W’s Return

Yesterday former President George W. Bush returned, briefly, to the national stage.  He was campaigning for his brother, Jeb Bush, who is hanging on for dear life and hoping to make a good showing in the South Carolina Republican primary.

According to press reports, the former President gave a short speech that endorsed his brother and described some of the qualities, like integrity and judgment and character, that he believes are needed in a good President — implicitly drawing a contrast with the blustery bombast of Donald Trump, without mentioning Trump or any other Republican candidate by name.   “W” also recounted some memories from his former campaigns in South Carolina and added some of his trademark self-deprecating humor.

It was a bit jarring to see news reports of George W. Bush at the podium.  I hadn’t seen him for a while, and of course he looked older, and thinner.  Since he left office seven years ago, former President Bush has consciously avoided the public eye and maintained a pretty consistent non-partisan, apolitical tone.  His speech yesterday sounds like more of what we’ve come to expect from him in his post-presidential years.  He was there to support and help his brother, but he did it without attacking other candidates by name or, for that matter, mentioning President Obama or criticizing the Obama administration.

George W. Bush remains a figure to be mocked and reviled among some on the left side of the political spectrum; seven years later, he’s still blamed by many, inside the Obama administration and out, for virtually all of our current problems.  Now Donald Trump has joined in, by repeating the debunked conspiratorial theories that the Bush administration lied about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq to maneuver us into an unnecessary war and ignored clear intelligence that America would be attacked on 9/11.

Through it all, former President Bush has publicly remained above the fray, no doubt believing that, having served in the nation’s highest office, former Presidents shouldn’t engage in rancorous partisan politics or bash their successor on talk shows.  It’s an old school approach that speaks of personal humility and properly recognizes the dignity of the presidency.  His ego obviously doesn’t compel him to stay in the media spotlight.  Instead, he’s taken to painting, he’s written a book about his Dad, former President George H.W. Bush, and he’s focused on charitable and humanitarian efforts.

Yesterday, George W. Bush listed some of the qualities we want in our President.  I think the former President’s personal conduct since he left office illustrates those qualities — and draws a pretty sharp contrast with the vulgar, egotistical, limelight-loving loudmouth who currently is leading in the polls.

 

Barack Obama And George W. Bush

New York magazine has an interesting article with a headline no one thought they would see after President Obama’s triumph in the 2008 presidential election.  The headline is:  Barack Obama Is Not George W. Bush.

The comparison is being made by some because President Obama’s approval ratings have dropped to levels at or below the levels for President Bush at the same point in the second term his presidency.  The article argues that although the approval ratings are similar, the reality of the two presidents is much different:  President Bush had bipartisan support and lost it, and President Obama never had bipartisan support to begin with.  The article contends that President Obama’s dropping ratings are due to diehard, unending opposition that has been adopted as a tactical matter by Republican leaders.

I’m not convinced by that contention, which strikes me as a bit of a dodge.  The implication is that President Obama’s policies have nothing to do with his falling popularity, or with the opposition to his initiatives — the Republican tactics are wholly responsible because they have made the President look “partisan.”  In reality, I think, the opposition to many of the President’s proposals, such as the Affordable Care Act, is due to disagreement with the merits of those proposals:  Republicans and many independents thought they were bad ideas, and nothing that has happened since the recent rollout of healthcare.gov and the insurance exchanges has caused them to change their minds.  The mismanagement of the “Obamacare” rollout, and the President’s claimed unawareness of governmental actions like the NSA’s surveillance programs, also have caused people to question the President’s competence.  Those are self-inflicted wounds, not the product of stalwart opposition.

One other aspect of the New York piece is troubling.  It forecasts that the remainder of the President’s term will focus on executive action, where the President simply announces decisions without having to win approval from Congress.  We are already seeing that with some of the recent decisions to waive enforcement of various provisions of the Affordable Care Act.  That process is troubling in and of itself, but even more troubling is that the political focus has shifted from Congress to the federal judiciary — specifically, the federal court of appeals for the District of Columbia, which hears appeals of many administrative decisions.  The New York article states that Republicans have had a “functional majority” on the D.C. Circuit, and argues that the recent changes to the filibuster rules will allow President Obama and Senate Democrats to approve nominees to that court who will approve the President’s expanded use of “executive powers.”

