Obama has been branded the ‘Groveller-in-Chief’ after giving an exaggerated bow to Japan’s emperor Akihito - the son of the ruler who authorised the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor

No president of the United States in the more than 230 years since the country was founded in 1776 had ever bowed to a member of royalty. That was until Obama’s presidency.

In April, President Obama bowed to the Saudi king  His White House insisted at the time that the president simply had leaned forward to shake the king’s hand.  That was nonsense and now there can be no doubt that a President of the United States is publicly.

This time White House aides said Mr Obama had been simply following protocol.

However, critics are pointing  to Michelle Obama patting the Queen on the back during their Buckingham Palace visit as an example of the First Couple’s usual casual attitude towards protocol.

Two years ago the then Vice President, Dick Cheney, greeted the emperor at the same royal palace with a simple handshake.

In 1994, when President Clinton appeared to almost bow to the Japanese royal, U.S. officials rushed to claim it was nothing of the sort.

Bowing is generally a symbol of inferiority and deference to another by an inferior and a sign of humility and/or affection.

Until now the Presidency of the United States has been considered equal to any monarch or other national leader. The President neither deserves nor delivers supplication or subsereance.

America was founded on republican virtues — small “r,” that is. Like the French Republic, our nation does not recognize royalty or social rank, especially from officials of the republic.

The conduct of our president when he deals with foreign leaders is a serious matter. After all, he represents the American people and our Constitution.

Indeed, when President Obama bows before a foreign leader, the whole country bows with him.

It is difficult to grasp what Obama’s motives are for bowing to foreign royalty. It will be interesting to hear what Obama’s milktoast press secretary Robert Gibbs mumbles about it.

Obama’s motives do not really matter when we consider his behavior.

What matters is how the rest of the world will interpret his actions. For instance what does it show if Obama does not bow and scrape to every other leader he meets – and why would Obama slight one against anothers – for instance he did not bow to the British monarch, and why?

Someone should engrave on Obama’s forehead Article I, section 9 of the U.S. Constitution states: “No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince or foreign State.”

As Daniel Ruddy says in Newsmax: “As the nation’s first constitutional leader, President George Washington set the tone. When it was proposed that he be called “His Highness the President of the United States of America and the Protector of Their Liberties,” Washington scoffed at the idea and demanded he be called simply, “Mr. President.”

No president better exemplifies the republican virtues of the country than Thomas Jefferson, who had a purely American disdain for the pretensions of royal power which he believed were not legitimately derived from the people.

As he stated so eloquently in the Declaration of Independence, power was not derived from bloodlines or royal coronations. Instead he argued that since “all men are created equal” a government should exist by “deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”

Jefferson’s breezy indifference to the English monarchy was on display during his first days in the White House.

When the monarch’s new ambassador to the United States called for the first time to present his credentials he was not required to bow in front of the nation’s sovereign. In accordance with American values, he was assumed to be an equal, not a subject.

And so all he had to do was walk up to the White House and knock on the door (there were no guards or royal attendants).

Once he was beckoned inside, “a tall, high-boned man came into the room. He was dressed, or rather undressed, in an old brown coat, red waistcoat, old corduroy small-clothes much soiled, woollen hose, and slippers without heels. I thought him a servant,” said the visitor, “when General Varnum surprised me by announcing that it was the president.”

According to the historian Henry Adams, the casual dress and easy-going manners of the new president were more important than they might seem at first glance.

“The seriousness of Jefferson’s experiments in etiquette,” Adams observed, “consisted in the belief that they were part of a political system which involved a sudden change of policy toward two great powers. [They] were but the social expression of an altered feeling which found its political expression in acts marked by equal disregard of usage.”

The British ambassador and other diplomats to the United States were offended by Jefferson’s refusal to follow the rules of the Old World, but that did not matter to Jefferson or his countrymen, who re-elected him with a resounding majority of popular support.

Jefferson understood that symbolism was important.

Another president who promoted this egalitarian ideal was Franklin Roosevelt.

In 1939 he invited the king and queen of England to visit the United States to bolster Anglo-American unity in the face of the growing fascist threat. Roosevelt never bowed to the king or queen — or any foreign royalty, for that matter.

On this special occasion, he simply demonstrated American hospitality.

