About as blind as Obama's foreign policy.
Since nothing is defined as terrorism by this administration (even the killing of two U.S. soldiers by an Islam terrorist in Germany) it was only a matter of time before Iran was able to begin to destabilize the revolt in Egypt through funding the Muslim Brotherhood.(See 1 and 1a below.)
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So goes Maine as the saying goes! Their new governor turns a new page in politics. Like Christie he tells it up front.
Sent to me by a fellow memo reader and dear friend. (See 2 below.)
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When you have no thought out strategy and have not taken into consideration as many contingencies as possible, your first reaction generally turns out to be wrong and this is why Obama, neophyte that he is, almost always flops. Now he has flipped once again. (See 3 below.)
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Historian, Paul Johnson sees America staying on top.
With appropriate leadership and a committed citizenry willing to make proper sacrifices, I would agree because our system of government sitting atop a capitalistic economic base has proven unbeatable.
The issue is, have we become so uneducated and unpatriotic that we are unable/unwilling to meet the challenge? (See 4 below.)
Change can take many forms and change for the sake of transformation can be dangerous. (See 4a below.)
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You would think the New York Times is owned by Indians since their reporters are constantly 'currying' favor with the administration so they can buy access!
Objective reporting has become foreign to the New York Times. (See 5 below.)
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Dick
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1)Gates on urgent mission to Cairo as military rulers lose grip
Barack Obama asked Defense Secretary Robert Gates to set out for Cairo without delay on an emergency mission as the unrest in Egypt veered out of control, exclusive sources report from Washington. Friday night, thousands of protesters seized control of the headquarters Egyptian security police (Mahabis Namn El Dawla) in Alexandria, Cairo shutting down its operations across the country.
In the last hours, information reaching Washington indicated control was slipping out of the hands of the Egyptian military junta ruling the country since Hosni Mubarak's overthrow; anti-American elements energized by Iran appeared to have strengthened their hold on the protest movement, causing deep concern in the White House.
The capture of the three Mahabis centers opened to disaffected elements the secret files on every political and military leader in the country, confidential information once accessible only to ex-intelligence minister Gen. Omar Suleiman before the uprising.
While the Obama administration has a better inside picture of Egypt's opposition groups than it has about Libya, intelligence is still inadequate about the shape of the local leadership of those groups and to whom they defer.
Last Wednesday, March 2, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton accused Iran of stirring the pot when she addressed the House Appropriations Committee: "They (the Iranians) are using Hizballah… to communicate with counterparts… in (the Palestinian movement) Hamas who then in turn communicate with counterparts in Egypt," she said.
sources report that large sums of Iranian petrodollars have reached the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood and radicalized its message to the Egyptian people. Military young leaders are believed to have executed a coup and displaced the veterans. The Palestinian Hamas has turned its well-oiled smuggling machine into a channel for transmitting Iranian cash to keep Egyptian Islamic extremists on the march.
The Israeli government is the only one in the region to show no concern about violent mayhem spurting up across its border, and has apparently shrugged off the key role played by the Palestinian rulers of Gaza in stirring up trouble in Egypt at Tehran's behest ,and the rising strength of the Muslim Brotherhood - both of which have a dangerous impact on Israeli security.
1a)'US must keep Muslim Brothers from Egypt gov't'
By HILARY LEILA KRIEGEr
House Middle East subcommittee chairman blasts Obama gov't for not taking tougher line on Hezbollah in Lebanon, Muslim Brothers.
WASHINGTON – The new chairman of the US House’s Middle East subcommittee blasted the Obama administration on Friday for not taking a tougher line against the Muslim Brotherhood and its possible inclusion in the next Egyptian government.
“I think we ought to be very clear that the Muslim Brotherhood should not be part of a future government in Egypt,” Rep. Steve Chabot (R-Ohio), 58, told The Jerusalem Post in his first interview with an Israeli paper since becoming chairman of the US House Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia.
The US should condition aid to Egypt – now at around $1.5 billion a year – on whether the Muslim Brotherhood ends up in the government, Chabot said.
“They’re about Shari’a law, they’re about suppressing women’s rights, and I don’t think that we ought to condone that, I don’t think that ought to be any part of the future of Egypt,” he said. “We might not have the power to implement the US program, but I think with our support – financial and otherwise – that we can maybe encourage things that would ultimately be in their best long-term interests, and Israel’s and the United States’.”
Chabot criticized the Obama administration for not being bold enough in its position on the Brotherhood, and argued that the US weakness on this issue has emboldened Iran and other enemies of America who were calculating how to take advantage of the unrest.
