Gore Is the New Nixon

March 31, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under Democratic Party, Election 2008, Richard Nixon | Leave a Comment 

David Shribman:

Now that [Al Gore] realizes that the great gold ring is beyond his powers, he finds himself with the power to determine who might grasp that ring, or at least the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination. Because it may be true that the only person in the United States who can bring the 2008 primary campaign to a halt is Al Gore — and he knows it….No other American of modern times has made a comeback quite as dramatic as Gore’s, with the possible exception of Richard Nixon, who was denied the presidency in 1960 and awarded it in 1968 and again in 1972. No other American of modern times has proved the point so clearly as Gore that policy is more important than politics.

A Governor Of New York With Some Style

March 31, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under American Politics, Democratic Party | Leave a Comment 

Mario Cuomo calls for the (inevitable) unity ticket. The New Nixon is pleased to have the governor join a movement that began at Mimi’s in Yorba Linda, California on March 6.

The Big Four-Os

March 31, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under American Politics, Culture, Democratic Party, Vietnam | Leave a Comment 

We’re going to have an historic series of momentous 40th anniversaries during 2008-09, and Robert Schlesinger notes one today: LBJ’s speech announcing he wouldn’t be a candidate for re-election.

He Was Actually Playing Chess

March 31, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under American Politics, Richard Nixon | Leave a Comment 

Kudos to Bill Katz for his reflections on RN’s “Checker’s” speech, which was despised by more or less the same percentage of people who wished it hadn’t saved his 1952 VP candidacy.

Get Me The Copy Desk

March 31, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under News media, Richard Nixon | Leave a Comment 

On March 23 a New York Times op-ed contributor called RN “satanic.” Today’s edition contains an article by Eduardo Porter with this sentence:

Politicians, from Richard Nixon to Tom Tancredo, have long exploited racial tensions.

Guess which one was responsible for the Philadelphia Plan, affirmation action, the Office of Minority Business Enterprise, and the peaceful desegregation of schools in the deep south. Wouldn’t George Wallace have fit in that sentence better? Oh, never mind.

Obama: “Glib and Aloof”

March 31, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under American Politics, Democratic Party | Leave a Comment 

Thanks to “New York” magazine, as noted today by Andrew Sullivan, a behind-the-scenes glimpse of the chosen one:

In the days after John Edwards’s withdrawal from the Democratic race, the political world expected his endorsement of Barack Obama would be forthcoming tout de suite. The neo-populist and the hopemonger had spent months tag-teaming Hillary Clinton, pillorying her as a creature of the status quo, not a champion of the kind of “big change” they both deem essential. So appalled was Edwards at Clinton’s gaudy corporatism—her defense of the role of lobbyists, her suckling at the teats of the pharmaceutical and defense industries—that he’d essentially called her corrupt. And then, not least, there were the sentiments of his wife. “Elizabeth hasn’t always been crazy about Mrs. Clinton” is how an Edwards insider puts it; a less delicate member of HRC’s circle says, “Elizabeth hates her guts.” But now two months have passed since Edwards dropped out—tempus fugit!—and still no endorsement. Why? According to a Democratic strategist unaligned with any campaign but with knowledge of the situation gleaned from all three camps, the answer is simple: Obama blew it. Speaking to Edwards on the day he exited the race, Obama came across as glib and aloof. His response to Edwards’s imprecations that he make poverty a central part of his agenda was shallow, perfunctory, pat. Clinton, by contrast, engaged Edwards in a lengthy policy discussion. Her affect was solicitous and respectful. When Clinton met Edwards face-to-face in North Carolina ten days later, her approach continued to impress; she even made headway with Elizabeth. Whereas in his Edwards sit-down, Obama dug himself in deeper, getting into a fight with Elizabeth about health care, insisting that his plan is universal (a position she considers a crock), high-handedly criticizing Clinton’s plan (and by extension Edwards’s) for its insurance mandate.

Imagining RN

March 31, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under American Politics, International Affairs, Richard Nixon | Leave a Comment 

Nixonites know what the Old Man would be saying: Foreign policy, foreign policy, foreign policy. For example:

 ”The economy will take care of itself — the business cycle, hire smart advisors, keep an eye on the Fed, and the rest. Not my bag. The President’s principal responsibility is to look after America’s position and interests in the world. On the one hand, we have McCain — a hero, no question. One of the finest men I’ve ever known. Courage, principle, clean as a whistle and what have you. Hanging tough on the war. A little too hard on Don Rumsfeld, but I suppose he’s got no choice. Of course you will note that even Fred Kaplan over at “Slate,” who is certainly no friend of Bush, is smart enough to note that none of the candidates, once elected, can risk pulling out too quickly.

“But what was that out in LA about throwing Russia out of the G-8? I’ll bet Henry got a kick out of it, but a hard-nosed balance of power guy like Kissinger ultimately would have to recognize that it’s a bad idea. In our day our policy on the Soviets was getting them into the international club in spite of being communists. Give ‘em an incentive for behaving themselves, for God’s sake. We can’t very well boot them for being non-communists. Our friend Dimitri may have a point — the neocons may have gotten to John to a little bit of a degree, don’t you agree?

“As for Obama, are you kidding me? Did you read what his advisors say – including the smart one from Harvard, the Powers woman– about spending our way into national security, ending terrorism by bringing billions of poor people into the middle class with the wave of a magic wand? That’s all well and good, but leaving aside the question of where you get the money, what precisely are we supposed to do in the intervening 175 years?

