Wednesday, August 09, 2006
Monday, August 07, 2006
Sheehan returns to Crawford
Sheehan, her followers have returned to Crawford: "On Sunday, Sheehan, who is fasting as part of her protest, led about 50 supporters in a march to the security checkpoint outside Bush's ranch. She was turned away by officials, and White House spokesman Tony Snow said there are no plans for the president's representatives to meet with her. They did so last year.
'You know what, honestly, when you're talking about the kind of issues we've been talking about, Cindy Sheehan just has not risen to the level of staff meetings at this point,' Snow said in reference to strife in the Middle East and elsewhere.
He added, 'I would advise her to bring water, Gatorade or both.'"
'You know what, honestly, when you're talking about the kind of issues we've been talking about, Cindy Sheehan just has not risen to the level of staff meetings at this point,' Snow said in reference to strife in the Middle East and elsewhere.
He added, 'I would advise her to bring water, Gatorade or both.'"
Sunday, August 06, 2006
The Secret of Success
Sincerity and Politics: "The secret of success is sincerity; once you can fake that you've got it made." - Jean Giraudoux
Leadership
"A leader is a person you will follow to a place you wouldn't go by yourself."Here is an article in Forbes about the Lieberman campaign:We keep getting hung up on these useless questions. Here is an example of a useless question:Stay the course, or cut and run? Who thought that one up? I could say, the Republicans thought that one up, but that would be too easy, wouldn't it?You can see the latest Doonesbury at Slate.
Wednesday, August 02, 2006
Tuesday, August 01, 2006
Monday, July 31, 2006
Sunday, July 30, 2006
Friday, July 28, 2006
Wednesday, July 26, 2006
Tuesday, July 25, 2006
Sunday, July 23, 2006
Tuesday, July 18, 2006
Monday, July 17, 2006
Saturday, July 15, 2006
Mohammed Atta
Here is a picture of Mohammed Atta. How would we learn the names and faces of the other eighteen?
Monday, July 10, 2006
All Out Civil War
I'd like to know why we still keep seeing the phrase "all out civil war" in connection with the war in Iraq. A couple of years ago, the comment always was, there'll be a civil war if we leave. It'll be a bloodbath. The Iraqis decided to have a civil war while we were still there. So now we keep hearing that Iraq is on the brink of an all out civil war, and the government has the difficult job of preventing that. Well I'd like to know, what would an all out civil war look like?
Does an all out civil war mean that the soldiers fighting it have to wear uniforms? Do they have to use heavier weapons? What do you mean by the phrase _all out_? Does all out mean that the battle has to be like the Battle of Stalingrad? People died at a rate of roughly 400 a day during the American Civil War, the worst civil war of its century. The Iraqi body count in Baghdad has been running about fifty deaths a day. No one can keep track of the body count in the rest of Iraq, though people have tried. What does the daily death toll have to be to count as an all out civil war?
Let's try to ask the question this way. Suppose we were losing fifty soldiers a day in a war. What kind of a war would we call that? During the years we fought in Vietnam, we lost roughly twenty soldiers a day. Did that war not count as an all out war? Does it not count because we didn't use nuclear weapons, or because we didn't invade North Vietnam?
I'd like to know what is the use of the distinction between an all out civil war and a civil war that is not all out? When one of the corpses lying on a Baghdad street with hands tied behind the back and a bullet in the back of the head is your husband or father, you don't care much whether the people who did it thought they were fighting an all out civil war or not. Who cares what you call it - sectarian killings, reprisals, insurgent violence - it amounts to the same thing.
The reason the journalists keep repeating the phrase _all out civil war_ is that they want to remind us that things could get worse. Well yes, things could get worse. Things can always get worse. But that's not the point here. The thing to remember here is that things have gotten very bad now, and they're not getting better. Built into the phrase _all out civil war_ is the hope that things can get better, that the government can prevent the situation from worsening. And, one can add, the only way the Iraqi government can do that is if we stay to help them.
But remember that the Iraqi government is a fiction. Iraq does not have a government. If Iraq had a government, people would be secure. That's the definition or a government. A government has a monopoly on the use of force. Put more precisely, a government has a monopoly on the legitimate use of force. No one has a monopoly on the use of force in Iraq. That's the definition of a civil war. A civil war exists when no one has a monopoly on the legitimate use of force. Well, we can get technical here. That's anarchy. When no one has a monopoly on the legitimate use of force, and various sides actually use force, that's a civil war.
Iraq's so-called government is a creature of the United States. The institutions that exist in the Green Zone: the parliament, the cabinet, the presidency and the prime minister's office, the offices that administer the police and the army: these are not real institutions in the eyes of Iraqis. They exist to make America's presence in the country look legitimate. If these institutions made up a real government, they wouldn't have to hide in the Green Zone. If they made up a real government, they would be able to control the use of force in the country. Obviously they don't make up a government, and they don't have any control over anything outside of the Green Zone.
