The Mitchell Report

Summer Reading Recommendations

 

I'm late, I'm late for a very important date 
No time to say "Hello", "Goodbye" 
I'm late, I'm late, I'm late, I'm late
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Lewis Carroll

Dear Friends,

Alice's pal, the White Rabbit, has just the right message for this year's summer reading recommendations, so if you'll forgive the delays and follow us down the rabbit hole, we promise some wonderful reading recommendations - books we've read, and a few that we'll be reading.

Books We've Read

Haunting Legacy: Vietnam and the American Presidency from Ford to Obama, Marvin Kalb and Deborah Kalb, Brookings Press.

I can almost hear the unspoken thoughts as you read this recommendation - “I don't need another book about Vietnam;” “I'm tired of war;” “Give me something new to think about” And that's just exactly what you'll get in this just-published, highly insightful book from one of America's most distinguished television journalists - Marvin Kalb - and his conspicuously talented daughter, Deborah Kalb. 

It's not a book about the Vietnam War; it isn't even a book about war, per se; but it is, perhaps, the first serious piece of scholarship to document the ways in which the experience of that pivotal moment in modern American history has influenced eight presidents:

“The story of Vietnam, the war and its aftermath, runs like a bleeding wound through recent American history, affecting every president from Gerald Ford to Barack Obama and raising profound questions about their prerogatives and powers.

“That war still casts an unforgiving shadow over Oval Office deliberations. Unwanted, uninvited, but inescapable, Vietnam refuses to be forgotten.”

Kalb and Kalb have constructed a meticulous, eminently readable, and thoughtful analysis of how each president has dealt with the specter of Vietnam - from Gerald Ford and the Mayaguez incident through to Barack Obama's decision to increase U. S. troop strength in Afghanistan, and in between a nasty patch of “Swiftboating” that marred and muddied the presidential campaign of 2004.

In the closing chapter, “Good Enough,” the authors make their final pitch:

“He [Obama] fancied himself post-Vietnam, but the war that was lost so many years before he assumed office still hovered over his presidency like Banquo's ghost - unwelcome, but unwilling to release its grip. With Obama or any of the other presidents from Ford on, Vietnam was rarely the only reason for a presidential decision about war or peace, but it was always there whenever the question arose about the possible use of American military power.”

In the service of full disclosure, readers should know three things about the reviewer: first, that that Marvin Kalb is a treasured friend; second, that I was privy to stories about the development of this book for several years before its publication, and read a couple sections in draft form; and third, that I am much taken by the 'back story' of this book, the partnership of a father and daughter in such an important and challenging intellectual adventure.

But if Haunting Legacy were anything short of an important, authoritative, and engaging book, it wouldn't be on this list.


Berlin 1961: Kennedy, Khrushchev, and the Most Dangerous Place on Earth, Frederick Kempe, G. P. Putnam's Sons

Having just ended a review with a 'full disclosure,' this one will begin with a similar notice.

The author is a friend, also president of a Washington DC think tank - The Atlantic Council -- where I spend considerable time participating in their South Asia program. I first met him and learned of his thesis through a mutual friend, at a time when Kempe was in the midst of research-and-writing days. And in clear violation of TMR's commitment to review only those books that have been read cover-to-cover - this review comes to you as I begin Chapter 17 on page 419. One chapter and 83 pages left to cross the finish line. 

Now, about this masterwork.

Berlin 1961 is a story told in three parts - Part I, “The Players,” 'the protagonists,' as Kempe describes them: Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, President John F. Kennedy, West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, and East German leader Walter Ulbricht; Part II, “The Gathering Storm,” John Kennedy's first year in office, which featured two high visibility foreign policy 'failures' - the Bay of Pigs and the Vienna Summit, which JFK described to the New York Times' James, 'Scotty', Reston as “Worst thing in my life. He [Khrushchev] savaged me;” And Part III “The Showdown,” in which the author provides exacting, scrupulous, revealing, and sometimes controversial details about a moment when the world stood on the brink of nuclear war, and when the footprint of the Cold War was fixed for nearly three decades of history that would follow.

One of JFK's national security strategists - William Kaufman -- who was engaged in both Berlin and the Cuban Missile Crisis, describes it this way:

“Berlin was the worst moment of the Cold War. Although I was deeply involved in the Cuban Missile Crisis, I personally thought that the Berlin confrontation, especially after the wall went up, where you had Soviet and U. S. tanks literally facing one another with guns pointed, was a more dangerous situation. We had very clear indications mid-week of the Cuban Missile Crisis that the Russians were not going to push us to the edge . . . You didn't get that sense in Berlin.”

It is in Kempe's Introduction where he sets both the stage and the tone for 500 pages that follow - a scholarly work that reads more like a tantalizing mystery novel; a fascinating character study of four protagonists and other key players, including former Secretary of State Dean Acheson, Vice President Lyndon Johnson, General Lucius D. Clay, and a preview of Henry Kissinger, the young Harvard professor who is briefly a consultant to the Kennedy Administration, but who returns to academia licking a wounded ego, having failed to prevail in minor power struggles for Kennedy's attention owing to blackballing by his former Dean, McGeorge Bundy; and, finally, an historical analysis that challenges much of the conventional wisdom and offers new perspectives on a much under-appreciated moment in history.

Without disclosing specifics of Kempe's thesis, Berlin 1961 is both a page-turner and a head-turner, offering fresh perspectives about the principals and the political calculus in NATO and Warsaw Pact countries. And it all begins with a series of seven questions that provide the framework for the 'gift that keeps on giving' for 500 pages. Here are two:

“Should history consider the Berlin Wall's construction the positive outcome of Kennedy's unflappable leadership . . . or was the Wall the unhappy result of his missing backbone?”

“Was Khrushchev a true reformer whose efforts to reach out to Kennedy following his election were a genuine effort (that the U. S. failed to recognize) to reduce tensions? Or was he an erratic leader with whom the U S. could never have done business?”


