Falling Short of Re-Centering On Central Europe

October 27, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Nixon Center, The National Interest | Leave a Comment 

At the Nixon Center’s National Interest, Naval War College Professor Nicholas Gvosdev explains:

Given the ambitious foreign-policy agenda facing the Obama administration—the two wars in the Middle East, coping with the rise of India and China, dealing with contentious trade and climate-change issues—the value of central Europe is less its “strategic real estate” (although still important for protecting Europe from the threat of rogue missile launches from the Middle East) and more in terms of what capabilities can be provided to augment U.S. efforts globally. The vice president paid tribute to Polish and Romanian soldiers already serving in Afghanistan—but it is no secret that Europe as a whole could be doing far more to aid U.S. efforts.

And given the increased strains on the U.S. economy, Washington is in no position to unilaterally do the “heavy lifting” of transforming eastern Europe. When one examines trade and investment flows in the former Soviet states, particularly those in the west and south, the lofty rhetoric about “eastern partnerships” doesn’t quite meet the reality of dollars or euros on the ground flowing in from western and central Europe. Nor can the United States be expected to single-handedly solve the region’s problematic dependence on Russia for energy. Diversification of supply and alternate routes will cost money and may result in higher energy prices for regional consumers. But if this is truly a national security issue for these countries, then the burden has to be accepted—it cannot be borne by the United States.

So the vice president is sounding all the right notes on this trip—reassurance, partnership, engagement. But he’s also signaling that the relationship of the United States to central Europe is changing, one might even say maturing. And as a result, America feels it can begin to turn its attention to other parts of the world without neglecting friends and allies who, two decades after the end of the Cold War, have “made it.”

For New Leadership

October 27, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Richard Nixon | Leave a Comment 

From the 1968 campaign:

Featured Articles — October 27, 2009

October 27, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Featured Articles | Leave a Comment 

Interesting takes from home and abroad:

Interview with Charles Krauthammer By Der Spiegel
‘Obama Is Average.’

Freaked Out Over SuperFreakonomics By Bret Stephens, The Wall Street Journal
Global warming might be solved with a helium balloon and a few miles of garden hose.

Will Reid’s Public-Option Health Gamble Pay Off? By Karen Tumulty, Time
After a weekend of intense consultations with fellow Democrats, Senate majority leader Harry Reid has decided he has the votes to get a health-reform bill with a public option to the Senate floor.

White House is right to push back By Mark Penn, Politico
Republicans suggest that the aggressive move by the Obama White House to take on people and organizations that disagree with it and oppose its policies is an unprecedented abuse of government resources.

Obama’s foreign policy report card By Juan Cole, Salon
You’d never know it from the MSM, but he deserves high grades for his work so far in Iran, Iraq and Pakistan.

Take Your Sweet Time, Obama By Andrew Exum, Daily Beast
soldier in Afghanistan David Guttenfelder / AP Photo The landscape has changed dramatically since Gen. McChrystal called for a major surge in March.

A Marine’s Family Says By Kyle W. Nevins and Joseph R. Nevins, The Weekly Standard
It’s time to make a decision on Afghanistan.

Give McChrystal Only What He Needs By Richard Cohen, The Washington Post
Years ago, I bought an old Time magazine — the issue with the 1965 Man of the Year on the cover. I stuffed it into an old picture frame and kept it around to remind me of the fallibility of men, and, even, of Time magazine. It was of Gen. William C. Westmoreland. He was the Vietnam era’s Gen. Stanley McChrystal.

Sonny Rises In The West

October 26, 2009 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under Music, Nixon Library, U.S. History | Leave a Comment 

At 7 PM tonight in Yorba Linda, the Nixon Library will welcome Elvis Presley’s friend and bodyguard Sonny West, who will talk about —and sign copies of— his book Elvis: Still Taking Care of Business.

White House photographer Ollie Atkins captured a candid moment with RN, Sonny West, Jerry Schilling, and The King in the Oval Office on 21 December 1970.

Roger Ailes For President?

October 26, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Barack Obama, Election 2012, Media, Richard Nixon | 1 Comment 

Over at the Nixon Center’s  The National Interest, Jacob Heilbrunn is echoing Frank Luntz’s recent nudge, urging Fox News President Roger Ailes to make a run for the Oval Office. Who better, Heilbrunn argues, than the guy who helped RN make his comeback in 1968:

Ronald Reagan did it. Arnold Schwarzenegger did it. Why not Roger Ailes, the head of Fox News?

The “it,” of course, is running for high political office. Both the Gipper and Arnold made the leap from the silver screen to the governorship of California and, in Reagan’s case, the presidency. Ailes, prodded by his buddy Frank Luntz, is rumored to be considered moving from the plasma screen to the White House. Ailes himself is denying it, which is usually the first sign that someone is seriously considering making a go of it. Hillary Clinton dismissed the idea recently as well. They’re all content. No reason to run for the presidency. Meanwhile, the exploratory committee gets set up on the side.

In Ailes’ case, there are compelling reasons to go for it. He’s already shaken up the Obama administration. President Obama and his janissaries have made no secret of their antipathy for Fox News. They don’t dislike it. They hate it. Charles Krauthammer noted the other day that the administration seems on its way to creating an enemies list that has Fox at the top.

Ailes’ genius has been to tap, not the silent majority, but the raucous minority, which is big enough to swell the ratings of Fox. These days almost any president seems to elicit deep animosity. Bill Clinton was regarded as a rogue imposter by his detractors. So was George W. Bush. Now Obama is regarded with a mixture of fear and loathing by many on the Right.

It was not always so. Initially, the Right was bewildered by Obama. His message of peace and brotherhood, coupled with his astute rhetorical skills, had it floundering. But I would date the beginning of the Obama backlash to the musings of Jerome Corsi’s book The Obama Nation. With its battalion of talk-show hosts, Fox essentially picked up on the Corsi message—illegitimate president, suspicious birth, socialist, radical steeped in the texts of Frantz Fanon, and so forth—and helped further mainstream it.

