Jay Lillie

My friend Bernie was holding forth in the local java shop. We all like Bernie, but sometimes he gets the bit between his teeth and you can’t slow him down.

“I have to hand it to Obama. He’s managed to turn the office of the Presidency into a whistle stop on the campaign trail.”

“Maybe that’s the way it’s done in Chicago,” someone said.

Bernie laughed derisively. “I don’t think so. Those guys, Axelrod and Emanuel, are running the White House. They probably just want him out of their way . . . so they send him out on Air Force One with his teleprompter in hand to schmooze the folks.”

“He’s a good communicator,” I said.

“When he has the teleprompter.”

“He’s hard to embarrass,” Harry added, as if the thought suddenly occurred to him.

“Boy, you’ve got that right,” Bernie said. “His excuse for the upset in Massachusetts was that he’d not been out enough talking to the “American People”. I ask you, what day in the last year was he not out doing that?”

“When did you climb off his bandwagon, Bernie?” friend Judd asked, with a sly smile pasted across his face.

“I voted for him. You’re right about that, Judd. But I think, like most people, I tend to vote “against” rather than “for”.

“So what did his election accomplish?” Judd said.

“Well . . . for one thing . . . it convinced the Chicago crowd that we’re all as stupid as they thought we were. They think we bought into their whole program, and all they have to do is send Obama out there with his teleprompter to keep charming us to death. I mean you can’t turn on your television without seeing him there playing this role.”

“It got him elected,” I said.

“I know, but it’s starting to turn people off now. Even the Europeans are jumping ship.”

“I thought it was Congress we had to worry about,” Judd said, referring to a previous discussion we’d had with Bernie.”

“You’re right,” Bernie said, “and I thought I was wrong about that too, until I saw that clown Chuck Shumer up there on the podium yesterday. I agree that those guys are still a huge problem. All the more reason we need a working President in the White House.”

“Maybe if he gets rid of Emanuel and Axelrod . . .”

“Ha, that’s unlikely. They found him, they groomed him, they sent him to the Senate, and they steered him into the Presidency. He’s their man . . . not the other way around.”

My agent called to say he’d been asked by a “friend of the White House” to get me to reconsider the plot of my new book, JUSTICE, scheduled for release in late Spring.

“By “friends” do you include the President?” I asked him.

“No, it’s more like the powers behind the throne.”

“Like who?” I asked.

“The higher-ups. You know how it works. You wrote all about it in your last novel.”

“The White House Chief of Staff . . . ?”

“Well . . . the Chicago crowd.”

“What do they want me to change?”

“Have the reporter murdered somewhere else. Take the story out of Chicago.”

“That’s ridiculous. Besides, most of the story takes place in Washington.”

“Exactly. It’s the juxtaposition of Capitol Hill and the Southside that bugs them.”

“But that’s what makes the plot so compelling.”

“Sure, but you don’t understand. They’re used to doing the compelling in Chicago AND Washington.”

“JUSTICE is the best book I’ve written.”

“That’s what worries them. They liked HAVANA PASSAGE.”

“Because they weren’t in the White House when it came out?!    

“You’re catching on, Big Boy.”

My new novel, JUSTICE, will out in the stores and on Amazon by June. It will be here before we know it.

AND . . . you’re absolutely right . . . the title is a play on words. One of the central characters IS a Supreme Court Justice, but the real justice comes from two young women who persevere to find what really happened and why.

It’s a tragedy with redemption, and it takes place within the corridors of power in our Nation’s Capitol.

If you liked the legal adventurers in Havana Passage you’ll be happy to see them again, only this time they’re thrown into the mix with a hot young detective from Chicago Homicide. And she’s not all that’s hot.

Unabashed I admit - but you know we tell it how it is.

What was “attempted” about it?

It was successful in terrorizing everyone over the last two days who watched television, listened to radio, or read anything current, including I should add all those employees of the United States Government with the responsibility to stop things like this from happening.

