated in Lincoln, met with students at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln earlier in the day.  He’ll be at Lincoln High School on Wednesday.

Reach Don Walton at 473-7248 or at dwalton@journalstar.com.