posted
Since Kool-aid came up can I just say how much I hate the phrase "drank the Kool-aid." Nowadays it's used to describe somebody who is committing suicide, or occasionally conservatives say people who support Obama have drunk the Kool-aid in reference to them letting him destroy the country.
It gained prominence from Jim Jones church in South America when in an apparent mass suicide they were all found dead. The problem is that there wasn't a mass suicide. The guys in the church with the guns mixed poisons with a fruit drink (which wasn't Kool-aid btw) and under orders from Jones, forced people to drink it one by one. If you refused it was jammed down your throat or you were shot. The incident does not reflect the phrase it has given rise to.
I'm sure we have lots of phrases from history where the events don't mirror how they are remembered, but today we actually have a means of communication widespread enough to in theory stop dumb phrases from becoming popular or worse, becoming a permanent fixture in the language.
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quote:It gained prominence from Jim Jones church in South America when in an apparent mass suicide they were all found dead. The problem is that there wasn't a mass suicide. The guys in the church with the guns mixed poisons with a fruit drink (which wasn't Kool-aid btw) and under orders from Jones, forced people to drink it one by one. If you refused it was jammed down your throat or you were shot. The incident does not reflect the phrase it has given rise to.
Where did you get that information, BB? That directly contradicts what I've read about the event.
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posted
So, why do you hate the phrase? Any reason besides it not accurately reflecting all that happened during that incident?
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quote:However, much of what I also read, in addition to America's failures, is 1. Admission of those failures. 2. Efforts taken to correct them. 3. Genuine change and progress from generation to generation.
Not every nation can boast that.
America can't boast that. Certainly there are individuals in America who have admitted to our failures and taken efforts to correct them, but I think over all Americans are better than average at deny the crimes of our past. Look at the Mexican War, the Spanish American War, the Vietnam War, the Monroe doctrine, the wars against indigenous peoples, we have not admitted to our failures and mistakes. The southern states are still celebrating the confederacy and people are still seriously arguing that we'd be better off if the confederacy had won the civil war. The affects of 250 years of slavery are still visable on the streets of most major American cities.
No America has not in any meaningful way admitted to the mistakes of her past.
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quote:Originally posted by rivka: As for the former, shame! Shame! TSK!!!
Do a search for "give's" on this page.
I believed you without that.
But how does that excuse kittenicide?
WELL?!?
I think that there's a provision in the Fair Use doctrine that explicitly states that if you're using someone else's apostrophic mistake to poke fun at them no further kittens are killed.
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posted
My recollection of the Jim Jones fiasco, and the reason for the phrasing, is that many people--so enamored and believing in the man and his promise, took the poison, either trusting in Jim Jones to keep them safe, or believing that such an end was preferable to living without the church, and that church was Jim Jones.
So the phrase--"Drank the Kool-aid" means that you have faith in the wrong person or ideals, to the point of self-harm and death.
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quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: ... America ranks at or near the top in our constant attempts to reinvent ourselves to more accurately represent our positive rhetoric.
It ranks at the top in terms of positive rhetoric anyways.
Please, how often do you actually listen to the positive rhetoric of others? We're average. Hell, al qaeda beats us when it comes to positive rhetoric about themselves.
Well, remember that your claim is preceded by, "I have to think that of all the nations on Earth who don't practice what they preach, America ranks ..."
Al Qaeda is hardly a nation, so it is right out. Surely the whole Gitmo thing would have played out differently if it was for example.
With that out of the way, there are two separate claims. One is about the gap between practice and preach, how a nation reinvents itself to fit its rhetoric. The second is about positive rhetoric.
My claim is actually an attempt to find common ground in the second. I think America IS tops in positive rhetoric. This is obviously subjective, but when I look at the ideas that America puts out like separation of church and state, the immigration of the tired and hungry, the equality of the American dream, and freedom, this is pretty excellent stuff.
