Obama: confused about Afghanistan?

The New Neo Posted on by

I don’t think he is (at least not in the way you’d imagine). But Leslie Gelb does:

I’m lost on President Barack Obama’s Afghanistan policy””along with most of Congress and the U.S. military. Not quite eight months ago, Mr. Obama pledged to “defeat” al Qaeda in Afghanistan by transforming that country’s political and economic infrastructure, training Afghan forces and adding 21,000 U.S. forces for starters…And a mere three weeks ago, he punctuated his commitments by proclaiming that Afghanistan is a “war of necessity,” not one of choice. White House spokesmen reinforced this by promising that the president would “fully resource” the war.

Yet less than one week ago, Mr. Obama said the following about troop increases: “I’m going to take a very deliberate process in making those decisions. There is no immediate decision pending on resources, because one of the things that I’m absolutely clear about is you have to get the strategy right and then make a determination about resources.” He repeated that on Sunday’s talk shows.

Are we now to understand that he made all those previous declarations and decisions without a strategy he was committed to?

The answer is: it depends on what the meaning of “strategy” is. Gelb is confused because he still thinks of Obama in conventional terms, of “strategy” as an effort to win the war, and of previous Obama statements as rationally connected in the ordinary way to new ones.

I see it differently. I think Obama committed to Afghanistan as a strategy to look tough in the election, and is now looking for a way out that doesn’t make him look weak. In the meantime, he’s stalling.

He would have liked victory to be easy there because it would have been a feather in his cap and a defense against those who say he isn’t interested in fighting terrorism. But since it’s not, he has no desire to stay the course, and he couldn’t care less about the geopolitical repercussions for America.

And I’d be happy to be proven wrong about this.

Interim Honduran President Micheletti speaks

The New Neo Posted on by

Read his piece in today’s WaPo. Hope he can stay the course against the thugs in DC and elsewhere:

We are, of course, disappointed with the position of the United States and the European Union, both longtime friends. We look forward to continuing dialogue with the United States, the European Union and the rest of the international community to prove our commitment to democracy and the Honduran people’s love of freedom. Coercive action directed at our nation will only harm less fortunate Hondurans, whose hospitals, schools, roads and other institutions rely greatly on our friends’ generous assistance, for which all of our citizens are immensely grateful.

I have said from the moment I was sworn in as president of Honduras that I do not intend to remain in office one second more than what our constitution mandates. On Jan. 27 I will hand over leadership responsibilities to the ninth president of our 27-year-old democracy. Such actions are in keeping with the desire of the majority of our people: the strengthening of our democracy.

Solving the Obama conundrum

The New Neo Posted on by

I’ve figured something out about Obama, and that is this: nearly everybody’s trying to figure Obama out.

That’s one of the few things that unites America at the moment. Left and Right alike, people are busy asking the question “Who is Obama, what is he?”

I cannot recall another president about whom this question could be asked so often and with such great urgency. To be sure, some of them gave us unpredictable moments, or favored policies that surprised us (think Nixon and China). Some of them changed while in office, such as the pre-9/11 vs. the post-9/11 George Bush.

But in some essential way, we knew who each president was and what he stood for, even if we might heartily disagree with every bit of his agenda or even dislike him personally. Obama is the first president we’ve ever had about whom many of us are beginning to suspect he has been lying not just about this or that topic, but about his very essence: who he is and what he wants for America.

Obama’s obfuscating and lawyerly language, his deliberate vagueness, and his propensity to lie without blinking, coupled with his affable personality and the unprecedented protection afforded by the press, constitute a carefully constructed screen. But his actions are troubling, even to the Left, who continue to make excuses for his ineptitude; and to the middle (take a look at this by Mickey Kaus, for example) who want to think he’s a thoughtful moderate but see little evidence for it any more. The Right (and I include myself here) thinks it knows that Obama is a man of the far Left, but we argue and wonder about just how far he wants to go, and how successful he will be.

One of the reasons Obama has been a relative cipher compared to past presidents is at least partly because each of them had a longer track record in the public eye than Obama did. It is also partly because they were more forthcoming about their pasts (a good example is the release of academic records). But it is also because they were basically upfront about who they were and what they intended, and/or the press was still doing at least some of its homework back then.

For example, we knew Clinton was a womanizer. How far this would go in the White House was unknown, but we all knew the basic fact of it, which even supporters had to admit. Plus, his womanizing was an issue which, although it spoke to important questions of character and honesty, did not involve a matter of state but instead involved a personal arena.