Scorpions: The Battles and Triumphs of FDR's Great Supreme Court Justices, Noah Feldman, Twelve (Hachette Book Group.)

Years ago, I read a stunning book entitled, “A World Lit Only by Fire,” written by the preeminent historian, William Manchester, which is a brief history of the medieval centuries and a look at the medieval mind. It grew out of an assignment to write an introduction to a friend's biography of Ferdinand Magellan, while under doctor's orders to relinquish work on his three-part Churchill biography. Owing to his fascination with this period of world history, Manchester's insatiable intellectual curiosity went into overdrive, and within a matter of weeks his “Introduction” had morphed into what would become a nearly 300-page, award-winning book.

When I first began to write a review of Scorpions, I experienced an instinct similar to Manchester's, taken as I was by the brilliance of Feldman's tour de force about Supreme Court justices Felix Frankfurter, Hugo Black, Robert Jackson, and William O. Douglas.

If you're a devotee of Supreme Court history, a Constitutional scholar at heart, a lay historian of the early-middle years of the 20th century, an FDR aficionado, or someone who simply loves a great story told by a gifted storyteller about the machinations of powerful figures in American history, then Scorpions is for you.

It is Feldman's fifth book - the other four written while still in his 30's - and despite the density of subject matter, it is a genuine 'page-turner,' and one that would challenge any reviewer to be sparing in superlatives.  

After much backing-and-filling, I concluded that Feldman's opening paragraphs set the tone and the thesis better than anything I might offer:

“A tiny, ebullient Jew who started as America's leading liberal and ended as its most famous judicial conservative. A Ku Klux Klansman who became an absolutist advocate of free speech and civil rights. A backcountry lawyer who started off trying cases about cows and went on to conduct the most important international trial ever. A self-invented, tall-tale Westerner who narrowly missed the presidency but expanded individual freedom beyond what anyone had dreamed.

“Four more different men could hardly be imagined. Yet they had certain things in common. Each was a self-made man who came from humble beginnings on the edge of poverty. Each had a driving ambition and a will to succeed. Each was, in his own way, a genius.

“They began as close allies and friends of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who appointed them to the Supreme Court in order to shape a new, liberal view of the Constitution that could live up to the challenges of economic depression and war. Within months, their alliance had fragmented. Friends became enemies. In competition and sometimes outright warfare, the men struggled with one another to define the Constitution and, through it, the idea of America.”


When Art Worked: The New Deal, Art, and Democracy, Roger G. Kennedy and David Larkin, Rizzoli Books. 

You can put this on your “Do Not Take To The Beach” list, but if your summer plans call for spending time in a place where you can sit at trusty old table or desk on a rainy afternoon, this is your prize - a stunning visual exhibition and narrative history by two remarkable scholars who have crafted an encyclopedic, illustrated documentary of the art, architecture, culture, history, politics, and presidential leadership of these remarkable years in a volume that weighs in at something less than a healthy newborn but more than a spirited Brook trout. 

When Art Worked is both a coffee table and art book - but you'll need a sturdy coffee table -- and is a reminder that good things still come in large packages.

Thanks to Larkin's unerring eye and exquisite taste, and Kennedy's encyclopedic familiarity with and feel for the temper and themes of the times, When Art Worked is a stunning portrait of a country barely recognizable to the majority of Americans today -- as distant from the Age of Google as the Civil War or the California gold rush were from the New Deal. 

In ten chapters, 350+ large plate pages, and 460 black-and-white and color images, masterfully produced by Rizzoli Books of New York, you will rediscover 'the real America' through the art and architecture of hundreds of out-of-work artists who helped lift the spirits of a sagging nation and provided works that define the American character to the present day. 

It was the sculptor, Gutzon Borglum, whose most famous work adorns Mt. Rushmore, who wrote that “art helped coax the soul of America back to life.”

Might be just the right gift for your favorite member of Congress or for Barack Obama's 50th birthday, which looms during the same week as the alleged deadlines for America's financial default.


The Bridge: The Life and Rise of Barack Obama, David Remnick, Alfred A. Knopf. 

David Remnick's masterful biography about the most remarkable politician of his generation is the story of sui generis written by rara avis. 

Strictly speaking, Remnick has crafted more than a biography of a man, it is also a biography of the places, ideas, and people who have influenced America's 44th president.

o The politics of Kenya in the post-WW II years when Jomo Kenyatta and Tom Mboya were leading the country toward independence from the British Crown, and who were important influences in Obama's father's troubled career.

o Chicago, the 'black metropolis,' home to black and white leaders like William Dawson, Saul Alinsky, Richard J. Daley, Harold Washington, and others from whom Obama would learn mostly what not to do.

o The rootlessness of moving back and forth between Hawaii and Indonesia, deserted by his father, living with his mother, then separated from her, living with his grandparents, and being a young black boy thrust into the privileged Punahou School environment where being 'black' was neither alien nor ordinary.

In this nearly 600-page account of Obama's highly textured and unconventional upbringing, Remnick skillfully weaves together the multiple influences that conspired to produce a most uncommon man whose countenance belies the complexity of those early life experiences.

“Obama, who had been attracted to community organizing by the example and the romance of the civil-rights movement, was, by the time his experience with it was over, thinking about how to combine elements of charismatic leadership, the principles of organizing, and a set of liberal political and policy principles.”

And the title -- The Bridge?

It's borrowed from an observation by the great civil rights leader and Georgia Congressman, John Lewis: “Barack Obama is what comes at the end of that bridge in Selma.”


Neoconservative: The Biography of a Movement, Justin Vaisse, Belknap Press of Harvard University. 

