Honduras coup
Posted at Huffingtonpost June 28
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Outside of the direct actors, we don’t know exactly what just happened in Honduras. But the spinning will start soon; and neither President Obama nor Secretary of State Clinton have called for the return of President Zelaya to his rightful office. They have made tepid statements of opposition to military takeovers and a return to “democracy” and “constitutionality.”
While we wait, I will share an older piece about the US-directed coup in Haiti (which Obama and Clinton apparently support) and the attempted coup — with US support — against the democratically elected government of Venezuela.
In 1994, when my last Special Forces team, Operational Detachment Alpha 354, entered the Haitian city of Gonaives, I along with three members of that detachment waded through a huge and agitated crowd to encounter four soldiers and two plainclothes death squad members about to fire into that crowd with M-1 Garands. They were surprised to see us, and we took advantage of that surprise to compel them to lay their weapons down and submit to arrest. One of the plainclothes gents hesitated to relinquish his weapon, and I came very near shooting him. I’m only being honest - knowing this will put some people off - when I say that I now wish I had gone ahead and pulled the trigger. Instead, I protected him from a very angry crowd, one member of which lambasted him across the head with a heavy stick when he finally laid his weapon down, obliging my own team’s medics to suture his gaping scalp laceration.
In this part of the world, it never pays to be intellectually lazy on these issues. They’re tricky.
Haiti has two predominant ruling classes, one based on land and one based on money. Duvalier’s base was among the landed class that exploited peasants in a sharecropping system. Their dominance was challenged by the mechanized capitalist form of agriculture that was imposed on much of the island in conjunction with the 19-year US Marine occupation of Haiti from 1915-1934. This accounts for Duvalier’s hostility to the US, which was only resolved when both Duvalier and the US were alarmed by a leftist uprising in Haiti. Duvalier massacred the communists, and from then on the US and Papa Doc were on fine terms. But the class of cosmopolitans in Haiti who have survived through international trade sought the lowest price for export crops grown on these tenant plots, while the big landowners sought the highest price, which was a structural antagonism between the two. Given the nationalist xenophobia of the landowners and the desire for more foreign investment by the compradors, there was another, deeper, political antagonism. These two groups have fought fiercely in the past, and they share only one point of unity.
I hope Obama-mania and the reign of Democrats hasn’t completely effaced our skepticism. My own conversion against violence forces me to retract my wish that I had killed Jean Tatoune when I had the chance. But the coup mechanics are still important.
Where is the NED in Honduras? Where is the CIA (the prosecutors of Obama’s secret air war in Waziristan)?
This is not part of any change that we need.
Mark the url, because every time I am critical of Democrats, my posts are sent into a ten-click purgatory.
Stan:
QUESTION: Why has there never been a coup in Washington DC?
ANSWER: There’s no US Embassy there.
28 June 2009, 6:31 pmMichael Anderson:
The so-called “reactions” by Obama & Clinton tell the story, to me. We’re b-a-a-a-a-ck (like we ever LEFT)….Obama is LBJ, in more ways than one. I wonder what Mr. Chavez will do? Wait and see…
29 June 2009, 12:56 pmL. Diablo:
Great article as usual Stan. This “conversion against violence” nonsense is as depressing as your conversion towards religion. What a sad disaster. I still admire you, your writing and your work– but for fux sake… This new irrational Stan is making me wanna puke. Violence works— period; and why you feel the need to brag about your new found pacifism is beyond me. It’s like those vegetarians who just have to tell everyone how noble they are vis-a-vis their fucking food choices! Plus, pacifism is a white-boy phenomenon mostly and the luxury of bourgeois 1st worlders…
“We should not forestall any tactical option” - W.Churchill
“Pacifism is objectively pro-fascist” - G.Orwell
29 June 2009, 1:38 pmFreddy el Desfibradddor:
“It’s a joke, son.” Yes, I know, but I think it could be plausibly argued that the selection of Bush the Younger by the Supreme Court WAS a coup. The guns were implied, not deployed, but Gore must have known that his life would have been in [more] danger if he had dared to resist the appointment of the son of the man whose name is on the CIA headquarters.
