Eric Liu: All Publications, Events and Press

Eric Liu in Publishers Weekly | 'The Monday Interview: Eric Liu, of The True Patriot'

Cecille Isidro — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 15:26:00 -0400

An interview with Eric Liu, co-author with Nick Hanauer of The True Patriot, which was published by Sasquatch in January 2008.

Publishers Weekly: How would you describe The True Patriot?

Eric Liu: The book is an argument that we’ve got to reclaim patriotism in more progressive terms. It’s written in the style of a Thomas Paine pamphlet, and is meant to provoke debate about the ways in which over the last four decades patriotism as an idea has been hijacked by the right and surrendered by the left--to the detriment of both. We put the book out there to reframe the conversation and take it out of the realm of reflex and gauzy cliché and reground it in a set of moral principles. People have a list of clichés built up in their mind, either positive or negative, and they’re far removed from truly revisiting the moral core of what it truly means to put country before self. LINK

Eric Liu in Politico | 'Poll: McCain Holds Edge on Patriotism'

Communications — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 13:10:00 -0400

...A recent Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll showed that 35 percent of voters said they had concerns about Obama’s patriotism. Only nine percent said they were worried about McCain’s. Eric Liu, a former domestic policy adviser to President Bill Clinton who co-founded the True Patriot Network with Hanauer, said Obama has not been forceful enough in conveying a message on patriotism. “It is not something that Obama has particularly, persistently, or effectively, really done,” Liu said. “What’s encouraging to us is that he’s beginning to find his voice on patriotism,” he added, “What this poll suggests is there is some urgency to that.” LINK

Eric Liu in USA Today | 'Poll: Flag Pins, Protests Both Patriotic'

Communications — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 09:36:00 -0400

..."The wellspring of patriotism is very deep across party, across region, across demographics," says Eric Liu, a former White House speechwriter for President Bill Clinton and co-author of The True Patriot, which explores the meaning of patriotism... LINK

Eric Liu on KUOW Radio| 'The True Patriot: the Opportunity and Responsibility of Citizenship'

Communications — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 12:03:00 -0400

How do you define patriotism in America in 2008? Eric Liu and Nick Hanauer wrote a little red book called The True Patriot. They want to remind people of their responsibilities as American citizens. Have liberals run away from the concept of patriotism? Has the concept of patriotism been turned into a political cudgel that squelches open discussion? Can the left and right agree on what patriotism means? Are you a patriot? Does the word patriot make you uncomfortable? LINK to audio

Eric Liu in TIME | 'The New Patriotism'

Communications — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 07:04:00 -0400

...What we need going forward is third-way patriotism, a new patriotism that blends the faith of our fathers with, as Lincoln said, the unfinished work remaining before us. That new patriotism, as Eric Liu and Nick Hanauer write in The True Patriot, means "appreciating not only what is great about our country but also what it takes to create and sustain greatness..." LINK

What is True Patriotism?

Communications — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 18:00:00 -0500

A New America Event
03/06/2008 - 6:00pm

Has the right hijacked patriotism? Has the left ceded it? Does wearing a flag lapel pin make you a true patriot? Is dissenting against a war truly patriotic? Who decides? Written by former speechwriter and senior domestic policy advisor to President Clinton, Eric Liu, and Seattle-based entrepreneur and philanthropist, Nick Hanauer, The True Patriot argues that in these cynical times there should be a higher call: to country first. The… more

Eric Liu on WTOP Radio | Interview on The True Patriot

Communications — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 14:23:00 -0500

Interview on The True Patriot (WTOP Radio, DC)

Author Eric Liu discusses American patriotism and his new book, "The True Patriot," with WTOP Radio in Washington, DC. Please find the transcript below, and audio of the interview linked as an attachment at the bottom of the page. Visit WTOP.com for more news.

WTOP: Three names for you now: John McCain, Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton. Of those three, who would you say is a patriot? Well many people might say all three are patriots, running for President, but surveys show the word “patriot” is most frequently connected with McCain and other Republicans. A new book is trying to change our definition of patriotism: it is called The True Patriot, co-written by Eric Liu, who used to write speeches for President Clinton, and Liu talked with me a little earlier about this:

ERIC LIU: One of the things that’s remarkable about American politics today is that for too many of us, the word “patriot” conjures up somebody who is a conservative. And while plenty of conservatives are patriotic, and are good patriots, their side doesn’t get to own the word.

WTOP: Is the word… more

The True Patriot

adminn — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 11:06:00 -0500

It’s been hijacked by the right and abandoned by the left, but the principles of true patriotism -- country above self, responsible stewardship, equality, shared sacrifice and service -- are inherently progressive. The True Patriot challenges progressives to retake patriotism. Written in the pamphleteering style of Thomas Paine, it presents a manifesto, ten-principal plan, and moral code that reframe the concept of patriotism and return politics to what it once was: a civic virtue and responsibility that fueled the country’s founders.