So I have a request for journalists here. Please stop referring to the Iraqi government as something that actually exists. If you were to say "American puppets," at least you'd be honest. As it is, your analysis of what's happening in Iraq sounds false as soon as you say the phrase _Iraqi government_. Who do you think you're fooling? No one in Iraq thinks Iraq has a governement. Perhaps people here do just because they have heard the phrase repeated so often.
Does an all out civil war mean that the soldiers fighting it have to wear uniforms? Do they have to use heavier weapons? What do you mean by the phrase _all out_? Does all out mean that the battle has to be like the Battle of Stalingrad? People died at a rate of roughly 400 a day during the American Civil War, the worst civil war of its century. The Iraqi body count in Baghdad has been running about fifty deaths a day. No one can keep track of the body count in the rest of Iraq, though people have tried. What does the daily death toll have to be to count as an all out civil war?
Let's try to ask the question this way. Suppose we were losing fifty soldiers a day in a war. What kind of a war would we call that? During the years we fought in Vietnam, we lost roughly twenty soldiers a day. Did that war not count as an all out war? Does it not count because we didn't use nuclear weapons, or because we didn't invade North Vietnam?
I'd like to know what is the use of the distinction between an all out civil war and a civil war that is not all out? When one of the corpses lying on a Baghdad street with hands tied behind the back and a bullet in the back of the head is your husband or father, you don't care much whether the people who did it thought they were fighting an all out civil war or not. Who cares what you call it - sectarian killings, reprisals, insurgent violence - it amounts to the same thing.
The reason the journalists keep repeating the phrase _all out civil war_ is that they want to remind us that things could get worse. Well yes, things could get worse. Things can always get worse. But that's not the point here. The thing to remember here is that things have gotten very bad now, and they're not getting better. Built into the phrase _all out civil war_ is the hope that things can get better, that the government can prevent the situation from worsening. And, one can add, the only way the Iraqi government can do that is if we stay to help them.
But remember that the Iraqi government is a fiction. Iraq does not have a government. If Iraq had a government, people would be secure. That's the definition or a government. A government has a monopoly on the use of force. Put more precisely, a government has a monopoly on the legitimate use of force. No one has a monopoly on the use of force in Iraq. That's the definition of a civil war. A civil war exists when no one has a monopoly on the legitimate use of force. Well, we can get technical here. That's anarchy. When no one has a monopoly on the legitimate use of force, and various sides actually use force, that's a civil war.
Iraq's so-called government is a creature of the United States. The institutions that exist in the Green Zone: the parliament, the cabinet, the presidency and the prime minister's office, the offices that administer the police and the army: these are not real institutions in the eyes of Iraqis. They exist to make America's presence in the country look legitimate. If these institutions made up a real government, they wouldn't have to hide in the Green Zone. If they made up a real government, they would be able to control the use of force in the country. Obviously they don't make up a government, and they don't have any control over anything outside of the Green Zone.
So I have a request for journalists here. Please stop referring to the Iraqi government as something that actually exists. If you were to say "American puppets," at least you'd be honest. As it is, your analysis of what's happening in Iraq sounds false as soon as you say the phrase _Iraqi government_. Who do you think you're fooling? No one in Iraq thinks Iraq has a governement. Perhaps people here do just because they have heard the phrase repeated so often.
Sunday, July 09, 2006
Saturday, July 08, 2006
The Worst President in American History?
Spencer Blog Archives 1-03: The Worst President in American History? 01-23-03
"Okay, as I'm sure you're well aware, I'm not at all in the habit of defending W about anything but, as a historian, this story and the Helen Thomas quotation that W is 'the worst president in all of American history' is beginning to become quite grating to me.
Don't get me wrong. W does have the genuine potential to make that short list of real presidential losers that includes folks like Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan, U.S. Grant, Rutherford B. Hayes, Benjamin Harrison, and Warren Harding, but he's not there yet. He hasn't been president long enough and done enough damage yet to qualify.
(Yes, I know there were more bad presidents, of course, but these are the ones that damned near every historian will agree were the bottom of the barrel.)
Now, if W's administration continues its assault on civil liberties, if his administration engages us in an unnecessary and morally bankrupt war that will kill tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis, destabilize a region and increase the threat of terrorism worldwide, if his administration follows through on its plan to re-implement Nixonian secrecy and the imperial presidency, and if he and his surrogates continue to drag American political discourse into the gutter by questioning the patriotism of political opponents a la Joseph McCarthy in political campaigns, then he very well may get to make the presidential shit list but it's awfully premature to put him in this category.
Now, of the nine presidents Helen Thomas has covered, he probably is the worst one IMHO. His daddy was downright impressive in comparison folks. But it's awfully early to be making such pronouncements and, I would argue, pretty damned irresponsible. While I might enjoy thinking about W this way, the historian in me thinks this is taking things too far after just two years of W's presidency.
