Personal? Or Political?

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Ralf’s earlier post, This time its personal (scroll down to the first May 17 post if Blogger permalinks don’t work), got me thinking. I started to type a comment but it got too long.

I don’t think Dubya is personalizing anything by not talking to Schroeder. Ralf also noted that Bush’s contacts gain in stature just from being photographed with him. Bush is aware of this power and he is using for political purposes.

Bush has set a floor on what he will tolerate from foreign leaders. Snubbing Schroeder is about the United States, and perhaps the presidency, but it is not about GWB as any kind of personal matter. Bush likes to deal with leaders he thinks he can trust, and assesses them on that basis but, again, I think that is practical and not a matter of “personalizing” his policies or his politics.

Bush is cutting Schroeder because Schroeder’s conduct fell below what is acceptable. And Bush is wise enough to know that Germany is not = Schroeder, just as America is not = Bush 43. Schroeder will be gone some day, and his successor will think twice about how he chooses to speak to and about the United States. As to lost networking opportunities, that is not much of a price to pay. If someone has something they want to bring to the attention of the United States government, there are avenues by which to do that. A visit to Bush’s ranch or a convivial lunch with Powell is not absolutely necessary. Such perks must be earned. Bush loses nothing by not talking to Fischer on the phone, and he sends a useful message to others: Respect us. Don’t diss us. Don’t assume we will just choke down anything you may care to say about us or do to harm or thwart us.

We’re still not used to the Bush era. We got used to 8 years of Clinton. Clinton was a “68er”, though he did not have the guts to actually be in a riot like Fischer did, or even inhale. Still that is his origin: He’s a hippie. Clinton was comfortable with people, leftists, anywhere in the world, who instinctively hated the United States. Also, he was uncomfortable with formality, dignity or the symbolic and monarchic aspects of the Presidency. His incredibly bad neckties showed this. He had to goof on all that stuff, like dressing appropriately, to show that he was really cool. This matter of “tone” is one of the unspoken reasons Conservatives loathed him but true-blue Lefties loved him, despite the fact that his Administration did not really do much of anything substantively. These attitudes were also a big part of why Clinton was a horrible Commander in Chief — he just couldn’t handle the fact that he actually was the Commander in Chief. He probably wasn’t sure that there even should be a Comander in Chief. To Clinton, a guy who shits on America or its institutions is a rebel, an outsider, a radical, and hence at some level a soulmate and a good guy. And Clinton really believed that you always have to have a dialogue with everybody, that talk is the answer no matter what the question is, and no one is beyond hope. So if some foreigner attacks the US, even makes homicidal threats, Clinton’s instinct would be to sit down with him, get to know him, have a good heart-to-heart chat, understand how we had hurt him, seek forgiveness, try to move beyond the pain together. And Clinton wanted to be loved.

And the world took advantage of this, and got used to it.

Bush is a whole ‘nother smoke. Bush is a manager. Bush does not value process for its own sake. Bush knows there are people it is a waste of time to talk to. Like Arafat. And, apparently, Schroeder too. Bush decides on a small number of important things he wants to do and he sets about doing them, relentlessly. Bush does not care if you like him. Bush does not need to be loved. Bush has no time for people who instinctively hate the United States. Bush does not think that he has to win the heart and mind of everyone in the world. Bush is comfortable asserting the basic decency and value of America and its institutions, and vigorously opposing and imposing costs on those who assert otherwise. Bush is willing to ruthlessly employ lethal force against those who threaten us with physical harm. Bush wants America to be respected, and barring that, feared. So, while Bush has his personal idiosyncracies (the nicknames) he does not lose sight of his politicial goals due to any personality issues. And he is consistent about the bread-and-butter basics of politics — rewarding good conduct and punishing bad conduct. That is what Bush’s dealings with Schroeder are all about.

Ralf’s very valuable post (What Schroeder did right for a change, which is the second May 17 post) about Germany’s many contributions to the war on terrorism shows something important. Germany’s real interests and Schroeder’s public posturing are out of sync. This is true domestically, as well. Schroeder will eventually pay a political price for his missteps.

Meanwhile, I’m glad the Germans are aboard in the GWOT (“Global War On Terror”), which is not anywhere near over yet.