Praise for The True Patriot "The True… more

NYT Quotes Eric Liu on Asian Americans and College Admissions

Communications — Sun, 07 Jan 2007 21:55:00 -0500

When Jonathan Hu was going to high school in suburban Southern California, he rarely heard anyone speaking Chinese. But striding through campus on his way to class at the University of California, Berkeley, Mr. Hu hears Mandarin all the time, in plazas, cafeterias, classrooms, study halls, dorms and fast-food outlets. It is part of the soundtrack at this iconic university, along with Cantonese, English, Spanish and, of course, the perpetual jackhammers from the perpetual construction projects spurred by the perpetual fund drives. Too Many? Not Enough? Some say Asian-Americans are being denied spots at top colleges to keep their numbers in check (Asians make up 5 percent of the population)...When I ask the chancellor at Berkeley, Robert J. Birgeneau, if there is a perfect demographic recipe on this campus that likes to think of itself as the world’s finest public university — Harvard on the Hill — he demurs. “We are a meritocracy,” he says. And — by law, he adds — the campus is supposed to be that way. If Asians made up, say, 70 percent of the campus, he insists, there would still be no attempt to reduce their numbers...If Berkeley is… more

Guiding Lights

adminn — Sat, 01 Jan 2005 00:00:00 -0500

Selected reviews of Guiding Lights are featured below:

American Library Association

Saturday, January 15, 2005 This book documents the stories of 15 mentors as well as the very personal journey of a former Clinton speechwriter, journalist, and author (The Accidental Asian, 1998). Two years in the researching and writing, this is a riveting analytical description of how great teachers made a difference and how they work their magic. The 15 stories are as disparate as American lives:… more

Waiting for the Story

Cecille Isidro — Fri, 10 Sep 2004 00:00:00 -0400

What do we mean when we call a president a "great communicator"? Maybe we mean he's a great storyteller. But whether or not he's a stirring orator or charming raconteur, we mean that he's a teller of great stories. In presidential politics, the man is a metaphor. The candidate who can tell a story about himself that's deeply in sync with a story about the country -- and who can make the stories equally compelling -- is most likely to win.

Look at recent elections. In 1992, Bill Clinton branded himself the Comeback Kid, the Man From Hope -- resilient in the face of setbacks (self-inflicted or not), able to take a punch and get up to fight again. That wasn't just a story about Clinton; it was, in 1992, a story about America -- about a country hit by recession, anxiously wondering whether decline had set in. The stories about candidate and country were fused, by design. A vote for Clinton was meant to be an affirmation: We will come through this stronger.

An equally compelling example: George W. Bush in 2000. Here was a man who, by his own telling, had gone astray in earlier years. He'd drifted from core values and had mistaken frivolity and flash for the stuff of life. Then, through grace and personal resolve, he heeded a call to moral clarity. Yet in refocusing his life, he didn't become harshly judgmental; he walked his way and led. This, of course, is a tale not only of how a prodigal son was redeemed but also of where the country, after Monica and the bubble economy, needed to go: back to basics, bedrock beliefs, integrity -- with compassion and open-heartedness for all.

Do both of these stories have major holes, distortions and contradictions? Of course. But both Clinton in 1992 and Bush in 2000 told stories that served as national parables. They appealed in sophisticated ways not to voters' rationality but to a deeper yearning for meaningfulness and direction. The candidate's story was a proxy for a bigger story about us -- or at least the "us" we want to imagine.

Now consider a counterexample: Al Gore. There are many reasons why Gore failed in 2000 to win the popular vote by a decisive margin. But tellingly, it is difficult to say today what story Gore was trying to tell about himself. That he was his own man? That he was exceptionally well qualified? True, and insufficient. Meanwhile, the story line he ultimately settled on about the country -- "the people versus the powerful" -- not only failed to connect with an appealing story about himself but in many ways underscored his own elite background and created cognitive dissonance about which side of the "versus" he came from.

This brings us to the current day. Bush's narrative was altered forever by Sept. 11. But as his crafty speech at the GOP convention showed, the past three years have mainly deepened and extended the grooves of his original story.

Bush 2.0 -- the president -- no longer needs to sell himself directly all the time. He can paint a tableau of the nation's experience and let that image stand in for his own. The subtext of his convention speech was this: Here is a decent man who was not looking for war on Sept. 10, a man who on that day was still haunted by the sense that he should live up to something bigger, and who, by an unimaginable tragedy, was lit with a singular sense of intention and determination that removed all doubt about who he was or could be.

How did Bush say this about himself? By casting it in terms of America's journey since Sept. 11. "Our tested and confident nation can achieve anything," Bush said in New York. That is exactly how Bush feels about himself now, and in those words is implied a tale of metamorphosis: an invitation to join him in rebirth.