I don't see why you would pick Al Qaeda, but of all the rhetoric in the world, this is probably the best. It describes a world that I would want to live in. For example, Canada doesn't even make a claim about separation of church and state in the same way, we don't have the mythical quality of a Statue of Liberty, and so forth.
As for the first claim. This was not my focus, I was mostly making a light-hearted note on the second. So I think we can mostly agree to disagree.
What I will say is that I think there are many nations that either a) reinvent themselves massively to form a much better society or b) make less grandiose claims and actually meet them. The US doesn't really strike me as either.
For example, I was reading through the new intro to No Logo by Naomi Klein (I won't claim to have read the whole book), but the part that struck me was something like what this paraphrases
quote:Because Klein doesn’t expect much from any politician, she doesn’t spend time wishing Obama were more progressive. “I don’t want to appear too cynical, but when I first saw the ‘Yes We Can’ rock video that Will.I.Am made, my first response was ‘Wow, finally a politician is making ads that are as good as Nike’s,’ ” she says. “The ‘Yes We Can’ slogan means whatever you want it to mean. It’s very ‘Just Do It.’ When you hear it, you catch yourself thinking, Yeah! We’re gonna end torture and shut down Guantánamo and get out of Iraq! And then you think, Wait a minute, is he really saying that? He’s not really saying that, is he? He’s saying we’re going to send more troops to Afghanistan. He’s telling regular people what they want to hear, and then in the back rooms he’s making deals and signing on to the status quo. But if people don’t like where Obama is they should move the center.”
In keeping with the theme of the book, Klein noted that Obama and the current image of the US represent a very spectacular *rebranding* of America, but not a reinvention. In general, this is how I would feel about the first claim although I would re-emphasize that my focus was more on what I found positive in the second claim.
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quote:Originally posted by SenojRetep: I appreciate attempting to show cultural respect, but in this case it was unwarranted and awkward. Really, I see it as the product of a somewhat inept state dept. that continues to flub Obama's staging on the international stage (when should we announce we're pulling the missile shield out of Poland? Oh, I know, the anniversary of the Russian invasion! Perfect).
Really? How do you come to this conclusion? Who is the audience on this international stage? If we are talking about whether the state department is inept, is it more relevant to look at the response of foreigners or the response of Obama's domestic rivals? And quite honestly, in my reading of the press reports from around the world, foreigns are still overwhelmingly positive about Obama and no one seem to have even noticed all these faux pas you are pointing to.
When Bush winked at Queen Elizabeth, she gave a cold disapproving stair. When he rubbed Merkel's shoulders, she winced visibly. When he punched the air and joked about being "the world's biggest polluter" at a G8 summit, peoples mouths feel open.
Has there been any comparable responses to all these "faux pas" that Obama is committing? No there hasn't. In fact overall, Obama has brought about a major improvement in how the rest of the world views America and its President.
This is nothing more than conservative nitpicking.
[ November 18, 2009, 05:38 PM: Message edited by: The Rabbit ]
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quote:When Bush winked at Queen Elizabeth, she gave a cold disapproving stair.
It's true. Not wishing to appear rude, the Bushes had it installed in the main foyer. It was memory of this "gift" that led Obama to present the Prime Minister with a DVD set.
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posted
Don't forget that minor blunder about rushing to a war under questionable circumstances and questionable intelligence. That's the type of state department booboo you don't fix quickly.
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quote:When Bush winked at Queen Elizabeth, she gave a cold disapproving stair.
It's true. Not wishing to appear rude, the Bushes had it installed in the main foyer. It was memory of this "gift" that led Obama to present the Prime Minister with a DVD set.
quote:Originally posted by Darth_Mauve: My recollection of the Jim Jones fiasco, and the reason for the phrasing, is that many people--so enamored and believing in the man and his promise, took the poison, either trusting in Jim Jones to keep them safe, or believing that such an end was preferable to living without the church, and that church was Jim Jones.
So the phrase--"Drank the Kool-aid" means that you have faith in the wrong person or ideals, to the point of self-harm and death.
