(c) 2009 F. Bruce Abel
I agree with this important point of view, totally.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/18/opinion/18iht-edcohen.html?hp
Showing posts with label cohen. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cohen. Show all posts
Friday, December 18, 2009
Monday, July 27, 2009
Cohen -- To Bring Us Back to Optimism About Our Nation
You must take the time to read this beautifully-written piece on this beautiful Monday morning:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/27/opinion/27iht-edcohen.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/27/opinion/27iht-edcohen.html
Monday, July 6, 2009
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Roger Cohen -- An Unbelievable Daring and Unique Report From the Iranian Street Front
Read this. You won't believe what's happening to this brave, wonderful New York Times editor and correspondent,
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/21/opinion/21tehran.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/21/opinion/21tehran.html
Monday, May 25, 2009
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Monday, April 13, 2009
Thursday, April 9, 2009
Roger Cohen -- Amen!
We need more analysis from him. This one is a game-changer, talking about Obama's game-changer.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/09/opinion/09iht-edcohen.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/09/opinion/09iht-edcohen.html
Monday, January 12, 2009
Thursday, November 6, 2008
Cohen Reflects
As the reader will see, I am posting links to the NYT Op-Ed pieces that are coming in reflecting on the Obama victory. Each title has "So-and-so Reflects," a new label for ease of recalling. Each prior posting is worthy because of the great status of the writer.
This one I am posting in full.
Op-Ed Columnist
Perfecting the Union
comments (32)
new_york_times:http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/06/opinion/06Cohen.html
if (acm.cc) acm.cc.write();
By ROGER COHEN
Published: November 5, 2008
Beyond Iraq, beyond the economy, beyond health care, there was something even more fundamental at stake in this U.S. election won by Barack Obama: the self-respect of the American people.
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Read All Comments (32) »
For almost eight years, Americans have seen words stripped of meaning, lives sacrificed to confront nonexistent Iraqi weapons and other existences ravaged by serial incompetence on an epic scale.
Against all this, Obama made a simple bet and stuck to it. If you trusted in the fundamental decency, civility and good sense of the American people, even at the end of a season of fear and loss, you could forge a new politics and win the day.
Four years ago, at the Democratic convention, in the speech that lifted him from obscurity, Obama said: “For alongside our famous individualism, there’s another ingredient in the American saga: a belief that we are connected as one people.”
He never wavered from that theme. “In this country, we rise or fall as one nation, as one people,” he declared Tuesday night in his victory speech to a joyous crowd in Chicago.
In that four-year span, Obama never got angry. Without breaking a sweat, he took down two of the most ruthless political machines on the planet: first the Clintons and then the Republican Party.
An idea has power. John McCain had many things in this campaign, but an idea was not one of them. At a time of economic crisis, he could not order his thoughts about it. Hard-hit Ohio drew its decisive conclusions. It was not alone.
McCain flailed, opting on a whim for a sidekick, Sarah Palin, who personified the very “country-first” intolerance and Bush-like small-mindedness of which many Americans had grown as weary as the world has.
Gracious in defeat, McCain seemed almost relieved, free to return to himself and escape the rabid fringes of Republicanism.
Obama’s idea, put simply, was that America can be better than it has been. It can reach beyond post-9/11 anger and fear to embody once more what the world still craves from the American idea: hope.
America can mean what it says. It can respect its friends and probe its enemies before it tries to shock and awe them. It can listen. It can rediscover the commonwealth beyond the frenzied individualism that took down Wall Street.
I know, these are mere words. They will not right the deficit or disarm an enemy. But words count. That has been a lesson of the Bush years.
You can’t proclaim freedom as you torture. You can’t promote democracy as you disappear people. You can’t stand for the rule of law and strip prisoners of basic rights. You can’t dispense with the transparency and regulation essential to modern capital markets and hope still to be the beacon of free enterprise.
Or rather, you can do all these things, but then you find yourself alone.
Obama will reinvest words with meaning. That is the basis of everything. And an American leader able to improvise a grammatical, even a moving, English sentence is no bad thing. Americans, in the inevitable recession ahead, will have a leader who can summon their better natures rather than speak, as Bush has, to their spite.
I voted in Brooklyn. There was a two-hour line. I got to talking to the woman behind me. I told her that as a naturalized American I was voting for the first time. When I emerged from the voting booth the woman said: “Congratulations.:
That single word said a lot about citizenship as an idea and a responsibility, rather than a thing of blood or ethnicity or race.
And it occurred to me that Obama’s core conviction about the American saga — his belief in the connectedness of all Americans — stemmed from his own unlikely experience of American transformation.
A Kenyan father passing briefly through these shores; a chance encounter with a young Kansan woman; a biracial boy handed off here and there but fortunate at least in the accident of Hawaiian birth.
Obama has spoken without cease about his conviction of American possibility born from this experience. He intuited that, after years of the debasement of so many core American ideas, a case for what the preamble to the U.S. Constitution calls “a more perfect union” would resonate.
He was rarely explicit about race, although he spoke of slavery as America’s “original sin.” He did not need to be. At a time of national soul-searching, what could better symbolize a “more perfect union” and the overcoming of the wounds of that original sin than the election to the White House of an African-American?
And what stronger emblem could be offered to the world of an American renewal startling enough to challenge the assumptions of every state on earth?
The other day I got an e-mail message saying simply this: Rosa Parks sat in 1955. Martin Luther King walked in 1963. Barack Obama ran in 2008. That our children might fly.
Tough days lie ahead. But it’s a moment to dream. Americans have earned that right, along with the renewed respect of the world.
This one I am posting in full.
Op-Ed Columnist
Perfecting the Union
comments (32)
new_york_times:http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/06/opinion/06Cohen.html
if (acm.cc) acm.cc.write();
By ROGER COHEN
Published: November 5, 2008
Beyond Iraq, beyond the economy, beyond health care, there was something even more fundamental at stake in this U.S. election won by Barack Obama: the self-respect of the American people.
Post a Comment »
Read All Comments (32) »
For almost eight years, Americans have seen words stripped of meaning, lives sacrificed to confront nonexistent Iraqi weapons and other existences ravaged by serial incompetence on an epic scale.
Against all this, Obama made a simple bet and stuck to it. If you trusted in the fundamental decency, civility and good sense of the American people, even at the end of a season of fear and loss, you could forge a new politics and win the day.
Four years ago, at the Democratic convention, in the speech that lifted him from obscurity, Obama said: “For alongside our famous individualism, there’s another ingredient in the American saga: a belief that we are connected as one people.”
He never wavered from that theme. “In this country, we rise or fall as one nation, as one people,” he declared Tuesday night in his victory speech to a joyous crowd in Chicago.
In that four-year span, Obama never got angry. Without breaking a sweat, he took down two of the most ruthless political machines on the planet: first the Clintons and then the Republican Party.
An idea has power. John McCain had many things in this campaign, but an idea was not one of them. At a time of economic crisis, he could not order his thoughts about it. Hard-hit Ohio drew its decisive conclusions. It was not alone.
McCain flailed, opting on a whim for a sidekick, Sarah Palin, who personified the very “country-first” intolerance and Bush-like small-mindedness of which many Americans had grown as weary as the world has.
Gracious in defeat, McCain seemed almost relieved, free to return to himself and escape the rabid fringes of Republicanism.
Obama’s idea, put simply, was that America can be better than it has been. It can reach beyond post-9/11 anger and fear to embody once more what the world still craves from the American idea: hope.
America can mean what it says. It can respect its friends and probe its enemies before it tries to shock and awe them. It can listen. It can rediscover the commonwealth beyond the frenzied individualism that took down Wall Street.
I know, these are mere words. They will not right the deficit or disarm an enemy. But words count. That has been a lesson of the Bush years.
You can’t proclaim freedom as you torture. You can’t promote democracy as you disappear people. You can’t stand for the rule of law and strip prisoners of basic rights. You can’t dispense with the transparency and regulation essential to modern capital markets and hope still to be the beacon of free enterprise.
Or rather, you can do all these things, but then you find yourself alone.
Obama will reinvest words with meaning. That is the basis of everything. And an American leader able to improvise a grammatical, even a moving, English sentence is no bad thing. Americans, in the inevitable recession ahead, will have a leader who can summon their better natures rather than speak, as Bush has, to their spite.
I voted in Brooklyn. There was a two-hour line. I got to talking to the woman behind me. I told her that as a naturalized American I was voting for the first time. When I emerged from the voting booth the woman said: “Congratulations.:
That single word said a lot about citizenship as an idea and a responsibility, rather than a thing of blood or ethnicity or race.
And it occurred to me that Obama’s core conviction about the American saga — his belief in the connectedness of all Americans — stemmed from his own unlikely experience of American transformation.
A Kenyan father passing briefly through these shores; a chance encounter with a young Kansan woman; a biracial boy handed off here and there but fortunate at least in the accident of Hawaiian birth.
Obama has spoken without cease about his conviction of American possibility born from this experience. He intuited that, after years of the debasement of so many core American ideas, a case for what the preamble to the U.S. Constitution calls “a more perfect union” would resonate.
He was rarely explicit about race, although he spoke of slavery as America’s “original sin.” He did not need to be. At a time of national soul-searching, what could better symbolize a “more perfect union” and the overcoming of the wounds of that original sin than the election to the White House of an African-American?
And what stronger emblem could be offered to the world of an American renewal startling enough to challenge the assumptions of every state on earth?
The other day I got an e-mail message saying simply this: Rosa Parks sat in 1955. Martin Luther King walked in 1963. Barack Obama ran in 2008. That our children might fly.
Tough days lie ahead. But it’s a moment to dream. Americans have earned that right, along with the renewed respect of the world.
Monday, October 27, 2008
They Shoot Horses, Don't They?
I'm not sure the point of the following Op-Ed by Roger Cohen, but I agree with the tone! Things are a changing!
comments (57)
new_york_times:http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/27/opinion/27cohen.html
if (acm.cc) acm.cc.write();
By ROGER COHEN
Published: October 26, 2008
I was talking to a banker friend, and he told me the “unraveling” could go on for ages. I thought he meant the unwinding of all the leverage that had inflated everything from the price of stocks to the price of homes.
