Tag Archives: Fareed Zakaria

How The World Sees Us …

Posted on by under Bits 'n Pieces, education, Global Issues, guns, Law and justice, Political commentary, Racism & Bigotry

We’ve all heard people say that the United States is “the leader of the free world”, right?  We grew up being told that we were that shining example of democracy that other nations hoped to emulate.  Looking back, I don’t know if that was ever quite true, but I strongly suspect that at one point we were respected more than we are today.  Until last night, I don’t recall ever reading anything by Christine Emba, but her editorial hit my inbox and, intrigued, I read it.  I was glad I did, for it was enlightning.  Ms. Emba is an opinion columnist and editor for The Washington Post and a published author. Before joining the editorial staff at The Post in 2015, Christine was the Hilton Kramer Fellow in Criticism at the New Criterion and a deputy editor at the Economist Intelligence Unit.  She recently attended a global conference where she learned some of the international views of the U.S. today, and I think what she learned is worthy of consideration, for it matters how our allies, how other nations, view us …

The world is taking America’s decline seriously. We should too.

By Christine Emba

29 August 2022

HAMBURG — “It’s frightening, what’s happened to you,” a Bavarian civil society organizer shared with me over a stein of German pils. “America has become smaller.”

The theme of this year’s Bucerius Summer School on Global Governance, a Hamburg-based international conference consisting of dozens of young leaders from around the world, was “Facing New Realities: Global Governance Under Strain.” The reality this American observer had to face? That in the eyes of much of the world, the United States’ light has dimmed.

We are still watched intently and remain a major power. But it was clear that to many of the conference’s attendees — hailing from Germany to Mongolia, Ghana to Ukraine — the United States has become shorthand for democratic decline and disinformation, home to citizens who react to dissatisfaction by rejecting reality, and to institutions that are increasingly hollowed out.

“We don’t want the people who lose jobs during the climate transformation to end up as Trump voters or the equivalent,” a European foreign minister said during a discussion of economic retooling amid climate change. My fellow conference-goers looked my way apologetically, pity on their faces.

“I thought about settling in the U.S.,” one attendee, an Ivy League- and Oxbridge-educated internationalist now working for the United Nations, told me. “But I couldn’t imagine living in a place where my children would have to practice” — here, she made mocking quotation marks with her fingers — “active shooter drills.”

The United States’ most famous exports used to be Coca-Cola, Levi’s and jazz — not to mention such ideals as freedom, civil rights and the rule of law. Now, we’re best known for rampant gun violence and gruesome school shootings.

Yet glimmers of respect for what we used to (and sometimes still) stand for do exist.

Sen. Bernie Sanders’s 2016 presidential run was brought up again and again as an example of the American political system’s openness to outsiders and capacity to surprise. The George Floyd protests of 2020 and the successes of the Black Lives Matter movement were commended as rare examples of truly free expression.

A Kenyan participant reminisced fondly about a year studying in the United States, including a summer spent interning in the local offices of a Republican congressman. He remembered his incredulity at realizing that a government official could campaign door to door without a driver or a bodyguard and would personally return his constituents’ phone calls; direct democracy, not as common in his home region, still seemed possible in the United States.

(Incidentally, that congressman, Fred Upton of Michigan, was one of 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Donald Trump after the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection. Upton announced his retirement this spring in the face of redistricting and a MAGA-backed primary challenge.)

The United States’ reputation has been deteriorating for at least two decades. During the Iraq War, as Bush-doctrine foreign policy was derided across the globe, the trope of American backpackers abroad pretending to be Canadian to avoid shame by association became something of a cliche.

Yet, the past six years have seen an unprecedented acceleration. Our geopolitical rivals have always had ammunition, but the old embarrassments pale in comparison to the new. The idea that credence is still given to arguments about whether the 2020 election was “stolen” — the settled view of the rest of the world is that this is obvious nonsense — is a source of alarm.

After the 2016 election, European leaders warned that the United States could no longer be relied on as a partner in defense and security. More recently, statements such as those from Ohio Senate candidate J.D. Vance — “I got to be honest with you, I don’t really care what happens to Ukraine one way or the other” — have made their way around the world, reconfirming the United States’ continued unseriousness and withdrawal from international engagement and moral leadership.

