The View from Right Field

Secret Documents. First Trump. Then Biden and Pence. Who’s Next?

Donald Trump kept confidential/secret documents from when he was president.  Joe Biden kept the same kind of documents from when he was vice president.  And so did Mike Pence.  (Not surprisingly, former President Trump was the most obstreperous about it, but that is true for pretty much everything.)

What I’m wondering is when we’re going to check on Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Dan Quayle, Jimmy Carter, and Walter Mondale.  For that matter, why should the fact that George H.W. Bush, Ronald Reagan, Gerald Ford, Nelson Rockefeller, Richard Nixon, and Spiro Agnew are dead make a difference?  Shouldn’t their papers/libraries/museums be checked, too?  (Well, I don’t suppose former Vice President Agnew has a library or museum.)

Other than obstreperousness and sloppiness, it might be interesting to figure out just how different former President Trump is on this issue.

The Holocaust and “Never Again”. I Wish It Were So, But It Isn’t.

Today is International Holocaust Remembrance Day, except people don’t.  After the Holocaust, the pledge was “Never Again” – except it happens again and again.  

Last Saturday’s Wall Street Journal had an article on “The Communities That Risked Everything to Rescue Jews.”  It was a moving article about countries (Denmark, Albania), islands (Zakynthos, a Greek isle), and communities  (the Frenchtown of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon) who protected their Jews. 

But how many people are risking much of anything to protect others today.  Consider Rwanda in 1994.  Think of the “bug out” of Kabul in 2021.  And why did it take the U.S. and Germany so long to finally send tanks to Ukraine, where Vladimir Putin has been deliberately attacking civilians with rockets for months?  Some of those are not genocides (“genocide” is a word too easily thrown around today), but there are still innocent lives being lost that we could be doing something about.

But perhaps the most depressing thing on this Holocaust Remembrance Day may be the fact that the one thing uniting more and more of the far right and far left is hatred of Jews.

Tanks for Ukraine and a “Conversation” Between Biden and Scholz

We have a problem in Ukraine.  Things were going great, but now they’re getting tougher for Ukraine.  There is only so much that Ukrainian grit and Russian incompetence can accomplish.  Also, while we can continue to rely on Ukrainian skill and bravery, we cannot assume Russia will always be stupid.

To shift the odds back in Ukraine’s favor, we need to ship more weapons to Ukraine, especially offensive weapons.  And even more especially tanks.  Nobody (except, of  course, countries like Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia, who understand what Russia can do, because it has done it to them) has wanted to send tanks to Ukraine.  But that is changing.  The UK is sending some Challenger tanks.  The United States says Abrams tanks are too complicated for the Ukrainians to use and maintain, etc.  Germany doesn’t want to send its Leopard 2 tanks either.  While Germany has never wanted to send tanks (they claim they don’t want to escalate the war.  Huh?  Russia invaded eleven months ago and is now sending mass rocket attacks at Ukrainian civilians,  And it would be the Germans who would be escalating?), they are now using the argument that they won’t send tanks unless the United States will, too.

The Great January 6 “What-If”

The House of Representatives’ January 6 Committee¹ has issued its report.  I’m not going to go into its conclusions.  What Donald Trump did on January 6, and what he did not do that he should have done,  was appalling, but then I knew that on January 6.  As I have said before,² the only question after January 6 was: what was the best way to make sure then-President, now former President, Trump went away and never came back again.  But that is not the question for this post. 

Rather, the “what-if” question for this post is this: What if the Capitol had had better security on January 6?  What if there had been enough police officers, and national guard personnel, etc., so that the protestors, aka rioters (aka insurrectionists or whatever you want to call them), had not been able to break into the U.S. Capitol building that day?  In one way, things would have been the same.  Then-President Trump would have still tried to convince Mike Pence to put off the counting of the electoral votes (or whatever other cockamamie scheme then-President Trump was pushing).  Some idiot Republicans would have objected to the counting of the electoral votes.³  And Vice President Pence would have told them all to, in effect, “pound sand.” 

Another Favorite Christmas Memory: Bob Hope Entertaining the Troops

Following up on last week’s post about our family Christmas in Berlin in 2010, I wanted to list one of my favorite non-family Christmas memories.  And it’s appropriate to mention it this year because this is the 50th anniversary of what was just about the last Bob Hope Christmas tour to entertain the troops. Bob started entertaining the troops during World War II (actually, before)  His last tour was in 1990, to Saudi Arabia and Bahrain for the Gulf War.  But the ones I remember most were the shows during Vietnam.  He would go at Christmas time and then the Bob Hope Christmas Special would be on TV in January.  It was a “must watch” for me. 

I think the one I remember the most was 1972, his ninth, and last, trip to Vietnam.  Back in the 2000s (i.e., the decade, not century or millennium), I bought a set of DVDs, “Salute to the Troops: Bob Hope: The Vietnam Years,” which included Bob Hope’s monologues from all of his trips to Vietnam, from 1964 through 1972.  It’s great.  I also tape recorded (audio, obviously) a part of his 1972 Christmas Special (which aired in January 1973).  I listen to it every year as I put the lights on our Christmas tree.  It’s one of my personal Christmas traditions.