This book that took me by surprise on three counts: first, because I could not have imagined becoming engrossed in a nearly 300-page book devoted to a 'movement' about which I have always been skeptical, at best; second, because it provided an in-depth look at American politics from the 1950's through to the first decade of the 21st century, which provided fresh perspective on several of the primary -isms; and finally, because this is the work of a French scholar -- Justin Vaisse, now a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution and formerly a member of the Policy Planning Staff of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs -- who demonstrates a remarkable grasp of American domestic politics, recalling a similar skill of his fellow countryman, Alexis de Tocqueville.

Vaisse sorts neoconservatism into its three distinct philosophical and (even) geographic developmental 'ages,' beginning in New York in the 1950's - “Liberal Intellectuals in Dissent;” then another shift in the 1970's in both New York and Washington, DC, “Cold War Democrats in Dissent;” and finally, its form known to most during the late 1990's and into the administration of George W. Bush, which he calls, “National Greatness Conservatives.”

The great strength of Vaisse's scholarship is its objectivity, eschewing the either/or perspectives through which this '-ism' has been typically discussed. He is neither proponent nor critic:

“Neoconservatism also offers a way into the very rich intellectual debate about politics that took place in the United States in the second half of the twentieth century. It can tell us a great deal about both liberalism (which neoconservatives angrily rejected in the end, but in a way that suggests the narcissism of small differences may have played a role) and conservatism (which neoconservatives embraced but never fully identified with.) 

“Finally, neoconservatism sheds a fascinating light on the way in which American political society works . . . Behind political ideas we find not only people but also networks linking intellectuals to journalists and decisionmakers, careers that take individuals back and forth between the academic and political worlds, and a variety of organizations from think tanks to citizen groups to political parties.”

Vaisse quotes his countryman, de Tocqueville, with this coda:

“When Americans have a feeling or idea they wish to bring to the world's attention, they will immediately seek out others who share that feeling or idea and, if successful in finding them, join forces. From the point on, they cease to be isolated individuals and become a power to be reckoned with whose actions serve as an example; a power that speaks, and to which people listen.” 

One wonders what de Tocqueville would observe on a visit today?


Books We're Going to be Reading

Rock the Casbah: Rage and Rebellion Across the Islamic World, Robin Wright, Simon and Schuster: Wright is among the most accomplished and respected foreign correspondents of her generation who has spent four decades studying the Middle East and its peoples, and who writes with the unerring instincts of a great reporter and the literary skills of an eminent novelist. Her earlier book - Dreams and Shadows: The Future of the Middle East - was one of 2008's “Best Books” rated by both the Washington Post and New York Times. I consider it one of the half dozen best books on the Middle East, and have every expectation that Rock the Casbah will be its equal. So, too, does New York magazine, which rates it as one of this summer's “Five Must-Reads.”

Bloodmoney: A Novel of Espionage, David Ignatius, W. W. Norton: If you're familiar with Ignatius as the foreign policy and national security columnist of the Washington Post (and former Editor-in-Chief of the International Herald Tribune), then you're aware of his matchless reputation as a reporter and foreign correspondent. If you're familiar with his previous novels - The Increment, Body of Lies (adapted to a movie directed by Ridley Scott, starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Russell Crowe), Agents of Innocence - then you can anticipate another stunning piece of fiction grounded in his incomparable knowledge of the Middle East and South Asia and in the business of espionage. And if Ignatius is a new name for you, you have gifts awaiting. 

Francie's Fortune, Kita Helmetag Murdock, Blue Mustang Press: This one is for your elementary school-age children or grandchildren, and it's a sure bet that they'll love this at least as much as you'll be engaged by the adult TMR reading list. It's an entrancing story about 10 year-old Francie, a child of Hollywood, who much against her will is spirited off to spend a summer with a grandmother whom she's never really known, and in mountains of Colorado, a place she doesn't want to be. All signs point to a long and disappointing summer, and particularly because Francie suspects that her grandmother might be a witch. But as the story unfolds, it reveals a special gift that they share, and a heartwarming account of the bonds that exist between humans and animals.

And if you can tolerate one more “full disclosure,” the author is “family,” if not in the purely legal sense, enough so that to claim anything less would be misleading. 


If you've made it this far, there is a reward awaiting you somewhere in your future - and I trust that it will be between the covers of at least one or more of these recommended books.


R. Garrett Mitchell
The Mitchell Report
July 27, 2011

Getting to No

       “It became necessary to destroy the town to save it”
Anonymous U. S. Army Officer
Ben Tre, Vietnam, 1968
 

 

Dear Friends,

Perhaps the U. S. Army major said it? Perhaps not. But it's become part of the American lexicon, and describes the zeal of too many combatants in today's battles over the politically convenient and fiscally inappropriate conflated agenda of debt ceiling, deficit reduction, budget cuts, and tax policy.

Not that they couldn't be taken together so as to yield progress on all counts, mind you; but that would only be achievable if the participants in question were united in an effort to deliver the greatest good for the greatest number. You can't get a "grand bargain" when bad faith is at the table.

Such is not the atmosphere in Washington DC these days, nor is it the goal of the Congressional leadership of a party that finds itself captive to its maximalists, who provided the margin of victory in the 2010 election.

Instead, what we have is a 'pitched battle,' where mostly new, mostly Tea Party members have gotten things confused by concluding that their campaign promises, which they characterize as “principle,” trump the simple promise of the Oath of Office:

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God.

These rookies on the right have 'friends' across the aisle, many of whom are multi-term members of the House who also come from “landslide districts,” where allegiance to constituent special interests eclipses the duty of serving the national interest and the common good.

And it's not clear that any of them understand that authorizing an increase in the debt ceiling is not tantamount to opening the door to increased spending.

Space is too short and life too long to use this occasion to spell out the antecedents that have brought us to this point in American governance. 

