Peggy Noonan writing in the WSJ
* * *
The leaders of the world aren’t a very impressive group
right now. There’s a sense with some of them of playing out a historical or
cultural string, that they’re placeholders in some way. Many are young, yet so
much around them feels tired.
Which has me thinking, again, of the concept of the
genius cluster. They happen in history and no one knows why.
It was a genius cluster that invented America. Somehow
Franklin, Jefferson, Washington, Adams, Madison, Hamilton, Jay and Monroe came
together in the same place at the same time and invented something new in the
history of man.
(I asked a great historian about it once. How did that
happen? He’d thought about it too. “Providence,” he guessed.)
There was a small genius cluster in World War II — FDR,
Churchill, de Gaulle. I should note I’m speaking of different kinds of
political genius. There was a genius cluster in the 1980s — John Paul II,
Reagan, Thatcher, Vaclav Havel, Lech Walesa, and Lee Kuan Yew in his last
decade of leadership in Singapore.
The military genius cluster of World War II — Marshall,
Eisenhower, Bradley, Montgomery, Patton, MacArthur, Nimitz, Bull Halsey,
Stilwell — almost rivaled that of the Civil War — Grant, Lee, Stonewall,
Sherman, Sheridan, Longstreet.
Obviously genius clusters require deep crises, otherwise
their gifts are not revealed. Historic figures need historic circumstances.
Also members of genius clusters tend to pursue shared goals.
We have those conditions now — the crises, and what
should be shared goals.
Everything feels upended, the old order that has governed
things for 70 years since World War II being swept away.
Borders have disappeared before our eyes.
Terrorism, waves of immigration transforming whole
nations, Islam at war with itself and parts of it at war with the world.
In the West, the epochal end of public faith in
institutions, and a dreadful new tension between the leaders and the led.
In both background and foreground is a technological
revolution that has actually changed how people experience life.
It is a world crying out for bigness, wisdom, steady
hands and steady eyes.
We could use a genius cluster.
I’m not quite seeing its members coming, are you?
* PUTIN IS PRETTY GOOD. (AND YEAH... I'M BEING SERIOUS.)
* THE GINGRICH REVOLUTION WAS GOING PRETTY WELL TILL THE
FORCES OF "BRUTUS" STABBED GINGRICH IN THE BACK.
(*SHRUG*)
* AND AS FOR TRUMP... WELL... HE'S SURE AS HELL SMARTER
THAN YOU, PEGGY; AND APPARENTLY SMARTER THAN THE ENTIRE REPUBLICAN AND
DEMOCRATIC ESTABLISHMENTS PUT TOGETHER.
(*WINK*)
Maybe they’re off somewhere gaining strength. But the
point we’re in feels more like what a Hollywood director said was the central
tension at the heart of all great westerns: “The villain has arrived while the
hero is evolving.”
Let’s hope some evolve soon.
This thought is inspired by the past week’s Brexit
aftermath.
To limit criticism to the political players, the European
Union did not distinguish itself, the British government didn’t even create a
contingency plan in case Leave won, and the victors actually scrammed while
markets convulsed and the pound fell.
* EARTH TO PEGGY: THE POUND WAS BASICALLY AT PARITY WITH THE
DOLLAR - ONE TO ONE - BACK WHEN LIZ, MAGGIE, AND I RAN THE EMPIRE IN 1986.
(LONG STORY, FOLKS; I INTERNED AS A RESEARCHER FOR A SENIOR BACKBENCH MP.)
When Leave leader Boris Johnson finally did speak, what
he said was astonishing.
The vote was significant, he wrote in the Telegraph, but
shouldn’t be misunderstood: “It is said that those who voted Leave were mainly
driven by anxieties about immigration. I do not believe that is so.” Instead
they had “a sense that British democracy was being undermined.” The public
wanted to seize back some control.
Well, yes. But immigration was very much part of the
seize-back-control story. It’s in all the polls.
Then: “And yet we who agreed with this majority verdict
must accept that it was not entirely overwhelming.”
It was 52% to 48%, not huge but decisive enough. And wait
a second, “we who agreed” with the verdict? He led the campaign! He didn’t
“agree” with the outcome, he was its most prominent advocate!
Whatever changes come, he added, they “will not come in
any great rush.”
There’s a line between calming markets and undermining
your cause. He crossed it.
What a failure of nerve...
(*SIGHING*)
* AGREED.
It likely contributed to the restiveness that led the
other main Leave proponent, Michael Gove, to bolt away from Mr. Johnson and
announce he would run to replace Prime Minister David Cameron.
(*NOD*)
Contrast what Mr. Johnson wrote with the statement, days
later, of Home Secretary Theresa May, who had been pro-Remain though relatively
quietly, certainly relative to Mr. Johnson. “Brexit means Brexit,” she said.