Which brings us to Ailes. Yes, Rupert Murdoch is the money behind Fox. But I would argue that no media figure has personally had a bigger impact on American politics in the past two decades than Ailes. Maybe even longer. It was Ailes who helped reinvent Richard Nixon after his disastrous run against Pat Brown in the 1962 race for California governor. Liberals dismissed Nixon as so much roadkill. They were wrong. Nixon made his comeback. Ailes also helped Reagan during his run for the presidency in 1980. But it is at Fox that Ailes has truly come into his own. He has become a central figure in liberal demonology, a kind of Dark Lord, an invincible Voldemort terrorizing the innocent.

At a minimum, Ailes is prepared for battle. According to today’s Los Angeles Times profile of Glenn Beck by Matea Gold, Ailes was unflinching when Beck told him he might be too much for him to swallow. Ailes would have none of it. The Times reports: “I see this as the Alamo,” Ailes said, according to Beck. “If I just had somebody who was willing to sit on the other side of the camera until the last shot is fired, we’d be fine.”

How would Ailes himself fare as a candidate as opposed to impresario of the conservative movement? Whether Ailes has the willigness to undergo the grind of campaigning is a question-mark. He may decide that he’s already succeeded so well in helping to reshape the conservative movement that he has no desire to toss his hat into the presidential ring. But if he runs for the presidency, Obama might find that what ails him is Ailes.

Vic Mizzy    1916-2009

October 26, 2009 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under In Memoriam, Music, Popular Culture | Leave a Comment 

Vic Mizzy died last week; he was 93.  As one obituarist put it, his theme songs for the TV shows Green Acres and The Addams Family “made an incalculabe contribution to 1960s popular culture.”

The Brooklyn-born composer was a child prodigy.  As a 16-year old freshman at NYU, he traded in his well-tempered klavier for a Tin Pan Alley upright, and proceeded to produce some terrific hit songs and some iconic themes and underscores for some of the biggest hits during TV’s gilded age.  (His familiarity with the harpsichord came in handy when he used it at the opening of his Addams Family theme.)   His comprehensive website supplies a biography, discography, and filmography.  The Los Angeles Times ran a comprehensive and interesting obituary.

Everyone who was around at the time will remember The Addams Family opening:

In a 2004 interview, Mr. Mizzy described the theme’s genesis:

Here’s the opening credits of Green Acres:

Mr. Mizzy wrote some of his biggest pop hits while he was serving in the Navy in World War Two.  One of them, which he wrote with lyricist Manny Curtis, is one of my favorite big band pop songs —  ”My Dreams Are Getting Better All The Time.”     There were various covers but the hit belonged to the Les Brown Orchestra, whose version spent three months on the Billboard charts in the spring of 1945 —– including the Number One spot.  The vocalist is Doris Day.

Louis Prima and Keely Smith performed an idiosyncratic cover that’s worth a listen.

Mr. Mizzy was noted for his wit, and describing a recent (and as yet unreleased) CD on his own label —The Vicster Records— on which he sings twelve of his new songs, he slipped into the third person to note that: “His songs have a great advantage over today’s music for three reasons: 1) The words rhyme. 2) He uses more than three chords to harmonize his melodies, and 3) He has natural distortion, which puts him in the same class as many hit vocalists of today.”

Featured Articles — October 26, 2009

October 26, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Featured Articles | Leave a Comment 

Interesting takes from home and abroad:

A Resilient Baghdad on a Day of Horror By David Ignatius, The Washington Post
From the air Sunday morning, this looked like a city restored. You could see paddle boats skimming the pond at Zahwra Park, and go-karts and waterslides. And in every direction, new schools and soccer fields and bustling warehouses — all taking shape under the canopy of the new Iraq.

At Last, An Afghan Plan By Leslie H. Gelb, Daily Beast
Chopper crashes killed 14 Americans in Afghanistan on Monday, ratcheting up pressure on Obama to decide on a surge. Leslie H. Gelb reports he’s ready to act—but not even his advisers know what he’ll do.

Argentina’s Kirchner Targets the Press By Mary Anastasia O’Grady, The Wall Street Journal
As the state-run economy hits the skids, the government responds with a crackdown on the free press.

A Third Surge? By Fareed Zakaria, Newsweek
The troops need a smarter vision.

Benedict’s Gambit By Ross Douthat, The New York Times
The Church of England has survived the Spanish Armada, the English Civil War and Elton John performing “Candle in the Wind” at Princess Diana’s Westminster Abbey funeral. So it will probably survive the note the Vatican issued last week, inviting disaffected Anglicans to head Romeward, and offering them an Anglo-Catholic mansion within the walls of the Roman Catholic faith.

Chin Music By Louis Menand, The New Yorker
In 2008, half the people who watched the Fox News Channel were over sixty-three, which is the oldest demographic in the cable-news business, and, according to a poll, the majority of the ones who watched the most strident programs, such as Sean Hannity’s and Bill O’Reilly’s shows, were men. All that chesty fulminating apparently functions as political Cialis.

Why Government Health Care Keeps Falling in the Polls By Arthur Brooks, The Wall Street Journal
The health-care debate is part of a larger moral struggle over the free-enterprise system.

After Reform Passes By Paul Krugman, The New York Times
So, how well will health reform work after it passes?

The ‘Public Plan’ Delusion By Robert Samuelson, The Washington Post
In the health care debate, the “public plan” is all things to all people. For supporters, it would discipline greedy private insurers and make health coverage affordable. For detractors, it’s a way station on the path to a single-payer insurance system of government-run health care. In reality, the public plan is mostly an exercise in political avoidance: It pretends to control costs and improve access to quality care when it doesn’t.