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But, just to be sure, I asked him: “Unraveling of what?”
He paused, before saying, “Almost our way of life.”
A friend of his, he went on, has a horse farm north of New York City. “I told him, for heaven’s sake, you have to get rid of your horses. Shoot them if necessary.”
That got me thinking. Are we going to be living on horse meat before we get to the bottom of this?
It’s now clear that our credit system the world over was rotten all the way through, a giant house of cards maintained by the ingenious connivance of banks, rating agencies and insurance companies in a monumental heist. The only buyers anyone trusts any more are governments.
No wonder Alan Greenspan says he’s in a state of “shocked disbelief.” He’s not the only one.
But as the state intervenes, in what Ed Yardeni, an investment analyst, called “a giant global game of Whac-A-Mole,” the moles keep popping out of new black holes in our financial system.
“We’ve tried rubber mallets, now we’re using bazookas, but we’re flying blind,” Yardeni told me.
It’s really a wonder, when you think about it, that there are still two guys in the race to become U.S. president, pulling out all the stops in these last eight days of campaigning to be chosen as the one to face the nightmare.
Let’s fast-forward a year to October 2009. The U.S. unemployment rate stands at 10 percent. Crime is up across the country. The economy is shrinking. No arm-twisting from the Treasury has managed to restore the broken confidence between borrowers and lenders. Banks, the few still standing, are holding fast to their cash. Property prices are down more than 25 percent from current levels.
The Dow is still heading south as people get used to the idea of stocks trading at no more than 10 times earnings, rather than the much higher ratios our former leveraged world delivered.
New buildings stand empty all over New York because at the end of a boom — that’s to say right now — a lot of new construction comes to market. Exports, long a bright spot in the economy, have plummeted because of a rising dollar. The deficit and national debt stand at unprecedented levels.
The hedge fund industry is decimated — its model of flipping cheap borrowings into leveraged bets around the world has blown up — and one desperate, even contrite, former master of the universe has just sold a Rauschenberg for $9 million less than he paid in 2004.
People still have way too much debt, and the collateral for it keeps evaporating. They are angry. Civil unrest is stirring.
I ask you, Senator McCain, Senator Obama, do you still want the job?
It may not get that bad, of course. On the bright side, gas prices are plunging. There’s a lot of money sitting on the sidelines in places like Dubai. And, as I mentioned, the dollar is up — more than 20 percent against sterling and the euro in the last three months.
You can get a plate of pasta in central London now for less than $50. You can even take a short tube ride for less than $6. There must be hope for us all!
In a way, what’s going on with the dollar is a measure of the extent of global desperation. Here’s a currency backed by debt so massive that it will presumably have to be inflated away some day — and it’s rocketing upward.
Every investment position that made sense during a global boom and doesn’t make sense during a global bust is being unwound, and the people doing the unwinding want dollars. They are buying U.S. Treasury bills yielding basically zilch because they are too plain scared to buy anything else. Capital preservation is the name of the game if you have any capital left.
Of course, there’s the option to try preserving that capital in euros or other currencies. But at some very basic level — and we’re down to basics — the full faith and credit of the U.S. taxpayer is still deemed more credible than any other. That’s a confidence vote, slim but real, in the United States and its ability to come back.
As Avinash Persaud, the chairman of Intelligence Capital Limited, told me: “Money, in the end, is confidence. It’s a check the Federal Reserve has issued.”
Perhaps that’s why Obama and McCain are still in the race: because they believe confidence can be restored.
But both candidates should be clear-eyed about what’s looming. They shoot horses, don’t they?
comments (57)
new_york_times:http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/27/opinion/27cohen.html
if (acm.cc) acm.cc.write();
By ROGER COHEN
Published: October 26, 2008
I was talking to a banker friend, and he told me the “unraveling” could go on for ages. I thought he meant the unwinding of all the leverage that had inflated everything from the price of stocks to the price of homes.
Post a Comment »
Read All Comments (57) »
But, just to be sure, I asked him: “Unraveling of what?”
He paused, before saying, “Almost our way of life.”
A friend of his, he went on, has a horse farm north of New York City. “I told him, for heaven’s sake, you have to get rid of your horses. Shoot them if necessary.”
That got me thinking. Are we going to be living on horse meat before we get to the bottom of this?
It’s now clear that our credit system the world over was rotten all the way through, a giant house of cards maintained by the ingenious connivance of banks, rating agencies and insurance companies in a monumental heist. The only buyers anyone trusts any more are governments.
No wonder Alan Greenspan says he’s in a state of “shocked disbelief.” He’s not the only one.
But as the state intervenes, in what Ed Yardeni, an investment analyst, called “a giant global game of Whac-A-Mole,” the moles keep popping out of new black holes in our financial system.
“We’ve tried rubber mallets, now we’re using bazookas, but we’re flying blind,” Yardeni told me.
It’s really a wonder, when you think about it, that there are still two guys in the race to become U.S. president, pulling out all the stops in these last eight days of campaigning to be chosen as the one to face the nightmare.
Let’s fast-forward a year to October 2009. The U.S. unemployment rate stands at 10 percent. Crime is up across the country. The economy is shrinking. No arm-twisting from the Treasury has managed to restore the broken confidence between borrowers and lenders. Banks, the few still standing, are holding fast to their cash. Property prices are down more than 25 percent from current levels.
The Dow is still heading south as people get used to the idea of stocks trading at no more than 10 times earnings, rather than the much higher ratios our former leveraged world delivered.
New buildings stand empty all over New York because at the end of a boom — that’s to say right now — a lot of new construction comes to market. Exports, long a bright spot in the economy, have plummeted because of a rising dollar. The deficit and national debt stand at unprecedented levels.
The hedge fund industry is decimated — its model of flipping cheap borrowings into leveraged bets around the world has blown up — and one desperate, even contrite, former master of the universe has just sold a Rauschenberg for $9 million less than he paid in 2004.
People still have way too much debt, and the collateral for it keeps evaporating. They are angry. Civil unrest is stirring.
I ask you, Senator McCain, Senator Obama, do you still want the job?
It may not get that bad, of course. On the bright side, gas prices are plunging. There’s a lot of money sitting on the sidelines in places like Dubai. And, as I mentioned, the dollar is up — more than 20 percent against sterling and the euro in the last three months.
You can get a plate of pasta in central London now for less than $50. You can even take a short tube ride for less than $6. There must be hope for us all!
In a way, what’s going on with the dollar is a measure of the extent of global desperation. Here’s a currency backed by debt so massive that it will presumably have to be inflated away some day — and it’s rocketing upward.
Every investment position that made sense during a global boom and doesn’t make sense during a global bust is being unwound, and the people doing the unwinding want dollars. They are buying U.S. Treasury bills yielding basically zilch because they are too plain scared to buy anything else. Capital preservation is the name of the game if you have any capital left.
Of course, there’s the option to try preserving that capital in euros or other currencies. But at some very basic level — and we’re down to basics — the full faith and credit of the U.S. taxpayer is still deemed more credible than any other. That’s a confidence vote, slim but real, in the United States and its ability to come back.
As Avinash Persaud, the chairman of Intelligence Capital Limited, told me: “Money, in the end, is confidence. It’s a check the Federal Reserve has issued.”
Perhaps that’s why Obama and McCain are still in the race: because they believe confidence can be restored.
But both candidates should be clear-eyed about what’s looming. They shoot horses, don’t they?
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Branson, Not Chicago
In a previous blog I said the center of the financial world will now move to Chicago. Maybe it's Branson, Missouri!
Op-Ed Columnist
Presley, Palin and the Heartland
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new_york_times:http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/16/opinion/16Cohen.html
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By ROGER COHEN
Published: October 16, 2008
BRANSON, Mo.
.
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I never imagined that a Republican mayor from Bible-belt Missouri would revive my faith in American democracy, but Raeanne Presley did just that.
As a high-energy brunette running a small town, she’s been ribbed since Sarah Palin became her party’s nominee for vice president. “Guess you’ll be moving on to governor soon,” she gets told. “And up from there.”
But Presley’s not interested. She’s Midwestern practical to Palin’s rabble-rousing frontierswoman. Common sense interests her more than aw-shucks nonsense. She prefers balanced budgets to unbalanced attacks.
Presley — no relation to Elvis — runs the capital of the American heartland. Branson, population 7,500, is to country-western, country-first, evangelical culture what Haight-Ashbury once was to the hippie movement: its mother lode.
You won’t find gambling in wholesome Branson. Food gets deep-fried; Christmas gets celebrated from Nov, 1; churches get filled.
On the gridlocked “strip” — more theater seats than Broadway — nobody blows their horn. The featured speaker at veterans’ week in November will be Oliver North, the Reagan-era rogue of the Iran-contra scandal. He’ll get a cheer: this area of southern Missouri voted about 70 percent Bush in 2004.
What you do find on the strip are the 8 million tourists — more than a thousand times the population — who come here annually in search of religious, family and patriotic entertainment. Dream on, Wasilla.
(If the Branson population-tourist ratio applied in New York, the city would get upward of 8 billion tourists a year. It gets around 46 million.)
Entertainment includes country-western music, the “Dixie Stampede” rodeo show, old favorites like Andy Williams, Chinese acrobats, Irish tenors and a Veterans Memorial Museum. A Japanese violinist does country and Cajun.
“For skimpy costumes or harsh language,” Presley, 50, said, “you go to Vegas or New York. We’ve no rules against a racy show. You’re welcome to give it a shot. But we hope you don’t succeed.”
One thing Branson does not have is foreign tourists. Head-shaking Europeans bewildered by “the other America” should check it out. The town, with its more than 50 theaters (Broadway has 39), would be an education.
My own did not go according to plan. I came to Branson and its mayor with my liberal prejudices and was disarmed. Presley reminded me of my ex-mother-in-law, another brisk, pragmatic, funny, no-nonsense Republican Midwesterner with little tolerance for debt, delinquency, dumbness or dereliction of duty. She also reminded me of a great American virtue: getting on with it.
And it dawned on me that Palin, with her vile near-accusations of treason against Barack Obama, her cloying doggone hymns to small-town U.S.A., her with-us-or-against-us refrain, is really an impostor.