As the British journalist Alistair Cooke detailed: “Roosevelt took them [the Royal couple] off to Hyde Park [his Hudson River estate] and drove his own hand-run automobile into the grounds and gave them a hot dog lunch. Well, this was a shocker to the British, but it’s the thing he would do. You see, he was a natural aristocrat, Roosevelt was. He didn’t have to put on airs.”

Roosevelt was also an American through and through and secure in his standing as a world leader.

There is a lesson here for President Obama, who appears intent on upending more than two centuries of American protocol. When he as president bows before a Saudi king or a Japanese emperor, he is sending an implicit message to millions of people around the world that the leader of the free world accepts the notion that some people are born to a higher rank than others.

But when our president stands up straight and extends his hand in friendship to all civilized nations, there is no danger, there is only opportunity — opportunity to communicate the values and spirit that Jefferson so eloquently conveyed to the rest of the world — “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

In actuality this may simply be a symbol of Obama’s handlers ineptness or that he is so inexperienced, naïve and  unconcerned that he will do what he feels like doing regardless of consequence. Personally I favor the latter given his chaotic foreign policy and haphazard domestic approach.  It seems Obama is more concerned for everything except the precedents his predecessors so carefully crafted.

Daniel Ruddy writes on politics and history. His upcoming book, “Theodore Roosevelt’s History of the United States” (Harper Collins), is due out in April 2010.

Massachusetts seems to enjoy being on the political bullseye. This time illegal immigrant advocates are getting ready to push Massachusetts lawmakers to pass legislation that would allow undocumented immigrants to pay in-state tuition at state colleges that will touch off something of a firestorm.

According to the PEW Hispanic Center there are 12 million “undocumented aliens” - those having no “green card”, visa or othjer documentation  - in the U. S. concentrated in just six states California, New York, Florida, New Jersey, Illinois and Texas. Such “illegal aliens” are growing faster than legal immigrants. This is a particular pungent problem because the Pew Hispanic Center found there were 4 million U. S. born children of illegal immigrants in 2008, up from 2.7 million five years earlier. All children born in this country are automatically U.S. citizens, even if their parents are not.

Mass. lawmakers are expected to revisit the issue three years after House lawmakers soundly rejected a similar bill.

But this time activists say they have cultivated a broader coalition of supporters that includes union members, business leaders, academics and even undocumented students.

Ten other states, some dominated by conservative lawmakers, have similar legislation, and advocates see no reason why Massachusetts, a state controlled by Democrats, can’t do the same.

Some lawmakers, like Democratic Rep. Demetrius Atsalis, of Barnstable, Mass. say they still oppose the measure.

Illegal immigration has become the third rail of national politic, and Congress cowers from it refusing to do anything to reform a broken system.

Adocates say since they re here let’s make the best of it by ensuring they are educated and can become productive, taxpayers. Afterall they say 65,000 children of illegal residents graduate from public high school a year paid for by taxpayers amid a severe economic crisis a state and local budget cuts in education at all levels.

In 1982 the U. S. Supreme Court ruled children of illegal residents must have access to a public school education nothwtihstanding their parent’s legal status. It did not rule on state-funded higher education.

In 1996 Congress pretended to act but its “immigration reform” bill was a bust. In Kansas and California, and elsewhere out-of-state America students sued saying in-state tuition to illegals discriminated against them. Those suits are still simmering.

IN 2007 Congress started work on the DREAM  ACT (Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act) that provides a path for immigrant children to obtain legal status, It allows for many undocumented students to get a Probationary Z Visa after only three year – much faster than normal. Affected students would be eligible for federal loans, work study grants but not Pell Gants. That effectively allows states to decide on residency requirements for tuition and such.

Ten states already have such provisions for illegals aliens to benefit from lower in-state tuitition including: California, Washington, Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Kansas, Utah, Illinois, New York and New Jersey.

56% of voters say Federal policies actually encourage illegal immigration but, only 31% say Congress is likely to act to fix it.

There is a lot of whipping and sawing and some think the issue of illegal immigration could become a big deal in the 2010 elections at least in certain heavily impacted states. A complication, of course, is “Oamacare” and how illegal aliens will be handled,  at what costs, and who is going to pay those costs.