29 June 2009, 3:35 pmStan:
I’m a “white-boy bourgeois,” now, and pro-fascist. Wow. A very manly response, quoting that manly-man Churchill for added manly credibility. Churchill has credibility, and I am a bourgeois fascist. Double-wow.
29 June 2009, 6:48 pmAllen Lynn:
I had orders to Honduras about 20 years ago when I was in the USAF. I decided to get out and go to college. 6 years later I was there in the Peace Corps. The latter made me feel better than the former would have, but I still question the overarching goals of the PC in Honduras. (They’ve been there since it’s inception and have the largest presence of volunteers on Earth.) All I’ve got to say is thank god they don’t have oil in Honduras. That poor country has been getting the shaft from us for so long that they don’t even wince anymore. A friend sent pictures of the ousted president’s supporters demonstrating. You’d get a better turnout at a Molly Hatchet reunion tour. It’s just sad.
29 June 2009, 7:01 pmnelgsiwel:
Violence works— period
How does violence work?
29 June 2009, 11:32 pmnelgsiwel:
I don’t know Stan Goff personally, but I know he stands in front of the world and says, “This is who I am and this is how I believe.” He doesn’t use a pen name or Moniker.
30 June 2009, 12:03 amWho are you L Diablo? If you are brave, reveal yourself to the world as Stan has done.
Ricardo Maduro (hijo):
The reason there are so few protesting supporters is that “Mel”, as he is lovingly known, is an idiot and most Hondurans are rejoicing that he has been deposed. What do I know about any of this? If you are a student of Latin American politics, my name should stand out. I know we don’t like to see coup’s in our backyard, but this one probably needed to happen. Pay attention and notice the leftist communist leanings of many of the countries of this region. Chavez is there to help it along. The arm-chair marxists won’t like me for this. Too bad.
Leave your Democrat bashing at home, and focus on how to fix this country’s problems, as we have many here at home and in this hemisphere.
30 June 2009, 9:40 amm.c.:
Allen, most PC Volunteers I’ve met are smart, compassionate people. But doesn’t the STate Dept. debrief all returning Volunteers? It’s an inexpensive form of intel collecting. STate has its own Intel Dept.(INR) Intel & Research. I bet all the $$$ in the world that many of the senior folks there are ex-cia or dod.
30 June 2009, 12:15 pmJames M:
“If you are brave, reveal yourself”
I was challenged in a similar way not long ago, in the course of a virtual dust-up on this site … it felt, as this quote feels, like there was an element of macho challenge there. As in, “Come out into the yard and show yourself, so we can fight like men!”
I’m pretty sure such things wouldn’t be said if the poster were known to be a woman; she’d probably instead be heckled as being merely hysterical or unreasonable. My point being, this seems like a gender-specific and largely spurious debating tactic.
Granted, there are all kinds of illegitimate reasons for posting online anonymously. But likewise, there are plenty of valid arguments for doing so, in an age where a frightful array of personal details are easily googleable. I’ve learned the hard way of the need to anonymize just a little bit. I think the middle ground might be for posters here to just keep their same names (whatever they may be) consistently, so we’re not having to contend with multiple personalities from one writer. Just a thought; it’s obviously not up to me to set the rules.
Also, I’m a little surprised at how someone writing under a one-word name can miss the irony of daring someone else to “reveal themselves” …
30 June 2009, 2:08 pmStan:
Ricardo, you do not know what you are talking about. I’m generally more diplomatic than that, and I am remembering now why De and I have been stern moderators in the past. People get childish in this medium very quickly, as they are beginning to do lately.
We like substance, not name-callling or posturing.
