The abrupt arrest of IMF acting head Dominique Strauss-Kahn on charges of sexual assault against an employee at the New York hotel where he was staying are being treated as shocking in France. This is a "coup de tonnerre," a bolt from the blue, not to mention a body blow to the socialist party he was to represent in the upcoming elections. Everyone in Paris claims to be amazed, shaken--and doing some soul searching this Monday morning.
Very few, however, are protesting "DSK"'s innocence. But if the news really came as such a jarring surprise, shouldn't there be a clamour of disbelief? The shameful fact is that this news was not so much a shock as a long time coming.
In 2006, French journalists Christophe Deloire and Christophe Dubois wrote a book called Sexus Politicus about the colorful sexual lives of French politicians. While the American press tended to focus on the revelations about politicians of whom they had heard (Chirac, Mitterand, Sarkozy), the book also contained a chapter on risky, aggressive sexual behavior--titled "L'Affair DSK." As Mr. Deloire wrote in today's Le Monde, the media's strange code of silence about sexual abuse at the high levels of government may well have permitted, if not enabled, DSK's most recent offense. Egregiously, this book was published the year before Strauss-Kahn became head of the IMF--the year he was accused of rape by French journalist Tristane Banon who just happened to be Strauss-Kahn's wife's goddaughter, not to mention 30 years his junior (the French police declined to press charges in 2007, but may reconsider now). Less than 12 months later, DSK was back in the news, this time for having an affair with IMF subordinate Paula Nagy, in the course of which he abused his official position, as he later admitted.
2006-07 also happened to be the period that saw the moralizing witch hunt of Paul Wolfowitz at the World Bank over claimed favoritism that advanced the career of his companion, Shaha Ali Riza (claims that the World Bank itself found without merit, but no matter, Mr. Wolfowitz still had to resign). The discrepancies between the treatment of Mr. Wolfowitz and DSK were noted at the time, but DSK kept his job and continued his activities unimpeded by the moral and legal issues constraining the behavior of lesser mortals--and why shouldn't he? Clearly he was well above the law.
Until Saturday night, that is, when DSK found himself not up against the complaint authorities of more sophisticated nations that turn a blind eye to such escapades, and instead at the mercy of the NYPD. Even though DSK's most recent victim was yet another young woman many years his junior in a comparatively weak position, she found solace in the law. For his part, DSK is entitled under that same law to the presumption of innocence as the case unfolds but at the very least it is time to stop calling Strauss-Kahn by the Casanova-like title of "le grand séducteur" and instead understand him, as Ms. Banon declared, as "a rutting chimpanze."
If there is a silver lining to this sordid episode, it is that l'affair DSK provides an opportunity to shine a harsh light on the tacit condonement of sexual abuse in the world's theoretically-charitable institutions ranging from the U.N. to the Peace Corps. While the vast majority of the victims have suffered in anonymous silence, DSK can provide a very famous face and ample publicity to this dirty little secret that has been kept for far too long--and if this case can force some much-needed reform and accounability then Strauss-Kahn may finally do some good, however unwillingly.
Monday, May 16, 2011
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Congratulations, Israel, on 63 years
63 years ago, Israel was established, giving the Jewish people their own state. Over the ensuing decades the tiny country has been attacked with everything from sticks and stones in its own sovereign territory to words in the hallowed halls of the United Nations. Through a combination of ceaseless vigilance and sheer faith the people of Israel have persevered in the face of relentless bombardment of hard and soft bigotry--not to mention rockets--and not only persevered but prospered.
Israel has achieved amazing things given its small size and precarious location. Its hulking neighbors, notably oil-rich Iran, seem poised to swallow it up--yet Iran is the one facing unemployment and popular discontent. Israel on the other hand is open for business, boasting an advanced and prosperous industrial economy that welcomes international investment despite security concerns. Furthermore, Israel is notably helpful in the region, doing good deeds such as striking Iraq and Syria's nascent nuclear programs. Some see our friendship with Israel as a one-way street and advocate cutting aid, but we might find ourselves feeling surprisingly lonely if we pursued that short-sighted policy.
While we contemplate the so-called "Arab spring" with all its exciting promises of spreading democracy, we would do well to remember the free state that has been our good friend for these many years. While the President may take this opportunity to chide the Israelis about achieving a "two-state solution" and sharing their "peace, prosperity and dignity" with "all the people of the region," I prefer Senator Marco Rubio's suggestion that we mark the occasion by remembering that "we must always support [Israel's] right to secure and defend its territory and people."