Fortunately, two of Washington DC's most astute and thoughtful political scientists and students of the First Branch of government -- Thomas E. Mann and Sarah A. Binder, Senior Fellows at the Brookings Institution -- have just authored an important paper that outlines the principal factors in this regard. It's entitled, “Constraints on Leadership in Washington,” and it's the best, most dispassionate, single piece I've seen on the constellation of elements that we lump under the rubric of “gridlock”“stalemate,” and the like.
http://www.brookings.edu/papers/2011/07_leadership_binder_mann.aspx

Binder and Mann explore several pivotal elements, including leadership styles, separated and shared powers, institutional restraints, partisan polarization, and the net effect that these have in today's maddening and mystifying impasse on a matter so central to the “domestic tranquility” and the “general welfare” of the country. 

What they have to say won't make you feel better about the status quo, but because they have chosen to generate light and not heat, you'll benefit from their informed, objective analysis of the conditions and the context in which this all occurs.

The claims by obstructionists in this sequence of events are disingenuous, which makes serious negotiation a daunting exercise. And while it is customary to say, “There is more than enough blame to go around,” it is not precisely true. 

The linkage between authorizing an increase in the debt ceiling and making decisions about spending, size of government, military expenditures, or the Bush tax cuts is artificial - convenient, facile, and false. It's an easy rhetorical exercise, as was the faux narrative about the nexus between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda, or the windfall that would come from higher taxes on private jet owners.

What we have on our hands today is not an authentic competition between two schools of thought on budgetary, fiscal, or tax policy, except at the margins. If that were the case, we would be the beneficiaries because that's what the political process produces when it is operating at its best.

Instead, we have a partisan confrontation about who has the power to do what to whom. That's also part of the political process. But it should never be the basis upon which decisions affecting the full faith and credit of the United States is made.

Experience suggests that asking those newly elected members of the House -- for whom compromise in any form constitutes a violation of principle -- to accept this premise may simply be a 'bridge too far,” a conclusion which their leadership appears to have accepted - some grimly, some with glee.  

Ideally, this would be the opportune occasion for transformational leadership, the kind we associate with Churchill, Mandela, or Martin Luther King. But we know better than to wish for that.

On the other hand, a political realist would say this calls for transactional leadership, the style perfected by President Lyndon Johnson and employed recently by New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, as Binder and Mann suggest.  Alas, I suspect we may be even beyond that point.

So, what might we conclude?

America's greatest deficit in 2011 is not one of leadership; it is the failure of followership, the essential ingredient in the sustainability of a healthy democracy, and without which leadership is powerless. It is the promise of E pluribus unum, the Preamble to the Constitution, and without it, we wouldn't have Social Security, the GI Bill, the Apollo program, civil rights legislation, and a host of other legislative actions that have eliminated some of the worst ills in American society and given us some of our most salient achievements.  

We watch this sad spectacle, and are reminded of the observation made years ago by the playwright, Eugene O'Neill:

"We fought so hard against the small things that we became small ourselves."


 July 14, 2011                  
  

 

The Arab Verge

 

July 8, 2011

 

 

“A verge is a place of encounter between something and something else.”

Daniel J. Boorstin

The Fertile Verge: Creativity in the United States

1980

 

Dear Friends,

 Like most metaphors that infiltrate the foreign policy and national security lexicon, “The Arab Spring” has outlived its brief and tenuous relevance.

 The metaphor was intended to connote three features of what appeared to be a chain reaction of unfolding revolutions and realignments, beginning in Tunisia, then Egypt, and beyond: (a) their refreshing, reanimating character (b) their spontaneity and speed; and (c) their regional and ethnic dimensions.

 And though loathe being a killjoy, TMR holds that Arab Spring is misleading on all three counts. So, let’s have a more in-depth look.

 In a recently published paper for the Carnegie Endowment, the eminent diplomat-scholar, Jordan’s former Foreign Minister, Marwan Muasher, articulated the reality as a seasoned observer from the region sees it:

 “We are going to experience many seasons — springs, summers, falls and winters. The Arab Awakening is going to be measured in decades, not months or years.”

 Add to that, the Council on Foreign Relations CEO, Richard Haass made this observation in the July 6^th edition of the Financial Times:

 “Take all this together, and you see a series of developments that are beginning to produce a region that is less tolerant, less prosperous, and less stable that what existed. To be sure, the authoritarian old guard that still dominates much of the Middle East could yet be forced or eased out and replaced with something relatively democratic and open. Unfortunately, the odds now seem against this happening.”

 We might say that it’s a little less Arab Spring and touch more Gilbert and Sullivan:

 Things are seldom what they seem,

 Skim milk masquerades as cream;

Highlows pass as patent leathers;

Jackdaws strut in peacock's feathers.

 

Very true,

So they do.

 

Black sheep dwell in every fold;

All that glitters is not gold;

Storks turn out to be but logs;

Bulls are but inflated frogs.

 

So they be,

Frequentlee.

 

What, then, can we say about the changes that have been roiling the nation-states of the Middle East and Northern Africa for these past six months? And what ignited it all?

 The distinguished French scholar, Jean-Pierre Filiu, author of the recently published book, “Apocalypse in Islam,” offered this thought recently to a group of Middle East specialists assembled by the Saban Center at the Brookings Institution:

 “The Berlin Wall of the Arab world was fear.”

 And so when 26-year old Mohammed Bouazizi set himself aflame in mid-December 2010, he kindled an uprising that would decapitate the 23-year rule of President Zine el Abidine Ben Ali within less than a month.

 Within days, the fever spread to Egypt where unprecedented numbers of resolute Egyptians would encamp in Tahrir Square forcing the final act of President Hosni Mubarak’s three-decade long dictatorial rule.

 Within a matter of weeks, it seemed as though the decades of ‘fear of fear’ that had permeated the politics of the region had ended abruptly -- dominoes were falling swiftly, perhaps even sequentially?

 And then came Bahrain, Libya, Yemen, and Syria – the first, a rebellion successfully quashed, thanks to a Saudi intervention; and the second, third, and fourth still in varying stages of play.

 Thus, the early euphoria of an “Arab Spring” yielded to more subdued and somber assessments about regional prospects for social, political, and economic reform and development, which is a predictable outcome of such moments in history.