“In my view, that leaves….Well, to be frank, there’s– Let me just say this: For a moment I wasn’t sure what had gotten into Bob Ellsworth down in Del Mar, endorsing Hillary. Now, let me be clear. While I have tremendous respect for Bob, I could never go quite that far.

“But if it’s going to be John and the young man in the fall — well, let me put it this way. I remember Jonathan Aitken writing from London, after reading one of my books, saying that I couldn’t very well call for ‘pragmatic idealism’ in foreign policy — said it was an oxymoron, as I recall. Typical Jonathan. And yet did you note that Al Gore used the same expression for a while back in ‘99? John called himself a ‘realistic idealist’ just last week, and I’ll bet Obama would love everybody to think he’s one, too. But you can’t very well be a realist kicking the crap out of the Russians or the Chinese, and a foreign policy aimed at bribing three billion people not to be terrorists isn’t idealism — it’s just plain nuts.”

Mrs. Big Rubber Clown Doll

March 31, 2008 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under Election 2008 | 1 Comment 

“Who’ll Stop the Pain?” John Heilemann asks in New York Magazine — who will convince Hillary Clinton to start behaving sensibly by closing down her campaign before she tears the party apart and ends up greasing the skids for a McCain administration? Warning: the following sentence contains a spoiler. No one. That’s who will convince Mrs. Clinton to give up on her every hope and dream and call it quits. That’s where Mr. Heliemann ends up, but just because you now know how his article concludes doesn’t mean you shouldn’t invest a couple of minutes reading it.

Mr. Heilemann is far more colorful and entertaining that most of the thumbsuckers on this subject. He opens his article with some non-directly Hillary-related details about Senator Obama:

In the days after John Edwards’s withdrawal from the Democratic race, the political world expected his endorsement of Barack Obama would be forthcoming tout de suite. The neo-populist and the hopemonger had spent months tag-teaming Hillary Clinton, pillorying her as a creature of the status quo, not a champion of the kind of “big change” they both deem essential. So appalled was Edwards at Clinton’s gaudy corporatism—her defense of the role of lobbyists, her suckling at the teats of the pharmaceutical and defense industries—that he’d essentially called her corrupt. And then, not least, there were the sentiments of his wife. “Elizabeth hasn’t always been crazy about Mrs. Clinton” is how an Edwards insider puts it; a less delicate member of HRC’s circle says, “Elizabeth hates her guts.”

But now two months have passed since Edwards dropped out—tempus fugit!—and still no endorsement. Why? According to a Democratic strategist unaligned with any campaign but with knowledge of the situation gleaned from all three camps, the answer is simple: Obama blew it. Speaking to Edwards on the day he exited the race, Obama came across as glib and aloof. His response to Edwards’s imprecations that he make poverty a central part of his agenda was shallow, perfunctory, pat. Clinton, by contrast, engaged Edwards in a lengthy policy discussion. Her affect was solicitous and respectful. When Clinton met Edwards face-to-face in North Carolina ten days later, her approach continued to impress; she even made headway with Elizabeth. Whereas in his Edwards sit-down, Obama dug himself in deeper, getting into a fight with Elizabeth about health care, insisting that his plan is universal (a position she considers a crock), high-handedly criticizing Clinton’s plan (and by extension Edwards’s) for its insurance mandate.

Anyone who really wants to understand why Senator Clinton will fold up her campaign only on or about the day pigs first fly need look no further than John Podhoretz’s perceptive post this morning on his Commentary magazine’s “contentions” blog. Mr. Podhoretz quotes a telling WJC moment (via John Harris’s Clinton bio The Survivor, via Michiko Kakutani in The New York Times…are you still with me?):

Do you know who I am?” Bill Clinton asked his adversary Newt Gingrich during the government shutdown of 1995-96. He answered the question himself: “I’m the big rubber clown doll you had as a kid, and every time you hit it, it bounces back.” The harder you hit me, he added, “the faster I come back up.”

And while you’re checking out “contentions”, take a look at Jennifer Rubin’s post about the oh-you’re-so-wonderful cocoon (or the Barbara Walters oh-you’re-so-sexy subset thereof) in which Senator Obama has been living. Ms. Rubin is right on that such uncritical adulation is the worst possible prep (worse even than no prep at all because at least that could produce a healthy anxiety) for the rigors of a full blown presidential campaign —- even one in which the media thinks you’re as wonderful as you are sexy and really really really wants you to win.

You Guys Gonna Take That?

March 31, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under China, Nixon Foundation | Leave a Comment 

Preparing for The Rematch, our June 2008 exhibition ping pong match here in Yorba Linda between veterans of 1971-72’s ping pong diplomacy, we’re finding Margaret Macmillan’s Nixon and Mao: The Week That Changed the World an invaluable resource. Even before Henry Kissinger’s dramatic secret visit to Beijing in the summer of 1971, a U.S. table tennis team was permitted to visit Beijing (thanks to a courageous State Department official who correctly read RN and HAK’s pro-China signals). Macmillan writes,

In China all the matches were broadcast live on television and radio. [Prime Minister] Chou ordered the Chinese players to let the Americans win some of them.

Obama’s Henry

March 31, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under American Politics, Democratic Party, International Affairs | Leave a Comment 

Sen. Obama may well think that in the general election his entire foreign policy platform can be that he gave a speech against Iraq. Whether or not he’s right about the politics of the war, Americans are entitled to know what his comprehensive views are on America’s role in a dangerous, complex international environment. With Samantha Powers edging back toward Obama’s inner sanctum, her views give pause. Overall his nascent neo-neocon view, as enunciated by Powers and others, makes McCain look like Metternich.