Our country is famously self-centered. It’s possible, or perhaps probable, that most Americans, only 20 percent of whom speak a second language — compared with 65 percent of the European Union’s population — don’t care what people in Europe or the rest of the world think.

But they should. As the United States fades, our competitors — a seemingly inexorable China, an unpredictable and aggressive Russia — wait hungrily in the wings.

In 2008, Fareed Zakaria wrote: “At the politico-military level, we remain in a single-superpower world. But in every other dimension — industrial, financial, educational, social, cultural — the distribution of power is shifting, moving away from American dominance.” In 2022, that vision of a “post-American world” has gone from theory to truth.

It might not be too late to effect a reversal. But if we want to preserve our stature, we should begin to act — holding our former president accountable to the rule of law would be a start — and realize that as we do so, the next generation of leaders is watching.

The world is taking our decline seriously. It’s time we did the same.

Something To Consider …

Posted on by under Election 2020, Law and justice, Political commentary, Social commentary

I first saw Fareed Zakaria several years ago on George Stephanopoulos’ Sunday morning show, This Week. The man impressed me with his intellect and reasonableness at the time, and he still does, although I frequently disagree with him on certain issues.  Mr. Zakaria is a journalist, political scientist and author whose political ideology defies description, as he is mostly considered to be a centrist, but has in some cases been labeled a conservative, and at other times a liberal.

The word ‘impeachment’ has been bandied around a lot lately, and I am one who has used it more than a few times.  I have urged caution, but since the release of the Mueller report am leaning more toward the idea, though I still believe it is prudent to take time, for it’s a one-shot thing, and right at this moment, I believe it would be destined to fail.

Yesterday, I came across an editorial written by Mr. Zakaria in The Washington Post that gave me food for thought.  I have not yet decided to what extent I agree with him, but … I think it’s important for us to keep an open mind and I must admit that much of what he says is valid and makes sense.  So, I share this with you today in hopes you will at least give it a bit of thought.

Democrats, There’s A Better Strategy Than Impeachment

Fareed ZakariaBy Fareed Zakaria

Columnist

April 25 at 5:34 PM

Consider, for a moment, what the growing talk of impeachment among Democrats sounds like to the tens of millions of people who voted for President Trump. Many of them supported him because they felt ignored, mocked and condescended to by the country’s urban, educated and cosmopolitan elites — especially lawyers and journalists. So what happens when their guy gets elected? These same elites pursue a series of maneuvers to try to overturn the results of the 2016 election. It would massively increase the class resentment that feeds support for the president. It would turn the topic away from his misdeeds and toward the Democrats’ overreach and obsessions. And ultimately, of course, it would fail — two-thirds of this Republican-controlled Senate would not vote to convict him — allowing Trump to brandish his “acquittal” as though it were a gold medal.

I know, I know, many argue passionately that this is not a political affair but rather a moral and legal one. After reading the Mueller report, they say, Congress has no option but to fulfill its obligation and impeach Trump. But this view misunderstands impeachment entirely. It is, by design, an inherently political process, not a legal one. That’s why the standard used — “high crimes and misdemeanors” — is not one used in criminal procedures. And that is why the decision is entrusted to a political body, Congress, not the courts.

In 1970, when he was House minority leader, Gerald Ford provided the most honest definition of an impeachable offense: “whatever a majority of the House of Representatives considers it to be at a given moment in history.” Of the three cases in the United States’ past, history’s judgment is that only one — the impeachment proceedings against President Richard M. Nixon — was wholly justified. President Andrew Johnson’s decision to fire his secretary of war — clearly lawful — should not have led to his impeachment. The same is true for President Bill Clinton’s failed Whitewater land deal, which triggered an independent counsel inquiry that went into completely unrelated arenas and used questionable methods of investigation.