I join Senator Rubio in wishing joyful and blessed Yom Ha’atzmaut to all our friends in Israel.
Israel has achieved amazing things given its small size and precarious location. Its hulking neighbors, notably oil-rich Iran, seem poised to swallow it up--yet Iran is the one facing unemployment and popular discontent. Israel on the other hand is open for business, boasting an advanced and prosperous industrial economy that welcomes international investment despite security concerns. Furthermore, Israel is notably helpful in the region, doing good deeds such as striking Iraq and Syria's nascent nuclear programs. Some see our friendship with Israel as a one-way street and advocate cutting aid, but we might find ourselves feeling surprisingly lonely if we pursued that short-sighted policy.
While we contemplate the so-called "Arab spring" with all its exciting promises of spreading democracy, we would do well to remember the free state that has been our good friend for these many years. While the President may take this opportunity to chide the Israelis about achieving a "two-state solution" and sharing their "peace, prosperity and dignity" with "all the people of the region," I prefer Senator Marco Rubio's suggestion that we mark the occasion by remembering that "we must always support [Israel's] right to secure and defend its territory and people."
I join Senator Rubio in wishing joyful and blessed Yom Ha’atzmaut to all our friends in Israel.
Thursday, May 5, 2011
Some thoughts on inheritance
"Inheritance" is a neutral word--it can be bad and good depending on the circumstance. You dont get to pick what you get any more than you can pick your parents. On the one hand, you have things like photo albumns and trusts funds. On the other you have the lasting repercussions of bad behavior, the sins of the father if you will, that can reach down across generations. Most of us inherit a combination of the two from our predecessors, hopefully with more of the former than the
This construct applies to presidents as well. You begin the job basically beholden to your predecessor, who has created the circumstances under which you have to try to do your job. Indeed, your first year is in many ways the political equivalent of adolescence, as you try to break away from the existing model and establish your own identity. This process can be particularly dramatic when you have successive presidents of opposing political parties.
So we have seen President Obama rebel against the Bush administration legacy throughout both his campaign and his first twenty-seven months in office. Calling attention to his inherited burdens, particularly at home but also abroad, has been a constant refrain in Obama's rhetoric, an inevitable codicil to any policy announcement. To date, these references have been exclusively negative and pejorative, and to be honest many Americans suffering from an extended economic downturn and weary of the lengthy foreign wars have tended to accept these statements at face value.
The events of the last five days strongly suggest that there was something else in that heritage, something of great and lasting value even if it was shrouded and reviled like some ugly and unwanted family object foisted on a new generation with no taste for such things. In this case, rather than a breakfront or silver service we are talking about detention operations in the global war on terror, that impossibly difficult but unavoidable challenge President Bush and his administration confronted in the years after 9/11.
Those who grappled with this issue have been the most reviled of the previous administration. While Treasury Secretaries and budget directors go largely unreviled, anyone who had to deal with detainees, their capture, incarceration and interrogation, have been roundly attacked as at best ignorant and parochial, and at worst eager to torment innocents in a dark campaign to subvert our most precious values, our true jewels of civil liberties. Compared to the worst monsters in history--i.e. Pol Pot, the Nazis--they have had few defenders as it has seemed a losing battle to try to argue for what has been widely accepted as "torture", a corrupt and defunct practice. It has been so easy to disavow these activites, perhaps with the caveat that such things might have seemed necessary in the early days after 9/11 when we feared another attack, but that attack didn't come and even if we dont utterly condemn, we know better.
Now that our most deadly enemy rests with the fishes thanks to the intelligence gathered from those detainees, a welcome development removing both a real and present security threat and a painful shared psychological burden, these policies emerge in a different light. Rather than a shameful inheritance, they have been a gift, painstakingly crafted behind layers of classification and legal necessity. As time and events peel those layers away like so many layers of tarnish, we might want to be prepared for more unexpected revelations that make the easy poses of moral superiority that have been so fashionable over the past seven years increasingly uncomfortable and difficult to defend.
While it is naive to expect President Obama will overtly acknowledge this heritage either today at Ground Zero or at anytime in the coming election season, we can hope that his actions will speak more loudly than his words. As he has recognized the necessity of the DoD dentention facility at Guantanamo he may now understand the necessity of those CIA interrogators who are still under investigation for the very practices that ultimately got Osama bin Laden. Perhaps today when he stands where his predecessor stood in those terrible days after the 9/11 attacks he will understand what he has truly inherited.