With each of these previous presidents, if most Americans (not the fringe on either side, of course) had heard some preposterous rumor about him, we could say with some conviction: “No, of course he won’t do that!” But many of us have come to think of Obama, “Yes, he could. Or, could he?” We wonder, ex-post-facto, whether the meaning of Obama’s campaign slogan: “Yes, we can!” was, “I can do anything I want to; just try and stop me.”

Case in point for today [emphasis mine]:

Barack Obama has demanded the Pentagon conduct a radical review of US nuclear weapons doctrine to prepare the way for deep cuts in the country’s arsenal, the Guardian can reveal.

Obama has rejected the Pentagon’s first draft of the “nuclear posture review” as being too timid, and has called for a range of more far-reaching options consistent with his goal of eventually abolishing nuclear weapons altogether, according to European officials…

The review [of ways to reduce our nuclear arsenal] is due to be completed by the end of this year, and European officials say the outcome is not yet clear. But one official said: “Obama is now driving this process. He is saying these are the president’s weapons, and he wants to look again at the doctrine and their role.”

False? True? Rumor? Fact? Will it all be revealed in the fullness of time? And most importantly, what are Obama’s motivations here? We somehow felt that in the past—even with a President such as Jimmy Carter, whose foreign policies were somewhat similar to Obama’s—that each man was driven by a sincere desire to protect America, even if he might be mistaken in the way he went about it. Most of us who didn’t like Carter saw him as dangerous, but misguided and naive. But Obama’s disarmament plans are embedded in a host of other signals we get from him that make us doubt not only his judgment, but whether even his basic motivations are good ones.

Richard Fernandez notes the Obama pattern that is emerging:

Here’s the thing: if you have to read between the lines too much then the text becomes more of a puzzle than a narrative and a President can’t be like an onion without creating problems. He sends a variety of signals to his supporters, to his enemies, to the ordinary citizens of the country. And every leader ”” even Stalin and Hitler to use extreme examples ”” had an implicit duty to be consistent. Consistently bad, maybe, but consistent. So supporters and enemies could know which end was up.

Suppose he were as Leftist as say ”¦ Bill Ayers. If he were consistently that you could calculate what he would do. You might not like what he would do, but you know what it would be. If you didn’t know you are in one of those Who-dunnit Agatha Christie rooms where nothing is known for sure until Inspector Poirot figures out the one angle from which all makes sense. I think Klein is truly perplexed. He doesn’t know what Obama did, so he’s guessing.

It’s like being confronted with an optimization program whose objective function is secret. It’s like being in front of a giant Krell machine and not knowing what it does. Maybe I’m making too much of it, and it is just my personal opinion, but I’ve always felt there was something that I wasn’t quite getting about the President. It’s there, just on the edge of vision. And then it’s gone. One day I’ll see it clearly, but it’s an elusive thing.

A unified field theory of Obama would explain all his moves. I think that the idea that he is a covert far Leftist and statist up to no good does exactly that. But saying that aloud is still unconscionable to most people (not to mention racist!). And the difference between Bill Ayers and Obama is that, although Ayers may not be the most straightforward guy in the universe, he’s honesty itself compared to Obama. The reason for Obama’s stealth is clear, however: a person as far to the Left as Obama could not be elected President of the US while being clear and upfront about his agenda, so dissemblance about the essential self and its goals is required.

But there’s something else in that elusive “something” to which Fernandez refers, and it has to do with Obama’s personality. It’s that certain “something” that really good con men (and sociopaths) have, an indefinable thing and people can’t quite read. But its a good part of what makes them successful. Do you think that you could always spot a good con man? Think again; despite a certain offness, the whole point of a con is that enough people fall for it. Obama knows that full well, and he counts on it, as do most good con men.

However, over time people often become aware of the con, because of subtle cues: things just don’t add up, the affect doesn’t match the words, the actions are suspicious. This is beginning to happen with the American people and Obama.

Here’s a quote from commenter Leo Linbeck III, who gets it. He has the interesting approach of separating Obama the Man from Obama the President:

I have to admit that Barack Obama qua Barack Obama is an enigma to me. I’ve read all of the various theories ”“ psychological and political ”“ that attempt to explain his behavior. I’ve played close attention for months, and I can confidently say I have no idea what he truly believes in his heart. (Of course, that is true of most of us.)