If the persons who sympathized with what the terrorist was trying to do were to be heard they tell us that it worked out even better than if the bomb had brought the plane down. In that case we wouldn’t have know how or why or by whom. This way not only was the terrorist not killed (so he can continue terrorizing us throughout his trial), but we know what he tried and how close it came to happening – and that my friends is real terror.

Our enemies know that. Why don’t we?

My father likes to remind me of the moment on July 20,1969 when Americans first landed on the Moon. One of our neighbors in Princeton was the genius behind the lunar orbit concept. I was nine or ten at the time, but I remember Dad complaining that the next morning the news of this extraordinary event took a back seat to the breaking story of Ted Kennedy, Mary Jo Kopechne, and the drowning on Chappaquiddick. As he says, “From the heights of human courage to the gutless baseness of man in a matter of hours.”

My good friend Ralph thinks the same priorities continue today on media news. I played some tennis with him yesterday, and the thoughts he passed on, after beating me, merit some exposure. Here’s a rough synopsis of what Ralph had to say.

“At a time when America’s past is being demonized around the world, and by our own newly commissioned White House, I experienced a moment of honest pride catching the Space Shuttle Atlantis coming in for landing this morning at Cape Canaveral. I hadn’t seen one of these rocks-falling-out-of-the-sky landings in a long time, and I’d forgotten how impressive the whole process really is. It was a good feeling being proud of what America has accomplished in the space continuum.

“The Shuttle program, conceived and operated by NASA, was a bold and risk-filled enterprise backed by Presidential administrations through Clinton, and enough of the Congressional men and women in power through the 1990’s to provide the necessary funds. The Space program, including the Shuttle, while expensive by any standards, also has taken the lives of some those who were willing to risk everything to show what America can do when it has good leadership. They, as well as all those involved in this enterprise, deserve the Nation’s respect and deep gratitude.

“The Shuttle is being retired now, and will not be replaced by America. There are five more missions planned to the International Space Station. The Station, pioneered by America and maintained by a group of Western nations and Russia, will no longer have the American Shuttle to provide large amounts of equipment and supplies to the multi-national crews up there. The Russian rockets will transport crew as they have done for some time now. And Japanese and European rockets will supplement equipment needs in small doses. The workhorse Shuttle will no longer be available.

“NASA has even more ambitious plans for space. More moon landings and possible deeper penetrations by men into space. These dreams also need funding, and the price tag is high. Our current occupants of the White House and the controlling politicians in Congress are unlikely to place these plans very high on their list of current borrowing needs. This may or may not be good leadership, but whatever the future of NASA, we cannot forget their impressive accomplishments over the last 45 years.”

“Where the hell have you been,” my friend, Barney asked.

I went trekking.

“Where the hell is that?” he wanted to know.

Anywhere you can go off, follow a path or two, and sort yourself out.

“I thought you did that on your sailboat?”

I do, but this time I went trekking . . . in the Australian Outback.

“Why in hell would you do that?”

I was confused and depressed. I thought it would straighten me out.

“So, did it?”

I don’t know yet.

“You don’t look happy.”

I’m not.

“What’s the problem?”

Disappointment. Big time disappointment.

“About . . . ?”

Barack Obama.

“What’s so special about you? Everyone who’s not in his stable, or so far out on the left wing they can’t see their own reflection, is disappointed in him.”

I thought he’d do better . . . much better.

“He had no relevant experience for the job; he was saddled with a leftist Congress that he helped bring into office; and he owed too much to special interests, like George Soros and the big city intellectuals who used to think they ran the country and now do. How could he do well?”

I thought he was smart enough to cut the edges off what he’d promised the left, like Bill Clinton did.

“Smart doesn’t mean he has any guts. Every person he’s come up against has faced him down. Totally gutless I’d say.”

Maybe, but I’m more concerned that he seems arrogant to the point of not caring. The brightest lawyers see all sides of an issue and as a result have trouble making a decision. This seems close to what he’s doing on the Afghanistan troop question. I thought he’d be a quicker study on the real role of the Presidency.

“Thin-skinned rascal.”

Maybe that’s part of the problem. I don’t believe he’s ever before had to take severe criticism. It seems like he rationalizes opposition to his ideas as still being campaign rhetoric. That makes it easy for him to take, and he just dishes it back and forgets about it.