 Of course, there are reasons to be guardedly optimistic about the longer-term prospects, just as there is basis for intermediate anxiety to substantiate the observation made by British historian A.J.P. Taylor about the European revolutions of 1848:

 "History reached its turning point, and failed to turn.”

 It is for these reasons that TMR prefers the term, “The Arab Verge” – a time and a place of encounter between something and something else.

 Some things have turned; others are still turning, while much remains unclear and indeterminate. And, of course, there is the Russian model to remind us that few things in political life are immutable.

 However, informed assessments require the passage of time and a broadening of the geopolitical lens. Because while “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas,” what happens in the lands between the Mediterranean and the East China Sea or from the Bay of Bengal to the Persian Gulf and the Caspian Sea is a matter of considerable complexity and with permutations and combinations that keep the best think tanks around the globe operating 24/7.

 And on that point, the Brookings’ Saban Center hosted a international teleconference and colloquium last week at both its Washington DC and Doha, Qatar offices -- led by its Director, Kenneth M. Pollack and a pair of first-rate scholars -- to focus on the pivotal question of how the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia may deal with the new and emerging political calculus in the region and beyond. The session operated under Chatham House Rules, which dictates that participants are free to use the information received, but neither the identity nor the affiliation of the speakers, nor that of any other participant, may be revealed.

 Why Saudi Arabia?

 First, they are the principal drivers of global oil markets.

 Second, they are a major force in the politics of the Arab Middle East.

 Third, they are home to the two most holy sites in Islam.

Fourth, they are deeply displeased with the Obama Administration’s ‘desertion’ of President Hosni Mubarak and the shift to allying with the people of Tahrir Square.

 Fifth, they provided the resources to curb the nascent rebellion in Bahrain, a fully transparent expression of their views about maintaining the regional status quo.

 Sixth, they were vehemently opposed to the Iraq War, primarily because it would upset the regional status quo – removing a Sunni dictator (Saddam Hussein) and, thus, providing a power vacuum for Shia Iran.

 Seventh, the Kingdom’s discontent with U. S. policy in the region has led them to forge a stronger alliance with China – aka, ‘playing the China card.’

 Likewise, the Pakistanis have been focusing attention on Beijng in response to the deteriorating relationship with the U.S., recently exacerbated by the Abbottabad bin Laden compound raid and ensuing incidents that point to high level collusion between their military and intelligence organizations and the most active terrorist groups.

 If both countries continue to engage in a “diversifying alliances” strategy, America’s influence and leverage throughout these regions would be diminished, while the Chinese would gain traction.

 And while considering these regional scenarios, factor in the Republic of Turkey, an increasingly active and significant player in the regional dynamic and the global order – a democratic, predominantly Muslim, independent-minded, nation-state that has its own ambitious foreign policy agenda, which features an ‘eastward tilt’ and alliances with authoritarian regimes.

 OK. Enough geopolitics for one day.

 It boils down to three points:

 First, the Arab Spring has sprung, and we’ll be at this for many, many, many seasons.

 Second, the reform process in Arab countries is uncertain, at best, and potentially a windfall for terrorist organizations that thrive in ‘governless’ territories.

 Third, when change comes to a country as small as Yemen or a region as consequential as the Middle East or South Asia, the momentum and reach are unpredictable, except that it will almost certainly create change in the global order – much like the “butterfly effect” that describes how tiny variations can affect giant systems.

 And on this latter point, the phenomenon was described elegantly more than a century-and-a-half ago by the legendary naturalist and Sierra Club founder, John Muir, in his book, “My First Summer in the Sierra:”

 “When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bibi Netanyahu, Politicaster

 May 29, 2011

 

“People may be honest, though they are doing wrong: that is between their Maker and them. But we, who are suffering by their pernicious conduct, are to destroy them. We are sure that [Burke] acts from interest. We know what his genuine principles were. They who allow their passions to confound the distinctions between right and wrong, are criminal. They may be convinced; but they have not come honestly by their conviction.”

Life of Johnson

James Boswell

 

 

 

Dear Friends,

 

I’ve been searching for a word or term to describe Israel’s 27^th and 32^nd Prime Minister, after observing his Trumpian-stentorian-triumphal tour of Washington DC.

 

Having considered many options, and finding bully, coward, and poseur fitting, although insufficient to the task, yesterday’s e-mail provided a moment of discovery, drawn from the weekly edition of “World Wide Words,” and its “Weird Word” entry for the week -- criticaster.

 

“You may gather it [criticaster] is uncomplimentary. It refers to those who set themselves up as arbiters of taste and literary discernment but whose sensibilities are inadequate to the task.

 

“It was coined in the late seventeenth century by adding the ending -aster to critic. The suffix came directly into English from Latin, where it meant an incomplete resemblance. English adapted it to refer to a person of inferior or inadequate qualities. It turns up in a small number of words, of which poetaster, a person who writes bad poetry, and philosophaster, a shallow or pretentious philosopher, are the least rare.”

 

Aha! Just like Pygmalion’s Professor Henry Higgins, I said: “By Jove, I think we’ve go it.”

 

Binyamin Netanyahu, aka, Bibi, is a politicaster, i. e., a person who practices bad politics, is shallow and pretentious, and has sensibilities that are inadequate to the task.

 

It’s about that simple.

 

But because he is also a poseur of considerable skill, he achieved two important goals for his efforts during this visit:

 

First, popularity at home.

 

According to a poll by Haaretz, Israel’s leading English language newspaper:

 

“It emerged that Netanyahu's trip not only put a brake on the drop in his popularity ratings, but actually reversed the trend.

 

“While in a Haaretz poll five weeks ago Netanyahu seemed to be in hot water with the public, with 38 percent expressing satisfaction with his performance and 53 percent disappointed with it, in yesterday's poll the results were essentially reversed: 51 percent were satisfied, while 36 percent were not.”

 

Second, popular acclaim in Washington.