The White House has talked about the importance of including “nonsectarian” groups in Egypt’s future government, and US officials have not issued blanket condemnations of the groups nor indicated they oppose their participation in elections.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, speaking generally about the region in Geneva on Monday, said that “political participation must be open to all people across the spectrum who reject violence, uphold equality, and agree to play by the rules of democracy.”
“They’ve been less than clear about accepting the Muslim Brotherhood in a future government and in what capacity, and I think that sends a message to those that are going to be negotiating the future of Egypt’s government,” Chabot said of the Obama administration. He added that broadly “this administration has oftentimes sent mixed messages, and pretty tepid and weak messages on occasion.”
He described its “impotent” response to Iran’s repression of the opposition movement in 2009 as the “most blaring example,” and charged that as a result of that reaction and the one being expressed now, Iran feels stronger.
Such strengthening of Iran contributed the rise of Hezbollah in Lebanon, he added.
Just as Chabot doesn’t want to see American dollars going to a government including the Muslim Brotherhood, he is opposed to aid to the Lebanese Armed Forces in a Hezbollah-backed Lebanese government, as is currently being formed in Beirut. The Obama administration has defended such aid as necessary to encourage secular actors and counter-balance money coming Iran and its allies.
Chabot was more circumspect when it came to continued American funding of the Palestinian Authority – slated for some $400 million in President Barack Obama’s 2012 budget request – but suggested it should be connected to movement on the peace process.
“Any aid should be dependent on their good-faith effort to resolve this situation, and thus far I’m not seeing much good faith on the Palestinian side,” he said.
Chabot castigated the Palestinians for using settlements as a “diversionary tactic” in order “to drive off the rails true peace negotiations between the Palestinians and Israel.”
He called on the Obama administration to be firmer in pressing the Palestinians in the face of “their intransigence in refusing to hold meaningful direct negotiations with the Israelis.”
He also warned the Palestinians against seeing the UN as a viable alternative to negotiations and otherwise trying to “unilaterally impose on Israel what they ultimately want to get.”
In one of his few words of praise for Obama in his conversation with the Post, Chabot lauded the US veto of a UN Security Council resolution being pushed by the Palestinians that would have condemned Israel for settlement construction.
While it is his own Republican Party that has been making loud calls for cutting foreign aid, Chabot said he was confident Israel’s more than $3b. in yearly assistance was secure.
“Even though this new Congress and a new conservative Republican-oriented House, of which I’m a part, is absolutely bound and determined to get our fiscal house in order, even those folks understand the importance of our relationship with Israel,” he said.
Chabot, who once went to The Hague to defend Israel when the International Court of Justice there was considering the legality of the West Bank security barrier, said he was pleased that his colleagues agreed with him in seeing Israel aid as “one area where we should absolutely not be cutting back on funding, that we need to continue to make sure that Israel gets the aid that it needs and deserves.”
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2)About Governor Paul R. LePage. Funny how little press he has gotten....
The new Maine Gov. Paul LePage is making New Jersey 's Chris Christie look like a wimp. He isn't afraid to say what he thinks. And, judging by the comments I hear at the cigar shop and other non-political gathering places, every time he opens his mouth his popularity goes up.
He brought down the house at his inauguration when he shook his fist toward the media box and said, "You're on notice! I've inherited a financially-troubled state to run. Observe...cover...but don't whine if I don't waste time responding to your every whim for your amusement."
During the campaign he was talking to commercial fishermen who are struggling because of federal fisheries rules. They complained that President Obama brought his family to Bar Harbar & Acadia National Park for a long Labor Day holiday, found time to meet with union leaders but wouldn't talk to them. LePage replied, "I'd tell him to go to hell and get out of my state." Media crucified him, but he jumped 6 points in the pre-election poll!
The Martin Luther King incident was a political sandbag which got national exposure. Media crucified him but word on the street is very positive.
The NAACP specifically asked him to spend MLK Day visiting black inmates at the Maine State Prison. He replied if he visited the prison he would meet all inmates regardless of race. NAACP balked.
They then put out a news release claiming falsely that he refused to participate in any MLK events. He read it in the paper for the first time next morning while be driven to an event and went ballistic (none of the reporters called him for comment before running the NAACP release).
So he arrived at an event and said on TV camera that "...if they want to play the race card on me they can kiss my butt..." and reminded them that he has an adopted black son from Jamiaca and that he attended the local MLK Breakfast every year he was mayor of Waterville (he started his morning there on MLK Day yesterday.)
He then said there's a right way and a wrong way to meet with the governor and he put all special interests on notice that press releases, media leaks and demonstrations are the wrong way. He said any other group which acts like the NAACP can expect to be on the bottom of the governor's priority list!