However, President Obama is not mysterious in the least. He is a man who found himself thrust into the Presidency on the strength of his symbolic power and the electoral collapse of the opposing party. He has risen to the top of the political world, and now “in charge.” He has virtually no executive experience, and very little in his background would lead you to believe he would arrive at this job, at this time. So he is completely unprepared for the task.

And over his head. Way over his head.

I agree. But along with this commenter, I agree that this isn’t really the point, because Obama the President has certain beliefs by which he is operating, and will continue to operate, to wit:

1. He believes government is a force for good in society, so more government is better.

2. He believes the government must intervene to solve social problems, and most problems are social problems.

3. He believes that everyone’s (and every nation’s) point of view is equally valid, but that historic oppressors have a special responsibility to be accommodating to the historically oppressed.

4. He believes that profit is a bad thing, the result of exploitation, and that the government has the responsibility to protect the public from profiteers.

5. He believes that wisdom is a function of knowledge and education, and knowledge comes from education.[I’m not sure I agree about this one, but that’s a minor point]

6. He believes he can tell people what they want to hear and they will support him, regardless what the facts may be, or what he has told others.

In other words, despite all of the rhetoric of outreach, reconciliation, listening, and the rejection of “false choices,” President Obama is a classic [sic] collectivist liberal…The last 90 days have been President Obama’s coming-out.

Yes, indeed. The evidence is there for those who are willing to face it. It is still possible to speculate on what drives Obama the Man—as one can do endlessly about most people with character disorders, or con men or sociopaths. But it’s a losing game, and not necessary.

We may never know much about Obama the Man, but I believe we now know enough about Obama the President, despite his efforts to hide: he is a statist of the far Left, who wants to implement a statist Leftist agenda for America both domestically and in foreign affairs, and he will do everything he can to achieve these goals.

The Kennedy assassinations: exhibits in the art of rewriting history by the Left

The New Neo Posted on by

Here’s a link sent by an astute reader, featuring quotes from some prominent media liberals about the JFK (and in one case the RFK) assassination[s]:

Exhibit A – Liberal talk radio host Mike Malloy, August 27: …I remember feeling that way in 1963 and in 1968-when [Ted Kennedy’s] two brothers were murdered by the right wing in this country…

Exhibit B – Novelist Lorenzo Carcaterra, September 13:…In the summer months of 1963, the voices of the right were tossing hate bombs at another young President…messages of hate, threats and warnings.

One such warning was for President John F. Kennedy to stay out of Texas.

To stay out of Dallas…

Exhibit C – Eric Boehlert, Media Matters for America, September 18:…A President was killed the last time right-wing hatred ran wild like this

That being John F. Kennedy, who was gunned down in Dallas, of course…But I’ve been thinking about Dallas in 1963 because I’ve been recalling the history and how that city stood as an outpost for the radical right, which never tried to hide its contempt for the New England Democrat.

In addition, Chris Matthews said that Right-wing anger at JFK was responsible for creating the climate of hatred that led Leftist assassin Oswald to kill him.

Let’s set the record straight here, because they never will. President Kennedy was killed by a committed Leftist, although part of the purpose of the continuing conspiracy theories that have gripped America ever since is to obscure this fact and blame it on the Right. That’s not the only reason for the conspiracy theories, of course—they naturally arise from an event so traumatic and so initially mysterious, and the truth (that Oswald did it alone) is so frightening, because it means a mouse can lay low a king.

But there is no question that the Left has pushed the theory that the assassins were shadowy figures on the Right and that Oswald was the patsy, just as he said he was. I could link to tons of sites alleging just this, but I’m not interested in giving them traffic so you’ll have to find them yourself; it’s not difficult. And of course we have Leftist movie director Oliver Stone mightily rewriting history in films such as the abominable “JFK.”

As for Robert Kennedy, he was killed by Sirhan Sirhan, a Palestinian whose motivation was clearly anger that RFK was a supporter of Israel. Unless you turn yourself into a pretzel, it’s impossible to see Sirhan as a man of the Right responding to criticism of RFK emanating from the Right.

As for the contention by Matthews and many others that the assassins may have been from the Left, but that it was the Right’s verbal hatred sparked the Left’s assassinations—that’s quite a stretch, isn’t it? But since Matthews isn’t so far down the rabbit hole that he sees Oswald as a figure on the Right, or believes Oliver Stone’s wild conspiracy theories, he must come up with the next best thing: the devil (i.e. the Right) made him do it. Even if that makes zero sense.

