Summary
"Internationally, we can't go it alone, the way we did, can't be full of hubris and certainty about a world as complex and as dangerous as the one in which we now live. I am certain we will see a dramatic change in U.S. foreign policy so that we reunite with our friends and listen to our allies and once again, connect with the best thinking. And strengthen America by doing so. We need friends; we need allies. We need to hear what other people know, as well as what we know. We need to combine the strengths of all of us in dealing with real problems," Mondale stresses. "The idea of the 'Allies of the willing' or, 'we'll do what we please and the others will come along' - that has failed. And we're going to go back to, I'm sure, what our founding fathers once said: 'America should show a decent respect for the opinions of mankind.'"
Mondale's MySpace site, which he's unaware of when we meet, already listed [Obama] as one of his top friends prior to his endorsement of the Senator. "I won't take responsibility,'' says Mondale laughing. "Somebody told me about Wikipedia, where people can put in whatever they want into, in my name. I tried to correct some of it... somebody decided I had a pet rooster, somebody else said I was an international opera talent, but I decided not to go into it, and you know what... this is bull."Tracing his Norwegian ancestry, Mondale asked to see a copy of his great-greatgrandfather's Civil War records, only to learn there was no such thing: No Mondale or Mundals had served in the war. And yet Mondale knew that his ancestor had served. The explanation: The hard-working young man had arrived in 1857, as Fredrik Petersen. In 1864, he accepted $400 to replace a man drafted into the Civil War - the draft at the time included a loophole for the wealthy, who could avoid service if they could find a replacement. Three months later, Mondale finally received the records, the papers signed with an "x". ("He couldn't write English and his name was Petersen since, I guess, his father was Peter," Mondale said. "Somebody else wrote his name, then he signed with an 'x'.") After the Civil War, Petersen returned, unscathed, to Minnesota and received a piece of land, on the deed to which a harried clerk had transposed his last name and birthplace - transforming Fredrik Petersen from [Mundal] into "Fredrik Mondale".See the full content of this document
Extract
Straight Talk with Walter Mondale
An exclusive interview with Former Vice President Walter Fritz Mondale, newly elected Honorary Consul General for Norway in Minnesota
It's early morning. We arrive at a stately residence, located right along the Mississippi River in the historic Mill City area overlooking Stone Arch Bridge. Once the main feeder between the Twin Cities, it is now a walk and bike path connecting Minneapolis and St. Paul.Meeting with the former senator, vice president and ambassador at this home on this particular morning is special. Obama spoke at the Xcel ...See the full content of this document
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