Whoever you are, and wherever you may be sitting and reading
these words, imagine you're an American goodwill ambassador sent somewhere on
the globe, and given the mandate to explain to foreign audiences the role that
America seeks to play in the world.
You stand in front of an audience and start the discourse
with an opening statement in which you lay out the usual platitudes about
America being made of people from all over the world, therefore having natural affinity
with all kinds of people. You go on to say that as a superpower, America tries
to be helpful to everyone, and always be fair with each and everyone. This
done, you advise the audience you're ready to take questions.
You are asked to give an overall description of the
intellectual landscape in America. The questioner wants you to avoid getting
into the high level academic pursuits and concentrate instead on what is
filtered down to the common folks via the media. Responding to the question,
you say that the media in America covers the entire spectrum from the extreme
Right to the extreme Left, which means that the people have an opportunity to
sample all points of view, and decide for themselves which one they feel more
comfortable with.
You are asked if you've read an editorial that came under
the title: “Trump's Bargaining Chip,” published in the Weekly Standard on May
4, 2018. You say you did, and state that the Weekly Standard is a publication
of the right-wing variety. You explain that most of the time, you would place
it at the center-right of the spectrum, even if at times it carries articles
that lien toward the extreme Right.
An older gentleman remembers that notwithstanding
Watergate, Richard Nixon was always a dignified statesmen. When he and Henry
Kissinger made their overture to China, he was anything but a madman or
unpredictable character. And so the gentleman asks you to explain a passage
that appears in the editorial. It is this one: “If Nixon was unsuccessful at
portraying himself as 'madman,' Trump is doing a better job of it. This is the
first time in 30 years that North Korea's leadership seems puzzled by American
intentions and feels obliged to react to U.S. moves rather than vice versa.
There are advantages to be gained from unpredictability”.
You respond that you haven't a clue from where the editors
of the Weekly Standard got their information, or what they were thinking when
they wrote that passage. To you, who are of a certain age, it seems that the
young editors of the Standard were too lazy to check the history they wrote
about, relying instead on the erroneous anti-Nixon folklore that has been
circulating since the Watergate Affair.
Hearing this from you, an indignant gentleman in the
audience asks a pointed question: “In this case, how can you, Americans pretend
to know what foreigners think when you don't know what your own people are
thinking or saying?” In response, you protest that someone is asking this
question when there is no evidence that Americans try to get into the heads of
other people or pretend to know what they think. But the gentleman remains
unconvinced and quotes the following passage from the Weekly Standard
editorial:
“With the United States out of the way, Kim is sure to find
a reason to 'defend' his country by making war on the South, either with
conventional or nuclear weapons. To fail to acknowledge that reality is to
misunderstand the nature of the Kim regime: Its leaders fully anticipate a time
when the North subsumes the South under one totalitarian government”.
Before he lets you respond, the gentleman reminds you and
reminds the audience that only two jurisdictions –– America and Israel –– have
claimed self-defense by launching surprise attacks against people that were
threatening no one. For an American publication to come now and say that North
Korea is thinking along that same line, is to project into others what is
distinctly a Jewish-American disease. And so, the gentleman asks you to please
explain.