Call me Ishmael if, on the eve of Barack Obama's getting his peace prize, the possibility of another unlikely award doesn't arise with the first academic appreciation of "Going Rogue" as a work of art.
In his New York Times blog, Professor Stanley Fish makes the case for Sarah Palin's mastery of the autobiographical form in delivering "the truth the genre promises...the truth about themselves--the kind of persons they are."
A liberal arts dean emeritus, Fish deconstructs "Rogue" for its essence, brushing aside mundane matters of fact-checking to get at the heart of the work:
"The questions to ask then are (1) Does Palin succeed in conveying to her readers the kind of person she is? and (2) Does she do it in a satisfying and artful way? In short, is the book a good autobiographical read? I would answer 'yes' to both."
As the debate begins over Palin's literary artistry, her more prosaic writings are dusting up the usual storms, this time a Washington Post Oped today, urging fellow author Obama to "boycott Copenhagen," trailing the usual quibbles about factual accuracy.
Such literal-mindedness always summons up a story about the fabled Hollywood producer of the last century, Sam Goldwyn.
A screenwriter he had hired to do a script based on a popular novel came to him after months of trying and told him it couldn't be done. Goldwyn hired another writer and made the movie, which turned out to be a disaster.
Years later, when discussing a new project, someone suggested the first writer. "Oh, no," Goldwyn said vehemently. "He was involved in one of my worst failures."
Goldwyn, who won many awards, would have been among those vying to make an epic movie out of "Going Rogue." He would have understood it perfectly.
Wednesday, December 09, 2009
Keeping a Pakistan Campaign Pledge
President Obama seems ready to deliver on a threat Candidate Obama made over two years ago--that, if Pakistan doesn't go after its terrorists, he will.
The Surge in Afghanistan, according to White House leaks, comes with "a fairly bald warning that unless Pakistan moved quickly to act against two Taliban groups they have so far refused to attack, the United States was prepared to take unilateral action to expand Predator drone attacks beyond the tribal areas and, if needed, to resume raids by Special Operations forces into the country against Al Qaeda and Taliban leaders."
In August 2007, then-Sen. Obama took flak for saying what the Bush White House was dancing around in the Pakistan-Afghanistan border areas:
“There are terrorists holed up in those mountains who murdered 3,000 Americans. They are plotting to strike again. It was a terrible mistake to fail to act when we had a chance to take out an al Qaeda leadership meeting in 2005. If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won't act, we will.”
Pervez Musharraf, who bilked Bush for American billions without delivering on promises to go after those terrorists, is gone now, but the Pakistani military is still playing the same shell game, and one element of the new Afghanistan policy is to squeeze them into delivering more results for the new $7.5 billion they will be getting over the next five years.
Ever since bin Laden escaped into Pakistan eight years ago, the US has pursued a so-called “hammer and anvil” strategy to crush militants in the border areas. Until now, the American hammer in Afghanistan has been pounding against what our frustrated military calls "a Pakistani pillow, not an anvil."
The crucial results of the Afghan Surge will come less from the visible escalation there but from what happens under the radar in the arm-wrestling with a nuclear-armed, politically shaky Pakistan government that Barack Obama foresaw long before he moved into the White House.
The Surge in Afghanistan, according to White House leaks, comes with "a fairly bald warning that unless Pakistan moved quickly to act against two Taliban groups they have so far refused to attack, the United States was prepared to take unilateral action to expand Predator drone attacks beyond the tribal areas and, if needed, to resume raids by Special Operations forces into the country against Al Qaeda and Taliban leaders."
In August 2007, then-Sen. Obama took flak for saying what the Bush White House was dancing around in the Pakistan-Afghanistan border areas:
“There are terrorists holed up in those mountains who murdered 3,000 Americans. They are plotting to strike again. It was a terrible mistake to fail to act when we had a chance to take out an al Qaeda leadership meeting in 2005. If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won't act, we will.”
Pervez Musharraf, who bilked Bush for American billions without delivering on promises to go after those terrorists, is gone now, but the Pakistani military is still playing the same shell game, and one element of the new Afghanistan policy is to squeeze them into delivering more results for the new $7.5 billion they will be getting over the next five years.
Ever since bin Laden escaped into Pakistan eight years ago, the US has pursued a so-called “hammer and anvil” strategy to crush militants in the border areas. Until now, the American hammer in Afghanistan has been pounding against what our frustrated military calls "a Pakistani pillow, not an anvil."
The crucial results of the Afghan Surge will come less from the visible escalation there but from what happens under the radar in the arm-wrestling with a nuclear-armed, politically shaky Pakistan government that Barack Obama foresaw long before he moved into the White House.
Tuesday, December 08, 2009
Send In the Health-Care Clowns
As the public option starts to morph into an expansion of Medicare and Medicaid in the main tent, two Senate buffoons, Harry Reid and Joe Lieberman, are stepping up their side shows in the health care circus.
The Majority Leader is dragging slavery and woman's suffrage into the debate by invoking them as precedents for Republican resistance:
"When this country belatedly recognized the wrongs of slavery, there were those who dug in their heels and said 'slow down, it's too early, things aren't bad enough'...When women spoke up for the right to vote, some insisted they simply, slow down, there will be a better day to do that, today isn't quite right."
In another corner of the freak show section, Joe Lieberman's antics are drawing so much attention that TV ads for an opponent of Connecticut's other senator, Chris Dodd, are taking shots at him: "Joe never forgets who he ran to represent: Himself. It's not about you. It's all about Joe."
Hundreds of protesters from an interfaith organization, reports the Washington Post, "showed up at Lieberman's home in Stamford and at his office in Hartford, to plead (and pray) for him to support the bill. Among them was Rabbi Ron Fish, of Congregation Beth El in Norwalk, Conn., who was so supportive of Lieberman's 2006 reelection bid that he rushed through John F. Kennedy International Airport in search of a mailbox in which to send his absentee ballot before boarding a flight to Israel."
Meanwhile, behind the vaudeville, some liberals are pushing to lower Medicare eligibility to age 55, expand Medicaid to cover those with incomes up to 150 percent of the poverty level (up to $33,075 for a family of four) and/or effectively cap insurance company profits by requiring them to spend 90 percent of premiums on clinical services and activities that improve the quality of care.
None of these proposals can compete with Reid and Lieberman for amusement value, but they indicate that some serious negotiating is going on.
The Majority Leader is dragging slavery and woman's suffrage into the debate by invoking them as precedents for Republican resistance:
"When this country belatedly recognized the wrongs of slavery, there were those who dug in their heels and said 'slow down, it's too early, things aren't bad enough'...When women spoke up for the right to vote, some insisted they simply, slow down, there will be a better day to do that, today isn't quite right."
In another corner of the freak show section, Joe Lieberman's antics are drawing so much attention that TV ads for an opponent of Connecticut's other senator, Chris Dodd, are taking shots at him: "Joe never forgets who he ran to represent: Himself. It's not about you. It's all about Joe."
Hundreds of protesters from an interfaith organization, reports the Washington Post, "showed up at Lieberman's home in Stamford and at his office in Hartford, to plead (and pray) for him to support the bill. Among them was Rabbi Ron Fish, of Congregation Beth El in Norwalk, Conn., who was so supportive of Lieberman's 2006 reelection bid that he rushed through John F. Kennedy International Airport in search of a mailbox in which to send his absentee ballot before boarding a flight to Israel."
Meanwhile, behind the vaudeville, some liberals are pushing to lower Medicare eligibility to age 55, expand Medicaid to cover those with incomes up to 150 percent of the poverty level (up to $33,075 for a family of four) and/or effectively cap insurance company profits by requiring them to spend 90 percent of premiums on clinical services and activities that improve the quality of care.
None of these proposals can compete with Reid and Lieberman for amusement value, but they indicate that some serious negotiating is going on.
Monday, December 07, 2009
Infamy, Then and Now
Sixty eight years ago today, Americans suffered a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor that suddenly brought us into a world war that would last less than four years. This week, after months of debating, we took a step deeper into an eight-year war with no end in sight.
On December 7, 1941, I was a college student with a part-time job in a hospital maternity ward showing fathers their new babies on the other side of a large picture window. Those babies are on Social Security now, grandparents themselves, some of whom may have lost their fathers in World War II, but most of whose lives are not directly affected by this war compared to the one that started on a "date that will live in Infamy."
That next day, FDR declared that "since the unprovoked and dastardly attack by Japan on Sunday, December 7th, 1941, a state of war has existed between the United States and the Japanese empire," promising that "I interpret the will of the Congress and of the people when I assert that we will not only defend ourselves to the uttermost, but will make it very certain that this form of treachery shall never again endanger us."
But it did--on September 11, 2001. Infamy comes in more subtle forms this century, and fighting it is like flailing at smoke.
Part of remembering Pearl Harbor today will be nostalgia for a time when we could identify our enemies and confront them head on, instead of becoming lost in the thickets of counterinsurgency and finding ways to "narrow the mission." If we ever reach V-Day in this war, will we know it when we see it?
