Talk:Antony Blinken

Suggesting corrections and improvements to this article

My name is Brian Gluckman and I work at The Glover Park Group. A colleague has asked me to help make some corrections to the article about Antony “Tony” Blinken who was just confirmed as Deputy Secretary of State. I have made some edits throughout the piece and posted a revised version on my user page User:Bgluckman/Tony_Blinken. Would you mind reviewing it and if you agree, make some additional changes to the article?

Here are the specific changes I am requesting:

1) Further updating the article lead to reflect Mr. Blinken’s current position. My suggested edit

Antony John 'Tony' Blinken (born April 16, 1962) served as Assistant to the President of the United States and Deputy National Security Adviser for President Barack Obama, from January 2013 through December 2014. On December 16, 2014 the U.S. Senate confirmed Blinken as Deputy Secretary of State by a vote of 55 to 38.

2) Expanding the second paragraph to include a more accurate summary of Mr. Blinken’s career. My suggested edit

From 2009 to 2013 Blinken served as Deputy Assistant to the President and National Security Advisor to the Vice President. From 2002 to 2008 he served as the Democratic Staff Director for the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee. From 2001 to 2002 Blinken was a Senior Fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. During the Clinton Administration, Blinken served in the State Department and in senior positions on the National Security Council Staff.

(Note: the source for this is the Washington Post Jason Horowitz article)

3) Correcting Mr. Blinken’s place of birth. He was born in New York City, not Yonkers. The source for this fact is also likely the source of confusion.

The Horowitz piece contains the following sentences: “Judith was then married to Donald Blinken, the son of an influential Yonkers lawyer, and had given birth to Antony in 1962. Judith managed Merce Cunningham’s dance company and socialized with Arturo Toscanini and Bernstein at the couple’s Park Avenue home.”

(Note: Donald Blinken was born in Yonkers – not Antony. Antony’s parents lived on Park Avenue in NYC.)

4) Under “Early Life” I’d recommend editing the paragraph for clarity to read

He attended Harvard University, where he edited the daily student newspaper and co-edited the weekly arts magazine, "What Is To Be Done?". After earning his Bachelors degree, Blinken reported for The New Republic. He then earned his J.D. at Columbia Law School. After graduation, he practiced law in New York and Paris. Blinken became active in Democratic politics, helping his father fundraise for Michael Dukakis’ 1988 presidential campaign.

(Note: I’d also suggest striking the sentence: “All the while – during his academic pursuits and political activities – he played guitar in a band and organized film festivals.” It is not sourced and it is irrelevant to his career.)

5) Based on the Horowitz article, I’d recommend the following edits to the “Career” section (again making edits for clarity and putting things in chronological order)

Blinken began his government service at the State Department where, from 1993 to 1994, he served as Special Assistant to the Assistant Secretary of State for European and Canadian Affairs.

Blinken was a member of President Clinton’s National Security Council staff at the White House from 1994 to 2001. From 1999 to 2001, he was Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for European Affairs – President Clinton’s principal advisor for relations with the countries of Europe, the European Union and NATO. From 1994 through 1998, Blinken was Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Speechwriting and then Strategic Planning, overseeing foreign policy planning, communications and speechwriting and serving as President Clinton's chief foreign policy speechwriter.

After leaving the Clinton Administration, he held the position of Senior Fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies between 2001 and 2002. From 2002 to 2008 he served Democratic Staff Director for U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee. In 2008, Blinken worked for the presidential campaign of Senator Joseph Biden, and was a member of the Obama-Biden Presidential Transition team.

From 2009 to 2013 he served as Deputy Assistant to the President and National Security Advisor to the Vice President. In this position he also helped craft U.S. policy on Afghanistan, Pakistan and the Iranian nuclear program.

He is the author of ‘’Ally Versus Ally: America, Europe and the Siberian Pipeline Crisis’’ (Praeger, 1987).

6) Marriage location

Lastly, Mr. Blinken was not married at Georgetown University, as his wedding announcement clearly notes. See: http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/03/style/weddings-evan-ryan-antony-blinken.html I recommend editing the sentence to read he was “married in Washington, D.C.”

