More on Russia . . .

Speaking of Russia, my Winter 2006 issue of Orbis: A Journal of World Affairs arrived in the mail yesterday, and it looks pretty intresting. Amitai Etzioni on the issue of national sovereignty, James Kurth on the future of humanitarian intervention, Jan Ting on immigration, William Anthony Hay on Democracy, Andrei Tsygankov on Putin's foreign policy, and yours truly on cultural challenges to democratization in Russia. An excerpt:

Just as France continues to exert influence in its former colonies, Russia
will play its role in the post-Soviet space. Like France, Russia sponsored a
revolution with universal pretensions; won extensive international conquests;
had its ideas affect the course of world history; has a strongly centralized state,
its own form of dirigisme; and has lost its empire. In this sense, U.S.-French
relations might prove the model for future U.S.-Russian relations. Just as
Charles de Gaulle expelled NATO troops in the 1960s and Jacques Chirac
opposed American intervention in Iraq prior to the March 2003 invasion,
Russia under Vladimir Putin may prove to be a difficult friend. But that is no
reason to make Russia an enemy.

John LeBoutillier on Bush's Plan for Victory

1) An embattled and defensive President Bush is trying to paint a rosy picture of the hand-over of military and police responsibilities to the Iraqi forces.

2) The problem with this approach is that our own military people over there do not believe that the Iraqi troops or police can do the job. In fact, many of these Iraqis are playing both sides: wearing the uniform and collecting the pay check by day, and then carrying out insurgent attacks by night.

3) Any American has to wonder: Why is it taking so long to train Iraqi soldiers? Why are we almost 3 years into this process and so few are deemed ready?

4) Here is a problem for Mr. Bush: his credibility is so low these days that few -other than his own supporters - will believe all these rosy-sounding stats and stories. Haven’t we been told all along how well things were going? If it is going so well, why is our own military back-channeling that things aren’t going well?

5) There are numerous reports now that the generals can’t tell Mr. Bush the truth about what is really happening in Iraq. He simply refuses to accept the truth. Instead, he lives in the belief that Iraqis who hate each other can suddenly morph into a peaceful democracy.

6) This speech is just more of the same: all is well and we are going to “stay the course.” But the American people don’t buy it anymore. They have heard this exact same thing over and over and over. When is it enough?

7) Yes, this speech will rally the 35% who still want to stay in Iraq; it will give them some new lines to use to defend a war that has become an aimless, endless exercise in wasted lives and money.

8) ‘Victory.’ What exactly is it? In this case, if a pro-Iranian Iraqi government comes out again the US, will that be a ‘victory’ we can be proud of?

9) This is an Administration - and a Republican Party - that is perilously close to losing touch with the American people. Scandals all over DC combined with this never-ending morass of a war are sapping the support of the majority of Americans.

10) Prediction: today’s speech will have little effect. He has ‘spent’ his credibility and frittered away all his political capital from last year’s election. He is a lame duck before the first year of his second term is finished.

Scraps of Moscow

Yesterday evening, at the W.P. Carey Forum of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute and SAIS Russian and Eurasia Studies Program talk by Dr. Andrei Piontkovsky--"The Scythian Complex of Russian Foreign Policy"--I met Scraps of Moscow blogger Lyndon Allin, who has moved to DC. (He also has another blog, Moscow Graffiti). He was even more interesting than the speaker, and told stories of living in Moscow and confronting the tax police that were really impressive to someone who wouldn't dare try to do business there (I'm just a teacher). He apparently not only survived, but suceeded, and knew a lot. He spoke excellent Russian and conversed with Dr. Piontkovsky about the immigration issue in Russian politics, the role of Rodina and Zhirinovsky. And that issue is as big in Russia as it is here in America--with the difference that Russia needs immigration a lot more, because of its demographic crisis. The problem is that Russian racism seems to be more pronounced right now than the American variant, and it is causing some problems. I'm hoping Lyndon will blog more on this topic, which seems little discussed in America.

