It's rare that any good news emanates from Washington, but I was gratified
to see a tearful Bob Packwood resign. The pathetic scumbag should have been
tarred, feathered and ridden out of town on a rail decades ago. Anyway, one
down, and 99 to go in the Senate. My dream is that Dole will be next.
An Evening with Bob McNamara
You've undoubtedly read reviews of Robert Strange McNamara's new book,
###. I recently had the opportunity to attend a speech given by him at the
Aspen Institute, where he's a director. The Institute served a useful and,
indeed, almost unique purpose in its youth, but has since degenerated into a
constipated mouthpiece, an unimaginative running dog of the Establishment.
Almost without exception its speakers are government officials, current,
past, or prospective.
In any event, McNamara told what he expected to happen globally over the
next few decades. The U.S. will remain powerful, but will become relatively
less important. China, India, and other Third World countries would flex
their muscles. Ecology will become more of a concern. Etc. Etc. All
commonsensical notions I agree with; no cosmic breakthroughs. His main
concern was insuring that the governments of the world live together
peaceably using the facilities of the United Nations, an organization he
supports strongly.
McNamara was personally quite impressive. Although nearly 80, he's still
tall, healthy-looking, very alert, and highly intelligent. After his speech,
acknowledged by polite applause, he fielded questions by allowing individuals
to approach one of two microphones and fire away. This would seem to be a
high-risk process, since any audience would have a high portion of Vietnam
vets and those anxious to accuse him of being a baby killer. Even more so
now that he admits in his book that he knew the war was both wrong and a
losing proposition at the time, but continued to both lie and pursue it
regardless.
Needless to say, he was confronted with many pointed and hostile, although
politely delivered, questions. He fielded them skillfully, asking the
audiences forgiveness for having sinned, and appearing to do some sincere
soul-searching as to what would have been best during that troubled time.
His willingness to take an open mike was disarming, but not actually that
risky since he'd undoubtedly heard every conceivable accusation and question
a thousand times.
As intelligent as he is, the man is devoid of wisdom. All the "solutions"
he posed were premised on what "we" (meaning the U.S. Government) ought to
do. It never occurs to him that political power "organized,
institutionalized coercion" is exactly the cause of almost every major
problem the world faces today. Giving more power to bright political hacks
like McNamara so they can figure out what us commoners should do is the
problem, not the solution. The UN, the IMF, the World Bank, NATO, the U.S.
Government, and other apples of his eye shouldn't be strengthened and
"improved", they should be abolished. The people that work for and about them
should go out and get a life. They should not be lauded as if they were a
cross between Albert Einstein and Mother Teresa.
This polished bureaucrat, first among the supposed "best and brightest",
leader of the "Whiz Kids", swayed much of the audience. But your editor
withheld his applause easily, and barely withheld his catcalls. It's
incredible to me that this man, whose entire life is a string of abject
megadisasters (the Edsel when he was at Ford, the Vietnam War, and then the
World Bank) should still be able to mount a speaking platform. The man is
cut from the same cloth as Freddy Kruger, Jason, and Richard Nixon - he's
impossible to kill, and keeps coming back like a bad nightmare. If justice
was held in as high esteem as political connections and celebrity, McNamara
would have been hung by his heels from a lamp post years ago.
Did your editor evidence any of these emotions at the microphone? As you
know, I often take the opportunity to ruin the day of political figures I
encounter in public (William Bennett, Bud McFarlane, and Dick Cheney come to
mind). I feel it's a moral imperative for any right-thinking citizen to
expose criminality whenever possible. But I don't like to do it from an
inferior position, as a member of the peanut gallery. So I held my peace,
and watched this master manipulator play the audience like a cheap fiddle.
Under the circumstances my only real disappointment was that no
entrepreneurs thought of setting up a stand to sell rotten fruit, which I
believe would have been far more appropriate than polite applause for Mr.
McNamara.