Irving Kristol, 1920-2009

September 18, 2009 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under American Politics, In Memoriam | Leave a Comment 

Today, Irving Kristol died at the age of 89 in Arlington, Virginia. The New York Times obituary calls him the “Godfather of Conservatism;” the Washington Post’s obit is headlined “Architect of Neoconservatism.” Either way, there is no disputing that Kristol was the most potent force behind the most profound shift of the last half-century in American politics: the exodus of a large number of once-liberal (and in some cases once-radical) intellectuals (many, though not all, from New York and Jewish) to the conservative cause, especially in foreign policy. Adam Bernstein’s Post obituary ably describes Kristol’s career and his influence on American intellectual history.

Admitting A Mistake, Not Making A Concession

September 18, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Nixon Center, Russia, The National Interest | Leave a Comment 

Nixon Center Executive Director Paul Saunders argues that the administration isn’t likely to receive anything in return from Russia for canceling defensive weapons systems in Eastern Europe.

Why? Russian President Dimitry Medvedev is willing to accept that it was just a mistake, after resisting the assertion that the systems were meant to deter Iran:

What the United States wants, of course, is Moscow’s support in dealing with Iran. And Mr. Obama specifically mentioned “our shared efforts to end Iran’s illicit nuclear program” in his public remarks. Whether Washington will ultimately get Russia’s help, however, is far from certain: Moscow has a pragmatic but not warm relationship with Tehran, it fears the destabilizing effects of an Iranian nuclear weapon but does not see itself as a likely target, and it benefits from Iran’s continuing isolation, especially from international energy markets.

More to the point, just as neither the Obama nor the Bush administrations accepted that U.S. missile-defense plans were aimed at Russia, Russia never accepted that missile defense was linked to Iran. From this perspective, the administration’s unwillingness to admit that it is giving something away makes it easier for Moscow to pretend that it is not getting anything. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said as much last week, when he argued that if the United States were to drop the plans, it would be correcting a mistake and not making a concession. Taking that position after the Obama announcement would be a mistake for Russia, but it would be far from the first.

Missiles, Crocodiles, And Doves

September 18, 2009 by David R. Stokes | Filed Under Book Review, Europe, History, International Affairs, Iran, Russia | 2 Comments 

Cue the doves in places like Prague, Warsaw, Moscow, Tehran, and Caracas. Peace is at hand. Peace in our time. Central Europe, the region that has provided the kindling for so many of the conflicts that have burst forth into full flame for nearly 100 years, is once again safe from its protectors. Pardon me while I pause to fan myself as I tear up. We have been once more delivered – we, as in all humanity, that is – delivered from the mean old policies of Dubya, and company. The good guys know better. Trust them.

Pardon the preacher in me (it is, in fact, my day job), but I can’t help but think of a scripture, one that has an ominous ring to it, in light of the recent decision by the Obama administration to back away from the previously proposed and planned nuclear missile shield in and around the Czech Republic and Poland.

For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them… – I Thessalonians 5:3 (KJV)

One might call what we are seeing these days Yogi Berra-like foreign policy, as in “It’s déjà vu all over again.” We are underestimating Iran and appeasing Russia – all in the same fell swoop. Remarkable!

Okay, one more time. The year is 1938, and there are some very bad people who are being underestimated by some very, supposedly bright, but actually just incredibly naïve people. Though it happened more than 70 years ago it is still relevant. Its relevance is reinforced each and every time those who play with matches and kindling ignore the obvious-to-anyone-with-a-brain lessons. The story will cease to be relevant when the world finally figures it out. My advice is: Don’t hold your breath.

In fact, the long ago, yet up-to-date, fiasco is known now simply by the city-name-as-a-metaphor, Munich – apologies to that wonderful Bavarian city, a place unfortunate enough to have been an international and diplomatic crime scene. David Faber, the grandson of former British Prime Minister Harold MacMillan, and a former Conservative Member of Parliament (1992-2001), has written a fresh, factual, engaging, definitive, and, well, haunting account of what happened back then.

The book is called, Munich, 1938: Appeasement and World War II.

Appeasement was never really a bad word until it became forever identified with the foreign policy failures in Great Britain under the premiership of Neville Chamberlain. The word itself simply means to pacify or soothe. Most of us understand that there is a measure of this required for peaceful and civilized living and discourse.

But when appeasement met Adolf Hitler, it was manipulated, twisted, scorned, and ultimately dismissed. To put it in the words of Sean Connery playing a character in the 1987 movie The Untouchables, Mr. Chamberlain had brought a knife to a gunfight in Munich. A knife crafted out of a very thin sheet of paper. But our leaders are doing even better – they are throwing the knives away.

The appeasement of the 1930s, gave way to the resolve of the 1940s, but it was a lesson learned the hard way. Is history repeating itself?

I think a better case can be made that history may be reversing itself. Back then, our nation moved from isolation and denial toward eventual engagement. It was a progression that was somewhat understandable – after all, who wants war? Now however, it seems that some are determined to move us from resolution and vigilance – the qualities that have, indeed, kept us safe for the past eight years – toward appeasement.

Think of it this way: It’s one thing to cut Neville Chamberlain some slack for what he did back then with his deliberate policy of appeasement. Many people then had been seduced into a sense of sleepy underestimation of Hitler and his henchmen. After all, even former Prime Minister David Lloyd George had visited the dictator at Berchtesgaden a couple of years earlier and was clearly smitten. He returned home, calling his Nazi host “the greatest living German” and “the George Washington of Germany.” He even had a device installed at his home in Surrey – one that would lower a large picture window into the ground, creating “the feel of a covered terrace.” It was something that had captivated him at the Eagle’s Nest.

Then there was the other Nevile, now largely forgotten in the appeasement story, Nevile Henderson (he spelled his name with only one “L,” unlike the PM, the only apparent difference between the two men). He was the British Ambassador to Germany at the time and was fond of saying things about the Nazis like:

Far too many people have an entirely erroneous conception of what the National Socialist regime really stands for. Otherwise they would lay less stress on Nazi dictatorship and much more emphasis on the great social experiment which was being tried out in Germany.