Harvard Law School’s Noah Feldman points out that neither history nor the framers’ intent yields clear lessons on the topic. “It’s quite possible that many founders would have supported impeachment for serious substantive matters like the usurpation of power by the president. By that standard, would [Abraham] Lincoln’s suspension of habeas corpus, FDR’s internment of the Japanese Americans or [Lyndon] Johnson’s massive expansion of the Vietnam War all have been impeachable offenses? Possibly.” But these presidents were not impeached because Congress and the country exercised political judgment. And that is why it is entirely appropriate for Democrats to think this through politically.

For some Democrats, impeachment talk might be a smart, if cynical, short-term calculation. If you are running for the Democratic nomination and languishing in the polls, it is a way to get attention. If you are consolidating your support with the party’s base, the more fiercely anti-Trump you are, the better. But all these moves work only as long as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) slow-rolls the process and stops it from getting out of hand. Others can be irresponsible on the assumption that Pelosi will be responsible. But what if things snowball, as they often do in politics?

The Democrats have a much better path in front of them. They should pursue legitimate investigations of Trump, bring in witnesses and release documentary proof of wrongdoing, providing a national education about the way Trump has operated as president. But they should, at the same time, show the public that they would be a refreshing contrast to Trump — substantive, policy-oriented, civil and focused on the country, not on their narrow base. America is tired of the circus of Trump. That doesn’t mean they want the circus of the House Democrats.

The president is vulnerable. With strong economic numbers, he has astonishingly low approval ratings. He will likely run his 2020 campaign on cultural nationalism, as he did in 2016. Democrats need to decide what their vision will be. That should be their focus, not the unfounded hope that if they pursue impeachment, somehow a series of miracles will take place — a deeply divided country will coalesce around them, and Republicans will finally abandon their president.

The real challenge the Democrats face goes beyond Trump. It is Trumpism — a right-wing populism that has swelled in the United States over the past decade. Surely the best way to take it on is to combat it ideologically and defeat it electorally. That is the only way to give the Democrats the real prize, which is not Trump’s scalp but the power and legitimacy to forge a governing majority.

Text dividers

A Matter of Trust …

Posted on by under Global Issues, Political commentary

One of the political analysts I most respect for both his knowledge and unbiased viewpoints is Fareed Zakaria.  He hit the nail on the head this morning on CNN’s Fareed Zakaria GPS (Global Public Square) when he said …

zakaria-2“The United States is now blasting an international agreement it is a sworn party to, without exiting the agreement. It is taking potshots at an international framework and yet staying within it — sort of. The result is a foreign policy that is not just unpredictable, but incoherent.

Trump has now signaled to countries like North Korea, never make a deal with America, because even if we sign, we might still upend the whole arrangement anyway. In his speech on Iran, Trump made the bizarre claim that other countries think in 100-year intervals. Even if this were true, which it isn’t, Trump’s actions suggest that his administration cannot even stay the course for a few years, let alone a hundred. Donald Trump’s national security team, the so-called grown-ups, have signed on to this contradictory policy toward Iran — which is a sad sign, perhaps, that they value their jobs more than their reputations.”

What he says is absolutely true.  Since taking office Trump has lied more often than not, and he has removed the U.S. from important agreements for no reason other than they were not his idea, but one of his predecessors. He has decided, even though the majority of the people he is supposed to represent disagree, that the U.S. no longer will participate in the Paris Accords to lower the impact of carbon emmissions on the environment.  He has made it clear that he will almost certainly pull out of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) unless Canada and Mexiso agree to give the U.S. the most favourable terms, at the expense of their own nations.  He has pulled out of UNESCO, and threatened to abandon the U.S. commitment to the United Nations entirely.  And now he is playing games with the Iran nuclear agreement for no reason other than that President Obama was the U.S.’ representative at the time we entered into the agreement.

It is bad enough that we here in the states know him to be a liar and untrustworthy.  But now every nation with whom we have international relations are scratching their heads and saying, in the language of social media, WTF???

It is one thing when he promises “great health care” and then not only provides us with nothing, but robs tens of millions of people of having any heathcare.  It is one thing when he promises tax cuts to the working people, but in reality his tax cuts will help only the wealthy.  All that is bad enough, but …

When he promises aid to Puerto Rico after a devastating storm, then drops the ball and attempts to make it look like their own fault, that sends a message that Trump will not keep his promises.  When he randomly, for no reason at all pulls out of a commitment, an obligation on the part of the U.S., that sends a message that the United States does not uphold its commitments.  And when he threatens to pull out of a mutual commitment to go to the aid of our allies, as they would us, in the event of a foreign attack, then the message is loud and clear.  The United States can no longer be counted on, the United States is no longer reliable or trustworthy.