My Great Grandmother, an Iroquis or Haudenosaunee as she called herself. thought everyone of us except her and her ancestors were illegal immigrants. She always said her ancestors were living in heated hourses while mine were painting thenselves blue and dancing around bonfires at midnight. It is all perspective.

While North Korea is a basket case as far as its economy and human rights are concerned, Dear Leader Kim Jong-Il is a master tactician with an uncanny sense of timing.

Last  Monday, a few days before President Obama was due to begin his Asian visit by attending the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum in Singapore, the DPRK navy engineered a brief skirmish with South Korean vessels in choppy seas to the west of the peninsula.

The North Korean dictator’s message to Obama is that despite the country’s desperate need for food and fuel, the combativeness of its military is world-class. That this flexing of the muscle has to some extent succeeded is evidenced by the benign reactions from both South Korea and the U.S.

Seoul on Tuesday resumed approving border crossings into the North for businessmen and tourists. While attending APEC meetings in Singapore, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton steered clear of lambasting Kim for yet another foolhardy venture. Instead, she announced that Special Envoy Stephen Bosworth would soon visit Pyongyang to lay the groundwork for resuming the so-called six-party talks on the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula.

Clinton told the media that Bosworth’s meeting with North Korean diplomats should not be misconstrued as bilateral talks between the two enemy countries.

“This is not a negotiation,” Clinton said. “It’s an effort to pave the way toward North Korea’s return to the six-party process.”

Yet there is no denying that Kim has already won some form of concessions by doing nothing more than displaying more roguishness. Bosworth’s trip to Pyongyang could be used in internal DPRK propaganda as a sign that the Obama administration is begging Dear Leader Kim to return to the six-party talks. Moreover, while Washington has insisted that Bosworth would only discuss the single issue of Pyongyang’s return to the negotiations, it will be difficult to convince the international community that the Bosworth visit is not at least a prelude to full-fledged bilateral negotiations — particularly given that Kim has up to now made no promise about the talks.

A key item on Obama’s maiden trip to China will be to persuade the Hu Jintao leadership to be more assertive in using its s influence to rein in the nuclear programs of North Korea and Iran. The Chinese Communist Party leadership has in the past month or two, however, gone in the opposite direction by boosting economic and other ties with the two pariah states.

While meeting a senior DPRK military delegation in Beijing late last month, Hu vowed that Beijing would enthusiastically “push forward the China-DPRK cooperative relationship to new levels.”

Moreover, the Chinese leadership has essentially stopped enforcing sanctions on the DPRK that were imposed by the UN Security Council following Pyongyang’s May 25 nuclear test.

Meanwhile, Western diplomats in Beijing and Pyongyang have come to the conclusion that the Hu leadership’s decision to back Kim has been heavily influenced by PLA generals. Trading and resources-oriented Chinese companies with close ties to the army have been the major beneficiaries of much-enhanced economic relations with the DPRK, especially exploitation of the country’s rich mineral resources.

It is thus unlikely that Beijing would give Obama anything more than a vague, theoretical assurance that China will lean on Kim to send his negotiators back to the talks, which might be resumed in Beijing some time next year.

Willy Lam is a Hong Kong-based China scholar and journalist specializing in Communist Party politics and foreign policy.

Saturday, Nov. 14, Iran’s state Press TV ran verbatim DEBKAfile’s exclusive disclosure on Nov. 12 of an extraordinary secret summit of the intelligence chiefs of four nations in Amman earlier this month. The Iranian medium which broadcasts in English around the clock gave this publication full credit for the exclusive, which ran as follows:

The crisis over Iran’s nuclear program and possible outbreak of a regional war occasioned an extraordinary secret conclave of the intelligence chiefs of four nations in Amman in the first week of November, DEBKAfile’s military and intelligence sources disclose. Hosted by the chief of Jordan’s General Intelligence Service, Gen. Muhammad Raqed, it was attended by senior officials of the American CIA and Defense Intelligence Agency, Israel’s Mossad chief, Meir Dagan and military intelligence head Brig. Amos Yadlin and Egypt’s intelligence minister, Gen. Omar Suleiman. As soon as the meeting ended, Suleiman set out for Riyadh to brief the head of Saudi general intelligence Prince Moqrin bin Abdul Aziz.