The Soundtrack Of Our Lives

October 25, 2009 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under Soundtrack Of Our Lives | Leave a Comment 

Every Sunday, The Soundtrack of Our Lives looks back at some of the music that was popular, and the performers who were influential, around the time Richard Nixon was elected President in 1968.

I CAN’T GET NEXT TO YOU (NORMAN WHITFIELD + BARRETT STRONG) performed by THE TEMPTATIONS

Dennis Edwards: I can turn the grayest sky blue.
Melvin Franklin: I can make it rain, whenever I want it to.
Eddie Kendricks: I can build a castle from a single grain of sand.
Paul Williams: I can make a ship sail on dry land.

Dennis: But my life is incomplete and I’m so blue. ‘Cause I can’t get next to you.

I can’t get next to you, babe.
I can’t get next to you.
I can’t get next to you, babe.
I can’t get next to you.

Dennis: I can fly like a bird in the sky.
Eddie: And I can buy anything that money can buy.
Paul: I can turn a river into a raging fire.
Melvin: I can live forever if I so desired.

Eddie: Unimportant are all the things I can do. ‘Cause I can’t get next to you.

I can’t get next to you, babe. 
No matter what I do,
I can’t get next to you.

Dennis: I can turn back the hands of time, you better believe I can.
Otis Williams: I can make the seasons change, just by waving my hand.
Eddie: I can change anything from old to new.
Paul: The things I want to do the most, I’m unable to do.

Dennis: Unhappy am I with all the powers I possess. ‘Cause girl you’re the key to my happiness.
Eddie: And I can’t get next to you.

Forty years ago this week, the Number One song in America was The Temptations’ “I Can’t Get Next To You.”  At that point the group comprised Dennis Edwards (who had replaced David Ruffin as the lead singer in mid-’68), Melvin Franklin, Eddie Kendricks, Otis Williams, and Paul Williams (no relation).

The song was written by Motown writers and producers Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong, and produced by Whitfield.   Their song “I Heard It Through the Grapevine” had been a Number One hit for Marvin Gaye at the beginning of 1969.

Getting Close To You: at the piano, composer Barrett Strong, with lyricist-producer Norman Whitfield.

In 1970, Al Green’s cover of the song —which broke into the Hot 100— presented a more subdued interpretation.

Featured Articles — October 25, 2009

October 25, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Featured Articles | Leave a Comment 

Interesting takes from home and abroad:

Obama’s Minions Are Ingrates By Stephen F. Hayes, The Weekly Standard
The Bush administration did leave a plan for Afghanistan.

Afghanistan could turn into Vietnam. Let’s hope so. By Joshua Kurlantzick, The Washington Post
In a ceremony last week honoring a unit of Vietnam veterans for their heroism in a long-forgotten battle, President Obama offered a glimpse of how heavily the lessons of Vietnam weigh on him as he considers the way forward in Afghanistan.

Eyes on the Prize By Thomas Friedman, The Washington Post
President Obama flew into Baghdad today on his end-of-term tour to highlight successes in U.S. foreign policy. At a time when the Arab-Israel negotiations remain mired in deadlock and Afghanistan remains mired in quagmire, Mr. Obama hailed the peaceful end of America’s combat presence in Iraq as his only Middle East achievement. Speaking to a gathering of Iraqi and U.S. officials under the banner “Mission Actually Accomplished,” written in Arabic and English, Mr. Obama took credit for helping Iraq achieve a decent — albeit hugely costly — end to the war initiated by President Bush. Aides said Mr. Obama would highlight the progress in Iraq in his re-election campaign.

A Third Surge? By Fareed Zakaria, Newsweek
The troops need a smarter vision.

Barack Obama must stop campaigning and start governing By Toby Harnden, Daily Telegraph
President Barack Obama still steems to be running for office, rather than running the country.

History’s Road to Waziristan By David Ignatius, The Washington Post
Talking with a Pakistani intelligence officer here last week about the army’s invasion of South Waziristan, a visitor noted that troops have been marching down these same rough roads, toward the same tribal strongholds, for more than 150 years — never with much success.

Feinberg’s cuts mean nothing By Terry Keenan, The New York Post
PRESIDENT Obama is masterful when it comes to making sweeping declarations but, as we’re all learning, it’s the nagging details that often get in the way.

Obama outs Fox, but reveals a big flaw By Clarence Page, The Chicago Tribune
Surely President Barack Obama and his advisers don’t really think that their feud with Fox News will do anything but enhance the cable network’s viewership. A deeper problem is what the flap reveals about Team Obama, which seems to be more comfortable with campaigning than governing.

10.24.69

October 24, 2009 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under News media, Nixon Administration, Richard Nixon, Vietnam | 1 Comment 

Forty years ago today, Time magazine asked a question that the President would answer definitively on 3 November.

TNN Weekly Weekend Reward

October 24, 2009 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under Weekly Weekend Reward | Leave a Comment 

A recent Soundtrack Of Our Lives featured “Take It Easy” — the Eagles’ first big hit, written by Jackson Browne and Glenn Frey.

This week’s Reward offers two covers of Eagles songs — “Take It to the Limit” and “Desperado”.

“Take It to the Limit” was written in 1975 by bassist Randy Meissner, Don Henley and Glenn Frey.   The song was a track on the band’s LP One Of These Nights , which won the 1974 Grammy for Album of the Year.

In 1981, accompanied by blues guitarist Kal David, National Treasure Etta James delivered a foreshortened but searing rendition on the late night Tom Snyder Show.