These days, you could sub out the words “National Socialist” and “Nazi” and “Germany” and insert the names of guys like Putin, Castro, Chavez, et al – and it might sound eerily familiar to some current diplomatic-speak coming out of Washington, or the U.N. But I digress.

Oh, and we must not forget good old Edward Frederick Lindley Wood, better known as the Earl of Halifax, or Lord Halifax. He was Chamberlain’s Foreign Secretary. He had been to Germany, as well – as a hunting guest of Hermann Göring. All of this is chronicled fascinatingly in Faber’s book.

Of course, Winston Churchill – a voice in the wilderness of those days – said, famously: “An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile – hoping it will eat him last.”

But again, this was new territory for all of them. In fairness, they had no clue at first that the rules of geopolitics and diplomacy were quickly changing, such a revolution being driven by a mad man. They all saw the light, eventually. And even Winston Churchill, who had been so solitarily tough on his Conservative party brothers over the whole appeasement issue, understood – graciously so – that Chamberlain and company were sincere in what they tried. Speaking at his Downing Street predecessor’s funeral in November of 1940, and as events by then had cruelly proved Neville Chamberlain so sadly wrong, Churchill waxed philosophical:

It fell to Neville Chamberlain in one of the supreme crises of the world to be contradicted by events, to be disappointed in his hopes, and to be deceived and cheated by a wicked man. But what were these hopes in which he was disappointed? What were these wishes in which he was frustrated? What was that faith that was abused? They were surely among the most noble and benevolent instincts of the human heart–the love of peace, the toil for peace, the strife for peace, the pursuit of peace, even at great peril, and certainly to the utter disdain of popularity or clamour. Whatever else history may or may not say about these terrible, tremendous years, we can be sure that Neville Chamberlain acted with perfect sincerity according to his lights and strove to the utmost of his capacity and authority, which were powerful, to save the world from the awful, devastating struggle in which we are now engaged. This alone will stand him in good stead as far as what is called the verdict of history is concerned.

Now, however, things are both the same and different. We are certainly bearing witness to the forming of threatening storm clouds. And it’s all being largely ignored or minimized by those who should know better. History, yet to be written, will not, however, cut current leaders – who are apparently convinced that today’s threats aren’t substantive or substantial – any such Churchillian slack.

Why? Because we ought to know better. Our experience, sense of the past, not to mention just plain old common sense should scream to this moment: “Crocodiles eat doves!”

Featured Articles — September 18, 2009

September 18, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Featured Articles | Leave a Comment 

Interesting Takes From Home And Abroad:

Placating Russia Won’t Work By David J. Kramer, The Washington Post
Russian leaders never liked the idea that the United States, Poland and the Czech Republic were cooperating on missile defense to confront an emerging Iranian threat.

Baucus and the Threshold By Paul Krugman, The New York Times
So Senator Max Baucus, the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, has released his “mark” on proposed legislation — which would normally be the basis for the bill that eventually emerges from his committee. And serious supporters of health care reform will soon face their long-dreaded moment of truth.

Congress Veers Left on Health Care By Kimberley Strassel, The Wall Street Journal
The Baucus bill has been rejected by Democrats.

Under fire, Democrats abandon ACORN in droves By Byron York, The Washington Examiner
Back in February, during the Democrats’ frenzied rush to pass the $787 billion economic stimulus bill, Republican Sen. David Vitter offered a simple, 28-word amendment: “None of the funds appropriated or otherwise made available by this Act may be used directly or indirectly to fund the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now.”

Does He Lie? By Charles Krauthammer, The Washington Post
You lie? No. Barack Obama doesn’t lie. He’s too subtle for that. He … well, you judge.

Conservatives use liberal playbook By Andie Collier and David Lidbit, Politico
Conservatives are coming for the Democrats on their blind side — the left.

Jack Kightlinger, RIP

September 17, 2009 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under Presidents, Richard Nixon, U.S. History, White House | 5 Comments 

Jack Kightlinger, the US Army Signal Corps photographer who was assigned to the White House in 1967 and visually chronicled five presidencies from Lyndon Johnson’s to Ronald Reagan’s, tragically died on Monday when the car in which he and his wife were traveling was struck by a truck in his hometown of Flat Rock, North Carolina. Kightlinger, who was 77, perished at the scene; his wife died a day later.

Kightlinger was in California supervising a Signal Corps lab when he was asked to come to Washington, and, after competing against several other lensmen and taking two polygraph tests, was assigned to cover President Johnson. Less than a year after he began working at the White House, on July 31, 1968, he found LBJ sitting, listening to a tape recording that his son-in-law Charles Robb, one day to be a Senator from Virginia, had sent from Vietnam, where he was leading a Marine infantry company. Johnson’s head was bowed; one arm drooped down, in a gesture of utter exhaustion; a month short of sixty, the thirty-sixth President looked like a far older man. Kightlinger pressed the shutter and took a photograph that over forty years later is still the unsurpassed image that symbolizes the infinite responsibility and pressures of the Presidency.

After President Nixon entered the White House, Kightlinger tended to get the less “historic” assignments, working almost exclusively in black and white. But while few of his images from the Nixon era are as widely known or iconic as those of the late Ollie Atkins, Kightlinger still had a knack for capturing unexpected sidelights of the thirty-seventh President. One such photo, depicting Nixon bowling in the White House lane (which President Obama once talked of turning into a basketball court, though I believe that notion’s been put aside), hung on the wall of my old office for over a decade. (Correction: I just checked Google Images and found that the aforementioned photo was taken by Atkins in color, although Kightlinger’s b&w image of RN bowling can be found here.) Kightlinger also took some fine photos of the President meeting and greeting crowds on his trips around the country.

Kightlinger continued working into the Ford, Carter, and Reagan presidencies; indeed, one of his photos of Ronald Reagan was selected to appear on the latter’s commemorative stamp in 2005. After retiring, he settled in his native state, and, on occasion, would talk to local newspapers about his years when he watched history in the making, and helped bring it alive for generations to come.

