I have written a fair amount about Fidel Castro, over the years, and a fair amount about Jimmy Carter, too. Perhaps readers are sick of hearing about those men. Sometimes I get sick of writing about them. But let me do so here, briefly: for the two men have come together, again.
In recent days, Carter has told the press, “I think Fidel is staying as aloof as he possibly can.” Yet he also “reserves the right to come forward on a particular occasion when he feels his voice might be helpful in clarifying an issue.” (Full article here.)
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Is that the way a democrat talks about an absolute dictator? Is that the way a man of God, or of humanism, talks about a torturer and murderer? Is that the way a former American president talks about a man who seized power by force, and maintains it by force?
Yes, it is. And that is sickening.
Years ago, Carter was mighty upset — visibly, publicly upset — when Violeta Chamorro beat Daniel Ortega in an election. This result was somehow not permitted. Carter tried to get Chamorro to share power with Ortega and the Sandinistas. Jeane Kirkpatrick remarked to me, “You would have thought a democrat would be happy.” Yes, you would have.
One amazing thing about Senator Specter’s switch of parties was the brazenness of it. Just days before his switch, he said he would not leave the Republican party and why: checks and balances, blah, blah, blah. Really, really strong statements — no wiggle room; no “Well, maybe . . .” And then he says, in effect, “Never mind. Disregard that previous talk.”
I’m not sure that a normal person could do this. A normal person could not tolerate — the sheer dislocation. But, as has been observed before, politics may not be for normal people.
One more thought: Is it absolutely necessary that Specter serve in the Senate forever? Or that Bob Byrd do? Don’t these people have grandchildren or hobbies or something?
Beware the politician who needs the office.
And I like something that Phil Gramm said to me, as he left the Senate “As my grandmama used to say, ‘The graveyard is full of indispensable men.’”
I want to examine something that appeared in an Associated Press report, here. We read, “Peres, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, is a world-renowned Mideast peacemaker, while Netanyahu has a hawkish reputation.”
1) Peres is a renowned peacemaker, is he? Okay: What peace has he made? Ms. AP Reporter, please tell me what peace he has made. People in the Middle East will be curious to know, too.
2) Sometimes the hawks are in the best position to make peace — see Menachem Begin.
3) Peres and Rabin shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Yasser Arafat — lest one has forgotten.
Okay, I think three’s enough points for now.
It had been many years since I saw a Paul Krugman column, but I was coming home from Europe, and swiped an International Herald Tribune from a cart. (This was on an airplane; the papers were free. I was not stealing.) There was a Krugman column in that edition. I read,
. . . Republicans have become embarrassing to watch. And it doesn’t feel right to make fun of crazy people. Better, perhaps, to focus on the real policy debates, which are all among Democrats.
But here’s the thing: the G.O.P. looked as crazy 10 or 15 years ago as it does now. That didn’t stop Republicans from taking control of both Congress and the White House. And they could return to power if the Democrats stumble.
I stopped reading there. I heard better insults on the playground at Pattengill Elementary School — less childish ones, too.
And I had a memory: Andrew Rosenthal, head of the Times’s op-ed page, said, “The problem with conservative columnists is that many of them lie in print.”
Clearly, he prefers a much classier brand of columnist. And, by the way: What if a right-of-center Times columnist referred to Democrats casually as “crazy”?
(To see the Krugman column in question, go here.)
One columnist who would never, ever be accepted by the New York Times is Thomas Sowell: What a great writer, thinker, and man. His column of April 28 is a particularly good specimen. I’d like to draw attention to just a few sentences from it: “Bending over backward is a very bad position from which to try to defend yourself.” “President Obama can ban the phrase ‘war on terror,’ but he cannot ban the terrorists’ war on us.” And this:
Those who choose to live outside [proper] laws, whether terrorists or pirates, can be — and have been — shot on sight. Squeamishness is neither law nor morality. And moral exhibitionism is beneath contempt, when it sacrifices the safety of those who live within the law for the sake of self-satisfied preening, whether in editorial offices or in the White House.
As they say, read the whole thing.
Has Boutrous Boutrous-Ghali ever been your hero? He has never been mine. But I think I’m having a change of heart. You know the expression “to speak truth to power”? Boutrous-Ghali has spoken truth to lunacy — on al-Jazeera. MEMRI has the clip, here. And here is what transpired:
Interviewer: Dr. Ghali, don’t you live in Egypt?
Boutrous-Ghali: Yes, I do.
Interviewer: Don’t you see all the problems?
Boutrous-Ghali: These problems exist all over the world, not only in Egypt.
Interviewer: All over the world?
Boutrous-Ghali: Yes.
Interviewer: Something like the al-Ahram strike takes place all over the world?
Boutrous-Ghali: Yes, there are daily strikes throughout the world.
Interviewer: Things are different now. This is the first time in the history of Egypt that every day, we see new sectors of Egyptian society striking, because of the severe problems they face.
Boutrous-Ghali: All of this is because of the Camp David Accords?
Interviewer: Of course.
Boutrous-Ghali: Come on, man . . .
Interviewer: It was Camp David that brought all this.
Boutrous-Ghali: You remind me of the times when everything was attributed to colonialism. . . .
Interviewer: How do you view the peace accord 30 years later?
Boutrous-Ghali: I swear that just like the Saudi caller just said, this was the greatest triumph for Egyptian diplomacy. . . . Why are you smiling? I guess you are not convinced.
Interviewer: Thank you. I always look forward to interviewing you.
Boutrous-Ghali: Thank you.
Interviewer: Thank you too.
Two lines I will always clutch to my heart: “Come on, man” — you can say that to a million Arab conspiracy theories. And, “You remind me of the times when everything was attributed to colonialism.”
I have never been a Boutrous-Ghali fan. But, for those lines, I’ll love him — certainly respect him — forever.