All alone at the end of the of the evening
And the bright lights have faded to blue
I was thinking ’bout a woman who might have
Loved me and I never knew
You know I’ve always been a dreamer
Spent my life running round
And it’s so hard to change
Can’t seem to settle down
But the dreams I’ve seen lately
Keep on turning out and burning out
And turning out the same

So put me on a highway
And show me a sign
And take it to the limit one more time

You can spend all your time making money
You can spend all your love making time
If it all fell to pieces tomorrow
Would you still be mine?
And when you’re looking for your freedom
Nobody seems to care
And you can’t find the door
Can’t find it anywhere
When there’s nothing to believe in
Still you’re coming back, you’re running back
You’re coming back for more

So put me on a highway
And show me a sign
And take it to the limit one more time

“Desperado,” by Frey and Henley, appeared on an eponymous album in 1973. Linda Ronstadt’s poignant cover the same year gave the song an even wider audience.

Desperado, why don’t you come to your senses?
You been out ridin’ fences for so long now
Oh, you’re a hard one
I know that you got your reasons
These things that are pleasin’ you
Can hurt you somehow

Don’t you draw the Queen of Diamonds, boy
She’ll beat you if she’s able
You know the Queen of Hearts is always your best bet

Now it seems to me, some fine things
Have been laid upon your table
But you only want the ones that you can’t get

Desperado, you ain’t gettin’ no younger
Your pain and your hunger, they’re drivin’ you home
And freedom, oh freedom well, that’s just some people talkin’
Your prison is walking through this world all alone

Don’t your feet get cold in the winter time?
The sky won’t snow and the sun won’t shine
It’s hard to tell the night time from the day
You’re losin’ all your highs and lows
Ain’t it funny how the feeling goes away?

Desperado, why don’t you come to your senses?
Come down from your fences, open the gate
It may be rainin’, but there’s a rainbow above you
You better let somebody love you, before it’s too late

Featured Articles — October 24, 2009

October 24, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Featured Articles | Leave a Comment 

Interesting takes from home and abroad:

OutFoxed? By Joe Klein, Time
Let me be precise here: Fox News peddles a fair amount of hateful crap. Some of it borders on sedition. Much of it is flat out untrue.

Obama a tough guy, at least with Fox News By Mark Steyn, OC Register
White House tries to intimidate U.S. media while being a pushover with our foreign adversaries.

Criticism by Obama aides exasperates Va. Democrats By Rosalind Helderman, The Washington Post
Deeds says he was unaware of conflicts over race strategy.

The Inevitability Myth By Matthew Continetti, The Weekly Standard
Health care reform is not a fait accompli.

Pelosi Intensifies Pressure for Public Health Plan By Robert Pear and David Hersenzohrn, The New York Times
Speaker Nancy Pelosi acted amid indications that she had not locked down enough Democratic votes for the proposal.

Give McChrystal a Fighting Chance By Max Boot, The Weekly Standard
The war effort is succeeding in parts of Afghanistan-with time and troops the gains can be consolidated.

War by Other Names By Judith Miller, City Journal
Twenty-six years after the Beirut bombing, the struggle against militant Islam continues

The New Realpolititik?

October 23, 2009 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under Barack Obama, China, International Affairs, National Security, Presidents, Richard Nixon, U.S. History | 1 Comment 

Ever since President Obama’s took the oath of office twice last January, he’s been compared by pundits to every previous Chief Executive since Millard Fillmore or at least Chester Alan Arthur. For the last week the Nixon comparisons have flown hot and heavy; next week it may be time for “the new FDR” to have another go-round. A few hours ago, writing at the Atlantic’s site, former Congressman Mickey Edwards, a co-founder of the Heritage Foundation who made waves last year by supporting Obama’s election, has, wonder of wonders, managed to compare Obama to someone not a President. (Though an implicit comparison to a previous President’s foreign policy is made.) He argues that:

The thing about the presidency, though, is that one invariably finds issues more complicated than they might have appeared from the campaign trail. Here, while one’s heart may echo Jefferson, one’s responsibilities make Washington’s sense of caution more appealing. Henry Kissinger, Richard Nixon’s Secretary of State, is known as the most prominent modern proponent of a “realpolitik” approach toward foreign policy in which, in the end, the most important factor in deciding a national approach to other nations is quite simple: “What is in America’s interest”?

That alone is a difficult question. It was once thought to be in America’s “interest” to ally itself with some of the worst dictators on the planet: we not only allied ourselves with, but embraced, the Batistas, the Somozas, the Shahs, the Noriegas, and while those short-term alliances may have been of some use in dealing with Soviet expansionism (a real threat at the time), we have clearly paid a long-term price for such narrowness of purpose. But the world is not easy. One wishes for more democracy, more freedom, more protection from abuse in all the places where these rights are in short supply. But there are other considerations and they necessarily impinge on the decisionmaking process. In that intra-cranial showdown, it now appears that it is the “hard” side, the perceived necessity of setting aside one’s empathies, that has captured Barack Obama’s thinking.

Well….this discussion of the President’s “inner Kissinger” (as the post is titled) might come as news to the Nobel Peace Prize committee, which, when defending its surprising choice of Obama as this year’s laureate, seemed to think that his handling of foreign policy suggested a Wilsonian idealism far removed from what it evidently viewed as the unspeakable savagery of his predecessor. (Whereas President Bush’s reasons for leading a war to bring democrary to Iraq, and by extension to the Mideast, were thoroughly Wilsonian, predicated on a belief that ordinary Iraqis deserved the right to self-determination.)

Edwards cites, to prove his argument, such incidents as the President’s disinclination to meet with the Dalai Lama during the latter’s visit to Washington this month, and his efforts to engage with the government of Sudan over the Darfur issue. But for every such case, there can be found one that contradicts the idea that Obama’s foreign policy is always focused, in a hard-nosed way, on America’s best interests.

It would seem, for one thing, that our best interests do not involve strengthening Hugo Chavez’s “Bolivarist” regime in Venezuela, with its habit of seeking to destabilize its neighbors. But in the last few months the State Department and the White House have sought to penalize Honduras after that nation removed its president, a Chavez ally seeking to override his nation’s constitution and serve an additional term in defiance of the country’s supreme court. This disregard of a new, pro-American government hardly suggests Realpolitik in action.