On December 7, 1941, I was a college student with a part-time job in a hospital maternity ward showing fathers their new babies on the other side of a large picture window. Those babies are on Social Security now, grandparents themselves, some of whom may have lost their fathers in World War II, but most of whose lives are not directly affected by this war compared to the one that started on a "date that will live in Infamy."
That next day, FDR declared that "since the unprovoked and dastardly attack by Japan on Sunday, December 7th, 1941, a state of war has existed between the United States and the Japanese empire," promising that "I interpret the will of the Congress and of the people when I assert that we will not only defend ourselves to the uttermost, but will make it very certain that this form of treachery shall never again endanger us."
But it did--on September 11, 2001. Infamy comes in more subtle forms this century, and fighting it is like flailing at smoke.
Part of remembering Pearl Harbor today will be nostalgia for a time when we could identify our enemies and confront them head on, instead of becoming lost in the thickets of counterinsurgency and finding ways to "narrow the mission." If we ever reach V-Day in this war, will we know it when we see it?
Sunday, December 06, 2009
Bringing Up the Afghan Baby
The image of the day comes from Tom Friedman describing the Obama decision this week as like "an unemployed couple who just went out and decided to adopt a special-needs baby," to which he might have added "from a family that deals drugs and rear it in a neighborhood where the kids steal each others' lunch money."
All the President's Men (and Hillary Clinton) are on the TV circuit to sell the Stop-and-Go Surge, along with senior media pundits to parse it, but the babble boils down to what the Administration denies it is trying to do: nation-building in a place with no real history of nationhood.
In the Sunday New York Times and Washington Post are long reports about the months-long debate leading up to the Decision.
The Times describes how "a young commander in chief set in motion a high-stakes gamble to turn around a losing war... to send 30,000 troops mostly in the next six months and then begin pulling them out a year after that, betting that a quick jolt of extra forces could knock the enemy back on its heels enough for the Afghans to take over the fight."
The Post discloses that, after "one revelatory discussion," the White House team "changed their chief objective from trying to eliminate the Taliban to making sure insurgents could no longer threaten the Afghan government's survival. The new strategy would include a closer relationship with Pakistan, along with a warning that the United States would step up its action against al-Qaeda camps in that country if the Pakistanis did not do it themselves."
If any of this deep-dish analysis makes any more sense than George W. Bush's cocky certainty as the Decider, it's hard to see it.
While respecting Barack Obama for his intellect, seriousness and honesty, it's hard to see how we are not in the same never-neverland, only without the Neo-Con arrogance.
Back in his Times column, Friedman sums it up this way: "You can’t train an Afghan Army and police force to replace our troops if you have no basic state they feel is worth fighting for. But that will require a transformation by Karzai, starting with the dismissal of his most corrupt aides and installing officials Afghans can trust.
"This surge also depends...on Pakistan ending its obsession with India. That obsession has led Pakistan to support the Taliban to control Afghanistan as part of its 'strategic depth' vis-à-vis India. Pakistan fights the Taliban who attack it, but nurtures the Taliban who want to control Afghanistan. So we now need this fragile Pakistan to stop looking for strategic depth against India in Afghanistan and to start building strategic depth at home, by reviving its economy and school system and preventing jihadists from taking over there...
"Mr. Obama is going to have to make sure, every day, that Karzai doesn’t weasel out of reform or Pakistan wiggle out of shutting down Taliban sanctuaries or the allies wimp out on helping us...This only has a chance to work if Karzai becomes a new man, if Pakistan becomes a new country and if we actually succeed at something the president says we won’t be doing at all: nation-building in Afghanistan."
Amen and amen, but let's not sign any final adoption papers for that Afghan baby until it shows some signs of being able to walk and talk straight.
All the President's Men (and Hillary Clinton) are on the TV circuit to sell the Stop-and-Go Surge, along with senior media pundits to parse it, but the babble boils down to what the Administration denies it is trying to do: nation-building in a place with no real history of nationhood.
In the Sunday New York Times and Washington Post are long reports about the months-long debate leading up to the Decision.
The Times describes how "a young commander in chief set in motion a high-stakes gamble to turn around a losing war... to send 30,000 troops mostly in the next six months and then begin pulling them out a year after that, betting that a quick jolt of extra forces could knock the enemy back on its heels enough for the Afghans to take over the fight."
The Post discloses that, after "one revelatory discussion," the White House team "changed their chief objective from trying to eliminate the Taliban to making sure insurgents could no longer threaten the Afghan government's survival. The new strategy would include a closer relationship with Pakistan, along with a warning that the United States would step up its action against al-Qaeda camps in that country if the Pakistanis did not do it themselves."
If any of this deep-dish analysis makes any more sense than George W. Bush's cocky certainty as the Decider, it's hard to see it.
While respecting Barack Obama for his intellect, seriousness and honesty, it's hard to see how we are not in the same never-neverland, only without the Neo-Con arrogance.
Back in his Times column, Friedman sums it up this way: "You can’t train an Afghan Army and police force to replace our troops if you have no basic state they feel is worth fighting for. But that will require a transformation by Karzai, starting with the dismissal of his most corrupt aides and installing officials Afghans can trust.
"This surge also depends...on Pakistan ending its obsession with India. That obsession has led Pakistan to support the Taliban to control Afghanistan as part of its 'strategic depth' vis-à-vis India. Pakistan fights the Taliban who attack it, but nurtures the Taliban who want to control Afghanistan. So we now need this fragile Pakistan to stop looking for strategic depth against India in Afghanistan and to start building strategic depth at home, by reviving its economy and school system and preventing jihadists from taking over there...
"Mr. Obama is going to have to make sure, every day, that Karzai doesn’t weasel out of reform or Pakistan wiggle out of shutting down Taliban sanctuaries or the allies wimp out on helping us...This only has a chance to work if Karzai becomes a new man, if Pakistan becomes a new country and if we actually succeed at something the president says we won’t be doing at all: nation-building in Afghanistan."
Amen and amen, but let's not sign any final adoption papers for that Afghan baby until it shows some signs of being able to walk and talk straight.
Saturday, December 05, 2009
Et Tu, Baucus?
The question is timing. Why is Max Baucus, the Senate master of health care reform, telling the world on a Saturday morning that he "is currently in a mature and happy relationship with Melodee Hanes,” adding that “They are both divorced, and in no way was their relationship the cause of their respective divorces.”
Well, yes, congratulations and all that, but why is the Senator's office sending out this particular Hallmark card in the midst of weekend sessions to iron out the kinks in a 2000-plus page bill to reform American health care?
The answer may relate to another bit of news in the statement that Ms. Hanes was nominated in March by Baucus for the position of US Attorney in Montana. She didn't get the job, withdrawing because "she had been presented with other opportunities she couldn't pass up," one of them moving in with Baucus in Washington and taking a Justice Department job after being "awarded the position based solely on her merit."
Ms. Hanes' career has been on the upswing as she earned $126,541.50 in 2008, according to Senate records, mostly as Baucus' State Director/Senior Counsel, with a bit extra from advising the Senate Finance Committee, a distinct improvement from the $53,999.88 she drew down in 2004 as his full-time Field Director/Counsel.
But with trillions at stake, why should Americans care about such loose change and any insinuations about loose behavior on the part of one Senator? Is Baucus trying to head off political blackmail about his personal life and, if so, isn't that reprehensible on the part of those who oppose him?
As a dear, dear friend of health care lobbyists, Baucus is not admired as the enemy of the public option, but his sudden need to defend behavior at the conjunction of his personal and political lives has a distinct bad odor about it.
Whether or not the Senator from Big Pharma country did anything wrong is a matter for Congress' ethics machinery, but the timing is very peculiar indeed. He has more important work to do at the moment.
Well, yes, congratulations and all that, but why is the Senator's office sending out this particular Hallmark card in the midst of weekend sessions to iron out the kinks in a 2000-plus page bill to reform American health care?
The answer may relate to another bit of news in the statement that Ms. Hanes was nominated in March by Baucus for the position of US Attorney in Montana. She didn't get the job, withdrawing because "she had been presented with other opportunities she couldn't pass up," one of them moving in with Baucus in Washington and taking a Justice Department job after being "awarded the position based solely on her merit."
Ms. Hanes' career has been on the upswing as she earned $126,541.50 in 2008, according to Senate records, mostly as Baucus' State Director/Senior Counsel, with a bit extra from advising the Senate Finance Committee, a distinct improvement from the $53,999.88 she drew down in 2004 as his full-time Field Director/Counsel.
But with trillions at stake, why should Americans care about such loose change and any insinuations about loose behavior on the part of one Senator? Is Baucus trying to head off political blackmail about his personal life and, if so, isn't that reprehensible on the part of those who oppose him?
As a dear, dear friend of health care lobbyists, Baucus is not admired as the enemy of the public option, but his sudden need to defend behavior at the conjunction of his personal and political lives has a distinct bad odor about it.
Whether or not the Senator from Big Pharma country did anything wrong is a matter for Congress' ethics machinery, but the timing is very peculiar indeed. He has more important work to do at the moment.