Now that I've finished defending W, I'm going to go take a shower.
I think I'm going to be sick."
- Tom Spencer
"Okay, as I'm sure you're well aware, I'm not at all in the habit of defending W about anything but, as a historian, this story and the Helen Thomas quotation that W is 'the worst president in all of American history' is beginning to become quite grating to me.
Don't get me wrong. W does have the genuine potential to make that short list of real presidential losers that includes folks like Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan, U.S. Grant, Rutherford B. Hayes, Benjamin Harrison, and Warren Harding, but he's not there yet. He hasn't been president long enough and done enough damage yet to qualify.
(Yes, I know there were more bad presidents, of course, but these are the ones that damned near every historian will agree were the bottom of the barrel.)
Now, if W's administration continues its assault on civil liberties, if his administration engages us in an unnecessary and morally bankrupt war that will kill tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis, destabilize a region and increase the threat of terrorism worldwide, if his administration follows through on its plan to re-implement Nixonian secrecy and the imperial presidency, and if he and his surrogates continue to drag American political discourse into the gutter by questioning the patriotism of political opponents a la Joseph McCarthy in political campaigns, then he very well may get to make the presidential shit list but it's awfully premature to put him in this category.
Now, of the nine presidents Helen Thomas has covered, he probably is the worst one IMHO. His daddy was downright impressive in comparison folks. But it's awfully early to be making such pronouncements and, I would argue, pretty damned irresponsible. While I might enjoy thinking about W this way, the historian in me thinks this is taking things too far after just two years of W's presidency.
Now that I've finished defending W, I'm going to go take a shower.
I think I'm going to be sick."
- Tom Spencer
Wednesday, July 05, 2006
Tuesday, July 04, 2006
Commentary by Steven Hayward
"Many have drawn comparisons between Reagan and FDR, Truman, Kennedy, and Lincoln, but Steven Greffenius draws our attention to what should be the most obvious comparison of all—Jefferson. Reagan paraphrased Jefferson in his First Inaugural Address and many other speeches, and moreover embodied the straightforward Jeffersonian axiom that 'that government governs best which governs least.' As Greffenius points out, Reagan followed Jefferson in understanding limited government as the platform for American greatness and individual virtue rather than as a narrow ideology of self-interest." - Steven Hayward, author of The Age of Reagan
Monday, July 03, 2006
Saturday, July 01, 2006
Friday, June 30, 2006
Sunday, June 25, 2006
Iraqi echoes of Reagan's campaign in Lebanon
Iraqi echoes of Reagan's campaign in Lebanon:
"Iraq, as in Lebanon, suffers not from a lack of trained government security forces - more than 230,000 Iraqi security forces have been trained - but from a lack of willingness to fight on behalf of the Iraqi government. That willingness is something the United States cannot instill no matter how long it stays.
The longer we wait, the longer we will only continue to serve as a crutch for the Iraqi security forces. A phased redeployment, as advocated by people such as Murtha, should give Iraqi forces the motivation to stand up. And the United States would still maintain forces in the region by keeping ground forces in Kuwait and a carrier battle group and a Marine Expeditionary Force in the Persian Gulf.
Reducing troop levels in Iraq would also enable the U.S. to better fight the war on terror. It would allow United States to send more troops to Afghanistan, deal more effectively with Iran, better protect the homeland, and reduce the strain on our ground forces."
"Iraq, as in Lebanon, suffers not from a lack of trained government security forces - more than 230,000 Iraqi security forces have been trained - but from a lack of willingness to fight on behalf of the Iraqi government. That willingness is something the United States cannot instill no matter how long it stays.
The longer we wait, the longer we will only continue to serve as a crutch for the Iraqi security forces. A phased redeployment, as advocated by people such as Murtha, should give Iraqi forces the motivation to stand up. And the United States would still maintain forces in the region by keeping ground forces in Kuwait and a carrier battle group and a Marine Expeditionary Force in the Persian Gulf.
Reducing troop levels in Iraq would also enable the U.S. to better fight the war on terror. It would allow United States to send more troops to Afghanistan, deal more effectively with Iran, better protect the homeland, and reduce the strain on our ground forces."
A Prayer at Bedtime
Make me lay my head down to rest,
To awaken refreshed and filled with zest.
The sun comes up each day, ready for us.
God's gift, not to be missed.
God's gift, not to be missed.
To awaken refreshed and filled with zest.
The sun comes up each day, ready for us.
God's gift, not to be missed.
God's gift, not to be missed.