Reflections on Tibet

March 31, 2008 by Drew Thompson | Filed Under International Affairs | Leave a Comment 

A portion of a taped interview I conducted aired on the CBS Early Show Thursday morning explaining my view of the Chinese government’s priorities in dealing with the unrest in Tibet –

“Obviously, the main concern of the government is maintaining internal stability and control, even if that means, perhaps, what we might call ‘tarnishing’ the Olympics.”

In a recent piece on The National Interest Online, I reflect on an opportunity lost to address concerns of the Tibetan community when the demonstrations were still peaceful and concerns about how the Chinese government’s hard line approach restricts their own ability to re-open negotiations with the Dalai Lama and seek a lasting solution to the Tibet situation.

Stoned

March 31, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under Culture, Presidents, Richard Nixon | Leave a Comment 

Oliver Stone, whose “Nixon” didn’t contain a single purely honest thing about the 37th President, is planning a movie about 43, with Josh Brolin portraying the President.

Just a Hillary of Beans?

March 31, 2008 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under Election 2008 | Leave a Comment 

The inimitable Hitch, in the invaluable Slate, weighs in on what Tuzlagate really amounts to.

Stay-at-Home Neo-Realists

March 31, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under American Politics, Election 2008, International Affairs, Nixon Center | Leave a Comment 

The Nixon Center’s Dimitri Simes throws some Nixonian realism on the idea, explored in a New York Sun, article, that elite crossovers from the GOP to Sen. Obama presage a mass defection in November. His worry continues to be the possibility of neocon elements in Sen. McCain’s foreign policy agenda:

[Simes said] he does not foresee many Republicans or conservatives voting for Mr. Obama. “The real issue is not whether they will vote for Obama, it is whether many conservatives will vote for McCain or stay home,” he said. Mr. Simes added that Mr. McCain’s foreign policy, which he said commits America to democracy promotion and “confrontation with a number of foreign powers,” would likely end up forcing him to raise taxes, despite his pledge not to.

Featured Articles — March 31, 2008

March 31, 2008 by Jonathan C. Movroydis | Filed Under Featured Articles | Leave a Comment 

Interesting Takes from Home and Abroad:

The Longest War By Richard Holbrooke
This former Taliban stronghold, where Osama bin Laden spent time planning the Sept. 11 attacks, has become an American success story. The Taliban is being pushed out, and a government presence is extending into previously hostile territory.

Rhodes to Ruin by John Fund
Will Zimbabwe’s Mugabe steal another election?

Steps that can safeguard America’s economy By Lawrence Summers
Neither US financial institutions nor the economy are likely to suffer from a lack of central bank liquidity provision. New lending facilities are coming along almost weekly, the safety net has been expanded to include non-bank primary dealers, the Fed has demonstrated a willingness to take on directly the most problematic parts of Bear Stearns’ balance sheet, and the Fed funds rate has been reduced by 200 basis points within 7 weeks.

Biography Isn’t Enough By William Kristol
The McCain campaign’s first general election ad, released Friday, includes moving footage of him as a prisoner of war. What was Democratic Chairman Howard Dean’s reaction? “While we honor McCain’s military service, the fact is Americans want a real leader who offers real solutions, not a blatant opportunist who doesn’t understand the economy and is promising to keep our troops in Iraq for 100 years.”

Obama Meets Match in Mayor Running on `Hope’ by Albert R. Hunt
The parallels between Barack Obama and Michael Nutter are striking: bright, Ivy League educated, politically successful, relatively young African-Americans with a pragmatically progressive policy bent.

Criticism and Islam By Afshin Ellian
Christians have long tolerated scrutiny of their religion.

The Cry of Tibet By Wang Lixiong
It is unrealistic for China to demand renunciation of the Dalai Lama.

Superdelegates are Another Dysfunctional Liberal Fix By J.R. Dunn
The most striking thing about the Democrat’s superdelegate fiasco is how typical it is of liberalism.

Samantha Power: A Comeback after ‘Monstergate’? By Peggy Shapiro
Samantha Power just can’t help herself when she starts talking. An odd malady for one who seeks a high position among the nation’s diplomats.

The Baton Passes to Asia By Roger Cohen
Asia’s rise is about confidence, a fierce culture of education and achievement and a burning desire to succeed.

TWTW2/5

March 30, 2008 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under TWTW | Leave a Comment 

TWTW2/5

23-29 MARCH 2008

The week began with a UPI story (picked up by very few papers — go figure) about a study by two Harvard economists indicating that “publicly voiced doubts about the U.S. occupation of Iraq have a measurable ‘emboldenment effect’ on insurgents there.” In fact, they found that a 5 – 10% increase in insurgent battlefield attacks following spikes in home front anti-war rhetoric.

The study noted that increased attacks were more pronounced in areas —such as Anbar province— with more or better access to international news. They tracked what they termed “anti-resolve statements” by American politicians and news reports covering declining US domestic support for the war, and found that “in periods immediately after a spike in anti-resolve statements, the level of insurgent attacks increases.”

As a reporter for the Harvard Crimson noted:

The most important result of the study, according to the authors, is that the insurgent groups are rational actors responding to a perceived decrease in American resolve “rather than groups driven by ideological concerns with little sensitivity to costs.”

This news will fall into the “and what exactly is your point?” department for those who remember how the North Vietnamese war machine played the US domestic opposition like a cheap fiddle.

The study, completed last month by Radha Iyengar and Jonathan Monten, is published by the National Bureau of Economic Research. It is titled: “Is There An ‘Emboldenment’ Effect? Evidence from the Insurgency in Iraq”. The authors were concerned that their research might be appropriated by supporters of the Iraq war as a way of silencing the war’s opponents. In clearly conflicted academese, the increased attacks and casualties are described as “a small but measurable cost to open public debate in the form of higher attacks in the short term.”