As for Dr. Piontkovsky...
Piontkovsky's point was supposedly in distinction to an earlier presentation by Eurasianist Aleksandr Dugin, which I wrote about a little while ago. Piontkovsky has been called an "enemy of Russia" by Dugin, and in turn says that Dugin's policies would make Russia a province of China. Though I think they have more in common than it would appear. Both believe in a special mission for Russia, both believe in balancing East (China) against West (Europe and America). Both believe the Russians ended Communism for their own purposes, rather than being defeated. Both believe there is really an Islamist threat. Both believe Putin is really intelligent and could stay in power if he wished. Etc. Where they differ is that Piontkovsky wants to use the West to defend against China, while Dugin wants to use China to defend against the West.

But they are united in their attitude towards Islamism, that the US did Russia's "dirty work" in Afghanistan (the first time in Russian history someone did Russia's dirty work rather than having Russia do their dirty work, according to Piontkovsky), They don't really seem angry at Russia for wanting to preserve a post-Soviet sphere of influence--Piontkovsky noted that Russia lost her empire in 1917 and regained it three years later, he predicted this could happen again in the post-Soviet era.

The "Scythian" motif comes from a poem by Aleksandr Blok:

You are but millions. Our unnumbered nations
Are as the sands upon the sounding shore.
We are the Scythians! We are the slit-eyed Asians!
Try to wage war with us--you'll try no more!

You've had whole centuries. We--a single hour.
Like serfs obedient to their feudal lord,
We've held the shield between two hostile powers--
Old Europe and the barbarous Mongol horde.

Your ancient forge has hammered down the ages,
Drowning the distant avalanche's roar.
Messina, Lisbon--these, you thought, were pages
In some strange book of legendary lore.

Full centuries long you've watched our Eastern lands,
Fished for our pearls and bartered them for grain;
Made mockery of us, while you laid your plans
And oiled your cannon for the great campaign.

The hour has come. Doom wheels on beating wing.
Each day augments the old outrageous score.
Soon not a trace of dead nor living thing
Shall stand where once your Paestums flowered before.

O Ancient World, before your culture dies,
Whilst failing life within you breathes and sinks,
Pause and be wise, as Oedipus was wise,
And solve the age-old riddle of the Sphinx.

That Sphinx is Russia. Grieving and exulting,
And weeping black and bloody tears enough,
She stares at you, adoring and insulting,
With love that turns to hate, and hate--to love.

While Piontkovsky didn't go into too much detail in his talk about the relation of the poem to Russia's foreign policy, he has spelled it out elsewhere, for example, in this 1998 Jamestown Foundation article:

"We are part of Europe, but we are being pushed out of Europe." "We would welcome a strategic partnership with the West, but we are being pushed aside." "Our leap towards peace and freedom was not trusted, our goodwill was seen as weakness." Such passages, in various samples of cheerless prose, paraphrase the central motif of a classic poem written eighty years ago by Aleksandr Blok:

"Come to us--from battlefield nightmares into our peaceful arms!... If you do not, we have nothing to lose. Our faith, too, can be broken... We shall take to the wilds and the mountains Woods, letting beautiful Europe through, and as we move into the wings we shall turn An Asiatic mug to you."

There have been many proposals to "turn our Asiatic mug towards Europe" or worse: strategic partnership with China (it would be interesting to know Beijing's opinion on this), "a return of tactical nuclear weapon to the troops," and "offering anti-imperialist regimes access to nuclear technologies and their delivery means."

The entire Russian political class, from the westernizers to the statists, was seized by the "Scythian syndrome." Both groups looked at the West as Blok did--"both with hatred and with love"--differing perhaps only in the relative proportions of these two emotions. Take, for example, the strange public performance in two acts--one "with hatred" and one "with love"--put on by Andrei Kozyrev in Stockholm in December 1992: was this not a remake of the "Scythians"

In this emotionally charged atmosphere among the political class, and in the absence of any distinct constructive ideas, the Russian foreign ministry had to solve an extremely important practical task: to ensure Russia's long-term national interests in one of the key foreign policy areas--relations with the West.