This construct applies to presidents as well. You begin the job basically beholden to your predecessor, who has created the circumstances under which you have to try to do your job. Indeed, your first year is in many ways the political equivalent of adolescence, as you try to break away from the existing model and establish your own identity. This process can be particularly dramatic when you have successive presidents of opposing political parties.
So we have seen President Obama rebel against the Bush administration legacy throughout both his campaign and his first twenty-seven months in office. Calling attention to his inherited burdens, particularly at home but also abroad, has been a constant refrain in Obama's rhetoric, an inevitable codicil to any policy announcement. To date, these references have been exclusively negative and pejorative, and to be honest many Americans suffering from an extended economic downturn and weary of the lengthy foreign wars have tended to accept these statements at face value.
The events of the last five days strongly suggest that there was something else in that heritage, something of great and lasting value even if it was shrouded and reviled like some ugly and unwanted family object foisted on a new generation with no taste for such things. In this case, rather than a breakfront or silver service we are talking about detention operations in the global war on terror, that impossibly difficult but unavoidable challenge President Bush and his administration confronted in the years after 9/11.
Those who grappled with this issue have been the most reviled of the previous administration. While Treasury Secretaries and budget directors go largely unreviled, anyone who had to deal with detainees, their capture, incarceration and interrogation, have been roundly attacked as at best ignorant and parochial, and at worst eager to torment innocents in a dark campaign to subvert our most precious values, our true jewels of civil liberties. Compared to the worst monsters in history--i.e. Pol Pot, the Nazis--they have had few defenders as it has seemed a losing battle to try to argue for what has been widely accepted as "torture", a corrupt and defunct practice. It has been so easy to disavow these activites, perhaps with the caveat that such things might have seemed necessary in the early days after 9/11 when we feared another attack, but that attack didn't come and even if we dont utterly condemn, we know better.
Now that our most deadly enemy rests with the fishes thanks to the intelligence gathered from those detainees, a welcome development removing both a real and present security threat and a painful shared psychological burden, these policies emerge in a different light. Rather than a shameful inheritance, they have been a gift, painstakingly crafted behind layers of classification and legal necessity. As time and events peel those layers away like so many layers of tarnish, we might want to be prepared for more unexpected revelations that make the easy poses of moral superiority that have been so fashionable over the past seven years increasingly uncomfortable and difficult to defend.
While it is naive to expect President Obama will overtly acknowledge this heritage either today at Ground Zero or at anytime in the coming election season, we can hope that his actions will speak more loudly than his words. As he has recognized the necessity of the DoD dentention facility at Guantanamo he may now understand the necessity of those CIA interrogators who are still under investigation for the very practices that ultimately got Osama bin Laden. Perhaps today when he stands where his predecessor stood in those terrible days after the 9/11 attacks he will understand what he has truly inherited.
Monday, May 2, 2011
Osama's Image
via John Koblin (@koblin), we have a new Time cover, to be published on a special Osama bin Laden issue due out Thursday. It is a remarkable contrast to the Time cover from almost a decade ago.
Notice how the now-deceased Osama has been transformed from the intent, active terrorist-in-motion of 2001 into a smooth impassive icon. Except for the glaring, dripping red X he could almost be a work of art. In fact, it seems Time's editors had a work of art in mind.
Head of an Akkadian ruler, from Nineveh, 2300-2200 BC. Bronze, 12ins high. National Museum, Baghdad.
While the Head and the second Time cover are readily recognizable as individuals, they also are idealized using the same devices such as preternaturally smooth skin, crown-like turbans and stylized beards. They have both also been ritually defaced in a manner that would be immediately recognized by their contemporary audiences. Time opted for the simple but effective red X, while the denizens of the Ancient Near East took the process a step farther. The Head was ripped from its body, had its eyes gauged out with a blunt instrument, and was buried in a garbage pit--what you might call the full SEAL treatment for the time.
Four millenia have removed any memory of the Akkadian ruler's personality. We don't know his name, let alone if he were a murdering monster like Osama or a fallen hero unjustly deposed and despoiled. Yet this haunting image of endures to inform Time's visualization of the dead Osama, making me wonder what viewers--if any--4,000 years hence will make of that magazine cover.
Notice how the now-deceased Osama has been transformed from the intent, active terrorist-in-motion of 2001 into a smooth impassive icon. Except for the glaring, dripping red X he could almost be a work of art. In fact, it seems Time's editors had a work of art in mind.
Head of an Akkadian ruler, from Nineveh, 2300-2200 BC. Bronze, 12ins high. National Museum, Baghdad.
