----- Original Message -----
Sent: Sunday, November 02, 2003 10:48
PM
Subject: RE: Re: [Futurework] All the
President's votes?
Ed,
[And now for something completely
different.]
First, the lad was a puppet with those around him
pulling the strings.
This evolved into a problem because the lad wasn't
taking notice of those around him, but was going his own way - a loose
cannon.
Now you have returned him to Edgar
Bergen.
Maybe none of these things are
true.
Like the rest of us, he may not be a mental giant,
but mental giants are likely to get us into real trouble. However, he shows
savvy.
Under his leadership, the US showed the world a new
way of handling international problems. It intervened not in a nominal,
and probably belated, reaction to an awful situation, but in a decisive
manner, calculated to end the awfulness.
Belated reactions have killed millions upon
millions. The UN is a master of the belated reaction. We have been made
disturbingly aware of their strength of their resolution. One bomb and
they are gone.
Unfair? Probably, but having taken note of their
quick exit, one must consider them not fit to handle a dangerous world. Though
they talk a lot and show a certain ability to make what are often
incomprehensible and usually ephemeral resolutions. (Probably forgotten
the same afternoon.)
Perhaps, they'll do the sensible thing and remove
their HQ to the north, or to the south, where things are
calmer.
I've seen three interviews in the last week.
One was with an American (I think) cleric in
Iraq whose views were changed by reality. The Iraqis he would meet were all in
favor of the American and British actions. He was vehement that we had done
the right thing. We had done what the overwheming majority of the people
wanted.
Two journalists were interviewed this morning. They
reported that north and south Iraq is peaceful and people seem to be
well-fed and going about their business. One discussed a high school attended
by more than 1,000 kids. Their major difficulty was the absence of
text-books.
Perhaps Mark Steyn's drive across
Iraq about which his report showed mostly normality does not seem so
strange to FW people any more. (You'll recall he felt a tad uneasy walking
through the evening streets of Tikrit, but no more so than he felt walking
through London's Notting Hill Gate.)
The journalists said the Brits who control the
south keep a low profile and there isn't much trouble.
The death and destruction is around
Badgad and in the "Sunni Triangle". This will have to be dealt with
by the Iranian army, not the Americans. The army is over 100,000
and heading toward 200,000.
Meanwhile, although the Triangle is supposed
to be practically a war zone, we find Jon Snow of the UK's Channel Four is at
the races along with thousands of Iraqi punters.
I find almost glee in the reaction of some people
at every American casualty - they'll have a field day with the latest
helicopter accident - for they want Bush, the Army, and the US, to fail
in Iraq.
Perhaps that will elect
Democrats.
Yet, if it the Iraq incursion succeeds it
will be written large in history. A police action to root out an
evil government and free millions of people wo have suffered misery, torture,
and death.
Given the fact that
most politicians would rather do nothing than something - a
politician who goes out on a limb must be regarded as a most
uncommon bloke.
I said it would be something
different.
Harry
-------------------------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Ed
Weick
Sent: Saturday, November 01, 2003 1:06 PM
To: Karen
Watters Cole; [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: Re:
[Futurework] All the President's votes?
Principles in politics is a complex issue. I
think most politicians have them, though some have them much more strongly
than others. Obviously, because politics is the art of compromise,
principles may have to be bent if objectives are to be met. I think
the good politician knows how far he can go in bending his principles and
will reach a point where he can go no further while the bad or mediocre
politician doesn't really have much of an idea of this.
There have been examples of politicians who, on first
impression, appear to have no principles at all. However, when something
important happens and they are pressed to the wall, an unrecognized strength
and ability to stand firm emerges. I felt this about George Bush
immediately after 9/11, but everything he has done since has suggested that
his principles are of the wrong kind, or, perhaps better, they are not really
his principles but are the principles of those who play Edgar Bergen to his
Charley McCarthy.
Ed