In a way, Dugin and Piontkovsky can be seen as the traditional Russia of the double headed eagle. Piontkovsky points Russia's European face towards Asia, while Dugin bares Russia's Asian face to the West. In the end, despite the mutual invective, both are Russian patriots, determined to protect a unique identity for Russia in the face of threats and blandishments from either East or West.

Daniel Pipes on the Iraq Hostage Crisis

Why did the abductors threaten their friends in this way? What is their possible logic? The statement that accompanied the video that charged the men with "working undercover as Christian peace activists" provides some clues. First, for Islamists and other Iraqis, an organization with "Christian" in the title must be missionary in purpose and presumably targeting Muslims for conversion, something they find unacceptable. Second, the notion that Westerners, and Americans especially, are really on the Islamists' side versus the U.S. government just does not register. Iraqis more readily see such people as spies than as self-loathing Americans, the latter phenomenon remaining deeply foreign to them. Put another way, how could the "Swords of Righteousness Brigade" understand the "Christian Peacemaker Teams"? Their names alone point to a nearly unbridgeable divide.

Orianna Fallaci's NY Speech

Roger L. Simon tipped us off to this report on Atlas Shrugs:

Fallaci claims to be neither left nor right. She despises the left for the obvious reasons and holds the right in contempt for being weak. For not taking a hard stand and making the tough choices.

"Don't believe in a dialog with Islam. That's a naivete. It can only be a monologue. They do not believe in pluralism. There is no such thing as a "moderate Islam" and a Radical Islam. There is only one Islam."
I too believe this as much as it pains me to say it. I would like nothing better to believe that there is a side we can do business with, talk to. But that is self deluding.

Fallaci:"The real enemy is Islam and the most catastrophic threat is immigration not terror. It is immigration. And they do not integrate in Europe. Maybe in the USA but not in Europe. Those riots in France are a result of that very thing". The Chinese, Vietnamese etc immigrants are not rioting and tearing down the very fabric of society.

They [The Islamists] are very patient. And Clever.

This war needs boldness.

"WAKE UP WAKE UP. WE ARE AT WAR. WAR HAS BEEN DECLARED ON THE WEST AND WE MUST FIGHT. One or the other must perish."

and so she has spoken. And while it was painfully clear she was preaching to the converted, it was also painful that the choir was so small.

Here's an excerpt from the report on Fallaci's speech on Frontpage Magazine.com:

Fallaci told the audience that she faced three years in prison in Italy if convicted in her trial for hate speech. “But can hate be prosecuted by law? It is a sentiment. It is a natural part of life. Like love, it cannot be proscribed by a legal code. It can be judged, but only on the basis of ethics and morality. If I have the right to love, then I have the right to hate also.”

Hate? “Yes, I do hate the bin Ladens and the Zarqawis. I do hate the bastards who burn churches in Europe. I hate the Chomskys and Moores and Farrakhans who sell us to the enemy. I hate them as I used to hate Mussolini and Hitler. For the cause of freedom, this is my sacrosanct right.”

What’s more, Fallaci pointed out that Europe’s hate speech laws never seem to be used against the “professional haters, who hate me much more than I hate them”: the Muslims who hate as part of their ideology. While Fallaci faces three years in prison in Italy, “any Muslim can unhook a crucifix from a wall in a school or hospital and throw it into the garbage,” with little fear of consequences. Also unprosecuted, she said, were those responsible for a vile little publication entitled Islam Punishes Oriana Fallaci, which urges Muslims to kill her, invoking five Qur’anic passages about “perverse women.” In Italy Fallaci must be guarded around the clock; but no effort has been made to bring those who threatened her to justice . . .

. . . Then Fallaci threw down the gauntlet to the multicultural, politically correct, and fearful. “There is not,” she asserted, “good Islam or bad Islam. There is just Islam. And Islam is the Qur’an. And the Qur’an is the Mein Kampf of this movement. The Qur’an demands the annihilation or subjugation of the other, and wants to substitute totalitarianism for democracy. Read it over, that Mein Kampf. In whatever version, you will find that all the evil that the sons of Allah commit against themselves and against others is in it.”