The Obama administration’s decision to remove missile defense installations from Poland and Czechoslovakia, which the Nobel committee cited as a reason to give Obama the prize for Peace (a reason heartily seconded by Russian officials), also does not conform to realpolitik in the classic tradition. When President Nixon and Dr. Kissinger made the historic move to bring the People’s Republic of China out of its isolation, they also maintained America’s defense agreements with Taiwan. The Nixon/Kissinger approach to realpolitik was to reach out to nations which had been in conflict with the United States, in order to make a world in which American interests were strengthened, while taking care to maintain productive ties to America’s allies. So far, Obama’s foreign-policy approach has produced no similar strengthening of American interests and some of our allies feel threatened and less secure as a result of the White House’s actions.

“The Fugitive,” Guest Starring Carl Bernstein?

October 23, 2009 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under Barack Obama, News media, Nixon Administration figures, Nixon in the News, Presidents, Richard Nixon, U.S. History, Watergate, White House | 1 Comment 

Late last week Alexander Cockburn, one of the elder statesmen of unreconstructed radical journalism, posted an article on his CounterPunch.com site in which he discussed President Obama’s prospects of prevailing in his feud with Fox News. Unlike many more mainstream journalists, he seems to think that the President might actually prevail over the channel that shamelessly gives a forum to He Who Shall Not Be Named, as Glenn Beck was yesterday identified, in Harry Potterspeak, in a Senate committee hearing by Democratic lawmakers too scared, or something, to mouth his moniker aloud – I kid you not.

In his column, Cockburn, like many another left-leaning pundit this week, takes note of the Nixon White House’s conflicts with liberal newsmen in the early Seventies. (And, unlike most of them, he points out that not all of the press corps in those days endorsed lapses in objectivity and decorum. As an example Cockburn mentions the famed moment at a news conference when Dan Rather, upon being greeted with applause when RN called on him, replied to the President’s question, “are you running for anything?” with “no, Mr. President – are you?” and points out that many of Rather’s peers thought that the crack was inappropriate.)

Then Cockburn follows with this paragraph, by way of arguing that the Nixon White House was not especially skilled in fending off attacks from the press:

Actually it’s a measure of how sloppy the Nixon people were that across the entire Watergate Scandal they failed to excavate Carl Bernstein’s family ties to the Communist Party, nor the fact that every few weeks Bernstein would take time off from his investigative labors with Bob Woodward and drive up to Vermont to visit his cousin Shoshana who at that time was living under an alias in Brattleboro, one jump ahead of the FBI which had her on its Ten Most Wanted list as a radical bomber. People often overestimate the surveillance capacities of the state. One leak of that info to one of Nixon’s pet columnists and the Watergate scandal would have been over.

Huh? Good ol’ lovable Carl Bernstein, winner of his hometown’s Howdy Doody contest in the 1950s? Carl, with his all-American love of classic rock’n'roll? (Even while looking into Watergate he reviewed concerts for the Washington Post.) Carl, who’s visited a thousand college campuses (last week making a rare appearance with Bob Woodward at the University of Texas-Permian Basin) genially lecturing the students about the noble profession of journalism?

Of course, the Pulitzer winner’s hard-working middle-class parents and the difficulties they faced over their political views a half-century ago have never been a secret – he wrote a whole book about them, Loyalties, back in the 1980s – but never has there been any word before that he once used to drop in, from time to time, on a New England cousin who was wanted by the FBI.

Well, after some Googling, I figured out who Cockburn must have been talking about.

Between July and November 1969, New York City was hit by eight bombings of the offices of such institutions as Chase Manhattan Bank, Standard Oil, and General Motors, as well as Federal facilities. Most of the bombings occurred in the late-night hours and produced no fatalities, although one of them, hitting the Marine Midland Building, produced nineteen injuries. On November 12, just after the last of these attacks, a radical in his thirties, Sam Melville (a would-be nom de guerre, no relation to the novelist) was arrested (along with George Demmerle, the FBI informant who’d put the authorities on his trail) as he was loading dynamite onto National Guard trucks outside the 69th Regimental Armory in midtown Manhattan. Melville was found guilty of the bombings, sent to Attica Prison, and was killed there during its 1971 riots. His girlfriend and co-conspirator Jane Alpert was arrested at the same time as himself, but jumped bail a month before her sentencing and went underground, ultimately emerging to serve a prison sentence.

Another suspect in the cast who dropped out of sight while the authorities were searching for her was Patricia (or Pat) Swinton. Ms. Swinton, at the time of the bombings, was advertising manager of Rat, a radical-feminist underground paper for which Ms. Alpert wrote. Ms. Swinton ultimately made her way to Brattleboro, Vermont, where she settled down on a commune called Total Loss Farm (celebrated in a “classic” counterculture-era book by Raymond Mungo, whose subsequent works include a biography of Liberace). There, she took the name Shoshana – which indicates that she was the cousin of Carl Bernstein to whom Cockburn refers. (In 1975, she was located and apprehended, then acquitted by a Federal jury. Contrary to Cockburn’s heated description, Ms. Swinton was never on the Ten Most Wanted list.)

Of course, close students of Carl Bernstein’s career will realize that, back in ‘72, the ready availability of a particular organic substance, the medicinal value of which is now regarded as a legally recognized fact in fourteen states (and this week, tacitly, by the White House), was probably what brought him to Total Loss Farm almost as much as looking in on his wayward kinfolk.

But Cockburn’s claim that exposure of the journalist’s visits to Ms. Swinton would have resulted in Watergate being “over” is a tenuous one. It’s not especially a sure thing that Carl Bernstein would have been let go by the Post had they learned he was hanging out with a fugitive cousin in a Vermont commune – after all, this was the heyday of radical chic, and even a figure as elegant as the Georgetown doyenne Kay Halle would routinely offer her hospitality to a variety of unkempt rock stars and hippies in town to work for George McGovern.