What will be critical in the coming weeks is whether John Kerry is similarly able to tell two great stories and to fuse them into a powerful, self-reinforcing allegory. So far he has failed to do so. Kerry's story about himself at the Democratic convention was the tale of a Vietnam War hero -- which was useful tactically, at least until the Swift boat veterans entered the scene. But even had the account been left unchallenged, it never led the electorate to a clear set of conclusions about the man today, let alone to a story about where the country needs to head next.

Kerry is a patriot for serving in a war. He is a patriot for protesting against that war. Service and dissent, two vital strands of public courage, ought to form the spine of a compelling personal story. What's missing at this late date is a way to leap from such a story (which hasn't yet been told well) to a concept of what we as a people can become now. Or, to put it more sharply, why we should be any different from the America George Bush describes.

Will Kerry's renewed assaults on the administration's record move swing voters his way? Will his revived fighting spirit give people confidence that he's right for our times? Perhaps. But what he might most usefully do now is tell the people a story or two -- and make sure we want to believe it.

Remember When Public Spaces Didn't Carry Brand Names?

Cecille Isidro — Thu, 25 Mar 1999 00:00:00 -0500

In a few weeks, when the world champion New York Yankees open their home season, will they take the field at Trump Stadium? Time Warner Park? Maybe AT&T Arena?

Chances are the park will still be called Yankee Stadium. But it won't be that way for long. Quietly, and with strikingly little protest, the Yankees have announced that they are planning to sell the "naming rights" to their Bronx homestead. By the time the 2000 season arrives, some lucky corporation may well have bought the sign outside the House that Ruth Built. And frankly, that turns my stomach.

It's not just that Yankee Stadium is a national treasure. It's not just that allowing the highest bidder to rename this 76-year-old icon feels like an insult -- to New Yorkers, to tradition and to the memory of Yankees past, such as Joe DiMaggio. It's also that what is about to happen to Yankee Stadium is part of a deeper, accelerating trend in our society: the relentless branding of public spaces.

The sports world gives us piles of examples. San Francisco's fabled Candlestick Park is now 3Com Park. The selling of bowl game names has reached sublimely ridiculous levels. (Remember the Poulan/Weed Eater Independence Bowl?) And the trend is hardly confined to sports. Branding -- the conspicuous marking of places and things with corporate names and logos -- is now everywhere in the civic square.

Consider the public schools, some of which are flooded with advertising for merchandise and fast food. Districts around the country are raising money by making exclusive deals with Pepsi or Coke or with credit card companies or banks. In one Texas district, Dr. Pepper recently paid $ 3.45 million in part to plaster its logo on a high school roof to attract the attention of passengers flying in and out of Dallas.

Other efforts to turn public spaces into commercial vessels are no less corrosive. Rollerblade now hawks its wares in Central Park under the banner "The Official Skate of New York City Parks." Buses in Boston and other cities don't just carry ad placards anymore; some of them have been turned into rolling billboards.

How far can this go? Over in England, the legendary white cliffs of Dover now serve as the backdrop for a laser-projected Adidas ad. Here in America, we haven't yet draped Mount Rushmore with a Nike "swoosh." But things are heading in that general direction.

You might say at this point, "What's the big deal? America is commercialized -- get over it!" And I admit my views may sound a bit old-fashioned. But this isn't a matter of priggishness or personal nostalgia.

Public spaces matter. They matter because they are the emblems, the physical embodiments, of a community's spirit and soul. A public space belongs to all who share in the life of a community. And it belongs to them in common, regardless of their differences in social station or political clout. Indeed, its very purpose is to preserve a realm where a person's worth or dignity doesn't depend on market valuations.

So when a shared public space, such as a park or a schoolhouse, becomes just another marketing opportunity for just another sponsor, something precious is undermined: the idea that we are equal as citizens even though we may be unequal as consumers.

What the commercialization of public spaces also does, gradually and subtly, is convert all forms of identity into brand identity.

We come to believe that without our brands, or without the right brands, we are literally and figuratively no-names.

We question whether we belong in public, whether we are truly members.

We forget that there are other means, besides badges of corporate affiliation, to communicate with one another.

It could, of course, be said, with a place like Times Square in mind, that brands, logos and slogans are now our most widely understood public language. It could be said that in this age of cultural fragmentation, the closest thing we have to a commons is commerce.

But is this the best vision of American life we can muster?

In the military, they worry about "mission creep." In civilian life, the problem is "market creep." And the question now is how to stem this creeping sickness. We know there is some limit to what people will accept: A 1996 April Fools announcement that the Liberty Bell had been purchased and rechristened the "Taco Liberty Bell" provoked a storm of angry calls. Drawing the line there, though, isn't protecting an awful lot.

Maybe the renaming of Yankee Stadium will shame some legislators or zoning czars into action. Maybe the "corporatization" of our classrooms will spark some popular protest. Maybe the licensing away of Central Park will awaken us to the disappearance of public space -- and to the erosion of the public idea.

Then again, maybe not. In which case, we'd better keep a close eye on Mount Rushmore.