Then he did this which broke yesterday and, judging from local radio talk show callers, increased his popularity even more:
The state employees union complained because he waited until 3 p.m. before closing state offices and facilities and sending non-emergency personnel home during the last blizzard. The prior governor would often close offices for the day with just a forecast before the first flakes. (Each time the state closes for snow, it costs the taxpayers about $1-million in wages for no work in return.)
LePage was CEO of the Marden's chain of discount family bargain retail stores before election as governor. He noted that state employees getting off work early could still find lots of retail stores open to shop. So, he put the state employees on notice by announcing: "If Marden's is open, Maine is open!"
He told state employees: "We live in Maine in the winter, for heaven's sake, and should know how to drive in it. Otherwise, apply for a state job in Florida!"
Refreshing politician!
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3)U.S. Wavers on 'Regime Change'
By ADAM ENTOUS And JULIAN E. BARNES
WASHINGTON—After weeks of internal debate on how to respond to uprisings in the Arab world, the Obama administration is settling on a Middle East strategy: help keep longtime allies who are willing to reform in power, even if that means the full democratic demands of their newly emboldened citizens might have to wait.
..Instead of pushing for immediate regime change—as it did to varying degrees in Egypt and now Libya—the U.S. is urging protesters from Bahrain to Morocco to work with existing rulers toward what some officials and diplomats are now calling "regime alteration."
The approach has emerged amid furious lobbying of the administration by Arab governments, who were alarmed that President Barack Obama had abandoned Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and worried that, if the U.S. did the same to the beleaguered king of Bahrain, a chain of revolts could sweep them from power, too, and further upend the region's stability.
The strategy also comes in the face of domestic U.S. criticism that the administration sent mixed messages at first in Egypt, tentatively backing Mr. Mubarak before deciding to throw its full support behind the protesters demanding his ouster. Likewise in Bahrain, the U.S. decision to throw a lifeline to the ruling family came after sharp criticism of its handling of protests there. On Friday, the kingdom's opposition mounted one of its largest rallies, underlining the challenge the administration faces selling a strategy of more gradual change to the population.
Administration officials say they have been consistent throughout, urging rulers to avoid violence and make democratic reforms that address the demands of their populations. Still, a senior administration official acknowledged the past month has been a learning process for policy makers. "What we have said throughout this is that there is a need for political, economic and social reform, but the particular approach will be country by country," the official said.
A pivotal moment came in late February, in the tense hours after Mr. Obama publicly berated King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa for cracking down violently on antigovernment demonstrators in Bahrain's capital. Envoys for the king and his Arab allies shuttled from the Pentagon to the State Department and the White House with a carefully coordinated message.
If the Obama administration did not reverse course and stand squarely behind the monarchy, they warned, Bahrain's government could fall, costing America a critical ally and potentially moving the country toward Iran's orbit. Adding to the sense of urgency was a scenario being watched by U.S. intelligence agencies: the possibility that Saudi Arabia might invade its tiny neighbor to silence the Shiite-led protesters, threatening decades-old partnerships and creating vast political and economic upheaval.
"We need the full support of the United States," a top Bahraini diplomat beseeched the Americans, including Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Michael Mullen, Assistant Secretary of State Jeffery Feltman, Deputy National Security Adviser Denis McDonough, and other top policy makers.
Arab diplomats believe the push worked. Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton emerged as leading voices inside the administration urging greater U.S. support for the Bahraini king coupled with a reform agenda that Washington insisted would be have to be credible to street protesters. Instead of backing cries for the king's removal, Mr. Obama asked protesters to negotiate with the ruling family, which is promising major changes.
Israel was also making its voice heard. As Mr. Mubarak's grip on power slipped away in Egypt, Israeli officials lobbied Washington to move cautiously and reassure Mideast allies that they were not being abandoned. Israeli leaders have made clear that they fear extremist forces could try to exploit new-found freedoms and undercut Israel's security, diplomats said.
A look at the economic and political status of selected countries facing unrest in North Africa and the Middle East.
"Starting with Bahrain, the administration has moved a few notches toward emphasizing stability over majority rule," said a U.S. official. "Everybody realized that Bahrain was just too important to fail."
An exception to the policy of regime alteration is Libya, a longtime U.S. adversary partially rehabilitated by the Bush administration after Tripoli agreed to give up its nuclear program. Mr. Obama's initial reaction was muted, but he later criticized Col. Moammar Gadhafi for committing acts of violence against his own people and called for the dictator to step aside. Critics say the response has been too slow and that military action is needed.
