Perish the thought.

Although the morons I note in my journal are our counterexample. .... kidnapping for conversion.
 

Hi Col-

Yes, I saw that and cringed. Perhaps had another group been recruiting homeless Aceh Muslim women to be topless dancers in Israel we could have gone for the triple crown of paranoia-feeding bad publicity.

I'm curious if these Holy Rolling idiots were already in Indonesia or some bright light in Washington fast-tracked their Visa without checking them out. There used to be guys like James Baker and David Gergen who interjected themselves into the policy and bureaucratic process so as to make sure everyone was " on message" ( though to be honest, Baker only excelled at that as Chief of Staff, not Sec. of State)I have little patience for this kind of nonsense.
 

Hard to tell, but can't blame this on Washington, this was a little wildcat outfit.

I do miss the Bush I types. My kinda people. Baker et al., although I confess Bush I was not top drawer. Still, very reasonably competent and not damaging. Often the best one can hope out of government.
 

Bush senior often lacked imagination but he has not been given the credit he deserves for helping make the Soviet crash a soft landing. Granted, we could only exercise influence at the margins but the wrong tack or appearance of threat could have aggravated things to take a very nasty and dangerous direction. Bush did a lot to ease Soviet fears that we would kick them hard once they were down.

Bush I. was always more of a statesman and a reasonably skilled, if cautious, tactcian than a politician - you could tell his heart wasn't in that role- a better president than his one-term status implies.
 

I agree, Bush I is a very much underappreciated President, and I think the author of a largely very shrewd but not brilliant FP. I am not ashamed to say I voted for him twice; thank god I spared myself voting for his son. Only thing I recall disliking was the whole Hitler rhetoric in re Sadaam and that package of propaganda. Probably necessary, but at the time I found it deeply irritating.

collounsbury