Abe Greenwald wrote about the study’s findings it in his Commentary magazine “contentions” blog:

But maybe the media executives who’ve been so eager to run photos of flag-draped coffins and the journalists who start each day thinking of a fresh way to cover America’s demise could keep this in mind.

Particularly now. We are in the midst of a “five years on” media riot. The number 4000 is suddenly everywhere. Yes, a free press is a cornerstone of our democracy. But it shouldn’t be exploited for the sole purpose of lamenting out military efforts. The success of the troop surge was barely acknowledged for half a year, and yet the 4000th U.S. casualty in Iraq made it into the headlines at the speed of light. And here’s something worth considering: If random criticism of the war causes spikes of insurgent violence, imagine the effect of a U.S. president whose guiding principle is the wrongness of this war.

AT THE TIME, SOME SKEPTICS SUGGESTED THAT NEW JERSEY GOVERNOR JAMES MCGREEVEY’S DISCOVERY OF HIS TRUTH AS A GAY AMERICAN ALLOWED HIM TO GET OUT OF TRENTON ONE STEP AHEAD OF THE SHERIFF. Investigators and journalists were about to bring Mr. McGreevey’s non-stop jamboree of financial corruption to a grinding halt. When confronted with the choice of being hanged for a sheep or hanged for a lamb, lamb was decidedly the plat du jour on Mr. McGreevey’s menu.

Similar questions may occur regarding Governor Spitzer’s sudden spectacular flameout. Now retreated into the fortress of solitude of his immense personal wealth —and undoubtedly finding solace in the sexual addiction treatment that an insider claims he is undergoing— the suddenly former Empire State supremo will apparently no longer be liable for a lot of the punishment that might have otherwise have befallen him.

The New York Times reported that the pesky Troopergate scandal has risen phoenix like —or for Mr. Spitzer, albatross like— from the grave too hastily dug for it by Mr Spitzer’s erstwhile ally, New York Attorney General David Soares. The Governor had claimed under oath that he had no knowledge of the attempts to slime and slander the State Senate’s Republican leader Joe Bruno. Now some of his former aides (and particularly his long time communications director Darren Dopp) are more than ready to deal, and are supplying some colorful details in the process:

Friday’s report said that at first, in May 2007, Spitzer just wanted to ”monitor the situation” after Dopp said a reporter asked for Bruno’s flight records. But in June, when Bruno was blocking Spitzer’s initiatives in the Legislature, top Spitzer aides discussed providing the flight records to ”the feds” after they read in the newspaper that Bruno was being investigated by the FBI for business dealings.

Dopp said that on June 25 or June 26, governor’s Secretary Rich Baum told him, ”Eliot wants you to release the records.”

Dopp said he went into Spitzer’s office to make sure. ”According to Dopp, the governor replied, `Yeah, do it,”’ the Soares report said.

”Dopp asked Spitzer: `Are you sure?”’ noting Bruno would be angry.

Dopp said Spitzer then used vulgarities to describe Bruno and ordered Dopp to ‘’shove it up his (expletive) with a red-hot poker.”

”He was drinking a cup of coffee,” Dopp told investigators, ”as he was saying it, he was like spitting a little bit. He was spitting mad.”

The New York Post, which broke the Spitzer story, is understandably proprietarial and is following up on why many people involved in Troopergate still have their jobs, and on the unconventional investigatory techniques of DA Soares. The paper even supplied a colorful chart of some of the material that is about to hit the fan. But with Mr. Spitzer now ensconced on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan rather than on Eagle Street in Albany, the fan has been pretty effectively unplugged.

THE OTHER BIG STORY THIS WEEK WAS THE IMPLOSION (OK, THE LATEST IMPLOSION) OF HILLARY CLINTON’S PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN. The Bosnia booboos should have been manageable; containable; sustainable. But partly because they were handled so badly, and partly because even the media finally has a breaking point where egregiously insulting treatment from Democrats is concerned, they have ended up unleashing a tsunami of anti-Clinton feeling that runs both wide and deep.

Jonathan Alter vented; Frank Rich piled on. And Mark Steyn skewered:

Where did the magic go? Well, the show got miscast. I wrote a decade ago that Hillary was like Margaret Dumont to Bill’s Groucho Marx. He goes around leering at cocktail waitresses, waggling his eyebrows and his famously unlit cigar. And Hillary would stand there seemingly oblivious to the subpoenaed dress and DNA analysis and all the rest: In double-acts, the best straight men (or women) are the ones who appear never to get the joke, and that was Hillary in the late Nineties, standing on stage alongside Bill night after night with her rictus grin and droning in the robotic cadences of that computerized voice in your car that tells you to fasten your seatbelt that “I. Am. So. Proud. Of. My. Husband. And. Our. President. Bill. Clinton.”

But you can’t recast: You can’t put Margaret Dumont in the Groucho role. In their heyday, the Clintons ran a thuggish operation fronted by an ingratiating charmer. Now the charming facade’s gone, and the backroom thuggery is ineffective. The Clinton campaign’s letter to Nancy Pelosi suggesting that she might like to “reflect” (if you know what we mean) on her call for the super-delegates to support the winner of the popular vote (i.e., Obama) was notable not for its menace but for its clumsiness: Few sights are more forlorn than an enforcer who can no longer enforce. The Clinton letter reminded me of Elena Ceausescu still trying to pull the don’t-you-know-who-I-am routine even as the firing squad were taking aim.