Consul-at-Arms

After announcing the demise of the Daily Demarche, New Sisyphus tipped us off to this blog from a Foreign Service Officer who choses to remain anonymous. Since Diplomad shut down, and New Sisyphus retired, this may be the last of the Mohicans able to blog from inside Foggy Bottom. A shame, really. Diplomad was certainly better than what is coming from State's public diplomacy shop...

Bush: "Victory Will Take Time"

UPI's Martin Walker has the scoop on Bush's Iraq speech:

"Victory will take time," the document warns, but insists that the strategy is working.

"Much has been accomplished in Iraq, including the removal of Saddam's tyranny, negotiation of an interim constitution, restoration of full sovereignty, holding of free national elections, formation of an elected government, drafting of a permanent constitution, ratification of that constitution, introduction of a sound currency, gradual restoration of neglected infrastructure, the ongoing training and equipping of Iraqi security forces, and the increasing capability of those forces to take on the terrorists and secure their nation."

"Many challenges remain," the document concludes. "Iraq is overcoming decades of a vicious tyranny, where governmental authority stemmed solely from fear, terror, and brutality. It is not realistic to expect a fully functioning democracy, able to defeat its enemies and peacefully reconcile generational grievances, to be in place less than three years after Saddam was finally removed from power."

I guess that means the Iraq mission is not accomplished . . .

"The world would be a beter place if we respect the beauty in nature and its people"

That's the text on the front of Rosalynn and Jimmy Carter's Christmas Card. The back reads: "ON THE COVER: William Woolfork created this artwork for the Barbie(TM) Children's Summit hosted by Mattel, Inc. His artwork is part of the collection awarded to The Carter Center by summit representatives, ages 6-13, in recognition of the Center's efforts to promote peace."
I'm not making this up...

 
 

Season's Greetings from Rosalynn and Jimmy Carter

Believe it or not, today's mail brought a Christmas card signed by Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter (or their autopen), along with a personal-seeming letter asking for money for their Carter Center. Before making a donation, I googled the Carter Center to learn more.

I found this interesting 2002 item from Newsmax:

NewsMax has reviewed annual reports that indicate millions of charitable dollars have flowed into the center from His Majesty Sultan Qaboss bin Said Al Said of Oman, Jordan, from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and from the Government of the United Arab Emirates.

Furthermore, hundreds of thousands of dollars have been donated to the center by the Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic Development. H.R.H. Prince Moulay Hicham Ben Abdallah of Morocco has also contributed tens of thousands of dollars.

There are no corresponding contributions apparent from Israeli sources, however.

As the center�s literature describes, "The Carter Center and the Jimmy Carter Library were built in large measure thanks to the early leadership and financial support of the Carter Center founders.� Three of those generous founders:

Agha Hasan Abedi

On July 5 1991, banking regulators targeted Abedi�s Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI), triggering a worldwide financial tidal wave. To date, accountants and lawyers have managed to recoup (discounting fees) $7 billion out of the $12 billion money pit that fueled the BCCI fraud.

Agha Hasan Abedi, a banker and self-styled mystic on first-name terms with Carter, created BCCI in 1972. Abedi had charmed seed money out of Arab sheikhs, organizing camel races and hunting trips. The Bank of America bought into BCCI as a way of buying access to the Middle East, holding a 30 percent stake at one point before dumping its holdings in the late-1970s.

His Majesty King Fahd of Saudi Arabia

Last month Saudi Arabia transferred $15.4 million in advance aid to the Palestinian Authority. The transfer was made to a controversial Arab League fund, a product of the recent Arab summit in Beirut. According to Arab spokesmen, the money was hurriedly contributed due to the dire plight of the Palestinian people as a result of "vicious Israeli aggression.�

King Fahd, Crown Prince Abdullah and Defense Minister Prince Sultan jointly donated $4.8 million to launch the fund pot, while Interior Minister Prince Nayef bin Abdul Aziz sent an estimated $800,000 to the families of "155 Palestinian martyrs� killed in the current Israeli offensive.