Rewriting history can be difficult. But practice makes perfect. And the Left has had over forty years to shape and polish this particular gem of a rewrite.

I guess I can’t call President Obama a liar on this, because it would be racist of me…

The New Neo Posted on by

…but I’m going to do it anyway: liar, liar, pants on fire!

I’m referring to this Obama interview with George Stephanopoulos (video available at the link), which features what seems to me to be one of the most egregious lies Obama has ever told. And that’s saying something.

But then again, maybe it’s just that Obama is as profoundly ignorant as Charles Gibson (although at least Obama admits to having heard of the ACORN scandal itself, which is more than Gibson managed to do). But I vote for mendacious over ignorant.

Here’s the exchange between Obama and Stephanopoulos:

STEPHANOPOULOS: How about the funding for ACORN?

OBAMA: You know, if — frankly, it’s not really something I’ve followed closely. I didn’t even know that ACORN was getting a whole lot of federal money.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Both the Senate and the House have voted to cut it off.

OBAMA: You know, what I know is, is that what I saw on that video was certainly inappropriate and deserves to be investigated.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So you’re not committing to — to cut off the federal funding?

OBAMA: George, this is not the biggest issue facing the country. It’s not something I’m paying a lot of attention to.

National false memory syndrome

The New Neo Posted on by

I’m taking the above phrase from David Horowitz’s article on Sixties Black Panther Eldridge Cleaver and his many subsequent conversions:

[Cleaver’s] Panther comrades David Hilliard, Bobby Seale, and Elaine Brown were busily taking advantage of a national false memory syndrome which recalled the Panthers not as the street thugs they were but as heroes of a civil-rights struggle they had openly despised. (In their heyday, Panther leaders liked to outrage their white supporters by referring to its leader as “Martin Luther Coon.”) On campus lecture tours, in Hollywood films, and in a series of well-hyped books celebrated by institutions like the New York Times and the Washington Post, they rewrote their own past to fit the legend.

It struck me that we could extend the concept and say that we are suffering from a generalized national false memory syndrome about our history and the history of the world, aided and abetted by the press and academia. After all, these two institutions are tremendously instrumental in giving us the bulk of our information as to what’s happening as it occurs (the so-called “first draft of history”), and then in further filtering, explaining, analyzing, and therefore shaping and ultimately defining our memories of historic events, even events that we ourselves have lived though. And these two institutions have in recent decades been ever more strongly taken over by liberals and the Left.

Orwell knew full well how this sort of thing works, as did the Communists and the Left. As they still do.

[NOTE: “False memory syndrome” is a controversial term that refers to the idea that a certain unknown percentage of people reporting childhood abuse, especially sexual abuse at the hands of parents, are not relating the objective truth of what actually occurred but are relating false memories that have either surfaced through the power of therapist suggestion, or in dreams. It’s one of the most contentious areas of psychology, and I’m not about to get into a discussion of it here. Suffice to say that I believe the syndrome exists, although the extent of it is presently unknown and it’s often very difficult to determine when it is operating.]

RIP Irving Kristol: founder of neoconservatism

The New Neo Posted on by

Once again, we have the news that a well-known person has died. But this time it’s neither a movie star nor a singer, but the man who was widely known as the father of neoconservatism (and the actual father of Bill Kristol): Irving Kristol.

Here’s an idea of the huge influence Kristol the elder had on conservative thought in America:

A Trotskyist in the 1930s, Kristol would soon sour on socialism, break from liberalism after the rise of the New Left in the 1960s and in the 1970s commit the unthinkable ”” support the Republican Party, once as “foreign to me as attending a Catholic mass.”

He was a New York intellectual who left home, first politically, then physically, moving to Washington in 1988. He was a liberal “mugged by reality,” his turn to the right joined by countless others, including such future GOP Cabinet officials as Jeane Kirkpatrick and William Bennett and another neo-conservative founder, Norman Podhoretz.

He was a flagship in the network of think tanks, media outlets and corporations that helped make conservatism a reigning ideology for at least two decades, the “vast right-wing conspiracy” that Hillary Rodham Clinton would claim was out to get her husband.

“More than anyone alive, perhaps, Irving Kristol can take the credit for reversing the direction of American political culture,” liberal commentator Eric Alterman wrote in 1999.