Meg Greenfield at Work
In the late 1970s, Roger Rosenblatt was a journalist at the Washington Post. He tells how his boss, Meg Greenfield, assigned him an editorial about an irate golfer who murdered a goose on the links when it interfered with his game. To make matters worse, he apparently ate the evidence. Rosenblatt wrote up the Post's position on the case, but he still needed a title for the piece. As he rushed past Greenfield's desk to submit the article he shouted, "What shall we call this?" Without looking up from her paperwork she replied, "Honk if you think he's guilty."
Subscribe to The Last Jeffersonian
If you've read enough political rubbish on the Internet, subscribe to The Last Jeffersonian. (TLJ is a free journal and a book you can purchase at Amazon.) You may not always agree with what you read, but you're sure to find the argumentation worth your time. Compare what you read here with what you see in the newsgroups, and see if you don't agree.
Who Was Ronald Reagan?
"The Last Jeffersonian gives Reagan his due as a politician, a patriot, and a political thinker." (Mark Burson, former Executive Director of the Reagan Library)
The Last Jeffersonian: Ronald Reagan’s Dreams of America, by Steven Greffenius, looks closely at Ronald Reagan the man, the politician, and the U.S. President.
Many Americans think of President Reagan as the last great conduit for the democratic principles held by Founding Father Thomas Jefferson. Mr. Reagan held high hopes for America, and believed fervently in the principles of free enterprise, individual freedom, and democracy.
Though his thinking was radical, and his approach to politics often described as "unconservative," Reagan was a political force to be reckoned with ¾ a leader loved and revered by Americans and others the world over.
The Last Jeffersonian paints a true portrait of Ronald Reagan, explaining his radical ideas in light of Jefferson's beliefs about politics and society.
No matter their political background or beliefs, most Americans would agree that Ronald Reagan is a multi-faceted character ¾ one who demands to be understood and respected. The Last Jeffersonian gives you that understanding, and entertains you in the process.
Whether you're a student of politics, a patriot, or an American looking for an interesting and enlightening read, The Last Jeffersonian leaves you with a higher understanding of this great man, his ideals, and his legacy. Mark Burson of the Reagan Presidential Library writes: "Here is a book that translates the essence of Ronald Reagan for the rest of us."
For a limited time, you may purchase The Last Jeffersonian new at Amazon's Marketplace for one-third off the usual price. Use the credit card and shipping address in your Amazon account to buy the book for only $11.95! Shipping is just $2.26, and the book is en route to you in less than two days. To go straight to the book's home page at Amazon, click here.
The Last Jeffersonian: Ronald Reagan’s Dreams of America, by Steven Greffenius, looks closely at Ronald Reagan the man, the politician, and the U.S. President.
Many Americans think of President Reagan as the last great conduit for the democratic principles held by Founding Father Thomas Jefferson. Mr. Reagan held high hopes for America, and believed fervently in the principles of free enterprise, individual freedom, and democracy.
Though his thinking was radical, and his approach to politics often described as "unconservative," Reagan was a political force to be reckoned with ¾ a leader loved and revered by Americans and others the world over.
The Last Jeffersonian paints a true portrait of Ronald Reagan, explaining his radical ideas in light of Jefferson's beliefs about politics and society.
No matter their political background or beliefs, most Americans would agree that Ronald Reagan is a multi-faceted character ¾ one who demands to be understood and respected. The Last Jeffersonian gives you that understanding, and entertains you in the process.
Whether you're a student of politics, a patriot, or an American looking for an interesting and enlightening read, The Last Jeffersonian leaves you with a higher understanding of this great man, his ideals, and his legacy. Mark Burson of the Reagan Presidential Library writes: "Here is a book that translates the essence of Ronald Reagan for the rest of us."
For a limited time, you may purchase The Last Jeffersonian new at Amazon's Marketplace for one-third off the usual price. Use the credit card and shipping address in your Amazon account to buy the book for only $11.95! Shipping is just $2.26, and the book is en route to you in less than two days. To go straight to the book's home page at Amazon, click here.
