Marbury

pp god

Photo: AP

Todd Purdum's much-heralded Sarah Palin piece for Vanity Fair contains little in the way of news or insight. He was clearly hampered by the reluctance of McCain's loyal staffers to make strong criticisms of Palin, for fear it might reflect badly on their boss. Even more importantly, his lack of sympathy, or just empathy, for his subject means that he hasn't found anything interesting or new to say about her character. As a result the piece just reads like a string of cuttings.

He has, however, turned up one rather excellent anecdote I hadn't seen before:

More than once in my travels in Alaska, people brought up, without prompting, the question of Palin’s extravagant self-regard. Several told me, independently of one another, that they had consulted the definition of “narcissistic personality disorder” in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders—“a pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), need for admiration, and lack of empathy”—and thought it fit her perfectly. When Trig was born, Palin wrote an e-mail letter to friends and relatives, describing the belated news of her pregnancy and detailing Trig’s condition; she wrote the e-mail not in her own name but in God’s, and signed it “Trig’s Creator, Your Heavenly Father.”

the mandelson plan

As Peter Riddell points out, Gordon Brown's quasi-manifesto is heavily marked by the influence of Baron Mandelson of Foy, and all the better for it.

For a portrait of the most impressive politician in Britain today - and one of the key political figures in modern British history - you can do no better than read this superb profile. It's long (buy the magazine, or print out) but well worth it.

the iraq war isn't over

It's amazing how low-profile the war in Iraq has been in recent months, on our screens and in our newspapers. Even today's news hasn't been treated as truly momentous. But, of course, that doesn't mean everything is, or is going to be, just fine from now on. Far from it. Iraq may yet defeat two presidents.

Thomas Ricks, author of a couple of the most authoritative books on the Iraq war, is pessimistic:

I hope I am wrong, and that Iraq really is embarking on a new course this week. But I don't think so. So I think the real question now is: How fast will the unraveling occur?

Ricks is always pessimistic. Although he's that doesn't mean he's not right. He doesn't see a good outcome whatever we do. Here, he takes his blogging colleague (former Bush adviser Professor Peter Feaver) to task for suggesting that Obama's withdrawal of troops is putting 'victory' at risk - but ultimately agrees that the withdrawal may be premature:

Repeat after me: There is not going to be any victory, no matter how long we stay or how soon we leave. Iraq is probably going to be violent for many years to come, and likely will be a closer ally of Iran than of the United States - nice job, W! For President Obama, the question from day one has been how can the U.S. government best mitigate the damage done in Iraq over the last eight years by the Bush-Cheney administration? The original mistake was invading a country pre-emptively on false premises. Everything we do is tainted by that sin. Even so, Professor Feaver, I wind up on your side, not for your reasons, but because I think the best way to undo the Bush-era damage might not be to bug out quickly.

the brooksometer ticks down

The president's favourite pundit is depressed by the bills on climate change and healthcare that are emerging from Capitol Hill, and thinks Obama is being overly deferential to the legislative branch:

The great paradox of the age is that Barack Obama, the most riveting of recent presidents, is leading us into an era of Congressional dominance. And Congressional governance is a haven for special interest pleading and venal logrolling.

When the executive branch is dominant you often get coherent proposals that may not pass. When Congress is dominant, as now, you get politically viable mishmashes that don’t necessarily make sense.

Brooks frames Obama's timid approach to legislating as an over-reaction to the failure of Clinton's healthcare plan in 1994, which was blamed on an arrogant White House attempting to impose a detailed bill on Congress. Obama and his team might plead that all they're trying to do is act within the letter and spirit of the constitution.

Either way, Brooks's conclusion is difficult to argue with. When was the last time Congress passed a truly bold, difficult, interest-smashing piece of legislation? 1965?

go jenny

The discovery of a politician's marital infidelity is a highly conventional story. We're so familiar with the narrative arc - the rumours, the pinched denials, the confession, the wife (it is always a wife) standing by, the promise to embark on a healing period - that we get impatient with its artificialities very quickly. That's not to say each new iteration doesn't present its own frissons of pleasure.

The Sanford affair has provided some key twists on the formula. First, there was Sanford's unscripted, meandering confession, a public stream of consciousness, baffling and at times affecting and bizarrely compelling.

Then there is the role played by Jenny Sanford, the First Lady of South Carolina, who hasn't followed the script either. Her statements during the Governor's disappearances suggested, subtly but very clearly, that she was mighty pissed off with him. She didn't stand by, or just behind, her man during the confession. And she hasn't pretended that this is a joint problem the two of them must work through: this is definitely her husband's cock-up, so to speak, and one that only his "repentance" (I love the harsh, pre-therapy-culture resonance of that word) can begin to fix.

Thank-you, Mrs Sanford, for revitalising a tired genre.

UPDATE: "It's one thing to forgive adultery; it's another thing to condone it."

uh oh, bill ain't gonna like this...

