Posted on 07/11/2008 3:22:54 PM PDT by Congressman Billybob
The great danger in offering unqualified praise to another person is they could turn around, do / say something really stupid, and make you doubt your original judgment. That’s why the greatest praise for public officials comes when they are safely dead. From that position, they are unlikely to offer any new, public embarrassment.
Still, it’s important to climb out on a limb from time to time.
There are three people whose bylines I always follow. I have never ceased to be impressed by any column I’ve read from any of these three gentlemen (in alphabetical order): Charles Krauthammer, Thomas Sowell, and Mark Steyn. The one I praise today is Krauthammer. By the way, I’ll save the public figure I am attacking, for last. Dessert first, liver and onions after.
Krauthammer’s latest column is “The Alter of Soft Power.” He begins with the incredible rescue of Ingrid Betancourt and 14 other long-held hostages from the hands of the FARC terrorists in Columbia. It was executed by the Columbian military without a shot being fired. American special forces played a critical role in the intelligence gathering that made the rescue work.
This was, he wrote, a classic example of “hard power.” That means using your military assets to get a result in a confrontation. “Soft power,” on the other hand, means negotiations, resolutions, mild sanctions, but nothing which would be called military or an act of war.
Krauthammer pointed out that in the six years that Betancourt was held in the jungle, all the governments of Europe repeatedly passed resolutions deploring the kidnappings, and urging Columbia to negotiate with the FARC captors. Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez had offered to be a go-between. Only another use of “hard power,” a raid into Ecuador by the Columbia Army, revealed the truth.
In the Ecuador raid, Columbia killed a top official of FARC, but it also captured computers and their files which revealed that President Chavez was financially supporting FARC and working hand and glove with them. That use of “hard power” was attacked by European (and some American) supporters of talking with, rather than acting, against terrorists.
Krauthammer points out that “soft power” is the preferred action by many sources, including the UN and the G-8, against other groups of murderers including Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe, the Sudanese so-called leaders in Darfur, and the dictators in what used to be Burma, who allowed untold thousands of their citizens to die in the aftermath of floods, rather than let in foreigners bringing help (but also lifting the veil of secrecy in that benighted nation).
As usual, Krauthammer made a logical, penetrating analysis of a major public issue. He offered clear, supportable truth, which needs to be pounded into the mushy skulls of many leaders around the world. It is a pathetic commentary that the UN refused, this very day, to support any sanctions to get rid of the murderous Mugabe.
And now we turn to the opposite end of the scale, stupidity in public.
A Dallas County Commissioner in a public discussion of failures of the County’s Central Collections, referred to it as a “black hole.” Documents and money were going into the Bureau, and never being seen again. One black Commissioner demanded an apology, and another one, Commissioner John Wiley Price said that “that type of language is unacceptable.”
Warming to his task, Commissioner went on to condemn in the hearing other terms he considered racist, including the difference between “angel food cake and devil’s food cake.” He also objected to the use of the phrase, “black sheep.” And he used the phrase, “Jew you down,” as an example of a “racist” remark he deliberately would not use, because he is so sensitive to such matters.
To put no fine point on it, Commissioner Price is as dumb as a hoe handle. “Black hole” is an astronomical expression which means a collapsed star with such high gravity that not even light can escape. It was an excellent metaphor for a failed public agency. It is also a reasonable description of the quality of Commissioner Price’s brain, not because he is black, but because he shows world-class ignorance.
The more people we have in the public sphere like Krauthammer, the better off we will be. The more we have who are like Price, the worse off we will be. And, anyone thinking of attacking me as racially prejudiced, before doing so, find out the racial backgrounds of the three people I praised so highly at the beginning.
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About the Author: John Armor practiced law in the US Supreme Court for 33 years. He now lives in Highlands, NC, and is working on a book on Thomas Paine. John_Armor@aya.yale.edu
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Hey John/Billybob,
I always look for your pieces on FR too. Thanks for all your contributions.
By the way, I’d add a fourth to your esteemed list - Wes Pruden. He has retired as Washington Times editor, but he still writes his bi-weekly opinions. Love his craftsmanship of words.
“They aren’t black.”
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
There are exceptions to this, I have known a few truly black people.
Except for albinos who have none.
The point being that the same genes that make my skin “wop” brown are the same genes that make a black person's skin black. All the genes necessary to make a black skin color are present within the white population (and vice versa), but the chances of it coming about purely by chance are negligible. People from light skinned population just have a higher frequency of “melanin OFF” alleles at those genetic loci, and dark skinned populations have a higher frequency of “melanin ON” alleles at those loci.
My lab is Dark Chocolate. He is a very good boy who likes to lay on peoples feet. I call it “laying down on the job”.
Excellent!
I would add Dr. Walter Williams to your list of columnists.
Unless your subtlety escaped me and a < /sarc > tag applies, "alter" is the precisely proper word, Arasina.
This Balkanization of our unique culture (or multiculture) is a trend that will destroy us. But it's not new. A hundred years ago, it was worth commenting on...
"A hyphenated American is not an American at all. This is just as true of the man who puts 'Native' before the hyphen as of the man who puts German or Irish or French before the hyphen. Americanism is a matter of the spirit and of the soul. Our allegiance must be purely to the United States. We must unsparingly condemn any man who holds any other allegiance." -- Theodore Roosevelt
: )
It's as if none of our leadership have even heard of Churchill; or Macchiaveli; or Sun Tzu; or Clausewitz...
I agree totally.
I would only add, "Unless they share his ignorance," which I don't view as far-fetched.
John / Billybob
Theodore Roosevelt October 12, 1915
: )
Not to mention clear as crystal!
;>)
You might want to tell Charles Krauthammer that, then. =o)
This in foreign policy establishment circles is called "hard power." In the Bush years, hard power is terribly out of fashion, seen as a mere obsession of cowboys and neocons. Both in Europe and America, the sophisticates worship at the altar of "soft power" - the use of diplomatic and moral resources to achieve one's ends.
(no sarcasm...just pedantic observation from years of reading)
robertpaulsen got banned in early April.
Someone calling himself "Vincent Freeman" popped up shortly after, making many of the same arguments RP made, but was ultimately also banned.
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