Healthcare Reform, Then And Now

September 17, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Barack Obama, Healthcare, Richard Nixon | 2 Comments 

Jason Schafrin, a young economist trained at UCSD, breaks down RN’s 1974 message to Congress and proposal for a comprehensive health insurance plan, and compares it to President Obama’s current plan:

• “Today the need [for reform] is even more pressing because of the higher costs of medical care.”  Obama echoes this sentiment.
• “…the 25 million Americans who remain uninsured.”  Nixon hoped to expand coverage for the 25 million Americans who, in 1974 who did not have health insurance.  He planned to do this using with the creation of “Assisted Health Insurance, covering low-income persons.”  In 2009, there are 46 million uninsured Americans.  Obama also proposes using tax credits to help poor and middle class individuals afford private insurance.  Obama also proposes a public option.
• “Americans who do carry health insurance often lack coverage which is balanced, comprehensive and fully protective.”  Health insurance was originally created as protection against serious illnesses and hospital stays.  Routine physician visits were not covered.  This often meant that check-up and preventive care was not covered and Nixon wanted to expand the scope of insurance coverage.  In the present day, most individuals who have insurance have relatively comprehensive health insurance.  In fact, as a reaction to the expanding scope of present day health insurance, Republicans support HSAs which use high deductibles to transfer more of the cost of care towards the individual patient.
• Comprehensive Health Insurance Plan (CHIP).  This was Nixon’s solution to the problem that many individuals who had insurance had only partial insurance.  It basically expands the scope of insurance coverage. In the present day, most individuals who do have insurance have relatively comprehensive coverage.
• “Third, it builds on the strength and diversity of our existing public and private systems of health financing and harmonizes them into an overall system.”  Nixon’s CHIP plan aims to provide subsidies for health insurance and aims to reform health care, but will not overhaul the system (à la a single payer system or the elimination of Medicare in exchange for all private insurance).  Obama’s currently proposes reforms to the current system that also builds on the existing healthcare infrastructure.
• “Fourth, it uses public funds only where needed and requires no new Federal taxes.”  Nixon claims that his plan will not use any new taxes.  Obama did not claim he would not raise taxes, but did assert that “I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits.”  However, the government’s spending on health care as a share of GDP has accelerated over time.  This was true in Nixon’s time, is true now, and most expert believe it will continue into the future.
• “Sixth, it encourages more effective use of our health care resources.”  Obama wants to “eliminate is the hundreds of billions of dollars in waste and fraud” as well as “create an independent commission of doctors and medical experts charged with identifying more waste in the years ahead.”  More effective use of health care resources was, is and will continue to be a laudable goal; actually realizing these efficiency gains in practice, however, is more difficult.
• “No family would ever have annual out-of-pocket expenses for covered health services in excess of $1,500, and low-income families would face substantially smaller expenses.”  Nixon planned a cap on patient annual out-of-pocket costs.  Currently, Nixon’s proposal has become commonplace.  Most group health insurance plans offer an out-of-pocket cap as does Medicare and Medicaid.  However, for non-group health insurance, these caps are often not available.  Obama proposed that health insurance companies “…will no longer be able to place some arbitrary cap on the amount of coverage you can receive in a given year or a lifetime.”
• “Medicare, however, does not cover outpatient drugs, nor does it limit total out-of-pocket costs.”  Nixon believed that Medicare should cover drug costs and limit out-of-pocket costs.  Medicare does limit out-of-pocket costs and, with the creation of Medicare Part D, most prescription drug costs are covered for seniors.
• COST: “the total new costs…would be about $6.9 billion.” Obama’s plan would cost “$900 billion over ten years.”
• Nixon wanted to “increase the supply of physicians.” Nixon believed that increasing the supply of physicians will drive down costs as competition increases.  With patient paying less and less money out of pocket, this may no longer hold.  If supplier-induced demand exists, an increase in the supply of physicians will increase demand and costs and not necessarily decrease prices.  Obama did not discuss physician shortages in his speech.
• “On December 29, 1973, I signed into law legislation designed to stimulate, through Federal aid, the establishment of prepaid comprehensive care organizations.”  HMOs now control a significant portion of the health insurance market.
• “I also contemplate in my proposal a provision that would place health services provided under CHIP under the review of Professional Standards Review Organizations. These PSRO’s would be charged with maintaining high standards of care and reducing needless hospitalization.“ This is similar to Obama’s “independent commission of doctors and medical experts charged with identifying more waste in the years ahead.”

Featured Articles — September 17, 2009

September 17, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Featured Articles | Leave a Comment 

Interesting Takes From Home And Abroad:

U.S. Changes Course on Eastern European Nuclear-Missile Shield By Peter Siegel, The Wall Street Journal
Obama Says Redesign to Strengthen America’s Defenses

Axis Of Opportunism By Claudia Rosett, Forbes
”Evil” may be out, but the dangers are growing.

The White House’s Lust to Politicize By George Will, The Washington Post
- “This is just the beginning,” said Yosi Sergant to participants in an Aug. 10 conference call that seems to have been organized by the National Endowment for the Arts and certainly was joined by a functionary from the White House Office of Public Engagement.

Obama heads for foreign policy disaster By David Frum, The Week
Convinced of his righteousness, President Obama has set a sure course on foreign policy. It’s doubtful he sees the train wreck up ahead.

ObamaCare and Red State Democrats By Karl Rove, The Wall Street Journal
The president is changing the political landscape, but not in the way he intends.

The Lehman Anniversary By Nouriel Roubini, Forbes
What’s different? What’s still the same?

The Madding Crowd — Now And Then

September 16, 2009 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under American Politics, News media, Nixon Administration, Obama administration, Popular Culture, Public Opinion, Richard Nixon, U.S. History | 3 Comments 

There must be something in the water over at the Daily Beast where posts sympathetic to RN (albeit unintended and/or inadvertent) have now appeared twice in three days.

First it was Chris Matthews’ admiring exposition of the role Edward Kennedy and a panoply of Kennedy partisans played in bringing down a President who had just been re-elected with the second biggest landslide in American history.

Today it’s Lee Siegel, one of the Beast’s most dependably provocative provocateurs, who provides the latest answer to the question “Is Obama the New Nixon?”.