This kind of frank assessment of the politics of a federal court should be disturbing to everyone.  Our government has been increasingly politicized in recent decades, and it hasn’t exactly worked well for our country.  If the judicial branch — which, with its lifetime tenure, is supposed to be immune from base political considerations — becomes explicitly politicized, it will not be a good development for the United States of America.

“Selfie”-Absorbed

The latest thing to apparently go “viral” is a series of photos of President Obama, his wife Michelle, British Prime Minister David Cameron, and Danish leader Helle Thorning-Schmidt during the memorial service for Nelson Mandela yesterday.

The President, Cameron, and Thorning-Schmidt joked and took a picture of themselves with a cell phone — called a “selfie” — while Michelle Obama sat to the side.  Countless bits of space on the internet have now been filled with debate about whether taking a “selfie” and sharing a joke during a memorial service is appropriate behavior, interpreting Michelle Obama’s demeanor as depicted in the photos, and trying to read whether she is irked that her husband is chatting and chuckling with the Danish leader.

This incident, in a nutshell, is one of the things about the internet that I find maddening.  So many things go “viral” that viral status seems to be the norm these days, and people fixate on trivial things at the expense of understanding the significant matters.  It’s a shame that anyone running a Google search on the Mandela memorial service will have to wade through commentary about the silly “selfie” incident rather than stories emphasizing the extraordinary fact that leaders from across the world — including the current American president and three former Presidents — traveled to South Africa to pay tribute to a former prisoner who is now regarded as a great historical figure.

So I’m not going to criticize President Obama for posing for a “selfie” and I’m not going to speculate about whether and how his wife Michelle reacted to his behavior.  That’s their business, not mine.  The significant thing is that he and former Presidents Bush, Clinton, and Carter saw fit to attend and honor the memory and life of Nelson Mandela, and I’m glad they did.

A Plague Of Disillusionment

Fellow blogger Elroy Jones has a piece out today about being deceived — in this case, by President Obama.  She voted for him twice, and she’s feeling bamboozled.

I wonder how many other supporters of President Obama are feeling a similar, profound disillusionment.  I know many people — including members of my immediate family — voted for the President with great excitement because they expected a lot from him.  In fact, they expected a President who would realize dramatic change, turn around the world’s perception of our country, and achieve historic greatness.  In my view, at least, that hasn’t happened.

What must be even more galling is that many of the people who voted for President Obama did so largely because they wanted to reverse course from the Bush years.  That hasn’t happened, either.  More and more, it has developed that President Obama has adhered to the security policies established by the Bush Administration and, in some cases, expanded and amplified them.

When people criticize actions like the NSA’s routine collection of reams of data about ordinary Americans, and the Obama Administration’s defense is that the programs were begun under the Bush Administration, how is that received by Obama voters who hoped for change?  Do they suddenly develop a deeper respect for the policies of President George W. Bush, or do they scratch their heads and wonder why they voted for a guy who promised so much and seems to have delivered so little?

The Value Of In Person, Versus In Writing

The recent attacks on U.S. embassies and consulates in Egypt, Libya, and Yemen have come on the heels of reports that President Obama has missed more than half of his daily intelligence briefing meetings.  And, in the wake of the embassy attacks, The Independent, a British newspaper, is reporting that the the U.S. received warnings of attacks on U.S. embassies and consulates but did not respond to them.  The Obama Administration flatly denies the latter report.

The Obama Administration doesn’t deny that the President has missed a lot of his daily intelligence briefings but argues that missing the meetings really isn’t that important because the President can get all the information he needs from briefing books.  As the writer of the linked article points out, that position stands in contrast to earlier reports in which Administration sources contended that the daily meetings were important and were well handled by the President.

I don’t doubt that President Obama gets lots of information in writing and reads it carefully.  In addition, some complicated concepts are better explained on paper.  Still, I think face-to-face interaction must play an important role.  Obviously, you can’t ask questions of a briefing book, but there are other important elements to in-person discussions.  The act of preparing for such meetings — finishing the review of briefing books in advance, preparing questions, deciding where to focus — itself has value for the person leading the meeting.  Attending such meetings shows that you attach importance to what the other participants do and thereby encourages them; attendance also permits give-and-take, brainstorming, and free-wheeling discussion that simply can’t be replicated by a written document or an email exchange.  Finally, humans communicate a lot of information through facial expressions, gestures, tone of voice, and other methods that can’t be translated to writing.