She’s the representative of a kind of last-gasp Republicanism, of an exhausted party, whose proud fiscal conservatism and patriotism have given away to scurrilous fear-mongering and ideological confusion.
It’s a party in need of a break from power after the Bush years in order to re-learn what Presley represents: the can-do, down-to-earth, honest, industrious, spend-what-you-earn civility of the heartland. That civility has been usurped into Palin’s trash talk.
Presley’s busy, in a tough economic climate, balancing a $61 million budget, trying to preserve jobs, getting a new $500 million convention center rolling, seeking a better balance between development and the environment.
I asked her about the election. “This is an exciting moment,” she said. “An African-American at the top of the Democratic ticket. As Americans we should be proud of that. A woman running for vice president. We can be proud of that, too.”
I asked her if she was a closet liberal. She laughed.
She said her oldest son, Nick, went to Stanford, and she expected him to come back from California “with a tattoo and a piercing.” But, no. He’s now working at the family’s Country Jubilee Theater.
It was one of the first to open on the strip. I’m 53, and I reckon the night I saw the show I lowered the audience’s average age to about 78. Fall is “empty-nester” season — oceans of gray hair.
The audience roared when a hillbilly idiot said something dumb and was rebuked by his father: “Next thing, you’ll believe in global warming!”
So go the culture wars in Branson.
This is red-state central, dear to evangelicals. But Presley has few illusions. Obama has been surging in bellwether Missouri with its long and almost perfect record of voting for the winner. He is now neck and neck with John McCain in the state polls.
Americans still vote their pocketbooks — always have, always will.
“I can see how the drift is going, but we’ll move on,” the mayor said.
A speech four years ago brought Obama to the national stage: “There is not a liberal America and a conservative America. There is the United States of America. There is not a black America and a white America and Latino America and Asian America. There’s the United States of America.”
I found that spirit in Branson, the last place I expected. And it gave me hope, in these sobering days, for a nation aching to unite behind a new start and uplifting endeavor.
Op-Ed Columnist
Presley, Palin and the Heartland
comments (66)
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new_york_times:http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/16/opinion/16Cohen.html
if (acm.cc) acm.cc.write();
By ROGER COHEN
Published: October 16, 2008
BRANSON, Mo.
.
Post a Comment »
Read All Comments (66) »
I never imagined that a Republican mayor from Bible-belt Missouri would revive my faith in American democracy, but Raeanne Presley did just that.
As a high-energy brunette running a small town, she’s been ribbed since Sarah Palin became her party’s nominee for vice president. “Guess you’ll be moving on to governor soon,” she gets told. “And up from there.”
But Presley’s not interested. She’s Midwestern practical to Palin’s rabble-rousing frontierswoman. Common sense interests her more than aw-shucks nonsense. She prefers balanced budgets to unbalanced attacks.
Presley — no relation to Elvis — runs the capital of the American heartland. Branson, population 7,500, is to country-western, country-first, evangelical culture what Haight-Ashbury once was to the hippie movement: its mother lode.
You won’t find gambling in wholesome Branson. Food gets deep-fried; Christmas gets celebrated from Nov, 1; churches get filled.
On the gridlocked “strip” — more theater seats than Broadway — nobody blows their horn. The featured speaker at veterans’ week in November will be Oliver North, the Reagan-era rogue of the Iran-contra scandal. He’ll get a cheer: this area of southern Missouri voted about 70 percent Bush in 2004.
What you do find on the strip are the 8 million tourists — more than a thousand times the population — who come here annually in search of religious, family and patriotic entertainment. Dream on, Wasilla.
(If the Branson population-tourist ratio applied in New York, the city would get upward of 8 billion tourists a year. It gets around 46 million.)
Entertainment includes country-western music, the “Dixie Stampede” rodeo show, old favorites like Andy Williams, Chinese acrobats, Irish tenors and a Veterans Memorial Museum. A Japanese violinist does country and Cajun.
“For skimpy costumes or harsh language,” Presley, 50, said, “you go to Vegas or New York. We’ve no rules against a racy show. You’re welcome to give it a shot. But we hope you don’t succeed.”
One thing Branson does not have is foreign tourists. Head-shaking Europeans bewildered by “the other America” should check it out. The town, with its more than 50 theaters (Broadway has 39), would be an education.
My own did not go according to plan. I came to Branson and its mayor with my liberal prejudices and was disarmed. Presley reminded me of my ex-mother-in-law, another brisk, pragmatic, funny, no-nonsense Republican Midwesterner with little tolerance for debt, delinquency, dumbness or dereliction of duty. She also reminded me of a great American virtue: getting on with it.
And it dawned on me that Palin, with her vile near-accusations of treason against Barack Obama, her cloying doggone hymns to small-town U.S.A., her with-us-or-against-us refrain, is really an impostor.
She’s the representative of a kind of last-gasp Republicanism, of an exhausted party, whose proud fiscal conservatism and patriotism have given away to scurrilous fear-mongering and ideological confusion.
It’s a party in need of a break from power after the Bush years in order to re-learn what Presley represents: the can-do, down-to-earth, honest, industrious, spend-what-you-earn civility of the heartland. That civility has been usurped into Palin’s trash talk.
Presley’s busy, in a tough economic climate, balancing a $61 million budget, trying to preserve jobs, getting a new $500 million convention center rolling, seeking a better balance between development and the environment.
I asked her about the election. “This is an exciting moment,” she said. “An African-American at the top of the Democratic ticket. As Americans we should be proud of that. A woman running for vice president. We can be proud of that, too.”
I asked her if she was a closet liberal. She laughed.
She said her oldest son, Nick, went to Stanford, and she expected him to come back from California “with a tattoo and a piercing.” But, no. He’s now working at the family’s Country Jubilee Theater.
It was one of the first to open on the strip. I’m 53, and I reckon the night I saw the show I lowered the audience’s average age to about 78. Fall is “empty-nester” season — oceans of gray hair.
The audience roared when a hillbilly idiot said something dumb and was rebuked by his father: “Next thing, you’ll believe in global warming!”
So go the culture wars in Branson.
This is red-state central, dear to evangelicals. But Presley has few illusions. Obama has been surging in bellwether Missouri with its long and almost perfect record of voting for the winner. He is now neck and neck with John McCain in the state polls.
Americans still vote their pocketbooks — always have, always will.
“I can see how the drift is going, but we’ll move on,” the mayor said.
A speech four years ago brought Obama to the national stage: “There is not a liberal America and a conservative America. There is the United States of America. There is not a black America and a white America and Latino America and Asian America. There’s the United States of America.”
I found that spirit in Branson, the last place I expected. And it gave me hope, in these sobering days, for a nation aching to unite behind a new start and uplifting endeavor.
Monday, October 13, 2008
Cohen Senses It
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History and the Really Very Weird
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By ROGER COHEN
Published: October 12, 2008
PECULIAR, Mo.
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Back when he was vice president, Dan Quayle noted that: “People that are really very weird can get into sensitive positions and have a tremendous impact on history.”
He was right, as the Germans know, even if his own impact was limited by the fact the president he was understudying for stayed alive.
Quayle’s words came back to me because, like a lot Americans, I’ve come down with Palinitis: the acute fear that Sarah Palin might get into one of those “sensitive positions.”
This is no ordinary moment. More than two trillion dollars have disappeared from Americans’ retirement accounts. The hedge-fund high priests of the universe have suspended their Warhol purchases. Iceland, de-banked, has gone back to fishing (if there are any fish left). On the next president will hinge the choice between recession, with a small “r,” and Depression, with a big “D.”
It’s not a time, in history’s great sweep, for Quayle’s very weird people to run the world. Tremendous might prove an inadequate description of their impact. What we need is a safe pair of hands. Or we’ll all be fishing.
Then I pulled into Peculiar.
I’d decided to go for a spin around Missouri because this bellwether, battleground state has voted for the winner in every election since 1904, with the sole exception of 1956. In many respects, it is America miniaturized.
Of its more than 100 rural counties, all but one voted Republican in 2004. But its big cities, St. Louis and Kansas City, are another story, trending heavily Democrat. Rural, Bible-belt, America-first Missouri tends to views St. Louis as the fallen East Coast.
The growing number of conservative, Evangelical voters led John Kerry to abandon campaigning here four years ago; he lost heavily to President Bush. In Peculiar (motto “Where the ‘Odds’ are with you”), Democrats are rare. Cass County, where it’s located, voted 61.6 percent Bush.
There’s not a lot to Peculiar, a smattering of low-slung buildings off Highway 71 in western Missouri. At a general store, I asked about the name and a woman told me: “When they incorporated the town, they tried a few names, but those already existed, and somebody wrote back saying we should try something more ‘peculiar.’ And, son, we did.”
End of story.
Or not quite: America’s become a place where Peculiar folks think the city folks have lost the plot and city folks think the rural folks are peculiar.
In this culture war, where Palin’s hockey moms and Joe Sixpacks are supposed to be the only patriots left standing, believing in a woman’s right to choose gets cast as unpatriotic. (Remember: belief in regulating markets used to be unpatriotic too.)
I pulled out of Peculiar, passed a sign saying “Nothing’s hard for God,” cranked up the radio and got the Eagles:
“And I wanna sleep with youIn the desert tonightWith a billion stars all aroundCause I got a peaceful easy feelingAnd I know you won’t let me down ...”
Man, that felt good: a peaceful easy feeling is not something I’ve had about the U.S. in a while. But around Humansville (I didn’t ask), a country music station brought me this:
“I’m just a common manDrive a common vanAnd my dog ain’t got no pedigreeI’m just happy to be freeWay I wanna beBecause highbrow people lose their saniteeee ...”
That did it. Not wishing to lose mine, I asked Kenneth Warren, a professor of political science at St. Louis University, how Missouri’s battle of the Republican common man and the Democratic highbrow crowd was going since the Dow dived and the Bush presidency began its final descent into flames.
“There’s strong movement in Obama’s direction,” he said. “He was trailing by 10 points in August, and now two polls show him ahead. You’ve got a perfect storm for him. With the financial collapse, the Republican White House gets blamed. McCain’s looking rattled and disconnected on the economy. And Palin’s become a liability because she doesn’t look qualified for a crisis.”
