The View from Right Field

We Don’t Just Need New Leaders in Washington. We Need a New Generation of Leaders.

Back in November, I wrote a post I titled “Other Countries Can Get Competent Leaders. Why Can’t We?”  I wrote after listening to an interview with Sir John Key, former Prime Minister of New Zealand, on “Walking the path to the next global financial crisis.”  His comments were on point and he explained things so well, I was depressed looking at our president and his predecessor.

Then on Wednesday, I watched an interview with Kaja Kallas, the Prime Minister of Estonia:

Happy Birthday, Mr. Cub

From all your fans, past, present, and future.

Covid Vaccine Mandates: Let’s Not Do More Harm Than the Good We Can Actually Achieve

When the Covid vaccines first came out, I got my shots as soon as I could.  When the booster was authorized, I was there.  If a fourth shot is approved, as Israel is doing, I’ll be in line right away. 

Still, I’m beginning to worry the continuing efforts to force people to get vaccinated are not helpful.  I understand the logic of the mandates, and I wish everybody would get their shots.  But clearly, there is some group of people isn’t going to. 

Fighting Inflation: Biden or the Fed?

In The Wall Street Journal today, William Galston talks about what President Biden needs to do about inflation (“Biden’s Moment to Face the Inflation Music,” Jan. 26):

“If I were president, I would be attacking it head-on, beginning with a major speech explaining what is happening and followed by regular public events highlighting efforts to attack various dimensions of the problem, from reducing the backlog at ports to recruiting and training truckers to making sure grocery shelves are stocked.”

Illinois in 2021 Reminds Us of the Suddenness of Change and the Brittleness of Autocracy

Here’s something I was going to write as an end-of-the-year post, but things got busy, so I’m writing it as a looking-back-at-2021 post:

At the end of last year, the media was full of lists of the biggest stories of 2021.  Most of them were pretty much the same: Covid, inflation, Democrats not being able to pass President Biden’s Build Back Better bill, Vladimir Putin massing troops on Ukraine’s border, etc.

“The Road Less Traveled”: A World War I History of What Might Have Been and Why It Wasn’t

One of the best books I have read recently (actually, one of the best books I have read in a long time) is The Road Less Traveled: The Secret Battle to End The Great War, 1916-1917, by Philip Zelikow.¹  The book is a history of diplomatic efforts by leaders of Germany, England, and America to end World War I at the end of 1916 and the beginning of 1917. 

The book is fascinating on at least three levels: First, as a history of an unknown part of World War I.  The prelude to the war, the battles during the war, the peace conferences after the war, have all been studied and studied.  But these peace efforts haven’t been studied – because they were secret and because they failed.

Voting Rights Bills: Democrats Should Be Careful What They Wish For. They Might Get It.

Joe Biden and Democrats are pushing the Senate to kill the filibuster for their voting rights bills, the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act and the Freedom to Vote Act, and allow the bills to be passed by a majority vote; i.e., 50 Democrats plus Vice President Kamala Harris.

But I wonder if they have thought this through.  If they abolish the filibuster and pass their bills setting up national rules for presidential elections and elections to Congress by a majority vote, what is going to stop Republicans from passing their national election rules in 2025 if Republicans win Congress and the presidency in 2024?

Ukraine. What’s Next?

I was glad to see that the United States and NATO did not give in to Russia on Ukraine in talks last week.  That was good – and important.  But we need to do more than just avoid ill-advised concessions.  We need to help Ukraine defend itself. 

There has been discussion as to what we would do if Russia attacks Ukraine.  I have a better idea: Instead of talking about the things we will and won’t do if Russia invades,¹ let’s start doing things now – so an invasion doesn’t happen.  First, let’s get lots more weapons to Ukraine.  Germany has objected to NATO providing certain weapons to Ukraine because it might provoke Russia.  Huh?  Russia has invaded Ukraine, annexed part of its territory, and now massed 100,000 troops on Ukraine’s border, and Ukraine might provoke Russia?  If Germany stops NATO from providing weapons, let’s do it ourselves. 

President Biden: Just Because I Disagree With You Doesn’t Mean I Am on Jefferson Davis’s Side.

In a speech in Atlanta on Tuesday, Joe Biden said, in urging the passage of various election law bills in the Senate: “Do you want to be the side of Abraham Lincoln or Jefferson Davis?" 

I have news for President Biden.  Just because I don’t agree with him on those bills, doesn’t mean I am on Jefferson Davis’s side.  When I was taking American history classes in high school in the mid-1960s, my heroes were Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant.  When I toured Tennessee in 1977, I went to the Shiloh and Chattanooga battlefields.  In Virginia in 1997, I went to the Wilderness and Appomattox.  When I returned to Virginia in 2002, I was appalled that streets and roads were still named after Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee.  When other people were telling me how noble Robert E. Lee was, I saw a man who had abandoned his country and committed treason.

The U.S. and Russia Are Meeting, But Are We Prepared?

The first year of Joe Biden’s presidency has been taken up with the pandemic, trying to pass big spending bills through a very closely divided Congress, and an economy nobody expected (jobs going begging and inflation we were told couldn’t happen).  There wasn’t much in it about foreign affairs, except the debacle that was the withdrawal from Afghanistan.

But the Biden administration’s second foreign policy crisis is coming up this week, and it is unclear how prepared the Administration is.¹  Russian President Vladimir Putin has assembled 100,000 troops on Ukraine’s border, a country Russia has already invaded and taken territory from.  President Putin has also issued a series on ridiculous demands (no additional countries can join NATO, NATO can’t base troops in eastern NATO members, and more).