That's What Ronald Reagan Knew
Ronald Reagan Knew
Author Dick Lynch
Finding Nancy His Love and Soul Mate
Was What Gave His World Its Hue
Because of Nancy He Would Reach His Potential
That’s What Ronald Reagan Knew
As He Took The Presidential Oath Of Office
The Almighty Gave His Life’s Mission A Clue
Fight For Personal Freedom Around The World
That’s What Ronald Reagan Knew
What Makes The U.S. So Special
Are The Soldiers The Proud & The Few
Those Who Sacrifice & Bleed For Our Freedom
That’s What Ronald Reagan Knew
A Tragedy Saddens America
With The Loss Of The Challenger Crew
Time To Be A Father To An Entire Nation
That’s What Ronald Reagan Knew
Terrorism Rears Its Ugly Head In Beirut
Killing My Marines & Yours Too
We Must Protect America At All Cost
That’s What Ronald Reagan Knew
A Bullet Impacts Our Leader
His Faith In God Rightfully Grew
We Must Pray For John & Everyone
That’s What Ronald Reagan Knew
Take Down This Wall Now He Told Gorbachev
Who’s Predecessor Once Pounded A Shoe
Freedom’s Intrinsic To Citizens In Every Nation
That’s What Ronald Reagan Knew
Graceful In His Years Of Decline
His Life On Earth A Passing Thru
Eternity Is The World That Counts
That’s What Ronald Reagan Knew
The Commander & Chief Is Surrounded By His Troops
Giving President Reagan His Rightful Due
Our Nation And Children Are Safe Cause Of Them
That’s What Ronald Reagan Knew
Seated At The Right Hand Of The Father Our Creator
The President Flawlessly Delivers His Last Line On Cue
“My Fellow Americans God Is With Us”
That’s What Ronald Reagan Knew
Author Dick Lynch
Finding Nancy His Love and Soul Mate
Was What Gave His World Its Hue
Because of Nancy He Would Reach His Potential
That’s What Ronald Reagan Knew
As He Took The Presidential Oath Of Office
The Almighty Gave His Life’s Mission A Clue
Fight For Personal Freedom Around The World
That’s What Ronald Reagan Knew
What Makes The U.S. So Special
Are The Soldiers The Proud & The Few
Those Who Sacrifice & Bleed For Our Freedom
That’s What Ronald Reagan Knew
A Tragedy Saddens America
With The Loss Of The Challenger Crew
Time To Be A Father To An Entire Nation
That’s What Ronald Reagan Knew
Terrorism Rears Its Ugly Head In Beirut
Killing My Marines & Yours Too
We Must Protect America At All Cost
That’s What Ronald Reagan Knew
A Bullet Impacts Our Leader
His Faith In God Rightfully Grew
We Must Pray For John & Everyone
That’s What Ronald Reagan Knew
Take Down This Wall Now He Told Gorbachev
Who’s Predecessor Once Pounded A Shoe
Freedom’s Intrinsic To Citizens In Every Nation
That’s What Ronald Reagan Knew
Graceful In His Years Of Decline
His Life On Earth A Passing Thru
Eternity Is The World That Counts
That’s What Ronald Reagan Knew
The Commander & Chief Is Surrounded By His Troops
Giving President Reagan His Rightful Due
Our Nation And Children Are Safe Cause Of Them
That’s What Ronald Reagan Knew
Seated At The Right Hand Of The Father Our Creator
The President Flawlessly Delivers His Last Line On Cue
“My Fellow Americans God Is With Us”
That’s What Ronald Reagan Knew
Saturday, June 24, 2006
Wednesday, June 21, 2006
Ronald Reagan’s Legacy to the Nation
The Claremont Institute: The Remedy: "Ronald Reagan�s Legacy to the Nation"
Monday, June 19, 2006
Robert Heinlein Quotation
"Do not handicap your children by making their lives easy." - Robert Heinlein
Sunday, June 18, 2006
Spokesman: Bush Polls Don't Rule Iraq War
Spokesman: Bush Polls Don't Rule Iraq War:
"'If I had known the president was going to be this incompetent in his administration, I would not have given him the authority' to go to war, said Biden, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
But Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said Americans should be a bit more patient, citing progress including the recent death of terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi after a U.S. airstrike in Iraq.
'We do need to do a better job,' said Graham, who appeared with Biden on CBS' 'Face the Nation.' 'We are having progress in Iraq. Zarqawi's death is a sea change. If we're going to go on these shows every Sunday and talk about every mistake ever made in a war, we're going to lose this war.'"
"'If I had known the president was going to be this incompetent in his administration, I would not have given him the authority' to go to war, said Biden, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
But Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said Americans should be a bit more patient, citing progress including the recent death of terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi after a U.S. airstrike in Iraq.
'We do need to do a better job,' said Graham, who appeared with Biden on CBS' 'Face the Nation.' 'We are having progress in Iraq. Zarqawi's death is a sea change. If we're going to go on these shows every Sunday and talk about every mistake ever made in a war, we're going to lose this war.'"
Saturday, June 17, 2006
Wednesday, June 14, 2006
Tuesday, June 13, 2006
Monday, June 12, 2006
Saturday, June 10, 2006
Friday, June 09, 2006
The Reagan Presidency: The Role of a Lifetime (V)
Summer's greetings to everyone, near the beginning of June. I wanted to mail an issue of TLJ while this season of remembrance season is still with us. Ronald Reagan died on Saturday, June 5, 2004. This week marks the second anniversary of his death.
As summer of 2006 gets underway, please think of who among your friends, relatives, and colleagues shares your interest in Ronald Reagan and American politics. Think of one or two people, and forward this issue of TLJ to them with your compliments. If you received this copy from a friend, and you'd like to have your own issue delivered to your inbox, you can subscribe easily at http://techwritepublishing.com/tlj/. Thanks!