Hasib J. Sabbagh

Sabbagh is the chairman of Consolidated Contractors Co. of Oman, Jordan. He is also the Senior Fellow for the Middle East of the Council on Foreign Relations. Founded in 1921, the Council on Foreign Relations is a membership organization contributing ideas to U.S. foreign policy. The Council publishes Foreign Affairs, a leading journal on global issues.

Individual, foundation, and corporate donors, together with multilateral development assistance programs, support the Carter Center�s current annual operating budget of around $30 million. Among the center�s announced priorities: promoting democracy, global development, human rights and conflict resolution.

Carter said he has spent much time raising money, but he hopes that a campaign to raise a $150 million endowment will lighten the load. Phil Wise, the center�s executive director for operations, said an estimated $110 million has already been raised for the endowment.

Happy Holidays, Jimmy and Rosalynn, but I think I'll let King Abdullah take care of you, this holiday season. Oh, I forgot, publicly celebrating Christmas is illegal in Saudi Arabia.

But of course, Jimmy, you and Rosalynn knew that when you sent out those Christmas cards this year, didn't you?

Phyllis Chesler Speaks!

About wearing the chador in Afghanistan:

Firsthand experience of life under Islam as a woman held captive in Kabul has shaped the kind of feminist I became and have remained—one who is not multiculturally "correct." By seeing how women interacted with men and then with each other, I learned how incredibly servile oppressed peoples could be and how deadly the oppressed could be toward each other. Beebee Jan was cruel to her female servants. She beat her elderly personal servant and verbally humiliated our young and pregnant housemaid. It was an observation that stayed with me.

While multiculturalism has become increasingly popular, I never could accept cultural relativism. Instead, what I experienced in Afghanistan as a woman taught me the necessity of applying a single standard of human rights, not one tailored to each culture. In 1971—less than a decade after my Kabul captivity—I spoke about rescuing women of Bangladesh raped en masse during that country's war for independence from Pakistan. The suffering of women in the developing world should be considered no less important than the issues feminists address in the West. Accordingly, I called for an invasion of Bosnia long before Washington did anything, and I called for similar military action in Rwanda, Afghanistan, and Sudan.

In recent years, I fear that the "peace and love" crowd in the West has refused to understand how Islamism endangers Western values and lives, beginning with our commitment to women's rights and human rights. The Islamists who are beheading civilians, stoning Muslim women to death, jailing Muslim dissidents, and bombing civilians on every continent are now moving among us both in the East and in the West. While some feminist leaders and groups have come to publicize the atrocities against women in the Islamic world, they have not tied it to any feminist foreign policy. Women's studies programs should have been the first to sound the alarm. They do not. More than four decades after I was a virtual prisoner in Afghanistan, I realize how far the Western feminist movement has to go.

Wikipedia on Pajamas Media Troubles

(ht Ann Althouse)

NY Times: Samarkand Barbers Take Manhattan

Boris and Ely Mirzakandov once worked in rival barbershops in the Uzbek city of Samarkand. Now the two brothers share space at a barber spa in the back of the Art of Shaving, an elegant-looking store on Madison Avenue and 46th Street, a few blocks north of Grand Central Terminal. Past glass cabinets containing bone-handled straight razors and badger-hair shaving brushes, they perform straight-razor shaves and haircuts for lawyers and businessmen seeking a moment's respite from the day. A haircut and what the store calls a Royal Shave cost $80.

And to think I could get my haircut and shave for a dollar (sometimes 2 or 3) in the Aleisky Bazaar in Tashkent...

More on the Al Jazeera Bombing Memo

Herb Meyer on How to Win in Iraq

The former Reagan-era CIA official says to follow General Sherman's advice:

“We are not fighting armies but a hostile people, and must make young and old, rich and poor, feel the hard hand of war…. I would make this war as severe as possible, and show no symptom of tiring till the South begs for mercy.”

This is precisely what Sherman was talking about when he famously said that “War is hell.”  He was a decent, honorable man and he hated doing what he knew must be done to end the war and stop the killing.  Here’s one Sherman quote about waging war you won’t see in a New York Times editorial: “The crueler it is, the sooner it will be over.”  In other words, to end a war you must crush not only the opposing army but also the population in whose name it fights; that sometimes you must act inhumanely to save humanity.