The emerging approach could help slow the pace of upheaval to avoid further violence, the administration's top priority, and help preserve important strategic alliances. At the same time, the approach carries risk. Autocratic governments might not deliver on their reform promises, making Washington look like it was doing their bidding at the public's expense. Officials said the administration's response in Bahrain, Yemen and elsewhere could change if people take to the streets en masse, rejecting offers made at the negotiating table, or if the U.S.-backed governments crack down violently. Indeed, administration officials say the White House is not "unconditionally" behind the monarchy in Bahrain, and has made clear that the U.S. expected to see quick progress on reforms and restraint by security forces.
The U.S. is trying a Bahrain-like formula in Morocco, supporting King Mohammed VI, and in Yemen, whose weak central government has been headed by autocratic President Ali Abdullah Saleh for nearly 33 years. The approaches signal Washington's willingness to vary its strategy depending on its interests and the willingness of autocratic leaders to respond to popular protests.
The lobbying push on behalf of Bahrain was led by the Gulf Cooperation Council. In addition to Bahrain, the council includes the Persian Gulf states of Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
In private meetings late last month with Washington policy makers, cooperation council envoys drove home the message that Bahrain could be a "model" that the Obama administration could follow to advance democratic reforms without fueling unrest that could further destabilize the region.
The Arab diplomats found a particularly receptive ear in the Pentagon. As Egypt began to sway, some U.S. military officers had doubts about the administration's approach. The U.S. military has strong ties with the country. Some worried that the U.S. was moving too quickly to push aside a steadfast ally and that radical change in Cairo could destabilize the region.
Those concerns were shared by Israel and several key Arab allies, who were "furious" at the Obama administration for ignoring their appeals to allow Mr. Mubarak a graceful exit, a senior European military official said. But administration officials argued that with hundreds of thousands of protesters on the streets, they had little choice but to turn on Mr. Mubarak sooner rather than later. Indeed, the administration has been criticized by human-rights groups for not standing more squarely with democracy advocates from the start.
Though initially skeptical, the Pentagon came around to the White House's view that if Mr. Mubarak clung to power, there would be little chance for real reform. But the Pentagon's perspective was far different when trouble began in Bahrain.
The gathering in intensity on Feb. 14, after police killed a protester and injured 25 more. Over the following days, six more demonstrators were killed and more than 200 injured, as reports circulated that the Bahraini government was moving in military equipment to disperse the protestors.
At an emergency meeting in Manama, the capital city, on Feb. 17, leaders of the Gulf Cooperation Council backed Bahrain's response to the protests and the Bahraini foreign minister warned that the kingdom was at the "brink of sectarian abyss."
The White House watched the developments with alarm, especially reports that Bahraini forces had fired on the crowd from helicopters. A State Department official phoned a top Bahraini diplomat and demanded an accounting of the events, a person familiar with the exchange said. Bahraini officials told their American counterparts that witnesses mistook a long telephoto lens for a rifle and that the helicopters never opened fire.
The next day, however, the Bahraini army fired on protesters again. In a call to the king, Mr. Obama condemned the violence used against "peaceful protesters," and urged the king to direct his security forces to punish those responsible for the bloodshed, according to the White House.
Arab diplomats reacted with alarm to the U.S. condemnation. They believed the administration might be returning to the Egyptian playbook, according to officials and diplomats.
Inside the Pentagon, Mr. Gates and his team were quick to point out that Bahrain represented a very different situation than Egypt's.
Bahrain has a restive Shiite majority that has long felt cut off from the opportunities available to the country's Sunni royal family and social elite.
The country is the headquarters of the U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet, which patrols the Arabian Sea, Persian Gulf and Red Sea. Some at the Pentagon feared that Shiite-led Iran might try to hijack the protest movement in Bahrain and back installation of an anti-American government.
Though skeptical of Bahraini claims that Iran and its Lebanese proxy, Hezbollah, were instigating Shiite protests, U.S. and European officials fear the crisis could benefit Tehran. The Mideast turmoil has driven up oil prices, helping Tehran refill its coffers and withstand international sanctions aimed at curbing its nuclear program.
On Feb. 20, as two Bahraini diplomats made their case to top policy makers in Washington, Adm. Mullen, the Joint Chiefs chairman, arrived in Saudi Arabia as part of a week-long visit to Arab allies.
On the top of the agenda of his Arab counterparts: Bahrain. Adm. Mullen was straightforward about his intentions to reassure the Saudis and other Arab allies that the U.S. would live up to its security commitments, and remained a friend.