Mr. Siegel urges a general untwisting of panties over the recent Tea Party rally on Pennsylvania Avenue.  Despite the deepest fear (and fondest hope) of cable TV, the current wave of protest doesn’t represent a political apocalypse about to plunge the country into civil war.

But, he says, it does represent something very different and very important: the rise of a new counterculture.  He writes:

The parallels between today’s right-wing radicals and radical tactics of the 1960s are striking. Sixties’ Dada theatrics—e.g. Allen Ginsberg leading people in an attempt to levitate the Pentagon (my favorite)—are echoed in the alarmist and conspiratorial theatrics of right-wing cable television. Then, too, just as the radical left was inspired by a few personalities—Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, Mark Rudd et al.—today’s radical right is whipped up by Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin et al.

And while the new counterculture’s racist images of Obama are sickening, they are similar in their emotional violence to the images of the old counterculture’s Representative Villain, Richard Nixon—caricatures which ran the gamut from violent to pornographic. Just as Nixon exemplified middle-class, middle-aged white, repressive stasis, so Obama exemplifies—for his haters—ceaseless, wearying, uprooting change.

Each man presented the perfect vexation to enraged opponents—Nixon a hurdle to change, Obama a wide-open door to an uncertain future.

And he ends with an appeal for some patience and some perspective:

In other words, everyone, calm down. What we are seeing is the good, old American Berserk in action. It’s just that, ever since the 1960s, we are not accustomed to seeing it come from the other side.

The central role the counterculture played in American history during the 1960s and ‘70s, and its impact on the Nixon presidency, has been pretty much overlooked and undervalued.  But, in fact, the 1960s represented the apotheosis of the axiom: Let me write a country’s songs and I don’t care who writes its laws.

RN arrived in the White House just when the elements of a perfect storm had fallen into place: a debased elite that had lost confidence in itself and its values; a youth cohort that was economically empowered, intellectually flattered, hedonistically assaulted, and that felt personally threatened by the war and the draft; a mass media that had achieved almost total national saturation and exercised a virtual monopoly on public opinion; and a hard core of organized radicals —ranging from loopy anarchists to regimented terrorists— that knew how to intimidate the elite, exploit the media, and inspire and/or amuse the kids.

Today’s protesters are really very different from those of the ‘60s and ‘70s.

What the protesters of the ‘60s and ‘70s reflected and represented was a top-to-bottom crisis of the entire American —indeed, of Western— culture.  What we’ve been dealing with so far in the summer of ’09  is still only a politically-triggered media-driven populist phenomenon.

The ranks of today’s protesters, while growing apace, is still specifically segmented.  It is comprised of a lot of average citizens who are fed up with the extravagance and corruption of government and the arrogance of its representatives; of a smaller, and overlapping, group that is motivated by conservative media; and of a miniscule fringe of LaRouche wingnuts that the media consciously neglects to identify and unconscionably presents as representative.

But —whether he’s right or wrong about an emerging counterculture— it’s promising that Mr. Siegel is thinking and writing along these lines.  There can be no balanced assessment of RN’s presidency without an understanding of what he was up against.

Mary Travers, 1936-2009

September 16, 2009 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under In Memoriam, Music | 2 Comments 

Word came today of the death of Mary Travers, who, as one-third of the trio that included Noel “Paul” Stookey and Peter Yarrow, was one of the most recognizable and popular voices of the music of the 1960s, with hits like Bob Dylan’s “Blowin’ In The Wind,” “If I Had A Hammer,” John Denver’s “Leaving On A Jet Plane,” and, of course, “Puff The Magic Dragon.” Although Peter, Paul and Mary disbanded in 1971 after a decade together, they periodically reunited to record and tour from the late 1970s until earlier this year, when Ms. Travers’s battle with leukemia made it impossible for her to perform. This is a minute-long Youtube clip of PP&M performing part of “I Dig Rock And Roll Music,” from Jonathan Winters’s variety series in 1968

SuBo’s Stones

September 16, 2009 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under Music, Popular Culture | Leave a Comment 

This week’s Soundtrack of Our Lives deconstructed the Number One hit forty years ago this week — the Rolling Stones’ “Honky Tonk Women.”

On tonight’s finale of American Idol, Susan Boyle —the 48-year old Scottish spinster who is Paul Potts’ successor as the latest Simon Crowell cynically-supplied unprepossessing feelgood superstar— will premiere her new single, which is a rather affectless, but not entirely unworthy, cover of the Stones’ superb 1971 song “Wild Horses.”

“Wild Horses” was a track on the Sticky Fingers album.  Rolling Stone selects it as #334 of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time:

Richards wrote this acoustic ballad about leaving his wife Anita and young son Marlon as the Stones prepared for their first American tour in three years. Stones sidekick Ian Stewart refused to play the minor chords required, so Memphis musical maverick Jim Dickinson filled in on upright piano at the Muscle Shoals, Alabama, recording session for Sticky Fingers.

Here’s the original; and here’s the Boyle cover:

Among my candidates for the Greatest Stones Cover of All Time is Franco Battiato’s 2000 rendition of the 1967 classic “Ruby Tuesday.”   “RT,” which was on the Between the Buttons LP, outranks “Horses” at Number 303 on the RS 500:

At a session for Between the Buttons in November 1966, Richards drew this lyrical sketch of Linda Keith, his first serious girlfriend, and turned it into an uncharacteristically wistful ballad. Brian Jones played the recorder on the track, giving the song a madrigal feel. The countermelody was played by Bill Wyman, who fingered the strings on a cello while Richards bowed them.

Battiato is a fascinating Italian anomaly, whose long and checkered career has included several productive collaborations — including one with another favorite, Alice.  I find this sleekly accented eclectic account of the song completely compelling and even intermittently convincing.

Here’s the original; and here’s the Battiato cover:

9.16.69

September 16, 2009 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under Nixon Administration, Richard Nixon, Vietnam | 2 Comments 

On 16 September 1969, RN announced his first major withdrawal of troops from Vietnam.