For June, we're happy to publish part five of Lou Cannon's biographical essay about Ronald Reagan. This installment looks back at Reagan's policy toward the Soviet Union. Quite a lot of time has passed since the Berlin Wall came down, enough time to see a new global war develop, a conflict just as deadly and difficult as the Cold War. We need Reagan's brand of competent leadership now. What a difference Reagan made during his time at the wheel!
The Role of a Lifetime (Part V), by Lou Cannon
I mentioned earlier a short story that Reagan wrote as a young man deploring the horror of war. As he expressed in Kansas City, Reagan was haunted by the notion that the United States and the Soviet Union could blunder into war if the policies of mutual assured destruction continued. Reagan felt that it was up to him to end this policy and prevent nuclear war. At The Washington Post, when he was running for president in 1980, Reagan acknowledged that the U.S. military buildup he advocated would lead a to an intensified arms race. But Reagan saw this as desirable because he believed the Soviets could not compete economically and would come to the bargaining table. To Reagan, unlike some of his boosters, the arms race was always a mean towards an end.
Reagan's detractors didn't see it this way. They feared that the combination of his polices and his rhetoric would incite the Soviets and perhaps ignite a war. Reagan said some harsh things about the Soviet Union, most of them true. Some Soviet leaders were even harsher in response. One of them compared Reagan to Hitler. But when Gorbachev, beginning with the Geneva summit in 1985, sat down with Reagan he learned to appreciate Reagan's candor and commitment. According to a Soviet participant at Geneva, Gorbachev was standing with a group of Soviet officials and one of them became highly critical of Reagan's positions and of Reagan personally. Gorbachev, showing irritation, interrupted. "This is the president of the United States, elected by the American people," he said.
Reagan respected Gorbachev, as well, and said after his return to the United States from Geneva that he was a different sort of Soviet leader. Already, without perhaps quite realizing it, the two men were creeping along the road to the first treaties of the nuclear era that reduced the arsenals of the superpowers and put us on the path to the end of the Cold War and the demise of the Soviet Union.
In February 1993, the Princeton Conference on the End of the Cold War brought together nine leading former U.S. and Soviet diplomats, including former U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz and Alexander Bessmertnykh, who had been the deputy Soviet foreign minister in the crucial last years of the Reagan administration. While they differed on details, all agreed that the Cold War had not ended automatically. The participants gave credit to Reagan and Gorbachev, none more eloquently than Bessmertnykh, who said of them:
"As for the common things, I would say that those two men were very idealistic. They each had their own ideals, which they had tried to follow all through their lives. Their ideals were not similar, but the dedication to those ideals was similar. They both believed in something. They were not just men who could trim their sails and go any way the wind blows... this is what they immediately sensed in each other, and why they made good partners."
Bessmertnykh scoffed at opinions in "the American press" after Reykjavik that Reagan had fallen short as a negotiator. "It was not true at all," he said. "Reagan handled negotiations very, very well. He might not have known all the details. He used little cards when he would come to details. He didn't like the formal part of negotiations... He would try to rush through this formal part, and then he would throw away the cards and then he would start talking the direct way. I was across the table at all the summits and followed this president for all those years, and I personally admired the man very much. He was a good politician. He was a good diplomat. He was very dedicated. And if it were not for Reagan, I don't think we would have been able to reach the agreements in arms control that we reached later, because of his idealism, because he thought that we should really do away with nuclear weapons. Gorbachev believed in that. Reagan believed in that. The experts didn't believe, but the leaders did."
Even though Reagan appreciated that Gorbachev was different - and better - than any of the Soviet leaders who had become before, his great goal remained to end communism as we knew it. As Condoleezza Rice, then a Russian expert, said to me in 1999, the Cold War was "frozen in time" when Reagan became president and called the Soviet Union an evil empire. "It was like there was this crazy aunt in the basement that no one wanted to talk about and that once you said she was there everyone said they knew it all along," Rice said. Reagan somehow did. Before he became president he told Richard Allen, who became his first national security adviser: "My idea of American policy toward the Soviet Union is simple, some would say simplistic. It is this: We win and they lose. What do you think of that?"
But that's not the whole story. Reagan and Gorbachev both knew that winning and losing would have no meaning if there were a nuclear war. Reagan knew there had been close calls on both sides during the years when Mutual Assured Destruction was the policy of both superpowers. Gorbachev knew this, too. So the oft-asked question of who won the Cold War - however it is answered - may not be the most important question. That question would be: How was it that the Cold War ended peaceably? And the answer would be that both leaders recognized the dangers of the alternative.
Next issue, Lou Cannon concludes The Role of a Lifetime, his biographical essay about Ronald Reagan. He considers Reagan's attitudes about using force to spread freedom and democracy beyond America's borders.