From there, it is a hop, skip and a jump to … “the United States is no longer our ally.” In turn, if we were to be attacked by Russia, North Korea, or any other nation, we would have no right to expect assistance from the EU or any other allies, not even Canada or Mexico.  If Trump truly wants to isolate this nation, he is off to a fine start, but let the buyer beware … it is about the second stupidest thing he could do at this point.

And all for what reason?  Because he is a megalomaniac and his name is not on any of these agreements.  He had no part in them, worse yet, his antagonism toward President Obama is palpable and he is determined to attempt to erase President Obama’s name from the history books.  The reality is that, while Obama was a good, though not perfect, president, Trump is actually making Obama look even better than he was!

I suspect that if the Iran nuclear agreement were to be re-named the Trump-Iran nuclear agreement, he would sit down and shut up. He sees himself as more than any president can be … he sees himself as an emperor rather than a president.  The global effect of his decisions and rhetoric is far-reaching.  The U.S. is no longer the leader of the western world … only because of Trump.  Our allies are making their own plans for future events that do not include the U.S. … only because of Trump.  Where is the line in the sand?  Where is the breaking point where this country, its people and its elected officials finally stand up and say, “ENOUGH!!!”?  It better be soon, folks … it better be real soon.

Idiot of the Week #3 – Ann Coulter

Posted on by under Idiot of the Week, Political commentary, Social commentary

Idiot of the Week medal

I mentioned a week or so ago that people were tumbling into my lap, vying for the highly-prized Idiot of the Week award.  There are so many on my list now that I debate over which deserves the award the most, but as I write this tonight (Saturday night … yes, this is how I spend my Saturday nights, folks), this particular person seems to be shrieking the loudest, yelling “PICK ME PICK ME PICK ME!” says she.  So without further ado, allow me to introduce Ms. Ann Coulter!

 

coulter-6Ann Hart Coulter is an American conservative social and political commentator, writer, syndicated columnist, and lawyer. She has written eleven books, some of which have appeared on the New York Times Bestseller List.  Her first book, High Crimes and Misdemeanors: The Case Against Bill Clinton (1998) called for the impeachment of then President Bill Clinton. Her fourth book, How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must): The World According to Ann Coulter (2004), sums up her opinion of liberals in two sentences: “Want to make liberals angry? Defend the United States.”  Other books include:

  • Godless: The Church of Liberalism (2006)
  • If Democrats Had Any Brains, They’d Be Republicans (2007)
  • Guilty: Liberal “Victims” and Their Assault on America (2009)
  • Demonic: How the Liberal Mob Is Endangering America (2011)
  • Mugged: Racial Demagoguery from the Seventies to Obama (2012)
  • Never Trust a Liberal Over 3 — Especially a Republican (2013)
  • Adios, America: The Left’s Plan to Turn Our Country Into a Third World Hellhole (2015)

Do you get the feeling she does not like liberal thinkers or Democrats?  It is a good thing I am not as thin-skinned as Donnie Trump, else my feelings might be hurt and I might have to go hit her, huh? Coulter’s next book is set to release next month, titled In Trump We Trust: E Pluribus Awesome! 

When possible, I like to let the idiots speak (babble)  for themselves, so I give you, Ms. Ann Coulter:

  • “If we took away women’s right to vote, we’d never have to worry about another Democrat president. It’s kind of a pipe dream, it’s a personal fantasy of mine, but I don’t think it’s going to happen. And it is a good way of making the point that women are voting so stupidly, at least single women.”  Is she related to Phyllis Schlafly?
  • “The backbone of the Democratic Party is a typical fat, implacable welfare recipient.” Hey, wait a minute now … I am neither fat nor a welfare recipient!
  • “People like you caused us to lose that war.” (speaking to a disabled veteran about the Vietnam War)
  • “I’m more of a man than any liberal.”
  • “Most public schools are, at best, nothing but expensive babysitting arrangements, helpfully keeping hoodlums off the street during daylight hours. At worst, they are criminal training labs, where teachers sexually abuse the children between drinking binges and acts of grand larceny.”
  • “I think there should be a literacy test and a poll tax for people to vote.”  Wait, didn’t we try that once?  And didn’t we decide it was highly discriminatory, and thus we banned it?
  • “Canada used to be one of our most loyal friends, and vice versa. I mean, Canada sent troops to Vietnam.”  Do some fact checking, Ms. Coulter – Canada did not send troops to Vietnam!
  • “I have to say I’m all for public flogging. One type of criminal that a public humiliation might work particularly well with are the juvenile delinquents, a lot of whom consider it a badge of honor to be sent to juvenile detention. And it might not be such a cool thing in the ‘hood’ to be flogged publicly.”
  • aargh“I think [women] should be armed but should not vote … women have no capacity to understand how money is earned. They have a lot of ideas on how to spend it … it’s always more money on education, more money on child care, more money on day care.”
  • “There are a lot of bad Republicans; there are no good Democrats.”
  • “I might be in favor of national healthcare if it required all Democrats to get their heads examined.”
  • “She ought to be in prison for wearing a hijab.”
  • “I love to engage in repartee with people who are stupider than I am.”  You mean there is somebody stupider than you?

khizr-khanWhich brings us to the one that dropped her in my lap and caused me to award the Idiot of the Week honour to her today.  A gentleman by the name of Khizr Khan, the father of Muslim U.S. war hero who died in combat in Iraq, Captain Humayun Khan, spoke at the Democratic National Convention last week.  Coulter wasted no time before tweeting: “You know what this convention really needed? An angry Muslim with a thick accent like Fareed Zacaria.”  Presumably it was intended as a slur against both Mr. Khan and Fareed Zakaria, whose name she couldn’t even manage to spell correctly. Mr. Zakaria is an esteemed Indian-American journalist for The Washington Post, The Atlantic, and CNN. Even Coulter’s fellow conservatives were horrified by her unfeeling remarks and quickly chastised her.

coulter-5In an interview last week, Ms. Coulter said “If Trump doesn’t win, it’s over. I’ll be writing cookbooks and mysteries. It’ll probably take some talk radio hosts and a certain TV network [Fox News] a while to figure that out. But it’s over.”  We can only hope.  Though I cannot imagine I would eat any dish that came from one of her cookbooks, as I expect she would be cooking up a passel of hatred.

Notice that Ms. Coulter supposedly has a law degree from the University of Michigan Law School, and was an editor of the Michigan Law Review.  Wouldn’t you think that might have required a degree of … intelligence?  Apparently she lost it somewhere on the way to the forum. And so, Ms. Coulter, you have certainly done everything you could to earn Filosofa’s Idiot of the Week award.

Lewandowski – A Trump Plant?

Posted on by under Political commentary

So, Donald Trump fires his campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski on Monday, June 20th, and CNN hires Lewandowski to be a political commentator on Thursday, June 23rd.  Why?  This move makes absolutely no sense and is proving to be a terrible mistake, at least in the eyes of the viewing public.

lew2First of all, Mr. Lewandowski signed a non-disclosure agreement that likely includes “During the term of your service and at all times thereafter, you hereby promise and agree not to demean or disparage publicly the company, Mr. Trump, any Trump company, any family member, or any family member company.”  So he cannot do ‘unbiased’ reporting.  Second, Mr. Lewandowski has historically shown a lack of respect bordering on volatile toward members of the press.  Point in case:  his manhandling of Breitbart reporter Michelle Fields at a campaign rally.  Though charges were dropped, the incident happened, and he was caught on tape … a video that every news viewer saw, so there is no plausible denial.  An investigation by Politico back in March reported that he was “rough with reporters and sexually suggestive with female journalists, while profanely berating conservative officials and co-workers he deemed to be challenging his authority.”