It’s true that it doesn’t seem too likely that he and Bob Woodward could have stayed with the Watergate story had this been known. However, other reporters were chasing the Watergate saga too, such as the diligent, secretive, and staggeringly well-sourced Sandy Smith at Time, and, to a somewhat lesser degree, Seymour Hersh at the New York Times. So Cockburn’s notion that Watergate would have fizzled away with Woodstein out of the picture, while it may conform to the version of American history taught by the Post every fifth June 17 and August 9, doesn’t really hold up under examination.

But this is a good occasion to mention an article by veteran journalist Max Holland in the new (November) issue of Washingtonian. (A longer version, according to the magazine, is to appear at Holland’s washingtondecoded.com site, but is not up yet.) In it, Holland looks at a long-standing Watergate conundrum: who was H.R. Haldeman talking about when, in a taped White House conversation on October 19, 1972, he told President Nixon that John Dean had learned that a lawyer associated with the Washington Post (and identified by Haldeman as formerly being with the Justice Department) had identified Mark Felt as the main source of Bernstein and Woodward’s Watergate stories?

Holland looks at a number of attorneys with Post (or Washington Post Company) affiliations at the time, and concludes that two men – the late Harold Ungar, who worked for Justice in the early 1950s and who was on retainer to the Post in 1972, and Edward L. Smith, Newsweek’s counsel at the time (and a onetime Justice attorney) – could fit Haldeman’s description, though Smith, still living, told Holland that he wasn’t the person who ID’d Felt. (Thanks to Maarja Krusten for letting me know about this article.)

Fahrenheit 1611

October 23, 2009 by David R. Stokes | Filed Under Faith, History, Presidents, Religion, Richard Nixon | 3 Comments 

Define irony. Well, how about this: Staging an event to burn Bibles on what many Protestant Christians observe as Reformation Day, remembering October 31, 1517, the moment in history when Martin Luther posted his 95 Theses on that church door in Wittenberg, Germany. Word of his bold act of religious courage, and the actual words themselves were, within a few months, in the hands of people throughout his country – thanks to the relatively new printing press.

It was not only a religious moment – it was a cultural moment. For the first time a revolution would be effectuated via the published word.

Yet, this next week one so-called “pastor” named Marc Grizzard plans a public Bible – yes, Bible – burning, with the other dozen-or-so members of his fledgling Amazing Grace Baptist Church in Canton, North Carolina. It is, as are all other activities of his church, a DBYOKIGYC event (“Don’t Bring Your Own Koolaid, I Got Ya Covered”).

A Baptist pastor burning Bibles? You bet. He is part of a small, but aggressive, subculture who believe that the only real translation of the Bible is the King James Version, usually referred to by them as “the A.V. 1611” (“Authorized Version” translated in, well, 1611). They like to call themselves as “King James Only” or “KJVO” and they are dogmatic about the idea that somehow, someway, God selected a brief and shining moment 400 years ago to stop language in its tracks; but only one language. And therefore, any effort to translate the Bible any further in English, or into other languages for that matter, is devil-driven.

Lurking behind this is a thinly veiled belief in Anglo-superiority. Those who use the English language are also the Lord’s preferred children. If you look closely at these “ministers” and their churches you will likely also find a measure of ignorance (measure, as in off the charts), racism, white supremacy, and sundry esoteric doctrines bathed in the language of conspiracy. Sundry is a word, by the way, from Hebrews chapter one in the KJV.

Of course, Grizzard’s group is tiny, but I think some would be surprised at how many people actually buy into at least some of what he says. There are KJVO missionaries laboring in non-English speaking countries, who either teach English as a prerequisite to understanding the Bible, or at the least translate from the English into the particular (and, to them inferior) language, instead of the correct and scholarly approach of going back to the Greek (New Testament) and Hebrew (Old Testament). And as the saying goes, it always loses something in that translation.

Mr. Grizzard also, in fairness, plans to burn the selected works of Rick Warren, Billy Graham, Mother Theresa, and others who are “usual suspects” in his eyes. There is danger in “them-there” books.

The sad thing is that Grizzard and his flock are actually doing a disservice to the very book they profess to admire – the classic King James Version of the Bible. It is doubtful that any one book has had more impact on Western culture – even the world, by extension, than this wonderful document. Its words and phrases are part and parcel of our daily conversation and its idioms can be found throughout our literature.

And it is, in fact, a very good translation of the Bible, one that was used effectively by generations – one that many of us grew up on, cutting our spiritual, not to mention linguistic, teeth. George Washington read it at Valley Forge – Lincoln, by the flickering light of a fireplace. When Presidents have been sworn in they have often even kissed the old book. Richard Nixon wrote about his respect and preference for it in his memoirs.

In many houses of worship it remains the translation of choice, but not because all the other ones are evil. It is a comfort zone, understandably so. There are many times when I read a text from a newer translation, but later while speaking default to the King James rendering as a force of habit.

It is hidden in my heart – and for that I am glad!

The King James Version of the Bible has a special place in our history and our hearts. But to worship it as a translation is to miss the point. Then constructive belief becomes cultic bibliolatry. King James becomes more important than King Jesus.

I hold a high view of scripture. In fact, my belief is that it is the inspired Word of God (a view called “verbal-plenary” inspiration). But this does not just apply to one translation in time. It applies to any effort to take ancient words and render them in language people actually use and understand. This is why the writers of the New Testament used “koine” Greek, that of everyday conversation, instead of the “classical” style of the philosophers. There’s code there and it means that the message must be understood in every generation and every tongue.

It has been said that, “the blood of martyrs is the seed of the church.” And the fact is that many times blood was shed centuries ago – and is being shed today in the planet’s pockets of persecution – because some wanted to share the scriptures, in full or fragment.

These heroes of the faith are now being freshly insulted by the actions and attitudes of Mr. Grizzard and his band of Bible burners.

