
 |
|
May 22, 2013
John Thorne:
They launched the 'Arab Spring' but now yearn for the good old days of a strongman
May 20, 2013
Richard A. Serrano: Is Meir Kahane's assassin now a changed man?
Melissa Healy: Genetic copies of living people from embryos no longer science fiction
Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom : Jews Inducted into Rock Hall of Fame; Anton Yelchin co-stars in New "Trek" film; Kutcher (but not Kunis) visits Israel; Jewish TV Star Praises Jewish Rap Star
The Kosher Gourmet by Cathy Pollak: WARNING: This WALNUT CAKE WITH PRALINE FROSTING, perfect for afternoon coffee, is addicting
May 13, 2013
Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo: Why the giving of the document that would permanently change the world could only be done in desolation
David G. Savage: Church-state, literally? Supreme Court weighing public school graduation in a church
May 10, 2013
Rabbi Berel Wein: Be all that you should be
May 8, 2013
Peter Ford: Why China is welcoming both Israel's Netanyahu and Palestinians' Abbas
Warren Richey: Obama administration quietly backs out of appeal over new contraceptive mandate
Fred Weir: At Kerry-Putin meeting, US-Russia relations thaw --- a tad
The Kosher Gourmet by Leela Cyd Ross : Almost too pretty to eat, this colorful salad with Sicilian inspiration will tickle the taste buds and delight your visual sensibility
May 6, 2013
May 3, 2013
Kids, kittens the Same? With employee perks at struggling Internet pioneer Yahoo! it's hard to tell
Sandy Kleffman: Artificial kidney offers hope to patients tethered to a dialysis machine
April 29, 2013
Roy Gutman: Poland's new Jewish museum celebrates life, doesn't revisit Holocaust
Mark Clayton: Terrorism in America: Is US missing a chance to learn from failed plots?
Kim Murphy: Boston Bomber's 'Svengali' Revealed
Pete Spotts: Tiny satellites + cellphones = cheaper 'eyes in the sky' for NASA
April 26, 2013
Clifford D. May: Defense in the Age of Jihadist Terrorism
Sharon Palmer, R.D.: How to feel your best -- with plenty of energy, a healthy weight and optimal mental and physical function -- without driving yourself batty
April 24, 2013
|
| |
Jewish World Review
June 5, 2008
/ 2 Sivan 5768
The ahistorical candidate
By
Paul Greenberg
| 
|
|
|
|
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
Barack Obama chose St. Paul, Minn., to stage his victory or at least near-victory rally Tuesday night. It was a good way to stick a thumb in John McCain's eye, since the Republicans have chosen to hold their national convention at the same arena.
Yet he overlooked the historical connotations of that site. Beautiful downtown St. Paul is where Walter Mondale delivered his concession speech after one of the most lopsided defeats in the history of American presidential elections Ronald Reagan's 49-state sweep in 1984.
For his last hurrah of the primary season, he chose a place associated with one of his party's great defeats. It's as if admirers of George Armstrong Custer were to gather at Little Bighorn, aka Custer's Last Stand, to proclaim victory.
It's no a big matter. The de facto Democratic presidential nominee had good reason to choose a battleground state and a battleground region for his big rally. But the choice also fits into a larger, unsettling pattern: The young senator seems tone-deaf to history.
For another example, he invoked the memory of John F. Kennedy in defense of his sweeping offer to meet the world's most dangerous leaders like Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and North Korea's Kim Jong-Il with no conditions attached. After all, he noted, hadn't President Kennedy met with Soviet boss Nikita Khrushchev early in his administration?
To quote Senator Obama: "If George Bush and John McCain have a problem with direct diplomacy led by the president of the United States, then they can explain why they have a problem with John F. Kennedy, because that's what he did with Khrushchev."
He did it in Vienna in June of 1961, to be exact, and Nikita Sergeyevich sized up the young president at once. His considered opinion: "too intelligent and too weak." It was just like First Secretary Khrushchev to equate intelligence with weakness. One of his aides was equally blunt: "Very inexperienced, even immature."
In short, that meeting in Vienna without proper preparation or any preconditions proved "just a disaster," to quote JFK's assistant secretary of defense, Paul Nitze. The president himself agreed, telling the New York Times' Scotty Reston immediately afterward that his meeting with the Soviet ruler had been the "roughest thing in my life."
Comrade Khrushchev drew the logical conclusions from his meeting with the new American president: The guy was a pushover. The Berlin Wall went up that August, splitting the city and creating a focal point of tension and violence for decades.
Then he decided to tilt the whole global balance of power to the Soviet Union's advantage by installing nuclear-tipped missiles in Cuba. Which he proceeded to do with Fidel Castro's enthusiastic, not to say bellicose, cooperation. Or as Nikita Khrushchev put it in his always refined way, it was time to "throw a hedgehog at Uncle Sam's pants."
The result was the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, the closest the world has come to nuclear holocaust. By then John F. Kennedy had learned a thing or two; he never deigned to negotiate with Fidel Castro, and he made it clear from the outset that a nuclear attack on this country from Cuba would be met as if it had originated in Moscow, as indeed it would have.
After a long, elaborate, and nerve-wracking diplomatic dance, complete with a naval embargo of Cuba and many a crisis within the crisis, the missiles were removed. Things had worked out somehow. But it was still, as the Duke of Wellington said of Waterloo, a damned close-run thing much too close for comfort. And it had its origins in an ill-considered meeting without proper preparation.
And this is the meeting Sen. Obama uses to justify his open-ended, no-conditions offer to meet with some of the most fanatical anti-American leaders in the world, at least one of whom Iran's nutcase president has been trying to acquire a nuclear arsenal for years. (And he's making good progress to the regular accompaniment of irresolute UN resolutions against a nuclear-armed Iran.)
Let it be noted that, by the time John F. Kennedy went to Vienna, he'd already served six years in the House and eight in the Senate. A combat veteran and war hero, he'd spent more time in the Navy than Barack Obama, a freshman senator, has spent in the U.S. Senate. And he was still blindsided at Vienna.
By now Sen. Obama has backtracked slightly on his offer to meet the Mahmoud Ahmadinejads and Kim Jong-Ils of the world with no preconditions. Which is a welcome development. But that he should use a young president's diplomatic blunder as an example to emulate. ... Well, it does not encourage confidence in his judgment. To put it mildly, it betrays a marked insensitivity to the lessons of history. Which is troubling.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
JWR contributor Paul Greenberg, editorial page editor of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, has won the Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing. Send your comments by clicking here.
Paul Greenberg Archives
© 2006 Tribune Media Services, Inc.
|
|

