“I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell” by Tucker Max

by Patrick Baker

Tucker Max’s I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell is an irresistibly crass expression of juvenile male fantasy. The emphasis in the first sentence must be on irresistibly for this fleeting reviewer to distinguish himself from others whose testicular diminution keeps them out of Max’s league while simultaneously making him a hero they feel they cannot openly acknowledge. Did I laugh at Max’s stories and hop on a few as vehicles for my own personal fantasizing? Of course. There are men out there who are totally immune to Max’s appeal. They are called eunuchs. Having testicles means being aroused at some level by this book. But its value transcends arousal and entertainment. If our socialization gives us one imperative, it is that Max’s misogynistic, (ab)use-em-and-lose-em triumphalism is anathema to the proper treatment of women and adult sexualized relationships. But if Max teaches us anything, it is that the central premise of this socialization is false: some women do indeed want to be treated like the whores men like Max take them for. I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell is the Moynihan Report of studies on sex and social mores, substantiating through empirical evidence the things that our right-thinking ideology does not permit us to believe. What do women want? Apparently many of them – well-educated, successful, attractive – want Tucker Max.

    Anyone who has attended a state university is familiar with the kind of behavior lionized in Max’s pages. It is the kind that thrives at fraternities and which stands on two pillars of ennui-induced iniquity: binge drinking and anonymous sex. The object of this version of “life” (death, afterlife, and reckoning being presupposed in Max’s title) is to indulge the Dionysian to the utmost and thus to turn it into a vice in the Aristotelian sense of making far too much of a good thing. For one need not be a prude to characterize Max’s pursuit of happiness as iniquitous; one need merely possess the requisite amount of respect, for other human beings certainly, but above all for oneself. Its absence is what allows the indulgence in pleasure to turn vicious. In Max one recognizes not the reveler but the addict, the prisoner, not the master, of the passions. In modern parlance we might say that Max “is compensating” or “has issues,” and it comes as no surprise when he describes his upbringing in a broken and fragmented family. News to Max and his fan-club: you will never be satisfied no matter how many holes you stick your thing into. Your stuff will never fill any receptacle of pleasure. From a University of Chicago graduate I might have expected more. Tucker, didn’t they make you read Plato’s Gorgias?

    Well-deserved criticism aside, Max is funny. He is a devil, but he is funny. Max is Andrew Dice Clay incarnate. Dice was flesh and blood, of course, but his jokes were not. Somehow you knew the guy had scored, as Max would put it, in the low double digits at best. Max is a bad writer but a great storyteller, which is possible only because his escapades are true yet, for all those who are not Tucker Max, simply unbelievable. This is the secret in Max’s sauce. It is what makes him so tempting, and also so discomfiting. Are we permitted to laugh out loud at his degradation of himself and others? It is a simple question of self-respect.

The Paradox of Self-Actualization

by Joshua H. Liberatore

As Edna Pontellier swims offshore and enters the cold, numbing waters that swallow her at the end of Kate Chopin’s novel The Awakening, she recalls a critical conversation she had with her friend Adèle Ratignolle about the nature and extent of maternal self-sacrifice. Edna had claimed – to her friend’s consternation – that she would only be willing to sacrifice “the unessential” (money, physical life, etc.) for her children’s sake, not “the essential” (presumably, her soul’s freedom of will). This troubling conversation, familiar to readers from the early chapters of the book, seems to contain the breadth of contradictions and mysteries contained in Edna’s path to suicide, and in the first instance, the reader shares Mme. Ratignolle’s dismay and confusion as to just what Edna means. But by the novel’s closing paragraphs, we understand that Edna and her friend are talking about two very different types of responsibility. Ultimately, Edna’s tumultuous “awakening” pitches her into a struggle between responsibility to her family and her society on the one hand and the deeper responsibility to preserve her own free spirit on the other, with her suicide marking a deadly, but final, victory of the latter over the former.