I’m not saying that President Obama could have waded through intelligence information and pieced together clues that would have alerted him to the impending attacks if he had regularly attended the daily intelligence briefings, as President Bush apparently did.  What I am saying is that national security issues are a crucial part of the President’s job, and that attending meetings where the President participates, in person, in discussions about intelligence and threat issues is an important part of doing that job the right way.  I don’t know why President Obama has missed so many of these meetings, and what other events took priority on his schedule.  In view of this week’s events, however, I think he, and we, would be better served if he made it a point to make those meetings.

The High Cost Of Constant Fundraising

We’ve heard a lot recently about President Obama’s fundraising.  One journalist reports that, so far, the President has attended 160 reelection fundraisers — twice as many as President Bush had at the same time in his 2004 re-election bid.

I’m not a Polyanna about fundraising.  Modern presidential campaigns are crushingly expensive.  A President seeking reelection needs to raise lots of money, and no one is going to be a more effective at it than the President himself.  The inevitable consequence is that the President will spend a lot of time at fundraisers, hobnobbing with high-rollers and collecting their checks.

There’s an unseemliness to the emphasis on cash, cash, cash and the President’s involvement in raising it, but we’re beyond the point of worrying about unseemliness in modern politics.  Instead, I’ve been thinking about the impact of constant fundraising on the President’s ability to perform other important parts of his job — such as working with Congress and trying to build the kinds of coalitions needed to pass legislation.

The focus on fundraising interferes with the President’s relations with Congress in at least two ways.  First, there are only so many waking hours in the day.  Every hour spent on the rubber-chicken circuit is one that could have been spent strategizing with congressional allies, schmoozing opponents, or seeking points of potential compromise on important legislation.  What’s more likely to break the stalemate in Congress — another glitzy fundraiser in Hollywood, or a weekend retreat to Camp David with House and Senate leaders, or wavering Members of Congress who might be persuaded to vote for a presidential initiative?  Politics is personal, and if a President doesn’t regularly offer the personal touch, he is bound to be less effective in his relations with Congress.

Second, the President gives a speech at every fundraiser.  What does he typically talk about, to fire up his supporters and spur them to write bigger checks?  Why, it’s the “do-nothing” Congress that won’t act on his agenda.  So the fundraising grind exacts a dual toll — the President not only is taken away from Washington and the opportunity to spur the legislative process, but he also bashes Congress and thereby reduces his chances of achieving consensus in the future.

President Obama wants to win re-election, and he and his advisers know that he needs money to achieve that goal.  I understand why he’s doing what he’s doing.  Still, I can’t help but think that it would be better for the country — and for President Obama, too — if he spent less time at black tie galas and more time with Senators and Representatives, slapping backs and twisting arms.

Voting With Their Pocketbooks?

Here’s an interesting story:  former President George W. Bush’s book, Decision Points, has sold as many copies in one month as former President Bill Clinton’s book, My Life, has sold in six years.  The book’s publisher apparently has been amazed by its sales success.

I don’t think the book’s success means that people like Bush better than Clinton, or that people think Bush was a better President or is a better writer.  Instead, the reality is that — whether you love Bush or think he is just this side of Satan — the story of Bush’s presidency is much more compelling than the story of Clinton’s life.

The country never faced a great crisis under Clinton, but it did under Bush.  In comparison to the deadly trauma of 9/11, and how to respond to it, the Clinton’s impeachment proceedings, the Lewinsky scandal, and the various other international and domestic challenges of the Clinton presidency pale into insignificance.  And the key players in the Bush presidency are much more vivid than in the Clinton presidency.  Who makes a better read:  Dick Cheney or Al Gore?

 

Debt, Debt, And More Debt

Recent figures from the Treasury Department shows that the national debt of the United States is now $13.665 trillion.  It is an unimaginably large amount.  In numeric form, it comes out to $13,665,000, 000,000. How are our kids and grandkids going to pay off such a huge sum?

There is plenty of blame to go around for this appalling debt predicament.  According to the Treasury Department, during President George W. Bush’s eight years in office, the national debt increased by $4.9 trillion.  During President Obama’s two years in office, the debt has increased by another $3 trillion.  Both parties bear responsibility — or more accurately, irresponsibility — for this glut of debt, which has turned the United States into a debtor nation and imposed soaring interest costs that will make it virtually impossible to balance our budget and pay down that debt in the future.