Kristol’s history encompasses many of the characteristics of neoconservatism, a persuasion that’s gotten a lot of bad press in recent years. But bad press and controversy has been part of neoconservatism from the beginning; the Left doesn’t take kindly to apostates, especially ones as intelligent and vocal as Kristol was. As I wrote in my own early post on why I decided to call myself neo-neocon:

“Neocon” is used by critics as a code word for a lot of things, among them: imperialist, unrealistic dreamer, and scheming puppeteer (along with its subset, scheming evil Jewish puppeteer).

This tendency has only gotten more pronounced in the years since I wrote those words. But here, in some of his own words, is what Kristol (and most neocons), actually stood (and stand) for:

[from 1972] It seems to me that the politics of liberal reform, in recent years, shows many of the same characteristics as amateur poetry. It has been more concerned with the kind of symbolic action that gratifies the passions of the reformer rather than with the efficacy of the reforms themselves. Indeed, the outstanding characteristic of what we call “the New Politics” is precisely its insistence on the overwhelming importance of revealing, in the public realm, one’s intense feelings””we must “care,” we must “be concerned,” we must be “committed.” Unsurprisingly, this goes along with an immense indifference to consequences, to positive results or the lack thereof.

[from 1975] If the United States is to gain the respect of world opinion, it first has to demonstrate that it respects itself””its own institutions, its own way of life, the political and social philosophy that is the basis of its institutions and its way of life. Such a sense of self-respect and self-affirmation seems to be a missing element in our foreign policy.

[from 1980] The foreign policy of the United States ought to have as its central purpose a world order that has been shaped, to the largest degree possible, in accord with our national interests as a great power that is free, democratic and capitalist.

[from 1980] Our economic problems are not intractable…On the other hand, once the idea gets around that we are in a profound crisis and that only “drastic action” by Washington can save us””then it will be time to head for the storm cellars.

[from 1997] The world has yet to see a successful version of “trickle-up economics,” an egalitarian society in which the state ensures that the fruits of economic growth are universally and equally shared. The trouble with this idea””it is, of course, the socialist ideal””is that it does not produce those fruits in the first place. Economic growth is promoted by entrepreneurs and innovators, whose ambitions, when realized, create inequality. No one with any knowledge of human nature can expect such people not to want to be relatively rich, and if they are too long frustrated they will cease to be productive. Nor can the state substitute for them, because the state simply cannot engage in the “creative destruction” that is an essential aspect of innovation. The state cannot and should not be a risk-taking institution, since it is politically impossible for any state to cope with the inevitable bankruptcies associated with economic risk taking.

RIP, Irving Kristol, and condolences to his family.

I wonder if it’s okay…

The New Neo Posted on by

…to call Ahmadinejad a liar?

Emboldened by recent events (you can take your pick as to what they might be, there are so many to choose from), Iran’s President makes his most unequivocal statement of Holocaust denial so far:

Mr. Ahmadinejad said confrontation with Israel was a “national and religious duty” and that the Holocaust was “a lie” used as a pretext for the country’s creation in 1948. Although he has called the Holocaust a “myth” in the past, provoking angry reactions in the West, he does not appear to have used the word “lie” in connection with it before.

Note the first part of the statement, too: it’s a national and religious duty to “confront” (wonder what the actual untranslated word is?) Israel.

The White House response so far:

The president’s press secretary, Robert Gibbs, said that by denying that the Holocaust took place was “ignorant, hateful and would isolate Iran further from the world.”

“Obviously, we condemn what he said,” Mr. Gibbs told reporters.

Obviously. It would be even more obvious if Obama could manage to join Gibbs in saying so, too.

And that might actually happen. But it would hardly matter if it did, because Obama gave Ahmadinejad a huge gift yesterday, as Ahmadinejad is well aware.

Just call me Cassandra: Obama plans to bring illegal aliens out from under the bus

The New Neo Posted on by

Believe me, the only pleasure I take in relating this news is the mild frisson of being able to say, “I told you so.”

Here’s Obama, addressing the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute Wednesday evening:

Even though I do not believe we can extend coverage to those who are here illegally, I also don’t simply believe we can simply ignore the fact that our immigration system is broken…That’s why I strongly support making sure folks who are here legally have access to affordable, quality health insurance under this plan, just like everybody else.

Mr. Obama added, “If anything, this debate underscores the necessity of passing comprehensive immigration reform and resolving the issue of 12 million undocumented people living and working in this country once and for all.”

