Earlier “today,”* Bradroquette linked to this classic Suskind piece on Dear Leader. I’d forgotten how good it was.
Specifically, I’d forgotten one of the better anecdotes:
In the Oval Office in December 2002, the president met with a few ranking senators and members of the House, both Republicans and Democrats. In those days, there were high hopes that the United States-sponsored ”road map” for the Israelis and Palestinians would be a pathway to peace, and the discussion that wintry day was, in part, about countries providing peacekeeping forces in the region. The problem, everyone agreed, was that a number of European countries, like France and Germany, had armies that were not trusted by either the Israelis or Palestinians. One congressman — the Hungarian-born Tom Lantos, a Democrat from California and the only Holocaust survivor in Congress — mentioned that the Scandinavian countries were viewed more positively. Lantos went on to describe for the president how the Swedish Army might be an ideal candidate to anchor a small peacekeeping force on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Sweden has a well-trained force of about 25,000. The president looked at him appraisingly, several people in the room recall.”I don’t know why you’re talking about Sweden,” Bush said. ”They’re the neutral one. They don’t have an army.”
Lantos paused, a little shocked, and offered a gentlemanly reply: ”Mr. President, you may have thought that I said Switzerland. They’re the ones that are historically neutral, without an army.” Then Lantos mentioned, in a gracious aside, that the Swiss do have a tough national guard to protect the country in the event of invasion.
Bush held to his view. ”No, no, it’s Sweden that has no army.”
The room went silent, until someone changed the subject.
This is typically stupid in the petulant, bullheaded sort of way that is common with spoiled brats. But then everyone knows that Bush, like Reagan before him, is a recalcitrant moron. What, however, I wanted to add is that such stupid certitude isn’t confined to the obvious cretins of Wingnuttia: it’s also a trait of those who are (wrongly) regarded by consensus as Real Men of Genius.
Here’s Hitchens in 1980, back when he was a human being:
[Seymour] Hersh, though, does tell a story at Kissinger’s expense, but I doubt that the Doctor will find it all that amusing. In September 1970, at about the time when he was urging that the Sixth Fleet be used to plaster the Palestinians (and just imagine how much nearer that would have brought a peace agreement), Kissinger charged into the office of H.R. Haldeman. He bore with him a folder of the now-traditional aerial-reconnaissance photographs which depicted various structures on the island of Cuba. “It’s a Cuban seaport, Haldeman, and these pictures show the Cubans are building soccer fields… These soccer fields could mean war, Bob.” Haldeman inquired for more details of the doctor’s signs and portents. “Cubans play baseball. Russians play soccer.” From this meeting, Kissinger cranked up the United States to a condition approaching full alert, until even Nixon realized that it was a false alarm. Unrepentant in his memoirs, Kissinger himself says that “in my eyes this stamped it indelibly as a Russian base, since as an old soccer fan I knew the Cubans played no soccer.” They do, of course, very enthusiastically. The World Cup is a big event in Cuba, and any visitor can testify to the popularity of the game. I’m retelling the story at such length because it illustrates several things about Kissinger that often escape comment. First, his singular faith in his own judgement, and his peremptory way with subordinates. Second, his love of crisis and drama — one might say his need for these things. Third, his ingratiating pseudodemotic style (“as an old soccer fan,” forsooth). Finally, his ignorance. Cuba, it seems, joins that roster of less imposing cultures, a nearby country of which he knows nothing.
Morons.
Also, Colin Powell.
*Not a Groganism, but a lame-jokey reference to the effects of Sadly, No!’s Euro timestamp.