After careful consideration with my senior civilian and military advisers and in full consultation with the Government of Vietnam, I have decided to reduce the authorized troop ceiling in Vietnam to 484,000 by December 15. This compares with the ceiling of 549,500 which existed when this administration took office. Under the newly authorized troop ceiling, a minimum of 60,000 troops will have been withdrawn from Vietnam by December 15.

Since coming into office, my administration has made major efforts to bring an end to the war:

–We have renounced an imposed military solution.

–We have proposed free elections organized by joint commissions under international supervision.

–We have offered the withdrawal of U.S. and allied forces over a 12-month period.

–We have declared that we would retain no military bases.

–We have offered to negotiate supervised cease-fires under international supervision to facilitate the process of mutual withdrawal.

–We have made clear that we would settle for the de facto removal of North Vietnamese forces so long as there are guarantees against their return.

–We and the Government of South Vietnam have announced that we are prepared to accept any political outcome which is arrived at through free elections.

–We are prepared to discuss the 10-point program of the other side, together with plans put forward by the other parties.

–In short, the only item which is not negotiable is the right of the people of South Vietnam to determine their own future free of outside interference. I reiterate all these proposals today.

The withdrawal of 60,000 troops is a significant step.

The time for meaningful negotiations has therefore arrived.

I realize that it is difficult to communicate across the gulf of 5 years of war. But the time has come to end this war. Let history record that at this critical moment, both sides turned their faces toward peace rather than toward conflict and war.

RN entered the White House convinced that a fair, sensible, and respectful approach to the North Vietnamese could result in a negotiated peace settlement sooner than later.  During his first months in office, he confidently predicted that the war would be over by the end of the year.

But the unhappy story of those first several months involved increased infiltration down the Ho Chi Minh trail, a sharp uptick of enemy aggression, and blunt rebuffs of every attempt to begin serious negotiations.  Eventually it became clear that the North Vietnamese were only interested in total victory on their terms.

RN had to adjust his strategy and tactics accordingly.  The Nixon Doctrine was announced on Guam on 25 July.

On 4 August, at the Rue de Rivoli apartment of the old Vietnam hand (and erstwhile HAK student) Jean Sainteny in Paris, Henry Kissinger held his first secret meeting with the former North Vietnamese Foreign Minister Xuan Thuy.  On 12 August, the Viet Cong launched a new offensive against 150 targets in South Vietnam.

Then, on 2 September, Ho Chi Minh died.  This event was anticipated —he was 79— but not necessarily expected.  There was some cautious hope that it might mean a different, more accommodating, attitude in Hanoi.

On 16 September, RN announced the withdrawal of 60,000 troops (which, because of technicalities involving roster strength, would actually mean 65,000 withdrawn) and reduced draft calls.

The enemy, however, remained impervious, intransigent, and (with messages to the American anti-war Moratorium on 15 October) outright insulting.

In six weeks, on 3 November, RN would go on TV and dramatically reveal the backstory of his dogged attempts —and dashed hopes— for peace in Southeast Asia.

Featured Articles — September 16, 2009

September 16, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Featured Articles | 1 Comment 

Interesting Takes From Home And Abroad:

The ‘Racism’ Canard By Victor Davis Hanson, National Review
In the wake of Joe Wilson’s crude outburst, many network commentators (and Jimmy Carter, of course) are weighing in on the new racism that supposedly explains 1) rising opposition to Obamacare and 2) the president’s sinking polls. I think this is a disastrous political move to save a health-care plan that simply has not appealed to a majority of Americans. I suspect it will result in another 5-point poll slide.

Realignment dead, dealignment now By Brent Budowsky, The Hill
Realignment is dead. President Barack Obama and Democrats blew it.

Acorn Runs Off the Rails By John Fund, The Wall Street Journal
‘We’re just community organizers, just like the president used to be.’

As Right Jabs Continue, White House Debates a Counterpunching Strategy By Anne E. Kornblut Washington Post
Facing a near-daily barrage of attacks from conservative opponents, White House officials are engaged in an internal debate over how hard to hit back, even as they have grown increasingly aggressive in countering allegations they deem to be absurd.

Change You Can Believe In Only Too Well

September 15, 2009 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under American Politics, Congress, Healthcare | Leave a Comment 

Manu Raju reports in Politico on the “Revolving door for health care aides”:

Some of the most influential aides in the closed-door Senate Finance Committee negotiations over health care reform have ties to interests that would be directly affected by the legislation.

Before she was hired last year as senior counsel to Finance Committee Chairman  Max Baucus (D-Mont.), Liz Fowler worked as a highly paid public policy adviser for WellPoint Inc., the nation’s largest publicly traded health benefits company.

Mark Hayes, health policy director and chief health counsel for Finance Committee ranking member Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), is married to a registered lobbyist for a firm that represents drug companies and hospital groups, although the couple says she doesn’t lobby Grassley’s office.

Frederick Isasi, a health policy adviser to Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.), was a registered lobbyist at Powell Goldstein, where his clients included public hospitals and the American Stroke Association.

Kate Spaziani, senior health policy aide to Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), was also a registered lobbyist at Powell Goldstein, although Conrad’s office says she worked as a lawyer — not as a lobbyist — for public hospitals on Medicare issues.

There’s no evidence that the aides’ ties have shaped the bill that Baucus hopes to release Tuesday, and the ultimate decisions over its provisions rest with the senators themselves. But critics say the involvement of such well-connected insiders could lead to dangerous conflicts.

“It raises the concerns about the revolving door that have always been present,” said Sheila Krumholz, executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics, a group that tracks influence in politics. “This just brings it into the fore because it’s such a far-reaching bill.”

The revolving door swings both ways in the health care debate — and the Finance Committee isn’t the only place where it stops.

All across Capitol Hill, a number of former lobbyists, consultants and advisers for firms that represent consumers, patients, hospitals, insurers, pharmaceutical companies and medical device makers are now in key positions in the House and Senate, according to a review of public records.