While the Head and the second Time cover are readily recognizable as individuals, they also are idealized using the same devices such as preternaturally smooth skin, crown-like turbans and stylized beards. They have both also been ritually defaced in a manner that would be immediately recognized by their contemporary audiences. Time opted for the simple but effective red X, while the denizens of the Ancient Near East took the process a step farther. The Head was ripped from its body, had its eyes gauged out with a blunt instrument, and was buried in a garbage pit--what you might call the full SEAL treatment for the time.
Four millenia have removed any memory of the Akkadian ruler's personality. We don't know his name, let alone if he were a murdering monster like Osama or a fallen hero unjustly deposed and despoiled. Yet this haunting image of endures to inform Time's visualization of the dead Osama, making me wonder what viewers--if any--4,000 years hence will make of that magazine cover.
Today, They Should Hear All Of Us
The news of Osama bin Laden's demise has been a long time coming--so long in fact that it has taken some hours to sink in and become real. A decade can be a long time when you are grieving and angry and needful of closure. The scenes of jubilation that spread from ballpark to subway to the White House seemed like a movie in the wee hours of this morning, and while others will opine on the details of today's momentous event, I find myself reflecting on the road that brought us here.
The seemingly endless--and hopeless--search for OBL had threatened to become our nation's Moby Dick, an obsessive quest that destroys not only the prey but also the predator. Our collective unresolved need to "get" the man who ordered those planes to fly into our buildings quickly became a cancer that turned citizen against citizen, and provoked some of the harshest partisanship I have witnessed.
But now we have OBL, and it is an opportunity for us to prove ourselves as Americans. For those of us on the right, we should simply thank God for a CIA Director who took the time to develop the appropriate plan, a Secretary of Defense who lent him sufficient man and firepower, and a President who was decisive enough to pull the trigger at the right moment. This sort of leadership should not be parsed or resented. For their part, our fellow citizens on the left might consider giving up the relentless drumbeat of "war crimes" for those who did so much of the long and lonely work to make this possible. Even with the so-called "harsh" interrogation techniques used on Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, it took years to put together the pieces. How many regret those techniques this morning, or that we had Guantanamo to house KSM and his colleagues for further reference?
If we on both sides can make these respective leaps we will truly have killed our white whale, and not annihilated ourselves in the process. This is not to say that we will be singing kumbaya together over the debt ceiling tomorrow, nor should we. But we will have met a great challenge, as so many generations of Americans have done, together. While the war may not be over, that would be a tremendous victory, and Osama bin Laden's ultimate defeat.
The seemingly endless--and hopeless--search for OBL had threatened to become our nation's Moby Dick, an obsessive quest that destroys not only the prey but also the predator. Our collective unresolved need to "get" the man who ordered those planes to fly into our buildings quickly became a cancer that turned citizen against citizen, and provoked some of the harshest partisanship I have witnessed.
But now we have OBL, and it is an opportunity for us to prove ourselves as Americans. For those of us on the right, we should simply thank God for a CIA Director who took the time to develop the appropriate plan, a Secretary of Defense who lent him sufficient man and firepower, and a President who was decisive enough to pull the trigger at the right moment. This sort of leadership should not be parsed or resented. For their part, our fellow citizens on the left might consider giving up the relentless drumbeat of "war crimes" for those who did so much of the long and lonely work to make this possible. Even with the so-called "harsh" interrogation techniques used on Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, it took years to put together the pieces. How many regret those techniques this morning, or that we had Guantanamo to house KSM and his colleagues for further reference?
If we on both sides can make these respective leaps we will truly have killed our white whale, and not annihilated ourselves in the process. This is not to say that we will be singing kumbaya together over the debt ceiling tomorrow, nor should we. But we will have met a great challenge, as so many generations of Americans have done, together. While the war may not be over, that would be a tremendous victory, and Osama bin Laden's ultimate defeat.
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Shuffling the Deck Chairs, Yet Again
If you are on the Titanic, it doesn't matter where you sit.
In the most recent Obama administration shake up, Bob Gates will be leaving the Department of Defense, Leon Pannetta will move from the CIA to DoD, General David Petraeus will move from Afghanistan to the CIA and Ryan Crocker will move from Texas A&M (from whence came Bob Gates) to Afghanistan. As in the previous major changes in the White House staff and the economic team, competent, experienced hands are being replaced by...competent experienced hands. And so as Rahm Emanuel became Bill Daley and Larry Summers became Gene Sperling, we witness another changing of the guard designed to right the course of this haphazardly lurching administration that cannot seem to find its footing either at home or abroad.