Arnold Ahlert
Mitch Albom
Jay Ambrose
Michael Barone
Barrywood
Lori Borgman
Stratfor Briefing
Mona Charen
Linda Chavez
Richard Z. Chesnoff
Ann Coulter
Greg Crosby
Larry Elder
Suzanne Fields
Christine Flowers
Frank J. Gaffney
Bernie Goldberg
Jonah Goldberg
Julia Gorin
Jonathan Gurwitz
Paul Greenberg
Argus Hamilton
Victor Davis Hanson
Betsy Hart
Ron Hart
Nat Hentoff
A. Barton Hinkle
Jeff Jacoby
Paul Johnson
Jack Kelly
Ch. Krauthammer
David Limbaugh
Kathryn Lopez
Rich Lowry
Michelle Malkin
Jackie Mason
Ann McFeatters
Dale McFeatters
Dana Milbank
Jeanne Moos
Dick Morris
Jim Mullen
Deroy Murdock
Judge A. Napolitano
Bill O'Reilly
Clarence Page
Kathleen Parker
Star Parker
Dennis Prager
Wesley Pruden
Tom Purcell
Sharon Randall
Robert Robb
Cokie & Steve Roberts
Heather Robinson
Debra J. Saunders
Martin Schram
Greg Schwem
Culture Shlock
David Shribman
Roger Simon
Lenore Skenazy
Michael Smerconish
Thomas Sowell
Ben Stein
Mark Steyn
John Stossel
Cal Thomas
Dan Thomasson
Bob Tyrrell
Diana West
Dave Weinbaum
George Will
Walter Williams
Byron York
ZeitGeist
Mort Zuckerman

Robert Arial
Chuck Asay
Baloo
Lisa Benson
Chip Bok
Dry Bones
John Branch
John Cole
J. D. Crowe
Matt Davies
John Deering
Brian Duffy
Everything's Relative
Mallard Fillmore
Glenn Foden
Jake Fuller
Bob Gorrel
Walt Handelsman
Joe Heller
David Hitch
Jerry Holbert
David Horsey
Lee Judge
Steve Kelley
Jeff Koterba
Dick Locher
Chan Lowe
Jimmy Margulies
Jack Ohman
Michael Ramirez
Rob Rogers
Drew Sheneman
Kevin Siers
Jeff Stahler
Scott Stantis
Danna Summers
Gary Varvel
Kirk Walters
Dan Wasserman

Tech Q&A
Mr. Know-It-All
Ask Doctor K
Richard Lederer
Frugal Living
On Nutrition
Bookmark These
Bruce Williams
|