Thursday, December 03, 2009
Privacy, Then and Now
Tiger Woods, who named his yacht Privacy, was born half a century too late. As he laments the exposure of "matters that are intimate and within one's family," Woods' pain recalls a time when two of the world's most famous actors lived together on and off for decades with the full knowledge of and complicity by the media to keep their private lives private.
As a magazine editor back then, I was involved in the final chapter of Katharine Hepburn's life with Spencer Tracy, a married Catholic for whom divorce was unthinkable. For years, even the sleaziest Hollywood journalists had kept silent about their relationship out of respect for two serious people who guarded their privacy as well as they could.
As she and Tracy were making the last of their nine movies, "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner," in 1967, Hepburn wanted the world to hear about their life together in their own words and scheduled a joint interview, but Tracy failed to join her--twice.
He died just after the picture was finished and, out of respect for his wishes and his family, Hepburn kept her silence. Over the following 20 years, she told their story to a writer on the condition that it be published only after her own death. It was, in 2003.
In an era when non-famous people debase themselves for reality TV and even crash the White House to audition for it, it's hard to imagine celebrities wanting or being able to preserve their privacy as Hepburn and Tracy did.
Certainly not Tiger Woods as he withdraws, at least for now, from public life and reflects on what happened to him:
"Although I am a well-known person and have made my career as a professional athlete, I have been dismayed to realize the full extent of what tabloid scrutiny really means. For the last week, my family and I have been hounded to expose intimate details of our personal lives...
"But no matter how intense curiosity about public figures can be, there is an important and deep principle at stake which is the right to some simple, human measure of privacy...Personal sins should not require press releases and problems within a family shouldn't have to mean public confessions."
Amen to that, and good luck with the pack of hounds who call themselves celebrity journalists.
As a magazine editor back then, I was involved in the final chapter of Katharine Hepburn's life with Spencer Tracy, a married Catholic for whom divorce was unthinkable. For years, even the sleaziest Hollywood journalists had kept silent about their relationship out of respect for two serious people who guarded their privacy as well as they could.
As she and Tracy were making the last of their nine movies, "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner," in 1967, Hepburn wanted the world to hear about their life together in their own words and scheduled a joint interview, but Tracy failed to join her--twice.
He died just after the picture was finished and, out of respect for his wishes and his family, Hepburn kept her silence. Over the following 20 years, she told their story to a writer on the condition that it be published only after her own death. It was, in 2003.
In an era when non-famous people debase themselves for reality TV and even crash the White House to audition for it, it's hard to imagine celebrities wanting or being able to preserve their privacy as Hepburn and Tracy did.
Certainly not Tiger Woods as he withdraws, at least for now, from public life and reflects on what happened to him:
"Although I am a well-known person and have made my career as a professional athlete, I have been dismayed to realize the full extent of what tabloid scrutiny really means. For the last week, my family and I have been hounded to expose intimate details of our personal lives...
"But no matter how intense curiosity about public figures can be, there is an important and deep principle at stake which is the right to some simple, human measure of privacy...Personal sins should not require press releases and problems within a family shouldn't have to mean public confessions."
Amen to that, and good luck with the pack of hounds who call themselves celebrity journalists.
Wednesday, December 02, 2009
Liking Ike: A Memory
"Did you notice," E.J. Dionne asks, "that the president did not choose to quote any of his party’s own giants--Franklin D. Roosevelt (though FDR got a side mention), Harry S Truman or John F. Kennedy? Instead, he quoted a Republican, Dwight D. Eisenhower."
For those who doubt that Barack Obama has anything in common with Ike, herewith the story of a memorable evening with the nation's 34th president:
In the summer of 1964 I fell in love with the man I had voted against twice. After Eisenhower's retirement, I was one of a half dozen magazine editors invited to dinner in Gettysburg.
From the moment Mrs. Eisenhower opened the front door after the Secret Service vanished, we stepped into an earlier small-town world where a long-married couple referred to each other as "Ike" and "Mamie," urged us to do the same, talked lovingly about their grandchildren and said exactly what was on their minds.
"Ike has just gotten in from golf," Mrs. Eisenhower told us, "and I insisted he take a few minutes' rest." She led us to an enclosed porch facing a putting green, a large meadow and thick woods beyond, of a farmhouse she had bought in 1949 without Ike's having seen it.
After a few minutes Ike came down, freshly shaved in a dark blue suit complete with vest. Although it was June, air-conditioning chilled the house, a reaction, Mamie explained, to years in the tropics when she found the heat unbearable. Ike's skin had a pleasant pink cast and, when we shook hands, I could see why millions of voters had found those light blue eyes and that unforced smile irresistible.
We sat on the porch. For a while we talked about golf over drinks and a tray of potato chips and clam dip ("the only hors d'oeuvres you're going to get," said our hostess). Ike took them around and served everyone.
As we sipped in silence, the former President looked toward the deepening darkness over the richly green ground that had once been soaked with Union and Confederate blood, and said in an even tone, "About 4:30, I thought I was going out of my mind--I've never felt so close to insanity." He paused. "That's why I had to get out to the golf course."
After a moment of silence, I asked, "What made you feel that way?"
"During the day," he said heavily, "I've had dozens of phone calls and telegrams from people I respect telling me what I should do about this Goldwater thing, and each one sure he's expressing the will of God. I felt like Lincoln who used to wonder why the will of God is revealed to so many others and not to the person who needs to know it."
Weeks before the 1964 Republican convention, conservative Senator Barry Goldwater seemed certain to be nominated for President, and moderates in the party felt only Eisenhower could stop him to avert a Republican disaster in November.
Strangely, for a man who had commanded fighting forces most of his life, Eisenhower was unwilling to engage in political combat. "I'm not the titular head of the party," he said, referring with obvious distaste to Richard Nixon, without mentioning his name, as he did several times during the evening.
Then he cited Senator Joe McCarthy who, during Ike's Presidency, had been terrorizing the country with accusations of Communist sympathies against leading Americans, including Eisenhower's hero, General George Marshall. When advisors had urged him to speak out, Ike refused: "I'm not going to get into the gutter with that guy."
Now, on a porch wrapped in darkness, he was reassuring himself that his silence had denied McCarthy attention. "The fellow just wanted publicity." We were too polite to point out that McCarthy did not fall until confronted by men without Presidential power, Edward R. Murrow on TV and attorney Joseph Welch during the Army-McCarthy hearings.
Yet, as we talked, what emerged was that Eisenhower's distaste for hand-to-hand combat rested on deep conviction. ("Ike never argues," Mamie once said. "He just walks out of the room.") He told stories of bringing officials with opposing views into the Oval Office and persuading them to compromise. "The road in politics goes only one way," he said, "ahead--and the best place to travel is the middle, on the good surface. That's where you can bring the most people with you, not in the ruts and ditches on the extreme sides."
Ike had been sipping lemonade but, as we were handed our second drinks, he took a highball. "I allow myself only one, but I don't intend to waste any of it," draining the glass as we went into dinner. After crab meat and baked chicken, there were individual lemon meringue pies. "My favorite dessert," he said, "but I have to watch calories so we only have it on special occasions."
After the meal we went back to the porch, now dimly lit. The drink and dinner must have relaxed Ike. He went into a caustic commentary on the dishonesty of politicians, with emphasis on Goldwater:
"He came to tell me he was going to vote against the civil rights bill as a matter of conscience. I said I wouldn't ask any man to go against his conscience, but that if I were a Senator I'd vote for it. Even an imperfect bill would help balance eighty years of oppression. But what I couldn't understand was his attempt to keep the bill from coming to a vote. If I were to comment, I'd crucify him for that. But I was not going to say anything publicly."
Goldwater then told reporters that Ike "would not hold the vote against me." When Eisenhower complained about the misrepresentation, Goldwater assured him it would be corrected. We pointed out that it hadn't been, and Ike shrugged. The sequence just confirmed his low opinion of politicians and journalists.
As he told stories of being misquoted and misunderstood, something became clear about his cast of mind. Described by critics as intellectually limited and unwilling to commit himself, Eisenhower may simply have been a man who gave his full attention to one situation at a time, tried to do "the right thing" and was baffled when others looked below the surface or connected it with what had gone before or might come after.
He confirmed this impression describing the difficulty he was having with memoirs about his Presidency, as opposed to those about the war. His approach was chronological, rather than subjective and thematic. He seemed unwilling to look below the visible aspects of experience. (That this was a matter of disposition is suggested by his definition of an intellectual as "a man who takes more words than necessary to tell more than he knows.")
His passion for golf seemed a metaphor for his approach to politics and life. Unlike tennis, you don't react to an opponent. You focus on one stroke and then go on to the next. There is no ambiguity about the result--your score is a precise number. Even in competition, the social coziness of a foursome masks the desire to prevail over others, and jokes about slyness and cheating defuse competitiveness into laughter and camaraderie.
But despite this inflexible mindset, I felt myself drawn to Eisenhower's palpable decency and lack of pretension. I wondered what was below that controlled surface, particularly when we looked at his unframed oil paintings stacked in a corner. (He spent much of his retirement behind the easel, another solitary activity that required intense concentration on the next stroke.)