Your recollection is faulty. By the time of the deaths Jones was a parnoid conspiracy theorist who told his followers that they were going to be captured and tortured by government intellegence organizations and their children brainwashed and raised to be fascists. The children were fed the poison first, and some parents took it in despair over not having protected their children. Others tried to escape. Some were shot, as was a US Congressman and reporters who were trying to investigate the compound.
There was an audiotape recording of the massacre/suicide and no one said anything about trusting Jones to keep them safe or not wanting to live without him -- those who were in favor of it veiwed it as a protest against an injust world and/or a way to escape arrest/capture.
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quote:It gained prominence from Jim Jones church in South America when in an apparent mass suicide they were all found dead. The problem is that there wasn't a mass suicide. The guys in the church with the guns mixed poisons with a fruit drink (which wasn't Kool-aid btw) and under orders from Jones, forced people to drink it one by one. If you refused it was jammed down your throat or you were shot. The incident does not reflect the phrase it has given rise to.
I know there is controversy about whether or not to call it a mass suicide, but your report differs dramatically from any other report I've read. The videos made of the first part of the suicide and the testimonies of the one survivor all point to overwhelming cooperation. People moving forward and taking the poison as if they were in a trance. Based on reports I have read, only two people suffered gunshot wounds, Jim Jones and Ann Moore (who was a member of the leadership circle). Moore had also taken the poison.
The fact that the poison was mixed with Flavor-Aid rather than Kool-Aid is a technicality that is pretty insignificant since at the time "Kool-Aid" was used kind of like "Kleenex" to refer to the entire class of powdered drink mixes.
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quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: The fact that the poison was mixed with Flavor-Aid rather than Kool-Aid is a technicality that is pretty insignificant since at the time "Kool-Aid" was used kind of like "Kleenex" to refer to the entire class of powdered drink mixes.
quote:Originally posted by Darth_Mauve: My recollection of the Jim Jones fiasco, and the reason for the phrasing, is that many people--so enamored and believing in the man and his promise, took the poison, either trusting in Jim Jones to keep them safe, or believing that such an end was preferable to living without the church, and that church was Jim Jones.
So the phrase--"Drank the Kool-aid" means that you have faith in the wrong person or ideals, to the point of self-harm and death.
Your recollection is faulty. By the time of the deaths Jones was a parnoid conspiracy theorist who told his followers that they were going to be captured and tortured by government intellegence organizations and their children brainwashed and raised to be fascists. The children were fed the poison first, and some parents took it in despair over not having protected their children. Others tried to escape. Some were shot, as was a US Congressman and reporters who were trying to investigate the compound.
There was an audiotape recording of the massacre/suicide and no one said anything about trusting Jones to keep them safe or not wanting to live without him -- those who were in favor of it veiwed it as a protest against an injust world and/or a way to escape arrest/capture.
I think your recollection is also faulty. As I mentioned above, only two people were shot during the massacre. The US congressman and his crew visited the compound the day before the massacre. Around 15 members asked him to take them with him. Jones consider them defectors and arranged for the Congressman, his team and the defectors to be shot at the airstrip as they were departing. I believe this took place the day before the mass suicide but is considered the trigger event for the suicide.
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quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: The fact that the poison was mixed with Flavor-Aid rather than Kool-Aid is a technicality that is pretty insignificant since at the time "Kool-Aid" was used kind of like "Kleenex" to refer to the entire class of powdered drink mixes.
IME it still is.
Probably. I don't think Kool-Aid is anywhere near as popular now as it was in the seventies. We drank it all the time in my childhood.
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quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: The US congressman and his crew visited the compound the day before the massacre. Around 15 members asked him to take them with him. Jones consider them defectors and arranged for the Congressman, his team and the defectors to be shot at the airstrip as they were departing. I believe this took place the day before the mass suicide but is considered the trigger event for the suicide.
It was the same day. Yes, they were shot at the airstrip, sorry I was not clear. I still think the fact Jone's "security" was willing to shoot defectors lends support to the idea that not everyone who took the poison did so willingly.