Everyone seems to agree that our debt and constant borrowing is unsustainable, but no one seems to be doing anything about it.  President Obama apparently is waiting for the recommendations of a bipartisan commission, and every other politician is too busy running for office to take any action.  The  lack of action on even basic appropriations bills this past session shows that, for this Congress, hard work and hard choices on the federal budget is just not a priority.

What does all of this mean for the upcoming election if you are a voter who, like me, thinks there is no more important issue for our nation than bringing the federal budget under control?  I think it gives rise to the “throw the bums out” view UJ noted in his recent post.  Democrats control the White House and have huge majorities in both Houses of Congress, and they’ve failed to take any meaningful action on what should be our highest priority.  Why not give the Republicans a chance and then, if they fail, try something else?  Nothing that has happened in the last two years indicates that a Democratic-controlled Congress will tackle federal spending or debt issues, and if we wait too much longer to do anything about the debt issue it may be too late.

 

Katrina’s Five-Year Anniversary

It’s the five-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina.  The media usually cannot resist anniversaries, particularly when there is powerful film footage to show, and this one is no exception.  This CNN story on the anniversary is typical — a rehash of what happened, some hand-wringing about it, and plenty of retrospective blame being put on President Bush and the federal government, but curiously not much blame being apportioned to the State of Louisiana or the City of New Orleans itself.

I’m not sure what to make of such stories.  With Katrina, the federal government did not cover itself with glory in dealing with an enormous catastrophe, and neither did the state or city government.  People were marooned on the roofs of their homes, were not readily supplied with food and water, and could not be evacuated quickly from the hellish environs of the Superdome.  We learned that the federal government is a ponderous entity that does not move with lightning speed.  Was that unique to the Bush Administration?  Apparently not, because we recently saw a plodding, uncoordinated federal government make a similarly muddled response to the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.   Katrina also taught us that the Louisiana state government and the New Orleans city governments were corrupt, inept and seemingly hamstrung by politics.  Has anything changed in that regard?

If I had my way, every retrospective story on a disaster like Hurricane Katrina would focus not on what happened — we can safely leave that to historians — but on how things have changed to make sure that it doesn’t happen again.  No blame-shifting politicians or social scientists could be quoted.  Instead, facts would be the focus.  Have the levees been sufficiently strengthened?  Have cumbersome federal bureaucracies been streamlined to better deal with disasters?  Are evacuation plans reasonable and capable of being implemented?  If Katrina were to happen again today, would the results be any different?  If so, why?  Those are the tough questions that “retrospective” stories tend to leave unanswered.

Should The Bush Tax Cuts Be Extended?

Beginning on January 1, 2011, the tax cuts enacted under President Bush will expire and significant tax increases — affecting Americans of different income brackets and many American businesses, and involving income taxes, estate taxes, capital gains taxes, and other forms of federal taxes — will automatically take effect as a result.  The Springfield News-Sun has published a helpful chart showing the changes in income tax rates that will occur if the Bush tax cuts are not extended.

Now Republicans and some Democrats are raising questions about whether raising taxes in the midst of a recession makes much sense.  The Obama Administration, through Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, says the tax cuts on the highest-income Americans should be allowed to expire, and they should pay an even larger portion of their income to the federal government.  As the Springfield News-Sun chart indicates, higher earning Americans already pay a significantly higher percentage in income taxes to the federal government.

Treasury Secretary Geithner refers to the higher-income earners as “the most fortunate” — as if the income they earn was the result of dumb luck, rather than hard work, opening their own businesses, developing a successful new product, intelligent investment risk-taking, or other activities that are rewarded in a capitalist economy.  That sort of bureaucratic attitude is infuriating, but typical.  If you’ve never held a job in the private sector where your hard work is rewarded, you tend to think that being successful in business is the result of happenstance as opposed to thoughtful effort.  That same attitude underlies the notion that, if the tax cuts expire, the highest-earning Americans will heedlessly continue to act as they have before and just pay more in taxes — as opposed to modifying their behavior in recognition of the fact that their hard work will put less money in their pocket.

