Inside Sasha Abramsky’s brain: believing in Obama

The New Neo Posted on by

Sasha Abramsky is the author of a book called Inside Obama’s Brain. Maybe he’s spent too much time there, because he’s emerged befuddled.

In this Salon piece, Abramsky starts promisingly:

In 2008, candidate Barack Obama fashioned an appeal to independent voters and young adults based in large part not on specific policy pledges but on his promise to end the culture of hyper-partisan hyper-bickering that was poisoning the country’s political well.

Implicit in that promise was the assumption that through rational, consensus-building rhetoric and pragmatic policy solutions to America’s serious, and growing, social and economic problems he could reforge broken bonds of trust between the citizenry and its governing institutions.

No quarrel with that. It describes the “promise” of Obama quite nicely. And Abramsky even goes on to state with clarity one of the major flaws of Obama’s presidency so far:

In office, Obama’s failure to reestablish those bonds of trust, without which no major social policy reforms can command long-term, stable majority support, is the greatest calamity of his presidency.

How does Abramsky then segue to the rest of his article? His argument goes something like this:

(1) It is self-evident that only big government can cure what ails us.

(2) Obama made the mistake of thinking most people are smart and insightful enough to agree with him (and Abramsky) on that.

(3) His failure was therefore a failure (you know what’s coming) to properly communicate this to the American people.

(4) Those nasty Republicans finished the job by blocking his efforts (no mention of the overwhelming majorities Obama had in Congress, and the fact that he was actually stymied by Democrats who wouldn’t come along for the Big Government ride).

Abramsky’s article has a title that says a great deal about this mode of thinking: “Obama’s toughest task: make us believe again.”

As though “belief” were the answer, and as though it is disconnected from results. But Obama can’t ride on his early promise anymore; he can’t ask us to believe in him by the mere power of his rhetoric. Results are what counts, and his toughest task is to actually produce some that aren’t disastrous.

Bush and Clinton are buddies

The New Neo Posted on by

This amused me:

“Listen, [Bill] Clinton and I are buddies,” the former president [Bush II] said. “First of all, we’re born one month apart. We’re now members of the former presidents club. We have done speaking engagements together. And I generally like him.”

I don’t think it’s BS either; I think it’s true. Their values in their personal life may be worlds apart, but here’s what they have in common, in addition to the things Bush mentioned: a background in the South, a connection to Yale, a genuine conviviality and gregariousness—and even (this was a great surprise to me, because Bush was a jock and Clinton decidedly not) experience as rugby players, a sport known for its toughness.

I can actually imagine them being “buddies”—although not drinking buddies, not anymore. Contrast that to the White House’s present occupant. I can’t really imagine him being “buddies” with anyone.

[NOTE: If you don’t believe me about Clinton and the rugby, take a look at this

Upon graduation, he won a Rhodes Scholarship to University College, Oxford where he studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics, though as a result of switching programs and leaving early for Yale, he did not obtain a degree there. He developed an interest in rugby union, playing at Oxford and later for the Little Rock Rugby club in Arkansas.

As for Bush:

Bush attended Yale University from 1964 to 1968, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree in history. During this time, he was a member of Delta Kappa Epsilon, being elected the fraternity’s president during his senior year. Bush also became a member of the Skull and Bones society as a senior. Bush was a keen rugby union player, and was on Yale’s 1st XV.]

Bush derangement syndrome vs. Obama derangement syndrome?

The New Neo Posted on by

There was a discussion in the comments section of Thursday’s post about the widespread hatred of President Bush known as Bush Derangement Syndrome. Here are some remarks from commenter “kolnai” describing the attitude of a group of liberal friends of his toward Bush:

Whenever the subject of Bush comes up – I never do it, but they can’t help themselves – it always ends badly. The conversation gets ugly, and even my most hipsterish, cynical, ironical Jon Stewarty-friends turn gravely serious and actually get steamed. Not too long ago, one of them emailed me and in the course of our exchange he slipped up and called me crazy, despicable, and hateful. It came within a few words of ending the relationship for good.