Most shook their head, on hearing that CNN had snatched up Lewandowski so quickly, and asked the same question I asked:  WHY?  What has he to offer us, the viewers?  The answer, it turns out, is nothing, possibly even less than nothing.  And what has he to offer CNN in exchange for a reportedly fat salary?  Quite possibly a loss of viewers and the beginning of their fall into the pit of news network oblivion.  For my part, I did not turn CNN on this morning, as I usually do, nor have I checked their website. There are a handful of CNN anchors/reporters that I respect, that I see as relatively intellectual, thought-provoking, and yet non-confrontational, including Christiane Amanpour, Peter Bergen, Wolf Blitzer, Donna Brazile, Bill Press, and Fareed Zakaria.  The addition of a crass, right-wing former Trump advisor is a slap in the face to these men and women, in fact to all serious journalists.

Thus far, Lewandowski has proven to be as much of a dud as we all anticipated.  Here are a few of his comments regarding his former employer’s shenanigans:

  • “Mr. Trump’s best speech of the presidential cycle.”
  • “This is a very, very strong message for him and, I think, the best speech he’s given all cycle.”
  • “The speech was delivered clearly, articulately, and again, the best speech of the campaign so ”
  • “Trump is the only person who’s going to save this country for my children.”

Oh please, shoot me now!

lew3

When asked by fellow reporter Alisyn Camerota why Donald Trump went to the UK and criticized the president, when there is an unwritten rule that this simply is not good etiquette, he deflected the question and muttered a bunch of gibberish about how wonderful it was that Trump and family built such a wonderful golf course in Scotland.  More recently, he defended Trump’s use of the Star of David to attack Hillary Clinton.

 

Those are the facts of the matter.  Now for my speculation.  Lewandowski’s termination from Donald Trump’s employ seemed a bit enigmatic at the time.  There appeared to be no hard feelings on either side; Lewandowski expressed no anger, disappointment, or other emotion that would be normal and expected under the circumstances, especially one with a proven volatile temperament.  Within hours of his termination, Lewandowski interviewed with both MSNBC and CNN.  Three days later he is hired on by CNN as a political commentator despite the fact that CNN executives had to know his history toward journalists and had to know that he was bound by a non-disclosure agreement.  (In addition, the man has the personality of a dead sloth, but that is not relevant) That said, I cannot help wondering if this was a pre-conceived plan to plant a Trumpian in one of the most-viewed cable news networks in the nation.

Though most news agencies lean at least slightly toward one side or another when it comes to politics and social issues, CNN has a history for being among the least biased of the major news providers.  I am not doling them stars here, as they have other faults, but overall, they have had commentators and reporters from both sides of the aisle and try to present both sides somewhat fairly.  They certainly top MSNBC and Fox!  However, this latest hiring is not only a push to the right, but to a specific candidate on the right.  Since he emphatically defended Trumps anti-semitic tweet last week, it will be quite interesting to see if CNN has drawn any line in the sand, and if so, where that line lies. Perhaps by next year it will be called DNN … “Donnie’s News Network”.

Then there is the matter of salary.  It is well-documented that Mr. Lewandowski earned $20,000 per month plus the benefit of an apartment, and I am certain other ‘benefits’ while working as Donald Trump’s campaign manager.  The base salary alone comes to $240,000.  But, some months Trump paid Lewandowski as much as $75,000.  So, some simple math, simply averaging the two, and Mr. Lewandowski was quite possibly earning about $570,000 per year, not including his apartment.  When CNN President Jeff Zucker hired Lewandowski, rumour had it that his contract was for $500,000.  Zucker later denied the rumour, saying “I can assure you we are paying him nowhere near $500,000.”  Really?  So, Lewandowski is willing to take a huge salary cut simply to sit in front of a camera with his powdered nose and say nice things about his former boss?  I don’t think so.

I believe that Lewandowski continues on the Trump payroll to this day and beyond.  I believe this is a huge farce to plant Lewandowski in a major news network to toot the Trumpet in an attempt to recruit even more lemmings to walk over the cliff.  No, I have no proof of this, it is strictly speculation on my part. However, there are far too many curious aspects, too many unanswered questions surrounding the entire matter.  To use the tired old phrase, ‘where there’s smoke there’s fire’ … and it is getting smokier here than an old backroom pool hall!

turtle