But on she staggers. Even if she can’t win, she can deny victory to Obama, and to her party. As they say in showbusiness, it’s not important for me to succeed, only for my friends to fail.

Perhaps the most important analysis came from The Wall Street Journal’s excellent columnist Kimberley A. Strassel. Her “Potomac Watch” column on Thursday —“The Whitewater Proxy”— explains all you need to know about Mrs. Clinton’s current troubles and future prospects. It’s the week’s must-read.

AND SPEAKING OF MUST-READS, IT IS WITH MIXED EMOTIONS (BUT CONSIDERABLE RELIEF) THAT I ANNOUNCE THAT TWTW2/5 WILL BE TWTW2/LAST. Thanks to my colleague Jonathan Movroydis’s eagle eye, and to the lively and wide-ranging posts of my fellow TNN bloggers, most of the columns to which I link in these weekly potpourris have already appeared in the daily “Featured Articles” or been dealt with in far greater depth than I am capable of supplying. Besides, many of my readers read the same things I do each day —NYT, WAPO, WSJ, LAT, Drudge, Politico, Wonkette— so with the exception of some occasionally titillating charts from the New York Post or some deliciously unsourceable rumors from one of the louche gossip blogs I frequent, I’m plowing already well tilled fields. Plus it’s not as easy as (a) it looks or (b) as I thought it would be when I blithely announced that it would be a weekly feature.

So, TWTW2 —- we hardly knew ye —- and it looks like we aren’t going to get to know ye any better. Ave atque vale.

The Tears of August

March 30, 2008 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under News media | Leave a Comment 

C-SPAN has just broadcast the first half of a two hour interview with former CBS newsman Roger Mudd. The occasion is the publication of his memoir The Place To Be: Washington, CBS, and the Glory Days of Television News.

C-SPAN grand poobah Brian Lamb does his usual artfully artless job as interviewer. Despite Mr. Mudd’s avuncular manner even then, he was, apparently, something of a cranky colleague and far from being anybody’s idea of a team player. Most of the first hour was devoted to explaining his tiffs and rifts with Dan Rather (who aced him out for the anchor gig) and Walter Cronkite (who was not amused by anything or anyone undermining his already legendary status). Names like Paley and Salant and Small fly by, recalling the days when CBS was truly considered to be the gold standard (before it was demoted to being merely the Tiffany Network).

Near the hour’s end, Mr. Lamb outlined some of the subjects to be covered next week (including the famous “why do you want to be President” question that sunk Ted Kennedy’s 1980 candidacy before he even rose from the rocking chair on his Hyannisport porch). And there was, he said, one piece of news in Mr. Mudd’s book that he wanted to ask about even though they had not reached it chronologically.

So Mr. Mudd and Mr. Lamb proceeded to tell the story of Lillian Brown. Ms. Brown, who worked for CBS for thirty years, was the makeup person of choice for six presidents —from JFK through WJC. Late on 8 August 1974, she received a call from the White House saying that she was needed to make up President Nixon for a TV broadcast that night.

When she arrived at the White House, according to Mr. Mudd’s reporting of Ms. Brown’s story, a Secret Service agent told her that RN was currently meeting with members of congress, and after that he would join her in the small room off the Oval Office where makeup and hair were done before TV appearances. The USSS agent warned her that the President was not “in good shape” so that she would be prepared for what she found.

A few minutes later, RN entered. As he sat in her chair he collapsed weeping —”blubbering” in Mr. Mudd’s word— uncontrollably. Ms. Brown, aware that the live TV speech was scheduled to begin in just a few minutes, started to panic. Then she remembered an event at a 1973 White House Christmas gathering when King Timahoe, RN’s irish setter, had crashed the party and needed to be removed to a nearby bathroom. Ms. Brown said, “I’ll do it,” but RN had the same idea. The upshot was that they both found themselves in the bathroom, each holding a side of King’s collar. Presumably they also both heard the door click —and lock— behind them. And they had to wait to be rescued from the sulking canine by the amused partygoers.

Ms. Brown related this story to the disconsolate RN —- and before long they were both laughing at the absurdity of their situation. She was able to finish her job and he was able to go on the air on the dot at 9 pm. Mr. Lamb asked why Ms. Brown had waited so many years before revealing this story; Mr. Mudd referred to her strong sense of discretion.

I know —- some anecdotes raise as many questions as they answer. For starters, exactly why, where, and how do bathroom doors lock from the outside? But I’m buying this story — or at least its essentials.

In RN, RN himself referred to the extremely emotional nature of that humid, crowded Cabinet Room meeting with about fifty of his congressional supporters. Observing that he couldn’t stand to see other people cry, he said that it was the sight of his old friend Les Arends weeping that made him push back his chair and leave the room in tears. And Al Haig expressed doubts about whether the President would be able sufficiently to recover and compose himself to be able to deliver his resignation speech.

Mr. Lamb then went on to show the oh so familiar tape of the few minutes before the speech began — the “pickin’ my nose” moment — when RN attempted to break the almost unbearable tension by bantering with the hapless TV crew, and has suffered for it ever since.

The degree to which RN let his hair down in front of Ms. Brown is probably debatable. He had already been crying in the Cabinet Room. In such emotional and historical circumstances, I’m sure that even a few tears might have seemed a veritable Niagara. And if in fact he blubbered, surely that was nothing less than the circumstances called for, and I’m glad he found someone as familiar and comforting as Ms. Brown in front of whom he felt free to do it. And I’m grateful to her for having had the presence of mind to remember King Timahoe; and the decency not to have leaked the story before the speech was even concluded.