Links
You can buy two of Lou Cannon's books about Ronald Reagan in a boxed set: Governor Reagan and President Reagan: The Role of a Lifetime (Second Edition). The set is titled Ronald Reagan: A Life in Politics. Click the link to go to Amazon's page for these books.
Also see the latest articles at the TLJ weblog, Opponents of the War in Iraq Need a Strategy and Bush Says U.S. Is Winning in Iraq, Sacrifices Ahead. For a long time now the weblog has served as TLJ's alter ego. Since the war has been such a significant event in our time, you'll find a lot of ideas and links about that issue there. Please have a look.
Please forward TLJ to anyone who might be interested, especially people interested in American politics. Also, please browse TLJ's home on the web, and make recommendations about what you'd like to see there. The site contains articles, speeches, links, past issues of this journal, and many other resources.
If you'd like to contribute an article, a letter, or anything else to the TLJ weblog or to this journal, please write to me at steveng@TechWritePublishing.com. TLJ welcomes your comments about what you read here, or your thoughts about any other political issue. Thanks!
Steven Greffenius is the author of The Last Jeffersonian: Ronald Reagan's Dreams of America. To learn more about the book, please visit http://techwritepublishing.com/tlj. To order a copy, please visit TLJ's page at Amazon.
Monday, June 05, 2006
Sunday, June 04, 2006
Saturday, June 03, 2006
Thursday, June 01, 2006
Monday, May 29, 2006
Thursday, May 25, 2006
Sunday, May 21, 2006
Saturday, May 20, 2006
Ethics Now and Then: Mistakes, Crimes, and Sedition
What's the difference between a crime and a mistake? Well, here are a couple of differences:
When you commit a crime, you deserve punishment. When you make a mistake, you may or may not be punished for it, but you generally don't deserve to be punished in the same sense. Of course, you may or may not be punished for committing a crime, but if you're not, we say that justice is not done.
Another difference, according to lawyers and judges, is that a criminal has to have criminal intent. Perpetrators must know that what they are doing is wrong. If they don't know what they are doing is wrong, it's not clear that they deserve punishment. If they don't know what they are doing is wrong, they've made a mistake. That covers a lot of human behavior, because a lot of people who make mistakes think they are doing the right thing.
I was talking with someone tonight about whether or not our president is a criminal because he launched a war that's illegal in international law. She responded that it takes a long time for people to come around to that point of view. It took me a long time to come around to that point of view. For a couple of years, I said that the president is incompetent, and that he lacks judgment. That's what you say about someone who makes bad mistakes. Then I began to say that he's an incompetent criminal. Most recently, I've dropped the incompetent part. Do you know why? Because of the torture. Torture follows this president wherever his authority reaches: Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, Afghanistan, secret prisons in Europe, rendition and waterboarding and death after death... That's what transforms this president's actions from mistakes into crimes. He is responsible for the way we conduct the war that started on September 11. He and his team have conducted the war not as incompetents, but as criminals.
One problem with calling the president a criminal is that it's almost impossible to do so without seeming to dishonor the brave soldiers who are fighting now in Iraq and Afghanistan. But I don't see it. Soldiers follow orders and civilian leaders give them. I know we have a whole jursiprudence in military law about not following illegal orders, but that's just not relevant in this case. We have an administration that has overseen the development of torture as a policy in the so-called war against terror. This policy is deliberate and it flows from the top of our government. Blaming our soldiers for the war itself, or for the way it's conducted, is out of the question. They are not to blame for what the government has done. The few soldiers who are blameworthy are already under investigation, and their acts don't diminish the bravery or honor of all the others who fight for us.
For all that, we still don't want to recognize the president's actions for what they are. We think that if Secretary Rumsfeld steps down, we can make things okay again. Well, Bush was right when he said, "I'm the decider." He meant that he supports Rumsfeld and the rest of the team that brought us Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, extraordinary rendition, and all the rest. Bush is responsible for all of it, but no one in government will say it. To say during a war that the president is a criminal sounds like sedition. Sedition is the incitement of rebellion against a lawful state, though, and this state is not lawful. It has shown itself a criminal state. It has destroyed our beloved constitution and our reputation as a democratic country that protects human rights. So we have to ignore its authority and find new leadership, fast.
When you commit a crime, you deserve punishment. When you make a mistake, you may or may not be punished for it, but you generally don't deserve to be punished in the same sense. Of course, you may or may not be punished for committing a crime, but if you're not, we say that justice is not done.
Another difference, according to lawyers and judges, is that a criminal has to have criminal intent. Perpetrators must know that what they are doing is wrong. If they don't know what they are doing is wrong, it's not clear that they deserve punishment. If they don't know what they are doing is wrong, they've made a mistake. That covers a lot of human behavior, because a lot of people who make mistakes think they are doing the right thing.