    Chopin explores the very real dangers faced by anyone – especially a woman in the late 19th century Creole aristocracy – who would dare to defy convention and live a thoroughly interior life, beholden to no one’s will but her own. Edna Pontellier, far from the prototypical fallen woman we observe in Anna Karenina or Madame Bovary, does not pin her hopes on successful adultery or a mere break with her filial duties as mother and wife. From Edna’s last – and critically interrupted – conversation with her thwarted love Robert Lebrun, we see that she entertains no notions of divorcing her husband to elope with the younger, more attentive Robert. She even quips that if her husband Léonce were to “offer” her freely to his rival Robert, she “should laugh at [them] both.”

    We see that Edna’s goals do not rest on the faint hope of consummating her flirtation and deep feelings for Robert, nor were they a simple rejection of her boring family life – a husband who treats her like “a valuable piece of property,” and children who find better care at their grandmother’s farm. She is trapped by either a failure or triumph of more complex proportions, and her suicide leaves either interpretation plenty of room for validation. As failure her death march into the sea’s overwhelming embrace represents her inability to live up to Mlle. Reisz’s strict example of the liberated courageous artist with “strong wings” to carry her to new heights of independence and self-actualization. In this case, her dalliance with Alcée Arobin (Robert’s mediocre foil) and her unrealized but serious love affair with Robert (who lacks Arobin’s open disdain for propriety and convention) are both signs that Edna’s wings are not as strong as they could be. Shackled by the weakness of spirit (or imagination, and certainly Mlle. Reisz’s fiery talent) and the burden of the domestic norms that she cannot eschew completely, her suicide confirms an enterprise gone awry, stymied by circumstance.

    More uncomfortable, perhaps, the suicide as triumph finds support in Edna’s belief that she is only sacrificing the “unessential” (physical life), and not succumbing to the enslavement of her soul. As she stands naked on the shore contemplating her course, she imagines her two sons as “tiny antagonists,” living reminders of the barrier to her total freedom, which keeps her from pursuing her painting and her pretensions to simple living to their fullest measure. Mme. Ratignolle had stated naively (in Edna’s opinion) that to give one’s life for one’s children was the ultimate sacrifice that any mother could be expected to make. “You could do no more,” she offers, to which Edna replies, almost arrogantly, “Oh, yes you could.” With no possible social or sexual outcome, Edna’s awakening must be pursued “on the spiritual” plane of existence.

    As she swims to her death, although the mixed imagery of chained dogs and pungent pink flowers leaves us quite unsettled, Edna must believe that she has pursued her “awakening” to its only logical culmination, necessitating a physical death. Does she think she is protecting her children in this act of sacrifice, as the original context of the conversation indicated? Is she looking after her husband’s reputation by staging a plausible “accident” (Edna was well-known as a weak swimmer)? This line of questioning is left beautifully ambiguous and unresolved, but what is clear are the haunting stakes of self-actualization, the terrifying price one pays for total independence, and perhaps, (chillingly) the inherent self-cancellation of pure acts of will.

POTUS Deals in the Future

by Joshua H. Liberatore

Whether it’s due to his relative youth or the frequent campaign-trail comparisons to John F. Kennedy, POTUS fancies himself a harbinger of the future. Not that we’re complaining. By most accounts anyway, science seems to have been restored to a place of respect and proper funding, sans political meddling. The unpleasant realities of imminent climate change and our pernicious energy dependencies are being recognized and addressed with greater clarity and political will. For the first time in what seems like forever, we have an Oval Officer who talks about building more and better trains and cleaner cars without embarrassment or trepidation. Meanwhile, POTUS’s insistence on carrying a BlackBerry even enjoyed a brief period of national fascination. And these are just examples from the realm of the concrete. For those of us who dwell in the fantasyland of words, however, POTUS’s frequent verbal homages to futurity, and our role in shaping it, are equally compelling.

Progress is rarely easy, and I know people in this room understand that. Sometimes it takes months to learn that your ideas just won’t work or years to learn that it will. Sometimes the funding dries up or the investors walk away. Sometimes you have to fail before you can succeed. And often it takes not just the commitment of an innovator, but the commitment of a country to innovation. Often, what’s required is the support of government, recognizing that our future is what we make of it; our future is what we build it to be. (March 23, 2009)

POTUS constantly speaks of “new high-paying jobs of the future,” “our clean-energy future,” and “a health care plan for the future,” but it’s the economy, understandably, that’s received top billing in his rhetoric concerning the future. And certainly many Americans – not least in my native Michigan – would like nothing more than to fast-forward into that bright future.

