The Debatable Land

Fred Thompson: Un-American lobbyist...

I'm a fan of The New Republic* but that doesn't mean they're infallible. In the current issue they publish a graphic (not online) titled Who's Cashing In? that lists some of the clients Fred Thompson, the "Pickup Truck Populist" represented "during his career as a country lawyer". Among them:

Foreign corporations, including Toyota, the Perrier Group and Uranerzbergbau, a German mining conglomerate.

Question: is there something especially reprehensible about representing dastardly foreigners? Perhaps they should simply shut up and be grateful that they are permitted to operate in the United States at all?

*Disclosure: I've written for them occasionally, contributed to their World Cup and US Open blogs and count a number of TNR writers as friends.

Bush Derangement Syndrome: the Conservative Version

There's a lot to like and just as much to ponder in the current issue of The New Republic, however for a spot of horrifying entertainment it's hard to beat Johann Hari's account of his time aboard a National Review cruise last November.

National Review partisans will doubtless complain that it's a partial account and they will, for sure, have a point. But Hari's piece gets to the guts of what a certain type of American conservative really does think. It's not a pretty picture.

[Norman] Podhoretz and [William F] Buckley now inhabit opposite poles of post-September 11 American conservatism, and they stare at wholly different Iraqs. Podhoretz is the Brooklyn-born, street-fighting kid who traveled through a long phase of left- liberalism to a pugilistic belief in America's power to redeem the world, one bomb at a time. Today, he is a bristling gray ball of aggression, here to declare that the Iraq war has been "an amazing success." He waves his fist and declaims, "There were WMD, and they were shipped to Syria. ... This picture of a country in total chaos with no security is false. It has been a triumph. It couldn't have gone better." He wants more wars, and fast. He is "certain" Bush will bomb Iran, and "thank God" for that...

...Aren't you embarrassed by the absence of these weapons?" Buckley snaps at Podhoretz. He has just explained that he supported the war reluctantly, because Dick Cheney convinced him Saddam Hussein had WMD primed to be fired. "No," Podhoretz replies. "As I say, they were shipped to Syria. During Gulf war one, the entire Iraqi air force was hidden in the deserts in Iran." He says he is "heartbroken" by this "rise of defeatism on the right." He adds, apropos of nothing, "There was nobody better than Don Rumsfeld. This defeatist talk only contributes to the impression we are losing, when I think we're winning."

The audience cheers Podhoretz. The nuanced doubts of Bill Buckley leave them confused. Doesn't he sound like the liberal media? Later, over dinner, a tablemate from Denver calls Buckley "a coward." His wife nods and says, "Buckley's an old man," tapping her head with her finger to suggest dementia.

Two charitable interpretations of this lunacy occur: either Podhoretz is an old man losing his mind or he is simply feeding the animals at the zoo what they want. Such charity would be misplaced however, since Podhoretz subsequently tells Hari in private that "nobody was tortured in Abu Ghraib or Guantánamo" and Bush is "a hero".

Just as illuminating is the conservative certainty that Europe is doomed:

Topic A: the billion-strong swarm of Muslims who are poised to take over the world. The idea that Europe is being "taken over" is the unifying theme of this cruise. Some people go on singles' cruises, some on ballroom-dancing cruises. This is the Muslims Are Coming cruise. Everyone thinks it. Everyone knows it. And the man most responsible for this insight is sitting only a few tables down: Mark Steyn. He is wearing sunglasses on top of his head and a bright shirt. Steyn's thesis in his new book, America Alone, is simple: The "European races"--i.e., white people--"are too self-absorbed to breed," but the Muslims are multiplying quickly. The inevitable result will be "large-scale evacuation operations circa 2015" as Europe is ceded to Al Qaeda and "Greater France remorselessly evolve[s] into Greater Bosnia." He offers a light smearing of dubious demographic figures--he needs to turn 20 million European Muslims into more than 150 million in nine years, which is a lot of humping--to "prove" his case.

But facts, figures, and doubt are not on the itinerary of this cruise. With one or two exceptions, the passengers discuss "the Muslims" as a homogenous, sharia-seeking block--already with near-total control of Europe. Over the week, I am asked nine times--I counted--when I am fleeing Europe's encroaching Muslim population for the safety of the United States.

What is striking here, is what one might term a psychological desire to be proved right about this, as though conservatives welcome Europe's gotterdammerung. This would have the happy consequence of leaving the United States magnificently alone; not merely mankind's last best hope but it's only chance to save something from the ashes. Hell, it's as if the conservative movement - or this part of it - is working itself into a rapturous millenarian frenzy. Does it have to be said that this is madness?