Putting Things In Perspective

September 15, 2009 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under Art, U.S. History | 3 Comments 

Arthur S. Mole —1889-1983— was an English commercial photographer  who took a series of  striking and innovative “living photographs” of American soldiers during and after World War One.  Working with his American colleague John D. Thomas, Mole organized and arranged thousands of soldiers into configurations that, seen from the ground or directly above, would look like a shapeless crowd. But through the lens of his 11 x 14 camera from atop the specially constructed 80 foot tower , they formed meaningful —indeed iconic— images.  The photographs were commissioned by the US government both to raise troop morale and raise money by selling copies to the public.

The Mole-Thomas oeuvre was recently the subject of an exhibition at (and vintage silver gelatin prints are currently available from) the Hammer Gallery in Chicago.  The originals, of course, are both beautiful and meaningful; but excellent copies of most of the images can be obtained from the Library of Congress.

Gallery owner Carl Hammer says, ”I see modern photographers with all the technology we have these days trying to do the same as these two guys did almost 100 years ago, and I still think they did it best and they did it first.  It really is very clever how they managed to get so many soldiers in the shots, they realised using the same amount of soldiers for each row they would lose the image in the background.  It must have been incredible for the soldiers to be part of these photos and to be part of this slice of history.”

Working from his base outside Chicago, in Zion, Illinois, Mole traveled to military bases and approached his photographs with the detail and precision of a military campaign.

Mole was a master of perspective.  His “living picture” of the Statue of Liberty was taken in 1918 at Camp Dodge in Des Moines, Iowa.  It required 18,000 men —12,000 in the torch at the top, and only 17 in the base at the bottom. The men at the tip of the torch are half a mile away from the men at the base.  Mole used flags to indicate placements in advance and to communicate with the troops in real time.  The temperature reached 105 degrees, and many men, wearing wool uniforms, fainted.

Mole would sketch the outline of the image on his lens and then have the serried ranks fill it in.  His nephew Joseph Mole remarked about this 1918 portrait of President Woodrow Wilson (comprising 21,000 officers and men at Camp Sherman, Chillicothe, Ohio), “When it came to the day of the photograph Arthur would then be able to put all the pieces together, he could say to 157 men ‘move there and you can be Woodrow Wilson’s ear.’”

The “living Uncle Sam” was a post-war work, involving 19,000 officers and men at Camp Lee, Virginia, on 13 January 1919.

Arthur Mole’s collaborator was photographer John D. Thomas.  Their US Shield, was taken at Camp Custer, Battle Creek, Michigan, in 1918.

One hundred officers and 9,000 enlisted men formed the Marine Corps emblem at Parris Island.  It would take Mole and Thomas a week to work out the shot, but only half an hour to march the men into position.

The 1917 Liberty Bell —including the famous crack— required 25,000 men from Fort Dix, New Jersey.

Arthur S. Mole.

Dumbing Decorum Down

September 15, 2009 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under American Politics, Congress | 1 Comment 

Over at Politico, Glenn Thrush highlights a new ukase from House of Representatives Rules Commitee Chairwoman Louise Slaughter.

Talk about breaking a butterfly on a wheel…..   Instead of allowing his own sense of shame and/or his colleagues’ contumely to deal with one Congressman’s recent unacceptable outburst in the House Chamber during the President’s admittedly tendentious and partisanly provocative health care speech, the Rules Committee has just released a mind numbingly intricately parsed summary of the “approved guidelines for all members to follow during floor debates.”

I suppose that, since the Congressfolks have by now genteelly gerrymandered themselves into what amount to self-perpetuating incumbencies, the logical next step is to squelch criticism by neutering speech.  But aside from the “l” word, or the use of constitutionally freighted phrases like “giving aid and comfort to the enemy,” or crying “fire” in a crowded House, I can’t think of any words —however inappropriate or ugly or over the top— that a democratic legislative body actually bans at anything less than its own peril.

Here is the text of the Chairwoman’s womanslaughter of the English language and the give and take of parliamentary debate:

Decorum in the House and in Committees

Under clause 1(a)(1) of Rule XI, the rules of the House are the rules of its committees as far as applicable. Consequently, Members should comport themselves with the rules of decorum and debate in the House and in Committees specifically with regard to references to the President of the United States as stated in Section 370 of the House Rules and Manual.

As stated in Cannon’s Precedents, on January 27, 1909, the House adopted a report in response to improper references in debate to the President. That report read in part as follows:

“It is… the duty of the House to require its Members in speech or debate to preserve that proper restraint which will permit the House to conduct its business in an orderly manner and without unnecessarily and unduly exciting animosity among its Members or antagonism from those other branches of the Government with which the House is correlated.”

As a guide for debate, it is permissible in debate to challenge the President on matters of policy. The difference is one between political criticism and personally offensive criticism. For example, a Member may assert in debate that an incumbent President is not worthy of re-election, but in doing so should not allude to personal misconduct. By extension, a Member may assert in debate that the House should conduct an inquiry, or that a President should not remain in office.

Under section 370 of the House Rules and Manual it has been held that a Member could:

• refer to the government as “something hated, something oppressive.”
• refer to the President as “using legislative or judicial pork.”
• refer to a Presidential message as a “disgrace to the country.”
• refer to unnamed officials as “our half-baked nitwits handling foreign affairs.”

Likewise, it has been held that a member could not:

• call the President a “liar.”
• call the President a “hypocrite.”
• describe the President’s veto of a bill as “cowardly.”
• charge that the President has been “intellectually dishonest.”
• refer to the President as “giving aid and comfort to the enemy.”
• refer to alleged “sexual misconduct on the President’s part.”

However, the Senate rules on decorum and debate do not prohibit personal references to the President. Senate Rule XIX governing decorum and debate is applied only to fellow Senators and “does not extend to the President, the Vice President, or Administration officials and a Senator cannot be called to order under rule XIX for comments or remarks about them…” (Senate Procedure, p. 741). The Senate rules also provide that Jefferson’s Manual is not part of the Senate rules (Ibid, p.754).