Hondurans turned out massively to protest, far more massivley than the supporters of the coup. There are plenty of photographs from before the de facto government expelled journalists. I’m kind of a Latin Americanist myself, including having worked as an adviser to the Honduran military and even pulling teeth for chicken dinners in Ojo de Agua. I was also in Guatemala in ‘83 for their last coup. Add Panama, El Salvador, Colombia, Venezuela, Peru, (and Mexico as a civilian). Having long experience working hand-in-hand with militaries in the service of the rich, I would welcome a lot more leftists (as apparently the people of Chile, Argtentina, Brazil, Venezuela, and Bolivia do too — and Mexico, if Calderon hadn’t stolen the election).
The UN unanimously disagrees with you, too, and they are hardly ever unanimous about anything.
When Democrats start caling for the return of Aristide to Haiti, I’ll take them more seriously on these matters. Outside a few members of the Congressional Black Caucus, the Democrats have been utterly silent. There’s no American business stake any more in Haiti. The infrastructure has been destroyed. It’s pure political cowardice (and racism).
The problems we have here are directly related to the problems this government has exported to Latin America and the rest of the world. If you’d read the linked article, you could respond to the specific arguments, which details some of those depredations in Venzuela and Haiti.
As to the boy-shit that James cites, and one example was in my defense, put a lid on it, fellas…. all y’all. Your lucky De is out of town. There are zillions of sites where you can engage in free-for-alls. We’re not wasting the bandwidth here. Kevin and I have been disagreeing, but not name-calling; and I commend Kevin for that.
Discussion and debate are for clarity, not point-scoring.
Starting Thursday, for the record, I will be somewhere on a lake with a fishing pole, my in-laws, and my grand-daughter for about ten days, far far from computers and televisions… De is out of town, as I said, so there may be a backlog on moderation.
Here’s CP’s backgrounder on Honduras by Benjamin Dangl.
30 June 2009, 4:29 pmMichael D:
rather like in Iran, the choice here seems pretty lamentable.
i know jack-all about it, (here to learn), but i smell something fishy in the fact that the repugs favour the new guy, and he has euro (italian, yet!) roots.
(if he has jesuit connections, guessing game over…)
very ugly to see the military figure strongly in any regime change.
have fun on the lake, Stan!
and multi thanks for such a great blog.
2 July 2009, 3:36 amMichael Anderson:
Hopefully the popular demonstrations will stay pacifist….if the Hondouran military is indeed an extension of the U.S. government, I am skeptical.
Hope you come back from your tem days on a lake with some new environmental insights…fishing does that!
4 July 2009, 2:01 pmMelissa:
The entire world has shifted so far to the right, and by that I mean, in general , more for the rich and less for the poor, accompanied (necessarily) by less freedom of speech, more people in jail and privatization of almost everything, that I think we are in dire need of a shift to the left. South America is a beacon of light for the first time in my lifetime. The people of a Capitalist country wouldn’t be hurt by the existence of Socialist countries, only the people who feel the need to have everything for themselves. We can buy oil from a Socialist government as easily as from Exxon. It is only Exxon who would suffer. I buy Citgo gas and haven’t suffered any adverse effects. Our government has become so entwined with huge, multinational corporations that they are not doing what is best for the citizens of the USA. They are doing what is best for their own pocketbooks and the companies that pay them off.
7 July 2009, 1:32 pmMike Craig:
Good Morning Stan, It’s been a long time since we were gigging Lobster at Ft. Sherman and since we were promoted to SFC together. I applaud Your willingness to speak your mind, while I am not leaving the comment to agree or disagree with your ideas, I will say that I have found no “untruths” in nothing that You have said. While I support the troops that are overseas, engaged in fullfilling their orders, I do not support the politics that sent them there, We both served proudly and did what was asked of us and We BOTH have the right to tell it as we see it. With Politics aside, I would like to make contact with you, I hope that you son returns or has returned safe from Iraq. I have been supporting our military, both past and present thru the VFW and have initiated a new org. named Help for Heroes, We build ramps for disabled veterans and their families at no cost to the Veteran, while We are going about our cause by different routes, I am sure that We have the same goals in mind. Take care Brother and tell your daughter that My Son Charlie and myself were just talking about her being his first sweet heart last night.