As we looked at the paintings, he kept pointing out his shortcomings ("Sometimes I work on one for years without getting it right"}. Most resembled picture-postcard illustrations, the equivalents of polite conversation. But there was an exception.
He had drawn it from memory, he said. It showed a solitary figure in a rowboat at sunset, a dark silhouette in the subdued gleam of a lake. Above was a truly extraordinary sky, bursting with fragments of vivid color--light and dark blues, reds, purples. He expressed pleasure at his own daring in painting that sky.
As we started to leave, Ike seemed reluctant to see us go. He had an early golf date in the morning but protested that he wasn't tired and dawdled while we made our way from the dark porch into the glare of the living room.
For a moment I found myself at his shoulder. He stood militarily erect, but a network of cross-hatched lines at the back of his neck testified to age. I felt a surge of sorrow and affection. Whatever reservations I might have had about him as a President, I was drawn to the man--I would have trusted him with everything I own.
As we sorted ourselves into the limousine that would take us back to Manhattan and drove off, Ike and Mamie stood in the driveway, waving us on our way.
Remembering that evening when Barack Obama was only two years old also recalls what he told 60 Minutes during last year's campaign: "I am a practical person. One of the things I'm good at is getting people in a room with ...different ideas who sometimes violently disagree with each other and finding common ground, and a sense of common direction."
As he moves ahead, Americans can only hope he puts that Eisenhower-like skill to good use.
For those who doubt that Barack Obama has anything in common with Ike, herewith the story of a memorable evening with the nation's 34th president:
In the summer of 1964 I fell in love with the man I had voted against twice. After Eisenhower's retirement, I was one of a half dozen magazine editors invited to dinner in Gettysburg.
From the moment Mrs. Eisenhower opened the front door after the Secret Service vanished, we stepped into an earlier small-town world where a long-married couple referred to each other as "Ike" and "Mamie," urged us to do the same, talked lovingly about their grandchildren and said exactly what was on their minds.
"Ike has just gotten in from golf," Mrs. Eisenhower told us, "and I insisted he take a few minutes' rest." She led us to an enclosed porch facing a putting green, a large meadow and thick woods beyond, of a farmhouse she had bought in 1949 without Ike's having seen it.
After a few minutes Ike came down, freshly shaved in a dark blue suit complete with vest. Although it was June, air-conditioning chilled the house, a reaction, Mamie explained, to years in the tropics when she found the heat unbearable. Ike's skin had a pleasant pink cast and, when we shook hands, I could see why millions of voters had found those light blue eyes and that unforced smile irresistible.
We sat on the porch. For a while we talked about golf over drinks and a tray of potato chips and clam dip ("the only hors d'oeuvres you're going to get," said our hostess). Ike took them around and served everyone.
As we sipped in silence, the former President looked toward the deepening darkness over the richly green ground that had once been soaked with Union and Confederate blood, and said in an even tone, "About 4:30, I thought I was going out of my mind--I've never felt so close to insanity." He paused. "That's why I had to get out to the golf course."
After a moment of silence, I asked, "What made you feel that way?"
"During the day," he said heavily, "I've had dozens of phone calls and telegrams from people I respect telling me what I should do about this Goldwater thing, and each one sure he's expressing the will of God. I felt like Lincoln who used to wonder why the will of God is revealed to so many others and not to the person who needs to know it."
Weeks before the 1964 Republican convention, conservative Senator Barry Goldwater seemed certain to be nominated for President, and moderates in the party felt only Eisenhower could stop him to avert a Republican disaster in November.
Strangely, for a man who had commanded fighting forces most of his life, Eisenhower was unwilling to engage in political combat. "I'm not the titular head of the party," he said, referring with obvious distaste to Richard Nixon, without mentioning his name, as he did several times during the evening.
Then he cited Senator Joe McCarthy who, during Ike's Presidency, had been terrorizing the country with accusations of Communist sympathies against leading Americans, including Eisenhower's hero, General George Marshall. When advisors had urged him to speak out, Ike refused: "I'm not going to get into the gutter with that guy."
Now, on a porch wrapped in darkness, he was reassuring himself that his silence had denied McCarthy attention. "The fellow just wanted publicity." We were too polite to point out that McCarthy did not fall until confronted by men without Presidential power, Edward R. Murrow on TV and attorney Joseph Welch during the Army-McCarthy hearings.
Yet, as we talked, what emerged was that Eisenhower's distaste for hand-to-hand combat rested on deep conviction. ("Ike never argues," Mamie once said. "He just walks out of the room.") He told stories of bringing officials with opposing views into the Oval Office and persuading them to compromise. "The road in politics goes only one way," he said, "ahead--and the best place to travel is the middle, on the good surface. That's where you can bring the most people with you, not in the ruts and ditches on the extreme sides."
Ike had been sipping lemonade but, as we were handed our second drinks, he took a highball. "I allow myself only one, but I don't intend to waste any of it," draining the glass as we went into dinner. After crab meat and baked chicken, there were individual lemon meringue pies. "My favorite dessert," he said, "but I have to watch calories so we only have it on special occasions."
After the meal we went back to the porch, now dimly lit. The drink and dinner must have relaxed Ike. He went into a caustic commentary on the dishonesty of politicians, with emphasis on Goldwater:
"He came to tell me he was going to vote against the civil rights bill as a matter of conscience. I said I wouldn't ask any man to go against his conscience, but that if I were a Senator I'd vote for it. Even an imperfect bill would help balance eighty years of oppression. But what I couldn't understand was his attempt to keep the bill from coming to a vote. If I were to comment, I'd crucify him for that. But I was not going to say anything publicly."
Goldwater then told reporters that Ike "would not hold the vote against me." When Eisenhower complained about the misrepresentation, Goldwater assured him it would be corrected. We pointed out that it hadn't been, and Ike shrugged. The sequence just confirmed his low opinion of politicians and journalists.
As he told stories of being misquoted and misunderstood, something became clear about his cast of mind. Described by critics as intellectually limited and unwilling to commit himself, Eisenhower may simply have been a man who gave his full attention to one situation at a time, tried to do "the right thing" and was baffled when others looked below the surface or connected it with what had gone before or might come after.
He confirmed this impression describing the difficulty he was having with memoirs about his Presidency, as opposed to those about the war. His approach was chronological, rather than subjective and thematic. He seemed unwilling to look below the visible aspects of experience. (That this was a matter of disposition is suggested by his definition of an intellectual as "a man who takes more words than necessary to tell more than he knows.")
His passion for golf seemed a metaphor for his approach to politics and life. Unlike tennis, you don't react to an opponent. You focus on one stroke and then go on to the next. There is no ambiguity about the result--your score is a precise number. Even in competition, the social coziness of a foursome masks the desire to prevail over others, and jokes about slyness and cheating defuse competitiveness into laughter and camaraderie.
But despite this inflexible mindset, I felt myself drawn to Eisenhower's palpable decency and lack of pretension. I wondered what was below that controlled surface, particularly when we looked at his unframed oil paintings stacked in a corner. (He spent much of his retirement behind the easel, another solitary activity that required intense concentration on the next stroke.)
As we looked at the paintings, he kept pointing out his shortcomings ("Sometimes I work on one for years without getting it right"}. Most resembled picture-postcard illustrations, the equivalents of polite conversation. But there was an exception.
He had drawn it from memory, he said. It showed a solitary figure in a rowboat at sunset, a dark silhouette in the subdued gleam of a lake. Above was a truly extraordinary sky, bursting with fragments of vivid color--light and dark blues, reds, purples. He expressed pleasure at his own daring in painting that sky.
As we started to leave, Ike seemed reluctant to see us go. He had an early golf date in the morning but protested that he wasn't tired and dawdled while we made our way from the dark porch into the glare of the living room.
For a moment I found myself at his shoulder. He stood militarily erect, but a network of cross-hatched lines at the back of his neck testified to age. I felt a surge of sorrow and affection. Whatever reservations I might have had about him as a President, I was drawn to the man--I would have trusted him with everything I own.
As we sorted ourselves into the limousine that would take us back to Manhattan and drove off, Ike and Mamie stood in the driveway, waving us on our way.
Remembering that evening when Barack Obama was only two years old also recalls what he told 60 Minutes during last year's campaign: "I am a practical person. One of the things I'm good at is getting people in a room with ...different ideas who sometimes violently disagree with each other and finding common ground, and a sense of common direction."
As he moves ahead, Americans can only hope he puts that Eisenhower-like skill to good use.
Obama Buys a Used War
When the President unveiled his vehicle for getting from here to there in Afghanistan last night, it was not, as W's chief of staff described the Iraq invasion in 2002, a "new product" but an eight-year-old jalopy retooled for an even longer, bumpier ride.
As Barack Obama "assumed full ownership," there was no shortage of tire-kickers, starting with John McCain, who judges wars on durability (i.e., 100 years in Iraq). The President reportedly placated his rival in last year's race by assuring McCain that the 2011 trade-in date could be modified by "conditions on the ground," a warranty loophole big enough to drive another Surge through.