By contrast, the rules of the House specifically provide that Jefferson’s Manual does govern the proceedings of the House where applicable (Clause 1 of Rule XXVIII). Section 370 of Jefferson’s Manual states that the rule in Parliament prohibiting Members from “speak{ing} irreverently or seditiously against the King” has been interpreted to prohibit personal references against the President. In addition, Speakers of the House have consistently reiterated, and the House has voted, to support the proposition that it is not in order in debate to engage in personalities toward the President. The Chair enforces this rule of decorum on his own initiative.

On this morning’s Washington Journal on CSPAN, one of the guests was Jonathan Karp, the editor of Senator Edward Kennedy’s just posthumously published memoir True Compass.  Mr. Karp referred to Senator Kennedy’s sorrow over the lack of civility in the Senate.

A combination of short memories and guilty consciences have led a generation of Democratic politicians and media pundits, bemoaning the loss of congressional civility, to point the finger at Republicans, and to place the date around 1994 when the GOP had the audacity to upset the natural order of things by winning control of both houses of Congress for the first time in donkey’s years.

But, lest we forget, the end of the traditional congressional civility actually occurred several years earlier —on 23 June 1987— when Senator Edward M. Kennedy rose and, after referring to Judge Robert Bork’s “neanderthal views,” expressed his opposition to the Judge’s nomination to the Supreme Court in these memorably uncivil words:

Robert Bork’s America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens’ doors in midnight raids, schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution, writers and artists would be censored at the whim of government, and the doors of the federal courts would be shut on the fingers of millions of citizens for whom the judiciary is often the only protector of the individual rights that are the heart of our democracy.

This Shrum-penned screed was in the ad hominem tradition of John Kenneth Galbraith’s words written for Adlai Stevenson in the 1952 presidential campaign.  (Stevenson had written to Galbraith at Harvard:  “I want you to write speeches against Nixon.  You have no tendency to be fair.”)

Our nation stands at a fork in the political road.  In one direction lies a land of slander and scare; the land of sly innuendo, the poison pen, the anonymous phone call and hustling, pushing, showing; the land of smash and grab and anything to win.  This is Nixonland.  America is something different.

Of course when liberal lions or admired eggheads make these kinds of memorably bitter personal attacks, they’re given a pass because, after all, it’s only campaign rhetoric; or even praised for making fearless statements of principle.

But words have consequences just as crows have roosts.  And it’s important to remember how things really started.

Only RN Had The Silent Majority

September 15, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Barack Obama, Healthcare, Richard Nixon, Vietnam | 1 Comment 

When RN gave the “Silent Majority” speech in November 1969, 64 percent of Americans approved of his handling of the Vietnam War.

The Democrats are channeling RN’s famous “Silent Majority” speech in which he asserted that the anti-war left who crowded the streets of Washington to protest the Vietnam War in the late Sixties represented a rowdy and cacophonous few.

In response to last weekend’s “Tea Party” demonstrations against healthcare reform, President Obama’s senior adviser David Axelrod was quick to echo these sentiments:

“I don’t think it’s indicative of the nation’s mood,” senior adviser David Axelrod said Sunday when asked about the weekend demonstrations, suggesting that the “tea party” protesters are not in the mainstream and not in the majority.

A majority of Americans may not be taking their grievances to the streets, but nor are they pledging support for President Obama’s and the Democrats’ plan to overhaul the healthcare system.

While confidence in the President still remains relatively high, the newest Gallup polling data shows  Americans deeply divided on the healthcare issue with 39 percent saying that they would advise their representative to “vote against” healthcare reform, 36 percent saying that they would advise to “vote for,” and 24 percent saying that they had “no opinion” on the matter.

RN garnered much larger numbers in his favor in his response to the Vietnam War. A March 1969 Gallup poll showed that more than one-third of Americans wanted an all out military victory in Vietnam, along with 26 percent approving of a strategy akin to Vietnamization, and another 19 percent wanted the current policy to continue. Just 19 percent wanted to end the war “as soon as possible.”

Between July 1969 through March 1969, RN averaged a 54 percent approval rating for his handling of the Vietnam War. By November 1969 — at the time of his famous “Silent Majority” speech — that number rose to 64 percent.

By the end of RN’s first term in January 1973, that number spiked up to 75 percent.

Featured Articles — September 15, 2009

September 15, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Featured Articles | Leave a Comment 

Interesting Takes From Home And Abroad:

Obama Is Pushing Israel Toward War By Bret Stephens, The Wall Street Journal
President Obama can’t outsource matters of war and peace to another state.

Mitch McConnell Smiled? By George Will, Newsweek
The President is CPR for the GOP.

ACORN’s Lawlessness Exposed By Rich Lowry, The New York Post
The radical activist group ACORN is the E. F. Hutton of prostitution. It stands ready to provide discreet advice on setting up a brothel and engaging in other, associated acts of criminality. When ACORN talks, pimps and hookers listen.

Peking Over Our Shoulder By Noam Schreiber, The New Republic
Our Chinese shareholders get nosy.

Engaging With Iran By Christopher Hitchens, Slate
Who Hates You Tehran’s latest bid to run down the clock.

In the Afghan battle space By Oliver North, The Washington Times
Marines needed to consolidate allied victories

Edward Kennedy: Watergate’s “Hidden Hand”

September 14, 2009 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under American Politics, Nixon Administration, Richard Nixon, Watergate | 3 Comments 

On today’s Daily Beast, Chris Matthews exalts Senator Edward Kennedy’s prominent —indeed, in Matthews’ telling, pivotal— but hitherto largely unheralded role in using Watergate to cripple the Nixon administration and end the Nixon presidency.

The headline —most likely not written by Matthews but perfectly capturing his piece’s tone— tells it all: “How Kennedy Brought Nixon Down.”

The late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy is hailed as a liberal hero for his tireless crusade for health care, his push for civil rights, and his forceful effort to block Robert Bork from winning a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court. But there is another chapter of his legacy that has gone largely overlooked: Kennedy’s role as a hidden hand during Watergate—helping to bring down President Richard M. Nixon.

The preeminently partisan motivation and more-than-potentially self-interested purposes behind the Watergate investigations and prosecutions have long been maintained by many Nixonphiles.  And they have long been mocked and dismissed as displaying typically Nixonian paranoia.