In reality, of course, individuals and businesses do modify their behavior in response to tax rates.  That is why so many Members of Congress, and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, think that extending the Bush tax cuts would be helpful for our struggling economy, and that ending those tax cuts could potentially shove the economy into a deeper recession. Americans will have less to spend, and therefore the consumer spending that is one of the foundations of our economy will be weaker.  Businesses, too, may stay their hand on hiring or other activities because the tax burden is too great.

The battle over how to deal with the expiring tax cuts will be interesting, because it will play directly into the standard themes of the parties, with the Democrats saying that the Republican Party is interested only in business and the wealthiest Americans and Republicans saying that the Democratic Party is interested only in economic redistribution.  In the meantime, Americans will again be caught in the middle, wondering whether they should expect a significantly higher tax bill come January — and how they should plan their affairs given the continuing uncertainty.

The Prez And The Press

Some members of the press are raising questions about President Obama’s lack of formal, prime-time press conferences.  Indeed, he has gone longer between such conferences than did President Bush before him.  Most people probably will find this hard to believe, because President Obama seemingly has been all over the television screen since his inauguration.  Most of his appearances, however, are through scripted speeches, “town halls,” one-on-one interviews, or other forms of media exposure that do not involve fielding live questions from skeptical reporters.

It’s odd that President Obama seems to be dodging formal press conferences.  He obviously is an intelligent person, and his answers to questions typically are well-formulated.  Of course, the danger of a press conference is that an unscripted answer might gin up a media firestorm that distracts the President until it dies down.  Something like that happened at the President’s last formal press conference, when he said Cambridge police “acted stupidly” in their interaction with Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr.  The resulting controversy was not put to bed until after President Obama hosted an awkward “Beer Summit” at the White House.  It may be that that experience caused the President to conclude that formal prime-time press conferences just aren’t worth it.

As a former journalist, I think such press conferences are worth it.  I think it is good for the President to break out of controlled environments and meetings with nodding, sycophantic followers and face some tough and even oddball questions from the media.  Presidents who are skillful in handling questions from the media — like President Kennedy — look sharp and at ease; their ability to deal with aggressive, probing questions with intelligence and humor inspire public confidence.  Press conferences undoubtedly keep the President more on top of issues that are of current interest to the country, even if they aren’t particularly of interest to the President or his advisors.  They also show that the President is not some remote, all-controlling figure, but a human being, elected to an important office, who is answerable to the public.  If Presidents duck the press, they end up being depicted as out of touch — and maybe they are.

Maybe Now, Everyone Will Recognize Hugo Chavez Is A Jerk

When Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez followed then-President Bush to the podium at the United Nations several years ago and said he still smelled the scent of sulfur, some American politicians and pundits who were opposed to Bush laughed, shook their heads, and said Chavez’s comments just reflected how the Bush Administration’s policies had reduced the esteem for America in the world.  Today, Chavez, who is attending the climate change conference in Copenhagen, used the same “scent of sulphur” line about — President Obama.

Hugo Chavez and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

Maybe now everyone in our country — Democrat and Republican, liberal and conservative — will understand that Hugo Chavez is not some keen and witty observer of the international scene, but instead is just an anti-American jerk, an anti-democratic “populist” who has run his country’s economy into the ground and engages in tiresome America-bashing in an attempt to raise his international profile and prop up his sagging approval ratings at home.  Maybe now all Americans will come to realize that Chavez, who apparently received a standing ovation from delegates attending the Copenhagen conference, is just a slightly more outspoken example of the anti-capitalist, reflexively anti-western governments that make up significant portions of international bodies like the United Nations.  The next time someone expresses concern because the United States is following its own path, rather than hewing to the “international consensus,” remind them that the “international consensus” is largely made up of governments headed by former “rebel leaders,” dictators, “strong men,” thugs, scoundrels, “presidents for life,” and other representatives of repressive regimes.  Why in the world should we care what Chavez, Robert Mugabe, and Muammar Gaddafi and their ilk say about our country and its policies?

If Hugo Chavez’s comment about President Obama causes even a few Americans to wake up to the reality of what a rogues gallery many international organizations have become, we should thank him — and then never pay attention to him again.

Eyes On The Prize (Cont.)