I was talking with someone tonight about whether or not our president is a criminal because he launched a war that's illegal in international law. She responded that it takes a long time for people to come around to that point of view. It took me a long time to come around to that point of view. For a couple of years, I said that the president is incompetent, and that he lacks judgment. That's what you say about someone who makes bad mistakes. Then I began to say that he's an incompetent criminal. Most recently, I've dropped the incompetent part. Do you know why? Because of the torture. Torture follows this president wherever his authority reaches: Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, Afghanistan, secret prisons in Europe, rendition and waterboarding and death after death... That's what transforms this president's actions from mistakes into crimes. He is responsible for the way we conduct the war that started on September 11. He and his team have conducted the war not as incompetents, but as criminals.
One problem with calling the president a criminal is that it's almost impossible to do so without seeming to dishonor the brave soldiers who are fighting now in Iraq and Afghanistan. But I don't see it. Soldiers follow orders and civilian leaders give them. I know we have a whole jursiprudence in military law about not following illegal orders, but that's just not relevant in this case. We have an administration that has overseen the development of torture as a policy in the so-called war against terror. This policy is deliberate and it flows from the top of our government. Blaming our soldiers for the war itself, or for the way it's conducted, is out of the question. They are not to blame for what the government has done. The few soldiers who are blameworthy are already under investigation, and their acts don't diminish the bravery or honor of all the others who fight for us.
For all that, we still don't want to recognize the president's actions for what they are. We think that if Secretary Rumsfeld steps down, we can make things okay again. Well, Bush was right when he said, "I'm the decider." He meant that he supports Rumsfeld and the rest of the team that brought us Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, extraordinary rendition, and all the rest. Bush is responsible for all of it, but no one in government will say it. To say during a war that the president is a criminal sounds like sedition. Sedition is the incitement of rebellion against a lawful state, though, and this state is not lawful. It has shown itself a criminal state. It has destroyed our beloved constitution and our reputation as a democratic country that protects human rights. So we have to ignore its authority and find new leadership, fast.
Thursday, May 18, 2006
Tuesday, May 16, 2006
Sunday, May 14, 2006
Our Deepest Fear
Our deepest fear, Marianne Williamson
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.
Saturday, May 13, 2006
Friday, May 12, 2006
Thursday, May 11, 2006
Wisdom from Horace
"Dimidium facti, qui coepit, habet; sapere aude, incipe.”
"He who has begun has half done. Dare to be wise (know); begin!"
- Horace, Epistles
"He who has begun has half done. Dare to be wise (know); begin!"
- Horace, Epistles
Saving Iraq: Mission Impossible
Tonight I read an article by Juan Cole called Saving Iraq: Mission Impossible. It's at http://salon.com. He argues that prime minister designate al-Maliki won't be able to make much of a difference in securing Iraq. Cole is pessimistic that anyone could unite the country.
Tuesday, May 02, 2006
Remembering Reagan's Big Win in Texas
Remembering Reagan's Big Win in Texas by Gary Hoitsma
Barnhart, who was later elected chairman of the Texas Republican Party and then appointed by Reagan in 1981 as federal highway administrator, recalled that he had learned the true measure of Reagan’s character during one incident in that early first hard-fought campaign in Texas. He said he was stunned when Reagan calmly turned down an extraordinary opportunity Barnhart had arranged for the governor to make a cameo scripture-reading appearance at W.A. Criswell’s Sunday worship service at his Baptist Church in Dallas. Criswell was an icon to more than four million Texas Baptists who Barnhart knew would be mightily impressed by a Reagan appearance.
“We’re not going to it,” Reagan said. “Not do it?” Barnhart replied. “There isn’t a politician in Texas who wouldn’t cut off his arm for this opportunity.”
“You don’t understand, Ray.” Reagan responded. “My relationship with my God is MY relationship, and we’re not going to abuse it.”
Years later Barnhart recalled, “I knew at that moment there’d never be a man in politics more principled and deserving of respect.”
Barnhart, who was later elected chairman of the Texas Republican Party and then appointed by Reagan in 1981 as federal highway administrator, recalled that he had learned the true measure of Reagan’s character during one incident in that early first hard-fought campaign in Texas. He said he was stunned when Reagan calmly turned down an extraordinary opportunity Barnhart had arranged for the governor to make a cameo scripture-reading appearance at W.A. Criswell’s Sunday worship service at his Baptist Church in Dallas. Criswell was an icon to more than four million Texas Baptists who Barnhart knew would be mightily impressed by a Reagan appearance.
“We’re not going to it,” Reagan said. “Not do it?” Barnhart replied. “There isn’t a politician in Texas who wouldn’t cut off his arm for this opportunity.”
“You don’t understand, Ray.” Reagan responded. “My relationship with my God is MY relationship, and we’re not going to abuse it.”
Years later Barnhart recalled, “I knew at that moment there’d never be a man in politics more principled and deserving of respect.”
