Dear friends,
As you know well, this is not a political blog. This is not because I don’t have strong opinions, or because I’m a wuss about sharing them, but simply because the landscape is filled with political blogs written by people who do it much, much better than I could ever hope to. I know I am visited by people all across the political spectrum, which is very cool. I won’t tell you for whom to vote. I won’t even opine at length about the Sean Penn vs. Trey Parker and Matt Stone controversy (the short version is that Sean Penn took exception to comments Parker and Stone made about how anyone truly uninformed should just stay home on Election Day; Parker and Stone have suggested that Sean might just be smarting over their treatment of his puppet doppelganger in Team America: World Police). I will follow the example of one of my favorite philosophers, who said “You are all individuals! You are all different! You’ve got to think for yourselves!”
Having disclaimed all over the place, can we at least agree that, whatever your opinions are of the incumbent, this is not conduct becoming to a president?:
In the Oval Office in December 2002, the president met with a few ranking senators and members of the House, both Republicans and Democrats. In those days, there were high hopes that the United States-sponsored ‘’road map’’ for the Israelis and Palestinians would be a pathway to peace, and the discussion that wintry day was, in part, about countries providing peacekeeping forces in the region. The problem, everyone agreed, was that a number of European countries, like France and Germany, had armies that were not trusted by either the Israelis or Palestinians. One congressman—the Hungarian-born Tom Lantos, a Democrat from California and the only Holocaust survivor in Congress—mentioned that the Scandinavian countries were viewed more positively. Lantos went on to describe for the president how the Swedish Army might be an ideal candidate to anchor a small peacekeeping force on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Sweden has a well-trained force of about 25,000. The president looked at him appraisingly, several people in the room recall.
‘’I don’t know why you’re talking about Sweden,’’ Bush said. ‘’They’re the neutral one. They don’t have an army.’’
Lantos paused, a little shocked, and offered a gentlemanly reply: ‘’Mr. President, you may have thought that I said Switzerland. They’re the ones that are historically neutral, without an army.’’ Then Lantos mentioned, in a gracious aside, that the Swiss do have a tough national guard to protect the country in the event of invasion.
Bush held to his view. ‘’No, no, it’s Sweden that has no army.’’
The room went silent, until someone changed the subject.
A few weeks later, members of Congress and their spouses gathered with administration officials and other dignitaries for the White House Christmas party. The president saw Lantos and grabbed him by the shoulder. ‘’You were right,’’ he said, with bonhomie. ‘’Sweden does have an army.’’
This story was told to me by one of the senators in the Oval Office that December day, Joe Biden. Lantos, a liberal Democrat, would not comment about it. In general, people who meet with Bush will not discuss their encounters. (Lantos, through a spokesman, says it is a longstanding policy of his not to discuss Oval Office meetings.)
This is one key feature of the faith-based presidency: open dialogue, based on facts, is not seen as something of inherent value. It may, in fact, create doubt, which undercuts faith. It could result in a loss of confidence in the decision-maker and, just as important, by the decision-maker. Nothing could be more vital, whether staying on message with the voters or the terrorists or a California congressman in a meeting about one of the world’s most nagging problems. As Bush himself has said any number of times on the campaign trail, ‘’By remaining resolute and firm and strong, this world will be peaceful.’’
The above is excerpted from the Sunday New York Times Magazine’s cover story, “Without a Doubt,” by Ron Suskind. The complete article can be found here. If you have never registered with the NYT website, it is worth the registration foofaraw to read it.
Here endeth the rant. We now return to our regularly scheduled program of food-based nonsense.