Got that? First, Obama would extend coverage to legal immigrants, who presently cannot receive public assistance until they become citizens (they are currently free to buy health insurance or medical care just like the rest of us, however, or to get emergency treatment at hospitals). Next, immigration reform to make the illegals legal.

Not only does Obama seem bound and determined to prove Joe Wilson wasn’t a liar when he said Obama lied, he also seems to want to prove me prescient. I’m referring to a note I wrote at the end of this post of September 10th, in which I was discussing the Joe Wilson accusation and health care reform for illegal immigrants. Back then I wrote:

What’s more, my guess is that one of the next items on Obama’s agenda will be some sort of amnesty bill to make these illegals legal and thus render the whole argument moot.

It wasn’t just a joke, either. I was serious.

Of course, in Obama’s quest to have it all ways and to claim plausible deniability for anything he says (which accounts at least in part for his Arafat-like tendency to mouth one thing when talking to the in crowd and another when talking to the general public), he may issue some sort of disclaimer. But if Americans are paying attention (and I believe a significant portion of them are at least beginning to), his deniability doesn’t seem quite as plausible as it used to.

Now it’s true that, in Obama’s speech to the Hispanic Caucus, he never really comes out and says he’ll give illegals citizenship and access to all the considerable goodies his welfare state can offer. He speaks generally of “passing comprehensive immigration reform and resolving the issue of 12 million undocumented people living and working in this country once and for all.” So maybe Obama means he’ll resolve the issue by cracking down and deporting those 12 million, but if you believe that I’ve got this bridge in Brooklyn you might want to…

I can’t find the complete text of Obama’s Caucus speech, but here’s a fuller description of it. Read it for yourself and you’ll get the drift. Democratic Senator Robert Menendez from New Jersey certainly thinks he does; even before Obama spoke, Menendez told the crowd, “I know [Obama’s] going to help us with comprehensive immigration reform.”

And we know what Menendez’s agenda for comprehensive immigration reform is, because he’s posted it quite clearly on his website. Here’s what Menendez “knows” Obama will be helping him with:

I have been working with my colleagues to create and pass legislation that would enhance border security, while also providing a legitimate way for the estimated 12 million undocumented workers to come out of the shadows and earn United States citizenship. These undocumented workers must pass a series of strict and critical benchmarks, such as paying fines, learning English, and waiting at the back of the citizenship line, behind those who have pursued legal means of attaining citizenship.

In addition, Menendez supports the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act (S.2611), which would allow an increase in the number of legal “guest” workers allowed to enter this country through something called a visa “blue card” program. Combine this with Obama’s declaration in his speech to the Caucus Wednesday that legal immigrants should be covered, and you could have a veritable health care bonanza, a huge incentive for people to enter this country under this program and tax (in more ways than one) the system (Cloward-Piven anyone?):

Here’s a description of the program from Menendez’s webpage [emphasis mine]:

The Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act was created to deal with the most pressing immigration problems. It reinforces and builds on already existing security measures along the southern border of the United States. Furthermore, it creates means for undocumented workers to seek legal citizenship, and provides for a greater number of guest workers through a new “blue card” visa program.

So, when Obama says “I do not believe we can extend coverage to those who are here illegally,” it depends what the defintion of “illegally” is. If Obama gets behind the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act, it’s highly possible that there would hardly be any illegals left in this country; they’d all be citizens or legal immigrants or legal workers. And so, just as I wrote in my September 10th post, “one of the next items on Obama’s agenda will be some sort of amnesty bill to make these illegals legal and thus render the whole argument moot.”

Yes indeed, Obama is a clever man. Let’s see whether the American public is even more clever.

We will know that she is gone: RIP Mary Travers

The New Neo Posted on by

Mary Travers, of the 60s’ Peter Paul and Mary, is dead at seventy-two.

There were three people in that group, but Mary was its beating heart. The two men seemed to be merely her backup singers (sorry Peter, sorry Paul), although they contributed the songwriting and important harmony. The blend of their voices was lovely, but hers was the one that needed to be there.

Beautiful in a 60s, Julie-Christie-esque way, with her shining fall of straight blond hair that gleamed in the spotlights, Mary was sexy as a starlet. But she sang with a remarkable lack of narcissism. It was all about the song and the sound and the intensity; self came in a very distant second, if at all. Her signature head toss wasn’t so much to show off her coif as to add punctuation to the lyrics and that throaty voice that had a special deeply ringing tone.