Southern Manners are African in Origin

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Miss Manners Weighs in with a little nugget of Anglospheric cultural history which should, upon reflection, come as no surprise.

TAE: The popular perception is that the Southern tradition of manners and gentility comes from England.

MARTIN: There’s a big English component, but it’s not the only one. The dominant culture in what is called Southern charm or hospitality is African. Southerners thought they were copying English country gentlemen, but do English country gentlemen say, “Y’all come see us”? Southerners practiced African manners–that’s how Southern graciousness developed. The South’s open, easygoing style, its familial use of honorifics, and its hospitality are largely African in origin. The higher the Southern family pretensions, the more likely the children were to be receiving daily etiquette instruction from someone whose strict sense of the fitting came from her own cultural background–the house slave who occupied the position known as Mammy. Charles Dickens was among those who noticed that Southern ladies spoke like their black nurses.

Sounds plausible to me. I wonder if David Hackett Fischer’s book American Plantations — (the long awaited sequel to Albion’s Seed – nice summary here) — is ever going to come out, so we get the whole story on this?

The rest of this item, from The American Enterprise Online, as usual with Miss Manners, is also good. (Found via Innocents Abroad.)

Update. This article about Ralph Ellison from the Atlantic makes, in part, a similar point. Ellison always insisted on the absolutely inextricable and undeniable and all-pervasive permeation of so-called White American culture by Black America from the very beginning. Therefore there is really no meaningful sense in which America can call itself, or be accurately called, a “white” country or culture or society. America is a Euro-African hybrid. This is so despite the perpetual attempts to deny, bury, evade or ignore the “Afro” element by “whitey”. On the other side there have been attempts on the part of some who would be blacker-than-black to say that there is some non-white Black culture here in America buried under the vestiges of oppression. Nope, there aint. We’re all Americans, we’re all in the same boat. We can celebrate diversity or we can grumble about being stuck with each other, but we’ve had 350 years of water under the bridge and it is what it is and it ain’t something else. Ellison is quoted as saying: “There is a de’z and do’z of slave speech sounding beneath our most polished Harvard accents, and if there is such a thing as a Yale accent, there is a Negro wail in it doubtless introduced there by Old Yalie John C. Calhoun, who probably got it from his mammy.”

Right on.

What Schroeder Did Right For a Change

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Because of Schroeder’s anti-war stance the German contribution to the war on terror remains largely unmentioned or even unknown, so here are some links on that issue:

The German ISAF contingent

“Afghan force changes leaders Germany and the Netherlands have formally taken command of the international security force in the Afghan capital, Kabul”.

The link above lacks concrete numbers, so there’s this one:

“ISAF is made up of 4,900 soldiers from 22 nations. The German contingent is limited to 2,500, including personnel stationed at an airbase in Termez, Uzbekistan. The Netherlands have a deployment of 630 armed forces personnel”.

KSK commandos in Afghanistan:

“Germany’s KSK (Kommando Spezialkraefte, or “Special Commando Force”), was created in 1994 and became operational in 1997, is getting it’s first combat experience in Afghanistan. About a hundred KSK troops are in Afghanistan, and more are expected”.

German troops in Djibouti:

“German Defence Minister Peter Struck arrived in the Horn of Africa state of Djibouti on Saturday for a one-day tour dedicated mainly to visiting German troops patrolling the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean, the official radio reported”

“Germany has based three frigates, five fast motorboats, four supply ships and a helicopter contingent with a total troop strength of 1,600 to 1,800 in Djibouti as part of the US-led “war on terrorism.”

NBC troops in Kuwait:

“a 250-man, highly-specialized German NBC (nuclear-biological-chemical) warfare battalion equipped with “Fuchs” (fox) armored vehicles has been in Kuwait since early this year”.

(This unit has been largely withdrawn after the war).

Troops in the Balkans:

“With a total of roughly 5,600 soldiers Germany provides one of the largest contingents for KFOR, in second place alongside Italy behind the US. Germany is one of the nations which has to date kept all its promises, has not made any unilateral reductions and has only a very few, legally based reservations regarding the tactical deployment of its troops”.

These deployments make the German contribution to Operation Enduring Freedom the second largest after the American one.