Thank you for your consideration of these suggestions. Once again, you can see them all in place on my user page User:Bgluckman/Tony_Blinken. Bgluckman (talk) 20:31, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

Didn't read the first five, but fixed the sixth. InedibleHulk (talk) 01:11, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

#3 I've changed partially: I removed the Yonkers bit, since I can see that you're right about it, but I didn't see anything in it about him being from New York City. Of course I'll happily put in NYC if you supply another source, or if you can demonstrate that I overlooked something. As far as I can tell, the Park Avenue bit simply says that they lived there at some point without being solid evidence of them living there when Tony was born. Nyttend (talk) 01:28, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

#1 partly done. The problem is that part of the information wasn't in the source to start with — a boston.com article from 2008 was being used as a source for what Blinken was doing in Obama's second term. This meant that I couldn't exactly implement everything you wanted, since someone else had mangled things. Nyttend (talk) 01:40, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

#4 done, including trimming the band. Nyttend (talk) 01:43, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

#2 done, including using the source you suggested. Nyttend (talk) 01:46, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

#5 not done, since there are a bunch of things you extrapolate from the article, e.g. him leaving Foreign Relations in 2008 (the article doesn't say he continued all through 2008), 1999 to 2001 he was... (again, dates not in the article), and I don't see the title "Special Assistant to the Assistant Secretary of State for European and Canadian Affairs" (or even the word "Special", aside from a "special act of Congress") in the source. Of course, I understand that you're working with him, so I trust that you're correct on these things; I'm opposed to copying over your text because we can't say what our sources don't. Nyttend (talk) 01:53, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

Additional suggestions for the Career section of this article

Hello--I've finally had a chance to go back and look again at the Career section of this page and develop a much better annotated version than my previous one for consideration. As I still have the conflict of interest, I will ask that another person review and decide if these changes can/will be made. Thanks so much to everyone. (Bgluckman (talk) 21:08, 23 January 2015 (UTC))

Career

Blinken has held senior foreign policy positions in two administrations over two decades. He served on the United States National Security Council staff at the White House from 1994 to 2001. From 1994 through 1998 Blinken was Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Strategic Planning and NSC Senior Director for Speechwriting. From 1999 to 2001 he was Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for European and Canadian Affairs.

In 2002 Blinken was appointed Staff Director for the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, a position he served in until 2008. He was also a Senior Fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. In 2008, Blinken worked for the presidential campaign of Senator Joseph Biden, and was a member of the Obama-Biden Presidential Transition team.

From 2009 to 2013 he served as Deputy Assistant to the President and National Security Advisor to the Vice President. In this position he also helped craft U.S. policy on Afghanistan, Pakistan and the Iranian nuclear program.

He is the author of ‘’Ally Versus Ally: America, Europe and the Siberian Pipeline Crisis’’ (Praeger, 1987).

References

I've updated the above to remove the Jewish Virtual Library source and add some more sourcing. (Bgluckman (talk) 15:37, 9 February 2015 (UTC))

Thanks to user Nyttend, these issues have been resolved. (Bgluckman (talk) 22:04, 20 February 2015 (UTC))

Addressing citation needed tags

Brian Gluckman again, with new suggestions for replacing the tags on the article’s introduction and Early life sections. I'll already posted a new draft for the Career section to address the tags for that section. As always, thanks for the consideration on this, and the help everyone has given me in this process!

1.) The 'citation needed' tag on the introduction The Horowitz article from The Washington Post already cited in the article supports Blinken's roles as:

• deputy national security adviser to President Obama
• senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies
• staff director to the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee

Here is the full citation:<ref name=twp>{{cite news|title=Antony Blinken steps into the spotlight with Obama administration role|url=http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/antony-blinken-steps-into-the-spotlight-with-obama-administration-role/2013/09/15/7484a5c0-1e20-11e3-94a2-6c66b668ea55_story.html|accessdate=28 September 2013|newspaper=[[The Washington Post]]|first=Jason|last=Horowitz|date=September 20, 2013}}</ref>

Additionally, this CNN article supports his current role as United States Deputy Secretary of State and his role on the Obama-Biden Presidential Transition team:<ref name=LaMonica>{{cite news |title=Blinken confirmed by Senate as Kerry's deputy at State |author=Gabe LaMonica |url=http://www.cnn.com/2014/12/17/politics/blinken-senate-confirmation/ |work=CNN |date=17 December 2014 |accessdate=3 February 2015}}</ref>

2.) The "citation needed" tag for "Pisar, who had survived both the Auschwitz and Dachau, strongly influenced his views." Again, the Horowitz Washington Post article can be cited.