 

Haaretz columnist, Yoel Marcus:

 

“Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could have read the phone book at the Congress podium and received the same standing ovation. His speech used the advice Moshe Sneh gave to himself . . . on the draft of one of his speeches: ‘weak argument, raise voice.’”

 

That’s the good news for Bibi, the short-term results of his impolitic and injudicious orating, but as columnist Marcus further suggests:

 

“One more victory like that and Israel is done for: A failure of the peace process is not an option. The status quo cannot be maintained. True friends tell each other the truth.”

 

Another commentator, renowned Israeli clinical psychologist Carlo Strenger, who is a blogger at Haaretz, The Guardian, and elsewhere, made this observation:

 

“The clear losers in Netanyahu’s short-sightedness wrapped into grandiose verbal pyrotechnics are the citizens of Israel. Once the dust of the media storm settles down, we will be faced with the stark truth: The specter of Israel’s ever-growing isolation and of increasing international pressure looms large. Once the Palestinians succeed in their bid for statehood, the Netanyahu government will be facing international criticism of its settlement policies unprecedented in force and intensity.”

 

The protagonist in this drama of uncertain length is President Barack Obama, whose reviews for speeches delivered at the State Department and at the AIPAC convention last week range from rabid to supportive – from the scathing criticism of Charles Krauthammer to the tepid rebuke from Congressional Democrats and to the unqualified endorsement of the folks at J Street and elsewhere who heard those speeches via distinctly different antennae.

 

As one insightful TMR reader, a prominent civic leader and respected member of the Jewish community far from the Beltway, put it:

 

“There was an article in the NY Times a few weeks ago describing the responses of Mormons to the new hit Broadway musical, Book of Mormon.  It basically said that conservative Mormons think the play is abominable and liberal Mormons think it’s hilarious.  From what I’ve heard in the last week, this is analogous to Jews’ reactions to the speeches of Obama and Netanyahu.”

 

He went on to say, “After hearing about Obama’s speech, my sister, who is extremely conservative on these issues, said, ‘Obama threw Israel under the bus.  He’s the worst U.S. President in history when it comes to Israel.’”

 

And for those who may have missed the speech, here’s exactly what the President said:

 

“The borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps, so that secure and recognized borders are established for both states.”

 

To some that was ‘throwing Israel under the bus,’ and to others it was stating the obvious, the truth as it has been known for years.

 

But to Bibi, the politicaster, these were fighting words.

 

So fight he did – getting them out of their seats up on Capitol Hill 49 times during his speech, and warming up his numbers back home. Right before our eyes, Israel’s most talented orator rose up in righteous indignation rivaling the response to William Jennings Bryan’s stirring “Cross of Gold” speech to the Democratic Party convention 115 years ago.

http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5354/

 

And with much the same result – thunderous applause, the audience on its feet and cheering wildly, proud men basking in the warm glow of political adulation, and little of substance to show for it all, save for the recordings that retrieve their ‘fifteen minutes of fame.’

 

The most remarkable thing about Binyamin Netanyahu to this observer is that he has achieved fame simply by being elected and ducking when the going gets tough. He has no accomplishments to his name. He has shown no courage on the paramount issue that besets his people and his country. He is rhetorical warrior in an empty suit of armor.

 

There are legitimate questions to raise about Barack Obama’s speech – its timing, its phrasing, and, of course, its impact. He may well have taken the wrong counsel on any of those factors, and there are serious questions to be addressed about whether there is still a beating heart in the process for solutions in this conflict, or whether a third intifada may be just over the horizon.

 

No geopolitical issue of consequence – and particularly the Arab-Israeli conflict – is so simple that there are those who have it right versus those who get it wrong. That’s why diplomacy and politics are central to the life of a democracy and a republic, and to the sustainability of the global order -- tools designed to be used when the issues are seemingly intractable.

 

Bibi’s decision to take the low road, to play to the crowd sensibility, and to engage in artful sophistry and casuistry may be consistent with his “genuine principles,” but as Boswell’s Life of Johnson reminds us:

 

"They who allow their passions to confound the distinctions between right and wrong, are criminal. They may be convinced; but they have not come honestly by their conviction.”

 

 

 

 

 

Tropes for Dopes

May 10, 2011

 

 

“Nonetheless, Obama may be moving toward something resembling a doctrine. One of his advisers described the President’s actions in Libya as ‘leading from behind.’”

 

“The Consequentialist: How the Arab Spring remade Obama’s foreign policy,” by Ryan Lizza

 The New Yorker, May 2, 2011

 

 

Dear Friends,

 

“Leading from behind” is TMR’s early nominee for the 2011 “Tropes for Dopes” prize, a field crowded with entries during the last few months in which “Arab spring” has competed for above-the-fold space with a patchwork of prosaic rhetoric, some artful, some not, some tropes, some not.

 

For example, there is Donald Trump’s solipsistic response to the release of Barack Obama’s long-form birth certificate:

 

"Today I'm very proud of myself, because I've accomplished something that nobody else has been able to accomplish. I want to look at it, but I hope it's true, so that we can get on to much more important matters.

"I am really honored, frankly, to have played such a big role in hopefully, hopefully getting rid of this issue."

 

Or Michele Bachman’s declaration at a recent New Hampshire political event:

 

“You’re the state where the shot was heard around the world in Lexington and Concord.”

 

And, of course, another contender for the prize will be Sarah Palin’s rhetorical question about U. S. involvement in Libya during an otherwise vacuous interview with Greta Van Susteren on Fox News:

 

“Do we use the term ‘intervention?’ Do we use ‘war? Or ‘squirmish?”

Ah well, on publication eve of The New Yorker magazine article, President Obama addressed the nation near midnight with the stunning news that America had successfully concluded its search for Osama bin Laden in an audacious raid inside his Pakistani citadel.

