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Why not invite Australia’s John Howard, those Spanish conservatives, some Eastern Europeans — some good guys, with more salubrious records? Being a “realist” does not mean that you have to invite a tyrant into your personal space. If, like Ford and Kissinger, you want to keep Solzhenitsyn out of the White House, fine (though not really — I’m just making an argument); but then, you might not want to play Yahtzee with his jailers in your pajamas. One further China note. I was semi-amused by something in an Erik Eckholm dispatch for the New York Times. He wrote, “After disclosures last week about nuclear weapons development by North Korea, Beijing’s erratic ally, Washington hopes China will help turn the screws on the North Korean leader, Kim John Il . . .” Turn the screws: Is that the right phrase to use about a torturing dictatorship? Actually, I guess so!
This is, of course, highly offensive, and untrue. No sane person is eager for war; no one thinks that war unto itself is a good. It’s that some of us have concluded that, with regard to Iraq, it is necessary, for the sake of more lasting peace and freedom. The Left complains — sometimes rightly, I suppose — that they are subject to McCarthyism in such debates. What is certainly true is that we are perpetually accused of belligerence, ignorance, and a callous disregard of human life. “I hate war,” said FDR, in that magnificent, rolling, Hyde Park voice. But he certainly took it to Krauts and Nips when he had to, didn’t he?
All through his presidency, Clinton leaned on blacks. Hard. This was especially true when he was in any kind of trouble — personal, electoral. As the civil-rights figure Roger Wilkins told me in 1998, “He knows that if he goes to see black people, he’s going to get a warm bath.” This was never truer than during the Lewinsky mess. That first weekend, he invited an old nemesis, Jesse Jackson, to the White House, to watch the Super Bowl (ostensibly). Then Jackson went and got Betty Currie back on the reservation. Then the Black Congressional Caucus lined up to greet the president at the State of the Union address. Then the administration touted the closeness between Clinton and his chief bodyguard (black). Then they complained about the whiteness of Virginia juries, versus the purity of D.C. ones. Then they said that congressional Republicans were a bunch of Klansmen. Etc., etc. At every turn, Clinton clutched his black constituents to him — and they, sadly (as I see it), clutched him back. He implied that the effort to impeach him was really — underneath it all — an attack on them. Very clever. And very slimy. When Toni Morrison came along and confirmed Clinton as “our first black president,” it was his finest moment. Why? He has always counted on his black support to validate him as a human being; this support has always been central to his self-esteem. He may be an adulterer, a charlatan, and a liar, but, by golly, black citizens — the holiest Americans — love him, and therefore he must be okay. So . . . when the Black Hall of Fame gave him his plaque, that must have become his finest moment, as he would see it (hell, as anyone would see it). But that doesn’t mean he’s any good.
Guess who’s not coming to dinner?! Belafonte compared the national security adviser to a “Jew” who was “doing things that were anti-Semitic and against the best interests of her people.” I have a few people I wouldn’t mind comparing Belafonte to, but, just once, I’ll hold my tongue.
The other day, Rumsfeld was doing a press briefing, when someone brought up an article written about him that said he was feared, disliked, etc., by Pentagon personnel. The questioner said, “[The article] says you’re a ‘tough hombre’ in your dealings and . . .” Rumsfeld broke in and said, “I am sweet and lovable. Goddang.” Rummy: You gotta love him, even if you’re the most pacifistic, SDI-hating person alive, simply for the way American English, c. 1955, sits in his mouth.
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was struck by something Mark Steyn said several weeks ago: We really need
a new ranch policy. That is, President Bush should craft a new policy
for his Crawford ranch. Too many tyrants are going there, it seems to
me: from Saudi Arabia, from China. I mean, Jiang Zemin at the ranch, chowin’
down on barbecue? Is that a privilege that should really be reserved
to him, when the Chinese authorities are persecuting Christians and others
with mad zeal?
Here,
let me make a broad complaint. One hears a lot of Democrats and others
contend that people like me are “eager for war.” They act like
the president, the vice president, the defense secretary, and the rest
of us are all itching for war, so in love with guts and glory we must
be.