3.) The "citation needed" tag for "Blinken became active in Democratic politics, helping his father fundraise for Michael Dukakis’ 1988 presidential campaign." This again can be supported by the Horowitz article.

(Bgluckman (talk) 22:38, 4 February 2015 (UTC))

I'm just going to remove the citation needed tag in the intro. See WP:LEADCITE. Basically, the introduction is supposed to be a summary of what's in the rest of the article, and when something's solidly sourced elsewhere in the article, we don't need to provide an additional citation for the same thing in the intro. Nyttend (talk) 03:01, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

I've read the Horowitz article several times, and while most of that paragraph is in there, I'm not seeing what I'd consider necessary for "Pisar strongly influenced his views". I've added the citation to the rest of the paragraph, but I've left the citation needed in place. Did I miss something in the article? Does another source say this unambiguously? Is this critical for the article? Personally, I don't see it as critical — anyone can infer that Blinken was influenced by his stepfather's action of taking him and his mother to France. Of course, if you think it ought to be there, and if you can find another source or show me where I've missed it in Horowitz, I'll not object. Nyttend (talk) 03:17, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

Point three. This isn't just supported — it's copied! I'll rewrite it and add the Horowitz citation. Nyttend (talk) 03:19, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

Thanks to user Nyttend, these issues have been resolved. (Bgluckman (talk) 22:05, 20 February 2015 (UTC))

Speculation on appointment as Secretary of State under Biden Administration

Just as a point of information - The Hill includes some speculation that Blnken will be named Secretary of State/ It's pretty common that there is lots of speculation about cabinet-vevel appointments, and I don't think this rises to the level that it should be included in the Wikipedia article, yet. We might however keep an eye out for less speculative statements, as well as to clean up the article before it becomes front page news. On a brief view of the article, the only thing I noticed is the sentence, "During the 1988 presidential campaign, Blinken worked with his father in fundraisers for Michael Dukakis.[3]" This might refer to either his biological father Donald M. Blinken or his step-father Samuel Pisar, so should be checked and rewritten. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 14:27, 21 November 2020 (UTC)

OK, I checked out the long article referenced for the Dukakis sentence. [1] It's an amazingly detailed article and I suggest people go over it if they have questions on Tony Blinken's background. It mentions, and interweaves his history with both his father Donald Blinken, and his his step-father Samuel Pisar. The father sentence probably refers to Donald Blinken, but just says "father". I'll rewrite the sentence "During the 1988 presidential campaign, Blinken worked with his father Donald in fundraisers for Michael Dukakis.[3]" Smallbones_(smalltalk) 15:23, 21 November 2020 (UTC)

I suggest we move to change the article so that it states Blinken as the Nominee for Secretary of State. This is no longer speculation, many credible sources have said that Blinken is expected to be named Secretary of State by Biden. --JG4236 (talk) 03:17, 23 November 2020 (UTC)

Proposed move

I suggest moving to "Antony Blinken". NYT uses Antony, as does FT. "Antony Blinken" gets ~20,000+ more ghits than "Tony Blinken". AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 03:02, 23 November 2020 (UTC)

Obama administration section

I can't find this quote anywhere in the article source or in the Brookings Institution speech transcript it references.

"demonstrate to the Russian people that there is a very hefty fine for supporting international criminals like [Putin]."

Article: https://www.brookings.edu/blog/brookings-now/2014/06/06/antony-blinken-for-russia-bloom-will-come-off-crimean-rose/ Transcript: https://www.brookings.edu/blog/brookings-now/2014/06/06/antony-blinken-for-russia-bloom-will-come-off-crimean-rose/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dmbco87 (talk • contribs) 04:45, 23 November 2020 (UTC)

No mention of Iraq in article

Blinken was Biden's FOREIGN POLICY advisor when Biden voted for the Iraq war. Now Biden wants him for Secretary of State. Why is there no mention of this superb advising that Blinken did in the article? 46.109.77.155 (talk) 12:57, 23 November 2020 (UTC)