Our sources add that the unpublicized get-together took place just a few days before Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu and US president Barack Obama conversed at the White House Monday, Nov. 9. They therefore had its conclusions before them when they talked. Two days later, Netanyahu passed input from the intelligence summit to French president Nicolas Sarkozy when he stopped over in Paris.

It was the first time Israel had taken part in a secret meeting of Middle East intelligence chiefs whose purpose was to coordinate their steps.

According to an array of articles in Sunday’s Behjing News. China’s top bank regulator said Sunday the weakening U.S. dollar and low interest rates are spurring speculation in stocks and property, distorting global asset prices and threatening the global economic recovery.

The situation poses an “insurmountable risk to the recovery of the world economy,” Liu Mingkang, chairman of the China Banking Regulatory Commission, warned just hours before President Barack Obama was due to arrive in China.

Speaking at a conference in Beijing, Liu said the declining U.S. dollar and reassurances by officials that interest rates will remain low were encouraging a “massive” U.S. dollar carry trade — the practice of borrowing money at low rates in one currency to invest in assets in another currency that offer a higher return.

The carry trade is “dealing a serious blow to global asset prices and fueling speculation in the stock and real estate markets,” he said, according to a transcript of a speech he made at a financial forum in Beijing, posted on the Web site of Hong Kong’s pro-Beijing Phoenix TV.

Obama is in Shanghai Sunday on his first visit to China. The formal agenda includes trade relations, security issues, human rights and climate change. He’s hoping to win China’s help in efforts to stop nuclear programs in North Korea and Iran. The huge trade imbalance between the two countries is also likely to be a topic. Host Liane Hansen talks with NPR’s Louisa Lim.

To punctuate everything China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman was equating serfdom in Tibet to slavery in the U.S. — just ahead of President Barack Obama’s first trip to China.

Was it a monumental gaffe, last-minute stab at finding a common frame of reference, or a canny piece of strategy designed to redefine the U.S.-China dispute over Tibet?

Denis C. Theriault, reports in the Saturday, November 14, 2009 San Jose Mercury News, that “with high unemployment continuing to eat at California’s tax revenues, and risky budget gimmicks failing to materialize, the state’s deficit next year could hit a staggering $25 billion.”

If worst-case scenarios hold true, several insiders who track the state’s financial picture tell the Mercury News, the deficit through June 2011 would be billions higher than previous estimates.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s best-case estimate earlier this week was half that sum, at $12.4 billion. Assembly Republican leader Sam Blakeslee of San Luis Obispo floated a number as high as $20 billion during water negotiations. Now comes the $25 billion estimate. What’s absurd is that California’s government – can’t or won’t govern.

“It’s not outrageous,” one budget expert said of the $25 billion figure, stressing nonetheless that it would mark the uppermost boundary of any estimates.

Still, no matter the eventual size of the deficit, the governor has already promised “across-the-board cuts” setting the stage for another year of painful budget wrangling. At stake is money for everything from schools to state parks to prisons. The core issue is that neither the Governor nor the Legislature appear to have any plan to resolve California’s fiscal collapse.

A clearer picture should emerge Wednesday, when the Legislative Analyst’s Office releases its annual fiscal outlook report. The report examines the current budget’s revenue and spending assumptions and gives an updated assessment of the state’s prospects next year and beyond.

Its release typically marks the official start of budget season in Sacramento. The governor will release his budget proposals in January, and the Department of Finance has already begun its own annual review of the state’s finances in preparation.

“We know the 2009-10 budget was too optimistic,” said Fred Silva, a budget expert working with California Forward, a state-government reform group. “What’s their forecast for 2010-11, and how optimistic are they? We’re just going to have to wait and see.”

He added that a deficit topping $20 billion isn’t beyond possibility.

State officials this summer had to close deficits totaling about $60 billion in order to finally balance the budget. As soon as the deal was signed, they knew they’d be facing at least a $7.4 billion hole starting next July. Now that estimate seems shaky at best.

“These numbers are going to move,” finance department spokesman H.D. Palmer conceded this week after Schwarzenegger addressed the growing deficit.