In Branson, in southern Missouri, I met Gail Hinshaw, a business executive. He told me he’s an independent who’s “leaned Republican.” But, he said, “I’m an orthodox Republican, not big on big government, and who’s spent more or grown government more than this president?”
Hinshaw said no person has all the answers. So he’s looking for someone who can pull people together. It’s time, he said, to paint or get off the ladder. He senses movement toward Obama as independents like him decide. “We got to do something different.”
Missouri’s still a toss-up. But if the Hinshaw drift continues in Republican areas and Obama wins the state, he’ll likely be elected president by a landslide. Compared to Missouri, most other battleground states look more comfortable for him.
I’m starting to believe in a Republican bloodbath. You can’t fool all the people all the time. As Quayle noted, “The future will be better tomorrow.”
History and the Really Very Weird
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By ROGER COHEN
Published: October 12, 2008
PECULIAR, Mo.
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Back when he was vice president, Dan Quayle noted that: “People that are really very weird can get into sensitive positions and have a tremendous impact on history.”
He was right, as the Germans know, even if his own impact was limited by the fact the president he was understudying for stayed alive.
Quayle’s words came back to me because, like a lot Americans, I’ve come down with Palinitis: the acute fear that Sarah Palin might get into one of those “sensitive positions.”
This is no ordinary moment. More than two trillion dollars have disappeared from Americans’ retirement accounts. The hedge-fund high priests of the universe have suspended their Warhol purchases. Iceland, de-banked, has gone back to fishing (if there are any fish left). On the next president will hinge the choice between recession, with a small “r,” and Depression, with a big “D.”
It’s not a time, in history’s great sweep, for Quayle’s very weird people to run the world. Tremendous might prove an inadequate description of their impact. What we need is a safe pair of hands. Or we’ll all be fishing.
Then I pulled into Peculiar.
I’d decided to go for a spin around Missouri because this bellwether, battleground state has voted for the winner in every election since 1904, with the sole exception of 1956. In many respects, it is America miniaturized.
Of its more than 100 rural counties, all but one voted Republican in 2004. But its big cities, St. Louis and Kansas City, are another story, trending heavily Democrat. Rural, Bible-belt, America-first Missouri tends to views St. Louis as the fallen East Coast.
The growing number of conservative, Evangelical voters led John Kerry to abandon campaigning here four years ago; he lost heavily to President Bush. In Peculiar (motto “Where the ‘Odds’ are with you”), Democrats are rare. Cass County, where it’s located, voted 61.6 percent Bush.
There’s not a lot to Peculiar, a smattering of low-slung buildings off Highway 71 in western Missouri. At a general store, I asked about the name and a woman told me: “When they incorporated the town, they tried a few names, but those already existed, and somebody wrote back saying we should try something more ‘peculiar.’ And, son, we did.”
End of story.
Or not quite: America’s become a place where Peculiar folks think the city folks have lost the plot and city folks think the rural folks are peculiar.
In this culture war, where Palin’s hockey moms and Joe Sixpacks are supposed to be the only patriots left standing, believing in a woman’s right to choose gets cast as unpatriotic. (Remember: belief in regulating markets used to be unpatriotic too.)
I pulled out of Peculiar, passed a sign saying “Nothing’s hard for God,” cranked up the radio and got the Eagles:
“And I wanna sleep with youIn the desert tonightWith a billion stars all aroundCause I got a peaceful easy feelingAnd I know you won’t let me down ...”
Man, that felt good: a peaceful easy feeling is not something I’ve had about the U.S. in a while. But around Humansville (I didn’t ask), a country music station brought me this:
“I’m just a common manDrive a common vanAnd my dog ain’t got no pedigreeI’m just happy to be freeWay I wanna beBecause highbrow people lose their saniteeee ...”
That did it. Not wishing to lose mine, I asked Kenneth Warren, a professor of political science at St. Louis University, how Missouri’s battle of the Republican common man and the Democratic highbrow crowd was going since the Dow dived and the Bush presidency began its final descent into flames.
“There’s strong movement in Obama’s direction,” he said. “He was trailing by 10 points in August, and now two polls show him ahead. You’ve got a perfect storm for him. With the financial collapse, the Republican White House gets blamed. McCain’s looking rattled and disconnected on the economy. And Palin’s become a liability because she doesn’t look qualified for a crisis.”
In Branson, in southern Missouri, I met Gail Hinshaw, a business executive. He told me he’s an independent who’s “leaned Republican.” But, he said, “I’m an orthodox Republican, not big on big government, and who’s spent more or grown government more than this president?”
Hinshaw said no person has all the answers. So he’s looking for someone who can pull people together. It’s time, he said, to paint or get off the ladder. He senses movement toward Obama as independents like him decide. “We got to do something different.”
Missouri’s still a toss-up. But if the Hinshaw drift continues in Republican areas and Obama wins the state, he’ll likely be elected president by a landslide. Compared to Missouri, most other battleground states look more comfortable for him.
I’m starting to believe in a Republican bloodbath. You can’t fool all the people all the time. As Quayle noted, “The future will be better tomorrow.”
Thursday, October 9, 2008
Gods of the Copybook Headings
[compliments of Roger Cohen (and Kipling) of the New York Times last week]
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/06/opinion/06cohen.html
As I pass through my incarnations in every age and race,
I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.
And what are the qualities of these “Gods of the Copybook Headings?” The fourth verse sets them out.
With the hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch,
They denied that the moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch;
They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings;
So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.
The seventh verse reads:
In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul:
But though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “If you don’t work you die.”
Thursday, October 2, 2008
Odd Are 1 in 6
Buried in this excellent piece is the information that the odds of Palin being president if the Republicans win are 1 out of 6.
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By ROGER COHEN
Published: October 1, 2008
In 1970, in the midst of the longest bear market since World War II, President Richard Nixon declared: “Frankly, if I had any money, I’d be buying stocks right now.”
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The market soared.
Now, I’ve been asking myself, just for the heck of it, what would happen if President Bush tried his own jawboning of the market and said: “Frankly, if I had any money, I’d be buying stocks right now.”
My conclusion is: Mr. President, please, please do not say that! I reckon the market could tank in ways that would make this week’s one-day 777 point plunge look paltry.
I’m not about to write a paean to Nixon. I watched him quit in a bar in Bolinas, Calif.; I can still hear the cheer. But even his tortured, sleazy nature betrayed some essential seriousness about the fate of the United States. By contrast, the Bush crowd has gambled the future of this country with abandon.
(And Nixon did resign as impeachment loomed. Whatever happened to the notion that someone — a cabinet member, a Wall Street C.E.O., the inventor of credit-default swaps — might actually fall on his or her sword? Shame has become a quaint chivalric notion, like honor, a thing of another American time.)
A closer look at the Bush gamble is merited because the first person to reprice risk on the basis it no longer existed was the president. Now, that’s leading by example.
The gamble involved going to war in Iraq at an estimated cost to date of about $700 billion (does that figure sound familiar?), while opting not to raise taxes but to lower them. It involved going into that war, and another in Afghanistan, while asking not for shared sacrifice but a great collective maxing-out in the service of: shopping.
At the same time, Bush, who often seemed to need directions to the Treasury, opted to allow an opaque derivatives market to grow into the trillions without supervision, regulation or information. The market knew best. Turns out that what the market knew best was how to turn capitalism into a pyramid scheme for trading worthless paper.
The cost is now clear. But we should be grateful for small mercies. Remember Bush wanted to throw Social Security into the casino, too, by privatizing it!
Market capitalism is a sophisticated thing that calls for transparency, ethics and rules. Bush and his crowd gambled that some “new paradigm” meant these things were passé.
They’re not. We have to be careful now. Already the contagion of bank failures has spread to Europe. People are asking of the United States: what became of this country?
The Chinese have been ready to treat U.S. Treasuries as a rock-hard store of value and loan us the dollars they accumulate at a very low interest rate. But what if they start to doubt the U.S. government will repay its debt?
“We are getting closer to a tipping-point,” said Benn Steil, an economist. “People are asking: can we really trust the dollar as a store of value?”
The Bretton Woods system of monetary management collapsed in 1971, under Nixon. Since then the dollar’s been the primary reserve currency. Now, we’re reaching another point where a rethink of the foundations for a global economy is needed.
Global trade and capital flows are essential to prosperity. But it’s illogical to have a global system with no global reserve as insurance. Perhaps the trillions of Gulf and Chinese surpluses could be used to finance that. Or perhaps it’s time for a return to the gold standard.
I know one thing: this is no time for further gambling. John McCain rolled the dice on Sarah Palin. I’m grateful to Bob Rice of Tangent Capital for pointing out that the actuarial risk, based on mortality tables, of Palin becoming president if the Republican ticket wins the election is about 1 in 6 or 7.
That’s the same odds as your birthday falling on a Wednesday, or being delayed on two consecutive flights into Newark airport. Is America ready for that?
The lesson of the last eight years is this: when power is a passport to gamble, people can end up seriously broke or seriously dead.
There is one capable, sober guy in the Bush administration: Defense Secretary Robert Gates. He recently said that U.S. forces in Iraq had to learn counterinsurgency on the job. “But that came at a frightful human, financial and political cost,” he noted.
Gates warned that “warfare is inevitably tragic, inefficient.” He urged skepticism of any notion that “adversaries can be cowed, shocked or awed into submission, instead of being tracked down, hilltop by hilltop, house by house, block by bloody block.”
In short, he lambasted the Rumsfeld-Cheney-Bush war effort for its gambler’s irresponsibility. The financial equivalent of reckless “Shock and Awe” has been “Sub and Prime.”
And people’s houses across America really did go up in smoke.
And fear stalked the land.
Monday, September 29, 2008
Cohen
Take a break from the Bailout and read this well-thought-out article on Afghanistan and Zardari.
Op-Ed Columnist
The Most Dangerous Job on Earth
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By ROGER COHEN
Published: September 28, 2008
Asif Ali Zardari, Pakistan’s new president and the widower of Benazir Bhutto, does not mince words about the growing Taliban insurgency.
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“It is my decision that we will go after them, we will free this country,” he told me in an interview. “Yes, this is my first priority because I will have no country otherwise. I will be president of what?”