“The campaign was fought, the vote was held, turnout was high and the public
gave their verdict. There must be no attempts to remain inside the EU, no
attempts to rejoin it through the back door and no second referendum.”
“Politics,” she added, “isn’t a game.”
Thank you, madam, and well done.
* YES INDEED! (THOUGH HOW SINCERE SHE IS REMAINS THE
QUESTION!) (GET IT... "REMAINS" THE QUESTION?!)
(*HUGE FRIGGIN' GRIN*)
* CLEARLY MAY CAN'T BE TRUSTED. (WHICH IS PROBABLY WHY NOONAN
IS ATTEMPTING TO PORTRAY HER IN SUCH A POSITIVE LIGHT.)
(*SIGH*)
Ms. May is a moderate conservative...
* YEP! NOONAN IS PLAYING US... (OR RATHER... TRYING TO.)
...with a steady hand...
(*ROLLING MY EYES*)
* WE GET IT, PEG; MAY IS THE BRIT VERSION OF A RINO...
SHE'S A CINO. AND OF COURSE THAT MAKES HER YOUR KINDA GAL.
(*SPITTING ON THE GROUND*)
...who is said to be somewhat ideologically opaque. But
here she was blunt and clear. More, she seemed to intuit the damage to be done
to the public’s trust if Parliament threw the decision back in its face. Part
of politics is simply knowing what people need when they need it. In this case
it was the unambiguous taking of a stand.
* AGAIN... MAY IS PROBABLY PLAYING "THE LONG
GAME" AND HOPING TO GET INTO POWER BASED ON SOUNDING AS IF SHE RESPECTS
THE WILL OF THE BRITISH PEOPLE... BUT THE MOMENT SHE'S IN POWER SHE'LL STAB
THEM IN THE BACK. (THINK OUR OWN PAUL RYAN.)
In the end, Mr. Johnson bowed out of the contest for
party leader. He is a witty and clever man, a showman who may have more lives
than a cat. But he won’t be part of a genius cluster anytime soon.
* SUBTLE JAB AT TRUMP WITHOUT MENTIONING TRUMP.
(*SMIRK*)
* SO FRIGGIN' TRANSPARENT...
(*SPITTING ON THE GROUND AGAIN*)
EU leadership since the referendum has been wholly
lacking. “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,” purred European Council
president Donald Tusk, quoting Nietzsche.
(In this case what doesn’t kill you this time will likely
kill you next, so you might want to wake up.)
The EU should be supple now, not brittle and predictable,
which is to say bureaucratically brutal. It should surprise the world and
demonstrate some give. It should grant Britain a relatively smooth exit. Let
people see the decency and constructiveness of it and come to doubt their own
antipathy. You’re not such a bad lot.
Strategic pliancy would actually be an assertion of
strength.
* AND OF COURSE OUR GIRL PEGGY HERE WANTS TO HELP THE
EUROCRATS PROJECT "DECENCY AND CONSTRUCTIVENESS" SO AS TO...
HOPEFULLY BRING EURO-SKEPTICS BACK INTO THE FOLD.
(*SNORT*)
* AGAIN... SO FRIGGIN' PREDICTABLE.
* PEGGY ACTUALLY CLAIMED - BEFORE THE VOTE - THAT WERE
SHE A BRITISH VOTER SHE WOULD HAVE VOTED "LEAVE." I BELIEVE THIS WAS
A MISREPRESENTATION - A LIE - A MERE PANDER MEANT TO MAKE HER LOOK LESS LIKE
THE RINO SHE IS.
(*SHRUG*)
If the European Union is a prison, as Brexit supporters
felt, it makes sense for the warden to make an example of Britain to keep the
other inmates in line. But if the EU is a place of peaceful commerce it has an
opportunity to show it. Take it. The Brits aren’t the only ones who hate you.
The EU was founded for one great reason: to redirect the
energies of a continent twice convulsed by world war and turn them to peaceful
pursuits — trading goods, making money, each nation knowing the other in a
context of constructiveness. It succeeded! But in the past 30 years it
expanded, took on more power and authority, made more demands, fell too in love
with its ability to apply limits.
Even during the Brexit debate the EU’s conversation was
not of devolving power to member states but taking more to Brussels.
As Boris Johnson noted in March, when he seemed to
remember such things, the result, in Britain, was public alienation, which
contributed to a sense of “disengagement,” which has contributed to “the rise
of extremist parties.”
That was an accurate diagnosis.
I add only that the EU inculcated in its officials and
apparatchiks an outrageous and insular snobbery that left them incapable of
seeing critics as anything but ignorant, racist knuckle-draggers. They noticed,
didn’t like it, and rebelled when they could.
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