Original Article: http://dartreview.com/archives/2004/10/19/albright_leftist_cirque_du_soleil.php
Tuesday, October 19, 2004
Pontificators hoping for a sentence in future history books love to decry the current 'political atmosphere' as ruinously polarized, particularly when their guy is down in the polls. Perhaps they long for the days when polarization was more fun, for instance, during the Clinton administration. Ah, the postmodern hearings, the darling impeachment, the Op-Eds dripping with R. Emmett Tyrrell's spittle. Those were the days, when stocks were high and our biggest concern was some trollop in a beret.
Actually, no. It turns out that that decade was laced with unobtrusive significance, the genesis of the War on Terror. Madeleine Albright, sixty-fourth Secretary of State, was there at the inception, and on Sunday, October 11th, she spoke to Dartmouth.
During her service, al Qaeda bombed two U.S. embassies and the U.S.S. Cole. The second Intifada began, and Congress passed the Iraq Liberation Act. These episodes have gained special significance during the current administration. Thus, one would expect that the former Secretary of State is familiar with the expository events of the narrative that has become today's global struggle.
Albright was at Dartmouth to provide a second opinion (to John Kerry's first) as to what a Democratic president would do for the war. Their views seem similar. After all, Albright mentioned "interdependence" one too many times, and the august senator from Massachusetts won't shut up about the UN and his uncanny talents in wooing the slimy Continentals.
If an event's allotted space directly correlates to the importance of the speaker, evidently Tom DeLuca, hypnotist extraordinaire of freshman orientation, dwarfs Albright. Hinman Forum was a poor venue for such an event.
Hundreds of students stood with hardly a view. A few sat. Many more beetled out over the railings of the floors above, craning for a glimpse of the stage. Apparatchiks sporting Kerry-Edwards badges and suits intermittently stepped to the podium, looking befuddled as they gazed out over the masses yearning to relive the Clinton administration.
Perhaps the planners decided that most youth lack their own refined taste for statecraft. Perhaps Albright expressed self-esteem issues. Whatever the reason for the low turnout expectations, even Albright mouthed "wow" as she first surveyed the throng.
Oh, College students. How do you talk politics with these inscrutable savages? One way is pop culture analogies. Neoconservative thinker Irving Kristol might be compared to, for example, 'hip-hop' thinker Fifty Cents. Albright chose a disturbingly mediocre George Clooney movie as a metaphor for the world entire.
Calling the current state of world affairs "The Perfect Storm," she proclaimed that America needed a new "captain." It's not fair to dwell on the nautical insanity of that statement, but before abandoning that thought, entertain the image of her jotting down that idea after watching an in-flight Clooney movie.
Additional condescension abounded. A highlight came when she prefaced a statement about the politicization of foreign policy by implying that the audience was not familiar with some event called the "Cold War," which was apparently a big deal in olden times.
Her oration continued in a Kerry-like vein; she catalogued Bush's iniquities as evidence for change. Non-violent elections in Afghanistan, for example, pleased her, but not their postponement, the Afghan warlords, lingering Taliban, or opium. The Roadmap for Peace, she asserted, has done little for the Israeli peace process; in fact, the roadmap had not even been "taken out of the glove compartment," though it did give her another opening for another trademark metaphoric zinger.
The administration, she claimed, pays little attention to the Darfur genocide. There was no connection between 9/11 and Iraq. Excessive unilateralism. Insufficient complexity of thought. Lack of finesse.
In short, she did not mention anything about Bush's performance that the average fourth grader couldn't have easily found on johnkerry.com. Far more revealing, with reference both to Clinton's policies and Kerry's intended policies, were her prescriptions in foreign affairs and her self-assessment.
The former Secretary disclosed that she had wrestled with whether she was a "pragmatic idealist" or an "idealistic pragmatist"—an intriguing puzzler for future generations to hash out, certainly. But by evening's end, her riddle was eclipsed by such questions as the location of Iraqi W.M.D.s In 1998, she said she thought there were W.M.D.s in Iraq "by deduction" because the inspectors could not account for all the weapons.
Why then her opposition to the Iraq War? Albright asserted that the threat was not imminent and the war was one "of choice," not of necessity. She then took the ostensibly reasonable position with respect to post-war Iraq, saying that it simply must be won, whatever that means. Like Kerry, Albright wishes to appear resolute without having to stand resolved.
With respect to Iraq and Afghanistan, she presented arguments strikingly similar to Kerry's. However, she soon departed, claiming that attacking countries without nuclear weapons only encourages countries to develop nuclear weapons. In fact, this argument is so flimsy I can only imagine that either the assertion had rolled spontaneously off of her tongue or that the Kerry camp has been deliberately planting red herring arguments about North Korea.
Her treatment of genocide was stranger still. I believe she genuinely cares
about Darfur, and she referred to the Clinton administration's non-intervention in Rwanda as a great mistake for which they had apologized. Yet, despite that apparent exercise in humility, she could not resist labeling Rwanda as an "exploding" genocide and Darfur as drawn out. In other words: I feel bad about what happened, but I certainly had nothing to do with it.
The moment that most transparently elucidated her worldview came when an audience member asked her to expound on her visit to North Korea, the country she had called the most dangerous in the world. By her account, she had had a grand time. Intelligence had told her that Kim Jong-il, the Communist dictator of that nation, was "crazy" and "a pervert." She countered saying that he was "a pervert" but not "crazy." Why? She found she could have a "rational conversation" with him.
Yes, and Hitler is a best-selling author. She had set her expectations low enough to find herself ecstatic when they were exceeded. Never mind that this madman has slaughtered his people.
But the highlight of her trip came when the Dear Leader himself allowed the delighted Secretary to gaze upon a large event in which 100,000 people danced in step. She expressed dismay that some had criticized her for praising a Communist event, but she replied that she had never seen 100,000 people dance in step, and maybe "it takes a dictator to do that." More applause.
I've never seen people eat each other during a state-sponsored famine. I guess it takes a dictator to accomplish something like that, but aren't you grateful, Mrs. Albright, that you had such a unique opportunity?
She thinks a state-controlled Communist rally is a kind of a left-of-center Cirque du Soleil. Referencing opposition to Hugo Chavez's creeping socialism, she proclaimed that we get too "stuck on the individuals." Right. It might be an overstatement to say that this election pits two competing views of humanity and evil against each other, but if Senator Kerry swallows half of Madeleine Albright's inanities, then it's an overstatement I'm willing to make.