The post-purchase debate will be all the livelier for an aging gas-guzzler that has none of the curb appeal of George W. Bush's choice, the Saddam Hussein 2003 model with such then-new features as WMDs and a shock-and-awe startup for quick acceleration.
At a pre-speech lunch, the President failed to sell even such an avid buyer of that previous rollout as Tom Friedman, who now complains the new transport has too many "moving parts," that "Afghans, Pakistanis and NATO allies all have to behave forever differently for this to work."
With so much sales resistance, Obama may want to look back at Lyndon Johnson's experience. LBJ was moving along just fine with his newly unveiled war on poverty until he switched off for a side trip aboard the sputtering Vietnam buggy, which eventually took his presidency over a cliff.
As Barack Obama "assumed full ownership," there was no shortage of tire-kickers, starting with John McCain, who judges wars on durability (i.e., 100 years in Iraq). The President reportedly placated his rival in last year's race by assuring McCain that the 2011 trade-in date could be modified by "conditions on the ground," a warranty loophole big enough to drive another Surge through.
The post-purchase debate will be all the livelier for an aging gas-guzzler that has none of the curb appeal of George W. Bush's choice, the Saddam Hussein 2003 model with such then-new features as WMDs and a shock-and-awe startup for quick acceleration.
At a pre-speech lunch, the President failed to sell even such an avid buyer of that previous rollout as Tom Friedman, who now complains the new transport has too many "moving parts," that "Afghans, Pakistanis and NATO allies all have to behave forever differently for this to work."
With so much sales resistance, Obama may want to look back at Lyndon Johnson's experience. LBJ was moving along just fine with his newly unveiled war on poverty until he switched off for a side trip aboard the sputtering Vietnam buggy, which eventually took his presidency over a cliff.
Tuesday, December 01, 2009
Gung Ho-Hum
"For if the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle?" asks the Bible.
Barack Obama showed tonight that no president, however eloquent, can successfully summon Americans to combat with a divided mind and heart, that no call for national sacrifice can come with an expiration date, that it is monumentally wrong to send off all those shining young faces to a mission that people back home are confused, ambivalent and heartsick about.
The speech meant to rouse unity and purpose about the war in Afghanistan and Pakistan turned out to be more of a lawyerly brief about how the nation went wrong after 9/11 and how repeating those mistakes more intelligently will produce a different result.
“It is easy to forget," said the President in his peroration, "that when this war began, we were united-- bound together by the fresh memory of a horrific attack, and by the determination to defend our homeland and the values we hold dear. I refuse to accept the notion that we cannot summon that unity again.”
Those young people at West Point will salute their Commander-in-Chief and follow his orders, wherever they lead, but older and sadder hearts will grieve for their future and for those who will follow them.
The speech tonight was given in Eisenhower Hall, named for a general who was victorious in World War II to become a president who took us out of what a younger Obama might have called "a dumb war" in Korea a decade later.
Barack Obama would do well to remember both Eisenhowers.
Barack Obama showed tonight that no president, however eloquent, can successfully summon Americans to combat with a divided mind and heart, that no call for national sacrifice can come with an expiration date, that it is monumentally wrong to send off all those shining young faces to a mission that people back home are confused, ambivalent and heartsick about.
The speech meant to rouse unity and purpose about the war in Afghanistan and Pakistan turned out to be more of a lawyerly brief about how the nation went wrong after 9/11 and how repeating those mistakes more intelligently will produce a different result.
“It is easy to forget," said the President in his peroration, "that when this war began, we were united-- bound together by the fresh memory of a horrific attack, and by the determination to defend our homeland and the values we hold dear. I refuse to accept the notion that we cannot summon that unity again.”
Those young people at West Point will salute their Commander-in-Chief and follow his orders, wherever they lead, but older and sadder hearts will grieve for their future and for those who will follow them.
The speech tonight was given in Eisenhower Hall, named for a general who was victorious in World War II to become a president who took us out of what a younger Obama might have called "a dumb war" in Korea a decade later.
Barack Obama would do well to remember both Eisenhowers.
Bin Laden's Gaslighting of America
Somewhere in an Afpak cave, the 9/11 mastermind must be smiling as the US takes the next big step in his "bleed-until-bankruptcy" plan to defeat the most powerful nation on earth.
Today's news should reassure Osama bin Laden (and/or his heirs) that the objectives he laid out in November 2004 are working out well--to gaslight his enemies into self-destruction, a term derived from the World War II movie to describe intimidation and psychological abuse through false information that clouds the victims' perception.
"All we have to do," he said back then, "is to send two mujahedeen to the furthest point east to raise a piece of cloth on which is written al Qaeda, in order to make generals race there to cause America to suffer human, economic and political losses without their achieving anything of note..."
The human and economic losses will grow larger as the number of American troops in Afghanistan approaches 100,000, but the political losses are surfacing even before then, as party-line distinctions blur in a wave of contradictions and self-doubt.
From the right, we have the Weekly Standard urging the President to stop being half-hearted and start talking about victory, while moderate Republican Sen. Dick Lugar suggests "we put aside the health care debate until next year" because "the war is terribly important."
Moving left, a Slate writer confesses to a cardinal sin of columndom, "mixed feelings," Democrat Dick Obey calls the escalation "a fool's errand," and Michael Moore with his trademark understatement, urges the President, "Stop, stop, stop! For the sake of the lives of young Americans and Afghan civilians, stop. For the sake of your presidency, hope, and the future of our nation, stop. For God's sake, stop."
From the sidelines, retired diplomats and generals muse about the "the possibilities and the limits of nation-building," coming to a consensus that "world powers have at best a mixed record when it comes to establishing functional, stable governments in countries devastated by war. The efforts have been long and costly, tangible results often hard to measure, and support for a prolonged involvement difficult to maintain."
Osama bin Laden couldn't have scripted it better. No matter what Barack Obama says tonight, the man in the cave will have controlled the situation more through gaslighting than the man in the White House who has all that 21st century enlightenment at his command.
Update: Now the picture is complete as Dick Cheney weighs in to claim that the President is "undermining" the forces in the field by "agonizing" over his decision. The former VP is a great advocate for shooting from the hip, even if you never nail bin Laden but hit your best friend in the next duck blind.
Today's news should reassure Osama bin Laden (and/or his heirs) that the objectives he laid out in November 2004 are working out well--to gaslight his enemies into self-destruction, a term derived from the World War II movie to describe intimidation and psychological abuse through false information that clouds the victims' perception.
"All we have to do," he said back then, "is to send two mujahedeen to the furthest point east to raise a piece of cloth on which is written al Qaeda, in order to make generals race there to cause America to suffer human, economic and political losses without their achieving anything of note..."
The human and economic losses will grow larger as the number of American troops in Afghanistan approaches 100,000, but the political losses are surfacing even before then, as party-line distinctions blur in a wave of contradictions and self-doubt.
From the right, we have the Weekly Standard urging the President to stop being half-hearted and start talking about victory, while moderate Republican Sen. Dick Lugar suggests "we put aside the health care debate until next year" because "the war is terribly important."
Moving left, a Slate writer confesses to a cardinal sin of columndom, "mixed feelings," Democrat Dick Obey calls the escalation "a fool's errand," and Michael Moore with his trademark understatement, urges the President, "Stop, stop, stop! For the sake of the lives of young Americans and Afghan civilians, stop. For the sake of your presidency, hope, and the future of our nation, stop. For God's sake, stop."
From the sidelines, retired diplomats and generals muse about the "the possibilities and the limits of nation-building," coming to a consensus that "world powers have at best a mixed record when it comes to establishing functional, stable governments in countries devastated by war. The efforts have been long and costly, tangible results often hard to measure, and support for a prolonged involvement difficult to maintain."
Osama bin Laden couldn't have scripted it better. No matter what Barack Obama says tonight, the man in the cave will have controlled the situation more through gaslighting than the man in the White House who has all that 21st century enlightenment at his command.
Update: Now the picture is complete as Dick Cheney weighs in to claim that the President is "undermining" the forces in the field by "agonizing" over his decision. The former VP is a great advocate for shooting from the hip, even if you never nail bin Laden but hit your best friend in the next duck blind.
Monday, November 30, 2009
Bringing Afghanistan Home
The pre-game coverage of the President's speech at West Point tomorrow night is on track as White House spinners emphasize that he will "give a clear sense of both the time frame for action and how the war will eventually wind down.”
Translated, this means that a 48-year-old man named Barack Obama will tell Americans how and why he is sending some 30,000 men and women, most of them younger than he is, to a place thousands of miles from home where they will kill people they don't know and where unknown others will be trying to kill them.
A gifted orator, the President will try to explain what lies behind the polysyllables of "deployment," "security" and "multinational strategy" and show that what some are calling "Obama's Surge" is part of "a necessary war" on behalf of us all.
He won't succeed. How could he? How could anyone? Except for those who are lost in some ideological wasteland, the President will be talking to and about thousands of sovereign souls, each humanly connected to many others, who will never be the same again after he says those words and signs orders to carry them out.
Before the Obama address, we should hear a voice that speaks for them as does Erik Malmstrom, a 29-year-old graduate student who went to Afghanistan three years ago after volunteering for service in 2002 "out of a sense of civic duty," "attracted to the challenge of serving in wartime and leading men in combat."