It's not just National Review's readers either. A search of the magazine's blog for "France" and "Intifada" brings a mere 961 results. Still, the absence of any French civil war cannot be allowed  to colour one's opinions can it?  Just because it isn't there doesn't mean you can't find it if you're only wise enough to believe what your imagination creates.

Which is, of course, rather how we got into this mess in the first place. 
 

The Vanishing Karen Hughes

How's that "Freedom Agenda" going? Foreign Policy notes that according to the State Department's own website Karen Hughes, the Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, has all but given up speaking to, well, the public. While she made an average of 5.5 public speaking appearances in 2005, this year she's averaging just 1.5 speeches or op-eds a month.

Still more remarkably, according to the State Department's list of what one presumes to be Ms Hughes' mot important pronouncements, 75% of her speeches and articles have been delivered or published inside the United States. Her overseas engagements have been limited to an op-ed in the Times of India and a brief speech in Bombay at a lunch hosted by the Indo-American Chamber of Commerce.

Some (eg, the redoubtable Mr Larison) will be reassured by this. Others may be reminded that a famous (and perhaps, by now, cliched?) Texas phrase might sum up his administration's approach to its stated goals in this area: All Hat and No Cattle.

PS: It is of course possible that Ms Hughes' silence does advance the President's ambitions in so much as when she does speak she routinely makes herself - and by extension her President and, I fear, her country - ridiculous. Perhaps she is merely following the old principle: First, Do No Harm. If so, it would be pleasant if that attitude were extended to other parts of the administration...

Ceci n'est pas un cliche*...

An editorial in the current issue of the New Republic makes a sensible point about France and one that is relevant to the foreign press in general rather than TNR in particular:

Over the last few months, we've joined the rest of the United States in casting an interested eye to the Gallic nation and its democratic exertions. And, along with the usual supply of liberté, égalité, and fraternité, France's most exciting political season in years has marked the return of something uniquely American: the French cliché. Yes, the U.S. media's affection for the stalest of French stereotypes is rather like France's love of Jerry Lewis--legendary and without limit. "Listen to the conversation with the waiter at the table next to you in a Parisian restaurant at lunchtime and more often than not it will involve a nuanced discussion of what is best to eat and just which wine to drink," The New York Times rhapsodized. (In summing up the country's political mood, the paper also couldn't resist noting the quaint charm of the "neighborhood bistros and bakers and cheese shops and charcuteries.")

Quite so. A declaration of interest and, perhaps, culpability is required here. Stories that confirm or at least reflect or nod to established cliches are vastly easier to publish than stories which offer a more, shall we say, nuanced view of the world. (Stories refuting cliches are useful for filling space on public holidays when no-one can be expected to buy a newspaper anyway.)

So, yes, stories about America's weirdly old-fashioned love of god and its equally baffling** enthusiasm for guns are always popular around the world. Chuck in a handful of gays for the trifecta. These are comforting and reassuring tales. Would you just look at those Americans? Them is crazy folk.

Similarly it seems no-one is permitted to write about France without mentioning lunch or, more perniciously, if you're a certain type of apocalyptic American conservative, without confidently predicting the imminent demise of the entire european continent as it is over-run by hordes of baby-producing muslims.

Happily, of course, most predictions tend to be wrong (and, in my experience, those expressed with the greatest confidence often prove least likely to be borne out by events). Still, any time one thinks one might have a handle on a foreign country it is instructive to read what the foreign press says about one's own native land. Do that and you may not have quite the same faith in the news from anywhere. Or rather, you may have a greater appreciation of the limitations of the news.  Still, as TNR reminds us, no country has a monopoly on useless pap.

*Actually, it is.

**I kid; it's not that baffling to me.

Transdniestrian Tales

If, like me, you receive a weekly email digest from The Tiraspol Times, you will very much enjoy this series of dispatches from The Economist's expert correspondent in Moldova and Transdniestria:

FINDING the offices of the only English-language paper in a foreign city is hardly a tough assignment—except when the paper is the Tiraspol Times, the slickly produced propaganda outlet of the Transdniestrian authorities. This purports to be a proper newspaper, with a website and a print edition. The editor until recently was one Mark Street, assisted by Jason Cooper (bald) and Karen Ryan (blonde). The news, features and analysis are better than anything Moldova produces in English.