A Christmas to Remember: Berlin, 2010

I recently listened to a podcast that asked the participants for one of their best Christmas memories, which got me thinking.  I have a lot wonderful Christmas memories.  For many years, it was mostly the five of us, my mother, Jennie, Ross, Susan, and me, and they were great.  Then, after my mother passed away, the four of us did some traveling over Christmas: Guadeloupe, Peru, and maybe the best: Berlin in 2010.

We went to Germany in December, 2010, to see the Christmas markets – and Germany in the snow.  And there was a lot of snow in 2010.  We decided to stay until December 26, so we could celebrate Christmas in Berlin. 

On Christmas Eve, we ended our sightseeing early and went back to the hotel for our own Christmas celebration.  Susan bought gifts for everybody at KaDeWe.  I bought what I call “Kindereier” at Kaiser’s, a food store¹ (and brought baseball cards with me – because you always give baseball cards for Christmas).

“The Road Less Traveled” by Philip Zelikow: A Great History with Mindboggling What-Ifs

Here is a gift for almost anybody on your Christmas list: The Road Less Traveled: The Secret Battle to End the Great War, 1916-17, by Philip Zelikow.^1,2  This is a fascinating book on several levels.  First, it is a great history of the efforts and discussions among the Germans, British, French, and Americans on the Great War and how it might be ended in 1916 or early 1917.  As you read Professor Zelikow’s account, you see an end to the war just beyond the reach of the parties.  Each party wants the war to end, but they can never seem to get there at the same time.  Even knowing that the efforts will fail, the book grips the reader and pulls them along.

Second, the book is, in a way, a story of alternate history.  As we see the possibility of an end to the Great War in 1916 or early 1917, we can’t help but think: Would such a peace have been so bitter for Germany as the Treaty of Versailles?  If the war had ended before the Tsar was overthrown, what would have happened in Russia: might the Tsar might have stayed in power; might Kerensky have succeeded?  Perhaps most importantly, the likelihood of a successful Bolshevik revolution would have been small.  The idea of a world with neither Hitler nor Stalin is amazing.  And there are all those people who would not have died.

Queen Elizabeth II, RIP – and Duty

There will be articles about Queen Elizabeth II everywhere and by just about everybody.  I just had one comment about her; the thing that was, to me, most impressive about her: Her sense of duty and her performance of it. 

Queen Elizabeth II was born into a family and, upon the abdication of her uncle, into a job she never chose.  She didn’t ask to become queen.  She didn’t run for election to become queen.  It was just her duty because of who she was.  And she did not complain.  She just did her duty – and she did a magnificent job of it.

Any of us would be proud if, after we pass away, we are deemed to have done the duties in our lives even one-tenth as well as she did hers in her life.

The Great Georgia 2021 Senate “What If?”

November of 2020, there were 50 Republican senators and 48 Democrats.  But there were two races in Georgia where there had to be run-off elections because no candidate had gotten 50%+1 of the votes cast on election day (as required by Georgia law).  In both races, the Republican candidate got more votes than the Democratic candidate on election day, but the Republican had not gotten 50%+1.  So there were going to be two run-off elections on January 5, 2021.  The Democrats won run-offs, thus giving the Democrats a 50-50 “majority” in the Senate because of Vice President Kamala Harris.

But what if Donald Trump, instead of going down to Georgia in December of 2020 in a snit and complaining he had been cheated out of the election and saying there was no way any Republican would be allowed to win anywhere, even in Georgia¹; what if President Trump had gone to Georgia in December of 2020 and tried to rally Republicans to vote for the Republican Senate candidates, telling his supporters that they needed to get out and vote so we could keep the Democrats from controlling the Senate?²  And what if, therefore, even one of the Republicans had won?  The Republicans would have controlled the Senate.  But what more might have happened?

Ukraine and the Brittleness of Autocracy, the Suddenness of Change

On January 24, I wrote a post I titled “Illinois in 2021 Reminds Us of the Suddenness of Change and the Brittleness of Autocracy.”  The post had two main points.  The first was: “[T]he suddenness of change: the unexpected never happens – until it does.  Things seem like they will never change – until they do.”  The second was: “Authoritarian regimes are often a lot more brittle than they seem.  They look strong, and they look like they are going to last for a long time.  Until all of a sudden, something happens.”

With respect to the second point, I talked about East Germany and Czechoslovakia in 1989.  I could have also talked about Argentina in 1982.  On April 2, 1982, the Argentine dictatorship under General Galtiera invaded and seized the Falklands from the United Kingdom.  I doubt they understood their opponent in British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.  On April 5, a British task force set sail.  On May 1, British forces landed in the Falklands (8,000 miles from Britain).  On June 14, Argentine forces surrendered.  In Argentina, the Galtiera dictatorship collapsed, and a democratic government was elected in 1983.  In other words, the brittleness of authoritarian regimes and the suddenness of change. 

Former National Security Adviser Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster (ret.) talked about the former on “Face the Nation” today (see beginning at 3:10):