The scariest thing of all is that these very intelligent people really do believe that evil did not truly exist in the world until George W. Bush “stole” the 2000 election…

The insanity is mind-boggling. It’s as though they sincerely believe that on the one hand there was Hitler, but then there was a true monster, named Bush”¦

And here’s more from commenter “Mrs Whatsit:”

…[M]y otherwise gentle and civilized family of origin ”” well-educated liberal Democrats all ”” were ready to stage an intervention with me simply because I said I didn’t hate Bush. It wasn’t enough to disagree with him. It wasn’t enough that I didn’t vote for him (the first time around, at least ”” I kept quiet about the second time!) No, I had to hate him, or they gazed at me with brows creased with worry and whispered anxiously to one another whenever I left the room. These are NOT hateful people. They brought me up teaching me very carefully not to hate ”” which is partly why I ended up fleeing the Democrats when they turned so venomous ”” but when I try to remind them of this, it doesn’t seem to make sense to them. I didn’t get it then and still don’t get it now…

Time has not dulled the sharp edge of Bush-hatred, as many of us have discovered. And I think that all of us stand with Mrs Whatsit in saying that we don’t “get it,” not really, not totally.

Oh, we know some elements that seem to trigger BDS: the perceived frat-boy persona, the Texas twang, the close-set eyes, the swagger, the Iraq war without the WMDs. But still, there is something extra and intangible and even indescribable there, something mysterious about the intensity of the whole thing.

Bush-haters actually do believe that he lied about Iraq, that he is a troglodyte who is against science, that he loves war and seeks it out, that he stole the 2000 election, that he is stupid and perhaps even mentally handicapped, and that he evaded his National Guard service.

In the end, it seems to be a gut thing that occurred almost instantaneously on seeing and hearing the man (physical characteristics and speech patterns are a huge part of it), and was then egged on by like-minded people talking amongst themselves. It became a group identity, one that powerfully reinforced the entire edifice; “Smart and good people hate Bush; I am a smart and good person because I hate Bush; we are smart and good people who hate Bush; therefore I am one of you.”

These same people believe not only that their hatred of Bush is every bit as rational as hatred of Hitler, but many of them also believe that we on this board and others like it have an irrational hatred of Obama. That is one of the reasons that every criticism of Obama is met with charges of “racist,” rather than a focus on the policy arguments being made (the latter are too rational). That is why the more irrational segments of the birther movement are emphasized so much by the left.

I am not suggesting that dislike of Obama’s policies and Bush-hatred are parallel. For example, I have no particular hatred for Obama. What’s more, when I first observed him, I don’t recall feeling any negative feelings or opinions about him at all, except what I would feel towards any liberal: disagreement with policy. My profound distrust of him took a long time to build, was arrived at reluctantly, and was based on my own observations of his actions in the public sphere. And I don’t think I’m atypical of the majority of people who have come to have grave reservations about Obama, and to consider him both a knave and a fool.

I suspect, however, that if you were to query many of the people who suffer from BDS, they would tell a rather different tale: that what they feel for Bush is actually hatred, that they felt it almost instantaneously, that they are proud of it rather than sad or reluctant about it, and that their hatred focuses more on personal characteristics of speech or manner than on actual policy disagreements, although the latter are certainly part of it. Nor do they feel the need to explain it to others, as I might my disapproval of Obama; they think the reasons for it are self-evident to any thinking person. What’s more, they tend to become visibly angry at those who don’t share it.

The more I think about these phenomena, the more mysterious it all becomes, not less.

[NOTE: See my previous posts on the subject, here and here.]

Hollywood actors morph

The New Neo Posted on by

I love those YouTube morph things.

Here’s one that features Hollywood actors. When I first watched it, I noticed that—even though I’m not a huge moviegoer—I still recognized the majority (although not all) of the actors.

During the video, my attention was riveted on the eyes, which appear to lead the transformations before the rest of the face follows. Most of the actors seem to naturally fall into one of several categories: pretty boys with dead eyes; less-pretty men with lively, mischievous eyes; guys with angry eyes; and a few sad-eyed or puzzled chaps.