After the massive bomb attack on the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad, that’s a fair question. Its finances in a freefall, its security crumbling, nuclear-armed Pakistan stands at the brink just as a civilian takes charge after the futile zigzagging of Gen. Pervez Musharraf’s U.S.-supported rule.
I asked Zardari, who took office this month, if the assassination of his wife motivated him to confront Islamic militancy. “Of course,” he said, “It’s my revenge. I take it every day.”
He continued: “I will fight them because they are a cancer to my society, not because of my wife only, but because they are a cancer, yes, and they did kill the mother of my children, so their way of life is what I want to kill; I will suck the oxygen out of their system so there will be no Talibs.”
Are you afraid? “I am concerned; I am not afraid,” Zardari, 53, told me. “Because I don’t want to die so soon, I have a job to do.”
What a job it is. If Pakistan is the most dangerous country on earth, a phrase no less true for being a commonplace, its presidency is one of the world’s least enviable posts.
Billions of dollars in U.S. aid to the Muslim country’s former military government have not stopped the northwestern tribal areas’ becoming the new Al Qaeda-Taliban central.
That menace has produced a rising death toll for NATO forces in Afghanistan, 2,000 pounds of explosives at Pakistan’s heart, and far-flung terrorist threats. No wonder countless ministers gathered under a “Friends of Pakistan” banner at the United Nations last week with promises of aid.
But money is worthless, as the seven years since 9/11 have demonstrated, unless some basic things change. One is the double game played by Pakistan’s spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence (I.S.I.), in an apparent effort to ensure Afghanistan remains weak.
“The I.S.I. will be handled, that is our problem,” Zardari told me. “We don’t hunt with the hound and run with the hare, which is what Musharraf was doing.”
Aside from Zardari’s official meetings here, I was told he held an unpublicized one with Michael Hayden, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency (C.I.A). I also learned that the heads of three I.S.I. directorates have already been replaced.
“Anyone not conforming with my government’s policy will be thrown out,” Zardari said of the I.S.I.
He also indicated that he wants to cooperate with the United States in training specialized counterinsurgency army units. “I mean business,” he said. “We will train ourselves with the U.S. present as trainers to raise the quality of certain forces.”
But he warned against further U..S military incursions inside Pakistan, the object of recent tension. “It is counterproductive and a political price is paid,” he said, especially if no high-level target is found.
Zardari said his “new medicine” for the tribal areas would include industrial investment, incentives for alternative crops to poppy like corn, and a message that “we are hitting the Taliban” so make sure “your space is not being used by them.” He noted that historically, “Nobody traveled through these mountains without either paying them or hiring them or sharing the booty of India with them.”
But Pakistan is short of cash to strike Anbar-province-like deals in tribal areas. Zardari made an impassioned plea for the Saudis and others to slash his annual oil bill by $15 billion and give “a democratic Pakistan oil at their base price.”
He asked the French for helicopters and the U.S. for “blanket support” in persuading every country to buttress Pakistan “according to its strengths.”
My impression? This guy’s very smart, street smart, a wheeler-dealer in an area full of them, secular, pro-American, committed to democracy, and brave. I never heard Musharraf frame Pakistan’s fight against terrorism with such candor.
I believe he wants genuine conciliation with India and Afghanistan, essential to the region’s stability. (Positive meetings were held here with the Indian and Afghan leaders.). I care much less right now about his checkered past than about getting behind him for civilization’s sake.
The next U.S. administration must be forthright in support, relentless in demanding results, and ruthless where necessary. It must not be had, as Bush was.
Whether Zardari can work with the army will be critical; he says the generals have “come full circle” and understood “civilian leadership is the only place to be.” But Pakistan’t history suggests otherwise.
After he talked of revenge for Benazir’s death, Zardari added this: “I am not a warmonger. I am not interested in physical might which is not the expression of my strength. I have many strengths, and one of them is that I can take pain, not give pain. I don’t consider anyone who can give pain brave, I consider anyone who can take pain brave. That is why I consider a woman a stronger gender because she can take much more pain than a man.”
From a Muslim leader, and one so bereaved, I salute that, without reserve.
Op-Ed Columnist
The Most Dangerous Job on Earth
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By ROGER COHEN
Published: September 28, 2008
Asif Ali Zardari, Pakistan’s new president and the widower of Benazir Bhutto, does not mince words about the growing Taliban insurgency.
Post a Comment »
Read All Comments (21) »
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“It is my decision that we will go after them, we will free this country,” he told me in an interview. “Yes, this is my first priority because I will have no country otherwise. I will be president of what?”
After the massive bomb attack on the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad, that’s a fair question. Its finances in a freefall, its security crumbling, nuclear-armed Pakistan stands at the brink just as a civilian takes charge after the futile zigzagging of Gen. Pervez Musharraf’s U.S.-supported rule.
I asked Zardari, who took office this month, if the assassination of his wife motivated him to confront Islamic militancy. “Of course,” he said, “It’s my revenge. I take it every day.”
He continued: “I will fight them because they are a cancer to my society, not because of my wife only, but because they are a cancer, yes, and they did kill the mother of my children, so their way of life is what I want to kill; I will suck the oxygen out of their system so there will be no Talibs.”
Are you afraid? “I am concerned; I am not afraid,” Zardari, 53, told me. “Because I don’t want to die so soon, I have a job to do.”
What a job it is. If Pakistan is the most dangerous country on earth, a phrase no less true for being a commonplace, its presidency is one of the world’s least enviable posts.
Billions of dollars in U.S. aid to the Muslim country’s former military government have not stopped the northwestern tribal areas’ becoming the new Al Qaeda-Taliban central.
That menace has produced a rising death toll for NATO forces in Afghanistan, 2,000 pounds of explosives at Pakistan’s heart, and far-flung terrorist threats. No wonder countless ministers gathered under a “Friends of Pakistan” banner at the United Nations last week with promises of aid.
But money is worthless, as the seven years since 9/11 have demonstrated, unless some basic things change. One is the double game played by Pakistan’s spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence (I.S.I.), in an apparent effort to ensure Afghanistan remains weak.
“The I.S.I. will be handled, that is our problem,” Zardari told me. “We don’t hunt with the hound and run with the hare, which is what Musharraf was doing.”
Aside from Zardari’s official meetings here, I was told he held an unpublicized one with Michael Hayden, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency (C.I.A). I also learned that the heads of three I.S.I. directorates have already been replaced.
“Anyone not conforming with my government’s policy will be thrown out,” Zardari said of the I.S.I.
He also indicated that he wants to cooperate with the United States in training specialized counterinsurgency army units. “I mean business,” he said. “We will train ourselves with the U.S. present as trainers to raise the quality of certain forces.”
But he warned against further U..S military incursions inside Pakistan, the object of recent tension. “It is counterproductive and a political price is paid,” he said, especially if no high-level target is found.
Zardari said his “new medicine” for the tribal areas would include industrial investment, incentives for alternative crops to poppy like corn, and a message that “we are hitting the Taliban” so make sure “your space is not being used by them.” He noted that historically, “Nobody traveled through these mountains without either paying them or hiring them or sharing the booty of India with them.”
But Pakistan is short of cash to strike Anbar-province-like deals in tribal areas. Zardari made an impassioned plea for the Saudis and others to slash his annual oil bill by $15 billion and give “a democratic Pakistan oil at their base price.”
He asked the French for helicopters and the U.S. for “blanket support” in persuading every country to buttress Pakistan “according to its strengths.”
My impression? This guy’s very smart, street smart, a wheeler-dealer in an area full of them, secular, pro-American, committed to democracy, and brave. I never heard Musharraf frame Pakistan’s fight against terrorism with such candor.
I believe he wants genuine conciliation with India and Afghanistan, essential to the region’s stability. (Positive meetings were held here with the Indian and Afghan leaders.). I care much less right now about his checkered past than about getting behind him for civilization’s sake.
The next U.S. administration must be forthright in support, relentless in demanding results, and ruthless where necessary. It must not be had, as Bush was.
Whether Zardari can work with the army will be critical; he says the generals have “come full circle” and understood “civilian leadership is the only place to be.” But Pakistan’t history suggests otherwise.
After he talked of revenge for Benazir’s death, Zardari added this: “I am not a warmonger. I am not interested in physical might which is not the expression of my strength. I have many strengths, and one of them is that I can take pain, not give pain. I don’t consider anyone who can give pain brave, I consider anyone who can take pain brave. That is why I consider a woman a stronger gender because she can take much more pain than a man.”
From a Muslim leader, and one so bereaved, I salute that, without reserve.
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Exceptionalism and Cohen's Op-Ed
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Thursday, September 25, 2008
Palin’s American ExceptionBack to Article »
Sarah Palin loves the word “exceptional.” She may be onto something in her batty way: the election is very much about American exceptionalism.
Share your thoughts on this article.
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1.
September 25, 2008 6:15 am
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You make an excellent point, Mr. Cohen. I fear that it will be lost in an avalanche of indignation over the term "batty," a singularly unfortunate choice of words.
— M., California
Recommend Recommended by 13 Readers
2.
September 25, 2008 6:15 am
Link
Once I saw "her batty way," I understood that your purpose was to denigrate and not to really examine the issue. Your job at the New York Times is safe.
— Dr. Rona Michelson, Modiin, Israel
Recommend Recommended by 9 Readers
3.
September 25, 2008 6:25 am
Link
An exceptional piece, Mr. Cohen. Your incite and analysis is sharp and world wise. Unlike the petty, shrill, and exceptionally provincial "world view" held by Governor Palen.Aw shucks, she's homeland awesome. "Country First" and mooseburgers. This contest is getting embarassing.
— BW, Skagit , WA
Recommend Recommended by 63 Readers
4.
September 25, 2008 6:25 am
Link
I've done a lot of research on Palin, and compared it with what most New York Times Liberals are saying about her. It doesn't add up. I think she is a thoughtful, insightful woman who had the ability, in Alaska, to think outside the box and not do things quite according to business as usual. She took on the elite in Alaska, and won. She is a powerful woman, and since she is not one of your own, you establishment liberals dislike that. Thus, it is necessary to concoct a bunch of slogans about her that are meaningless -- e.g., Palinism is all about rage. It helps that you all think alike, and are able to echo and reinforce one another. I think you are afraid she will demolish some of your sacred cows. She's only the Vice President, you know, yet you are all obsessed with her. In a way, that's a sign of respect.Damian
— Damian, Boston, MA
Recommend Recommended by 17 Readers
5.