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quote:However, much of what I also read, in addition to America's failures, is 1. Admission of those failures. 2. Efforts taken to correct them. 3. Genuine change and progress from generation to generation.
Not every nation can boast that.
America can't boast that. Certainly there are individuals in America who have admitted to our failures and taken efforts to correct them, but I think over all Americans are better than average at deny the crimes of our past. Look at the Mexican War, the Spanish American War, the Vietnam War, the Monroe doctrine, the wars against indigenous peoples, we have not admitted to our failures and mistakes. The southern states are still celebrating the confederacy and people are still seriously arguing that we'd be better off if the confederacy had won the civil war. The affects of 250 years of slavery are still visable on the streets of most major American cities.
No America has not in any meaningful way admitted to the mistakes of her past.
Well, if that's the only part you're taking issue with...
You have an extremely strict sense of what it means to admit a mistake. Are you putting forth as your criteria that every single American has to come out and say that such and such was a mistake, and that if a minority doesn't sign on, then America as a whole has not progressed to admitting a mistake?
Of course the effects of slavery are still apparent 140 years later, from hundreds of years of practice, though really, I'm not sure how much of that is slavery and how much of it is due to other factors that can't really be directly attributed to slavery, but that's a totally different argument. The point is that slavery is gone, legal repression of minorities is gone, and the dent made in racism from a time as recent as the 1970s is huge. That's a huge change. You're at least partially a student of history, no? You don't recognize the value of that change?
Mucus -
Yeah, we are going to have to agree to disagree on a fair bit of that. I can see why you'd say that America is the best at rhetoric, but I still don't really agree. We have the loudest and the most widespread rhetoric, but the best? Look at totalitarian regimes who denounce us and talk about how awesome their own countries are. Perhaps it is because the ideals we espouse are so powerful or desirable, but I'm not sure what role that plays. Fair enough on Al Qaeda, but there are nation states saying much the same thing as they are. Ours isn't special in regards to dramatic rhetoric, we just have the loudest megaphone.
And I agree that other nations have had far less ground to cover in moving from rhetoric to reality. To anyone, not specifically you: Ignoring the distance that America has come in its history, and instead pointing to continuing flaws demonstrates a lack of knowledge about American history to me. Celebrating America's accomplishments doesn't equal hyperpatriotism or being an apologist. I'm not a rah-rah American can do no wrong person. Neither will I bash America constantly and pretend that we aren't actually pretty awesome when it comes to a lot of things. I'm able to recognize both sides.
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quote:It gained prominence from Jim Jones church in South America when in an apparent mass suicide they were all found dead. The problem is that there wasn't a mass suicide. The guys in the church with the guns mixed poisons with a fruit drink (which wasn't Kool-aid btw) and under orders from Jones, forced people to drink it one by one. If you refused it was jammed down your throat or you were shot. The incident does not reflect the phrase it has given rise to.
Where did you get that information, BB? That directly contradicts what I've read about the event.
There was a really long television special about it on the History channel I believe. dkw mentioned much of the evidence against mass collusion. Further on the audio tape she mentioned there is one woman saying in effect, "Wouldn't it make more sense for us to live for our children and their future rather than just killing ourselves?" You can hear a quite audible murmur of assent right afterward.
You can hear hysterics as the suicides are taking place, and they are shouted down by Jones. Many of these people believed they had to choose between being killed or suicide.
There were testimonies of people refusing to drink and being injected with the poison.
----
Porter: For the most part yes. I also think in invokes a memory of the whole Jim Jones affair that isn't fair to the memory of some of the victims.
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posted
I remember reading that the Jones followers had had "Kool-Aid Drills" previously when they were led to believe that the drink was poisoned but wasn't really. Sort of a test of faith, I thought. It's not entirely clear that they all knew there was poison in the drink the last time, until they all started to die.
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Blayne Bradley
unregistered
posted
Lyrhawn, when the United States as a whole comes to terms with its past the same way Germany came to atone for the Holocaust then I think you might be correct, as it is there's very little difference between American and Japanese views points on the past.
