BILL CLINTON: TIME TO GIVE IT A REST

The Incredible Shrinking ex-President

The Clinton-Bush Toronto snore fest of a few days ago was as revealing as it was reported to be dull. For one thing, the event proved that Calgary isn’t the only Canadian community to be so crass and insensitive that it would welcome a putative war criminal to speak to its citizens for hundreds of dollars a pop each. Nor was it the only city to reward him with guffaws at his ghost written jokes and a standing ovation after listening to his nonsense.

Predictably, Calgary has been joined by its big bucks, greed is good, sister Canadian community – namely, Bay Street. Hell, the Bay Street pin-striped brigade turned out a crowd of 6000 to hear these two clowns. Calgary couldn’t hold a candle to that. However, the cowtown is still well up there in the crass department. By my last count, it has welcomed no less than three of the Bush outlaws to regale its corporate citizens about shock and awe, the war against terror, and other shibboleths of that sorry administration. Karl Rove, then Bush, and more recently Condi Rice have graced Dallas North – at prices ranging from $400 bucks a head (Bush and Rove) to Condi (the most expensive at $500). Hogtown – a label better applied to Bay Street than the rest of the great city of Toronto – have only had two – Rove and Bush, with Rove generating $700 a head. Bush and Clinton in TO again made Calgary look like pikers, getting up to $2500 a ticket.

Read: http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=1644965

As might be expected for a man whose classy speeches were a staple of derision on the David Letterman show over the past year, Bush’s repertoire of jokes at the affair included two that dealt with animal fecal matter, and another apparently cribbed from the tired joke file of the disgraced Brian Mulroney. Nonetheless, the crowd chuckled and guffawed and at the end of the day, the two sorry comedians left the city like a couple of absconding pool sharks, a few hundred grand to the good.

Apart from the corporate big wigs and their minions shelling out the big bucks to hear Bush and groveling to him with chuckles and ovations, the big story of the day was that neither Clinton nor Bush knew anything about the new U.S. requirement of Passports for all Canadians going into the States. Well, we shouldn’t be surprised. Bush appointed an Ambassador to Canada whose previous Canadian experience was limited to one previous trip to Niagara Falls and who knew sweet tweet about the country. Clinton’s wife thought that some of the 9/11 terrorists had made their way into the United States from Canada, as did Janet Napolitano, Obama’s new Homeland Security Czar. By the way, Napolitano’s only venture into Canada until now was to see polar bears in Churchill, Manitoba. And people like Jack Granatstein believe that we are anti-American when we get fed up with some of this stuff!

All of which is interesting in a sick sort of way. But what really sticks out in my mind is how far Bill Clinton has fallen. I liked Bill Clinton from the moment he arrived on the political scene. He was thoughtful, smart, and could give a speech like no President before him in my memory. I thought his dalliances were reckless but certainly not impeachable, and the resulting attacks on him were launched largely by right wing Republicans most of which lived in glass houses. I thought he was a good President and was saddened when he stepped down from the Presidency. I even paid to hear him speak once.

But what the hell is he doing traipsing around the world at events such as this where he shares the spotlight with such a twit? With a man who sanctioned torture, was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent people, lied to and divided the American people, pushed the United States into becoming a pariah state, let New Orleans flow into the Gulf of Mexico, did nothing while the economy went to hell, and rewarded greed like no President before him? I guess he does it for the money. And in the process he diminishes himself daily. Indeed, the Toronto Star thought Bush was the more entertaining of the two. See: http://www.thestar.com/news/columnist/article/642978

I think its time Bill Clinton gave it a rest. He had his turn at the plate. If he wants to make some big bread by giving speeches, he hardly needs to do it with riff-raff like George W. Bush at his side. And there is certainly no reason why he should be interested in salvaging Bush’s legacy or reputation. Better he give more help to Barack Obama who is saddled with the responsibility of cleaning up Bush’s mess.
See also:
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2009/05/29/clinton-bush-conversation-toronto.html

JACK GRANATSTEIN: TAKING A PAGE OUT OF THE BOOK OF JOE McCARTHY

Jack

For years I have watched the illustrious career of Jack Lawrence Granatstein wend its way through my generation. I have read many of his writings (I admit I have to be up for it), and I have intently watched and listened to him on the tube and radio. Granatstein is a genuine political and military history scholar who has earned many university degrees from good schools including a PhD from Duke University. He served in the Canadian Army for ten years and so possesses much more than academic knowledge of that field. He has taught at universities and written over sixty books including some distinguished prize and medal winners. We see his avuncular personage frequently on our television screens providing mostly trenchant and wise observations of historical and current events. Honours and medals have followed him throughout his adult life. By any standard, he is a great Canadian. For more on Granatstein’s career read: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fellow_of_the_Royal_Society_of_Canada.

