Thought du Jour

Two well-known journalists look closely at the probable Republican nominee.

Mr Romney strongly resembles two similarly unloved Democratic nominees from the recent past, Al Gore and John Kerry. These both suffered from the same characterisations that are applied to Romney – too wooden in person while too flexible in their views. Their supporters often argued that qualifications were what mattered. But ominously for Mr Romney, both lost winnable races because of their flawed personalities.  George W. Bush, on the other hand, was elected and reelected, despite his enormous substantive shortcomings, because ordinary people found it easy to relate to him at a personal level. They felt he wasn’t trying to be someone different from who he was.

Romney, Kerry and Gore are all, in a way, versions of the same political type. Statuesque, handsome, from privileged backgrounds and impeccably credentialed, they have no log cabin stories to humanise and ground them. Unlike a Lyndon Johnson, a Richard Nixon, a Ronald Reagan, a Bill Clinton, or a Barack Obama, they didn’t overcome humble origins or broken families. Mr Romney’s background is alien to most Americans not because he descends from polygamists but because his father was a governor of Michigan, an automobile company chief executive and a presidential candidate.

Jacob Weisberg, “Why Mitt Romney must take pride in his own perfection“, The A-List, Financial Times, 1 February 2012.

Mr Weisberg (born 1964) is author of The Bush Tragedy (Random House, 2008).

For four years now, Republicans have been demonizing Barack Obama for his alleged “otherness”—trashing him as a less-than-real American pushing “anti-colonial,” socialist, and possibly Islamist ideas gleaned from a rogue’s gallery of subversive influences led by his Kenyan father, Saul Alinsky, and the Reverend Jeremiah Wright. And yet Romney is in some ways more exotic and more removed from “real America” than Obama ever was, his gleaming white camouflage notwithstanding. Romney is white, all right, but he’s a white shadow. He can come across like an android who’s been computer-­generated to be the perfect genial candidate. When forced to interact with actual people, he tries hard, but his small talk famously takes the form of guessing a voter’s age or nationality (usually incorrectly) or offering a greeting of “Congratulations!” for no particular reason. Richard Nixon was epically awkward too, but he could pass (in Tom Wicker’s phrase) as “one of us.” Unlike Nixon’s craggy face, or, for that matter, Gingrich’s, Romney’s does not look lived in.

Frank Rich, “Who in God’s Name Is Mitt Romney?“, New York, 29 January 2012.

Frank Rich (born 1949) was employed by the New York Times from 1980 until June of 2011, when he left to become an essayist and editor-at-large for New York magazine. HT: The Browser

We live in hard times, and all the indications are that they may get much, even very much, harder. No one, at any rate, would take a bet that they won’t.

The number of children in America claiming subsidized meals in school has shot up; the homeless are increasing by the hour; the formerly prosperous are laid off without so much as a thank you; the young struggle to find any work at all; beggars are making a comeback on the streets of cities as if they had been hiding all these years, waiting for the right moment to emerge from their subterranean lairs into the world above.

The February bicentenary of the birth of Charles Dickens, then, could hardly come at a more appropriate moment in economic history, for Dickens was the revealer, the scourge, the prose poet, of urban destitution—a destitution that, in our waking nightmares, we fear may yet return.

Theodore Dalrymple, “Hard Times Again“, The American Conservative, 23 January 2012.

So begins a fascinating essay on Dickens by English writer ‘Theodore Dalrymple’, the pen name of psychiatrist and retired prison doctor Anthony Daniels (born 1949). Click on the link to read the full essay.

HT: The Browser

Even by the grandiose standards of Newt Gingrich’s ideas, this was a big one. “By the end of my second term, we will have the first permanent base on the moon,” the presidential hopeful promised.

He may have tried to reflect the glory of a genuinely grandiose president. In 1961 John F. Kennedy announced the goal “before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to earth”. But why Mr Gingrich, who is busily trying to appeal to the Tea Party, would try to compare himself with a Democratic party icon is anyone’s guess. ….

There is one similarity between the Tea Party darling and the president of 50 years ago: both have been accused of a predilection for women who were not their wives. Beyond that, Lloyd Bentsen’s words to another Republican trying to reach the White House ring true: “You are no Jack Kennedy.”

“Fly me to the moon“, Financial Times editorial, 28 January 2012.

Research in Canada has also found that snipers tend to score lower on tests for post-traumatic stress and higher on tests for job satisfaction than the average soldier.

“By and large, they are very healthy, well-adjusted young men,” says Peter Bradley at the Royal Military College of Canada, who is studying 150 snipers in Afghanistan. “When you meet them you’re taken by how sensible and level-headed they are.”

Stephanie Hegarty, “What goes on in the mind of a sniper?“, BBC News Magazine, 25 January 2012.

Not what I expected. The article, interesting throughout, focuses on the story of a particular well-adjusted sniper, Chris Kyle, who officially killed 160 people (his own estimate is much higher) during four tours of duty (2003-2008) with the US Navy Seals. Iraqi insurgents named him “The Devil of Rahmadi” and put a $20,000 bounty on his head.

Chris Kyle wrote a book about his experience, American Sniper (William Morrow, 28 December 2011), and was interviewed on 5 January 2012 by BBC World Service (Outlook). The interview can be downloaded here.

[S]ometimes a brutal rejection is better. Antony Sher often describes the letter he got from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art that said: “Not only have you failed the audition and we do not want you to try again, but we seriously recommend that you think about a different profession.” ….

The best rejection letter I ever received contained a reason I will never forget. I had written to a Mr Ivan Sallon, city editor of the Sunday Telegraph, asking for a job. He replied saying that there were no vacancies and went on: “May I offer you a word of advice? When applying for a job, do take care to get names right.” The letter was signed: Ivan Fallon.

Lucy Kellaway, “If you have to reject me, tell it to me to straight“, Financial Times, 23 January 2012.

A reader responds with the following letter:

Sir, Lucy Kellaway is quite right in saying that rejection letters should give reasons …. However, this has to be done tactfully. I will never forget the rejection letter I received from a consulting company that interviewed me right after university. It stated: “In our business, we need spark or depth; sadly, you have neither.” ….

Ms Kellaway’s column also reminded me of two other memorable letters I have received in the past. One, many years ago, came from an American company. After the usual drivel about many high calibre candidates and all that, it ended with an upbeat note stating that it would “contribute your CV and cover letter to the local recycling program”.

The other company simply stated that it had received my application and would keep it on file for a suitable role. At the bottom of the page were the words: “C:\My Documents\rejection.doc”!

Jem Eskenazi, “Rejection has to be done tactfully“, Financial Times 24 January 2012.