STAN: Good to hear from you, Mike, and I hope all is well with you and yours. I’ll be in touch offline.
13 July 2009, 8:53 amStan:
Wallerstein:
16 July 2009, 5:18 amMasa:
In response to L.Diablo and his assertion that violence is necessary, I would like to quote John Trudell. He says that to defeat these people violently you have to become meaner than them. Where does that leave you and the rest of the world? It either turns you into a vicious killer or a hapless victim of two insane sides. There is a third way and I would encourage anyone frustrated enough to consider violence to survey past attempts to use violence and where it has gotten us. I’d also like to encourage consideration of the greater leaps and accomplishments of Gandhi and King. They were not pacifist, fascist or violent.
17 July 2009, 7:32 pmAllen:
Or Paulo Freire for that matter, if you want to use literacy as a way out of the rut.
18 July 2009, 9:19 amMax:
Hi,
I would like to add a news to this discussion which never made it into the major news sections but I would really like to see your opinion to this Stan.
[quote]
… the commander of the US military base at Soto Cano is none other than Colonel Richard A. Juergens, who had already supervised the “kidnapping” of Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide according to a similar scenario.
Despite widespread media coverage, this information was rebuffed by the State Department which denied any US interference in the military coup d’état.
As it turns out, the flight path followed by the aircraft involved in President Zelaya’s expulsion was rendered public on August 14, 2009, by Daniel Ortega, the President of Nicaragua. It reveals that the flight took off from the US military base of Soto Cano (formerly known as Palmerola Air Base).
[\quote]
source: http://www.voltairenet.org/article161647.html
Thanks in advance for replies
22 August 2009, 5:00 pmMax
Shamrock Pat:
Max, I find your news quite interesting. Of course I am not Stan. If it is true the US Airbase was last place the Honduran President was before he left the country it means that the Honduran President could have been given sanctuary at the US airbase, if the US had wanted to oppose the coup in an effective manner. Now the US government would defend itself by saying, by not having allowed the President to leave the country we would have been interfering in internal Honduran Politics. But by verbally condemning the coup they have interfered in Honduran politics anyways, only not in an effective manner. The US media did a great job of blurring the issues that lead to Zelaya’s ouster, could that have been achieved without some manipulation of the media, from outside the industry?
I suppose that someone could wonder, is it possible that rouge elements within the US government could have supported the coup without the approval of its leadership? I think that is highly unlikely. Once the leadership figured that out those rouge elements would be in a lot of trouble.
Another obvious thing is that if the US were a Republic rather than an empire, it would not have an airbase in Honduras to start with.
24 August 2009, 2:28 amIreland defeats England again. I just had to figure out some way to say that.
Stan:
I don’t know why they put scare-quotes on the “kidnapping” of Aristide. Aristide was literally kidnapped - against any and all conventions of law - by the United States military, under the direction of the United States Department of State.
I hope someone starts to connect some dots on this - I have neither time nor resources for it - but there are the command-dots right there. The senior US official in any other country is the Ambassador, the President’s direct representative of the Executive Branch of the United States. The Ambassador works for the Department of State; and the Department of States is in charge of everything that any US entity does in foreign countries, that is, DOS is senior to DOD in places like Haiti or Honduras. If there is something going on in these countries, the Ambassador is inevitably in the loop.
S/He works for the Prez, through an institutional intermediary, the Secretary of State.
These are people who have to be studied to understand whatever happened in Honduras.
Historically, there have also been other allegedly non-government actors, like various NGOs (look for the relation with USAID), and clandestine services front-organizations like the National Endowment for Democracy (dems), the International Republican Institute (repubs), and even an AFL-CIO-sponsored front group. Identify their paid contacts inside the “host nations,” then find out what kind of activities the local recipients of their largesse have been involved with.
I find it very difficult not to believe that Clinton and Obama have not made it a strategic political priority to neutralize various dangers around them through capitulation. The war-security-spook apparatus is one of those sectors they are trying to make nice with.
