Back in the 2008 fall campaign, some of us liked to say, “Keep talkin’, Joe, keep talkin’.” The more the Democratic vice-presidential nominee opened his mouth, the better it seemed for Republicans. This was in stark contrast with the Democratic presidential nominee, who was silver-tongued and surefooted.

Well, I had a thought, during and after Obama’s recent press conference — a thought I never had before. I thought, “Keep talkin’, Barack, keep talkin’.” The more he talked, the more he hurt himself (and not just with “docs ’n’ cops”).

This is new.

‐Also, do you think the Obama balloon has been punctured? Do you think the mesmerism has been broken? Are people losing their awe of Obama, or fear of him? Are they starting to see him as a normal man, a normal president, with strengths and weaknesses? That would be something.

‐This is what may well happen: Obama tries to govern as left as possible, his first two years — especially this first. Try to achieve all the collectivist dreams. And then pivot to the center, or even the center-right, for the last two years, assuring reelection. And then after reelection: Let it all hang out — or a lot of it hang out — again.

This is Politics 101, but sometimes it’s nice to revisit the elementary.

‐Remember when people said — a lot of us said — “If we’re to have a War on Terror, if this is to be another long twilight struggle, we will need the support of both parties, not just one”? The War on Terror is too big a project — too great a national endeavor — to be a one-party project.

I thought of that when reading the following, in the news: “Senate Democrats alone cannot pass President Barack Obama’s ambitious overhaul of how Americans receive health care, a top lawmaker acknowledged on Sunday.” And it stands to reason: If the United States is to have an utterly new health-care system — whether that system is good or bad — it should have the imprimatur of both the Democrats and the Republicans.

Of course, if your side has the votes . . .

‐I should point out that the likes of us — NR types — do not want a health-care “system.” A “system” is for — you know: Canada, Britain, Sweden, Congo . . .

‐Last year, everyone said this — and I mean, everyone: “George W. Bush has left our alliances in tatters. Our name is mud throughout the world. Our alliances need to be restored, and our name needs to be restored.” Obama and the Democrats said this. McCain and all his people said this.

Some of us did not say it. Indeed, I wrote a piece at the end of the year, attacking this myth of the tattered alliances and so on. That piece was called “Diplomatic Health: On Bush, our alliances, and varied perceptions.” To read it — “re-read” it, I hope, you NR people! — go here.

Anyway, I thought of this piece — and this subject — when reading about the extraordinary letter that all those Central and Eastern European leaders sent to Obama. Among the signers were Walesa and Havel. The group said,

“We have written this letter because, as Central and Eastern European (CEE) intellectuals and former policymakers, we care deeply about the future of the transatlantic relationship as well as the future quality of relations between the United States and the countries of our region. We write in our personal capacity as individuals who are friends and allies of the United States as well as committed Europeans.”

Obama has scared the bejesus out of them, with his handling of Russia, etc. So, who is “endangering” our alliances now, huh? Just sayin’ . . .

‐We have a sharp reader in Shanghai, an American. He sends me a note making an excellent point, and he makes it so well — I will simply run the note, with no extra commentary:

Dear Jay,
Sorry to return to an old topic, but President Obama’s verbal sloppiness continues, and continues to vex. Yesterday the president opened economic talks with China by claiming the U.S. wants a new era in Sino-American relations based upon “cooperation, not confrontation.” This is evidently founded upon the subtle (and erroneous) assumption that the previous relationship, under Bush, was based upon confrontation, not cooperation. Of course this is ridiculous, as China and the U.S. have long enjoyed an extremely cooperative relationship (perhaps even too much so).
How long can the U.S. administration milk the meme of “newness” without actually providing any? Some grownup at the White House must surely recognize this as a useful campaign tactic, but with little use in actual governance?

‐Turn to Cuba now for a second. Under Bush, the U.S. Interests Section was a very, very interesting operation. Bush did not forget the democrats, dissidents, and prisoners on the island. He was always mindful to encourage them. In probably his most dramatic gesture, he gave the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Oscar Biscet, a heroic political prisoner.

Our activities in Havana? We erected a mockup of Biscet’s cell — to dramatize his plight, and that of other prisoners. We invited Lech Walesa to speak to dissidents, by video hookup. We participated in gatherings at dissidents’ homes. Etc. All of this infuriated the dictatorship. Our interests section was a haven, beacon, and friend for democrats and freedom-seekers on the island.

Let me keep going in this vein: In those years — 2001-09 — the U.S. was engaged with the Cuban population. It was clear to one and all that we are on the side of the people, not the dictatorship.

Things are a little different now. You may remember that, a few weeks back, I did some writing about the Democracy Award, given by the National Endowment for Democracy. (Go here, for example.) The NED honored several Cuban oppositionists — and President Obama treated them with a disheartening coldness. Apparently, they were an impediment to warmer relations with the regime.

And now we read this: “U.S. turns off Havana news ticker that angered Cuba.” Oh, yes, that’s another thing the interests section did, under Bush: We had a news ticker, flashing information to Cuban passersby — information that the regime was not keen for people to see. In Cuba, there is only one news source: the dictatorship.

The article whose headline I have cited is from Reuters, here. The reporters give us comments by people who support the Obama administration — and no other comments. Couldn’t the reporters have found someone to say something in favor of the news ticker, and against the new American direction?

During the Bush years, I wrote quite a bit about that interesting operation, the U.S. Interests Section in Havana. The section is now under new management. The dictatorship and its friends (and appeasers) are very pleased. Too bad.

