Today is largely offline. We set it aside to pay tribute to those no longer with us whose lives resonate so profoundly still. To see one’s memories of extraordinary people in all their richness memorialized with skilled, appreciative care of archivists and specialists proves to be at once re-assuring and dislocating. We expected an emotional reaction; its depth and intensity nonetheless surprising.

Apropos of nothing in particular we also came across this today in another context. Already being in a reflective mindset, many thoughts rushed by unbidden. Some recalling the era, others the panoply of history, and others the sad context of that anniversary and the wreckage.

Still couldn’t repress a smile imagining Percy Alleline as emcee. And then we heard Smiley say:

Peter Guillam: Why was Control always so hostile to Alleline? Percy wasn’t a complete fool.
George Smiley: Percy can flirt, Peter. And Control hadn’t reckoned on the power of the Alleline lobby.
Peter Guillam: Who were they?
George Smiley: Golfers. “Golfers and Conservatives.” That’s what Control said to me.

Glad to hear from everyone.  Hope vacations were fun and memorable.The Stiftung is handling details for someone close as they confront the aftermath encountering ER facilities this weekend.  All is fine and the patient discharged and feisty, which is an excellent sign.  One more appointment tomorrow and then let’s get back to some fun in the Bunker . . . 

Best wishes to you, Dear Reader.  Cheers!

Tweety oversees Donohue and Hitch re Mother Theresa.

What we’ve been saying when the Triassic was young and those vicious mammals a future nightmare. No penalties.  Although the cruelest thing Tenet ever did was let Scheuer loose and wander aimless across the landscape of public discourse.  That and crying on 60 Minutes.  One wanted the Don to slap George on both cheeks and declaim in disgust, “You can start acting like a man!”It’s all rather pointless in any event — as the community literally dwindles to a handful of full time public servants surrounded by agenda-driven contractors, and the like,  one can just imagine a future IG report.   

Oh fool to hold out hope.  Sat down eagerly for “The Company” tonite.  Previous installments promised a loose grasp of history and a firm grip on pacing and aesthetics.   (The Stiftung adored the T-54, T-55 and T-34s).  Yetwho spiked the Evian on the set?   One almost expected Pauley Shore and Adam Sandler to show up as “Sasha”.Timing was the problem.  By 1973/74 Angleton was finished.  The Second Floor’s stranglehold was broken. The Fundamentalists were in retreat across the globe.   He certainly wouldn’t be pulling a Nosenko on Krivitsky.  Colby despised Angleton, took the Israeli account away and then fired him.   And the grand plan was the stock market?  Yuppie 401K(s) under attack!Sigh. 

Already with hot policy wonks. . . please pass the celery tray. Tonite, sitting down amid the cobwebs and dangling coils doing Lord-knows-what fending off Frum et al. here in the Bunker, the sense was we would write something lighthearted.The Imperial City is 1/2 empty. Ever wonder what would happen if a killer plague attacked only elected officials, senior staff, media and now pissed of lobbyists? Traffic is not bad, for one thing. Like that old warhorse flick, Omega Man. Chuck Heston, alone, in a city of mutants who come out only at nite.Well in 2007 he would have lots of company. Sales and retail clerks, HMO executives. And it turns out 99.9% of the permanent national security state. They could even play chess with him using NTM overhead. (We give little hope for the Will Smith remake). 

____________________   
Lassitude is the name of the game. Maybe it’s the humidity. Tweety leers at some young CNBC reporter like in an old Times Square coin op? It had the dead eye look of a Northern Pike peering up from a gloomy deep lake. Tout le monde knows that *everything* is on the line for the (fake) report penned written by General Petreus the White House. Perhaps the ennui began with the HRC cleavage offensive. But somewhere recently, we metaphorically became that restaurant glass filled to the very brim with the finest Aquafina bottled water. Just the tiniest extra drop (of tap water) and overflow. Time to lighten up.  ______________    
We embrace the book “The Secret” as told to us by friends on Talk Shows. Our companions promise happiness by simply following your bliss . . . and here it is, “hot policy wonks.” 