Rahm (who worked in the Clinton White House) compares the two presidents:

EMANUEL: I think President Obama has one of the most disciplined minds and styles I've ever seen. And I think of my – I exercise every day. I've been doing it for umpteen years. I read a book, one every three weeks, I think I'm personally pretty disciplined. This guy is incredibly disciplined. And not only, structured, but his mind is unbelievably disciplined.

Q: For instance?

EMANUEL: He goes into a meeting and he'll have read the brief the night before, and have the crux of his argument written down that he wants to drive that discussion to basic points. And he goes right to either the assumptions, the presumptions of the case. Now, I mean, I loved, as you know, working for President Clinton, who had an unbelievably creative mind. And I think was, for a host of reasons, was a very significant president. I was honored to work for him. Their contexts are different, so while every president has a domestic issue and an international issue, etc., I mean, President Obama has what President Clinton had, but, I don't want to say, it's not appropriate to say on steroids, but by a quotient of 10.

the problem with mitt

Marc Ambinder has a typically sharp and perceptive assessment of Mitt Romney's current political status that I think misses something rather important.

Romney has his eyes firmly set on another run for his party's nomination - or, more precisely, he is intent on keeping open that possibility, for 2012 or 2016. As his rivals are currently dropping like flies, his own position looks ever stronger.

Ambinder points out that this is not coincidence; Romney is not just benefiting from others' mistakes. He is playing a more intelligent, strategic game than his peers. Rather than thrusting himself at every media opportunity, he picks his moments and his subjects. He prepares his public interventions with meticulous care. Let Sarah Palin and Huckabee be the go-to guys for cable and talk-radio shows: Romney is content to slowly accrete authority, build relationships, and erase misgivings about his brand.

But it's on this latter point that I have my doubts. Here's Ambinder:

He's rehabbed his image fairly successfully.  Some of the old baggage may whip around on the conveyor belt, but there'll be less of it...There's a sense among Romney regulars that the stuff that tripped him up in 2008 will not be relevant if he decides to run in 2012. The number of people who will oppose him because of his faith probably won't grow. He made his rookie mistakes in 2008.

Hmm. I think this presents the trees without the wood. Romney didn't lose in 2008 because he made a few rookie mistakes (although, of course, he did make some). He didn't lose because of his Mormonism (although this probably did hurt him with the base). He lost because because of a massive authenticity problem.

In 2008 he tried to present himself as the race's true social conservative. It didn't take much - in fact, it only took Mike Huckabee - to make him look like a flip-flopper and a fake. Given the state of the GOP, it may have been the only rational strategy, but it didn't work, and there's not much reason to believe it will work next time.

More profoundly, Romney - so competent in so many ways - finds it very hard to project a sense of who he is, beneath the sculpted hair, behind those radiant teeth. He comes across, in public, as a perfectly tailored suit draped over a void. Until and unless he solves that problem, he won't stand a chance of becoming president.

(Photo: Alan Wong/Getty)

human nature

Evolutionary psychology has been one of the most important and stimulating streams of insight about who we are over the last thirty years. But - like all disciplines - it's also responsible for a lot of guff. David Brooks puts his finger on what the most reductive analyses (the ones that suggest there's a gene for everything and we're just following orders) are missing:

Individuals are created by social interaction. Our identities are formed by the particular rhythms of maternal attunement, by the shared webs of ideas, symbols and actions that vibrate through us second by second. Shopping isn’t merely a way to broadcast permanent, inborn traits. For some people, it’s also an activity of trying things on in the never-ending process of creating and discovering who they are.

And no, not every post today will be an MJ song title.

the thriller is gone

The King of Pop in his mercurial pomp...

obama: the retaliator

Having just discussed Obama's political method - his distinctive combination of idealism and ruthless pragmatism - I was reminded of something I first read about in one of my favourite books.

In the early 1970s a geneticist called John Maynard-Smith invented the Hawk-Dove game to try and shed light on why animals don't fight each other to death at every chance they get, in an attempt to maximise their own personal gain. In his game - actually a mathematical model but we needn't go into that - Hawk is always up for a fight. He easily beats Dove. But he gets badly wounded in a fight with another Hawk. Dove, which is programmed to cooperate, reaps benefits when it meets another Dove. But when it meets a Hawk it gets killed. In the short term, the Hawk strategy is the most rational - and evolutionarily successful - strategy. But when the game is played over and again, the Dove starts to do better. A third strategy, called Retaliator, proves best of all. Retaliator is a Dove - until it meets a Hawk, at which point it turns into a Hawk too.