President Obama soon will be leaving for Norway to give his speech accepting the Nobel Peace Prize.  According to this article, Norwegians are upset because he has cancelled a number of the events traditionally attended by the Peace Prize winner, including a lunch with Norway’s King.  I wonder if, perhaps, the President cancelled some of the events because he just did not think it would be politically helpful to be seen on TV back in the States attending function after function in Norway, all in relation to accepting a Prize that many people believe he did not really deserve?

I am sure that the President’s acceptance speech will be carefully analyzed.  Apparently he is going to tackle, head on, the irony some people see in his acceptance of the Peace Prize only days after announcing that he was going to send more troops to Afghanistan.  I think he should do so, and I think in that regard he should point out that, occasionally, peace must be achieved by standing firm and fighting those who have an insatiable appetite for conquest, for death and destruction, or for trampling on the human rights of others.  Many tried to negotiate with Adolf Hitler without success; peace in Europe ultimately was achieved only at the point of a sword.

I also think the President would do himself a favor by not criticizing his predecessor or, once again, suggesting that he has brought new enlightenment to a benighted United States of America.  Such criticisms seem motivated solely by a desire to obtain some kind of domestic political advantage by constantly making comparisons to a President who was tremendously unpopular at the end of his term.  I agree with the old adage, however, that politics should end at the water’s edge.  I think it seems small for the Obama Administration to constantly belittle the efforts of the Bush Administration.  Equally important, I question whether boasting about the policy changes that have occurred is a good foreign policy technique.  Foreign policy is supposed to reflect a country’s national interests, and those interests really should not change dramatically even if voters have decided to replace the party in power.  Do we really want foreign governments to think that a change in Administration will cause American foreign policy to swing like a pendulum?  Won’t that encourage foreign governments who disagree with our policy to either meddle in our political affairs or wait out the current Administration, in hopes that voters will replace it with one that will develop a new policy that is more palatable?

Botched Bailout

The Special Inspector General’s report on the bailout of AIG is pretty damning. It concludes that the bailout — which was engineered by the U.S. Treasury and Federal Reserve and occurred on the Bush Administration’s watch — involved some gross overpayments on certain credit default swap transactions. In many instances the Federal Reserve “made whole” the counterparties to troubled investments where the counterparties would reasonably be expected to take significant haircuts on what were, after all, extraordinarily risky transactions gone bad. One of the counterparties that made out very well was Goldman Sachs, which just recently reported enormous “earnings.”

The Special Inspector General’s report on the AIG bailout just confirms, once again, that when the government intervenes in a “bailout” scenario it is the taxpayers who inevitably end up getting fleeced. I appreciate that, at the time, there was significant concern that AIG’s collapse would have been tipping over the first domino in a long line. Still, you would like to think that the Bush Administration and the Federal Reserve would have had sufficient savvy, moxie, and guts to negotiate fair compromises with Wall Street firms and international firms that were looking to profit from bad deals.

Not Another Brick In The Wall

November 9, 2009 will be the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. That singular event — which led to the liberation of millions of people trapped in the communist dictatorships behind the Iron Curtain — is one of the most notable achievements of modern American foreign policy, ranking with the Marshall Plan and the enlightened governance of post-war Japan. For the long decades of the Cold War, American Presidents and politicians of both political parties steadfastly opposed communism and the expansionist efforts of the Soviet Union. That process culminated in the political and economic bankruptcy of the Soviet Union and, ultimately, in the fall of the Berlin Wall.

President Obama’s decision to change his plans, so that he will not attend the ceremonies commemorating the 20th anniversary, is extremely disappointing precisely because the fall of the Berlin Wall was a significant American foreign policy accomplishment that deserves to be celebrated by the American President. It also was an accomplishment that sent the kinds of messages that you would think President Obama would want to send — messages of resolution and commitment. In the wake of President Obama’s decision to retreat from the European missile defense system proposed by the Bush Administration and his decision to publicly revisit our Afghan policy, it would seem to be a wonderful time for a presidential visit to Berlin to commemorate a tremendous achievement that was the product of decades of concerted, bipartisan effort.

President Obama has often apologized for what he considers to be American excesses; why not celebrate what is unquestionably an American triumph? Why not let the American people bask for a moment in the grateful thanks of the peoples of eastern Europe? In an era where the President can jet off to Copenhagen to pitch the Olympics for his adopted hometown of Chicago, what could possibly keep the President from attending such a significant event?