Is Sherman Wrong – or Right?

Of course, it’s possible that Sherman is wrong or that his wisdom isn’t relevant to our times.  Perhaps we really can win the war in Iraq without mercilessly crushing that part of Iraq’s population that continues to support the insurgency.  I hope so, because this is precisely what we are attempting to do.

On the other hand, what if Sherman is right?  Are we not following his advice because we no longer have the stomach to fight as he did?  In an age of photos, of videotapes, of embedded reporters and 24/7 television coverage, has it become politically impossible to impose the level of pain and hardship on an enemy population that is necessary to end a war? 

Or are we not following Sherman’s advice because our current military leaders have forgotten it, or never learned it in the first place?   Certainly this is the impression they give, with their endless talk of spreadsheets and matrices and statistics that “prove” we’re making progress.  From what I can see, a high percentage of our generals hold advanced degrees.  That’s nice, but in the real world there is such a thing as being too sophisticated.  Perhaps our generals should spend less time learning the intricacies of Excel and PowerPoint, and more time studying how Sherman’s brutal march through the South helped end the Civil War.

And perhaps our political leaders, in both parties, should shut up long enough to read Sherman’s memoirs.  They just might learn something about how to end a war.

More on Russia's Alaska Plans

Sergei Blagov reports:

The return of Alaska would be marked by a great national holiday, said Vladimir Zhirinovsky, an outspoken nationalist politician.

Russia would then have a presence on three continents -- Europe, Asia and America -- noted Zhirinovsky, who is deputy speaker of the lower house of parliament.

Touchez pas au grisbi...

Speaking of France, last night we watched Jean Gabin and a very very young Jeanne Moreau in Jacques Becker's Touchez pas au grisbi. It's a great film noir--hard-boiled and romantic at the same time. Very French. Add it to your Netflix list...

Moxie Doesn't Like Pajamas Media, Either

News from France: Sarkozy Starts Blogging

And Yannick Laclau likes what he sees:

The contrast between him and his rivals for the French presidency is...stunning: Sarkozy is out commenting on blogs side-by-side with other commenters that freely insult him, while Dominique de Villepin is out writing books on Napoleon and diplomatic history.

People may not like his ideas, but it's *no contest* that he's much more dynamic, and in touch with what people are thinking, than Villepin or Chirac.

I like the Internet-savvy (very Howard Dean), and hope he pushes the envelope here in France's next presidential elections; and I like his roll-up-your-sleeves attitude to problem-solving (very Rudy Giuliani).

(ht Instapundit)

UPDATE: Here's the link to Mathieu Kassovitz's French Blog with the Sarkozy debate. (I seem to remember his name from film school, perhaps connected with the French film company, MK2 Film). In any case, according to Stunned, Sarkozy's comment was blogged at 7:12 in response to Kassovitz's attack, in the comments section (scroll down). Sarkozy's conclusion (in French):

Voilà les quelques réflexions que m'inspire la lecture de votre blog. Je sais que vous êtes, avec votre style et vos convictions, à la recherche d'une prise de conscience des pouvoirs publics vis à vis des banlieues. Depuis tant d'années, beaucoup d'argent a été engagé, beaucoup d'efforts ont été entrepris par les services de l'Etat comme par les acteurs de terrain. Les résultats ne sont pas à la hauteur des attentes. Nous y avons tous notre part de responsabilité. Comment faire mieux et autrement ? Cette question, il faut maintenant la résoudre.

Demeurant disponible pour poursuivre, si vous le jugez utile, notre échange de vive voix, je vous prie de croire, Monsieur, à l'assurance de mes sentiments les meilleurs.

If you read French, you can read the whole thing...

Leadership v. Cheerleadership

[Annapolis] Mayor Ellen O. Moyer wasn't aware of the president's visit yesterday. But she joked that Mr. Bush should root for Navy as it takes on the U.S. Military Academy in the annual Army-Navy football game Saturday in Philadelphia.