September 25, 2008 6:25 am
Link
posted 09/25/08Interesting analog to the "exceptional" place we believe ourselves to hold on the global stage is one my teen-age daughter presented only today: It was a business card advertisement handed out at school for a local fundamentalist church. It's catchy message--Coexist? (Notice the ? at the end.)I was so sad to see an otherwise beautiful message normally written out in the symbols of various world religions get hijacked by solipsistic theology. This inflated "exceptional" view of ourselves infiltrates our most sacred halls and severs our most basic human ties.Sadly, it's everywhere and Palin is it's most visible proponent.
— Erin, Kalamazoo
Recommend Recommended by 55 Readers
6.
September 25, 2008 6:25 am
Link
Palin's Republican Neo-Exceptionalism in incapable of looking critically at how America's efforts to project unilateral power under Bush is viewed by the rest of the world: as willful arrogance or, at best, as blind ignorance. As such, anybody like Palin who clings to her guns & religion world view it is fated neither to succeed nor alleviate global tensions.In the end, a Palin presidency would bring nothing but the second fall of Rome to American soil.
— BeerBellyBuddah, Wpg., Canada
Recommend Recommended by 69 Readers
7.
September 25, 2008 6:33 am
Link
You nailed it Roger. At its best, this is an important distinction between the two campaigns: the belief of an exceptional America in the world versus an exceptional America as an island against the world.Exceptional is a result of our idealism. That we are part of the world is realism. There really is no choice though that doesn't stop many from trying.The world is small these days. We are and must be engaged in the world. However, go-it-alone attitudes, wars of aggression and walls on our borders is not the way.We need new leadership to envision and cultivate new ways to be exceptional. It really isn't rocket science, diplomacy, respect, aid in times of crisis, cultural exchanges, Peace Corps, bring students to our universities, learn other languages, reduce our dependence on autocratic states, increase our interdependence on everyone else... oh you get the idea.Thank you for your column.
— Eric, Wisconsin
Recommend Recommended by 48 Readers
8.
September 25, 2008 6:33 am
Link
Seeing Sarah Palin grinning, small-talking, and pretending to be a competent political representative of the United States, is painful, and very embarrassing.Omnipresent, constantly within two steps of her, the dark-suited handlers, always tense and fearful, that if they as much as blink their eyes, it might suffice for her to make a PR mess for the Party and the Ticket somewhere! One these poor handlers will be held responsible for within the Campaign.What could John McCain ever have been thinking about, putting her within a heartbeat of becoming the most powerful politician on earth?What can some Americans even be thinking about, claiming she'd make a great stand-in for McCain, a malignant melanoma survivor (so far), when actuarial tables tell us he has at least a one-in-three chance of not even completing his first term?And what can citizens of other countries around the world be thinking of us, parading her around town like a queen bee, as our financial system crumbles, and candidate McCain freezes in fear at the prospect of an open debate with his rival, right before their (and our) very eyes?Will someone please tell me this isn't happening to what used to be the greatest country in the world?!?
— aix1825, Marco Island, FL
Recommend Recommended by 140 Readers
9.
September 25, 2008 6:36 am
Link
American exceptionalism does not come from anarchistic rural life or casino-like urban landscapes. When America stays true to real values that respect humans around the world and at home, while tapping into the enormous potential of its citizens working together, then America truly is exceptional. We didn't go to the moon with money from Wall Street in a rocket built on ideas that reject scientific principles. We went to the moon with the help of the GI-bill and tax money from American factories.www.usparliament.blogspot.com
— Jacob Olsson, New York
Recommend Recommended by 32 Readers
10.
September 25, 2008 6:44 am
Link
well said mr cohn.now how do we as citizen do this ? we vote and vote we shall.but do we vote with minds that have been poisoned by vapid self centered materialism and religios zealots,or rational, thoughtful, world views?the choice has never been so clear.
— michael, los angeles
Recommend Recommended by 23 Readers
11.
September 25, 2008 6:53 am
Link
Mr. Cohen. Thank you for the word "batty." That's exactly the word I've been looking for for Sarah Palin for the last few weeks. "Batty." Perfect.
— gmnickles, Reno, NV
Recommend Recommended by 21 Readers
12.
September 25, 2008 6:53 am
Link
When the person a heartbeat away from the Presidency SERIOUSLY believes that the Earth started 6,000 years ago with a talking snake, we have blinders on reality bigger than those in this article. Still, it's a good start.
— Darster, Birmingham
Recommend Recommended by 48 Readers
13.
September 25, 2008 6:53 am
Link
This is a terrific editorial which sums up the choice the electorate must make - to pine uselessly for the past, or to look to the future. Can we be a people which acknowledges American exceptionalism in our past and honors it, as well as acknowledge that insisting that such exceptionalism continues in a changed world is a very dangerous and close-minded path? I don't know, but the last 8 years leave something to be desired.The irony of course is, as Obama elliptically alludes to, that we have spent the better part of a decade eroding those elements of our society and tradition which make us exceptional. These might include our adherence to the Geneva Conventions and all they morally imply, our willingness to overrun habeas corpus, spy on our own citizens, use legalistic justifications to deny others their basic human rights simply because they are not citizens, and oversee the most terrifying expansion of executive power in our history.If we want to maintain American exceptionalism, we should both return to these admirable traditions, as well as admit that in certain areas the world has caught up, enabling us to aim higher and succeed, instead of deny reality, demonize those who oppose us, and twiddle our thumbs while Rome burns. You can't fix a problem if you won't admit it exists.
— George P, NYC
Recommend Recommended by 34 Readers
14.
September 25, 2008 6:53 am
Link
I'm American but have lived outside the US for several years. It's true that America breeds a sort of admirable idealism that is rare in other countries and that can be used for good- and it does at times inspire our fellows abroad. But, you are correct that this republican-style mantra of, "we're better than everyone else and they only hate us because they're jealous" is EXCEPTIONALLY counter-productive and alienates even our friends. Who wants a friend who thinks he's better than everyone else in every way?All I can say is: If McCain and Palin take the White House, I certainly won't be back in the next 8 years. I'll continue to vote and to hold onto the positive things I had instilled in me by my beautiful country, America, but I can't stand to watch 8 more years of this slaughter of all America truly stand for (life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness).
— db, Italy
Recommend Recommended by 55 Readers
15.
September 25, 2008 6:53 am
Link
“Like it or not, Americans really are a special people with a special ideology that sets us apart from all other peoples.”This is from the same genius (Calabresi) who said yesterday: "This Administration deserves to be trusted because it has kept us safe from terrorist attack since 9/11, has fought and won two wars, has presided over eight years of economic growth, has appointed two stellar justices to the Supreme Court, and has even learned how to do Louisiana’s job of protecting that state from hurricanes. The day will come, and not before long, when Americans will wish that George Bush was still president."The truth is most countries in the world are "special people" with their own unique ideology. Iceland. Costa Rica. Philippines. India. Switzerland. Egypt. Brazil. It's easy to make the case that each is "special".
— Bill, Scottsdale, AZ
Recommend Recommended by 42 Readers
16.
September 25, 2008 6:53 am
Link
There is much truth in this article about America's declining position economically vis- a- vis the rest of the world. There is also much truth about the wisdom of seeking better ways of cooperating with, and acting in conjunction with other nations.But this does not mean the model of cooperation is always the right one, and the one which is going to work when facing totalitarian and authoritarian states.For what we are now facing is a world, and Russia is the perfect example of this, which we thought was moving in the direction of democracy and is in fact moving more and more towards restriction of personal freedom.The United States does after all stand for protection of individual rights and freedoms in a way no other nation does.The simple recipe of 'talking more to them' is not going to bring the Islamists, the mullahs of Iran, the party chiefs of Communist China, the Putin regime in Russia away from their efforts, to in one way or another force America down.So neither the McCain model if it somewhat unfairly, is taken to be one which leans more on military unilateralism , nor the Obama model which speaks more to political cooperation, is satisfactory.What the United States needs now is a supremely competent leader who while believing strongly in the traditional values of America , knows how to deal with its present crises. Carrots when they are appropriate, but sticks for the Saddam Husseins, and Ahmadinejads.
— Shalom Freedman, Jerusalem Israel
Recommend Recommended by 4 Readers
17.
September 25, 2008 6:57 am
Link
Mr. Cohen, I'd worry more about the message than the messenger. I think what passes for "Palinism" is really just Bushism, whispered into her hockey-mom ear like a Jedi mind trick. Enough of this nonsense!http://enough2008.blogspot.com/2008/09/palin-storm-trooper.html
— Levi, Chicago, IL
Recommend Recommended by 10 Readers
18.
September 25, 2008 6:57 am
Link
We may have been exceptional between 1776 and 1980 or so but it would be difficult to advance that argument nowadays. The only measure we lead the world in is military spending, more than the rest of the world combined. Every other political, economic, and social measurement shows us lagging much of the developed world and getting worse, especially the last 7 years. People learned from us and then outdid us. We're lagging in freedom of the press, science education, human rights, broadband internet access, environmental protection, driver safety, effectiveness of healthcare, life expectancy, infant mortality, homicides, poverty rate, suicides, freedom, corruption, literacy rate, graduation rate, child well-being, freedom of expression, ......
— Johnny E, Texas
Recommend Recommended by 27 Readers
19.
September 25, 2008 7:01 am
Link
There is a huge difference between American exceptionalism and going off on a tangent. Although Palin is saying the word exceptional which sounds lovely, where she and McCain are headed is off on a dangerous tangent far beyond core Republican philosophy.
— bob, sf
Recommend Recommended by 9 Readers
20.
September 25, 2008 7:01 am
Link
An exceptional article--realistic rather than palinistic--thank you.
— A.C., san francisco
Recommend Recommended by 13 Readers
21.