“Not a bad observation. So where’re you heading now?”

I’ve got a date on the South Pole with Al Gore.

“Is he a trekker?”

No, he’s a tweeter.

THIS BLOG WAS RELEASED LAST SUMMER AND IS PUBLISHED HERE BY REQUEST OF READERS, ALONG WITH A PRIOR 2008 PIECE ON A SIMILAR SUBJECT.

There was a well-written article posted by Ms. O’Grady in the Wall Street Journal on Monday July 27^th, pointing to the mistakes President Obama is making in Central America and the Caribbean. The jist of it was, “Know your facts first . . . then act, and don’t confuse Populism with democratic supported freedom. She went on to suggest that constitutions are not there to be ignored and broken. Not something you normally think requires pointing out to a lawyer who was Editor & Chief of the Harvard Law Review. The Journal, on another page, suggested the President was listening to the wrong people and not his Secretary of State.

I sent the article to a good friend of mine who’s been very critical of prior administrations’ relations with our Latin neighbors. His name is David, and he called me this morning.

“I don’t always agree with O’Grady, but she made a convincing argument in this instance concerning what the incumbent was trying to do in Honduras. But you know what hit me the hardest?”

I waited.

“She could have been talking about what the Obama/Pelosi crowd are doing in the good old USA.”

I waited some more.

“Obama is espousing pure, unadulterated, populism. It’s clothed as national health care, high taxes, cheap Dollars, a strong pro-union agenda, and a cash fix for our retreating economy. These notions could be coming out of Havana or Caracas. Don’t they understand letting people fail is part of the freedom we’ve fought so hard to maintain?”

Isn’t that a bit extreme?

“What the Democrats are doing is extreme. And once a powerful leader like our President gets the bit between his (or her) teeth he will tend to extremes. In the case of Obama, it’s better we see it now rather than after he and his Congress have done it all. It’s much harder to turn things around when an ideologue accomplishes his goals. Better to nip him in the bud or, better yet, turn him back around to where he is what I thought he was . . . the brilliant, fair-minded, practical, solution-oriented, politician I voted for . . . not an arrogant, my-way-or-the-highway manipulator, using social means to empower his government and himself. But slim chance of that I reckon.”

How did you get all this out of her article on Honduras and an ill-advised Latin policy?

“Populism is populism. Promise your people everything, hand out cash to the poor, tell them there’s more where that came from, and by the time the duped wake up to what’s really happening it’s too late to change it back or make it right. In Honduras they stopped it before the damage could become eternal. When I read that in her article it made the connection for me. Our President doesn’t want it stopped in Honduras or in Washington. Otherwise he’d have opted out like he did on the demonstrations in Iran.”

Do you really think that’s his agenda?

“His backing of the deposed Honduran president, who was bent on abolishing their constitution in much the way Chavez has in Venezuela, let Obama’s cat out of the bag. He’s sympathetic, and at best has confused populism with democracy. No one truly anchored to freedom of the individual could be taking the position he has on the Honduran situation. Hillary Clinton disagreed with him on Iran, and I suspect she didn’t like much the President’s statements on Honduras. It made him seem out of touch.” Why have a State Department if you’re not going to use it?”

You were critical of Bill Clinton’s Latin policies.

“And George Bush’s too. But this is more troubling, because it goes to the heart of what makes the U.S. the best place to be and to be from. Populism cannot work without a strong, one-sided, central authority calling all the shots. Alexander Hamilton warned us about the Dictatorship of the Majority. We know now that this is where they’re going. Evita Peron would recognize the rhetoric.”

I agreed to join Barney for coffee tomorrow and talk about this some more. If nothing else he’s making me think. So, I sent him another article on Populism that I published a year ago [Before the Election].

 The Populism Word 

My unabridged defines “populism” in several ways.

Philosophy of the Peoples Party is one . . . that sounds like Chinese communism or at least European socialism.

Anti-intellectualism is another . . . although Barack and Michelle Obama [Columbia undergrad and Harvard Law] are certainly intellectuals.