Now Chris Matthews supplies the latest evidence for the axiom that even paranoids have enemies.

Matthews traces the Senator’s seminal involvement that began right after the June 1972 break-in.   It was mostly, and purposely, kept on the down low lest people think that Kennedy or Kennedy partisans were behind it.

It was Kennedy’s Administrative Practices subcommittee—with its staff directed by the formidable Jim Flug and its investigations run by long-time Kennedy Family retainer Carmine Bellino— that tackled Watergate from the earliest days with the kind of passionate intensity and motivation that set them apart from the usual partisan probers on Capitol Hill.

Ted Kennedy had a firm grasp on the weapons he held as a member of the Judiciary Committee and knew precisely how to wield them. It turns out that Richard Nixon, like almost everyone else, was so afraid of the youngest Kennedy brother’s presidential ambitions that he was blinded to the backroom menace Kennedy posed.

Not long after the June 1972 break-in of the Democratic National Committee at the Watergate, Kennedy’s people went to work. Flug, who was chief counsel to Kennedy’s Judiciary subcommittee, had the Library of Congress begin collecting every news clipping on the break-in. Kennedy then got the full Judiciary Committee to investigate, using its subpoena power.

At Majority Leader Mike Mansfield’s suggestion, the Kennedy-mined information was laundered through North Carolina Senator Sam Ervin — whose faux bumpkin bonhomie belied his Harvard Law degree and masked his decidedly dicey civil rights record.

The initial investigations, and the tsunami of leaks that turned Watergate into a feeding frenzy for Democrats and a cottage industry for journalists, soon hobbled Nixon.  But for all the sordid implications and juicy details, they failed to produce any real evidence of the President’s awareness — much less his involvement.

In order to keep the issue alive, the stakes had to be ratcheted up.  By far the best way to do this was simply to go fishing through the thousands of hours of White House tapes.  If nothing else, that would be bound to produce enough embarrassing and hard-to-explain material to keep the administration on the ropes through the Kennedy restoration in 1976.

But even a powerful Senator with unlimited media backing might have a hard time crafting a subpoena for a fishing expedition.  Chris Matthews continues the story:

Kennedy began pushing for the creation of a special prosecutor to look into Watergate. That, he made clear, was his price for getting Richardson approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee. He rejected the names Richardson put forward until he got the one he wanted: Archibald Cox. Cox had served Attorney General Robert Kennedy as solicitor general, and before that had worked on Jack Kennedy’s presidential campaign. Cox managed JFK’s speechwriting and research operation, most importantly during the “Great Debates” with Nixon.

Kennedy demanded that Richardson give Cox a clear avenue to pursue his target—insisting that the special prosecutor be given unlimited money, unlimited time, and total protection from Nixon. He could not be fired except by Richardson himself—and only then in the event of “extraordinary improprieties.”

Cox proceeded to fill his investigative staff with veterans of Bobby Kennedy’s Justice Department and the 1968 presidential campaign. Of the 11 senior counsels Cox hired, seven had been associated with either Jack, Bobby, or Teddy. The Watergate prosecution was going to be a Kennedy operation and Richard Nixon couldn’t do a thing about it.

All of this information —and much, much more, thanks to the Freedom of Information Act and some of the startling documents it debouched— can be found in Geoff Shepard’s recent book The Secret Plot To Make Ted Kennedy President.

The book was clumsily titled (at the non-negotiable insistence of the publisher) and disastrously timed (it was released a few weeks after Senator Kennedy’s brain tumor was diagnosed).  It’s hard to think of a more classic definition of a double whammy.  Maybe Chris Matthews’ unintended imprimatur will stir some interest in Shepard’s book, with its many new and hitherto unpublished documents.

There is no question that wrongs were done and crimes were committed involving and surrounding Watergate and its cover-up.  And the fact that others got away with as bad or worse as the result of a long-applied partisan and unfair double standard doesn’t absolve responsibility.   But the ways and means by which Watergate became the Crime of the Century that toppled a President who had just been re-elected by the second greatest landslide in American history has remained a frustratingly unexamined and unanswered question.

Thanks to the Beast and Chris Matthews, a wider public now has at least the beginnings of an answer.

The New Envoy To China And The Nixon White House

September 14, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under China, Nixon Administration, Nixon Administration figures, Richard Nixon | 1 Comment 

Newly appointed U.S. Ambassador to China — and former Utah Governor — Jon Huntsman faces the new challenge of strengthening Sino-American ties on “big picture issues” diverse as the global economy, energy and climate change.

Aside from being the former U.S. Ambassador to Singapore, a Mormon missionary in Taiwan, and fluent in Mandarin, he is among the privileged to participate in one of the most spectacular diplomatic performances by an American President:

He also recounted his own childhood experience: how as an 11-year-old he was at the White House where his father was working as a staff assistant. It was 1971 and Secretary of State Kissinger invited him to his office and let him take his bag to his car before setting out on one of the path-breaking trips to China, which led to the re-establishment of relations in 1979.

“The part I remember best was when I said where are you going?” Mr. Huntsman said. “He said please don’t tell anyone: ‘I’m going to China.’ “

Be Effective

September 14, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Afghanistan, Vietnam | Leave a Comment 

William Kristol writing at the weekly he leads, The Weekly Standard, worries that President Obama may abandon Afghanistan for short term political considerations:

What’s worrisome is that most of Obama’s senior advisers seem to be on the same page as Jones. We hear that Rahm Emanuel is counseling the president to figure out how to get out of Afghanistan rather than how to win. He’s convinced that this is Vietnam redux, and that his job is to prevent Obama from going down the path of LBJ. The president’s grand poobah for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, who was shaped by his experiences as a young foreign service officer in Vietnam, has weighed in behind the scenes against McChrystal’s coming request for more troops. Meanwhile, congressional Democrats, led by House speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Armed Services Committee chairman Carl Levin, are falling all over each other searching for the exits.

Forty years ago, another President pledged withdrawal from an unpopular and irresponsibly managed war, but knew that a hasty exit would damage America’s standing and its ability to conduct its policy abroad.

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