"I'm hoping he's giving a message to spur them on," she said.
The Capital (Annapolis)

President Bush's impending visit to Annapolis--where he may or may not announce the beginning of an American withdrawal from Iraq-- underscores the extent to which his administration has become a captive of his role as national cheerleader. Onc can date this role to the appearance of the President with a megaphone in the ruins of the World Trade Center.

Whatever he says, or doesn't, on Wednesday at the US Naval Academy, there is a sense that Bush can make little difference, now, that he is not the master of his own destiny, that the "insurgents", or "Democrats," or even "traitors" are in control. All he seems to be able to do is "support the troops" by cheering them on at pep rallies around the nation--or damning his critics elsewhere.

The tragedy of Katrina showed America that cheerleadership is not, and never will be, leadership.

Leadership is not a matter of who can yell the loudest, rather it is the ability to persuade people do what needs to be done. Leadership is the ability to act and to inspire others to join with you in solving problems. And a truly great leader helps people to think that they are doing what needs to be done all by themselves. That was the genius of a Ronald Reagan, an FDR, or a Rudy Giuliani.

After watching George W. Bush for some five years, I'm not sure that he realizes this. Every time he stages a pep rally, he is hurting his own authority as a leader. Every time he pulls a publicity stunt instead of solving a problem, he weakens morale. The more he talks, the worse it gets.

Which is not to diminish the importance of cheerleading, in sports or in life. Many successful American Presidents have been cheerleaders in college or high school: Reagan, Eisenhower, and FDR come to mind. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was a cheerleader for her Brooklyn high school, as well. And of course, cheerleaders can inspire a team to win in a close game, they can make the difference--but they are no substitute for top talent, a good game plan, a good coach, a good quarterback, a good goalie, or a good pitcher.

For Bush apparently approaches the bully pulpit of the Presidency like the Yale and Andover yell leader he once was. He's grandstanding. He's looking at the crowd, not the game. He doesn't have his eye on the ball.

Instead, he targets his messages to "the base," that is, the fans of one team. He tries cheerleader stunts, acrobatics such as landing on an aircraft carrier, chants like "Stay the course"--equivalent to "Hold that line!" He holds rallies rather than debates, and stays away from the field of battle--whether on CNN, town meetings, Afghanistan or Iraq--in the way a cheerleader stays on the sidelines during a game, not crossing over to confront the opposing team's fans. His entire "on message" Presidential apparatus is seemingly some sort of Yell Team. But it is not in the game.

The emphasis on "contracting out" -- whether to Iraqis, Halliburton, NATO Allies, or Mongolians -- reflects Bush's Yale Yell Captain's approach. He's not playing the game. He's not putting on the helmet and getting in the middle of the action. He's not going to get crushed by a human refrigerator. That's for the jocks. He'll support the troops--but he won't put his neck on the line.

Again like a Yell Captain, Bush doesn't actually make the hard decisions when they need to be made. Since all he has to do is cheer, he doesn't replace the quarterback in time. In this administration, the incompetent quit for themselves, only after long delay and much public outcry. Since there is no penalty for failure on the field, only for insufficient "school spirit," the team falls farther and farther behind.

How long did George Tenet stay on the job after 9/11--the greatest intelligence failure in US history? With him in charge of the CIA, is anyone really surprised the administration failed to find WMD? Or estimate the Iraqi resistance? Not to mention Rumsfeld, Powell, and the rest. Even if some of these guys were once good players, they're like Orel Hersheiser with a burnt out arm--they just don't have anything left to give. Yet the Cheerleader-in-Chief let them stay on the job.

A Commander-in-Chief would take charge, fire the coach, pick some new talent, and rev up the team. But the Bush administration, which values "loyalty" (team spirit), apparently doesn't reward talent or brains. A team owner, coach, or quaterback might listen to critics, might watch game films, might hire and fire. In politics this might mean trying to persuade critics, to bring the Democrats on board, to get everyone playing on the same team. It might recruiting new talent. Taking responsibility. Even resigning, if he isn't up to the task.

But these are not the responsibilities of a cheerleader, not even of a Yell Captain. If the team is losing, the cheerleader just yells louder, cheers harder, maybe even prays...

No wonder Jack Murtha (R-PA) called it quits.