Palmer said department number-crunchers are just starting to build their forecast, but he added: “We’re looking at the potential to solve at least a $15 billion deficit.”

Besides the economic slowdown’s continued effect on tax collections, the state is feeling the brunt of having papered over much of this year’s deficit with cost-saving gimmicks worth billions of dollars, such as selling off part of the workers’ compensation insurance fund. Some of those moves have been held up in litigation. Even the ones that succeeded, such as borrowing billions from local governments’ gas-tax revenues, won’t be available again this year.

What’s more, by the summer of 2011, temporary tax and fee hikes that helped balance this year’s budget will expire. And federal stimulus money is expected to dry up by the end of 2010.

The state has mostly stayed afloat by making deep cuts to its operating budget the source of funding for education programs, social services and public safety. Its general fund is at $84.5 billion, down from $103 billion two years ago.

Some budget experts worry that further cuts to some programs, such as higher education, will cost the state millions more in matching federal stimulus money. Legislative Democrats have indicated they will fight to keep funding where it is.

At the same time, Republicans remain firmly opposed to new tax increases a key hurdle, given that budgets require approval from two-thirds of legislators.

“We’ve cut so much over the past two to three years that I don’t know where we can cut,” said Assemblywoman Noreen Evans, D-Santa Rosa, chairwoman of the Assembly Budget Committee. “We’re running out of what people call smoke and mirrors.”

The stark financial outlook may even mar one of the Legislature’s only real accomplishments this year: a long-sought overhaul of the state’s water system.

A proposed $11.14 billion bond measure to pay for some of those improvements will cost the state about $700 million in debt service payments starting in 2015. Voters may balk at approving it, especially as more and more money is diverted from public services to debt service.

“Voters are already seeing parks closing, DMVs closing, courthouses closing,” Evans noted. “What other cuts will they be willing to support?”

According to Field Polls 69% of Californians disapprove of the way the Governor is doing his job and 73% disapprove of the job Legislators have done. Some say tern limits can clear out Sacratmento while others worry that leaves a bunch of sophomoric staffers to run the State farther into the ditch.

I hold no brief for Nadal Hasan. I’m not a fan of the death penalty either, but if the victims’ families wanted him killed 13 times and revived 12, I wouldn’t be holding a sign trying to stop them. But I do rise here in (partial) defense of political correctness.

Why did Major Hasan do what he did? Was he motivated by a deep hatred for the country he was supposed to be serving, or was he crazy? If I had to guess, I’d say both.

He was pretty clearly intoxicated with hate, driven by Jihadist rage against the nation that had nurtured, raised, employed and educated him beyond his wildest dreams, had his family stayed in Ramallah.

And he was pretty clearly crazy to throw away his cushy life on a pointless mass murder mission that nearly was, and probably will yet be, a suicide mission.

Then again, he’s a psychiatrist, and I’ve always thought people go into psychiatry to figure out what’s wrong with them.

But, whatever demons drove Nadal Hasan to mass murder, whether perverted religious zeal or certifiable paranoid schizophrenia, there is no doubt that to some in the world, he’s a hero.

That’s what’s important about the Fort Hood massacre on the world stage. His deepest motivations may never be known, but our real enemies don’t care. They have claimed him as one of their own.

But a little political correctness, properly applied, can neuter that weapon. We can make Nadal Hasan useless as a martyr, if we don’t pay him that honor.

If we’re a little politically correct, we won’t buy into the Jihadist narrative that pits them as the champions of 1.3 billion Muslims—they’re not—and us as the enemy of same—we’re not.

We do have enemies, radical Islam is one, and no amount of willful blindness can make that go away. The overly politically correct have a hard time accepting that truth.

But, in their rage against anyone who doesn’t scream “terrorist” five times a sentence when discussing Hasan Nadal, the anti-political correctness gang is inadvertently doing our real enemies a real service.

If we unequivocally label Hasan a terrorist, we acknowledge that a Jihadist successfully attacked the Great Satan in the heart of his lair, an army base in Texas.

But if we use a little political correctness and say maybe this was the work of a sick lunatic after all, we deny our foes that victory.

Political correctness can be a useful kind of hypocrisy in a civilized society. It’s a game we play and everybody knows the rules. When someone breaks them, like, say, Don Imus, there are prescribed consequences. And since harsh punishment is politically incorrect, they eventually get their jobs back, when penance is paid.