September 25, 2008 7:13 am
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Yawn .... another editorial and another extreme anti-Palin/Bush/McCain article. If this is supposed to convince us independents to somehow vote for Obama then you underestimate our intelligence. Overtly biased Opinions from the NYT is actually worse than the election in 2004. I'm having to turn elsewhere to try to get some decent covereage. Please do us all a favour and stop this nonsense so that we can get educated.
— Greg Niven, Santa Clara, CA
Recommend Recommended by 8 Readers
22.
September 25, 2008 7:13 am
Link
To me McCain/Palin represent a small village in Russia that's called Potemkin...all facade, nothing behind it. It's a bankrupt village of few ideas and no solutions.
— Glenn, Hawaii
Recommend Recommended by 26 Readers
23.
September 25, 2008 7:13 am
Link
Yes - and it really is that scary.If America turns any more inward - it will cease to exist on the world stage except as some sort of begging military pariah.The fact that half of those polled seem to want to vote for McPain scares the rest of the world too - it means Bush wasn't a mistake, America really meant to be like this in 2008.Good Lord help us if Rove wins one more time!
— Rico, Alaska
Recommend Recommended by 37 Readers
24.
September 25, 2008 7:17 am
Link
Roger, you make some good points, but others are unfair. I'm not a Palin supporter, and I probably believe in American exceptionalism even less than you do, but in the spirit of fairness, I'd like to point out that nothing you quote Palin as saying suggests she's angry or enraged. Some American nationalists are, but prima facie Palin isn't. In the bits of speeches I've heard, she sounds almost like Obama as she tells people that as Americans they can each make a valuable contribution if they take the spirit of serving others seriously and believe in their individual ability to bring change. Her ideal of grass-roots populism and reformism may display contradictions in practice, but as an ideal it is based on joy, passion, and optimism, not anger.So far, at least, Palin hasn't shown herself to be against one-worldism. The remark you mention about Alaskans being able to see the coast of Russia suggests just the opposite. Palin's statement was not at all an ignorant, buffoonish claim to have knowledge of Russia or international affairs because of a mere coastline view. The broadcast version of the interview was shortened, so I recommend reading the original transcript of the whole interview. Palin mentions living next to Russia because she says being on the border has taught Alaskans the real, tangible importance in their everyday lives of peaceful coexistence and mutually beneficial cooperation. This, she says, gives her some insight into the situation of other countries, such as Georgia, that also share a border with Russia. The most important lesson taught by proximity, she says, is that war with Russia should never be a substitute for negotiated solutions and the maintenance of mutually beneficial peaceful coexistence. The original transcript also shows Palin doesn't believe in holy wars or believe that any nation can fully know whether God is on its side or not. We need to hear more from Palin, but she's obviously not an enraged opponent of one-worldism or nostalgic for the old MAD world.In some areas, McCain's ideas are obviously outdated, but on Iraq it is Obama, not McCain, who keeps repeating the mantras of the past. It is McCain who supported the surge, which has shown that the Iraq war is now winnable and likely will be won in 3 years, and it is McCain who believes that US withdrawal should be steady but gradual so as to protect the security and welfare of Iraqis and Americans. McCain is therefore committed to helping Iraq emerge in the future as a unified state with a fledgling democratic system that will also help bring stability to the whole Middle East. Even PM Maliki says that the Iraq war was worth fighting and that more lives would have been lost if Saddam had not been overthrown, yet Obama opposed the surge and repeats the outdated claim that a winnable war is actually unwinnable. And his current overly rapid withdrawal plan would invite a return to ethnic cleansing, terror, and civil war.
— Charles, MA
Recommend Recommended by 9 Readers
25.
September 25, 2008 7:17 am
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First sentence in first online edition: Sarah Palin loves the world “exceptional.”Freud would be proud. At least you have the shame to say she loves the world before going on about Palinism and anger. Just a few days ago she was always described as "mouthing lines", now a philosophy is named for her.Are you seriously suggesting that the U.S. is just another country, the filling between Canada and Mexico?You should read the full Gibson/Palin interview. If you have, and know the parts omitted, then you should not mock the Alaska-Russia connection.Palin reminds me of my older sister. I support her, but it is not out of anger or separatism. It's out of respect for McCain and because I know Palin (like the Clintons) has depths that the media will never appreciate. You may ruin her life, but you will never portray her well. The Times delights in sticking pins in the Palin doll. Now, tell me again who is angry? She's not, I'm not. You and other NYT columnists seem quite angry.
— Carol, Albuquerque
Recommend Recommended by 8 Readers
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Thursday, September 25, 2008
Palin’s American ExceptionBack to Article »
Sarah Palin loves the word “exceptional.” She may be onto something in her batty way: the election is very much about American exceptionalism.
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1.
September 25, 2008 6:15 am
Link
You make an excellent point, Mr. Cohen. I fear that it will be lost in an avalanche of indignation over the term "batty," a singularly unfortunate choice of words.
— M., California
Recommend Recommended by 13 Readers
2.
September 25, 2008 6:15 am
Link
Once I saw "her batty way," I understood that your purpose was to denigrate and not to really examine the issue. Your job at the New York Times is safe.
— Dr. Rona Michelson, Modiin, Israel
Recommend Recommended by 9 Readers
3.
September 25, 2008 6:25 am
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An exceptional piece, Mr. Cohen. Your incite and analysis is sharp and world wise. Unlike the petty, shrill, and exceptionally provincial "world view" held by Governor Palen.Aw shucks, she's homeland awesome. "Country First" and mooseburgers. This contest is getting embarassing.
— BW, Skagit , WA
Recommend Recommended by 63 Readers
4.
September 25, 2008 6:25 am
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I've done a lot of research on Palin, and compared it with what most New York Times Liberals are saying about her. It doesn't add up. I think she is a thoughtful, insightful woman who had the ability, in Alaska, to think outside the box and not do things quite according to business as usual. She took on the elite in Alaska, and won. She is a powerful woman, and since she is not one of your own, you establishment liberals dislike that. Thus, it is necessary to concoct a bunch of slogans about her that are meaningless -- e.g., Palinism is all about rage. It helps that you all think alike, and are able to echo and reinforce one another. I think you are afraid she will demolish some of your sacred cows. She's only the Vice President, you know, yet you are all obsessed with her. In a way, that's a sign of respect.Damian
— Damian, Boston, MA
Recommend Recommended by 17 Readers
5.
September 25, 2008 6:25 am
Link
posted 09/25/08Interesting analog to the "exceptional" place we believe ourselves to hold on the global stage is one my teen-age daughter presented only today: It was a business card advertisement handed out at school for a local fundamentalist church. It's catchy message--Coexist? (Notice the ? at the end.)I was so sad to see an otherwise beautiful message normally written out in the symbols of various world religions get hijacked by solipsistic theology. This inflated "exceptional" view of ourselves infiltrates our most sacred halls and severs our most basic human ties.Sadly, it's everywhere and Palin is it's most visible proponent.
— Erin, Kalamazoo
Recommend Recommended by 55 Readers
6.
September 25, 2008 6:25 am
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Palin's Republican Neo-Exceptionalism in incapable of looking critically at how America's efforts to project unilateral power under Bush is viewed by the rest of the world: as willful arrogance or, at best, as blind ignorance. As such, anybody like Palin who clings to her guns & religion world view it is fated neither to succeed nor alleviate global tensions.In the end, a Palin presidency would bring nothing but the second fall of Rome to American soil.
— BeerBellyBuddah, Wpg., Canada
Recommend Recommended by 69 Readers
7.
September 25, 2008 6:33 am
Link
You nailed it Roger. At its best, this is an important distinction between the two campaigns: the belief of an exceptional America in the world versus an exceptional America as an island against the world.Exceptional is a result of our idealism. That we are part of the world is realism. There really is no choice though that doesn't stop many from trying.The world is small these days. We are and must be engaged in the world. However, go-it-alone attitudes, wars of aggression and walls on our borders is not the way.We need new leadership to envision and cultivate new ways to be exceptional. It really isn't rocket science, diplomacy, respect, aid in times of crisis, cultural exchanges, Peace Corps, bring students to our universities, learn other languages, reduce our dependence on autocratic states, increase our interdependence on everyone else... oh you get the idea.Thank you for your column.
— Eric, Wisconsin
Recommend Recommended by 48 Readers
8.
September 25, 2008 6:33 am
Link
Seeing Sarah Palin grinning, small-talking, and pretending to be a competent political representative of the United States, is painful, and very embarrassing.Omnipresent, constantly within two steps of her, the dark-suited handlers, always tense and fearful, that if they as much as blink their eyes, it might suffice for her to make a PR mess for the Party and the Ticket somewhere! One these poor handlers will be held responsible for within the Campaign.What could John McCain ever have been thinking about, putting her within a heartbeat of becoming the most powerful politician on earth?What can some Americans even be thinking about, claiming she'd make a great stand-in for McCain, a malignant melanoma survivor (so far), when actuarial tables tell us he has at least a one-in-three chance of not even completing his first term?And what can citizens of other countries around the world be thinking of us, parading her around town like a queen bee, as our financial system crumbles, and candidate McCain freezes in fear at the prospect of an open debate with his rival, right before their (and our) very eyes?Will someone please tell me this isn't happening to what used to be the greatest country in the world?!?
— aix1825, Marco Island, FL
Recommend Recommended by 140 Readers
9.
September 25, 2008 6:36 am
Link
American exceptionalism does not come from anarchistic rural life or casino-like urban landscapes. When America stays true to real values that respect humans around the world and at home, while tapping into the enormous potential of its citizens working together, then America truly is exceptional. We didn't go to the moon with money from Wall Street in a rocket built on ideas that reject scientific principles. We went to the moon with the help of the GI-bill and tax money from American factories.www.usparliament.blogspot.com
— Jacob Olsson, New York
Recommend Recommended by 32 Readers
10.
September 25, 2008 6:44 am
Link
well said mr cohn.now how do we as citizen do this ? we vote and vote we shall.but do we vote with minds that have been poisoned by vapid self centered materialism and religios zealots,or rational, thoughtful, world views?the choice has never been so clear.
— michael, los angeles
Recommend Recommended by 23 Readers
11.
September 25, 2008 6:53 am
Link
Mr. Cohen. Thank you for the word "batty." That's exactly the word I've been looking for for Sarah Palin for the last few weeks. "Batty." Perfect.