Alas, he has his blind spots. For example, for some years now he has taken every opportunity to hector Canadians about what he sees as our endemic anti –Americanism, particularly from what he perceives as the Canadian left. He believes Canadian anti-Americanism exists, and he believes it is bad and unfair. He was at it again in a column that appeared in this morning’s Calgary Sun. Unfortunately, as of this writing it has not made it on line. However, I will review it and pass on my comments.

His entrée into the subject is Barack Obama's popularity in Canada. Granatstein asks the question, “How will his presidency sit with the great Canadian anti-American coalition, many Liberals, the New Democratic Party, the Greens, the Bloc Quebecois and all those raging grannies of whatever age who despise the United States and all its works?” His answer was, “Not well, is my guess.” He goes on to say that history leads him to believe that by the summer because of their innate anti-Americanism Canadians will be attacking Obama.

To back up his conclusion, he argues that even though Canadians were largely sympathetic to the U.S. Democratic Party, they denounced even John F. Kennedy and Bill Clinton during their terms in office. He writes that Kennedy suffered the wrath of Canadians because of the Bay of Pigs Invasion and for risking nuclear war during the Cuban missile crisis.

Well, if there were Canadians who felt that way, they were hardly on the radar screen. I was around in those days and paying some attention to the news. I never observed a helluva lot of antipathy from Canada towards Kennedy at any time. The only Canadian I recall as not having cared too much for Kennedy was John Diefenbaker, who was reported to genuinely dislike the man. But let's say there was a bit of it. Was that anti-Americanism or was it anti - American foreign policy on some level - like, say, the Bay of Pigs Invasion or the growing commitment to the folly of Viet Nam? In any event, at the time of the assassination Kennedy was overwhelmingly in the good books of the vast majority of Canadians.

About Bill Clinton, Granatstein says, “those on the left soon complained about NAFTA and his use of American troops around the world, and Prime Minister Chretien tried hard to camouflage his good relations with the Arkansan.”

Well, again, I recall some pockets of criticism in Canada, but it was hardly discernable, even from those on the left. As far as Chretien trying to hide from his buddy – buddy relationship with Clinton, that is pure bullshit and Granatstein surely knows it. And if there were some Canadians who opposed NAFTA or the U.S. led NATO bombing of the Balkans - and there were - does that make them anti-American, or anti - aspects of American trade policy or foreign policy?

Granatstein says, “The Canadian left sees the US. as the great Satan.” I suppose that explains why most Canadians are so hooked on American culture like its movies, pop stars, fast food joints and cities. He predicts that Obama will ask for further troop commitments in Afghanistan beyond 2011, and that “the response from the anti-American Canadian left will be as vehement as if it had been George W. Bush asking.” But whether people are on the Canadian left (as he describes it) or not, if they oppose such a request, does it make them anti-American? Or could they be merely opponents of come components of American foreign policy that is going nowhere and will likely go nowhere unless there is a troop commitment of some three hundred or four hundred thousand strong?

Granatstein continues his rant saying that when Obama does ask for the troop commitment, “The shouts won’t initially include the same sneers hurled at Bush, but Canadian critics, I suspect, will attack the U.S. and the Obama administration with equal fury. Over time, as Obama fails to live up to expectations - no one could meet the high hopes he has created – new personalist slurs will emerge.”

That is highly doubtful. Canadians whether on the left or right, recognize honesty and competence as paramount values in leadership. Obama has both in spades. Granatstein’s pal Bush, had neither.

After a little more haranguing and whining which makes him sound more like Rush Limbaugh rather than the scholar we take him for, Granatstein concludes, “Obama is on his Canadian honeymoon today, but tomorrow he is almost certain to become merely another target for those who reject America’s world view. Canadian attitudes almost demand this.”

That there will be Canadian critics of Obama’s policies there is no doubt. But they will certainly not be critics of the American people and probably not personal critics of the President himself, unless he is perceived to have done something dastardly wrong - like having lied about a war, or condoned torture.

To criticize U. S. policies is not being anti-American. It is to have an opinion about policies. Those who demonstrated in Canada against say, the war in Viet Nam or those who demonstrate today in Canada at the presence of Dick Cheney or G.W. Bush within their environs are not anti-American. They are demonstrating against American foreign policy, or rogues and charlatans who lied to the world. In fact, to paint such demonstrators or opponents of policy as anti-American is akin to Joe McCarthy calling all those on the left or moderate left, or merely those who got in his way, communists. Jack Granatstein, a Canadian icon, scholar, feted author, and so on should be so much better than this.

GRANATSTEIN ON AFGHANISTAN: SPINNING MIKE PEARSON

Jack Granatstein is a much admired historian, holds a multitude of degrees and honors, and has authored or co-authored more than sixty books. His writings have earned him a host of medals and prizes. He is a Professor of History and a true intellectual heavyweight. He has served his country in the Canadian Armed Forces, and has been an ardent believer in One Canada with a strong central government.


