Clinton’s remarks, via Ben Smith:

[I]t is crucial that we clarify what we mean when we talk about democracy. Democracy means not only elections to choose leaders, but also active citizens; a free press; an independent judiciary and legislature; and transparent and responsive institutions that are accountable to all citizens and protect their rights equally and fairly. In democracies, respecting rights isn’t a choice leaders make day-by-day, it is the reason they govern. Democracies protect and respect citizens every day, not just on Election Day. And democracies demonstrate their greatness not by insisting they are perfect, but by using their institutions and their principles to make themselves—and their union— “more perfect,” just as our country continues to do after 233 years.

At the same time, human development also must be part of our human rights agenda. Because basic levels of well-being—food, shelter, health, and education —and of public common goods—environmental sustainability, protection against pandemic disease, provisions for refugees—are necessary for people to exercise their rights. And because human development and democracy are mutually reinforcing. Democratic governments are not likely to survive long if their citizens do not have the basic necessities of life. The desperation caused by poverty and disease often leads to violence that further imperils rights and threatens the stability of governments. Democracies that deliver on rights, opportunities, and development for their people are stable, strong, and most likely to enable people to live up to their potential.

Human rights, democracy, and development are not three separate goals with three separate agendas: that view doesn’t reflect the reality we face. To make a real and long-term difference in people’s lives we have to tackle all three simultaneously with a commitment that is smart, strategic, determined, and long-term.

Notice as well the development focus on human rights. After all, liberty in the absence of prosperity and justice typically leads to demagoguery, which is no liberty at all.

Days after Obama delivered a Nobel speech that struck a new emphasis on human rights, saying freedom movements have “history and us on their side,” and making the moral case for the use of force in some cases, Hillary Clinton will deliver what advisors say is a major address on human rights in the 21st century, today at Georgetown University.

“We cannot separate our democracy, human rights, and development agendas: they are mutually reinforcing and united in service of a common purpose: to create a world where all people have the opportunity to fulfill their God-given potential,” Clinton will say.

“It is the foreign policy of this country and this administration to support and defend democracy. We embrace democracy not because we want other countries to be like us, but because we want all people to have the opportunity to decide for themselves how to live their lives.”

The American people are asking us to start over. They want reforms, but they want the right reforms, not some grand scheme that increases the national debt, expands the federal government, raises taxes, cuts seniors’ benefits, and forces Americans off the plans they currently have and like. They want reforms that work within the system we’ve got.

Unmentioned, of course, is the role that Republican scare tactics played to incite the sometimes-vitriolic public reaction that marked the recess. Indeed, after trumpeting the false idea that the Democrats’ proposals would promote abortion, pull the plug on grandma and create Beijing on the Potomac, Republicans are now pointing to the inevitable public outcry against those phantom provisions as reason to kill the legislation.

As a political strategy to deny the Democrats a legislative win, it’s thus far been effective. But as a strategy for  improving the nation’s troubled health care system, it’s entirely substance free. If only there were more of a public outcry over that …

While the other side wanted to dismiss these folks as an un-American fringe or political terrorists, the truth is that citizens across this nation do not want Washington taking over our health care system.

It’s a curious argument, if only because the thousands of people coming out to these events, while they represent larger crowds than lawmakers are accustomed to seeing, still make up a tiny fraction of the voting public. Political columnist E.J. Dionne tackles the issue in today’s Washington Post, arguing that the town halls have seemed much more raucous than most have actually been for the simple reason that outbursts about death panels and socialized medicine make for better TV than quiet discussions about health care policy. The media, Dionne says, are complicit.

“There is an overwhelming case that the electronic media went out of their way to cover the noise and ignored the calmer (and from television’s point of view “boring”) encounters between elected representatives and their constituents,” Dionne writes, before pointing out what’s been ignored in the process.

Over the past week, I’ve spoken with Democratic House members, most from highly contested districts, about what happened in their town halls. None would deny polls showing that the health-reform cause lost ground last month, but little of the probing civility that characterized so many of their forums was ever seen on television.m[…]

The most disturbing account came from Rep. David Price of North Carolina, who spoke with a stringer for one of the television networks at a large town-hall meeting he held in Durham. The stringer said he was one of 10 people around the country assigned to watch such encounters. Price said he was told flatly: “Your meeting doesn’t get covered unless it blows up.” As it happens, the Durham audience was broadly sympathetic to reform efforts. No “news” there.