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posted
Yeah, because we've edited slavery out of our history text books.
If you're going to argue like that, I'm not going to waste my time. Try again when you really have something.
And in what way did Germany atone for the Holocaust? I don't think you'll find universal agreement of feelings in Germany about the Holocaust. The first day the Berlin Holocaust Memorial opened, a swastika was spray painted on it. But then, that's the problem with universality. One crank can ruin it for everyone. And then there's always the question of whether or not it's really just one crank.
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quote:Originally posted by maui babe: I remember reading that the Jones followers had had "Kool-Aid Drills" previously when they were led to believe that the drink was poisoned but wasn't really. Sort of a test of faith, I thought. It's not entirely clear that they all knew there was poison in the drink the last time, until they all started to die.
It's true that they had did have suicide drills, but the video and eyewitness testimony made it very clear the pretty much everyone knew this one was for real. The poison was administered more or less one at a time and the first people were dead long before the majority drank the poison.
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quote:Originally posted by SenojRetep: I appreciate attempting to show cultural respect, but in this case it was unwarranted and awkward. Really, I see it as the product of a somewhat inept state dept. that continues to flub Obama's staging on the international stage (when should we announce we're pulling the missile shield out of Poland? Oh, I know, the anniversary of the Russian invasion! Perfect).
Really? How do you come to this conclusion? Who is the audience on this international stage? If we are talking about whether the state department is inept, is it more relevant to look at the response of foreigners or the response of Obama's domestic rivals? And quite honestly, in my reading of the press reports from around the world, foreigns are still overwhelmingly positive about Obama and no one seem to have even noticed all these faux pas you are pointing to.
When Bush winked at Queen Elizabeth, she gave a cold disapproving stair. When he rubbed Merkel's shoulders, she winced visibly. When he punched the air and joked about being "the world's biggest polluter" at a G8 summit, peoples mouths feel open.
Has there been any comparable responses to all these "faux pas" that Obama is committing? No there hasn't. In fact overall, Obama has brought about a major improvement in how the rest of the world views America and its President.
This is nothing more than conservative nitpicking.
1. Bush was an awful diplomat. His personal style played terribly on the international stage (cf. cowboy diplomacy). I'm not sure why you think that's an argument that Pres. Obama's team hasn't had terrible staging, but...whatever.
2. If you'd like examples of international uproar over bad decisions (going beyond the bowing, and the gift giving, and the reset buttons that actually say "self-destruct") look at the Indian response to getting lumped in with the AfPak portfolio of Dick Holbrooke. Or at the Afghan response to the handling of the debate over staffing levels. Or (as I said before) the Polish response to the timing of the missile shield pull-back. Or the Chinese response to the tire tariff. Or the Nigerian response to his visit to Ghana.
The Obama team has flubbed repeatedly the roll-out of initiatives and policy stances (well-beyond the low-level stuff). Maybe it's just the first year learning curve, but I figure most of these Staties are career civil service. I don't know why they don't have their act together.
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posted
Lyrhawn: Well, if we're going to descend into single incident cherry-picking, I would note that it is just this year that there was a shooting at the American Holocaust museum and it has been reported that he wasn't just one crank but was linked to specific groups.
But on a larger scale, Blayne isn't entirely wrong and there is a marked difference between the US and Germany when it comes to white-washing the past. Consider this for example, link ironically written by lisa.
quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: ... We have the loudest and the most widespread rhetoric, but the best? Look at totalitarian regimes who denounce us and talk about how awesome their own countries are ... Ours isn't special in regards to dramatic rhetoric, we just have the loudest megaphone.
Well, on the positive side, we can agree that the US has the loudest megaphone. We just disagree as to whether the US is using it to hype their accomplishments or to hype their ideas in my and your cases respectively.
But no, I don't think the rhetoric from totalitarian regimes is anything special. Arguably they're totalitarian because their rhetoric can't persuade even their own citizens.