The problem is that the root of the issue may not lie with the staff, but rather with the person doing the staffing.
Looking at this most recent reorganization, I have to ask what it will achieve? Putting partisanship aside, I do not question the competence of Panetta, Petraeus and Crocker, or their patriotism. They are all proven public servants, and certainly as qualified to hold their new positions as many who have come before them. But these appointments promise little improvement in our foreign policy and national security, which continues to be directed by a President who cannot or will not get his team moving in a coherent direction.
Mr. Obama famously campaigned on a message of change, and in general change can be good--that is if it is change with a purpose. But there is a sort of grim sameness to these changes. More "gown-ups" are being called in, more of the non-partisan career types who will make the trains run on time. But it is increasingly apparent that these trains, even if they be efficiently managed high-speed ones, have no particular destination and we are in a global situation in which a lack of policy is even worse than a bad policy.
The best hope is that the President will shake himself free from his inclination to respond to individual events based on the recommendation of the loudest voice in the room at the moment--perhaps in the hopes of silencing the ruckus--and develop a serious vision for his foreign policy team. That hope, however, may prove to be as ephemeral as Mr. Obama's campaign rhetoric. We will more likely settle for hoping Messrs. Panetta, Petraeus, and Crocker (and is it cynical to expect we are going to hear Mr. Gates' name again before January, 2012?) can hold things together in their respective fiefdoms for the next twenty months, and that we don't encounter too many icebergs in the interim.
Published at Redstate.com
In the most recent Obama administration shake up, Bob Gates will be leaving the Department of Defense, Leon Pannetta will move from the CIA to DoD, General David Petraeus will move from Afghanistan to the CIA and Ryan Crocker will move from Texas A&M (from whence came Bob Gates) to Afghanistan. As in the previous major changes in the White House staff and the economic team, competent, experienced hands are being replaced by...competent experienced hands. And so as Rahm Emanuel became Bill Daley and Larry Summers became Gene Sperling, we witness another changing of the guard designed to right the course of this haphazardly lurching administration that cannot seem to find its footing either at home or abroad.
The problem is that the root of the issue may not lie with the staff, but rather with the person doing the staffing.
Looking at this most recent reorganization, I have to ask what it will achieve? Putting partisanship aside, I do not question the competence of Panetta, Petraeus and Crocker, or their patriotism. They are all proven public servants, and certainly as qualified to hold their new positions as many who have come before them. But these appointments promise little improvement in our foreign policy and national security, which continues to be directed by a President who cannot or will not get his team moving in a coherent direction.
Mr. Obama famously campaigned on a message of change, and in general change can be good--that is if it is change with a purpose. But there is a sort of grim sameness to these changes. More "gown-ups" are being called in, more of the non-partisan career types who will make the trains run on time. But it is increasingly apparent that these trains, even if they be efficiently managed high-speed ones, have no particular destination and we are in a global situation in which a lack of policy is even worse than a bad policy.
The best hope is that the President will shake himself free from his inclination to respond to individual events based on the recommendation of the loudest voice in the room at the moment--perhaps in the hopes of silencing the ruckus--and develop a serious vision for his foreign policy team. That hope, however, may prove to be as ephemeral as Mr. Obama's campaign rhetoric. We will more likely settle for hoping Messrs. Panetta, Petraeus, and Crocker (and is it cynical to expect we are going to hear Mr. Gates' name again before January, 2012?) can hold things together in their respective fiefdoms for the next twenty months, and that we don't encounter too many icebergs in the interim.
Published at Redstate.com
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Nancy Pelosi Is Right: Elections Shouldn't Matter As Much As They do
In an ideal world, of course.
Speaking at Tufts University on April 8th, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi had one of those marvelous moments of self-revelation in which a usually polished politician speaking casually and without a script among like-minded friends says what everyone is thinking--what everyone knows to be true--in this case what is considered an unquestionable "fact" by their audience. As you can see from the video, there was not a murmur when Pelosi circled around to her punch line that "elections should not matter as much as they do." She went on to lament that the lack of "shared values" had lead to the unpleasantness of last Friday in Congress with all the shouting and staying up late and worries over who would get to keep their Blackberrys.
The thing is, Pelosi is right. Elections are burdensome things. They are expensive, intrusive and all to frequently unfair. Even when you win, the cycle of fundraising and campaigning distracts from the business at hand.