Take a look:

My favorite category is that second one: less-pretty men with lively, mischievous eyes. Two of the best exemplars are the young James Cagney (at 0:10); Clark Cable with a crooked grin (at 0:25); and, most particularly, Steve McQueen at the height of his fame (1:41).

And speaking of eyes:

Pelosi hangs on

The New Neo Posted on by

It seems that any challenge to Nancy Pelosi’s leadership of the Democrats has faded away.

And the linked article answers a question I’ve been wondering about: is Pelosi’s insistence on staying in power after the Dems’ defeat somewhat unique in recent Speaker history? The answer is “yes:”

Not since Tip O’Neill retired in 1987, now five speakers ago, has there been a graceful and voluntary exit from the big chair at the front of the House chamber. Everyone since, whether giving up the gavel in electoral defeat or scandal, has done the expected thing and disappeared from the Capitol.

Nancy is made of sterner stuff.

More explanations from the left for the Democrats’ defeat

The New Neo Posted on by

In addition to the ubiquitous “failure to communicate to stupid-head America,” there’s the equally ubiquitous “we’ve just been too nice and too passive” exhortation to Democrats to fight more.

Anything to avoid looking at the fact that Americans are just not on the same page, policy-wise, as the “progressives” these days.

And here’s an interesting one: it’s not the agenda, stupid, it’s the unemployment. No recognition that perhaps the two might be connected in some way.

Spambot of the day

The New Neo Posted on by

Cryptic spambot:

disastrous recliner is the top among the top when it comes to conference choosing base

I think it scans much better as a poem:

disastrous recliner
is the top
among the top
when it comes
to conference choosing base

I was so taken with the mystery of this message from the ether that I Googled “disastrous recliner.” Lo and behold, I came up with this:

In the early models of lift recliners, the actual lifting mechanism was a contraption of heavy duty springs. These springs, once activated, lift the user up and out of the chair and would not stop until the entire chair was in the upright position.

Unfortunately…Depending upon one’s body weight, the catapulting action of spring loaded lift chairs could project the occupant up and away from the chair with potentially disastrous effects.

Be forewarned.

Obama fails to impress abroad

The New Neo Posted on by

Obama’s current trip abroad doesn’t seem to be going any better for him than the recent election did:

In private meetings with Mr. Obama on Thursday, Chinese President Hu Jintao resisted his pressure on currency revaluation. Mr. Obama also failed to secure a free-trade agreement with South Korea by a deadline he set for Thursday, a blow to a president who has pledged to double U.S. exports over the next five years.

This is not a cause for rejoicing, even for those of us who aren’t exactly Obama fans. The US’s continuing economic woes, disagreement with Obama’s decision that stimulus comes first at the expense of deficit reduction, and Obama’s general domestic political weakness at the moment, are all factors. But I suspect there’s even more to it than that.

When I try to think of any significant foreign policy triumph for Obama since he became president, I pretty much draw a blank. The Nobel Peace Prize wasn’t awarded for any achievement other than mouthing platitudes that the liberals of Western Europe and Scandinavia like to hear. The failure to win the Olympics venue was also relatively unimportant, but it was symbolic of Obama’s wheel-spinning-to-come in foreign lands.

The secret is that word I used earlier: weakness. Obama is still liked abroad, for the most part. But he is not respected, and he is most definitely not feared. I’m afraid that he is considered a genial but inexperienced naif on the world stage.

Of course, not too many presidents have had much relevant background in international negotiation prior to taking on the job, so Obama is hardly unique in that respect. But some of them have had business experience in wheeling and dealing with power players. Or at the very least, they’ve appointed a seasoned Secretary of State to help them. Obama chose Hillary Clinton for that office, and she is virtually as devoid of relevant experience as he. It’s not a good combination.

What’s more, Obama has often seemed oblivious to the gaps in his own knowledge; in fact, he tends to see himself as superior. One of the Obama quotes that most disturbed me during his campaign for the presidency was this:

…[F]oreign policy is the area where I am probably most confident that I know more and understand the world better than Senator Clinton or Senator McCain.