No, I think that American rhetoric is the best because the ideals espoused *are* very good. Separation of church and state, equality of opportunity, immigration of your poor, your tired, and your hungry, these are very powerful ideals. Just because they've been trampled on and have become someone passe in the US, doesn't take away from their desirability and inherent rightness.
quote:Neither will I bash America constantly and pretend that we aren't actually pretty awesome when it comes to a lot of things.
Well, "pretty awesome" and "has come a long way" are much different thresholds than "ranks top in the world."
I don't really have a problem with the first two, but I have a problem with the third. The US doesn't seem to be in a special place when it comes to reinventing itself, arguably any number of developing nations have gone through much more risky and fundamental reinvention. Any number of developed countries have kept pace with the changes in the US and/or gone ahead. On the aforementioned ideals, the US has actually fallen behind when it comes to hard metrics. The US is rightfully known as one of the most conservative places in the developed world for a reason. This is in a way a good thing (reflects what the people want) but in the measure of "reinvention" it really doesn't help.
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quote:Originally posted by malanthrop: Obama didn't bow to the Queen of England, America's #1 ally.
Yeah, maybe not so much #1.
quote: In the papers, the British chief of staff in Iraq, Colonel J.K.Tanner, described his US military counterparts as “a group of Martians” for whom “dialogue is alien,” saying: “Despite our so-called ‘special relationship,’ I reckon we were treated no differently to the Portuguese.”
Col Tanner’s boss, the top British commander in the country, Major General Andrew Stewart, told how he spent “a significant amount of my time” “evading” and “refusing” orders from his US superiors. ... “I now realise that I am a European, not an American. We managed to get on better…with our European partners and at times with the Arabs than with the Americans. Europeans chat to each other, whereas dialogue is alien to the US military… dealing with them corporately is akin to dealing with a group of Martians.
“If it isn’t on the PowerPoint slide, then it doesn’t happen.”
posted
On the bright side, Obama's trip seemed to go pretty well, except in the US media apparently.
quote:From the set-up to the interview, by Alexandra Fenwick:
"In almost every analysis of the trip, Chinese officials were portrayed as optimistic and newly emboldened to stand up to American interests and Obama was cast in the role of the meek debtor, standing with hat in hand. The line is that little was achieved and Obama was stifled, literally by state television and figuratively by the Chinese upper hand in the power dynamic."
Howard French goes on to say that these assumptions were flat wrong. He offers many explanations, including this:
"I find that the Washington reporters tend to be typically the most subject to this instant scorekeeping. This is part of the game of Washington reporting. They're at the bleeding edge of this phenomenon that I think is distressing in terms of the approach of the press to serious questions. Everything is shot through this prism of short-term political calculation as opposed to thinking seriously about stuff. You can't be an expert on every question, and so you're part of the Washington press corps and if you're really good and really diligent, you're going to be expert maybe in a few things and one of those things might not be China."
If you have seen Howard French's coverage over the years, including the five years he was based in Shanghai, you will know that no sane reader has ever put him in the category of "soft" on the Chinese leadership or China's faults. Yet his wonderment and exasperation at what he reads is palpable.
Tish Durkin, who has written for the Atlantic from Iraq and elsewhere, arrived in China recently. The subhead on her new column for The Week gets across the point:
"Even through a veil of censorship and propaganda, the Chinese people managed a clearer view of Obama's visit than the US media did."
quote:Originally posted by malanthrop: Obama didn't bow to the Queen of England, America's #1 ally.
Yeah, maybe not so much #1.
quote: In the papers, the British chief of staff in Iraq, Colonel J.K.Tanner, described his US military counterparts as “a group of Martians” for whom “dialogue is alien,” saying: “Despite our so-called ‘special relationship,’ I reckon we were treated no differently to the Portuguese.”
Col Tanner’s boss, the top British commander in the country, Major General Andrew Stewart, told how he spent “a significant amount of my time” “evading” and “refusing” orders from his US superiors. ... “I now realise that I am a European, not an American. We managed to get on better…with our European partners and at times with the Arabs than with the Americans. Europeans chat to each other, whereas dialogue is alien to the US military… dealing with them corporately is akin to dealing with a group of Martians.