 

Despite the indisputable frontal disposition of this raid, “leading from behind” may well be one of those ‘sticky phrases,’ as Malcolm Gladwell calls them, that pundits and politicians may find advantageous for future use, so it seems an apt time to offer an alternate perspective.

 

Aside from this misnomer having been an on-the-spot response from an adviser of unreported rank, who is presumably more adept at policy analysis than crafting figures of speech – aka, ‘tropes’ – it is both misleading and thin on substance.

 

One might say, for example, that what this President has understood, better than those who have followed the 26^th President, is the real meaning of:

 

“Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far.”

 

It’s increasingly apparent that Teddy Roosevelt’s dictum is central to Barack Obama’s persona and leadership profile than most have understood – an idea that emerges from reading David Remnick’s masterful Obama biography, “The Bridge.”

 

In fact, if one examines the actions and accomplishments during Barack Obama’s 28 months in office, for better or for worse, most have been in frontal in nature, as have the polemics of his critics.

 

Much to the dismay of Obamaphobes and Obamaphiles alike, Barack Obama has neither articulated nor espoused anything that might resemble a “doctrine,” including the faux charge the he is redesigning American foreign and national security policy to a ‘leading from behind’ architecture.

 

Doctrines, like ideologies, are straitjackets. They encumber freedom of thought, expression, and action. They are as legally binding as wedding vows, and even less enforceable than ‘prenups.’

 

And despite official Washington’s long-held belief that a President without a doctrine is a like a CEO without a strategic plan or an NFL coach without a game plan, we have a President whose understanding of recent history and the emerging new global order leads him to eschew formulaic thinking and action, and instead to display a deftness with ambiguity, paradox, and the conundrums that are the hallmark of life in the 21^st century.

 

It has been said that we campaign in poetry and govern in prose; however, the lessons of recent years suggest that while we campaign by bumper sticker, we must govern by a higher order of thoughtfulness that will always look to some as dithering or doubt.

 

We must not confuse the velocity of the digital age and the instantaneity of the 24/7 news cycle with the heavier lifting requirements of good governance in an era when fundamental change is all about us.

 

To some that may well seem like “leading from behind,” but it is precisely the kind of leadership this nation would have profited from in the 2002 and 2003 when a distinctly American version of kabuki led the country to a war it need not have fought.

 

TMR is willing to put its substantial capital reserves on the notion that no edition of Bartlett’s Quotations will include an observation from an American president that says:

 

“Gee, if only I’d had a doctrine.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

PUTTING THE GENIE BACK IN A BOTTLE

 

 

Dear Friends,

 

For approximately 310 million Americans, last Saturday night was unremarkable. But for a treasured few in the haute echelons of America's entertainment, media, political, business, and high finance sectors, it was a special evening -- the annual “White House Correspondents' Association Dinner,” an event born during the Coolidge Administration, which has morphed into an unrecognizable spectacle, mirroring, perhaps, the nature of the news media business itself.

 

A night once reserved for Washington DC journalists and politicos - and invited comics, including the likes of W. C. Fields, Fanny Brice, Bob Hope, and Chevy Chase -- its central feature is now the “star recruitment” game, where news organizations compete with each other for marquee guests of nearly infinite variety - from Sean Penn to Michael Stipe, Felicity Huffman to Lance Armstrong, Bristol Palin to Jon Hamm, Kate Hudson to Courtney Cox, Scarlett Johannson to Shaun White, and much, much more.

 

As Jerry Seinfeld would say, “Not that there's anything wrong with that.”

 

After all, a dose of good humor served up by the President himself, a 'live' performance from Saturday Night Live's Seth Meyers' with acerbic observations about many in the room, and a night when folks dress up in black tie and Manolo Blahnik's is good for what ails the Judy-and- Johnny One Notes of the nation's capital. 

 

And as you might expect, the evening produced some high hilarity, unless you happened to be, be with, or be near Donald Trump, who with wife, Melania, was the guest of the Washington Post. 

 

Go figure.

 

Meyers was an equal opportunity balloon-and-boil lancer:

 

"Matt Damon said the other day that he was disappointed in my performance. Well, Matt, I just saw The Adjustment Bureau..."

 

“Donald Trump has been saying that he's going to run for president as a Republican - which is surprising, since I just assumed he was running as a joke.”

 

“Tim Pawlenty makes Al Gore look like RuPaul.”

 

“Donald Trump often appears on Fox, which is ironic, because a fox often appears on Donald Trump's head.”

 

So the high fashion, high humor, and “Hi, how are you” of the WHCA event are all good things.

 

But what isn't is that the event has become a frivolous star recruitment exercise larded with tainted lucre from the lockboxes of lobbying organizations of various stripes. And that is unnecessary tarnish on a Fourth Estate that has taken some bad licks in the last few years, not least from self-administered wounds.

 

As Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank noted on this Sunday's opinion pages: 

 

“The correspondents' association dinner was a minor annoyance for years, when it was a “nerd prom” for journalists and a few minor celebrities. But, as with so much else in this town, the event has spun out of control. Now, awash in lobbyist and corporate money, it is another display of Washington's excesses.”

 

TMR's view is that the constantly expanding before-during-and-after of this event constitute a series of “unforced errors,” ones that simply serve to reinforce the negative images folks around the country have of the coziness of the Washington press corps, the Administration and the media, the link between Hollywood and Washington DC, and the pervasive influence of money and the business sector on almost everything in this country.

 

Any chance this genie might find its way back into the bottle? 

 

Might a few more news organizations join the New York Times in taking a pass on the events?

 

Stay tuned.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

HALEY'S COMMENT

 

April 27, 2011

 

 

 Equo ne credite, Teucri. Quidquid id est, timeo Danaos et dona ferentes

Do not trust the horse, Trojans! Whatever it is, I fear the Greeks, even bringing gifts.

 

 

Dear Friends,

 

It is an imperfect metaphor, but it's what came to mind when the news about Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour's decision to stay out of the 2012 presidential race made its way around the inner beltway on Monday, causing hearts to beat briskly while mouths and keyboards raced to catch up with the escalating cardiac cadences.