That beats the punishment for violating convention in a society that doesn’t practice political correctness. Usually death by stoning for insulting the Prophet, or the Supreme Leader, or your family’s honor because you allowed yourself to get raped.

Believe too much in political correctness and you’ll fool yourself into thinking you don’t have any enemies, only friends you haven’t apologized obsequiously enough to yet.

Believe too much in political incorrectness and you’ll turn a hundred-thousand real enemies into a billion-three potential enemies. You’ll insult the only people who can defeat the real enemy, others like them.

Whether that’s African Americans turning against the gangbangers in their own neighborhoods, or Sunnis turning out the terrorists in theirs, all politically correct wars are civil wars.

It is no more helpful to hold up a terrorist by the hair and say, “look, we captured another Muslim,” than it is to do the same to a ghetto thug and say “look, we captured another n****r.” Both are bad strategy, insulting to exactly the wrong people, and both totally destroy the kind of willing cooperation you must have from the community if you’re going to help the right side win its civil war.

We have every right and duty to protect ourselves when that war spills over to the homeland. That takes good, clear-eyed, police work, free from unjust profiling that turns citizens into suspects, and free of illusion that turns enemies into victims.

Political correctness can help. It lets us set the terms of debate when events are spiraling out of control, it starves those who feed on hate from a big second helping, on us, it denies terrorists the “judo” that is the real goal of their acts. Making us make more terrorists by making us overreact against whole races of people.

Terrorism is a provocation. Political correctness, properly used, can prevent us from being provoked into doing something predictably stupid.

But political correctness is a weapon that is sharp on both ends. Use it unwisely, and you can put an eye out, use it stupidly and you can put both eyes out. We do have enemies and we need to stop them before they kill again. In a free society of 300 million plus people, that’s a daunting task. It takes two eyes, wide open and seeing clearly, to get it done.

The blind hatred of anti-political correctness won’t do it. Neither will the blind obliviousness of political correctness. The first is a gun with no aim, the second is a shield of air.

]]> http://hypocrisy.com/2009/11/15/nadal-hasan-and-the-vices-and-virtues-of-political-correctness/feed/ http://hypocrisy.com/2009/11/14/the-eye-of-the-beholder/ http://hypocrisy.com/2009/11/14/the-eye-of-the-beholder/#comments Sun, 15 Nov 2009 00:33:30 +0000 Eutychus http://hypocrisy.com/?p=9991 One of the few phrases I know in Latin is the aphorism, De gustibus non est disputandum:  There’s no accounting for tastes.  What it conveys goes double in the postmodern age with its deconstructionist foundations.  How could anyone even think of suggesting that there might be standards of, say, judging one work of art as better than another?  Someone I know told me that in certain art museums in New York City the way to get one’s paintings displayed is to be a friend of those who make the decisions.  After all, no one can complain that a given work is inferior to another that might have been hung.

In 1968 I had the privilege of viewing a one-man show of the works of American painter Roger Vail.  After I had spent some time with his paintings I told him I thought all of them were good, but that some were better than others, and also that I wouldn’t want some of the best ones hanging in my living room.  Then I asked him why that was.  He told me, “The important thing is that a painting affect you strongly, whether you like it or not.  If you walk by one, shrug and move on to the next one, it probably isn’t very good.”

Two years later, at my preliminary doctoral oral exam, the highly placed scholar John S. Brushwood led me directly into a trap and sprang it.  My job was to defend my scholarship on the Mexican writer Carlos Fuentes, and Brushwood asked, “Do you think Fuentes has written a good novel?”

Taking the bait, I glibly responded, “Yes, I think La región más transparente (Where the Air Is Clear) is a good novel, and La muerte de Artemio Cruz (The Death of Artemio Cruz) is an excellent one.”

“On what basis do you make that judgment?”  Caught like a rat in a trap.  Fortunately, I remembered that conversation with Vail, and I applied it to the case at hand.  I pointed out that I wasn’t the only one to feel as I did about those works.  Many scholars who were well established in the field felt the same way—including Brushwood himself, according to a chapter in one of his books.  Then I got into trouble by going off on a tangent, but Raymond Souza, my advisor, rescued me before I sank past my nostrils in the quicksand.