— gmnickles, Reno, NV
Recommend Recommended by 21 Readers
12.
September 25, 2008 6:53 am
Link
When the person a heartbeat away from the Presidency SERIOUSLY believes that the Earth started 6,000 years ago with a talking snake, we have blinders on reality bigger than those in this article. Still, it's a good start.
— Darster, Birmingham
Recommend Recommended by 48 Readers
13.
September 25, 2008 6:53 am
Link
This is a terrific editorial which sums up the choice the electorate must make - to pine uselessly for the past, or to look to the future. Can we be a people which acknowledges American exceptionalism in our past and honors it, as well as acknowledge that insisting that such exceptionalism continues in a changed world is a very dangerous and close-minded path? I don't know, but the last 8 years leave something to be desired.The irony of course is, as Obama elliptically alludes to, that we have spent the better part of a decade eroding those elements of our society and tradition which make us exceptional. These might include our adherence to the Geneva Conventions and all they morally imply, our willingness to overrun habeas corpus, spy on our own citizens, use legalistic justifications to deny others their basic human rights simply because they are not citizens, and oversee the most terrifying expansion of executive power in our history.If we want to maintain American exceptionalism, we should both return to these admirable traditions, as well as admit that in certain areas the world has caught up, enabling us to aim higher and succeed, instead of deny reality, demonize those who oppose us, and twiddle our thumbs while Rome burns. You can't fix a problem if you won't admit it exists.
— George P, NYC
Recommend Recommended by 34 Readers
14.
September 25, 2008 6:53 am
Link
I'm American but have lived outside the US for several years. It's true that America breeds a sort of admirable idealism that is rare in other countries and that can be used for good- and it does at times inspire our fellows abroad. But, you are correct that this republican-style mantra of, "we're better than everyone else and they only hate us because they're jealous" is EXCEPTIONALLY counter-productive and alienates even our friends. Who wants a friend who thinks he's better than everyone else in every way?All I can say is: If McCain and Palin take the White House, I certainly won't be back in the next 8 years. I'll continue to vote and to hold onto the positive things I had instilled in me by my beautiful country, America, but I can't stand to watch 8 more years of this slaughter of all America truly stand for (life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness).
— db, Italy
Recommend Recommended by 55 Readers
15.
September 25, 2008 6:53 am
Link
“Like it or not, Americans really are a special people with a special ideology that sets us apart from all other peoples.”This is from the same genius (Calabresi) who said yesterday: "This Administration deserves to be trusted because it has kept us safe from terrorist attack since 9/11, has fought and won two wars, has presided over eight years of economic growth, has appointed two stellar justices to the Supreme Court, and has even learned how to do Louisiana’s job of protecting that state from hurricanes. The day will come, and not before long, when Americans will wish that George Bush was still president."The truth is most countries in the world are "special people" with their own unique ideology. Iceland. Costa Rica. Philippines. India. Switzerland. Egypt. Brazil. It's easy to make the case that each is "special".
— Bill, Scottsdale, AZ
Recommend Recommended by 42 Readers
16.
September 25, 2008 6:53 am
Link
There is much truth in this article about America's declining position economically vis- a- vis the rest of the world. There is also much truth about the wisdom of seeking better ways of cooperating with, and acting in conjunction with other nations.But this does not mean the model of cooperation is always the right one, and the one which is going to work when facing totalitarian and authoritarian states.For what we are now facing is a world, and Russia is the perfect example of this, which we thought was moving in the direction of democracy and is in fact moving more and more towards restriction of personal freedom.The United States does after all stand for protection of individual rights and freedoms in a way no other nation does.The simple recipe of 'talking more to them' is not going to bring the Islamists, the mullahs of Iran, the party chiefs of Communist China, the Putin regime in Russia away from their efforts, to in one way or another force America down.So neither the McCain model if it somewhat unfairly, is taken to be one which leans more on military unilateralism , nor the Obama model which speaks more to political cooperation, is satisfactory.What the United States needs now is a supremely competent leader who while believing strongly in the traditional values of America , knows how to deal with its present crises. Carrots when they are appropriate, but sticks for the Saddam Husseins, and Ahmadinejads.
— Shalom Freedman, Jerusalem Israel
Recommend Recommended by 4 Readers
17.
September 25, 2008 6:57 am
Link
Mr. Cohen, I'd worry more about the message than the messenger. I think what passes for "Palinism" is really just Bushism, whispered into her hockey-mom ear like a Jedi mind trick. Enough of this nonsense!http://enough2008.blogspot.com/2008/09/palin-storm-trooper.html
— Levi, Chicago, IL
Recommend Recommended by 10 Readers
18.
September 25, 2008 6:57 am
Link
We may have been exceptional between 1776 and 1980 or so but it would be difficult to advance that argument nowadays. The only measure we lead the world in is military spending, more than the rest of the world combined. Every other political, economic, and social measurement shows us lagging much of the developed world and getting worse, especially the last 7 years. People learned from us and then outdid us. We're lagging in freedom of the press, science education, human rights, broadband internet access, environmental protection, driver safety, effectiveness of healthcare, life expectancy, infant mortality, homicides, poverty rate, suicides, freedom, corruption, literacy rate, graduation rate, child well-being, freedom of expression, ......
— Johnny E, Texas
Recommend Recommended by 27 Readers
19.
September 25, 2008 7:01 am
Link
There is a huge difference between American exceptionalism and going off on a tangent. Although Palin is saying the word exceptional which sounds lovely, where she and McCain are headed is off on a dangerous tangent far beyond core Republican philosophy.
— bob, sf
Recommend Recommended by 9 Readers
20.
September 25, 2008 7:01 am
Link
An exceptional article--realistic rather than palinistic--thank you.
— A.C., san francisco
Recommend Recommended by 13 Readers
21.
September 25, 2008 7:13 am
Link
Yawn .... another editorial and another extreme anti-Palin/Bush/McCain article. If this is supposed to convince us independents to somehow vote for Obama then you underestimate our intelligence. Overtly biased Opinions from the NYT is actually worse than the election in 2004. I'm having to turn elsewhere to try to get some decent covereage. Please do us all a favour and stop this nonsense so that we can get educated.
— Greg Niven, Santa Clara, CA
Recommend Recommended by 8 Readers
22.
September 25, 2008 7:13 am
Link
To me McCain/Palin represent a small village in Russia that's called Potemkin...all facade, nothing behind it. It's a bankrupt village of few ideas and no solutions.
— Glenn, Hawaii
Recommend Recommended by 26 Readers
23.
September 25, 2008 7:13 am
Link
Yes - and it really is that scary.If America turns any more inward - it will cease to exist on the world stage except as some sort of begging military pariah.The fact that half of those polled seem to want to vote for McPain scares the rest of the world too - it means Bush wasn't a mistake, America really meant to be like this in 2008.Good Lord help us if Rove wins one more time!
— Rico, Alaska
Recommend Recommended by 37 Readers
24.
September 25, 2008 7:17 am
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Roger, you make some good points, but others are unfair. I'm not a Palin supporter, and I probably believe in American exceptionalism even less than you do, but in the spirit of fairness, I'd like to point out that nothing you quote Palin as saying suggests she's angry or enraged. Some American nationalists are, but prima facie Palin isn't. In the bits of speeches I've heard, she sounds almost like Obama as she tells people that as Americans they can each make a valuable contribution if they take the spirit of serving others seriously and believe in their individual ability to bring change. Her ideal of grass-roots populism and reformism may display contradictions in practice, but as an ideal it is based on joy, passion, and optimism, not anger.So far, at least, Palin hasn't shown herself to be against one-worldism. The remark you mention about Alaskans being able to see the coast of Russia suggests just the opposite. Palin's statement was not at all an ignorant, buffoonish claim to have knowledge of Russia or international affairs because of a mere coastline view. The broadcast version of the interview was shortened, so I recommend reading the original transcript of the whole interview. Palin mentions living next to Russia because she says being on the border has taught Alaskans the real, tangible importance in their everyday lives of peaceful coexistence and mutually beneficial cooperation. This, she says, gives her some insight into the situation of other countries, such as Georgia, that also share a border with Russia. The most important lesson taught by proximity, she says, is that war with Russia should never be a substitute for negotiated solutions and the maintenance of mutually beneficial peaceful coexistence. The original transcript also shows Palin doesn't believe in holy wars or believe that any nation can fully know whether God is on its side or not. We need to hear more from Palin, but she's obviously not an enraged opponent of one-worldism or nostalgic for the old MAD world.In some areas, McCain's ideas are obviously outdated, but on Iraq it is Obama, not McCain, who keeps repeating the mantras of the past. It is McCain who supported the surge, which has shown that the Iraq war is now winnable and likely will be won in 3 years, and it is McCain who believes that US withdrawal should be steady but gradual so as to protect the security and welfare of Iraqis and Americans. McCain is therefore committed to helping Iraq emerge in the future as a unified state with a fledgling democratic system that will also help bring stability to the whole Middle East. Even PM Maliki says that the Iraq war was worth fighting and that more lives would have been lost if Saddam had not been overthrown, yet Obama opposed the surge and repeats the outdated claim that a winnable war is actually unwinnable. And his current overly rapid withdrawal plan would invite a return to ethnic cleansing, terror, and civil war.
— Charles, MA
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25.
September 25, 2008 7:17 am
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First sentence in first online edition: Sarah Palin loves the world “exceptional.”Freud would be proud. At least you have the shame to say she loves the world before going on about Palinism and anger. Just a few days ago she was always described as "mouthing lines", now a philosophy is named for her.Are you seriously suggesting that the U.S. is just another country, the filling between Canada and Mexico?You should read the full Gibson/Palin interview. If you have, and know the parts omitted, then you should not mock the Alaska-Russia connection.Palin reminds me of my older sister. I support her, but it is not out of anger or separatism. It's out of respect for McCain and because I know Palin (like the Clintons) has depths that the media will never appreciate. You may ruin her life, but you will never portray her well. The Times delights in sticking pins in the Palin doll. Now, tell me again who is angry? She's not, I'm not. You and other NYT columnists seem quite angry.
— Carol, Albuquerque
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