Dith Pran RIP

March 30, 2008 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under International Affairs | Leave a Comment 

Dith Pran, the translator who survived the killing fields of Cambodia, died earlier today of pancreatic cancer; he was 65. He worked as a photojournalist for The New York Times. He was made internationally famous when the actor who portrayed him (Dr. Haing S. Ngor) in the 1984 film The Killing Fields won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor.

Born in the shadow of Angkor Wat at Siem Reap in 1942, Dith Pran learned French in school and taught himself English. He worked as a translator for the US Military Assistance Command and then took other multi-lingual jobs before signing on to work with New York Times Vietnam correspondent Sydney Schanberg. It was his colleague and friend Mr. Schanberg who taught him how to take photographs.

In 1975, the U.S. Congress in a mindless mixture of misplaced ideology and partisan pique, cut off funding for the South Vietnamese government. Before long Indochina was in complete turmoil, with Vietnam forcibly united under Ho Chi Minh and Cambodia taken over by the Khmer Rouge under Pol Pot. Mr. Dith managed to survive for over four years by feigning ignorance of any western knowledge much less contacts.

Three years later the Vietnamese invaded, and Mr. Dith was able to flee to Thailand. He was finally reunited with his family (which had been able to reach the United States before the fall of Phnom Penh in 1975) and became an American citizen in 1984.

Mr. Dith himself participated in a dignified and moving video eulogy —”The Last Word”— which can be accessed (”Video Feature”) on his paper’s obituary page.

Poetry In Motion

March 30, 2008 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under Culture | Leave a Comment 

A couple of weeks ago our colleague Robert Nedelkoff wrote movingly about Harry Patch, at 109 years of age Britain’s last surviving World War One soldier.

It turns out that Andrew Motion, the British Poet Laureate, was commissioned by the BBC to commemorate the event in his own particular way. Mr. Motion was pragmatic (and not overly modest) about the gig: “If I were a carpenter, I tell myself, and someone ordered me to make a table, I should be able to knock one up; why should the trade of writing be different? Shakespeare would probably have agreed.”

Some may find Mr. Motion’s account of his meeting with his subject more poignant and convincing (not to say comprehensible) than the long poem it inspired — “The Five Acts of Harry Patch”. Connoisseurs of certain kinds of absurdity (British variety) will be rewarded for their persistence if they watch the video of Laureate Motion premiering his poem in the presence of Trooper Patch.

Turns out that we have a Poet Laureate of our own — Charles Simic — who hangs his hat (or beret) at the Library of Congress. Here’s a poem he wrote about a library. Since 1937 the Librarian of Congress had appointed a “poetry consultant” but it took an act of Congress in 1985 to add the title of Poet Laureate. The position, apparently, is privately funded.

Back in the benighted days before we actually had an officially designated Poet Laureate of our very own, essayist Lance Morrow had an interesting idea:

Why not have a candidate for poet laureate run on every presidential ticket? The poet would be granted a guarantee of immunity, like Lear’s Fool, to criticize Government policy as he wishes. The plan might open up an interesting game: select the poet who goes with the President. Thus James Dickey probably would belong more with Lyndon Johnson than with Carter; Rod McKuen might be Carter’s bard (although the President’s favorite poet, officially, is Dylan Thomas). Ronald Reagan’s lyricist might have been the late Oscar Hammerstein II; he would have to pick another. Eisenhower’s? Edgar Guest. J.F.K.’s? Another lyricist, perhaps: Alan Jay Lerner. Harry Truman’s? Edgar Lee Masters. Richard Nixon’s? Imamu Baraka (formerly Leroi Jones). Eugene McCarthy’s? Eugene McCarthy.

RN, of course, gets short —ironic— shrift here. But Mr. Morrow’s game is engaging. Who would have been RN’s preferred poet? John Greenleaf Whittier is probably too obvious. Ditto James Whitcomb Riley, the bard of the Wabash, who had some Quaker connections on his mother’s side. Maybe Eugene Field — whose simple rhymes would have been read to him as a child. Call me crazy, but I’m going to go with —the envelope please— Stephen Vincent Benet.

Sadr Relenting

March 30, 2008 by Jonathan C. Movroydis | Filed Under Iraq War, War on Terror | Leave a Comment 

Shiite cleric and terrorist MUqtada Al-Sadr is apparently relenting under the pressure of U.S. forces. Al-Sadr has been a pest and has had considerable leverage in Iraqi politics ever since the initial 2003 invasion, leading a series of uprisals responsible for massive casualities and regional destabilization. Now that Sadr is striking a more concilliatory tone, its very tempting to consider a diplomatic solution. But in the case that he resurfaces with greater political capital, I think Powerline’s John Hinderaker has it right when he says to take advantage of the landscape and dismantle him now:

Muqtada al-Sadr apparently has had enough; he’s offered a “truce” if the Iraqi government will stop attacking his men. I’m not close enough to the situation to know whether it would be better to accept the truce or continue disabling Sadr’s militia, but the proposal seems like a clear indication that things haven’t gone as Sadr intended.

This episode might prove to be, as President Bush suggested, a defining moment in Iraq’s post-war history. The main knock on Maliki’s government has been that it is a Shia instrument that has sometimes been infiltrated by radical Shia elements. Sunnis have often been suspicious of the government on this ground. The fact that Iraqi soldiers took the lead in rooting out Sadr’s militia may demonstrate to Iraqis that Maliki’s government represents all Iraqis, not just the Shia.

