Opinion
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Editorial
Dangerous Naivete
I
n a recent roundtable of journal-
ists who covered President Barack
Obama's election campaign, Jodi
Kantor of the New York Times had an
interesting observation.
She said that her first assignment was to
"poke holes" in his official biography. She
found that even when he was at Harvard,
the annual law school parody depicted
him as someone with "an almost relent-
less appetite to win over people who don't
share his views."
"If Obama has a flaw," said Kantor, "he
really thinks he can win everybody over.
He has a lot of confidence that he can
meet somebody from a totally different
culture, who he agrees on nothing about,
and still form a connection ..."
That is the red flag on foreign policy
that others, including Sen. Hillary Rodham
Clinton in the primary campaign, warned
about. The president's recent overture to
Iran, which was brusquely, almost rudely,
slapped aside, seems to be an example.
Obama is not the first president to
believe he can win over foreign leaders with
whom he disagrees on fundamental prin-
ciples through the force of his intelligence
and eagerness to seek an accommodation.
Franklin D. Roosevelt referred to Josef
Stalin as "Uncle Joe" and was sure he could
reach an agreement with the Soviet Union.
Bill Clinton thought he had taken the
measure of Yasser Arafat right up to the
moment he realized that the Palestinian
leader had lied to his face.
George W. Bush was convinced that he
could detach Syria from the Iranian "axis
of evil" until Bashar Assad kept upping
his territorial demands to include land
along Lake Tiberias that belonged to Israel
before the 1967 war. Only then did the
light begin to dawn.
Obama's message to Tehran was nice as
pie. While Iran is the primary sponsor of
terrorism in the Middle East, outspokenly
dedicated to obliterating Israel and devel-
oping a nuclear program that has alarmed
its neighbors, the president's note men-
tioned none of these concerns directly. It
was more of a "Let's begin again" sort of
missive.
The Iranian leadership responded with
a diatribe before crowds chanting "Death
to America." Every grievance the ruling
ayatollahs had gathered for the last 30
years was dredged up, not the least of
which was America's support for Israel.
Dry Bones
ISRAEL HAS
EXPLODED IN ANGER
Al MAMAS RANSOM
DEMANDS FOR THE
KIDNAPPED ISRAELI
SOLDIER . . .
OUTRAGE'
AND MAY TAKE
REVENGE AGAINST
THE PALESTINIAN
TERRORISTS IN ITS
PRISONS.
Some com-
mentators insist
that Obama made
a shrewd move
because now "the
ball is in Iran's
court." But the
THE ISRAELI
ball has been in
GOVERNMENT IS
their court for a
FURIOUS
ENOUGH
long time, and
TO GO AS FAR
all they seem
inclined to do is
AS...
stick pins in it.
Charisma and
a spirit of com-
promise go only
so far in deal-
ing with those
whose worldview
is essentially at
DryBonesBlog.com
odds with your
own. That's why
the president had
been cautioned to make sure a distinct
caution. No amount of amicable persua-
agenda was set down before attempting
sion can penetrate Iran's wall of intransi-
any sort of meeting with the Iranian rul-
gence if it is convinced America is dealing
ers.
from weakness. It is dangerous for the
The reception his gesture of good will
United States and its allies to believe oth-
received should reinforce that sense of
erwise. 11
Reality Check
Experts On Parade
I
is a remarkable age we live in. I turn
on my TV and find that everyone is
an expert on everything.
Lawyers turn up on cable news shows
and they know every nuance of every area
of the law. Doctors can give you expert
advice on everything from podiatry to
brain surgery.
I watch sports talk shows based in New
York and Washington and I am amazed as
the participants pontificate on the Detroit
teams. Most of the time they don't know
what they're talking about, but it is amaz-
ing nonetheless.
That's why it was so satisfying to watch
Jon Stewart's evisceration of Jim Cramer
on The Daily Show. Cramer presents him-
self as an expert on all aspects of invest-
ing, so Stewart wanted to know whether
he didn't owe his viewers an explanation
as to why he never foresaw the collapse of
the stock market.
But have a care, Jon. Because you are
coming close to giving the game away.
Cramer is a showman. With
his sleeves rolled up and extrav-
agant gestures on Mad Money,
he resembles nothing so much
as the three-card monte dealers
on Seventh Avenue in New York.
But that's what so much of
TV news has come to. To make
yourself heard above the clut-
ter, you've got to speak with
absolute certitude on whatever
subject comes up. To take any
of them seriously is ridiculous.
They are playing a role as show
business values slowly wash
over political journalism.
The election of Barack Obama seems to
have driven most of the commentators on
the Fox News Channel right off the deep
end. They come on and thunder about
contract law being the bedrock of our
system; so that the bonuses paid to AIG
executives were not only defensible but
morally correct.
Funny thing. I don't recall
any of them making that argu-
ment when the UAW and the
Big Three were forced at gov-
ernment gunpoint to invalidate
their contracts.
I guess not all contracts are
equal, but it's red meat to their
audience.
The people at MSNBC have
gone just as loony. Their news
coverage has moved farther
left than a fish fork. I don't
know how anyone can watch
Chris Matthews with a straight
face after his starry-eyed man crush on
Obama, and Keith Olbermann is intent on
alerting the public that all conservatives
are in league with Lucifer.
It's great entertainment, not so hot as
journalism. By comparison, CNN is a
model of fairness, and I never believed
that I would ever write those words.
Keep in mind this simple fact. The main
purpose of TV news is to scare you silly.
The usual run of natural disasters, murder
and plane crashes is small potatoes com-
pared to the economy.
It is the perfect cable news story since
no one really knows the answers and
everyone is free to predict almost anything
they like.
Count Scary, where are you? This is your
moment.
My father lived through the worst of
the Great Depression, when the family got
together on Sundays to make sure every-
one had enough coal to keep warm in the
coming week. "I hope you never have to go
through anything like that," he told me on
several occasions.
I don't believe we are there yet. But
there is big TV money to be made by
being depressed about Depressions. Who
knew?
George Cantor's e-mail address is
gcantor614@aoLcom.
April 2
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2009 Cl