• Home
  • About
    • Straight Up
    • Jan Herman
    • Contact
  • AJBlogs
  • ArtsJournal

Straight Up | Herman

Arts, Media & Culture News with 'tude

What the Horse’s Mouth Had to Say

January 20, 2016 by Jan Herman

I wanted to get the lowdown, so I went over to the Council on Foreign Depredations. The horse’s mouth was as smart as I expected. But to my pleasant surprise, he was eminently sane, which seemed more important.

When Tom Brokaw asked him “how well the country is being served” by the current political debate about jihadism and the Middle East, he replied: “I think middle-school kids would be embarrassed by the level of dialogue going on in the national campaign …” That got a well-deserved laugh. He meant the Republican primary campaign.

“I think these guys — men and women — don’t know what they’re talking about,” he added. “‘They’ll make the sand glow’ … ‘Carpet bombing’ … ‘Bombing the shit out of them.’ … One of them, I think the leading candidate, said [that]. This is not a particularly sophisticated level of analysis.”

The thing that I find disappointing — and I realize politicians have to put spin on things and so on — but they do a disservice in not being honest with the American people. … Now the worrying thing is they actually believe what they’re saying. And if that’s the case, we really are in trouble. So we’re in the situation where the optimistic interpretation is they’re just being cynical and opportunistic.

He also said, “By the same token, I think the president has all along underestimated ISIS, has underestimated the degree of fear that they have been able to provoke among a lot of Americans.” I don’t think he was trying to balance his comments, though it might have seemed so. I think he thoroughly believes that.

You might find it worth tuning in — not necessarily for the argument, which gets pretty technical at times, but for the tenor of the chat. At one point, speaking of Putin, he said that unlike Bush, who claimed he looked into Putin’s eyes and saw his soul, “I looked into his eyes and saw a stone-cold killer.” Which is what he said he told Bush. Naturally “that could just be a CIA / KGB thing,” he remarked. The horse’s mouth is not without a sense of humor.

A question for the horse's mouth.

From the audience: A question for the horse’s mouth.

Email this to someone
email
Share on Facebook
Facebook
Tweet about this on Twitter
Twitter
Share on Reddit
Reddit

Filed Under: Media, News, political culture

Comments

  1. william osborne says

    January 21, 2016 at 2:11 am

    Interesting to hear Gates talk about the dangers of lying politicians. G. W. Bush who started the second Iraq War based on pure lies. So why did Gates become his Secretary of Defense?

    When a major country brings forth so many extremely poor politicians, and for so long, there are clearly systemic problems at work. Why doesn’t Gates, and so many other commentators, get to the point and ask WHY our politicians are so bad? What recommendations do they have for improving our electoral process?

  2. Gail Chiarello says

    January 21, 2016 at 2:12 am

    Nice synopsis, Jan. Of course Robert Gates did serve in Obama’s first administration. So he’s a realist. Among the Republicans, I also like John Kasich … but the front funners are totally scary. It’s funny when Robert Gates says that the OPTIMISTIC interpretation is that Trump, Cruz, Rubio, Christie et al are just being CYNICAL.

Jan Herman

When not listening to Bach or Cuban jazz pianist Chucho Valdes, or dancing to salsa, I like to play jazz piano -- but only in the privacy of my own mind.
Another strange fact... Read More…

About

Straight Up

The agenda is just what it says: news of arts, media & culture delivered with attitude. Or as Rock Hudson once said in a movie: "Man is the only … [Read More...]

Books ‘n’ Stuff

My biography of the Hollywood director William Wyler, A Talent for Trouble, is available as an ebook at Amazon and an ebook on iTunes at the Apple … [Read More...]

Contact me

We're cutting down on spam. Please fill in this form. … [Read More...]

Archives

Blogroll

Abstract City
AC Institute
All Things Allen Ginsberg
AmericaBlog
American Leftist
Antiwar.com
ArkivMusic.com
Arts & Letters Daily

Bellaart
Blogcritics
Booknotes
Bright Lights Film Journal

C-SPAN
Noam Chomsky
Consortium News
Cost of War
Council on Foreign Relations
Crooks and Liars
Cultural Weekly

The Daily Howler
David E’s Fablog
Dark Roasted Blend
DCReport
Democracy Now!
Devil Ducky

Ehrensteinland
Tim Ellis: Comedy
Eschaton

Film Threat
Robert Fisk
Flixnosh (David Elliott’s movie menu)
Fluxlist Europe

Good Reads
The Guardian (London)
GUERNICA: A Magazine of Art & Politics

Herman (Literary) Archive, Northwestern Univ. Library
The Huffington Post

Inter Press Service News Agency
The Intercept
Internet Movie Database (IMDb)
Doug Ireland
IT: International Times, The Newspaper of Resistance

Jacketmagazine
Clive James

Henry Kisor
Paul Krugman

Lannan Foundation
Life During Wartime
Los Angeles Times

Metacritic
Mimeo Mimeo
Moloko Plus

Nat. Arts Journalism Program
National Security Archive
The New York Times
NO!art

Open City
Osborne & Conant

The Overgrown Path

Political Irony
Poynter

The Quarterly Conversation

Rain Taxi
The Raw Story
RealityStudio.org
Bill Reed
The Reeler
Rhizome
Rwanda Project

Salon
Seeing Black
Senses of Cinema
Seven Stories Press
Slate
Studs Terkel
The Synergic Theater

TalkLeft
The 3rd Page
ThugLit: Writing About Wrongs
Times Square Cam
The Tin Man
t r u t h o u t

Ubu Web

Vox

The Wall Street Journal
Wikigate
Wikipedia
The Washington Post
James Wolcott
World Catalogue
World Newspapers, Magazines & News Sites

The XD Agency

Email this to someone
email
Share on Facebook
Facebook
Tweet about this on Twitter
Twitter
Share on Reddit
Reddit
This blog published under a Creative Commons license

an ArtsJournal blog

Copyright © 2019 · Magazine Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in