Anti-heroes and Anti-valets Upping the Ante

March 30, 2008 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under International Affairs, Richard Nixon | Leave a Comment 

Robert Harris’s novel The Ghost had considerable success in Britain where it was seen as a very thinly veiled roman a clef. The just-recently-ex PM in the book, Adam Lang, overlaps in almost every way (up to and including the same number of syllables in their names) with the just-recently-ex British PM Tony Blair.

Mr. Harris, in his former incarnation as a political journalist, had covered Blair for London’s Sunday Times. They had, in fact, achieved a closeness that Harris even considered “almost compromising”. And if the closeness was extremely close, the subsequent falling out was every bit as bitter.

Fortunately Mr. Harris is too good a story teller and too good a writer to let his bile get the better of him. No man is a hero to his valet, and the relationship between author and ghost has enough richness without letting off-the-page emotions intrude. And given that the genre is straightforward no frills thriller, the portrait of Prime Minister Lang that emerges is surprisingly complex and even convincing.

The set-up is neat, clean, and at least remotely plausible. Writing his mega-bucks memoirs on a very short deadline, PM Lang’s ghost writer —an old political ally— has the misfortune to be washed overboard on the ferry between Martha’s Vineyard and Cape Cod. The frantic search for a replacement ghost produces the novel’s titular character (who, cleverly, remains unnamed), whose prior experience has been limited to enormously successful shamelessly inspiring potted autobiographies of over the hill footballers and once-debauched rockers.

The relationship between the host and the ghost starts out stilted. But when the latter suggests a literary approach that could enhance the former’s fraying reputation, things considerably warm up: “he was looking at me quite differently now: it was as if some electric lightbulb marked ’self-interest’ had started to glow behind his eyes.” The writing throughout is often amusing and consistently smart.

Mr. Harris gets exactly right the experience shared by people who have known power in their past. The layman imagines that perhaps the greatest blessing retirement can confer on politicians is the opportunity to leave behind the exhausting, ruthless, and relentless pace of life on the public stage in the public eye. Quite the contrary — it is precisely that pressure and intensity that many if not most of them miss the most, and without which many just wither away.

President Nixon caught this vividly in his brief description of a conversation he had with President Tito of Yugoslavia. They were discussing how Churchill had managed to keep going for so long, and Tito (who was almost eighty at the time) exclaimed: “The secret is power! It’s power that keeps him young!”

The issues raised by and in The Ghost are, as the publicists would put it, torn from today’s headlines — including Iraq, rendition, Guantanamo, waterboarding, and mega-corporations beginning with H (although at least the one in the novel only has three syllables). It’s the perfect traveling companion for your next plane ride or for any rainy spring Sunday afternoon.

The Ghost, by Robert Harris, is published by Simon & Schuster. You can get more information and even read an excerpt here.

Hard Corps Comedy

March 30, 2008 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under American Politics | Leave a Comment 

The Daily Show’s Rob Riggle, himself a former Marine, recently filed a very amusing —and very trenchant— piece about the Corps’ decision to open a recruiting station in Berkeley.

Featured Articles — March 30, 2008

March 30, 2008 by Jonathan C. Movroydis | Filed Under Featured Articles | Leave a Comment 

Interesting Takes from Home and Abroad:

How to Win in a Knife Fight By Karl Rove
The Democratic race could well come down to the first contested convention in years. Lessons on how to prevail.

America and Baseball By George Will
Washington’s first major league baseball team, the Senators, was owned by Clark Griffith, who, in the democratic, give-the-people-what-they-want spirit of the city, said: “Fans like home runs — and we have assembled a pitching staff to please our fans.”

Jindal’s Progress By Douglas McCollam
In Louisiana politics, an old saying goes, “reform” means moving the fat hogs away from the trough so the skinny hogs can eat. In the state’s almost 200-year history many governors have vowed to change this attitude to public service, only to see their efforts – and often their careers – drown in the miasmal pit that is Louisiana politics.

Is Bush our Woodrow Wilson? By Joseph S. Nye
The two presidents have their similarities, but history will probably judge them very differently.

The Sunni-Shiite Terror Network By Amir Taheri
The American presidential election campaign took a bizarre theological turn recently when Barack Obama accused John McCain of not being able to distinguish Sunnis from Shiites.

Projection: Clinton Wins Popular Vote, Obama Wins Delegate Count By Michael Barone
The Clinton campaign has taken to boasting that its candidate has won states with more electoral votes than has Barack Obama. True. By my count, Clinton has won 14 states with 219 electoral votes (16 states with 263 electoral votes if you include Florida and Michigan) while Obama has won 27 states (I’m counting the District of Columbia as a state, but not the territories) with 202 electoral votes.

‘With a Few More Brains …’ By Nicholas D. Kristof
Our competitiveness as a nation in coming decades will be determined not only by our financial accounts but also by our intellectual accounts.

Surrender Already, Dorothy By Maureen Dowd
Democrats are trying to sneak up on Hillary Clinton, carry her off the field and stick her in a Saddam spider hole until after the Denver convention.

McCain’s Gauntlet Speech By Lee Cary
John McCain has thrown down the gauntlet to both election opponents and those overseas.

Madness and Method

March 29, 2008 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under Election 2008 | Leave a Comment 

As March Madness approaches its apotheosis, one might well welcome it as a relief from the all politics all the time preoccupation everywhere else.

And yet…..and yet…..it’s today’s entry in “The Quad” —New York Times sports editor Tom Jolly’s college sports blog— that may just have convinced me that Senator Obama is, in fact, unbeatable for his party’s presidential nomination. Mr. Jolly describes a visit (in advance of the Pennsylvania primary) by Senator Obama and his Pennsylvania colleage (and endorser) Bob Casy to Shaky’s Cafe, a sports bar in Labrobe.