He came back after surviving roadside bomb attacks, ambushes and confusing fire fights that led to the sudden and inexplicable deaths of comrades in arms. After returning, he crisscrossed the country visiting the families of the fallen to deliver memorial plaques signed by survivors, stand at gravesides, leaf through albums of childhood photos and watch lighthearted home movies.
"I spent much of the time sobbing uncontrollably," Erik Malmstrom recalls and now he says, "I am overridden with conflicting emotions. I am indescribably proud of my service, but can never feel good about it. I did the best I could with an impossible situation, but left behind what has become one of the most violent and unstable valleys in Afghanistan.
"I am thankful for my friendships with the families of my fallen soldiers, but wish that it didn’t take tragedy to bring us together. Coping has not become any easier. My experience changed me forever in ways that I am still trying to understand."
Tomorrow will undoubtedly bring responses to the President from politicians his age and older. The voices we should be hearing are those of Erik Malmstrom and others like him.
Translated, this means that a 48-year-old man named Barack Obama will tell Americans how and why he is sending some 30,000 men and women, most of them younger than he is, to a place thousands of miles from home where they will kill people they don't know and where unknown others will be trying to kill them.
A gifted orator, the President will try to explain what lies behind the polysyllables of "deployment," "security" and "multinational strategy" and show that what some are calling "Obama's Surge" is part of "a necessary war" on behalf of us all.
He won't succeed. How could he? How could anyone? Except for those who are lost in some ideological wasteland, the President will be talking to and about thousands of sovereign souls, each humanly connected to many others, who will never be the same again after he says those words and signs orders to carry them out.
Before the Obama address, we should hear a voice that speaks for them as does Erik Malmstrom, a 29-year-old graduate student who went to Afghanistan three years ago after volunteering for service in 2002 "out of a sense of civic duty," "attracted to the challenge of serving in wartime and leading men in combat."
He came back after surviving roadside bomb attacks, ambushes and confusing fire fights that led to the sudden and inexplicable deaths of comrades in arms. After returning, he crisscrossed the country visiting the families of the fallen to deliver memorial plaques signed by survivors, stand at gravesides, leaf through albums of childhood photos and watch lighthearted home movies.
"I spent much of the time sobbing uncontrollably," Erik Malmstrom recalls and now he says, "I am overridden with conflicting emotions. I am indescribably proud of my service, but can never feel good about it. I did the best I could with an impossible situation, but left behind what has become one of the most violent and unstable valleys in Afghanistan.
"I am thankful for my friendships with the families of my fallen soldiers, but wish that it didn’t take tragedy to bring us together. Coping has not become any easier. My experience changed me forever in ways that I am still trying to understand."
Tomorrow will undoubtedly bring responses to the President from politicians his age and older. The voices we should be hearing are those of Erik Malmstrom and others like him.
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Fingers-in-the-Dikes Presidency
Nobody seems to be blinking as the world economy bursts another seam, in Dubai this time, accentuating again how much Barack Obama's tenure in the White House has been like a montage of the little Dutch boy racing from dike to dike trying to hold off disasters--on Wall Street and Main Street, in Detroit, Afghanistan, the ozone layer, wherever.
Watery images are on Peggy Noonan's mind as she observes that the President is now "leaking support" in "two core constituencies, Washington's Democratic-journalistic establishment, and what might still be called the foreign-policy establishment."
But Noonan may be missing the point. Obama I is looking more and more like the Year of the Flood, with a President trying to hold back rising tides on all fronts in the kind of world not ideally suited to his political style as a transformational leader on big issues rather than a first responder to one emergency after another.
But the President has been scrambling for quick fixes, and some observers are declaring partial successes, as Jacob Weisberg does in Slate, crediting him with the best first year since FDR and citing "mounting evidence that the $787 billion economic stimulus he signed in February—-combined with the bank bailout package—-prevented an economic depression."
Be that as it may, next month Obama's acceptance of the Nobel Peace Prize will remind us that the fabled boy with his finger in the dike was Hans Brinker, who also competed for the Silver Skates and, through his good works, went on to become a successful healer.
Then again, for skeptics, there is another way to go, by joining the editor of Newsweek in urging Dick Cheney to run against Obama in 2012. As the waters keep rising, the former Veep could go back to doing what he did so well for eight years, shrugging and denying it all.
Watery images are on Peggy Noonan's mind as she observes that the President is now "leaking support" in "two core constituencies, Washington's Democratic-journalistic establishment, and what might still be called the foreign-policy establishment."
But Noonan may be missing the point. Obama I is looking more and more like the Year of the Flood, with a President trying to hold back rising tides on all fronts in the kind of world not ideally suited to his political style as a transformational leader on big issues rather than a first responder to one emergency after another.
But the President has been scrambling for quick fixes, and some observers are declaring partial successes, as Jacob Weisberg does in Slate, crediting him with the best first year since FDR and citing "mounting evidence that the $787 billion economic stimulus he signed in February—-combined with the bank bailout package—-prevented an economic depression."
Be that as it may, next month Obama's acceptance of the Nobel Peace Prize will remind us that the fabled boy with his finger in the dike was Hans Brinker, who also competed for the Silver Skates and, through his good works, went on to become a successful healer.
Then again, for skeptics, there is another way to go, by joining the editor of Newsweek in urging Dick Cheney to run against Obama in 2012. As the waters keep rising, the former Veep could go back to doing what he did so well for eight years, shrugging and denying it all.
Saturday, November 28, 2009
Bush's War Crimes Trial
What is as close as we're going to get to a calling-to-account for the former Decider and his puppet Tony Blair for thousands of deaths in Iraq is unfolding, largely out of American media sight, before a panel of British nobles.
The Chilcot inquiry is hearing from such witnesses as the then-Ambassador to the UN that he threatened to quit in the runup to the Iraq invasion over bulldozing from the Bush-Cheney White House.
“The UK’s attempt to reconstitute a consensus," says Sir Jeremy Greenstock, "had only a slim prospect of success, made slimmer by the recognition by anyone else following events closely that the United States was not proactively supportive of the UK’s efforts and seemed to be preparing for conflict whatever the UK decided to do."
The ambassador's testimony follows that of British intelligence officials that right after 9/11 in 2001 they were asked to draw up an Iraq "options" paper, including regime change.
"We dismissed it at the time because it had no basis in law," says the then-head of the Middle East department at the Foreign Office, noting that ""there was no increased appetite among UK ministers for military action in Iraq."
A former policy director at the Ministry of Defence adds that, in those days, the issue of regime change in Iraq was like "the dog that did not bark. It grizzled, but it did not bark."
But Bush's Neo-Con dogs of war, "hell bent" on the invasion, were barking loud enough to be heard on both sides of the Atlantic, and their call for overthrowing Saddam Hussein and his non-existent WMDs was drowning out all dissenters.
The Chilcot hearings are big news in Britain but back here, what with Thanksgiving and the White House gate-crashers, the could-have-been-avoided deaths of more than 4000 Americans in Iraq may seem like yesterday's news.
George W. Bush is only figuratively in the dock, but a British investigator who campaigned for the inquiry calls it "a final opportunity to scrutinize the war...our last chance to get to the truth."
As we prepare to do more killing and dying in Afghanistan, it may be a truth we should be looking at very closely.
The Chilcot inquiry is hearing from such witnesses as the then-Ambassador to the UN that he threatened to quit in the runup to the Iraq invasion over bulldozing from the Bush-Cheney White House.
“The UK’s attempt to reconstitute a consensus," says Sir Jeremy Greenstock, "had only a slim prospect of success, made slimmer by the recognition by anyone else following events closely that the United States was not proactively supportive of the UK’s efforts and seemed to be preparing for conflict whatever the UK decided to do."
The ambassador's testimony follows that of British intelligence officials that right after 9/11 in 2001 they were asked to draw up an Iraq "options" paper, including regime change.
"We dismissed it at the time because it had no basis in law," says the then-head of the Middle East department at the Foreign Office, noting that ""there was no increased appetite among UK ministers for military action in Iraq."
A former policy director at the Ministry of Defence adds that, in those days, the issue of regime change in Iraq was like "the dog that did not bark. It grizzled, but it did not bark."
But Bush's Neo-Con dogs of war, "hell bent" on the invasion, were barking loud enough to be heard on both sides of the Atlantic, and their call for overthrowing Saddam Hussein and his non-existent WMDs was drowning out all dissenters.
The Chilcot hearings are big news in Britain but back here, what with Thanksgiving and the White House gate-crashers, the could-have-been-avoided deaths of more than 4000 Americans in Iraq may seem like yesterday's news.
George W. Bush is only figuratively in the dock, but a British investigator who campaigned for the inquiry calls it "a final opportunity to scrutinize the war...our last chance to get to the truth."
As we prepare to do more killing and dying in Afghanistan, it may be a truth we should be looking at very closely.
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Hug a Terrorist for the Holidays
That photo of the Vice-President with his arms around a couple of grinning White House gate-crashers last night will do nicely as a symbol for Americans as they count their blessings, real and imagined, on this day.
