Yesterday, four Georgetown academics–Samer Shehata, Steven Heydemann, Hesham Sallam, and John Voll–encouraged President Barack Obama to throw his support behind a week-long uprising against Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

“As political scientists, historians, and researchers in related fields who have studied the Middle East and U.S. foreign policy, we the undersigned believe you have a chance to move beyond rhetoric to support the democratic movement sweeping over Egypt,” the letter, which was signed by 101 professors from around the country, read. “As citizens, we expect our president to uphold those values.”

Both Shehata and Voll work within the School of Foreign Service, while Sallam is a PhD student in Georgetown College. Heydemann is an associate professor who mainly works in the Georgetown Public Policy Institute.

After urging Obama support the revolution, the letter goes on to suggest a new era of diplomacy between the United States and Egypt.

“In order for the United States to stand with the Egyptian people it must approach Egypt through a framework of shared values and hopes, not the prism of geostrategy,” it added. “For that reason we urge your administration to seize this chance, turn away from the policies that brought us here, and embark on a new course toward peace, democracy and prosperity for the people of the Middle East.”

After the jump, we’ve republished the letter.

Read the rest of this entry »

Another member of the Georgetown community is now a member of the Obama administration.

After being nominated this summer, President Barack Obama recess appointed former Georgetown University Law Center adjunct professor James Cole as deputy attorney general.

Cole replaces David Ogden, who stepped down in February as the deputy attorney general.

He has been a partner at Bryan Cave LLP since 1995. Prior to working in private practice, Cole worked for the Department of Justice and served on President Clinton’s transition team in 1992.

From 1989 to 2003, he served as an adjunct professor at GULC teaching classes on public corruption laws and legal ethics.

Other recess appointments by the Obama administration included ambassadors to the Czech Republic, Turkey, Syria, and Azerbaijan.

3 p.m. update: No Obama tonight. But we all got pat downs anyway!

Original post: Minutes ago, we got a strange email that urged us to arrive “at least 45 minutes earlier than you normally would” for tomorrow’s men’s basketball game at the Verizon Center. And season ticket holders got it too.

“There will be enhanced security at the entrances to the arena for this game,” the email read.

Could President Barack Obama be visiting the Verizon Center? Possibly, but he won’t be watching Georgetown play the mighty Greyhounds of Loyola Maryland. Earlier today, Wizards owner Ted Leonsis (COL ’77) gave a coy hint that suggested the security presence is for the Wizards-Heat game scheduled for Saturday night.

“We will have a big crowd on Saturday, lots of dignitaries and VIPs. If I was you, I wouldn’t be too cool for school and think you will get into the building at your leisure at 7:15 pm. I would get there early,” Leonsis wrote on his blog.

Last January, Obama and Vice President Joe Biden watched Georgetown thump Duke in front of a packed Verizon Center.

Photo: Lynn Kirshbaum

Last Thursday, Alejandro Gonzalez (SFS ’12) had an opportunity many of us can only dream of: To ask the President of the United States a question on national television.

Gonzalez was joined by Geoffrey Bible (SFS ’12), Nicole Tortoriello (COL ’12), and other Georgetown students in the audience for President Barack Obama’s town hall, which was broadcast live on the MTV, BET and CMT networks. [Disclosure: Bible is the Assistant Editor of Vox.]

Gonzalez, who described Obama as “very tall and quite funny” and “very candid,” asked the President about the DREAM Act, a piece of legislation that proposes a path to citizenship for illegal-immigrant minors.

Read the rest of this entry »

After running into a bit of controversy over statements made in Bob Woodward’s Obama’s War, National Security Adviser General James L. Jones (SFS ’66) is stepping down from his duties within the next two weeks.

Jones, a former NATO commander (and Hoya basketball player), had been at the post since the beginning of the Obama administration.

During a White House press conference, President Barack Obama credited Jones with reshaping the national security staff to make the country better equipped to handle the new types of threats facing the nation. The president also said that he relied on Jones on a daily basis for advice.

Despite Jones’ departure, the national security office will not be without a Georgetown alum. Obama appointed Jones’ deputy Thomas Donilon to replace him and appointed Denis McDonough (MSFS ’96) as the new deputy national security adviser.

McDonough previously served as the National Security Council chief of staff, an adviser to Obama’s 2008 campaign, and as an adviser to former visiting professor Senator Tom Daschle.