To their minds, “ye ole English” must be a prerequisite to the Kingdom of God. Such a view is not only ignorant; it is arrogant. It is also worthy of repudiation.

I have many times opined about the need for our Muslim neighbors – those who are not radicalized – to take a stand against the fanaticism, hate, bigotry, and savagery of those who, in the name of their religion, wreak havoc. But it is also important that Christians speak out against those who would drag the name of Jesus through the mud of their ignorant idiocy.

I saw a T-Shirt a few years ago and I think it was meant as a dig at religious people in general, evangelicals in particular, but it resonates with me at least a little. It said: “Dear Lord, please protect me from some of your followers.”

Featured Articles — October 23, 2009

October 23, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Featured Articles | Leave a Comment 

Interesting takes from home and abroad:

It’s His Rubble Now By Peggy Noonan, The Wall Street Journal
And the American people want him to fix it.

White House Tactics Go Too Far By Charles Krauthammer, The Washington Post
Rahm Emanuel once sent a dead fish to a live pollster. Now he’s put a horse’s head in Roger Ailes’ bed.

Behind the War Between White House and Fox By Jim Rutenberg, The New York Times
The heated back-and-forth has brought equal delight to Fox’s conservative commentators and liberal Democrats.

Inside Florida’s Red-Meat Republican Primary By Joe Klein, Time
On a recent Saturday night in Daytona Beach — with a thousand or so bikers exercising their unalienable right to be extremely noisy in the streets — Marco Rubio, the new ultraconservative poster boy running for the U.S. Senate in Florida, offered the Volusia County Republican Party a carefully calibrated, and rather compelling, celebration of freedom.

The Chinese Disconnect By Paul Krugman, The New York Times
Something should be done about China’s weak-currency policy, which poses a growing threat to the rest of the world economy.

Living The Nixon Legacy

October 22, 2009 by Jimmy Byron | Filed Under China, Nixon Foundation, Richard Nixon | 1 Comment 

(Photo credit, Gary Byron Photography): Murals of President and Mrs. Nixon’s landmark voyage of peace to the People’s Republic of China are on display at South Coast Plaza.

I had always assumed that ping-pong was a relatively easy game –the activity that one plays at a party, more or less. Usually reserved as the place my mom puts the chips and dip when we entertain my friends, our ping-pong table does not receive much use. Boy, did I have a lot to learn… Outside of North America, table tennis is a worldwide phenomenon, even largely regarded to be the national sport of the People’s Republic of China.

In my three years with the Nixon Foundation, I have been privileged and honored to have been involved in planning and setting up Foundation events. In August 2009, Foundation VP Sandy Quinn and Marketing Director Anthony Curtis took me to one of their working lunches with Werner Escher, Director of International Marketing at South Coast Plaza. The conversation’s light banter drifted around many subjects, though the purpose of the lunch was to discuss and plan Ping-Pong Diplomacy: The Rematch, to be held at South Coast Plaza in October. I presented Werner with a few press items from our enormously successful Ping-Pong Diplomacy event last summer to use for reference.

(Photo credit, Gary Byron Photography): Chinese dancers perform traditional dances in which they used fans emblazoned with the American flag.

I arrived at South Coast Plaza the early morning of October 17. What I would witness and be a part of that day would change my opinion of ping-pong and only strengthen my respect for the South Coast Plaza management and, of course, our team at the Foundation.

In a representation of the cooperation and trust between the U.S. and China, ten murals chronicling President and Mrs. Nixon’s historic 1972 trip to the People’s Republic served as a dramatic bridge in the Bloomingdales wing of the complex. I spoke to a gentleman, a spectator, who told me about his admiration for President Nixon, brought about as a result of the President’s landmark foreign policy initiatives, most significantly the normalization in Sino-American relations; Sandy Quinn began his remarks by echoing that sentiment.

The day began with traditional Chinese dances in which the decorative fans the dancers quickly snapped shut were emblazoned with an American flag pattern. It was truly a significant, remarkable, and poignant display, one that symbolized well the bond between our two nations.

(Photo credit: Gary Byron Photography): Spectators watch as table tennis champions compete.

But perhaps that bond would not have been established were it not for the U.S. Table Tennis team. At the start of his administration, President Nixon began sending subtle overtures to China, seeking better relations between the two nations. As it so happened, the U.S. Table Tennis team was competing in Japan in April 1971, during which they received invitations to compete against the Chinese Table Tennis team in Communist China, an extremely rare outreach to Americans by the Chinese government. The President’s messages had been received and China reciprocated via ping-pong, thus the term “Ping Pong Diplomacy” was coined. With both sides having indicated a willingness to cooperate, the Nixon administration was able to further its diplomatic efforts.

The four table tennis champions introduced at South Coast Plaza had all competed in the Olympics, representing the United States and China. As they began warming up, I was genuinely shocked by their methods of play: their stances, their positions around the table, the way they held their paddles. I never knew that so much went into it! The play-by-play commentator, ping-pong champ Adam Bobrow, whose humorous personality and upbeat attitude was on display throughout the day (just check out this video as a sample of Adam’s persona), would routinely explain procedures and different techniques the athletes were using.

Nixon Foundation Vice President Sandy Quinn (left) and Director of Marketing Anthony Curtis (right) greet Werner Escher (middle), Director of Marketing at South Coast Plaza.

Shoppers began appearing at the sidelines, and more stopped to watch two and three levels above the arena. All were mesmerized by the captivating back-and-forth. Over 2,000 spectators came to watch the Olympians, collegiate athletes, and youth challengers. A few were even lucky enough to “challenge the champs;” young and old took the paddles and tried their luck. Of the thirty or so who participated, one gentleman even defeated a champion!

Youth champions compete in front of large crowds.

Visitors both young and old alike challenged the ping pong champions as a part of the “challenge the champ” feature in the program.