The public is still willing to believe that Obama is secretly a peacemaker. Something like this - in a couple of still hypothetical scenarios - would shatter that illusion.
There’s not always a snake under every rock. But if you want to find snakes, then under rocks is a pretty good place to look.
24 August 2009, 10:14 amHoward Hawhee:
As a contribution to some of the discussion of the role of the Peace Corps above, here is Ivan Illich’s address in 1968 to the Conference on InterAmerican Student Projects.
http://www.bicyclingfish.com/illich.htm
The title of the talk says it all: “To Hell with Good Intentions.”
24 August 2009, 12:28 pmcabdriver:
Just a heads-up on an English-language source that’s been doing a lot of reporting on the Honduras coup- http://www.narconews.com/
That’s the home page, which shows the archive of recent stories- as of today, 8/24/2009 (I think that would be 24/8/2009, by the reckoning of the DoD), that index shows a plethora of Honduras coup stories.
I’ve been reading this site for years- their reportage is very well-written and professional, and often way ahead of the curve. They’ve managed to embarrass the New York Times on more than one occasion.
By comparison, the New York Times has never managed to embarrass Narconews. (Anyone, correct me if I’m wrong about that.)
It’s also worthy of note that Narconews founder Al Giordano is most Left-ward political commentator I know of who retains a measure of confidence in the progressive intentions and leadership abilities of President Obama. I’d like to think he’s right on that score. I’m reserving judgment thus far, although I’m wary, and growing dubious about that. Wearily so.
Parenthetically, in light of his previous post, I’d like to hear if previous commentator Richard Maduro can offer any factual refutation of Narconews’ reporting on the Honduran coup, or a critical perspective on their work. I’m always interested to hear well-argued skepticism, particularly when it goes beyond the rhetorical or merely dismissive, and raises challenges to factual claims.
24 August 2009, 2:37 pmcabdriver:
Stan: “…I find it very difficult not to believe that Clinton and Obama have not made it a strategic political priority to neutralize various dangers around them through capitulation. The war-security-spook apparatus is one of those sectors they are trying to make nice with…”
Now that’s just plain depressing.
24 August 2009, 2:50 pmm.c.:
Has someone mentioned(maybe on Counterpunch) that Clintonista Lanny Davis has been lobbying for the Latin American Business Council of Honduras(CEAL) since the coup?
25 August 2009, 12:02 pmStan:
FULL
23 September 2009, 5:14 amStan:
Here’s the latest from Narconews, as the street protests continue unabated, with absolute silence from the US media about this popular resistance. if the media acknowledge popular resistance, it undermines their narrative about Zelaya being somehow vaguely unreliable. I talked to a young, college-educated woman at work yesterday, and she said, “Didn’t he try to change to constitution to give himself more power, though?”
This is what’s out there, and it is an intentionally vague, carefully crafted outcome by a US media that remains an absolute sycophant to US pronouncements on foreign policy, especially in the Americas. The media didn’t have to craft the message this way, in a way intended to mobilize support for the coup-makers, or at least to excuse them. They did it on purpose, just like they did with Iraq, Afghanistan, Venezuela, Haiti… Brazil, to its everlasting shame, volunteered to be the occupying military force in Haiti after that coup.
I grow more convinced with each passing day that the US apparatus is buried in this whole, awful tale somewhere. Zelaya and Lula have really thrown a monkey wrench into things with this embassy stunt. The anti-hegemonic bloc of the Americas is coalescing around Honduras. The US - or whomever - have just handed them a consolidating issue on a plate.
In the runup to the coup in Haiti, 2004, US reporters were able to see crowds of nearly a million people protesting for the Aristide government, yet they interviewed and showed almost exclusively the Fraphists. Their complicity in the coup was absolute and calculated. Same in Honduras.