While so many are getting their meals at homeless shelters, the headlines are devoted to the reality-show aspirants who breached the most secure location in the nation, decked out in finery and hair-styling that could have paid for hundreds of Thanksgiving dinners.
Economic absurdity aside, how are we to take the President's speech next week telling how much more American blood and treasure will be spent in Afghanistan to guarantee our domestic safety when two unauthorized strangers can walk into his own house undeterred and have Joe Biden give them a hug?
Loathsome as they are, Tareq and Michaele Salahi may have done Americans a favor by dramatizing in tabloid terms just how illusory the idea of homeland security may be in an age when there are not enough eyes to watch every rathole in every location, high and low.
If the terrorists show up in evening wear next time, who will stop them?
Update: The uninvited guests were allowed to enter, says a Secret Service spokesman, because "our procedure wasn't followed" at one security checkpoint, an explanation that rivals the explanation of Gen. Buck Turgidson in the movie, "Dr. Strangelove," about the failure to stop American and Soviet bombers heading for a doomsday confrontation, "I don't think it's quite fair to condemn a whole program because of a single slip-up, sir."
If the Salahis had been terrorists carrying vials of anthrax, the Secret Service might today be setting up new checkpoints to protect President Nancy Pelosi or Robert Byrd from the next wave of "Desperate Housewives" wannabes.
While so many are getting their meals at homeless shelters, the headlines are devoted to the reality-show aspirants who breached the most secure location in the nation, decked out in finery and hair-styling that could have paid for hundreds of Thanksgiving dinners.
Economic absurdity aside, how are we to take the President's speech next week telling how much more American blood and treasure will be spent in Afghanistan to guarantee our domestic safety when two unauthorized strangers can walk into his own house undeterred and have Joe Biden give them a hug?
Loathsome as they are, Tareq and Michaele Salahi may have done Americans a favor by dramatizing in tabloid terms just how illusory the idea of homeland security may be in an age when there are not enough eyes to watch every rathole in every location, high and low.
If the terrorists show up in evening wear next time, who will stop them?
Update: The uninvited guests were allowed to enter, says a Secret Service spokesman, because "our procedure wasn't followed" at one security checkpoint, an explanation that rivals the explanation of Gen. Buck Turgidson in the movie, "Dr. Strangelove," about the failure to stop American and Soviet bombers heading for a doomsday confrontation, "I don't think it's quite fair to condemn a whole program because of a single slip-up, sir."
If the Salahis had been terrorists carrying vials of anthrax, the Secret Service might today be setting up new checkpoints to protect President Nancy Pelosi or Robert Byrd from the next wave of "Desperate Housewives" wannabes.
Best Leftover Turkey Recipe Ever
From years of editing women's magazines and tasting test-kitchen results thereof, herewith a way with leftover turkey that will keep you from cursing the oversized bird you bought.
TURKEY TETRAZZINI
Ingredients: 3/4 cup butter or margarine, 3/4 cup flour, salt, 1/8 teaspoon nutmeg, 1 quart milk, 2 cups undiluted chicken broth, 4 egg yolks, 1 cup heavy cream, 1/2 cup sherry, 1 pound thin spaghetti, 6 cups leftover turkey cut into cubes, 1 cup fresh or canned sliced mushrooms, 8 oz sharp Cheddar grated (2 cups).
Sauce: Melt butter in large pan, remove from heat. Stir in flour, nutmeg and salt until smooth. Gradually add milk and broth, stirring constantly. Boil 2 minutes until slightly thick.
In small bowl, beat egg yolks and cream. Beat in a little of the sauce, pour back into pan over low heat, stirring until hot but not to a boil. Stir in sherry.
Boil spaghetti, drain and return to kettle. Add 2 cups sauce and toss together. Divide in half and put into two 12-by-8-by-2 baking dishes, push back toward edges. Add 2 cups sauce to turkey and mushrooms, mix well and spoon half into center of each dish.
Sprinkle grated cheese, cover with foil and refrigerate 1 hour or even overnight. Preheat oven to 350F and bake, covered, 45 minutes. Spoon reheated leftover sauce over each serving. You can refreeze and have leftover leftovers.
Somewhat calorific, but then again, so are the bread and mayonnaise for turkey sandwiches, which won't taste nearly this good.
TURKEY TETRAZZINI
Ingredients: 3/4 cup butter or margarine, 3/4 cup flour, salt, 1/8 teaspoon nutmeg, 1 quart milk, 2 cups undiluted chicken broth, 4 egg yolks, 1 cup heavy cream, 1/2 cup sherry, 1 pound thin spaghetti, 6 cups leftover turkey cut into cubes, 1 cup fresh or canned sliced mushrooms, 8 oz sharp Cheddar grated (2 cups).
Sauce: Melt butter in large pan, remove from heat. Stir in flour, nutmeg and salt until smooth. Gradually add milk and broth, stirring constantly. Boil 2 minutes until slightly thick.
In small bowl, beat egg yolks and cream. Beat in a little of the sauce, pour back into pan over low heat, stirring until hot but not to a boil. Stir in sherry.
Boil spaghetti, drain and return to kettle. Add 2 cups sauce and toss together. Divide in half and put into two 12-by-8-by-2 baking dishes, push back toward edges. Add 2 cups sauce to turkey and mushrooms, mix well and spoon half into center of each dish.
Sprinkle grated cheese, cover with foil and refrigerate 1 hour or even overnight. Preheat oven to 350F and bake, covered, 45 minutes. Spoon reheated leftover sauce over each serving. You can refreeze and have leftover leftovers.
Somewhat calorific, but then again, so are the bread and mayonnaise for turkey sandwiches, which won't taste nearly this good.
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Obama: War and Peace
Next week Barack Obama will announce he is sending tens of thousands more troops to fight in Afghanistan as he prepares ten days later to accept the Nobel Peace Prize in Norway.
This juxtaposition raises questions about the "new climate in international politics" for which the Nobel Committee has cited him, observing, "Dialogue and negotiations are preferred as instruments for resolving even the most difficult international conflicts."
But such instruments will not work against those committed to fight a Holy War to the death, and the President now says he "will finish the job" of what he deems "a necessary war" with some yet-to-be-disclosed combination of diplomatic and civilian efforts as well as military force.
When he tells the American people exactly how next Tuesday night, he will be facing a public that is deeply divided about the war. No matter how skillfully Barack Obama explains his decision, an older generation will be thinking of Lyndon Johnson and the war in Vietnam.
Bill Moyers, who worked in the White House back then, speaks for all of us:
"(O)nce again we're fighting in remote provinces against an enemy who can bleed us slowly and wait us out, because he will still be there when we are gone.
"Once again, we are caught between warring factions in a country where other foreign powers fail before us. Once again, every setback brings a call for more troops, although no one can say how long they will be there or what it means to win. Once again, the government we are trying to help is hopelessly corrupt and incompetent.
"And once again, a President pushing for critical change at home is being pressured to stop dithering, be tough, show he's got the guts, by sending young people seven thousand miles from home to fight and die, while their own country is coming apart.
"And once again, the loudest case for enlarging the war is being made by those who will not have to fight it, who will be safely in their beds while the war grinds on. And once again, a small circle of advisers debates the course of action, but one man will make the decision.
"We will never know what would have happened if Lyndon Johnson had said no to more war. We know what happened because he said yes."
LBJ never won a Nobel Peace Prize and left office a broken man. In a new century, Barack Obama can learn much from his fate and write a different ending to the story.
This juxtaposition raises questions about the "new climate in international politics" for which the Nobel Committee has cited him, observing, "Dialogue and negotiations are preferred as instruments for resolving even the most difficult international conflicts."
But such instruments will not work against those committed to fight a Holy War to the death, and the President now says he "will finish the job" of what he deems "a necessary war" with some yet-to-be-disclosed combination of diplomatic and civilian efforts as well as military force.
When he tells the American people exactly how next Tuesday night, he will be facing a public that is deeply divided about the war. No matter how skillfully Barack Obama explains his decision, an older generation will be thinking of Lyndon Johnson and the war in Vietnam.
Bill Moyers, who worked in the White House back then, speaks for all of us:
"(O)nce again we're fighting in remote provinces against an enemy who can bleed us slowly and wait us out, because he will still be there when we are gone.
"Once again, we are caught between warring factions in a country where other foreign powers fail before us. Once again, every setback brings a call for more troops, although no one can say how long they will be there or what it means to win. Once again, the government we are trying to help is hopelessly corrupt and incompetent.
"And once again, a President pushing for critical change at home is being pressured to stop dithering, be tough, show he's got the guts, by sending young people seven thousand miles from home to fight and die, while their own country is coming apart.
"And once again, the loudest case for enlarging the war is being made by those who will not have to fight it, who will be safely in their beds while the war grinds on. And once again, a small circle of advisers debates the course of action, but one man will make the decision.
"We will never know what would have happened if Lyndon Johnson had said no to more war. We know what happened because he said yes."
LBJ never won a Nobel Peace Prize and left office a broken man. In a new century, Barack Obama can learn much from his fate and write a different ending to the story.