Some would say it’s like that infinitely long stack of turtles on top of which stands the earth.  In other words, on what basis can we possibly say who are the best scholars in a given field?  Who gave us the right to make that judgment?  And so on ad infinitum.  (That’s another of my Latin phrases.)

At some point, though, it has to do with what a majority of people in a given field think of each other and one another’s judgment.  I don’t know of anyone who would seriously claim that a painting by the average (there’s that judgment thing again) backyard artist can be judged to be just as good as one of Rubens’s masterpieces.  Why?  Well, when I look at the former I see paint that has been applied more or less skillfully to a canvas.  When I look at that Rubens I see something that seems alive.

In fact, in the latter years of my teaching career I found myself telling my classes that a true work of art in any genre gives an intelligent, experienced viewer the impression that it belongs in the world—that the world would be deprived of something essential if it were removed.  A homely example is the Eiffel Tower.  It hasn’t been there terribly long relative to the long history of Paris, but we simply can’t imagine Paris without it.  And what would happen to your mind if you were suddenly told that La Gioconda, the Mona Lisa, had never really existed, but was only a figment of your imagination?  It lives; it belongs to the world.

I lost a job at a prestigious college in Iowa in part because I had dared write a doctoral dissertation on a recent—and radical—Latin American novel.  I was informed that the majority of the faculty felt that no work of literature could be judged good until it had been around for a minimum of a hundred years.  Oh, right.  When the first part of Don Quixote came out in 1605, it immediately hit Spain like a bombshell, and a pirated edition came out in Lisbon two weeks later.  (That is a feat of marathon typesetting.)  Not long afterward, an ambassador came from China to request that Cervantes go there and teach Spanish to the Chinese, using Don Quixote as his textbook.

A more modern example is that of García Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude.  When it hit the streets, it did so in Buenos Aires.  Legend says that Seymour Menton, a major scholar by anyone’s standards, called a friend and asked him to bring a copy to a conference in Caracas.  Menton locked himself in his room and read it, ignoring the people pounding on his door and begging for a chance to look at it.

There are standards of beauty built into the human unconscious, and we deny that to our peril.

“With regard to China’s capabilities, I think anyone who’s familiar with this business — and particularly our history in this business over the years — would have to be absolutely amazed at the advancement that China has made in such a short period of time, whether that be in their unmanned program or the manned program,” Chilton told reporters in a teleconference, referring to Beijing’s space program.

“They have rapidly advanced over the last ten years,” he said from Omaha, Nebraska.

“Where they’re heading I think is one of those things that a lot of people would like to understand better, what their goals and objectives are. But they certainly are on a fast track to improve their capabilities,” he said.

China conducted a successful test of a direct ascent anti-satellite missile in January 2007 that was viewed by U.S. military strategists as a strategic advance because it demonstrated that during a conflict China could cripple U.S. high-technology warfare efforts by knocking out key navigation, targeting, communications and command and control satellites.

The comments by Chilton came shortly after the new U.S. Pacific Command commander, Adm. Robert Willard, told reporters last month that China’s military buildup had exceeded U.S. intelligence estimates for more than a decade, a damning indictment of U.S. intelligence analysis of China.

Chilton responded to comments by a Chinese Air Force commander, Gen. Xu Qilang, who stated in state-run media that militarizing space was inevitable.

Chilton said Beijing’s space program “is an area that we’ll want to explore and understand exactly what China’s intentions are here, and why they might want to go in that direction and what grounds might accommodate a different direction.”

On the eve of Obama’s Asian trip a Thomson Reuters/Ipsos poll of 1,077 adults aged 18 and older across the United States was disclosed . The poll respondents were asked to identify China as either an “ally” or an “adversary” and 56 percent characterized Beijing as a foe, while only 33 put the country in the ally column, according to Ipsos Public Affairs, which conducted the poll for Thomson Reuters.

When asked to choose from a list of nations that are “the most important” bilateral relationship, 34 percent chose China, 23 percent picked Britain, and 18 percent chose Canada.

Relations with China have been difficult since formal diplomatic ties were established in 1979 under an ambiguous series of communiques that left unanswered U.S. support for and informal relations with Taiwan.