Here’s the de facto government of Honduras’ bat boy these days, Lanny Davis, a professional con artist with longstanding ties to the Clintons. From Wiki:
Watch him, and you can discern the outlines of the US position in response to Zelaya’s stink bomb. His association with SecState Hillary Clinton is not merely in the past.
24 September 2009, 5:54 amxavexgoem:
I’m not sure about the media-as-a-witting-tool thingie… Both Jon Stewart and Rachel Maddow (both of whom I generally respect) have been rather insulting towards the entire Honduran crisis. Whereas Iran was covered rather differently.
Stewart, if I recall correctly, kind of did it by insinuation (Zelaya’s cowboy hat, the whole pajama thing); Maddow mocked Zelaya’s over-the-border-from-Nicaragua attempt and quoted Clinton’s condemnation of that event (Clinton, whom Giordano generally despises over this issue). Maddow at least made clear the absurdity of the coup.
And yet both covered the Iranian election heavily, and usually on a positive note towards the people struggling to make their voices heard. Not so in Honduras, unfortunately, despite the huge protests there. And in both cases, Obama et al were/are accused of being too tepid on the issues.
Honestly, I think the reason the established media doesn’t cover Honduras is because they just don’t care; they have treated it superficially since Day 1, without much deep or broad coverage. And personally, I think that’s because the images coming out of Iran were more middle class. “Respectable types,” y’know? Iraqis, Afghanis, Venezuelans, Haitians, Hondurans…?
I dunno… but I don’t see Stewart or Maddow as being particularly beholden to their parent corporations or sponsors, so why don’t they care?
But whatever. If you made it this far, click that link about Clinton. Boy is that one worth it.
24 September 2009, 6:21 amStan:
Ya see!
This health care thing — and I’ve kept my distance so far — is horseshit from beginning to end. It’s a gift to insurance companies, and an unfunded mandate on the poor. In fact, there is a poverty tax implicit in fining those who refuse to buy insurance. This plan deserves to go down in flames, imho. Damn their political careers to hell.
Meanwhile, there is an amplification of this covert shit, Honduras, Pakistan. This administration is being administered by people who are every bit as irresponsible and reckless as Bush II, albeit in different ways (can’t make the same mistakes twice, so we have to make newer, dumber ones).
I share Giordana’s reaction to the Clintons; they represent a pure form of cold, political cynicism. Dr. Faustus & Dr. Faustus. Someone should write a Marlowesque play.
It’s seldom as venally financial as we think at that level, I’m betting; though you gotta have the money to operate, so you gotta keep the money people close. This political culture that replaced the crazed culture of Bush II is more deeply disturbing and unstable than money — it’s the addiction of naked ambition. They are utterly possessed by it.
24 September 2009, 4:14 pmm.c.:
The Health Care/Medical/Insurance Economy is ~$900 billion a year. In a country with 300 million people, that’s roughly $3,000 per person. The powers-that-be won’t give that up without a hard fight.
A little dot connecting:
The Treasury Sec. is a former aide to Bob Rubin, worked for Kissinger and the NY Fed, and protege of Larry Summers.
The Non-Partisan/Objective(?) Congressional Budget Office is currently headed by Douglas Elmendorf. Besides working at the Fed he is also a protege of Summers and Martin Feldstein(they were on his doctoral dissertation committee at harvard), a top economic advisor in the Reagan Administration. You think they return each other’s phone calls…. The more things change the more they stay the same.
25 September 2009, 6:33 pmm.c.:
Look up Michael Froman on wiki. He’s the dep. natl. sec. advisor for economic affairs. A HLS buddy of Obama’s who worked as Rubin’s CoS at Treasury and later introduced Rubin to Obama.
I keep tellin’ folks that D.C.’s a small town where who you know counts 10x what you know….
27 September 2009, 3:10 pmStan:
Here’s one today from Laura Carlson on the de facto Honduran government’s antics with the Brazilian Embassy…
…and this 11 minute youtube video.