 

"Haley Barbour ultimately decided not to run for president after concluding that Barack Obama will be too tough to beat in a general election race . . . But while he saw a path to winning the nomination, the Mississippi governor . . . became gun shy when they looked at his prospects of prevailing against Obama and a likely united Democratic party behind him in the general election . . .." (Michael Isikoff, NBC News)

 

This graced an otherwise slow news day with an elephantine gift for the P-3 -- pundits, politicians, pollsters. Whether it is of the Trojan Horse variety remains undetermined for the announced, sure-to announce, sort-of announced, and now-I-might-announce candidates, but for pundits and pollsters it’s better than a sizzling prime rib eye served up at The Palm.

 

Here in the nation’s capital, the P-3 dines on a diet of this sort, and what follows after an abbreviated digestive period is "the narrative” -- the collective wisdom about "Why Haley Won't Run," on which NBC's Michael Isikoff is early out of the gate with the basic story line:

 

"Obama 2012 . . . Too tough to beat . . . Didn't want this race to be about race"

 

To say that it's a bit early to prophesy about what will happen between now and November 6th, 2012, much less Mother’s Day 2011, is to love understatement. And to imagine that the election of 2012 won't be another "change election" is to imagine that between now and Friday Prince William and Kate Middleton will elope.

 

Whether the change factor will reach the top of the ticket or shift the majority status in either legislative chamber is in the hands of the odds makers at this point. And in 19 months, the voters will decide.

 

As Washington Post columnist E. J. Dionne wrote last week -- "What History Will Apply To the 2012 Election?" – three past elections offer intriguing options:

 

• 1984, when Ronald Reagan stormed back from a large polling deficit to a landslide victory

 

• 1988 when summer polls showed that Michael Dukakis might be on his way to the White House 

 

• 1992 when the most prominent Democratic hopefuls stayed away because early polls showed George H. W. Bush to be unbeatable

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/what-history-will-apply-to-the-2012-election/2011/04/20/AFsSaMEE_story.html

 

Inside Republican Party circles, Barber's bowing out is big news, indeed, perhaps even ‘game-changing.’  But to borrow from Neil Armstrong’s first words spoken on the Moon, it was a big step for a big guy, but of little meaning to the country at large.

 

For in the midst of this season of speculation, the length and breadth of which are indeterminate, it is those long-gathering clouds over America's political horizon that should be of greatest concern, far larger in consequence than who occupies the White House.

 

To those who can 'stand the truth' it is the unsettling and all-too-familiar reality that public deeds of import are inexorably moving beyond the reach of our democratic institutions.

 

The distinguished foreign policy analyst, Fareed Zakaria, articulated the issue forthrightly in his book, "The Post-American World:"

 

"The problem today is that the American political system seems to have lost its ability to create broad coalitions that solve complex issues . . . has lost the ability for large-scale compromise, and it has lost the ability to accept some pain now for much gain later on.

 

"As it enters the twenty-first century, the United States is not fundamentally a weak economy, or a decadent society. But it has developed a highly dysfunctional politics."

 

Former Colorado Senator Gary Hart put it succinctly in his current blog entry, “I’m a republican:’

 

"We have moved to the far end of a democracy (my rights above all) at the expense of the republic (responsibilities and duties.)"

 

And in a path-breaking study of this phenomenon -- "The Big Sort: Why The Clustering of Like-Minded America is Tearing Us Apart" -- by journalist, Bill Bishop, in conjunction with University of Texas professor emeritus, Robert G. Cushing, the antecedents of this dysfunctionality are evident in our migratory footprints:

 

"In 2004, the press was buzzing about polarization, the inability of the leaders of the two political parties to find even a patch of common ground . . . Meanwhile, unnoticed, people had been reshaping the way they lived. Americans were forming tribes, not only in their neighborhoods but also in churches and volunteer groups . . . people were creating new, more homogeneous relations. Churches were filled with people who looked alike and, more important, thought alike. So were clubs, civic organizations, and volunteer groups . . . What had happened over three decades wasn't a simple increase in political partisanship, but a more fundamental kind of self-perpetuating, self-reinforcing social division.

 

"Political leaders were growing more extreme during this period, as Democrats and Republicans in Congress became more ideological, less moderate, and more partisan."

 

So today’s news -- Haley Barbour isn't running -- clears the way for some, muddles it for others, and -- mostly -- causes us to turn away from the larger truths, the ones that actually spell the difference between a healthy republic and an aging democracy.

 

It’s pretty clear from the last few election cycles that American voters are fed up, fickle, and fearful – and of those three, it’s the “fear factor” that is most troubling.

 

Some live in fear of external terrorist threats from Al Qaeda and its kin, while others fear that globalism will inexorably erode the durability of America’s middle class, leaving us a nation with a noxious gap in personal income distribution -- our Gini coefficient, as think-tankers are wont to say.

 

Some fear the loss of a job and the accompanying prospect of long-term un-and-under employment, and the concomitant fear of losing their homes, decent medical insurance, money for their children’s education, the underpinnings of the “American dream.”

 

And in our most troubled urban communities, some parents fear that their children will either be victims of an under-resourced public school system or a violent death.

 

Underlying all these fears is a haunting sense that those America-specific mottos and metaphors that have defined the republic from its birth – E Pluribus Unum, American exceptionalism, Manifest Destiny, the American Dream -- are withering away, and that the institutions and practices created by the founders and nurtured and fostered by their next of kin and next of next of kin are showing signs of age or worse.

 

FDR’s admonition in his first inaugural address has never been more relevant than today. Best known for, “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself,” it is speech that merits a full reading or rereading today.

[http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/froos1.asp]

 

It is both a poignant reminder that we have weathered economic and political storms of equivalent magnitude before; and an unstated interrogatory about the tensile strength of the republic, circa 2011 and beyond.