It’s ironic because this is supposedly the place where experience is most needed to be Commander-in-Chief. Experience in Washington is not knowledge of the world. This I know. When Senator Clinton brags ”˜I’ve met leaders from eighty countries’”“I know what those trips are like! I’ve been on them. You go from the airport to the embassy. There’s a group of children who do native dance. You meet with the CIA station chief and the embassy and they give you a briefing. You go take a tour of a plant that [with] the assistance of USAID has started something. And then”“you go.”

“You do that in eighty countries””you don’t know those eighty countries. So when I speak about having lived in Indonesia for four years, having family that is impoverished in small villages in Africa”“knowing the leaders is not important”“-what I know is the people. . . .”

“I traveled to Pakistan when I was in college”“I knew what Sunni and Shia was [sic] before I joined the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. . . .”

There is something almost shocking about these statements. It’s not just that he’s ignorant of McCain’s rather extensive background of diplomatic travel with senators during his years as Naval liaison to the Senate, which gave him a fair amount of experience (read all about it here). It’s not just that, after these remarks, Obama then went ahead and made Clinton Secretary of State. It’s that he thinks that living in Indonesia forty years ago, as a child of six to ten years old, and any knowledge he did gain of the people there and their way of life, would give him special ability to sit at a negotiating table with foreign leaders and represent our interests. The same for a college trip to Pakistan.

In the realm of foreign policy and negotiation, as well as international economic policy and negotiation (heck, in most realms other than giving a speech containing vague promises and winning an election), I’m afraid that Obama suffers from what Donald Rumsfeld would call unknown unknowns: “things we don’t know we don’t know.” They can be among the most dangerous of all, as Rumsfeld himself came to learn.

On Veterans Day

The New Neo Posted on by

[NOTE: This is a slightly-edited repost of an article originally written in 2005.]

Yes, indeed, I am that old—old enough to very vaguely remember when Veterans Day was called Armistice Day, or at least to imagine that I do. The change in names occurred in 1954, when I was very small, in order to accommodate World War II and its veterans.

Since then, the original name has largely fallen out of use—although it remains, like a vestigial organ, in the timing of the holiday: November 11th, which commemorates the day the WWI armistice was signed (eleventh hour, eleventh day, eleventh month).

I’m also old enough–and had a teacher ancient enough—to have been forced to memorize that old chestnut “In Flanders Fields” in fifth grade—although without being given any historical context for it. I think at the time I assumed it was about World War II, since as far as I knew that was the only real war.

You can find the story of the poem here . It was written by a Canadian doctor who served in the European theater (there is no separate URL for the discussion of the poem, but you should click on the “John McCrae´s Poppies in Flander’s Fields” link on the left sidebar). It’s not great poetry, but it was great propaganda to encourage America’s entry into what was known at the time as the Great War.

The poem’s first line “In Flanders fields the poppies blow” introduces the famous flower that later became the symbol of Armistice—and later, Veterans—Day. Why the poppy?

Wild poppies flower when other plants in their direct neighbourhood are dead. Their seeds can lie on the ground for years and years, but only when there are no more competing flowers or shrubs in the vicinity (for instance when someone firmly roots up the ground), these seeds will sprout.

There was enough rooted up soil on the battlefield of the Western Front; in fact the whole front consisted of churned up soil. So in May 1915, when McCrae wrote his poem, around him bloodred poppies blossomed like no one had ever seen before.

But in this poem the poppy plays one more role. The poppy is known as a symbol of sleep. The last line We shall not sleep, though poppies grow / In Flanders fields might point to this fact. Some kinds of poppies are used to derive opium from, from which morphine is made. Morphine is one of the strongest painkillers and was often used to put a wounded soldier to sleep. Sometimes medical doctors used it in a higher dose to put the incurable wounded out of their misery.

Now a day to honor those who have served in our wars, Veterans Day has an interesting history in its original Armistice Day incarnation. It was actually established as a day dedicated to world peace, back in the early post-WWI year of 1926, when it was still possible to believe that WWI had been the war fought to end all wars.