“If it isn’t on the PowerPoint slide, then it doesn’t happen.”
posted
Meh. If the British weren't treated as America's #1 ally in 2003-2004, it should be reasonable to assume that they aren't (treated as) America's #1 ally now.
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quote:Originally posted by Mucus: Meh. If the British weren't treated as America's #1 ally in 2003-2004, it should be reasonable to assume that they aren't (treated as) America's #1 ally now.
You are presuming that the Bush administration would not have treated British military leaders this way if they had not considered them a #1 ally. That is a poor assumption.
Additionally, you are presuming that the Obama administration has the same underlying approach to treatment of allies. Which is also a very poor assumption.
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On the second, that is not a presumption. That is just merely observation. The Obama administration has been rightly criticized by many publications within and outside the UK (and especially by the Telegraph) for not just continuing but actively championing various Bush-era policies when it comes to the war on terror, even when it conflicts with allies.
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quote:Originally posted by Mucus: On the bright side, Obama's trip seemed to go pretty well, except in the US media apparently.
quote:From the set-up to the interview, by Alexandra Fenwick:
"In almost every analysis of the trip, Chinese officials were portrayed as optimistic and newly emboldened to stand up to American interests and Obama was cast in the role of the meek debtor, standing with hat in hand. The line is that little was achieved and Obama was stifled, literally by state television and figuratively by the Chinese upper hand in the power dynamic."
Howard French goes on to say that these assumptions were flat wrong. He offers many explanations, including this:
"I find that the Washington reporters tend to be typically the most subject to this instant scorekeeping. This is part of the game of Washington reporting. They're at the bleeding edge of this phenomenon that I think is distressing in terms of the approach of the press to serious questions. Everything is shot through this prism of short-term political calculation as opposed to thinking seriously about stuff. You can't be an expert on every question, and so you're part of the Washington press corps and if you're really good and really diligent, you're going to be expert maybe in a few things and one of those things might not be China."
If you have seen Howard French's coverage over the years, including the five years he was based in Shanghai, you will know that no sane reader has ever put him in the category of "soft" on the Chinese leadership or China's faults. Yet his wonderment and exasperation at what he reads is palpable.
Tish Durkin, who has written for the Atlantic from Iraq and elsewhere, arrived in China recently. The subhead on her new column for The Week gets across the point:
"Even through a veil of censorship and propaganda, the Chinese people managed a clearer view of Obama's visit than the US media did."
Yeah, Leslie Gelb is totally clueless. /end sarcasm
Although, to be fair, Gelb's critique of the trip doesn't follow the logic derided in the link above of the US bowing to its Sino-creditors. Rather, his complaint is that the Obama team should have known before hand that there wouldn't be any major movement on the trade, basing and greenhouse gas issues. Making a two-week Presidential trip without any "big" new policy movement is bad staging. It may be, as French, Durkin and Amb. Huntsman suggest, that major policy was discussed; but, according to Gelb, discussions aren't a good reason for dedicating two weeks of precious Presidential time to a road trip.
quote:Obama’s travels were a chance to settle or make concrete progress on thorny issues like greenhouse-gas emissions, and the fate of U.S. bases on Okinawa, which the new Japanese government insists on moving. It was time to announce ways to gain fixes on the U.S.-South Korean trade treaty, long stalled in Congress. It was a moment to show that Beijing would actually make some mutually beneficial compromises on exchange rates or economic sanctions against Iranian and North Korean nuclear programs. Absent guarantees of progress on issues such as these, Mr. Obama should have taken a well-deserved vacation in Hawaii.
Gelb also suggests that in this case the blame can't be laid on State, which was only nominally involved in the planning of the trip. Rather he calls out the NSC staff, particularly Denis McDonough, and the President himself for taking the trip without any significant guarantees that it would be worth the time spent.
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