“The biggest cleavage in the Democratic Party is over America’s role in the world,” said Kenneth Baer, a co-founder of the quarterly publication Democracy: A Journal of Ideas, and a former foreign policy adviser and speechwriter in Al Gore’s presidential campaign [perhaps furthering the meme another day? -Ed?]. Whether America should play an expanded or limited role in the next Democratic administration’s foreign policy, he said, “is the big divide.”   

Not quite McGovern’s shorter words, “Come Home America.” But the overall idea is there. He’s referring to CNAS, the Center for a New American Security, not to be confused with The New American Foundation, or the Project for a New American Century. (Que Life of Brian joke).

As mentioned in the opening link, CNAS is attracting some serious Democrat intellectual firepower, including Bill Perry and a few others. Some the Stiftung knows personally. Those we know there we would call very competent in their technochratic fields; none are true giants (do they exist, did they ever ?). Sadly, some Republican malcontents are there, too, including the Benchpresser.

These Centers spring up like mushrooms around elections and normally we don’t write about them or pay too much attention. They serve a variety of purposes, most of which you would expect in a campaign season. PNAC’s success gives new dreams for wonks all over. Just imagine it:::fade to dream :: Earnest young wonks, eagerly writing the right policy, velobinding in a shiny glorious sheen, and hand delivered to the right leadership, all who adopt every single idea — only this time FOR GOOD . . . book deals, jazzercize DVDs and pied a terres in Dubai. . .:: fade out dream :: Naturally, their daydream is rudely interrupted when a HHS actuarial specialist GS-11 step 2 and fellow Metro passenger lurches into them, stabbing their shoulder with his crumpled Sudoku book at Farragut North.

Pulling off the PNAC/AEI/Hudson et al. trifecta will be difficult for anyone again because those institutions existed just for such an event. Years of mutual vetting and cadre building took place. In the end, there wasn’t enough time, the cadres were too thin. A roll of the dice in multiple ways. Jury rigged “centers” of convenience can have moments of success, impact and even good finger food. But to those who came of political age under Bush, it would be a mistake to assume that all the institutional kremlinology will the same going forward with names changed. The Democrats, for good or for ill, are a wholly differ kind of critter.To get the blogosphere food fight verson, with its bizarre-Marxian class twist, see Greenwald raging here. (That’s not a slam, his job is to generate traffic for Salon and one suspects he does well at it).

We followed our bliss and see the Democrats wandering a bit before the opening band comes on, looking where to put down their blanket, picnic basket and iPod boom box. Nervously eyeing encroaching parties, possibly with more attractive people. Praying the band doesn’t suck and hoping their back stage passes aren’t bogus.

It’s a nice August visual.

The 2013 grim reality of events dictating U.S. policy and driving decision-making, and overriding implicit assumptions of U.S. freedom of strategic maneuver, strategic reserve (soft, hard and fiscal) — buh bye Zbig’s famous ’2nd Chance’, fallen away — let’s leave that for September.

 

 

Do you care about the Beauchamp, TNR or the Weekly Standard? Thought not. But the latest effluvium. Only the ineffectual TNR and elements of the American Left could allow the Neocons to gain the upper ground on the issue of accuracy and veracity. Truly pathetic.

Slate digs into Pacino, but there is a point. The discipline of 1972 is not the scenery chewing of Devil’s Advocate. But should anyone care when the industry has bloated far worse?

Amanda Marcotte asks if you hate your job?

Positive Liberty, the thinking person’s thinking blog, says nice things about the Stiftung but then goes on to a explore a rich discussion of the Hegelian. Check it out.

Neocons and Neocons-lite still debate America’s Grand Strategy.

Appalling.

Tweety’s obsession with HRC and unreconstructed white catholic male chauvinism continues to astound. He convulses now even mentioning her name, barely bothering to conceal his propulsive castration nightmares. His fixation on the whole “girl” thing, and her role as a “Goldwater Girl” (while never admitting he was a Goldwatter ‘Guy’) veering close to Tucker-esque flatulence.  One can imagine the identical gyrations, vocal inflections and acting out when even thinking about the idea of a female priest . . .