Although you can hardly go wrong watching any of the old Peter Paul and Mary clips on You Tube, here’s my personal favorite, with Mary as the featured singer. The lyrics seem especially poignant right now—“If you miss the train I’m on, you will know that I am gone…” [note: the video I chose disappeared from YouTube and is now unwatchable, so I’m substituting this one, which has much poorer visuals but is at least operating]:

Okay, I couldn’t resist another video. I chose this one not because it’s such a great song, but because it highlights the sexy side of Mary (and that famous hair toss) in a “groovier,” late-60s version. Love those sleeves:

Here’s the group in the flush of youth:

ppmary1.jpg

And here age and Mary’s illness had taken its toll:

ppmary2.jpg

RIP.

[NOTE: As for Mary’s far Left politics—which she came by almost inevitably, from her parents, entire upbringing, and milieu—they didn’t and don’t affect the music, at least for me. As a teenager and young adult, when I was a fan, I wasn’t even aware of them. Unlike someone like Jane Fonda, Mary’s activism was mainly confined to rallies, demonstrations, and benefits.

An interesting political footnote is that, when she had a bone marrow transplant to try to halt the progression of her leukemia (the transplant was successful initially but she died from complications of chemotherapy), this story was revealed of her meeting with her donor, a stranger named Mary DeWitt Hessen:

“This is a very special woman to whom I owe everything,” Travers said after meeting Hessen for the first time…

The women sat side by side backstage, clasping hands as Hessen’s husband, Mike, watched with daughters Laura, 14, and Diana, 13. Besides their shared first name, both have two daughters. When she discovered that, Travers said, “I thought, ‘This was meant to be.’ “…

Hessen, 46, sells insurance in Lake Orion, Mich. She joined the registry when a boy at her church was diagnosed with leukemia. She wasn’t a match for him. After she found out she was a match for someone else, she almost decided she didn’t want to meet the recipient. “You never know who you’re going to help,” Hessen says.

Travers, 69, a longtime Democratic activist, joked before knowing the identity of her donor that she hoped it wasn’t a Republican. “So I get on the phone with Mary and I say, ‘Oh, we had this joke.’ And there’s this pause, and she says, ‘But I am a Republican.’ It has added a certain kind of vigor to my bones, but it hasn’t changed my throat ”” or my politics.”

“A certain kind of vigor”—I like that.]

Obama’s second Polish joke: the Obama Doctrine

The New Neo Posted on by

Obama’s first Polish joke was snubbing the September 1st ceremonies in Gdansk marking the seventieth anniversary of the German invasion of Poland. Let’s review:

The lack of understanding of European history and sensitivities was not lost on the Polish chattering classes. They have been in a justifiable uproar over this mother of all snubs, feeling a mixture of humiliation and neglect. For an administration that pledged to prioritize public diplomacy, this treatment of an ally was appalling. Unsurprisingly, popular opinion of the United States took a serious nose dive in Poland.

Already, the Obama administration’s warm embrace of the relationship with Russia has been a cause for concern among Central and East European governments…Also, the Obama administration’s apparent attempts to use plans for “the third site” for U.S. missile defense (in Poland and the Czech Republic) as a bargaining chip to win Russian support for sanctions on Iran have gone down very poorly in Poland.

Those plans may have “gone down very poorly” in Poland, but who cares about a little Polish disappointment when Russia’s butt can be kissed? In his second Polish (and Czech Republic) joke, the scrapping of the missile shield negotiated by President Bush, Obama has offered the excuse of saying his decision was based on intelligence and strategy rather than the desire to court Russia and wink at Iran at Poland and Czech expense. And perhaps it was, but the Poles and Czechs don’t appear to think so, and I can’t really blame them.

Here’s the Obama rationale:

The Bush administration proposed the European-based system to counter the perceived threat of Iran’s developing a nuclear weapon that could be placed atop its increasingly sophisticated missiles…The Bush plan infuriated the Kremlin, which argued the system was a potential threat to its own intercontinental ballistic missiles…The Obama administration’s assessment concludes that U.S. allies in Europe, including NATO members, face a more immediate threat from Iran’s short- and medium-range missiles and is ordering a shift toward the development of regional missile defenses for the Continent, according to people familiar with the matter.

As the WSJ article goes says, “There is widespread disagreement over the progress of Iran’s nuclear program.” Ya think?