In Bahrain, the royal family scrambled to show it was complying with American demands. In the following days, King Khalifa stood down his forces and Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad al-Khalifa issued a public call for the start of a "national dialogue" with opposition groups. Privately, Bahraini officials assured their U.S. counterparts that the killing of the protesters was due not to government policy but a breakdown in the chain of command.
On Feb. 23, Adm. Mullen arrived in Manama and gave a full-throated endorsement to the national dialogue, a message endorsed by Mr. Gates.
As he has at some other critical national security debates within the administration, Mr. Gates found his most important ally in Mrs. Clinton.
Still, while Bahrain's government believed the Pentagon's support for a national dialogue on reforms was clear, the country's diplomats worried the White House was not on board.
On Thursday, Feb. 24, National Security Adviser Tom Donilon spoke with the crown prince and, according to a White House statement, voiced "strong support" for efforts to "initiate an open dialogue on political reform with the full spectrum of Bahraini society."
But Bahrain and its allies in the Gulf Cooperation Council wanted the administration to give the initiative higher-level endorsement. Without overt U.S. support from Mr. Obama or Mrs. Clinton, the Arab envoys argued, Bahraini protesters were liable to up their demands.
The "Bahrain model," they said, offered the administration an alternative to their Egypt approach and could be a solution not only to the crisis in Manama, but also a template for dealing with Morocco or even, potentially, Yemen.
On Sunday, Feb. 27, the White House threw its support behind King Khalifa. The same day, William Burns, under secretary of state for political affairs, delivered a similar message to Morocco's King Mohammed VI, another key Arab ally facing unrest, calling the North African country "a model of economic, social, and political reform."
—Keith Johnson and Joe Parkinson contributed to this article.
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4)Why America Will Stay on Top Eminent historian Paul Johnson on Sarah Palin, the tea party, and 'baddies' from Napoleon to Gadhafi.
By BRIAN M. CARNEY
In his best-selling history of the 20th century, "Modern Times," British historian Paul Johnson describes "a significant turning-point in American history: the first time the Great Republic, the richest nation on earth, came up against the limits of its financial resources." Until the 1960s, he writes in a chapter titled "America's Suicide Attempt," "public finance was run in all essentials on conventional lines"—that is to say, with budgets more or less in balance outside of exceptional circumstances.
"The big change in principle came under Kennedy," Mr. Johnson writes. "In the autumn of 1962 the Administration committed itself to a new and radical principle of creating budgetary deficits even when there was no economic emergency." Removing this constraint on government spending allowed Kennedy to introduce "a new concept of 'big government': the 'problem-eliminator.' Every area of human misery could be classified as a 'problem'; then the Federal government could be armed to 'eliminate' it."
Twenty-eight years after "Modern Times" first appeared, Mr. Johnson is perhaps the most eminent living British historian, and big government as problem-eliminator is back with a vengeance—along with trillion-dollar deficits as far as the eye can see. I visited the 82-year-old Mr. Johnson in his West London home this week to ask him whether America has once again set off down the path to self-destruction. Is he worried about America's future?
"Of course I worry about America," he says. "The whole world depends on America ultimately, particularly Britain. And also, I love America—a marvelous country. But in a sense I don't worry about America because I think America has such huge strengths—particularly its freedom of thought and expression—that it's going to survive as a top nation for the foreseeable future. And therefore take care of the world."
Pessimists, he points out, have been predicting America's decline "since the 18th century." But whenever things are looking bad, America "suddenly produces these wonderful things—like the tea party movement. That's cheered me up no end. Because it's done more for women in politics than anything else—all the feminists? Nuts! It's brought a lot of very clever and quite young women into mainstream politics and got them elected. A very good little movement, that. I like it." Then he deepens his voice for effect and adds: "And I like that lady—Sarah Palin. She's great. I like the cut of her jib."
The former governor of Alaska, he says, "is in the good tradition of America, which this awful political correctness business goes against." Plus: "She's got courage. That's very important in politics. You can have all the right ideas and the ability to express them. But if you haven't got guts, if you haven't got courage the way Margaret Thatcher had courage—and [Ronald] Reagan, come to think of it. Your last president had courage too—if you haven't got courage, all the other virtues are no good at all. It's the central virtue."
***
Mr. Johnson, decked out in a tweed jacket, green cardigan and velvet house slippers, speaks in full and lengthy paragraphs that manage to be at once well-formed and sprinkled with a healthy dose of free association. He has a full shock of white hair and a quick smile. He has, he allows, gone a bit deaf, but his mind remains sharp and he continues to write prolifically. His main concession to age, he says, is "I don't write huge books any more. I used to write 1,000 printed pages, but now I write short books. I did one on Napoleon, 50,000 words—enjoyed doing that. He was a baddie. I did one on Churchill, which was a bestseller in New York, I'm glad to say. 50,000 words. He was a goodie." He's also written short forthcoming biographies of Socrates (another "goodie") and Charles Darwin (an "interesting figure").
