Dec. 2, 1998. In his remarks to the Democratic Leadership Council's annual conference, Vice President Gore took a jab at Texas Gov. George W. Bush's "compassionate conservativism."
There is, Gore said, a difference "between talking about compassion, and actually putting your highest ideals into practice." "America needs a new practical idealism for the 21st century," Gore declared. During and after Gore's speech, a number of his key advisors, including Elaine Kamarck and Peter Knight, showed up in the back of the room to talk to members of this key Democratic constituency as well as to reporters. Gore has well-established ties to the DLC; Sen. Evan Bayh, introducing Gore, spoke of the then-Senator "sitting across the conference table helping to write the press release announcing the creation of the DLC."
http://www.gwu.edu/~action/gorepho.htmlAt State, Rice Takes Control of Diplomacy
Secretary Summons 'Practical Idealism'By Robin Wright and Glenn Kessler
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, July 31, 2005; A01
Three weeks after taking office, Condoleezza Rice hosted Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and their Japanese counterparts at the State Department. When Rumsfeld began to speak, Rice gently cut him off. The message was clear: I'll take the lead, Don. Both Japanese and U.S. officials noted the decisive nudge.
Now six months on the job, Rice has clearly wrested control of U.S. foreign policy. The once heavy-handed Defense Department still weighs in, but Rice wins most battles -- in strong contrast to her predecessor, Colin L. Powell. White House staff is consulted, but Rice designed the distinctive framework for the administration's second-term foreign policy.
In short order,
she has demonstrated a willingness to bend on tactics to accommodate the concerns of allies without ceding on broad principles, what she calls "practical idealism." She also conducts a more aggressive personal diplomacy, breaking State Department records for foreign travel and setting up diplomatic tag teams with top staff on urgent issues.
U.S. foreign policy has always had "a streak of idealism, which means that we care about values, we care about principle," Rice said in an interview last week. "The responsibility, then, of all of us is to
take policies that are rooted in those values and make them work on a day-to-day basis so that you're always moving forward toward a goal."http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/30/AR2005073001081_pf.html
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