Egalitarianism and extolling the working class is a third . . . and here we think of communism again, mostly as it was under Karl Marx.

Extolling of the underdog . . . like Barack used to be, and John and Sarah may be now.

You get the drift . . . Common people of the world unite!

So why is it such a popular movement these days? Why is populism going strong in places like Venezuela, Cuba, Bolivia and Nicaragua . . .and now, maybe, the good old U.S.A?

Populism has been the route for demigods taking control in South American countries since Simon Bolivar. The list is long . . . from Bolivar through Peron to Chavez and Castro. Some were elected in the first instance, and others just took power by force, but they all have in common promising to take from the rich and give to the poor. Of course they all took a very big commissions for themselves, now residing in Swiss bank accounts.

Did it work? Did the poor get good jobs, lots of cash, and a better life? If so, you’ll need to tell me where, because I haven’t seen it. This is the big secret . . . populism has never done anything for the poor it’s supposed to help. What it’s good at is destroying economies and enriching the leaders who make the promises . . . sort of like being first-in first-out in a pyramid scheme. At best, populism is good intention going straight to hell.

Case in point: The populist notion underlying the Acorn movement to help poor people buy homes. A good idea if done right, and a disaster for all of us if mishandled by politicians looking after themselves and their friends. If you want to know who are the culprits here besides Fannie May listen to the news or send e-mails to three or four news stations until you get some straight answers.

Case in point: Juan Peron of Argentina. This bit of populism is forever immortalized by the opera “Evita”. Go see the musical or get the CD . . . it’s not really fiction.

Case in point: Hugo Chavez. This is a work in progress, but have a look at Cuba if you want to see how Venezuela will end up. Also look at where Chavez’ friends reside . . . Russian and China. All of us Americans need to be careful not to fall for Populist promises . . . especially those of us who really need help.

We’ve been hearing a lot of promises, and not only from the urban party that revels in it, and always has. My grandfather was a Harry Truman Democrat who saw clearly in 1941 that the Populist regime of Franklin Roosevelt that he’d supported for ten years did not bring him or his family out of the Depression, but rather made it deeper and more far-reaching . . . especially for the working class of which he was a part.  When you hear someone start talking about the “New Deal” . . . run as fast as you can in the other direction . . .and take your vote with you.

“Don’t do it,” urged my closest advisor.

I have to. What if it really happens? I told him.

“It won’t make any difference that you saw it coming . . . no  . . . felt it coming, not saw.”

But it’s the same thing.

“No, it’s not the same. I feel things all the time that are total off–the-wall nonsense, and I don’t go around telling people what I feel. Granted you’ve foreseen an awful lot, as your writings demonstrate, and people follow you and know you are usually right on. So it will scare them.”

“I don’t think it’s that bad. I just have this sense of doom hanging around my head. I don’t know what’s causing it.

“The point is you never have thoughts like this. You’re the most optimistic client I have. And you’re doing well. You’re successful, and have no reason to fear what might be around the corner.”

So I better try to figure it out before it’s too late.

No, no, no, that’s exactly my point. Leave it alone, and if it happens you can tell everyone you knew it was going to happen.”

But I can’t do that if I didn’t call it.

“Okay, okay, then just say you have this unexplained sense of doom hanging over your head, and let everyone think your crazy, because that’s what I think”, he said.

You’re right, but I just can’t shake the feeling we’re being had by the devil. It’s a real and urgent feeling. I see the world moving on through every day’s ups and downs, completely unaware of the devil who’s about to strike. I’m sorry I can’t help it. I feel lost and defeated. 

“Well, I’ll tell you one thing, Prime Minister, this is not the Gordon Brown I know”

Alex Santiago is a composite of three persons I got to know in Miami during my book tour promoting Havana Passage. Alex is a citizen of the United States, but his family comes from Cuba. He knows a bit about the Castro brothers and about life in Cuba during his parents time and more recently. After seven months of the Obama Administration I revisited my composite, Alex, to get his side of the story.

Do you see any progress in our leaders in Washington understanding what has to be done in Cuba?