Yet this fine organ is remarkably elusive. Its website shows no address, but the domain registration gives 118 October 25th St. That is shared by the infamous Hotel Druzhba and a political party. Nobody at either building has heard of the Tiraspol Times. Local journalists cannot recall meeting anyone from the paper. Even a person such as Dmitri Soin, who has featured in its columns, says he has had contact “only by e-mail”.

The internet reveals no trace in any previous life of the journalists who supposedly work there. The only discoverable person seems to be its publisher, Mr Des Grant, an Irish local-newspaper owner with an unexplained but lively connection with Transdniestria...

It's all good stuff.

The Virtues of Silent & Lofty Superiority

I'm glad I wasn't the only one. The FT's Gideon Rachman on Blair's farewell speech:

I really hated the bit when he declared that Britain is "the greatest nation on earth." This struck me as a very un-British statement. My faith in my fellow countrymen was, however, restored by the fact that this declaration was greeted with lukewarm applause, rather than whoops and standing ovations.

This was an embarrassing, even mortifying moment. Stony silence would have been even better than nervous, lukewarm applause of course, but one can't have everything.Even if one did think Britain the greatest nation on earth one certainly wouldn't say so in public. That sort of grandstanding and boastfulness is for, well, foreigners.

Furthermore, I think Henry Farrell is right to suppose that the problem with this sort of claim is that the very fact of making it undermines the proposition you're advancing.

Similarly, Jack McConnell's campaign to persuade us that Scotland is "The Best Small Country in the World" struck a false note: if this were true or obviously the case you wouldn't have to be telling us would you? But since you are telling us, it can't be true.

An own goal, then, and a demonstration of insecurity, not national pride. 

The Global News Village is Listening To Everything You Say

Among the odder questions one is asked in Washington (of all places!) is, "You mean people in Scotland/Hungary/Australia/Brazil are interested in this stuff?" It never ceases to surprise me that people in this city should be surprised that the rest of the world is interested in, and follows closely, what happens here.

Anne Applebaum addresses this subject in her Slate column today. Satellite television, cable news, the internet (and the English language's dominance of said tubes and pipes) and so on have combined to blur  - and often eliminate entirely - the line between domestic American news and news of worldwide importance. Hence, every newspaper in the world, it seemed, dispatched reporters to Blacksburg last week. The news is global these days.

This is something American politicians have - as Applebaum suggests - yet to come to terms with. In the age of the internet and YouTube there is no such thing as a purely domestic and international audiences. Voters and interested parties around the globe hear everything the President or the leading contenders to succeed Bush say. You can no longer say one thing for domestic consumption and another for a foreign audience.

So, for instance, while John McCain's "Bomb Iran" song may, as I suggested, help him in the Republican primary, it has very bad consequences should he actually win the Presidency. Millions of people around the world will, at the very least, assume that if this is not actual US policy then it is what the new President would like to have as American policy. That in turn has consequences in terms of the range of options - and ease with which they can be pursued - available to the White House.

(I don't mean to pick on McCain: the other candidates' have the same problem. Each time John Edwards tosses some red meat towards liberal protectionists in the Democratic Party, the rest of the world hears a threat to its own jobs and future prosperity and begins to suspect that the United States cannot be relied upon as a trading partner.)

Now for a spot of special pleading! Candidates for the Presidency might want to rethink how they deal with the foreign press. No-one expects McCain or Clinton or whoever to grant the same level of access to the foreign press they reserve for the NYT or WaPo, but a little more consideration and tact would go a long way. After all, international journalists play a part in determining how an American president is perceived internationally. And if the last six years have taught us anything it might be that perceptions do in fact matter in terms of the part they play in deciding how helpful foreign governments are likely to be when asked for help by the United States. Perceptions and public opinion decree how much room for manoeuvre foreign governments have in terms of accommodating the US. Clearly, candidates cannot - and should not - be expected to tailor their every word to how they think the international audience is going to react, but just remembering that there is an international audience would be a useful start.   

This is all, of course, just a small part of the job the United States needs to do in terms of selling itself overseas. But every little helps. As I say, no-on in their right mind thinks that granting more access to the foreign press is a magic bullet for thi sort of thing. But it can't hurt and it might even do a little good. It's certainly better than considering the international media "about on a par with lice."

Even better, politicians on the stump might try and remember that what they say in the campaign has an impact on what they can do should they actually win the Presidency.

