The View from Right Field

What I Learned from Ernie Banks

The title of this post may be a bit inaccurate because I didn’t really learn this from Ernie Banks while he was alive.  Rather, it was something that one of the people said at Ernie’s funeral; something that, thinking back on times I met Ernie, I realized was so true.

The point is this:  Ernie didn’t talk about himself.  Whenever you met Ernie, he would be the one asking you questions.  He wouldn’t talk about what he did; he would get you to talk about you did.  He wanted to know about you, not talk about himself.  The amazing thing about a conversation with Ernie Banks was how much you talked and how little he talked.

@Cubs Fans and the @WorldSeries: Richard Nixon Would Have Understood.

What with spring training having started, and Opening Day barely a month away, this seems like an appropriate post.

I recently watched a panel discussion, “Nixon’s Grand Strategy,” organized by the Nixon Foundation.  Among the panelists were Richard Allen, Winston Lord, and Niall Ferguson.  The discussion was pretty depressing, given the contrast between the 37th president and our current president, not to mention some of the current president’s predecessors, but it is definitely worth watching.

Gender Identity Rules. The Problem is That “I’ve Got a Pen, and I’ve Got a Phone” Goes Both Ways.

The left is up at arms over the Trump administration’s decision to withdraw President Obama’s administrative guidance requiring local school districts to let kids use the bathrooms, locker rooms, etc., corresponding to their gender identity, as opposed to their actual physical gender.  Of course, the left has only itself, and the Obama administration, to blame for the ability of the Trump administration to get rid of these so-called rules so easily.

The Trump administration couldn’t have done this if President Obama had gotten Congress to pass a law on the subject.  Or if it had even followed the federal Administrative Procedure Act and adopted formal regulations.  It would have taken more time and been more work, but if the Obama administration had done it that way, the Trump Administration would not have been able to drop the rules with the stroke of a pen.

The problem with President Obama’s “I’ve got a pen, and I’ve got a phone”-strategy is that his successor has a pen and a phone, too.

Could the Vietnam War Have Made a Difference? Consider South Korea and Taiwan.

We returned from a trip to Southeast Asia earlier this month.  Vietnam was on the itinerary, and things seem to be going well in Vietnam from an economic point of view.  According to The Economist, Vietnam has moved into the ranks of “middle income” countries.  There has been quite a change in Vietnam since 1995 when relations with the U.S. were normalized.  Given everything that has happened, people may wonder if the Vietnam War really made a difference.  The U.S. and Vietnam have reasonably close relations.  (We’re pretty much on the same side vis-à-vis China in the South China Sea.)  Vietnam’s economy is growing.  Maybe it really didn’t matter how the war ended.  Especially since the South Vietnamese government back then was a corrupt dictatorship.

But is that true?  Consider another way of looking at things.  Maybe it’s not so much where South Vietnam was, and what kind of government it had, in 1972 that is the question.  Maybe it’s where South Vietnam would be today if it had survived – and succeeded in its fight against the North Vietnamese.

Lt. Gen. H. R. McMaster: An Excellent Appointment as National Security Adviser

Let me cut to the chase:  Donald Trump’s appointment of Army Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster as his National Security Adviser is a great choice.  First, Lt. Gen. McMaster understands the problems caused by the United States’ foreign policy retreats under President Obama, both for the United States and its allies, and the need for the United States to take a more forward position in the world.  Let me quote from Lt. Gen. McMaster’s review of The Unquiet Frontier: Rising Rivals, Vulnerable Allies, and the Crisis of American Power, by Jakub J. Grygiel and A. Wess Mitchell, in The Wall Street Journal in March of last year:

“‘The Unquiet Frontier’” paints a gloomy picture – the specter of large-scale conflict and the unraveling of alliance networks that have offered a critical strategic advantage to the U.S. – but the authors close with specific recommendations to officials in Washington.  These include diplomatic policies that prioritize allies, a forward military presence, shared intelligence and helping countries at the outer reaches of American power develop strong defensive capabilities.

The Mess in Illinois. The Beat Goes On.

Almost a year ago, I suggested that the budget stalemate in Illinois would continue until after the election last November and that we wouldn’t get a budget until January.  It looks like I was wrong in at least two ways.  There was a temporary little half-budget, a six-month thing, passed in June.  But that is over now, and we are back where we were.  And that budget I anticipated for January doesn’t look close

Governor Bruce Rauner won’t agree to a tax increase, which is needed to balance the budget and pay the bills, without at least some of the changes he wants to things like workers comp and other laws that he says would improve the climate for businesses in Illinois.  In effect, he thinks it is better to continue the mess we are in now than to increase taxes without making at least some of the changes he has suggested.

Donald Trump on the Israelis and Palestinians

Among Donald Trump’s foreign policy shockers, this week, was his statement that he doesn’t necessarily support a two-state solution to the Israeli/Palestinian problem.  Instead, he said he supports whatever the two sides agree to:

“I can live with either one.  I thought for a while the two-state looked like it may be the easier of the two but honestly, if Bibi [i.e., Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu] and if the Palestinians -- if Israel and the Palestinians are happy, I'm happy with the one they like the best.”

This was a shock to the foreign policy establishment.  Europe, the United States.  Everybody has supported a two-state solution.  President Trump’s statement was seen as allowing the Israelis to do whatever they want.

Donald Trump on Vladimir Putin and the United States

I’m back, and happy Lincoln’s Birthday.  Before the important things start (i.e., pitchers and catchers report, let me make a comment on other things.  We were in Southeast Asia during the inaugural festivities.  (Lucky us.)  Given that the main US news choice on TV over there was CNN, we got lots of coverage of the anti-Trump protests.  You almost had the feeling that, if the protesters had been as active last fall, they wouldn’t have had to be protesting in January.  On the other hand, most of the protests, at least the biggest ones, seemed to be in states that Hillary Clinton won, so maybe it wouldn’t have made a difference.

Donald Trump said, and did, so many things while we were gone, it is hard to pick one to comment on, but I feel obligated to talk about what he said about the United States and Russia.  I am picking this one because, if Barack Obama had said it, Republicans would have gone crazy.  In fact, what some people saw as President Obama’s apologizing-for-the-US-too-often foreign policy, was something many Republicans disliked most about President Obama.  And yet, President Obama never said anything like what President Trump said in response to Bill O’Reilly’s statement that Vladimir Putin was “a killer”: “There are a lot of killers.  Do you think our country is so innocent?”