Monday, November 23, 2009
Trade Health Care for More Stimulus?
The weekend "victory" in the Senate has Pyrrhic written all over it as 2000 pages of proposed legislation is on its way to being held hostage by the likes of Joe Lieberman, Mary Landrieu, Blanche Lincoln, Ben Nelson et al. What we have now is an abortion of a bill that will only get worse as the back-alley bargaining goes on.
Here's a radical idea for the President of Change: Take most of it off the table until after next year's elections and put your full weight behind another stimulus that would speed up economic recovery, create jobs and shove it down the throats of Republicans who are using the incoherence of health care reform to confuse Americans who are terrified about the economy.
"Most economists I talk to," Paul Krugman writes today, "believe that the big risk to recovery comes from the inadequacy of government efforts: the stimulus was too small, and it will fade out next year, while high unemployment is undermining both consumer and business confidence.
"Now, it’s politically difficult for the Obama administration to enact a full-scale second stimulus. Still, he should be trying to push through as much aid to the economy as possible. And remember, Mr. Obama has the bully pulpit; it’s his job to persuade America to do what needs to be done."
It would take political guts for the President, after all his talk about the urgency of health care reform, to take most of it off the table temporarily and put the effort and money into turning the economy around.
Settle for passing the noncontroversial elements now--i.e., no cutoffs for preexisting conditions--and move on to a full-scale assault on what is really worrying Americans.
Democrats who have to face the voters in less than a year should be able to unite and help him get something meaningful done.
Update: Joe Lieberman, dubbed by Joe Klein, "the Senator from Aetna," is digging in on the public option, in what the Wall Street Journal calls his "trademark sonorous baritone" but others would call a weasely whine, promising to filibuster against the public option. Harry Reid may buy him off before the final vote, but it's saddening to see a pivotal role being played by someone rejected by his own party's voters in the last election. Is this the way to get health care reform?
Here's a radical idea for the President of Change: Take most of it off the table until after next year's elections and put your full weight behind another stimulus that would speed up economic recovery, create jobs and shove it down the throats of Republicans who are using the incoherence of health care reform to confuse Americans who are terrified about the economy.
"Most economists I talk to," Paul Krugman writes today, "believe that the big risk to recovery comes from the inadequacy of government efforts: the stimulus was too small, and it will fade out next year, while high unemployment is undermining both consumer and business confidence.
"Now, it’s politically difficult for the Obama administration to enact a full-scale second stimulus. Still, he should be trying to push through as much aid to the economy as possible. And remember, Mr. Obama has the bully pulpit; it’s his job to persuade America to do what needs to be done."
It would take political guts for the President, after all his talk about the urgency of health care reform, to take most of it off the table temporarily and put the effort and money into turning the economy around.
Settle for passing the noncontroversial elements now--i.e., no cutoffs for preexisting conditions--and move on to a full-scale assault on what is really worrying Americans.
Democrats who have to face the voters in less than a year should be able to unite and help him get something meaningful done.
Update: Joe Lieberman, dubbed by Joe Klein, "the Senator from Aetna," is digging in on the public option, in what the Wall Street Journal calls his "trademark sonorous baritone" but others would call a weasely whine, promising to filibuster against the public option. Harry Reid may buy him off before the final vote, but it's saddening to see a pivotal role being played by someone rejected by his own party's voters in the last election. Is this the way to get health care reform?
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Saving JFK
The day is here again, November 22nd. It's been 46 years now and, for those well over that age, no less painful with the passage of time.
His death was the first of a president in our living rooms--the motorcade, the rifle shots, the disarray in Dallas, the dazed swearing-in of his successor that night, the on-camera murder of the assassin two days later and then the funeral with our eyes and hearts transfixed by the beautiful young widow and two small children.
We are so inured now to TV wakes with old news clips and talking heads that it's hard to imagine how hard and how deeply John F. Kennedy's assassination struck a nation that had been moved by his youth, wit and optimism, all gone in an eyeblink and shown over and over again in slow motion.
The pain went so deep that, as a magazine editor, I published an article by a psychiatrist telling how he and his patients talked of practically nothing else in the days and weeks that followed, how JFK's death had taken over their psyches and became entangled with their inner lives.
For months after that Friday, I would awake from sweat dreams of the motorcade, book depository, silent screams, slow-motion lunges at a relentless assassin, saving JFK at the last moment.
Such rescue fantasies came naturally to generations marked by the central image of "Catcher in the Rye": children "standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff--I mean if they're running and they don't look where they're going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them."
Holden Caulfield couldn't save JFK, and neither could we, but every November 22nd, those dreams come back to haunt us.
His death was the first of a president in our living rooms--the motorcade, the rifle shots, the disarray in Dallas, the dazed swearing-in of his successor that night, the on-camera murder of the assassin two days later and then the funeral with our eyes and hearts transfixed by the beautiful young widow and two small children.
We are so inured now to TV wakes with old news clips and talking heads that it's hard to imagine how hard and how deeply John F. Kennedy's assassination struck a nation that had been moved by his youth, wit and optimism, all gone in an eyeblink and shown over and over again in slow motion.
The pain went so deep that, as a magazine editor, I published an article by a psychiatrist telling how he and his patients talked of practically nothing else in the days and weeks that followed, how JFK's death had taken over their psyches and became entangled with their inner lives.
For months after that Friday, I would awake from sweat dreams of the motorcade, book depository, silent screams, slow-motion lunges at a relentless assassin, saving JFK at the last moment.
Such rescue fantasies came naturally to generations marked by the central image of "Catcher in the Rye": children "standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff--I mean if they're running and they don't look where they're going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them."
Holden Caulfield couldn't save JFK, and neither could we, but every November 22nd, those dreams come back to haunt us.
Saturday, November 21, 2009
The Weirdest Washington Game
After ten months in office, Barack Obama must feel he has been in a long surreal tennis match with nobody on the other side of the net.
In the stands is a chorus of Republicans yelling "Out!" at everything he serves, while jeering that he is moving too fast on the economy and too slowly on Afghanistan.
On the other side, Democrats are weakly cheering him on but spending much of their energy fighting one another to position themselves for their own contests next year.
What does the scoreboard show? Economists are giving the President some points, tentatively concluding that "with roughly a quarter of the stimulus money out the door after nine months, the accumulation of hard data and real-life experience has allowed more dispassionate analysts to reach a consensus that the stimulus package, messy as it is, is working."
On the Wall Street bailout, resident New York Times pundits score him both ways. Paul Krugman concludes "government officials made no serious attempt to extract concessions from bankers, even though these bankers received huge benefits from the rescue. And more than money was lost. By making what was in effect a multibillion-dollar gift to Wall Street, policy makers undermined their own credibility--and put the broader economy at risk."
The same day, David Brooks disagrees, saying "the evidence of the past eight months suggests that [Treasury Secretary Tim] Geithner was mostly right and his critics were mostly wrong. The financial sector is in much better shape than it was then. TARP money is being repaid, and the debate now is what to do with the billions that were never needed."
With all this confused cheering and jeering, it should be no surprise that the public is losing heart with the Gallup Poll showing the President's approval ratings slipping below 50 percent for the first time.
But there is some optimism in the air. Peggy Noonan observes that "the mood of this Thanksgiving looks to be different. An unofficial poll of a dozen friends yields two themes: 'We're still here,' and 'I am so grateful.'"
Meanwhile, the President is back from Asia and still swatting away at the nation's problems, hoping someone will join him for a better game.
In the stands is a chorus of Republicans yelling "Out!" at everything he serves, while jeering that he is moving too fast on the economy and too slowly on Afghanistan.
On the other side, Democrats are weakly cheering him on but spending much of their energy fighting one another to position themselves for their own contests next year.
What does the scoreboard show? Economists are giving the President some points, tentatively concluding that "with roughly a quarter of the stimulus money out the door after nine months, the accumulation of hard data and real-life experience has allowed more dispassionate analysts to reach a consensus that the stimulus package, messy as it is, is working."
On the Wall Street bailout, resident New York Times pundits score him both ways. Paul Krugman concludes "government officials made no serious attempt to extract concessions from bankers, even though these bankers received huge benefits from the rescue. And more than money was lost. By making what was in effect a multibillion-dollar gift to Wall Street, policy makers undermined their own credibility--and put the broader economy at risk."
The same day, David Brooks disagrees, saying "the evidence of the past eight months suggests that [Treasury Secretary Tim] Geithner was mostly right and his critics were mostly wrong. The financial sector is in much better shape than it was then. TARP money is being repaid, and the debate now is what to do with the billions that were never needed."
With all this confused cheering and jeering, it should be no surprise that the public is losing heart with the Gallup Poll showing the President's approval ratings slipping below 50 percent for the first time.
But there is some optimism in the air. Peggy Noonan observes that "the mood of this Thanksgiving looks to be different. An unofficial poll of a dozen friends yields two themes: 'We're still here,' and 'I am so grateful.'"
Meanwhile, the President is back from Asia and still swatting away at the nation's problems, hoping someone will join him for a better game.
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