Mr. Johnson says he doesn't follow politics closely anymore, but he quickly warms to the subject of the Middle East. The rash of uprisings across the Arab world right now is "a very interesting phenomenon," he says.
"It's something that we knew all about in Europe in the 19th century. First of all we had the French Revolution and its repercussions in places like Germany and so on. Then, much like this current phenomenon, in 1830 we had a series of revolutions in Europe which worked like a chain reaction. And then in 1848, on a much bigger scale—that was known as the year of revolutions."
In 1848, he explains, "Practically every country in Europe, except England of course . . . had a revolution and overthrew the government, at any rate for a time. So that is something which historically is well-attested and the same thing has happened here in the Middle East."
Here he injects a note of caution: "But I notice it's much more likely that a so-called dictatorship will be overthrown if it's not a real dictatorship. The one in Tunisia wasn't very much. Mubarak didn't run a real dictatorship [in Egypt]. Real dictatorships in that part of the world," such as Libya, are a different story.
As for Moammar Gadhafi, "We'll see if he goes or not. I think he's a real baddie, so we hope he will." The Syrian regime, he adds, "not so long ago in Hama . . . killed 33,000 people because they rose up." Then, "above all," there is Iran. "If we can get rid of that horrible regime in Iran," he says, "that will be a major triumph for the world."
Frank judgments like these are a hallmark of Mr. Johnson's work, delivered with almost child-like glee. Of Mahatma Gandhi, he wrote in "Modern Times": "About the Gandhi phenomenon there was always a strong aroma of twentieth-century humbug."
Socrates is much more to Mr. Johnson's liking. Whereas, in Mr. Johnson's telling, Gandhi led hundreds of thousands to death by stirring up civil unrest in India, all the while maintaining a pretense of nonviolence, Socrates "thought people mattered more than ideas. . . . He loved people, and his ideas came from people, and he thought ideas existed for the benefit of people," not the other way around.
In the popular imagination, Socrates may be the first deep thinker in Western civilization, but in Mr. Johnson's view he was also an anti-intellectual. Which is what makes him one of the good guys. "One of the categories of people I don't like much are intellectuals," Mr. Johnson says. "People say, 'Oh, you're an intellectual,' and I say, 'No!' What is an intellectual? An intellectual is somebody who thinks ideas are more important than people."
And indeed, Mr. Johnson's work and thought are characterized by concern for the human qualities of people. Cicero, he tells me, was not a man "one would have liked to have been friends with." But even so the Roman statesman is "often very well worth reading."
His concern with the human dimension of history is reflected as well in his attitude toward humor, the subject of another recent book, "Humorists." "The older I get," he tells me, "the more important I think it is to stress jokes." Which is another reason he loves America. "One of the great contributions that America has made to civilization," he deadpans, "is the one-liner." The one-liner, he says, was "invented, or at any rate brought to the forefront, by Benjamin Franklin." Mark Twain's were the "greatest of all."
And then there was Ronald Reagan. "Mr. Reagan had thousands of one-liners." Here a grin spreads across Mr. Johnson's face: "That's what made him a great president."
Jokes, he argues, were a vital communication tool for President Reagan "because he could illustrate points with them." Mr. Johnson adopts a remarkable vocal impression of America's 40th president and delivers an example: "You know, he said, 'I'm not too worried about the deficit. It's big enough to take care of itself.'" Recovering from his own laughter, he adds: "Of course, that's an excellent one-liner, but it's also a perfectly valid economic point." Then his expression grows serious again and he concludes: "You don't get that from Obama. He talks in paragraphs."
***
Mr. Johnson has written about the famous and notorious around the world and across centuries, but he's not above telling of his personal encounters with history. He is, he says, "one of a dwindling band of people who actually met" Winston Churchill.
"In 1946," he tells me, "he came up to my hometown because he was speaking at the Conservative Party conference up the road. And I managed to get in just as he was about to leave to make his speech. And I was 16. He seemed friendly, so I was inspired to say, 'Mr. Winston Churchill, sir, to what do you attribute your success in life?' And he said without any hesitation"—here Mr. Johnson drops his voice and puts on a passable Churchill impression—"'Conservation of energy. Never stand up when you can sit down. And never sit down when you can lie down,'" he relates with a laugh. "And I've never forgotten this," he says, "because as a matter of fact, it's perfectly good advice."