The Vodka Test

Conventional wisdom has it that the Beer Test - as in which candidate would you rather be sat next to in a dive bar - is an important metric in determining electoral success. Poor John Kerry. Now The Economist provides an entertaining and pleasingly dry guide to what to expect from Eastern European leaders.

Among the highlights:

Visiting Lech Kaczynski of Poland is great fun if you have a good knowledge of Gdansk opposition politics in the early 1970s; conversation on other topics is more limited, and can be alarming. Slovakia’s president, Ivan Gasparovic, has interesting contrarian views on Serbia, but not much else.

Hmmm.

Vaclav Klaus of the Czech Republic, by contrast, is exactly the same whether you have known him for ten minutes or 20 years: abrasive, forceful, well-informed and magnificently dismissive of views other than his own. If you have a Nobel prize for economics, he may give your views a marginally more polite hearing. Otherwise, thicken your skin.

Janez Drnovsek of Slovenia, by contrast, is a dreamy, mystical fellow; he would seem more at home running an alternative bookshop, perhaps with a sideline in healing crystals and aromatic oils. A cup of herb tea and a light lentil salad will accompany your discussion of world peace and the healing properties of mountains.

For the more adventurous:

Transdniestria’s president, Igor Smirnov, should be described as “head of statelet”, not head of state: his breakaway region is not recognised by the outside world. But despite a peppery manner, and behind a cloud of smoke from his beloved Balkan Sobranie cigarettes, he has a surprisingly sharp sense of fun. Just try to stay off politics.

However:

The ideal evening would probably start with President Traian Basescu of Romania and a beer in one of the Bucharest bars that he likes to frequent. The former sea-captain’s salty humour is hard to resist: he must have run a happy ship.

America Under Siege

More aggression aimed at under-mining American values: this time it's punters under the cosh, led astray by mysterious, foreign horse-racing practices. In other words, the use of artificial racing surfaces such as Polytrack, spreading across the country to corrupt American racing.

According to the WaPo's Andrew Beyer, Polytrack - pioneered at English courses such as Lingfield - produces:

A mutant version of horse racing that penalizes thoroughbreds for being fast

Un-American! Beyer's complaint is that races at Keeneland, in Lexington, have become, well, too european. instead of a flat-out sprint from tape to post horses are jockeying (ha!) for position prior to kicking for the finishing line. This is the way things are done in europe, where racing takes place on good old natural grass, not dirt. Polytrack, though an artificial surface, much more closely resembles turf conditions than dirt.

The difference seems startling:

Since Keeneland installed Polytrack last fall, the surface has turned the game there upside down. American racing has historically favored horses endowed with speed; its breeding industry has invested billions of dollars to produce such horses. Yet at Keeneland, a track that used to be dominated by front-runners, speed has become a liability. Of the first 48 races run on the surface last year, only one horse was able to lead all the way.

Mind you, Beyer does have a horse, so to speak, in this fight. As Ted McClelland observes:

Beyer is best known as the inventor of the Beyer Speed Figure, a tool for comparing races run under varying track conditions. Horseplayers are debating whether speed figures will work on Polytrack, which is designed to sieve rain and perform the same in all weather. A traditional dirt track is banked for drainage, so water collects at the rail and may slow down the horses who run there. Racetrack regulars like Beyer make good money spotting horses hampered by such track biases and betting them the next time they race. Polytrack, which is supposed to run the same every time, could kill that angle.

No wonder european-style tactics risk turning racing into a farce: who could want a surface fair on all horses instead of one dependent upon drainage patterns?

But what most struck me about Beyer's complaint was his very American insistence that everything measurable be measured. The uniformity - more or less, or at least much more so than turf - of dirt conditions has fostered an American mania for timing horses down to the last hundredth of a second, as though it makes much difference to a horse's greatness that it can complete a 1/2 mile in 46.86 rather than 46.99 seconds?

This is fine as far as it goes. Which isn't far.

Still, the notion that something might not be easily measurable runs hard against the American grain. It's one reason (among many) why some Americans remain suspicious of soccer: statistics can't tell you much about a players' contribution. Similarly, horse-racing in Britain and Ireland has never much bothered about times (as turf tracks have varied conditions).

Myself, I'd have thought horse-racing could stand some surface variety and perhaps reward different styles of horse. But maybe not. Still, there's something very American about the desire to measure, or find empirical, definitive evidence upon which to rank horses. They are horses after all. Yet there you have it:  beating on against the current and all that. The stuff that makes fortunes but, perhaps, robs us of some mystery...