Obama is counting on Iran taking a long time to develop a nuclear capacity. Whether Obama actually believes this or not (or whether we even have the capability to correctly predict such a timetable), it suits him to underestimate Iran’s nuclear program in his continuing efforts to appease enemies (Iran) and hostile potential enemies (Russia) while simultaneously doublecrossing friends.

How did the Russians return Obama’s favor? The answer is: why should they return the favor? Maybe I don’t get the intricacies of the famous three-dimensional chess Obama is supposed to be playing these days, but it seems to me that he’s given a freebie to Iran and the Russians in exchange for nothing except the opportunity for them to view him as a weakling and a pushover. Here’s Russia’s response to Obama’s “chess” move (that statement about “dialogue” at the end seems a sly dig at Obama’s love of empty verbiage):

Russia on Thursday welcomed the news but said it saw no reason to offer concessions in return. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev called the plan a “responsible move.” He threatened last year to station tactical Iskander missiles on Poland’s border if the U.S. system was deployed.

“We appreciate this responsible move by the U.S. president toward realizing our agreement,” Mr. Medvedev said Thursday. “I am prepared to continue the dialogue.”

And what is this “dialogue” that Obama so greatly desires? Apparently he believes that, if he throws this fish to them, the Russians will cooperate in imposing sanctions against Iran. That remains to be seen. But if this is Obama’s goal, then why throw the previously planned defense system out now, before talks on the subject of what to do about Iran begin in early October?

As the WSJ article says, “[T]he decision is likely to be seen in Russia as a victory for the Kremlin.” I would add that it seems to be not only an error, but an unforced error at that. Poland is apprehensive and disturbed, and the Czech Republic can’t be all that happy either:

A Czech official said his government was concerned an announcement by the White House on the missile-defense program could influence coming elections and has urged a delay. But the Obama administration has decided to keep to its original timetable.

European analysts said the administration would be forced to work hard to convince both sides the decision wasn’t made to curry favor with Moscow and, instead, relied only on the program’s technical merits and analysis of Iran’s missile capabilities.

I half expect some Polish or Czech official to stand up and yell “You lie!” to Obama (or his representatives) if that tack is tried. But this is diplomacy and not Parliament (or even a joint session of the US Congress), so any response will probably be veiled in exquisite politeness.

But the Poles and the Czechs know the score: in the future they must count on being betrayed by the Obama administration, or at the very least shut out of “dialogue” on issues that affect them mightily.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates, one of the few Obama holdovers from the Bush administration, is not a diplomat; he’s a military man. But he seems to approve of the decision in strategic terms, “saying that the new configuration ‘provides a better missile defense capability’ for Europe and American forces.”

Perhaps so, perhaps not. It really depends on which of the predictions about Iran’s nuclear intentions and capabilities is correct. But aside from the military calculations, the diplomatic ones seems to be dreadful, especially for allies Poland and the Czech Republic. The NY Times lets us in on some of the details of how they were treated by the sensitive Obama adminstration:

As details began to leak, the White House arranged for a post-midnight call from Mr. Obama to the Czech prime minister and a call in the morning to Poland’s prime minister. It also dispatched top officials to Prague and Warsaw to explain the decision and calm any anxieties…But it made for unfortunate timing, as Thursday was the 70th anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Poland at the start of World War II, a date fraught with sensitivity for Poles who viewed the Bush missile defense system as a political security blanket against Russia. Poland and many other countries in the former Soviet sphere worry that Mr. Obama is less willing than Mr. Bush was to stand up to Russia.

While the Americans always described missile defense as a hedge against Iran, the Polish and Czech governments saw the presence of American military personnel based permanently in their countries as protection against Russia. Moscow strongly opposed the shield and claimed it was aimed against Russia and undermined its national security.

The Times article goes on to say that the Obama plan will puts defenses for Eastern Europe in place earlier than the Bush plan would have. That’s good; it’s just that those defenses are not against nuclear weapons. In addition, however, there is some talk of placing a nuclear defense system against Iran somewhere else, for example in Turkey or the Balkans.

So perhaps it all makes a certain amount of strategic sense; I suppose time will eventually tell on that. But even if it turns out to have been a good decision in the military sense, the way it was handled was not. It sends a larger signal to all the parties involved, one that is completely consistent with the one I previously stated here: offend our allies and friends, and cozy up to our enemies.

The Obama Doctrine.

[ADDENDUM: More here on the subject from Fausta. Also from Dr. Sanity.]