Here he adds the kicker: "Interestingly enough, Theodore Roosevelt, who had a lot in common with Winston Churchill in many ways, but was quite a bit older, said of him, 'Oh, that Winston Churchill, he is not a gentleman. He doesn't get to his feet when a lady enters the room.'"
Mr. Carney is editorial page editor of The Wall Street Journal Europe and the co-author of "Freedom, Inc." (Crown Business, 2009).
4a)Change, Identity, and the Fundamental Transformation of America
By Jack Kerwick
While on his campaign trail for the presidency, Barack Obama talked to no end about the "change" that would visit upon America, a change so profound, so sweeping, that it would "fundamentally transform" America. To understand the implications of this, we would do ourselves a good turn to subject the concept of "change" to philosophical interrogation.
"Change" is a concept with a storied history in the annals of Western philosophy. In fact, it is no exaggeration to account for Western philosophy itself as an enduring conflict over the nature of change and its place in the world. From its inception in ancient Greece 2600 years ago to the present day, philosophers have realized that inquiries regarding change are inseparable from those concerning permanence, identity, knowledge, belief, particulars, universals, and, in short, a plethora of other philosophical concepts.
The pre-Socratic philosophers set the stage for the issues that would arrest the attention of their successors for the next two-and-a-half millennia. Parmenides thought that change must be an illusion, for change is identity-extinguishing: if change were real, than neither the objects that constitute our world nor our knowledge of them would be possible. Heraclitus, on the other hand, thought that it was permanence that was illusory: it was he who famously said that "you can't step in the same river twice." Another partisan of "the flux," Cratylus, grabbed hold of the logic of this reasoning and ran with it further: if change is the only constant, so to speak, then you can't step in the same river even once, for nothing remains itself from one unit of time to the next. Thus, nothing can be known.
Plato thought that Cratylus was correct, that change precludes both identity and knowledge. And he agreed as well that there isn't a single entity in our world that is immune to change. But to avoid Cratylus's skeptical conclusions, Plato posited another world, a supra-sensible or intelligible, heavenly-like world constituted by, not the corruptible and temporal particulars that compose empirical reality, but invisible, incorruptible, immutable, and eternal Universals. What stability and identity each particular possesses it derives from its participation in the Universal to which it corresponds. Knowledge, then, is attainable, for its objects are Universals that, as such, remain exactly one and the same forever.
Plato's premiere student Aristotle was among the first to identify the problems with his master's Two Worlds theory. He rejected it, but the language of universals and particulars that were its central terms he preserved, even if in a significantly modified form. Still, Aristotle refused to abandon the belief that the universal is the immutable essence that ultimately invests each particular with its identity and renders it a possible object of knowledge.
Western philosophy had assumed an identifiable shape and the argument over change and permanence, particulars and universals, was well underway.
Along with others, I do not think that change is necessarily incompatible with identity. Because neither change nor identity is a theory-neutral term, it is indeed possible to construe each so as to reconcile it to the other. Only a conception of identity that equates it with exactness finds it impossible to accommodate change: if something doesn't have exactly the same properties at any one moment as it has at any other, then it isn't the same thing. But why endorse this understanding of identity? More plausibly, identity doesn't preclude change but, rather, requires that whatever changes occur be continuous with one another. Since changes that are gradual or incremental are readily absorbable by the entity that undergoes them, the identity of that being isn't impaired by them.
However, to paraphrase the twentieth century philosopher Michael Oakeshott, change that promises fundamental transformation is emblematic of death. Every change involves loss, it is true, but dramatic changes of this kind are designed to destroy the being upon whom they are visited. It is crucial that this is grasped. When Obama pledges to fundamentally transform the United States, he is not pledging to improve upon his country, but to replace it with another entity altogether.
This is what a "transformation" involves. It is but a euphemism for death, really. Anyone with any doubts on this score ought to ask himself how his wife would respond to him if, in addition to vowing to love and cherish her, he as well vowed to fundamentally transform her? The desire to fundamentally transform one's wife is nothing more or less than the desire for a new wife.
Similarly, the desire to fundamentally transform a country is the desire for a new country.
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5)Beat Sweetener: West Wing Edition
The New York Times slathers sweet sauce all over the White House's new stuffed animals.
By Jack Shafer
There's a new team running the White House for President Obama, and with a new team comes the inevitable: a story by a reporter who hopes to sweeten the beat, and hence win future access, with a piece of undeserved flattery.
Today's (March 4) steaming tureen of molasses comes to you courtesy of the New York Times with a piece so syrupy that even the Web headline butters up its subjects: "Less Drama in White House After Staff Changes." The print headline, "With a Change in Top Aides, The West Wing Quiets Down," plays it a little closer to the vest, but neither headline prepares the reader for the tongue bath that is about to transpire.