Elections are particularly burdensome when you lose. Then their inconvenience becomes glaringly apparent. New crops of politicos have to be trained over and over again to do the same tasks as their predecessors. Perfectly able, even accomplished lawmakers are routinely tossed out on their ears to make way for the ignorant and green. Majorities and minorities ebb and flow, leading to confusion over policy and priorities. Your treasured projects, nursed and nurtured in good faith, are threatened by the newcomers who do not share your values--who may in fact be devoid of values altogether and may nip those tender shoots in the bud.
Really when you look at it from Pelosi's perspective, it all seems at best counter-intuitive and at worst barely civilized.
There has been some well-founded outrage at Pelosi's apparent disdain for the democratic process stemming from post-2008 mid-term sour grapes. I suspect, however, that the root of the problem for those of us who find her remarks disturbing rather than self-evident is less the word "election" and more the word "shared"--as in the values Pelosi believes we must all have in common to achieve a utopia free from those burdensome elections.
Variants of "share" are popular in President Obama's rhetoric as well, and I expect we will hear it several times from him this afternoon. I have noticed it as a curiously condescending word choice from a politician who is in my age group recalling what you would expect to hear from a parent or teacher, a disconnect he does not appear to see. It seems he understands the term differently. This new "sharing" is transitioning from being the free exercise of generosity--a learned trait for most humans--to being an obligatory act of subjugation to the state. You do not learn to share as a moral choice; you are told to do it. Should you attempt not to share what is yours--be it values or money--this government seems increasingly eager to put you back on the path of righteousness.
I find I am not comfortable with this obligatory sharing. I am one of those who do not consider pregnancy to be a punishment or gainful employment to be a prison. I am not eager to share my values with those who disagree on the first point or my money with those who differ on the second. As we consider the calls for us all to just get along, Nancy Pelosi's off-hand comment serves as a useful reminder of what too much compromise--too much sharing--can get us.
As unfortunate as it may seem at times, elections must continue to be our burden to bear.
Speaking at Tufts University on April 8th, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi had one of those marvelous moments of self-revelation in which a usually polished politician speaking casually and without a script among like-minded friends says what everyone is thinking--what everyone knows to be true--in this case what is considered an unquestionable "fact" by their audience. As you can see from the video, there was not a murmur when Pelosi circled around to her punch line that "elections should not matter as much as they do." She went on to lament that the lack of "shared values" had lead to the unpleasantness of last Friday in Congress with all the shouting and staying up late and worries over who would get to keep their Blackberrys.
The thing is, Pelosi is right. Elections are burdensome things. They are expensive, intrusive and all to frequently unfair. Even when you win, the cycle of fundraising and campaigning distracts from the business at hand.
Elections are particularly burdensome when you lose. Then their inconvenience becomes glaringly apparent. New crops of politicos have to be trained over and over again to do the same tasks as their predecessors. Perfectly able, even accomplished lawmakers are routinely tossed out on their ears to make way for the ignorant and green. Majorities and minorities ebb and flow, leading to confusion over policy and priorities. Your treasured projects, nursed and nurtured in good faith, are threatened by the newcomers who do not share your values--who may in fact be devoid of values altogether and may nip those tender shoots in the bud.
Really when you look at it from Pelosi's perspective, it all seems at best counter-intuitive and at worst barely civilized.
There has been some well-founded outrage at Pelosi's apparent disdain for the democratic process stemming from post-2008 mid-term sour grapes. I suspect, however, that the root of the problem for those of us who find her remarks disturbing rather than self-evident is less the word "election" and more the word "shared"--as in the values Pelosi believes we must all have in common to achieve a utopia free from those burdensome elections.
Variants of "share" are popular in President Obama's rhetoric as well, and I expect we will hear it several times from him this afternoon. I have noticed it as a curiously condescending word choice from a politician who is in my age group recalling what you would expect to hear from a parent or teacher, a disconnect he does not appear to see. It seems he understands the term differently. This new "sharing" is transitioning from being the free exercise of generosity--a learned trait for most humans--to being an obligatory act of subjugation to the state. You do not learn to share as a moral choice; you are told to do it. Should you attempt not to share what is yours--be it values or money--this government seems increasingly eager to put you back on the path of righteousness.
I find I am not comfortable with this obligatory sharing. I am one of those who do not consider pregnancy to be a punishment or gainful employment to be a prison. I am not eager to share my values with those who disagree on the first point or my money with those who differ on the second. As we consider the calls for us all to just get along, Nancy Pelosi's off-hand comment serves as a useful reminder of what too much compromise--too much sharing--can get us.
As unfortunate as it may seem at times, elections must continue to be our burden to bear.
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