Photo: AP

h/t Professor Anthony Clark Arend

Another Lazarus has been raised; not from the dead this time, but from the Georgetown University Law Center.

Richard Lazarus, the Justice William J. Brennan, Jr. Professor of Law and co-director of the Supreme Court Institute, has been tapped to lead the investigation in to the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Lazarus will be the executive director of the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling.  The commission, headed by former Senator Bob Graham of Florida and former EPA director William Reilly, has been set on a fact-finding mission to determine the cause of the spill—which is in its 66^th day—as well as how to prevent future similar catastrophes.

Read the rest of this entry »

In an address to a meeting of the National Military Family Association, First Lady Michelle Obama introduced plans for aiding the families of military members who are serving overseas. The conference—“When Parents Deploy:  Understanding the Experience of Military Children and Spouses”—was held at the Georgetown University Conference Center today.

Unveiling President Barack Obama’s call for the National Security Staff to lead a review that will, “develop a coordinated Federal-government wide approach to supporting and engaging military families,” according to the White House press release, she emphasized that as America asks more of its military, their families have a right to ask more of the American people.

The plan aims to make the federal government more friendly to the needs of military families by identifying their priorities, examining which policies do and do not work, and finding ways in which military experience can be used to better the U.S.

The First Lady started by recalling NMFA’s slogan, “Together we’re stronger,” and said that the American people all need to work together to help military families.  “With just one percent of our population—our troops—doing 100 percent of the fighting, our military families are being tested like never before.  [America] need[s] to give their families 100 percent support.”

Read the rest of this entry »

Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service may be out one very valuable professor by the end of the school year. The U.S. has nominted Anthony Lake, the former national security adviser to Bill Clinton and Distinguished Professor in Practice of Diplomacy in the SFS, to be chief of UNICEF.

The news comes from the Associated Press, which obtained letters sent from U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice to other United Nations ambassadors touting Lake’s merits as a potential UNICEF chief. Rumors have been floating around about his potential nomination for a while, though. It is likely that he will ultimately be the candidate that U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon recommends to UNICEF’s board and who UNICEF approves, too—the chief of UNICEF has always been an American, largely because the U.S. is UNICEF’s greatest contributor.

Rice wrote that Lake would bring “extraordinary experience, strategic vision and energy to UNICEF’s essential work,” the AP reports.  She pointed out his nine years on the board of the U.S. Fund for UNICEF, where he served as chair from 2004-2007.

“As chairman, Tony oversaw a significant increase in private funding for the organization,” Rice said. “In addition to his ongoing involvement with the U.S. national committee, he has seen UNICEF in action in countries across Africa, in Haiti, and elsewhere.”

The term of current UNICEF chief Ann Veneman will expire on April 30, at which point Ban will recommend a new cheif to UNICEF’s board.

Lake was a foreign policy adviser to both Bill Clinton and Barack Obama during their presidential campaigns. He surprised some when he endorsed Obama over Hillary Clinton in 2008 and has served on the boards of several international aid programs. Lake had been rumored for several positions in the Obama government, but in March of 2009, Lake told the Voice he has been reluctant to reenter government, even while advising the Obama campaign.

“I told [the Obama campaign] I did not want anything and then I reaffirmed that during the course of the campaign,” Lake said. “At a certain age you decide the torch should be passed, and a lot of very competent people could do what I would have been doing.”

Lake declined to comment on the nomination through his assistant, Jeff Mettille.

Want more? Check out the Voice‘s post-game coverage.

Photos by Lynn Kirshbaum

Get your cameras ready, Hoyas: sources planning tomorrow’s Duke game against Georgetown have told The Hill that President Barack Obama is going to be there.

Tomorrow’s game is also a special benefit for Darfur. From The Hill:

“Saturday’s game at the MCI Center will raise money for educational programs in the war-ravaged Darfur region of Sudan, and other special guests include NBA star Tracy McGrady, Alexander Aleinikoff, ahe United Nations Deputy High Commissioner for Refugees, and John Prendergast , Co-founder of Enough, the project to end genocide and crimes against humanity at the Center for American Progress.”

Aleinikoff, of course, recently left his job as Dean of the Law Center for his current post.

Typically, the White House will not confirm the news, but Obama recently attended a George Washington game against Oregon State this past November. John McCain watched the Hoyas beat Syracuse around this time last year.

Photo from the GW Hatchet.

Thanks to Eric Wind for the tip!