“I do not. The failures go back 25 years through seven Presidential Administrations, and as many Congresses. I hoped we might see some improvement from the latest crowd on Capitol Hill, but what I see is worse. Barack Obama is letting the far left make the case for him that communism in Cuba has a good side. His agenda, I fear, is to use Cuba to advance his own ideas elsewhere, including here at home.”

So what’s the answer?

“The answer to finding a route to freedom for the people of Cuba is not to let our elected officials or our bureaucrats in Washington get involved trying to make deals with the Castro regime. They don’t know what they don’t know, and they’re unlikely to listen and learn. Why should they . . . they already know everything. Raul and his henchmen will take them to the cleaners.”

That’s a bit hard, isn’t it? What’s the alternative to sending our politicians and bureaucrats down there to jawbone Raul Castro?

“Congress can and should unilaterally scrub the embargo against U.S. citizens doing business in Cuba. Then we sit back and see what the Castros do.”

They won’t let us in.

“Why not?”

They don’t want real business to take hold.

“Exactly. Business requires freedom to make decisions, and this can transform Cuba the way it did Eastern Europe and is doing in China; or the Castro regime will need to take excessive measures to keep U.S. business out, which in turn will result in their eventual overthrow from within . . . also as occurred in Eastern Europe. All Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton need to do is stand tall and keep Hugo Chavez and his buddies from the mid-east and Russia from moving to support Cuban Communism 90 miles off our shores.”

Then what?

“The process will take time, but not anywhere near the 25 years our current policy has had to fail. Part of the answer is to admit there’s no quick fix for the right outcome.”

That doesn’t sound like Congress.

If you mean will the current crowd on Capitol Hill take this step? Not likely, for two reasons: If the key persons in our own government don’t support capitalism here, why would they foster its growth in Cuba? The second reason is that our legislators and bureaucrats, like most everywhere, believe in the governmental approach to solving all problems . . . They think meeting with their counterparts in Havana, people with whom they share a common self-importance and whose top-heavy perspective they can understand, is the way to go.”

You’re not at all optimistic.

“It doesn’t help that all we hear in the press these days is what a wonderful leader this man Fidel Castro has been, that Hugo Chavez is a hero for overcoming previous American animosity and the CIA, and that Raul Castro is making the right changes to free-up the Cuban society.”

That’s a bit of an exaggeration, isn’t it?

“Not really. Please don’t misunderstand me, but every time I see Barack Obama making one of his ongoing, powerful, flowery speeches to rally his supporters, the picture of a younger Fidel Castro on the pulpit in Revolutionary Square comes back to haunt me. The European left sees this and smiles. Remember, Fidel didn’t come out of the communist closet until after he’d conned everyone and had solidified power, then he took no prisoners. Old, and now infirm, he still doesn’t.”

THE CAT’S IN THE BAG 

Last week I attended a session presented by the business school at one of our best-known universities. The words floating around had a lot of letters and were erudite in style, but they painted the following picture. 

When is a stimulus not a stimulus? 

When it’s good old-fashioned pork. 

When is the list of projects that the stimulus law actually finances going to be released by Congress? 

Not soon. 

Why? 

It would let the cat out of the bag. 

Why is the job market not improving? 

Most jobs are with small business. 

So? 

Small business has been left out of the stimulus law passed by Congress, and has to spend too much time complying with overlapping, and often contradictory and confusing, federal, state and local regulations. 

What’s the prediction for our 2010 economy? 

Not good. We need job recovery.

Why is China doing better than we are? 

It’s not, but it aimed its stimulus to where it has more effect on workers’ pocket books. 

Why is the stock market doing so well? 

You think? The institutions that make trading and investing other people’s money their business need to trade and invest. The market was oversold in February/March and has bounced back some, but it’s still down over 35% from one year ago. 

When will we get back to normal? 

Only 59% of Americans are actually in the work force. Maybe that is the new normal. 

We need to get back at least to where we can plan and work. Why doesn’t Congress pass another stimulus package? 

That would require they’re telling us where the last one went.