Once upon a time a young Albert Einstein was thought to be
ill equipped intellectually to grasp math or science by his teacher, but
Einstein grew up to be one of the greats in those fields. How could this have
happened? Well, it looks like the teacher did not allow for the possibility
that the student may be a deep thinker, and that he did not respond well enough
or fast enough to superficial challenges.
The teacher looked at the performance of the student at the superficial
level, and failed to see enough there to impress him. He thus concluded that
there was nothing more below that surface, and he advised the student to think
of going into something else before it is too late. But the student stuck to
the inner voice that was telling him to remain where he is, and time has shown
how wrong the teacher was.
This example is not unusual because it often happens that a
teacher would fail to identify a late bloomer from among his students. It can
also happen that a teacher would think highly of a student that displays great
promise early on but then disappoints when he hits a ceiling above which he
cannot rise. It is that a developing human mind which is not yet mature can be
unpredictable as to which direction it will take. But when the mind has
matured, predictions can be made about it with greater confidence.
While this sort of discussion can be had with regard to a
school setting, it cannot be had in another setting without raising an eyebrow
or two; without provoking a snicker or two. And this will happen to the people
who will read the latest column by Bret Stephens in the Wall Street Journal. It
has the title: “Hagel's Hruska Defense” and the subtitle: “Will America 's next
defense secretary vindicate the cause of the mediocre man?” It was published on
February 5, 2013.
When you read that column you are reminded of the saying:
“Don't try to teach daddy how to make babies.” It is that Bret Stephens is not
a teacher trying to assess the intellectual level of a student; it is that he
is a kid trying to tell someone who is above him – well above him – how to do
the things he cannot himself begin to grasp. Bret Stephens, you see, grew up in
the Yiddish tradition where the big mouth is valued much more than the big brain.
This is why he and the neocons who are like him dish out article after article
urging everyone to put more horsepower in the jaws even if the brain has not
yet mustered the power of a bird brain.
In his column, Stephens points at the confirmation hearing
during which Chuck Hagel was subjected to superficial challenges he was wise
enough to calm down or ignore. But this is not how Stephens saw the session
unfold. Instead, he says this about Hagel’s performance: “He simply folded in
the face of questions about his previous positions on Israel , Iran , nuclear Global Zero, Pentagon
overspending and so on.” You see this, and you ask yourself three questions:
What was the importance of that line of questioning? What would have been the
correct answers? And what would such answers have accomplished in practical
terms?
You go through the rest of the article looking for answers,
and you encounter a few hints. You find that while discussing the upcoming
Obama cabinet, the author writes this: “...a cabinet without a single hawk or
even a semi-hawk, whereas only a year ago there were three...” So you ask: What
did this do for America ?
And he seems to answer your question with a question of his own: “Ask yourself
how Vladimir Putin, Ali Khamenei and Bashar Assad are likely to feel about all
that. Shouldn't America
have at least one officer of cabinet rank who scares the daylights out of these
people?”
And you let out a loud scream: Wow! If one officer could
have scared the daylights out of these people, three officers must have caused
Putin, Khamenei and Assad to wet their pants. And the poor things must still be
trembling in their boots. But you ask: are they really trembling? Apparently
not because it is not what Stephens and his neocon comrades-in-arms have been
saying during the past four years.
In fact, they have been whining that President Obama and his
cabinet were acting like pussycats in the face of the tigers from Russia , Iran
and Syria .
So then, what do these neocons want now? Do they want more of the same? Can
they not envisage the Administration taking another approach?
Apparently when someone grows up in the Yiddish tradition,
all that they want to hear is bark, bark, bark whether or not they anticipate
that this will yield something good at the end of the day.
Meanwhile, the neocons did not hear Chuck Hagel bark during
the confirmation hearing, and so they deemed him to be below par.
And they will continue to whine as their spiritual forebears
have done for millennia.