The View from Right Field

Baseball Time Is Here Again: The #Cubs in 2018

Apologies to Steve Goodman, but baseball time is starting – in less than two hours. And it is time for my annual list of things to worry about, Cubs-wise.  (The things to worry about non-Cubs-wise are so many, it’s not worth worrying about them anymore.)

First off, this headline in Paul Sullivan’s article in today’s Chicago Tribune (print edition): “Next stop: October.”  Not good.  You never assume anything in baseball, especially the postseason and doubly especially on the north side of Chicago.  If we were surprised to make the postseason in 2015, which we were (as we were in 2003, 1998, 1989, etc., etc.), why couldn’t we be surprised the other way this year.  A couple of injuries (say, Contreras and Lester), a bullpen implosion (you can never tell about bullpens), and one or two young guys not living up to potential (not an unusual occurrence), and even the Bryzzo Souvenir Company won’t be able to save us.

John Bolton: National Security Advisor

I like Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, and I was happy when Donald Trump appointed him National Security Advisor.  I was, therefore, disappointed when he was fired and replaced by John Bolton.  My initial reaction to Mr. Bolton’s appointment was not positive, but I think I may have been wrong.  Mr. Bolton served in the Reagan administration and both Bush administrations.  My recollection of his time at the United Nations under George W. Bush was that he did a pretty decent job.  He had his views, but he was a team player, and he was effective.  (You don’t get as many jobs as he has had if you’re always going off on your own.)

And then, I read this by John Hayward at “Power Line”:

The Return of One-Man Rule: Increasing Risk in China

In my prior post, I talked about the tendency in foreign affairs to assume that things will continue as they have been.  I looked at Russia and the risks that may come from Russia as it declines.

The country, however, that could be an even greater risk is one that seems the very opposite of instability right now: China.  While The Economist saw Russia as a declining power, it said “China is clearly a rising one that has time on its side”.  Such a view fits with President Xi’s reelection last year and his changes to both the Chinese constitution and the party/governmental structure this year.  It certainly seems that President Xi is in control and that China has the time – and stability – to play the long game.  Once again, I wonder,

When Stability Is Most Expected, Change Often Intrudes: Russia

There is a tendency in foreign affairs, as in life generally,¹ to assume that things will continue as they are.  Of course, this is not true, but people still get surprised when things change.  Examples of this are too numerous to mention, though I feel obligated to list a couple.  In December 1944, nobody expected a German offensive on the Western front.  Voila, the Battle of the Bulge.  The same could be said for the Tet Offensive in Vietnam in 1968, except for the fact that, when the Battle of the Bulge was over, we understood it was a German defeat.

A more recent example is the January 1989 statement by Erich Honecker, leader of East Germany, that the Berlin Wall would be around for another 50, or even 100, years.  Oops.

Another Donald Trump Foreign Policy Outrage?

It’s hard to keep up with the latest outrages in Washington.  For a while, earlier this week, it was Donald Trump’s call to Vladimir Putin to “congratulate” him on his reelection – even though President Trump’s national security advisers specifically told him not to congratulate President Putin.  And that President Trump had not, during the call, condemned the recent attempted murder of a former Russian spy in England – even though his advisers had suggested he do that.  The Washington Post went crazy, as did John McCain.  I was thinking of doing the same myself, but then I thought: why.

Senator Bob Corker, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, probably got it closer to right when he said, about the congratulatory call, “I wouldn’t read too much into it.”  Leaders of other countries haven’t done what President Trump did, in terms of congratulating President Putin.  But then some of them haven’t been following up their words, or lack of words (in this case), with real actions on other matters.  They aren’t spending on defense what they have agreed, in NATO, to spend.  Germany, for example, is spending way less than NATO’s 2% target and is committed to another Russian pipeline to potentially increase its dependence on Russian gas – and increase the amount of money Vladimir Putin gets from energy sales.  Obviously, President Trump shouldn’t have done what he did, but what is Vladimir Putin going to pay more attention to: words of congratulation or actual military spending?

The Thomas Jefferson Standard for Judging Leaders

Thomas Jefferson is famous, among so many things, for what he had inscribed on his gravestone.  Mr. Jefferson had been Governor of Virginia during the Revolutionary War, Secretary of State, Vice President, and of course President from 1801 to 1809.  Any of these alone would be career achievements for other people.  And yet, Thomas Jefferson did not put any of them on his tombstone.  Rather, he directed that his gravestone read as follows:

“Here was buried
Thomas Jefferson
Author of the Declaration of American Independence
Of the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom
And Father of the University of Virginia”

Illinois and Cuba: Maybe Not All That Different

I probably got a little carried away with my post earlier today about the upcoming Illinois primary election.  Perhaps a better comment is in Yoani Sanchez’s post of February 28, “The Arrival of the Potato and the President, in Priority Order,” in her blog Generation Y about life in Cuba:

“An agitation has been running through the neighborhood since the previous afternoon, when the neighbors spotted a potato truck while it was unloading at the market on the corner. …

All life seems to revolve around a tuber that for months has disappeared from the state market stalls, where now sales are limited to just five pounds per person.

Illinois Is an Absolute Joke

The primary election in Illinois is next Tuesday.  On Wednesday, an Illinois appeals court restored to the ballot a candidate in Democratic Party primary for Cook County Assessor.  She had been previously kicked off the ballot by board of election officials for the kind of broad accusations and technical minutia that seem to run election laws around here.

While the candidate’s name was on the ballot (the elections board didn’t get her kicked off until after the ballots were printed), when I early voted Wednesday morning, there was a sign that she was not a valid candidate and votes for her would not count.  I assume the sign was gone by Wednesday afternoon.  Of course, by Wednesday close to 100,000 people had early voted – without her name effectively on the ballot.

The Weakness of Donald Trump

While I was on break, Donald Trump engaged in one of his periodic Twitter assaults on Attorney Jeff Sessions.  President Trump did not like the fact that Attorney General Sessions was having the Department of Justice’s Inspector General investigate the question of possible abuse by the FBI and Justice Department of government surveillance powers, as opposed to having regular DOJ attorneys handle the investigation.  And he ripped the Attorney General a new one in the process.

Looking at the President’s tweet, and the Attorney General’s response, I wondered if President Trump realized how these tweets make him look in other countries.  In Europe, Japan, South Korea/Taiwan, Australasia, etc., they have to be confused and unbelieving.  But that is getting to be common with President Trump, so perhaps it’s not a big deal vis-à-vis them.

The Real Issue: Standing Up to Russia

While the media are focusing on Rex Tillerson’s firing, the special election in Pennsylvania, and students protesting for more restrictions on guns, a bigger story is not getting the attention it deserves: The attempted murder last week of a former Russian spy, and his daughter, in England with a military-grade nerve agent.

In the past, former Russia/Soviet spies have been murdered with poison (in their tea, with the tip of an umbrella), but this involved a chemical weapon that could have, and actually did, harm other people, too.  In addition to the former spy and his daughter, an English police officer who was one of first on the scene is in hospital, too.