Here’s the paragraph that has probably put me over the edge:

While they were there…..Obama and Casey ordered a couple of Yuenglings and took a few sips, but mostly talked politics with the crowd. (An aside: Latrobe was the longtime home of Rolling Rock — “from the mountain springs to you” — but it’s now owned by Anheuser-Busch and brewed in New Jersey, so Obama’s advance people were on the ball to go with Yuengling, which is based in Pottsville, Pa.)

If the Obama advance operation has achieved this degree of sophistication, there’s no way he can be bested by the lumbering —and at least to date bungling— Clinton campaigners.

There’s may also be an interesting strategic insight to be found in Tom Jolly’s reporting:

At least two customers did manage to stay focused on the fact that it was a Friday night and the N.C.A.A. tournament was playing on the big screens around Sharky’s.

One put Obama on a cellphone with his son to banter about Stanford and Texas. Another wanted to know whether Obama was pulling for Wisconsin or Davidson in the game of the moment.

Playing the strategist, Obama said he was rooting for Davidson because a Davidson victory would weaken the brackets of others in his pool and his bracket had already taken a big hit when Pittsburgh lost in the second round. He had the Panthers going to the Final Four, along with U.C.L.A., Kansas and North Carolina.

Only a fool forgets to remember that life imitates sport at least as often as it imitates art.

You Can Run But You Can’t Hide

March 29, 2008 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under Election 2008 | Leave a Comment 

New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson may want to consider moving to a small town and beginning life under a new name. After reading James Carville’s op-ed in today’s Washington Post —”Disloyalty That Merits An Insult”— it is clear that the facial hair the Governor recently sprouted won’t be enough to disguise him when the day of reckoning inevitably arrives and he finds himself alone in some dark alley with either or both of the Clintons —- whose knives are as sharp as their memories are long.

Mind you, I think Mr. Carville has a point; he has long stressed the importance of loyalty in politics (indeed, he has written a good book on the subject called Stickin: The Case for Loyalty). The phenomenal Richardson resume is, in no small part, due to the Clinton connection; and he had, apparently, been promising that he wouldn’t endorse any of Hillary Clinton’s opponents (or at least he had been making such promises before he added insult to injury when he stopped taking former President Clinton’s phone calls). In such conditions what would be the honorable —and I know we’re talking politics so how exactly is honor involved— thing to do? According to Mr. Carville:

I believe that loyalty is a cardinal virtue. Nowhere in the world is loyalty so little revered and tittle-tattle so greatly venerated as in Washington. I was a little-known political consultant until Bill Clinton made me. When he came upon hard times, I felt it my duty — whatever my personal misgivings — to stick by him. At the very least, I would have stayed silent. And maybe that’s my problem with what Bill Richardson did. Silence on his part would have spoken loudly enough.

Ah — silence. But that is truly a hard saying, because silence will be an even more unfamiliar concept than loyalty to many politicians.

Along the way, Mr. Carville commits some real clinkers. His claim that he made the Richardson/Judas comparison precisely because he wanted to unleash a nationwide furore over its tastelessness is only intended for those who want to add the Brooklyn Bridge to their real estate portfolios. He does, however, score one point by describing the truly terrible Keith Olbermann as “about two degrees shy of the temperature necessary for self-combustion.”

Incidentally, Mr. Carville makes a mistake (from which, curiously, he wasn’t saved by his WAPO editor) by using the phrase “by in large” instead of “by and large”. At least it looked to me like a mistake…..so I turned to Google for a Bill Safire moment. And, indeed, it is “by and large” and the derivation is nautical. For 17th century seamen, “by” meant toward and “large” referred to the wind abaft the beam (whatever that means). By the beginning of the 18th century, the term had been broadened to mean “in one direction and another” which is another way of saying “in general”.

Worse Than Al Qaeda?

March 29, 2008 by Jonathan C. Movroydis | Filed Under Iraq War, War on Terror | Leave a Comment 

So says Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki of Moqtada Al-Sadr’s Mehdi Army in Basra:

“We used to talk about al Qaeda. Unfortunately it seems there are some among us who are worse than al Qaeda,” Maliki said in a televised meeting with tribal leaders in Basra, where he has personally overseen the crackdown since Tuesday.

No wonder the Heritage Foundation rightfully says that the pause in troop withdrawal is very sensible.

The fighting in Basra has clearly revealed the continuing dependence of Iraqi security forces on American forces, which were drawn more deeply into the fighting after the Iraqi government offensive bogged down. The Basra violence also exposed the vicious jockeying of rival Shiite political parties who reflexively mix politics with the brazen use of force as a bargaining tool. Iraq’s government, dominated by Prime Minister Maliki’s own Dawa Party and the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, now has come down hard on the Mahdi Army militia of the radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and an assortment of criminal gangs that have flourished in the chaotic environment created by the premature withdrawal of British troops from Basra. 

Featured Articles — March 29, 2008

March 29, 2008 by Jonathan C. Movroydis | Filed Under Featured Articles | Leave a Comment 

Interesting Takes from Home and Abroad:

Cuckoo for Switzerland By John Fund
A small country with a skilled workforce, booming exports, and enormous prosperity has become the envy of Europe.

What’s good for Taiwan By John Bolton
It needs to be independent, it needs a healthy economy, and it needs ties with the mainland. 

Portman for VP By Robert Novak
While Sen. John McCain will not decide on a vice president for many months, Rob