Rick Perlstein has a great piece on a time when America had character, when our leaders didn't dissolve into puddles of weakness but embraced openness as a trait of strength. He writes of the visit of Nikita Khrushchev to the US. Khruschev hadn't threatened to wipe Israel off the map, but had threatened to wipe the US off the map, and had the weapons to do it.
Nikita Khrushchev disembarked from his plane at Andrews Air Force Base to a 21-gun salute and a receiving line of 63 officials and bureaucrats, ending with President Eisenhower. He rode 13 miles with Ike in an open limousine to his guest quarters across from the White House. Then he met for two hours with Ike and his foreign policy team. Then came a white-tie state dinner. (The Soviets then put one on at the embassy for Ike.) He joshed with the CIA chief about pooling their intelligence data, since it probably all came from the same people-then was ushered upstairs to the East Wing for a leisurely gander at the Eisenhowers' family quarters. Visited the Agriculture Department's 12,000 acre research station ("If you didn't give a turkey a passport you couldn't tell the difference between a Communist and capitalist turkey"), spoke to the National Press Club, toured Manhattan, San Francisco (where he debated Walter Reuther on Stalin's crimes before a retinue of AFL-CIO leaders, or in K's words, "capitalist lackeys"), and Los Angeles (there he supped at the 20th Century Box commissary, visited the set of the Frank Sinatra picture Can Can but to his great disappointment the premier did not get to visit Disneyland), and sat down one more with the president, at Camp David. Mrs. K did the ladies-who-lunch circuit, with Pat Nixon as guide. It's not like it was all hearts and flowers. He bellowed that America, as Time magazine reported, "must close down its worldwide deterrent bases and disarm." Reporters asked him what he'd been doing during Stalin's blood purges, and the 1956 invasion of Hungary. A banquet of 27 industrialists tried to impress upon him the merits of capitalism. Eleanor Roosevelt toured him through Hyde Park. Nelson Rockefeller rapped with him about the Bible.
Had America suddenly succumbed to a fever of weak-kneed appeasement? Was the general running the country-the man who had faced down Hitler!-proven himself what the John Birch Society claimed he was: a conscious agent of the Communist conspiracy?
No. Nikita Khrushchev simply visited a nation that had character. That was mature, well-adjusted. A nation confident we were great.
Hillary Clinton's disgraceful statement on Iran, and her shameful statement ground zero, reveal just what kind of political leader she really is, and how she insults the character of this nation with her small-minded appeal to fear. I'm picking on Clinton, but Edwards and Obama aren't significantly different. Here's Richardson, who is actually suggesting that America return to its former moral sense of self.
"In speeches yesterday and today, President Ahmadinejad has confirmed what we already knew: he is a demagogue and a despot. While I would not have invited him to speak at Columbia, I do support academic freedom on American campuses. We need to start talking with other nations again-- both our friends and our enemies.
"Throughout my career, I have brought people together to get things done. I have negotiated with some of the toughest dictators in the world and come back home with American hostages and peace agreements. I know that we can end Iran's nuclear program and its support for terrorist groups.
"We need to turn down the fiery rhetoric and turn up the smart pressure. The current legislation proposed in Congress, including the Lieberman-Kyl Amendment, moves the U.S. further away from stabilizing the Middle East and finding a diplomatic solution to the region's problems. Such legislation also cracks the door for the Bush administration to take military action against Iran, something no one wants.
"With sanctions for bad behavior and economic benefits and security guarantees as rewards for good behavior, we can strengthen Iranian moderates and pragmatists and integrate Iran into the community of peaceful nations.
"We will not be successful in the region if we continue the current course in Iraq. We need to withdraw all of our troops and leave behind no residual forces. This is a major difference that I have with my colleagues running for President. We cannot achieve peace in Iraq and stability in the region until all of our troops are out."
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