A few years later, Maynard-Smith's model was turned into a computer program. A political scientist called Robert Axelrod (no relation, I don't think) hosted a contest in which people could submit computer programs with various survival strategies, to see which would prevail. To the surprise of pretty much everyone, it was the "nicest" and simplest program that won, hands down. The victor - named "Tit-for-tat" - was programmed to begin by cooperating, and then to do whatever the other guy did last time, even if that was attack (ringing bells?). In other words it was a Retaliator. Axelrod explained its success in his book on cooperation:

What accounts for Tit-for-Tat's robust success is its combination of being nice, retaliatory, forgiving and clear. Its niceness prevents it from getting into unnecessary trouble. Its retaliation discourages the other side from persisting whenever defection is tried. Its forgiveness helps restore mutual cooperation.  And its clarity makes it intelligible to the other player, thereby eliciting long-term cooperation.

It is too early to make a definitive assessment of this president's political methodology, at home or abroad. But I suspect, in retrospect, we will see that it looks very much like this.

the curse of obama?

Why is it that so many of Obama's potential opponents in 2012 are dropping like flies?

Sanford goes AWOL and then fesses up.

(And by the way have you watched his weird, rambling press conference? He swings from being sort of oddly glib and insouciant to tearing up - the latter mainly when talking about his male friends. He does seem to spontaneously speak from the heart, rather than following a script as most do in these circumstances, and that's sort of refreshing. But the main impression is of a man who hasn't got to grips with what's going on in his own mind.)

John Ensign admits to an affair with a staffer.

Jindal goofs (OK this one isn't in the same league, but still...)

Huntsman scrambles aboard the Obama ship.

Sarah Palin has become a daytime soap.

Only The Mitt hasn't messed up. Yet. If I were him I'd be just a little afraid...

the chicago way

Jonathan Chait has an excellent piece in TNR, pointing out that Obama's foreign policy follows the same pattern as his domestic politics. He treats Iran the same way he treats the Republican Party. Reach out to your opponent - draw off a few supporters from his coalition - and either force him to come to the table or force him to isolate himself.

Chait picks up on a theme frequently alluded to around these parts: that those who dismiss Obama as an airy-fairy idealist, and those who dismiss him as a ruthless cynic, are both wrong. What makes him distinctive is his synthesis of these two approaches. It's tough being his opponent. If you want to join him and 'believe', great - if you don't, bad news for you, sucka. Can't say you weren't asked. Here's Chait:

(B)y defusing the complaint among Islamists that the United States disrespects their religion, Obama can more easily force the Iranian leadership to negotiate on the terms of its stated goals. This is actually "a hard-nosed tactic of community organizers," as American Prospect editor Mark Schmitt wrote in 2007. "One way to deal with that kind of bad-faith opposition is to draw the person in," Schmitt explained, "treat them as if they were operating in good faith, and draw them into a conversation about how they actually would solve the problem."

This apparent paradox is one reason Obama's political identity has eluded easy definition. On the one hand, you have a disciple of the radical community organizer Saul Alinsky turned ruthless Chicago politician. On the other hand, there is the conciliatory post-partisan idealist. The mistake here is in thinking of these two notions as opposing poles. In reality it's all the same thing. Obama's defining political trait is the belief that conciliatory rhetoric is a ruthless strategy.

nixon on abortion

Whilst we're on Tricky, he is, coincidentally, back in the news this week because more tapes of his White House conversations have been released. Here he is on abortion:

“There are times when an abortion is necessary. I know that. When you have a black and a white,”  he told an aide (Recording here).

As Andrew Sullivan points out, that would have meant the current president not getting out of the blocks.

nixon in china

Some politicians, like Bill Clinton, are able to effortlessly summon eloquence on any subject. Others, like our own Gordon Brown, find it very hard. Richard Nixon fell into the latter group. Here is his comment to the press during a visit to the Great Wall of China:

This is a great wall.

(From Nixon And Kissinger)

hillary keeps her head down

One of the frequently voiced criticisms of Obama's choice of national security team was that it contained too many powerful personalities with big egos. His pick of Hillary Clinton, in particular, was deemed risky. After all, Hillary's all about Hillary, right?

Wrong. Perhaps because she's often mistaken for her husband or bundled together with him as a single entity, it's too often assumed that Hillary Clinton is an insecure attention-seeker with a desperate need for the spotlight. But in fact, her personality is a much more stable compound than her husband's. For all her celebrity, she driven by duty and a belief that hard work brings its own reward.

As this Politico report points out, she's kept a low public profile since her appointment, and has focused on the unromantic and often grindingly dull details of her job.* It helps that her peers are also grown-ups - she has formed a strong relationship with Robert Gates, as his spokesperson confirms:

"In the eight administrations Secretary Gates has worked in, more often than not the secretary of defense and secretary of state were not on speaking terms. By contrast, he and Secretary Clinton get along as if they were old friends," he said, adding that Gates sees Clinton as someone who is "serious, hard-working and cares deeply about national security issues."

This administration has big players but it's relatively free of the sort of insecure, secretive and controlling personalities (the Rumsfelds, Haigs and Kissingers) that can create major internecine problems.

OK, there's one obvious exception....

*Having said that, this is not a good sign.