His specialty is Canadian military history. He has some very strong views on the subject, which he airs passionately, and frequently in speeches, television appearances and publications of all kinds. He beats the drum for a stronger Canadian military capability.


He believes that for the past forty years Canada has been derelict in its duty to properly arm itself or fully and honorably participate in its defence alliances. Thus, he has been highly critical of what he considers as weak-kneed Canadian Federal Governments of recent years. Recently, he has become a loud cheerleader for Stephen Harper, rightly recognizing that Harper's blood-thirsty streak is consistent with Granatstein’s own macho defence policy positions.

But despite the bloody nature of his subject and his passionate support for tanks, grenades, automatic rifles and other instruments of death, Granatstein has the demeanor and delivery of an unthreatening, avuncular uncle. Listening to Granatstein speak for me is like listening to a kindly grandpa reading Hans Christian Andersen to the little ones as he lulls them to sleep.

Be that as it may, Uncle Jack can get it wrong. Very wrong, as he did in his National Post column of February 2nd, 'Mike Pearson's true heir: Stephen Harper': http://www.nationalpost.com/opinion/story.html?id=280672

Granatstein’s subject was his high opinion of the Manley report on Afghanistan. Manley, he said with enthusiastic approval, made it clear that Canada’s mission in Kandahar upheld the UN Charter. It was Pearson’s Charter, he said, and it represented liberal and Liberal values.

Granatstein reminded us of the brilliant career of former Liberal Prime Minister Lester 'Mike' Pearson. For a Grit like myself who had great admiration for Pearson and was lucky enough to have met him several times, I enjoyed the brief biographical review. Granatstein reminded us of Pearson’s Great War experience, his sparkling career as a Canadian diplomat dealing with our allies during the Second World War, and his support and promotion of Collective Security as advanced in the formation of the UN, and later NATO and NORAD.

He spoke with approval of Canada’s post-war contribution to the collective security of post-war Europe and our generous financial contribution at the time (7% of the GNP) to defence spending. Granatstein also praised Canada’s military contribution to the UN forces in the Korean War and Pearson’s Nobel Peace Prize efforts in bringing the Suez Crisis to an end.

After trashing Bob Rae and Stephane Dion as namby-pambies for their support of a Canadian role in peacekeeping in Afghanistan, he argued that the true heir to Pearson’s foreign and defence policy was Harper. Because it was Harper who was “trying to give the Afghan people the human security they want and being prepared to fight alongside our friends against a fundamentalist, totalitarian army.”

Granatstein forgets that Pearson was a realist. Surely the good Professor remembers Viet Nam. Pearson never came close to helping LBJ out of his debacle in Viet Nam. It was a useless exercise as far as Mike Pearson was concerned. LBJ was on his own. Collective Security be damned. He even made a speech at Temple University in Philadelphia urging the President in his own backyard to stop the bombing of North Vietnamese cities (On their next meeting at the LBJ ranch, the hulking President apparently grabbed Mike by the lapels, shook him, and warned him never again to defecate in his nest. Pearson was surprised but undaunted).

Even with the issue of the Suez crisis that made Pearson a star, he was not going to get involved in the folly of the invasion of Egypt by our great ally Great Britain. No siree. Pearson sat down, figured things out and organized a peace-keeping force to end the hostilities. This brought Pearson the Nobel Peace Prize, the leadership of the Liberal Party, and ultimately the Prime Minister's Office.

Really, what would Mike Pearson have done in Afghanistan - with his allies providing a measly 35,000 troops and refusing to put their troops in harm's way, and the troops themselves having to look the other way while the poppy farmers supplied the world with 95% of its heroin supply?

Would he have continued to prop up a corrupt and brutal regime whose claim to be a democracy hangs by a thread, if that? Would Mike have ignored the fact that our sacrifice in lives was far greater on a proportionate basis than American military deaths in Iraq? Would he have asked for an extra thousand troops and some helicopters and dug in? While the government he was defending used torture as state policy, and even provided for the death penalty for anyone converting from Islam to Christianity?

And would Mike have hung in to fight a hopeless and endless war because not doing so would affect Canada’s reputation in the world and our influence in international affairs, as Uncle Jack would have us believe?

Would Mike have hung in, in all of those awful bloody circumstances? Not bloody likely. Mike Pearson was a realist.

What Granatstein does not appreciate is a civilian perspective of war. People are prepared to sacrifice their lives and their children’s lives in a war if the cause is noble and just or if our country’s security is at stake. They are not prepared to do so merely for the sake of our international reputation or to have influence in international affairs. Those issues may drive Granatstein but they do not drive the people. For proof, look to the people of the United States and their vastly unpopular wars in Viet Nam and Iraq.

If Granatstein or Harper for that matter, think that its important that Canada has “a seat at the table” and lives should be sacrificed for that goal, then by all means, let them be our guests. Let them go into the filthy streets in Kandahar and fight an impossible war.