Dionne doesn’t offer any solutions to the timeless trouble of the major media outlets, being businesses, having to cater to the often mindless tastes of television viewers. But as a political strategy, Democrats might tap the logic of Donald Rumsfeld, the former defense secretary, who dismissed those enormous, high-profile protest rallies against the Iraq War by reasoning that more people didn’t march than did. The same, of course, can be said for the town halls.

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Florida Republican Connie Mack is circulating a congressional resolution that effectively supports the coup. So far, the Congressional Coup Caucus includes Dan Burton (Republican from Indiana), Jeff Fortenberry (Republican from Nebraska) and Dana Rohrabacher (Republican from California).

The resolution is kind of what you’d expect from the Venezuela-obsessed Mack: “Whereas since his removal, Mr. Zelaya has been flown around the hemisphere by Hugo Chavez’s private jets.”

Is it possible that the Iraqi election experience had something to do with Iranian expectations of an election? If critics of the war can for just a moment move beyond their own deeply held opinions about the invasion of Iraq — that this was a war of choice fought on false premises to lower gas prices or whatever — and examine the effect of that war on the region as a whole, they might see a connection to the current turmoil in Iran. After all, one of the intellectual arguments in favor of overthrowing Saddam Hussein was, in the words of Dick Cheney, to place “a democracy in the heart of the Middle East, a nation that will be a positive force in influencing the world around it in the future.”

I think a case can be made that Barack Obama’s election as president has also raised expectations of the democratic process in countries around the world. It is certainly possible that we are seeing an Obama effect in Iran as young people there look to replicate the excitement and enthusiasm of young people here during last year’s election. But any honest assessment of events in Iran would also have to consider the effect of having a functioning democracy right next door — a democracy that millions of Iranians have seen for themselves as they make religious pilgrimages and conduct business in Iraq. Iran has had a tremendous influence on Iraq these last few years, usually to the detriment of peace and security there. Perhaps the current protests in Iran are evidence that influence doesn’t just cross the border in one direction.

I’ll play ball. But the evidence presented for the proposition that Iraq’s nascent democracy (let’s be charitable) influenced what’s happening in Iran is that (a) there’s a nascent democracy in Iraq, (b) Iran is next to Iraq, (c) Iranians make “religious pilgrimages and conduct business” in Iraq and (d) there’s something amazing and hopeful going on in Iran. By contrast, no Iranian on the #IranElection hashtag, for instance, has mentioned Iraq as an inspiration for the demonstrations, nor has any leader of the opposition cited their Iraqi neighbors as a model or a source of guidance. Instead, they talk about internal, domestic provocations provided by Ahmadinejad and the clerical regime. If we’re going to go by, say, business ties, Iran’s main trading partners are China, India, Germany, South Korea, France, Russia and Italy. Which of those countries inspired the Iranian protests we’re seeing now?

If there’s additional evidence for believing that Iraq’s nascent democracy is influencing the Iranian opposition, I’d consider it, but assertion isn’t a compelling argument. It’s probably best to look to what the Iranian opposition is actually saying if we’re to understand it.

Ahmadinejad has discredited himself in the eyes of many Iranians. They are looking for change they can believe in. This is the target audience for Obama this Thursday. He needs to reach out to the democratic forces in that country and remind them that America is their ally.

To be able to say to the Iranian people that an American hand is outstretched to them if they’re willing to show that their corrupt leadership — which has remained relatively obstinate while official American attitudes to Iran are changing –  doesn’t speak for them would be a great thing. It would be arrogant and deluded to believe that U.S. posture to Iran would be determinative of an Iranian election. But the Obama administration can help remove a demagogic pretext for repression, and that’s part of what tomorrow’s Cairo speech is about.

I headed downtown to enjoy some peaceful reflection on the Mall, placing the night’s events in the context of Abraham Lincoln’s immortal words enshrined in his memorial.

My plans were quickly scrapped, however, as I approached the White House. Throngs of ecstatic D.C. residents of all shades and ages honked their horns, chanted “O-BA-MA” and “Yes we did!” and hugged passing strangers.

Never had I seen such unadulterated joy in the streets of the United States. The scene most closely resembled a World Cup victory celebration.

In front of the White House, a swarm of revelers sang George W. Bush out of the presidency: “Na, na, na, na, hey hey, goodbye.” Even a Republican, had one been present, would have taken comfort in this raucous reminder of the persistent freedoms that are at the core of American democracy.