Do you remember Rahm Emanuel? Former Washington colossus. Feared and respected by everybody. The guy the president depended on to get things done. Highly functional Tourette syndrome case. Now the mayor of some Midwestern city. Well, the acidic Emanuel has been replaced by a team of Care Bears, whose pH runs a corrective basic. There's Good Luck Bear (William M. Daley), who is of Irish descent and who brings luck to everyone as he twirls through the revolving door between government and business. Smart Heart Bear (David Plouffe) is just the brightest bunch of batting ever stuffed into a fake-fur body. Obama carried Smart Heart Bear from hotel to hotel during the 2008 presidential campaign, and it's believed that he whispered brainy things to Obama that Obama repeated on the stump to make people think he's smart. And then there's Baby Tugs Bear (Jay Carney), the sweet little tyke in the family. Baby Tugs Bear is still in diapers and just now learning to talk, so they've made him the press secretary.
That the Times didn't catch the Care Bear connection is an oversight that I hope a future Editors' Note or Public Editor item corrects. Also, the Times makes no mention of the man Good Luck Bear replaced as White House chief of staff—interim chief of staff Pete Rouse, the beneficiary of not one but two New York Times beat sweeteners last September when he stepped in for Emanuel. Have the Care Bears dragged him into the basement, where they're dining on his living flesh? Bears are carnivores, after all, even teddy bears. Or did the Times decide that Rouse—Mr. Peace, Love, and Understanding and an honorary Care Bear himself—is too much like the new crew of bears running the show and that had they acknowledged his two months on the job they'd have to write a story titled "Relaxed White House Becomes Even More Relaxed."
The only question the Times piece doesn't answer is why would you have to flatter a bunch of sweeties in the first place? If they're so nice and calm by nature, it makes no sense to invest in appeasing them the way the press corps felt it had to appease that vengeful little prick Emanuel. Call it force of habit, but here's the honey the Times spoons into the White House Care Bears' mouths:
Mr. Daley and Mr. Plouffe are bringing a new order and a different management style for different times, say people within the West Wing and others who deal with them. The White House is more disciplined and less personality-driven, more focused on long-term strategic goals and less consumed by the daily messaging skirmishes with Republicans—even when that means absorbing hits and pulling punches. …
Unlike Mr. Emanuel, the idea-a-minute dynamo who would dart from floor to floor trying to control matters mundane and major, Mr. Daley, a seasoned former executive and a commerce secretary in the Clinton administration, has streamlined the operation and is more likely to keep to his office door closed and to delegate to subordinates. The big matters, however, demand his full attention. …
Mr. Plouffe likewise is less available to reporters and party officials and keeps his office television turned off—to tune out the daily distractions of cable TV's political play by play. Where Mr. Axelrod was an unabashedly sentimental true believer in the Obama brand, Mr. Plouffe, who managed Mr. Obama's 2008 campaign, is a stoic, by-the-numbers master of organization. …
[S]taff members describe a happier workplace with clearer lines of authority and less fear of being chided by the often brusque Mr. Emanuel. Responsibility for communications and messaging has been consolidated. Cabinet members who were often overlooked in the past say they are more in the loop. With Mr. Daley taking the lead, there is more outreach to Republicans and business groups. …
The best—therefore worst—paragraph in the article comes when the reporter states (emphasis added):
Mr. Daley and Mr. Plouffe declined to be interviewed on the record, in contrast to their accessible and often-profiled predecessors. White House aides and outsiders who work with them asked not to be quoted by name in discussing how the new team is affecting the administration's inner workings. And most said they did not want to imply criticism of Mr. Emanuel or Mr. Axelrod; the White House makeover, they emphasized, reflects a response to factors beyond personalities.
In other words, Daley and Plouffe agreed to be interviewed but in a manner that would allow them to help the Times document how they've brought cow-cud quality contentment to White House deliberations—but also in a way that would include a disclaimer stating that they're not, not, not knocking Emanuel (Grumpy Bear?) because they know if they anger him he'll come back and soak their pelts in sewing-machine oil and set them on fire.
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Related in Slate
Previously, Jack Shafer spotted the press giving beat-sweetener treatment to Pete Rouse, USAID chief Rajiv Shah, Nancy Pelosi, and Robert S. Mueller III. Oddly, the press didn't suck up to William M. Daley in the hours after his appointment.After the business of politics demolishes the Bears' ability to do Obama's bidding, he'll appoint a new bunch of West Wing playthings. Here's betting that the Times portrays them to be as wonderful and as spirited a herd straight out of My Little Pony.
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