Thursday, January 13, 2005

More required reading (sigh...)

Vodkapundit points to a Norman Podhoretz piece in Commentary.
Says it's required reading.
I looked at it. He's right. I'm passing it along. Too much to summarize in a weblog. Twenty-five pages long if you copy. Sheesh!

This part got me hooked:

In a piece entitled "Governing Against Type," Edward N. Luttwak of the Center for Strategic and International Studies assures us that

reelected Presidents tend to disappoint their most enthusiastic followers by changing direction: they go Right if they started on the Left(or vice versa); become active when they were passive; turn dovish if they were hawkish; and in all cases converge toward the center of gravity of American politics, as well as toward the mainstream foreign-policy traditions.

In backing up this thesis, Luttwak notes that Ronald Reagan became less rather than more hawkish in his second term, while Bill Clinton, after neglecting foreign policy in his first term, immersed himself in it with a vengeance once he was reelected.

Seems like I said something like that might happen, but the idea was not original. It was more like repeating something that is taught in most history classes.
This is nosebleed stuff, not for everyone. He says to print it out for bedtime reading, but I get sleepy at bedtime, so I saved it to the desktop instead. Besides, I can highlight and un-highlight as I read, copy and past to notes, etc...
Anyhow, you get the idea.

Addendum:

Donald Sensing read it and liked it. he got the heads-up from Power Line who got it from the horse's mouth ("Commentary's Davi Bernstein writes us...) , so to speak. Looks like Commentary has learned to use the internet pretty well for promotional purposes.
Price is right, anyway. How much would an agency charge to generate this much exposure.

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