April 23, 2018--Contortions

It has been painful to witness progressives, Democrats twisting themselves into contortions as they attempt to come to grips with what is happening with the North Koreans.

Their problem is less with Kim Jong-un and the North Koreans than with how to think about and react to Donald Trump's involvement.

Remember how during the 2016 primaries he said it would be his "honor" to meet face-to-face with Kim? He was roundly criticized and mocked by both his Republican and Democratic opponents as being naive and inexperienced in the world of global diplomacy. He was chastised for asserting that traditional forms of diplomacy (which included many months of pre-summit negotiations between lower-level staffs) were the necessary prerequisites to meetings between heads of states. Particularly hostile ones.

Think Kissinger meeting privately with Zhou Enlai before Nixon would consider getting together with Zhou much less Mao.

Failing to recall how neophyte Barack Obama was roundly criticized and mocked by his political opponents (Hillary Clinton leading the pack) during the 2008 campaign when he declared he would be willing to meet face-to-face with the leaders of Iran and North Korea in the search for peace, progressives, opposing Trump now in such ahistorical, knee-jerk fashion are being, well, intentionally forgetful, hypocritical, or both.  

So now we not only have a heads-of-state meeting on the books for late May/early June, but we appear to have Kim making all sorts of preemptive concessions about his nuclear weapons program.

First he announced he was suspending all testing of missiles and nuclear warheads. Then, again without demanding anything in return, he announced over the weekend that he will be shutting down his nuclear weapons research and fabrication facilities. He wants, he says, to turn his focus to the collapsed North Korean economy.

This latter promise is discombobulating progressives. On Saturday and Sunday, for example, on CNN and especially MSNBC, former senior Obama national security advisors and staff have been all over the airwaves struggling with how to think about and respond to these overtures.

First, and most appropriately, they expressed skepticism, warning that the North Koreans for decades have made promises of this sort that they haven't kept. Then they dismissed the evidence that the extra-severe sanctions imposed on the North Koreans, mainly by the U.S. and China, have led to the further hollowing out of the North Korean economy, such as it is, and this is forcing Kim to the table. 

They are ignoring this evidence because, as with Kim's pledge to scale back his weapons program, not to have criticized what seems to be unfolding would give tacit if not overt credit to Trump, as unlikely and crazy and as confounding as what may be happening might turn out to be. 

Liberals so despise Trump that they cannot bear to give some credit, much less offer any praise for his leading the effort to bring this about.

Most outrageously, if Trump pulls this off he would be a leading candidate to receive a Nobel Peace Prize. If the unthinkable were to occur, he as well as Obama would have one. 

Worse--all of us in our heart-of-hearts know Obama didn't really deserve his whereas if we manage to make a verifiable deal with the North Koreans, Trump will have earned his.

Sometimes the world is too confounding to deal with. This may turn out to be one of those occasions.

Kissinger and Zhou Enlai

February 1, 2018--What Hillary Should Have Said

"Dismayed?" How about "infuriated" or "outraged?"

Dismayed is how Hillary Clinton said she felt when she learned in 2008 that Burns Strider, her "faith-based advisor," had been sexually harassing one of the women who was a part of the staff attempting to help Clinton secure the Democratic nomination for the presidency. 

Clinton's campaign manager at the time recommended that Strider be fired. Clinton did not agree, but instead docked him a couple of week's pay and required that he get counseling, which he never did. In the meantime, the accuser was "reassigned." Her harasser wasn't. Strider continued to send Clinton daily scripture readings.

In the first of two Internet postings this week, Hillary tweeted about the story, 10 years after it leaked out, she wrote--

I was dismayed when it occurred, but was heartened the young woman came forward, was heard, and had her concerns taken seriously and addressed.

"Heartened?" Her "concerns taken seriously?" This translates into not getting fired for blowing the whistle but, as often happens to women who raise these kinds of issues, she, not he, got "transferred."

This extra-carefully constructed reaction caused a groundswell of criticism, not from Republicans but mainly from progressive women.

For example, New York Times columnist, Gail Collins wrote--

Here's where I'm coming down: Hillary Clinton was the first woman to run for president on a major party ticket, and when she did it, she won the popular vote. She's broken a trillion barriers. She's also done enormous good work to improve the lives of women in this country. 

But she's never been at her strongest when it comes to men on the prowl. While her faith advisor wasn't anywhere near the level of a Harvey Weinstein, she did hang out with Weinstein, too, cherishing him as a beloved donor. And some women have never gotten over the fact that she did not leave her husband when she discovered he was having an affair, in the White House, with a girl far too young and powerless to be a genuinely willing partner. 

Because sexual harassment is so much on our national mind right now, we'd like her to be a heroine on that issue, too. But if there is anything we've learned in all our years with Hillary Clinton, it's that you can be both great and deeply imperfect. Even if right now we really wish she'd fired the faith advisor.