China has vowed to use force to reunite Taiwan with the mainland, viewing the island as a breakaway province. The United States has vowed to provide Taiwan with defense weapons to prevent the use of force and for some U.S. administrations have received greater or lesser support. Obama recently refused to sell Taiwan advanced fights needed to upgrade its defense forces, and clearly equivocated on U. S. defense of the 25 million Taiwanese and public opinion there doubts Obama’s resolve to defend it against China. .

Friday Obama called himself the first U. S. “pacific President” referring to his time spend in Indonesia as a youth. The claim is ironic because  in 2007 Obama went to great lengths of describe the time he lived in Indonesia as a child, from 1967 to 1971, with his mother and stepfather and has acknowledged attending a Muslim school. According to a CNN investigation the school was not  a radical Muslim School known as a madrassa.

“This is a public school. We don’t focus on religion,” Hardi Priyono, deputy headmaster of the Basuki school, told CNN’s Vause. “In our daily lives, we try to respect religion, but we don’t give preferential treatment.”

Nevertheless Obama’s characterization will almost certainly rekindle doubts of his sympathies and perceived shift away from traditional allies.

For instance the Jeruslaem Post reports a sharp fall from nearly 90% to just 4% of Israeli’s who now believe the U. S. is a stalwart ally.

A leading analyst said that Saudi Arabia spent millions of dollars in its effort to convert U.S. soldiers to Islam. The analyst said the campaign by Riyad began during the 1991 war against Iraq, which involved the deployment of nearly 500,000 U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia.

“Nearly two decades have passed since the Saudi conversion campaign, and most of the converts may no longer be in uniforms,” the analyst, Gal Luft, said. “But the seeds sown during the Gulf War have germinated, creating scores of radicalized Americans who are a threat to their comrades in uniforms as well as to their civilian communities.”

In a report by Harvard University, Luft, a former Israeli military intelligence officer who has been living in the United States, traced the November 2009 killing of 13 U.S. soldiers by a Muslim officer to a Saudi indoctrination campaign. He said the Saudi campaign resulted in the spread of Wahabi doctrine, which stresses Islamic war.

“While Muslim soldiers have served in uniforms loyally for decades, it is the rising number of Wahabi-trained and converted Muslims that is a relatively recent phenomenon,” the report, “How the Saudis radicalized U.S. troops,” said. “Since Wahabism is one of the most radical and puritan strands of Islam, the penetration of Wahabi thinking into the ranks of the military must be treated with care.”

The report, released on Nov. 10, said the spread of Wahabi influence has endangered U.S. soldiers. A recurring prospect has been that of Wahabi-indoctrinated soldiers turning on their colleagues.

[On Nov. 12, federal prosecutors filed a civil complaint against an alleged Iranian-aligned foundation that controls mosques, schools and an office tower in several U.S. cities. Under the motion, the federal government would seize more than $500 million from the Alavi Foundation.]

Luft, quoting former U.S. officers, said Saudi military personnel were directed to identify and missionize their American counterparts. He said the Saudi campaign was a “well-orchestrated and generously funded effort sponsored by the Saudi government to convert as many American military members as possible to Islam.” The Saud kingdom funds the nation’s Muslim clerics including the most fundamental Wahabi sect

At one point, Saudi commander and now deputy defense minister, Prince Khaled Bin Sultan, bragged that more than 2,000 U.S. troops converted to Islam in 1991. Some of the U.S. officers were said to have been given as much as $30,000 to convert.

“These Muslim troops are now the messengers of Islam in the U.S. forces,” Dr. Abu Ameena Bilal Phillips, an Islamic convert who missionizes in the military, was quoted by the report as saying.

The report which has been so-far successfully suppressed in main stream U. S. media said the shooting by Maj. Nidal Hasan at Fort Hood, Texas represented an Islamic attack. Luft quoted Hasan as shouting to fellow soldiers, “You guys are coming into our countries and you’re going to rape our women and kill our children.”

“It is time to investigate what exactly happened back then in the desert and assess how serious and deep-rooted the damage is,” the report said. Just such an investigation has been begun at the insistence of Senator Joe Lieberman (I) Conn.