‐Care for some good news out of the Arab world? I thought maybe. The king of Morocco has acknowledged the Holocaust. There is a new initiative called the “Aladdin Project,” based in Paris, and its purpose is to spread awareness of the Holocaust among Muslims. A speech by the Moroccan king was read out at the ceremony launching the project. He called the Holocaust “one of the most tragic chapters of modern history.”

For an article on this matter, go here. The director of a Holocaust foundation is quoted as saying, “This is the first time an Arab head of state takes such a clear stand on the Shoah.”

‐Let’s have a little language: Sarah Palin’s spokesman has told CNN, “The world is literally her oyster.” “Literally” has come to mean “really,” “indisputably,” “very,” etc. — but not “literally.” Anything we can do to stop this evolution? Probably not — such linguistic trends are steamrollers.

‐In the last few days, I have received news of the deaths of two of my fellow critics. One was Robert Hilferty, an amazingly ebullient, interesting, and friendly man. I have a clear memory of him. We were at City Opera — Fanciulla del West, I believe. Sitting near each other, as critics do. (Presenting organizations tend to give out critic’s passes in a kind of bloc.) There was a woman behind me fondling — unconsciously — a plastic bag on her lap. Few things are more ruinous at a concert or opera. Robert implored me to grab it from her. I could not, though I turned to look at her several times. My memory is that he vaulted over, somehow, and grabbed it or shushed her. He was not going to let the bag-fondling stand! I’m sure he found my reluctance pathetic. At any rate, he was a very likable character — always smiling (except during the bag performance).

Michael Steinberg, too, passed away. I was interested to see, in an obit, that he was born in Breslau, and survived via the Kindertransport — which brought Jewish kids to London. My fellow NR-nik David Pryce-Jones told me, “Others born in Breslau include Walter Laqueur and Fritz Stern. Think what Germany lost.” Oh, yes, a lot.

‐A reader writes, “Jay, you’re so good at ironies.” Really? “Do you see any irony in the following? The party that hates Wal-Mart for using its size and power to wipe out smaller competitors now wants a government-run health care that will do the same to health-insurance companies.” A point. But when the government does it — everything’s better, you know? (I’m channeling a particular point of view — not expressing my own.) (Just in case the irony is lost . . .) ‐Enjoy an article by James H. Warner, who was a flyer in Vietnam. He was also a prisoner of war — for five and a half years. Here, he tells what it was like to be a POW there at the time of the moon landing. I will excerpt just a taste:

. . . we were taken out to wash. The first man out of our cell was Air Force Capt. Kenneth Fisher. We had not rehearsed what happened next. Ken looked up and could see the moon in the clear winter sky. He came to a stop, snapped to attention and saluted the moon. Instantly, the rest of us caught on. As each of us left the cell, we came to a stop, snapped to attention and saluted the moon.

‐A reader writes, “A thought occurred to me today. In 1956 Time magazine named ‘The Hungarian Freedom Fighter’ its Man of the Year. How likely do you think it is that Time will do the same for the brave people in Iran?” Not very likely — a nice idea, though. ‐I have a sack of mail on names — let me just give a taste:

When I was on the staff of the United States European Command in Germany many years ago, there was a fellow with whom I worked whose name was Jerry Derryberry, and there was a medic at the dispensary on Patch Barracks whose name was Seymour Upthegrove.

He’s not done:

But the classic case was this. We lived on Patch Barracks, a U.S. military installation. One evening, three high-school students, friends of my oldest daughter, were walking home, slightly after ten on a week night, and a slightly overzealous MP stopped them and asked them their names. It was fortunate, mind you, that they all had their ID cards with them.
The first young man replied that his name was George Burns, which indeed it was. The second lad, producing his ID card, said, “My name is Paul McCartney,” which was also true, though the MP was getting annoyed. The third lad said, “You’re really not going to like this, but my name is Bob Hope!”
As I said, they all had their ID cards to prove it.

A woman wrote me,

You might like this one. I’m taking the bar exam in Roanoke, Va., today and tomorrow. I walked out of my hotel, and the bellman struck up a conversation with me. He was an older African-American man. He showed me where to go, and asked my name. I told him, and he said, “My name is Xavier Lafayette Fox.” I thought it was beautiful for so many different reasons, and told him so.

Yes, beautiful.

Shifting gears, slightly. In Impromptus on Monday, I had a little story involving the name Helen. A reader now writes,

There used to be a lady at our church named Helen Brown. Her name always brought me a chuckle because of one of my father’s favorite jokes: “You look like Helen Brown. You don’t look great in blue, either.”

‐In an earlier column, I mentioned something about John Bolton, and what if he became secretary of state? A reader sent in his “dream cabinet.” Some politically-minded friends and I used to play this game, when we were in college. We loved filling out the whole cabinet, with our favorites — many of them provocative and probably unconfirmable!

So, this reader said he wanted Bolton as SecState, Phil Gramm as Treasury secretary, Andy McCarthy as secretary of homeland security, Sarah Palin as energy secretary, and so on. He says, at the end, “You as press secretary, Jay — or Mark Steyn.” (I realize this is not a cabinet position — please get off our backs.)

I was reminded of something that WFB said, when Jack Kemp was running for president. Somebody asked him whether he would accept a post in a Kemp administration. He said, “Yes, ventriloquist.”

See you!

#JAYBOOK#