Thus chastised, five full days later, this Tuesday evening, minutes before President Trump delivered his State of the Union address so as to bury it in the news cycle, in damage-control mode, Clinton, on her Facebook page, finally wrote--

The most important work of my life has been to support and empower women. I'm proud that it's the work I'm most associated with, and it remains what I'm most dedicated to. So I very much understand the question I'm being asked as to why I let an employee on my 2008 campaign keep his job despite his inappropriate workplace behavior. 

The short answer is this: If I had it to do again, I wouldn't. 

I didn't think firing him was the best solution to the problem. He needed to be punished, change his behavior, and understand why his actions were wrong. The young woman needed to be able to thrive and feel safe. I thought both could happen without him losing his job.

I've been given second chances and I have given them to others. I want to continue to believe in them. 

Better, but still not impressive. She continues shifting about in an attempt to smother the firestorm of criticism and, as always, to avoid having to apologize, all in order to clear the way for her to resume her self-appointed role as feminist-in-chief. 

What she wrote two days ago still won't serve to rescue her reputation because it continues to reveal her as uncomfortable with the truth, inauthentic, and out of sync with the culture of the current generation of women.

Her disingenuous claim that what her aide needed was "to be able to thrive and feel safe" exposes the hypocrisy  Does anyone believe that what Clinton did was out of care for her young staffer when we know that the best way to help her feel safe would have been to get rid of the creep whose desk was pressed right next to hers? No, what Hillary did was to make herself feel safe--unexposed--at her aide's expense.

Hillary didn't asked me, but if she had here's what I would have recommended she say--

This time I really blew it. Big time. Considering my history, yes, my history, I should have known just what to do. Certainly not run away from the situation or try to spin or cover it up. Which I regrettably did. 

I should have personally investigated the charges and if they turned out to be true, I should have fired the bastard. Not docked him two week's pay. I should have arranged to pack him up and move him out. 

Speaking about my history, here's what else I should in real time have said, which might have been helpful to young women who for the most part feel estranged from me and my generation of feminists. 

This estrangement is understandable--over time the culture and causes and how to carry them out change and with that new ideas and leadership is essential. 

Those who are older need to step aside--still offering insights from their lives--so that new ideas and methods can flourish. 

The lessons I have to pass along involve those I acquired from my own hard-won understanding about issues in my own marriage. Many women, Gail Collins included, have wondered through the years why I stayed with Bill after he so brutally betrayed me. 

I do not have a good answer for that. Women of my era, even liberated ones, stood with their feet straddling two worlds--one in which women were acquiescent and, yes, stood unquestionably by their men, and the other world where we were striving to liberate ourselves from those sexist expectations. 

That was me--half bought into the conventional expectations that called for women like me to be acquiescent, making excuses for our husbands' bad behavior. Accepting responsibility if our men strayed while  very tentatively seeking for ourselves a measure of independence and efficacy. 

This is not a mix that has much chance of working out. It requires too much change on both sides. In my case, Bill needed to give up his old alleycat ways and become loyal to me. And I mean in more ways than just in the sexual realm. 

I also needed to find effective ways to assert myself. Hollering and throwing things was not going to get the job done. I tried that and it didn't. 

As neither one of us was capable of doing that--we were both too mired, constricted by what was expected of "men" and "women" at that time when we, or at least I, should have recognized that and moved on. 

Yes, Gail Collins, I should have left him. I lost what remained of my authenticity by not doing so and . . . 

I think I've gone way past my allotment of 140 Twitter characters and so I will end this. I think you may get my point.

Burns Strider

April 24, 2014--The Clinton Grandchild

Last week, at a public event attended by her mother, Chelsea Clinton announced that she is with child. As it played out in the press, she might well have said she is with grandchild.

A member of the media in the room where Chelsea shared the good news asked if it's expected birth date was politically timed.

Chelsea pretending she did not understand, smiled and shrugged. But then added that she looks forward to her daughter or son growing up "in a world with so many strong female leaders."

It was obvious what her smile and wink suggested. At her side, mom glowed.

The fact that that question was raised was telling, as is my snarky tone.

What should have been about a blessed event (there I go again) at the moment of the announcement and subsequently was treated as a political calculation. From the relatively-gossip-free New York Times to Rush Limbaugh to just about everyone on Fox News it was smirkingly assumed that it was yet another example of the Clinton's doing everything they could to advance their personal agenda. In this case, Chelsea arranging the timing of her pregnancy to help Hillary secure the nomination and then, with a grandchild on her hip, be elected president.

Shades of Sarah Palin moving about the country with special-needs grandchild Trig (for trigger--get it) schlepped along to help shape her aw-shucks, soccer-mom image.

And with Hillary still lacking the likeability factor (remember Obama during the 2008 campaign with  shrug of his own saying she was "likable enough") what better way to humanize her?

With politics becoming fully political theater and a form of mass entertainment--who doesn't wish Herman (Ducky-Ducky) Cain will run again next year--it is not beyond reason that timing the birth of a child-grandchild could be as stage managed as adhering to talking points and TV ads produced by friendly PAC groups. With appearances on the Tonight Show, the Daily Show, Colbert Report, and SNL essential.