28 September 2009, 2:52 pmSean:
That piece from Laura Carlson suggested to me that the de facto Honduran Govt is being bankrolled and supplied by external nations — IMO probably the USA, UK and Israel. I find it unlikely that the Honduran Govt would have such high-tech weaponry/devices without such external help.
28 September 2009, 6:41 pmCurt Kastens:
When I was 12 or 13 years old I read the book Bridge at Andau. It is an account of the 1956 Hungarian Uprising.
29 September 2009, 2:28 amThere was an account in the book which took place near the beginning of the uprising. Hungarian soldiers, or perhaps communist party secret police were ordered to fire on demonstrators. Well they did. Except for one who turned his weapon on the other soldiers or police. That was the first act of mutiny. This Honduran situation seems very similar. It puzzles me how people who are supposed to protect the innocent can be so slow to understand what they are really doing. But I guess that I am being stupid. How many people have read the Bridge at Andau and learned anything useful from it if they have? That book on the 48 rules of manipulation is going on my must reading list.
Kim Sky:
I have not read the book. Did read a book written by the father of a friend of mine called, “The Story of My Little Silver Cross”.
It’s quite the personal account. The betrayal of the west was unimaginable. Because the man survived, eventually made it to the West, admitting to making the brutal choice to abandon a family in the snow just before crossing to the other side, he became a Christian Pastor. Concluding that the small cross his mother gave him was what saved him.
He talked of a young north korean woman student who knew about frying pans, how you toss them near the tank, the tank stops suspecting a bomb and fires, in that moment, the gal runs and places the freedomfighter’s flag (red star cut out of center of national flag) on the tank, then around the corner, the tank is blow apart by its own countrymen.
Otherwise the book is so politically incorrect that it never received large distribution, published in 1986, he begins the book with, “This story is dedicated to my beloved white, Anglo-Saxon, Christian brothers and sisters, who live today, as citizens by birth, of this once-so-great nation, America.”
Anyway, was an excellent first hand account.
Thanx for the suggestion.
29 September 2009, 10:15 amMichael Anderson:
This A.M. from Real News—-Micheletti looks a lot like Cheney (!)—but is probably a “constrained” leader, like Mr. O.
http://therealnews.com/t/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=4296
1 October 2009, 1:04 pmm.c.:
Taylor Branch was on Hardball yesterday with Chris Matthews. He’s Bill Clinton’s court historian(and a unc-ch grad like Alex Castellanos, and Otto Reich, another matter when i’m feeling less-buddha like) Branch could have been hatched out of the same egg as Bob Woodward.
The more I see of the Clintons the more I think they are Republicans at heart. Hillary started out as a Goldwater Girl & of all the big pres. candidates of ‘08 who voted for the Iraq War is the only one not to say she was sorry. Edwards, Biden, and even Chris Dodd apologized….
Bill probably was in it all along for self-gratification and the girls(sending his state trooper detail to hit on girls for him, what a rush!); not to mention he’s probably the most naturally gifted pol since Franklin Roosevelt. Maybe they registered as Dems, because doing a fundraiser in Hollywood/Beverly Hills was a lot more fun than doing a GOP fundraiser in Hot Springs or Galveston.
I just came across Lewis Strauss on Wiki last week. A former banker, he was Chairman of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission from ‘53-’58 and was the driving force in the hearings where Robert Oppenheimer’s security clearance was revoked. He is famously quoted as saying that electricity from atomic energy(probably fission) would be “too cheap to meter.” Nuclear enegy is by far the most expensive way to produce electricity counting construction, insurance, and waste storage, plus public health concerns. This makes Strauss’ comment one of the dumbest of the 20th Century; Does it matter which personality type on myers-briggs he was?
In full disclusure I took the myers-briggs test twice, with different results both times. On one, I was very close to the 50% percentile dividing one group, and on another within 5-10 points from the 50% percentile. So I could have been in two or even four groupings. The test is not useless imo, but it has limits.
2 October 2009, 1:11 pmm.c.:
Stuart Eizenstat is another unc-ch guy.
2 October 2009, 1:14 pm