The original proclamation establishing Armistice Day as a holiday read as follows:

Whereas the 11th of November 1918, marked the cessation of the most destructive, sanguinary, and far reaching war in human annals and the resumption by the people of the United States of peaceful relations with other nations, which we hope may never again be severed, and

Whereas it is fitting that the recurring anniversary of this date should be commemorated with thanksgiving and prayer and exercises designed to perpetuate peace through good will and mutual understanding between nations; and

Whereas the legislatures of twenty-seven of our States have already declared November 11 to be a legal holiday: Therefore be it Resolved by the Senate (the House of Representatives concurring), that the President of the United States is requested to issue a proclamation calling upon the officials to display the flag of the United States on all Government buildings on November 11 and inviting the people of the United States to observe the day in schools and churches, or other suitable places, with appropriate ceremonies of friendly relations with all other peoples.

After the carnage of World War II, of course, the earlier hope that peaceful relations among nations would not be severed had long been extinguished. By the time I was a young child, a weary nation sought to honor those who had fought in all of its wars in order to secure the peace that followed—even if each peace was only a temporary one.

And isn’t an armistice a strange (although understandable) sort of hybrid, after all; a decision to lay down arms without anything really having been resolved? Think about the recent wars that have ended through armistice: WWI, which segued almost inexorably into WWII; the 1948 war following the partition of Palestine; the Korean War; and the Gulf War. All of these conflicts exploded again into violence—or have continually threatened to ever since.

So this Veterans/Armistice Day, let’s join in saluting and honoring those who have fought for our country. The hope that some day war will not be necessary is a laudable one—and those who fight wars hold it, too. But that day has not yet arrived—and, realistically but sadly, perhaps it never will.

About those Bush tax cuts and whether they will expire

The New Neo Posted on by

We’ve certainly been getting mixed messages today.

When I first saw this piece suggesting that Axelrod had put out the word that Obama was ready to capitulate on the complete list of Bush tax cuts, even for the wealthy, I was surprised.

I was about to write that this was a sign that there might be more compromise—at least on the smaller issues—ahead. That’s something I had thought might happen: a few compromises on smaller things so that Obama could point to his own “bipartisanship” and the terrible intransigence of the vicious Republicans on the larger things.

But now comes the denial from Axelrod: That is not what I meant at all. That is not it, at all.

Axelrod informed NationalJournal that the earlier report was incorrect:

Senior White House adviser David Axelrod said this morning that President Obama has not caved to GOP demands on the extension of the Bush tax cuts, despite a report to the contrary.

“We’re willing to discuss how we move forward,” Axelrod said in an e-mail to National Journal rebutting the Huffington Post story, “but we believe that it’s imperative to extend the tax cuts for the middle class, and don’t believe we can afford a permanent extension of tax cuts for the wealthy.”

So, which is it? The entire dance appears to me, at least so far, to be the usual sending out of purposely conflicting messages, designed to confuse and to give the appearance of conciliation to those who are hoping for that outcome, and the appearance of holding the line to those who are looking for that one.

Obama has done this before, notably on issues of gay rights. It often has had the effect of infuriating both sides.

Pelosi won’t drop out

The New Neo Posted on by

Okay, this is the proof of what I’ve come to suspect: that Pelosi is actually a Republican mole.

But seriously, folks, should it be a surprise to anyone that she’s digging in? The woman is tenaciousness personified, and digging in is her specialty. It’s rewarded her handsomely in the past.

On the other hand, she loves power, and she’s been stripped of some of hers. Would that not argue for a resignation?

Well, she’s been stripped of some of her power, but certainly not all. Minority Leader isn’t Speaker, but still, it’s nothing to sneeze at. Clearly, she nourishes dreams of one of the greatest comebacks in history. And she knows that she may not have a lot of keen competition for the role of Minority Leader at the present demoralized moment for the Democratic Party.

I’m not in the habit of making predictions, but I’ll make a small one here: if Pelosi wants to retain her leadership of House Democrats, she will. The Blue Dogs are too small and weak to oust her. The outcome will really depend, however, on how much silent and hidden support the Blue Dogs have among the now largely liberal remainder of Democrats in the House. My guess is that the majority of them are in Nancy’s camp, either allied with her ideologically, beholden to her in a host of other ways, or some combination of both.