The experience shared between the players, and the continued goodwill between America and China is proof of President Nixon’s vision of bringing East and West together. Hundreds of shoppers wandered between the murals, studying famous images of the trip that started it all, “the week that changed the world.”

Shoppers read the murals of President and Mrs. Nixon’s 1972 trip to China.

I invite you to visit the Bloomingdale’s wing of South Coast Plaza to view the murals of the President and First Lady’s historic trip on display through the first week of November.

Featured Articles — October 22, 2009

October 22, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Featured Articles | Leave a Comment 

Interesting takes from home and abroad:

More Troops Are a Bad Bet By Nicholas Kristof, The New York Times
The United States was born of our ancestors’ nationalistic resentment of a foreign power whose troops we saw as occupiers, not protectors. The British never fathomed our basic grievance — this was our land, not theirs! — so the more they cracked down, the more they empowered the American insurgency.

Obama Goes Wobbly on Afghanistan By Karl Rove, The Wall Street Journal
The president can sustain bipartisan support for the war if he demonstrates his personal commitment.

The Hard Sell By Joshua Tucker and Patrick Egan, The New Republic
How Obama should play the politics of an Afghanistan troop surge.

The lucrative business of Obama-bashing By Bernd Debusmann, Reuters
Four days before Barack Obama was sworn into office, a prominent radio talk show host, Rush Limbaugh, told his conservative listeners that a major American publication had asked him to write 400 words on his hopes for the Obama presidency.

Why the White House Bullies Fox By Tucker Carlson, The Daily Beast
The Obama team isn’t at war with Fox because it’s conservative. They’re angry because Fox has embarrassed them. Tucker Carlson on the press corps’ shameful silence.

Pakistan Gets Serious By David Ignatius, The Washington Post
Until a few months ago, Pakistani officials often used the term “miscreants” when they described the Taliban fighters operating from the western tribal areas. This moniker conveyed the sense that the Taliban was a nuisance — a ragtag band of fanatics and gangsters who could be placated with peace deals — rather than a mortal threat to the nation.

There’s No Substitute for Troops on the Ground By Max Boot, The New York Times
“I HOPE people who say this war is unwinnable see stories like this. This is what winning in a counterinsurgency looks like.”

Laughing Matters

October 21, 2009 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under Humor, News media | Leave a Comment 

From a recent Onion:

Report: Majority Of Newspapers Now Purchased By Kidnappers To Prove Date

NEW YORK—According to a report published this week in American Journalism Review, 93 percent of all newspaper sales can now be attributed to kidnappers seeking to prove the day’s date in filmed ransom demands.

“Although the vast majority of Americans now get their news from the Internet or television, a small but loyal criminal element still purchases newspapers at a steady rate,” study author and Columbia journalism professor Linus Ridell said. “The sober authority of the printed word continues to hold value for those attempting to extort large sums of money from wealthy people who wish to see their loved ones alive again, and not chopped into pieces and left in steamer trunks on their doorsteps.”

“These are sick, sick individuals,” Ridell added. “God bless them for saving our industry.”

TNI: Blind In Kabul

October 21, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Afpak, Nixon Center, The National Interest | Leave a Comment 

Over at The Nixon Center’s National Interest, editors note — in their daily editorial roundup — that some pundits see positive gains in the Afpak theater, but others argue that the White House has no strategy:

On Tuesday afternoon, Afghan President Hamid Karzai agreed to hold a runoff presidential election after a UN commission revealed massive fraud in the initial August poll. The Wall Street Journal praises Afghanistan in an editorial, noting that the country “demonstrated political maturity” by opting to resolve the disputed election in a democratic, peaceful fashion. There is more good news across the Durand Line, where our fair-weather allies in Pakistan have just launched an offensive against Islamist militants in the wild frontier regions straddling the border with Afghanistan. The Journal rightly points out that these are both sunny developments in an otherwise dismal part of the world. The new Afghan elections offer a fresh chance for Karzai (or his challenger, Abdullah Abdullah) to gain legitimacy, “as much in the U.S. as in Afghanistan.” And the new offensive in Pakistan is “an early litmus test” for Islamabad’s reliability as an ally in the war on terror.

All of these positive developments have come without major U.S. backing, and in spite of “President Obama’s all too public second thoughts over the U.S. commitment to Afghanistan.” Although Obama’s “advisers and generals deserve credit for helping to turn events around in the Afpak theater,” we’re leaving our friends in the region in the lurch by waffling in our commitments. They deserve better.

The New York Times thinks the Journal’s view paints an overly rosy picture of our Afghan friends. In an editorial, the Grey Lady notes that “Before Afghanistan’s president, Hamid Karzai, acceded to a runoff election on Tuesday, you could almost hear his arm being twisted. And it took a lot of top-level talent to do it.” Secretary Clinton, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner all pressured Karzai to agree to the new poll. And even then, “it took a five day marathon of negotiations with Senator John Kerry . . . to get Mr. Karzai to do what was necessary.” So the idea of the Afghan president as a willing and helpful partner is rather dubious.

The election itself will take even more effort to pull off, as it is only three weeks away. Remember what a security disaster the first one was? A repeat may be in the works. And if Karzai wins (which is likely), he won’t suddenly turn into the legitimate savior of Afghanistan. He’ll still be viewed as a warlord enabler who stays in power through American protection, unless he roots out corruption and delivers “basic services and security” to his people.

In short, the Times believes the White House has bungled its response to the political side of the Afghan crisis. Blaming the Bush administration can only work for so long, especially when the initial August election took place eight months into Obama’s tenure. The president “and his aides should have taken a lot more care to ensure that Mr. Karzai and his challengers understood that . . . wholesale fraud would be a disaster—in Afghanistan and the United States, where support for the war is evaporating.” Washington has been abuzz with high-profile debate about military policy. Now it needs to “devote at least as much attention to coming up with an effective political strategy” for Afghanistan.

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