Because I know that if we can tap into that same ingenuity and resilience right now, if we can carry one another through this difficult time and do what must be done, then we will look back and say that this was the moment when the American auto industry shed its old ways, marched into the future, remade itself, and once more became an engine of opportunity and prosperity not only in Detroit, not only in our Midwest, but all across America. (March 30, 2009)

In his major policy speech on the economy, delivered at Georgetown University last week, POTUS deployed the word “future” no fewer than 16 times. A mere sample:

We all know that the country that harnesses this new energy source will lead the 21st century. Yet we’ve allowed other countries to outpace us on this race to the future. I don’t know about you, but I do not accept a future where the jobs and industries of tomorrow take root beyond our borders. I think it’s time for America to lead again. (April 14, 2009)

When contemplating the future, POTUS even waxed prophetic, invoking an age-old parable to illustrate his vision going forward. Remember the “house built upon a rock” metaphor from the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 7:24-29)? POTUS wants to build the American House of the future on similarly solid ground:

It’s a foundation built upon five pillars that will grow our economy and make this new century another American century: number one, new rules for Wall Street that will reward drive and innovation, not reckless risk-taking; number two, new investments in education that will make our workforce more skilled and competitive; number three, new investments in renewable energy and technology that will create new jobs and new industries; number four, new investments in health care that will cut costs for families and businesses; and number five, new savings in our Federal budget that will bring down the debt for future generations. That’s the new foundation we must build. That’s our house built upon a rock. That must be our future, and my administration’s policies are designed to achieve that future. (April 14, 2009)

From the converse perspective, our future-minded POTUS has always spent ample time and verbal energy deploring the constructions and false idols of the past.

But what I have also said is, don’t come to the table with the same tired arguments and worn ideas that helped to create this crisis. You know, all of us here are imperfect. And everything we do and everything I do is subject to improvement. My Michelle reminds me every day how imperfect I am. [Laughter] So I welcome this debate. But come on, we are not going to get relief by turning back to the very same policies that for the last 8 years doubled the national debt and threw our economy into a tailspin. (February 5, 2009)

I know because I’ve seen it in cities across this country, where many of you that I had a chance to meet with, I saw how you focused on fresh ideas over stale ideology and you moved your cities forward. And I know it because I see it in the faces of Americans everywhere who are ready to roll up their sleeves and join in the work of remaking this Nation. (February 20, 2009)

To illustrate his commitment to the future, POTUS paints striking contrasts with old ways, reiterating words like “tired,” “worn,” “stale,” and even “rigid” to describe the past, while offering terms like “fresh,” “forward,” and “unprecedented” to imagine the future.

So we have a choice. We can shape our future, or let events shape it for us. And if we want to succeed, we can’t fall back on the stale debates and old divides that won’t move us forward. Every single nation who’s here has a stake in the other. We won’t solve all our problems in the next few days, but we can make real and unprecedented progress. (April 1, 2009)

Each time we find ourselves at a crossroads, paralyzed by worn debates and stale thinking, the old ways of doing things, a new generation rises up and shows the way forward. (April 3, 2009)

Too often, an opportunity to build a fresh partnership of the Americas has been undermined by stale debates. And we’ve heard all these arguments before, these debates that would have us make a false choice between rigid, state-run economies or unbridled and unregulated capitalism, between blame for right-wing paramilitaries or left-wing insurgents, between sticking to inflexible policies with regard to Cuba or denying the full human rights that are owed to the Cuban people. (April 17, 2009)

These usages all very self-conscious, often exaggerated, and sometimes specious, but nobody could accuse POTUS of projecting naïveté. His willingness to lift certain two-generations-old legal restrictions on Cubans and Cuba (the primary embargo is still in effect) and engage in a polite greeting with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez during the recent Summit of the Americas in Port of Spain, have not come off without criticism, but POTUS has done his best to keep things in proportion:

I think it was a nice gesture to give me a book; I’m a reader. And you’re right, we had this debate throughout the campaign, and the whole notion was that somehow if we showed courtesy or opened up dialog with governments that had previously been hostile to us, that that somehow would be a sign of weakness. The American people didn’t buy it. And there’s a good reason the American people didn’t buy it, because it doesn’t make sense.
. . .
On the other hand, Venezuela is a country whose defense budget is probably 1/600th of the United States. They own Citgo. It’s unlikely that as a consequence of me shaking hands or having a polite conversation with Mr. Chavez that we are endangering the strategic interests of the United States. I don’t think anybody can find any evidence that that would do so. Even within this imaginative crowd, I think you would be hard-pressed to paint a scenario in which U.S. interests would be damaged as a consequence of us having a more constructive relationship with Venezuela. (April 19, 2009)

Good for you, POTUS. We appreciate the sense of balance you bring to the international stage, however risky. Though such gestures might be viewed with suspicion by both right and left as evidence that POTUS is acting on what has been called the “make nice school of diplomacy,” one can’t ignore the logic of POTUS’s rebuttal. Even his confession, while in Europe, that he’s long been jealous of the high-speed trains of France and Germany, might be construed by reactionaries as a bald condemnation of the American way of life. Or perhaps it’s just that POTUS has recognized, publicly, that the future has already happened in other places:

Now, all of you know this is not some fanciful, pie-in-the-sky vision of the future. It is now; it is happening right now. It’s been happening for decades. The problem is it’s been happening elsewhere, not here. In France, high-speed rail has pulled regions from isolation, ignited growth, remade quiet towns into thriving tourist destinations. In Spain, a high-speed line between Madrid and Seville is so successful that more people travel between those cities by rail than by car and airplane combined. China, where service began just 2 years ago, may have more miles of high-speed rail service than any other country just 5 years from now. And Japan, the nation that unveiled the first high-speed rail system, is already at work building the next, a line that will connect Tokyo with Osaka at speeds of over 300 miles per hour. So it’s being done; it’s just not being done here. (April 16, 2009)

These accusations are misplaced, however. From his first appearances overseas to his fondness for boisterous town hall meetings at home, POTUS shows himself to be neither “soft” in his foreign policy nor “anti-American” in his general disposition. Rather, he appears to be a true believer in both the future of The American Dream and the future of the future.

There is no doubt that times are still tough. By no means are we out of the woods just yet. But from where we stand, for the very first time, we’re beginning to see glimmers of hope. And beyond that, way off in the distance, we can see a vision of an America’s future that is far different than our troubled economic past. It’s an America teeming with new industry and commerce, humming with new energy and discoveries that light the world once more, a place where anyone from anywhere with a good idea or the will to work can live the dream they’ve heard so much about. (April 24, 2009)

Apparently, it is possible to be unabashedly pro-American and at the same time not alienate the rest of the world or destroy the planet in the process. Imagine that.

POTUS in the Middle East

by Joshua H. Liberatore

After his obligatory visit to Europe, bastion of traditional alliances and site of important G-20, NATO, and European Council summit meetings, POTUS made a short but significant sweep through Turkey and Iraq. These visits capitalized on his early tonal gesture of granting his first exclusive, post-inaugural interview to an Arab news network whose name is difficult to pronounce and whose content therefore flies beneath the mainstream American radar. POTUS’s first appearances in the Muslim world, on the contrary, were very much on the media radar, in some circles provoking wild and irrational speculation about his intentions and global posture. But, as usual, the details were more nuanced.

I have now spent a week traveling through Europe. And I’ve been asked, “Are you trying to make a statement by ending this weeklong trip in Turkey?” And the answer is, yes, I am trying to make a statement. I’m trying to make a statement about the importance of Turkey not just to the United States but to the world. This is a country that has been often said lies at the crossroads between East and West. It’s a country that possesses an extraordinarily rich heritage, but also represents a blend of those ancient traditions with a modern nation state that respects democracy, respects rule of law, and is striving towards a modern economy. (April 6, 2009)

In both his joint press conference with Turkish President Abdullah Gul and his formal address to the Grand National Assembly, POTUS made sure to extend a warm sense of gratitude and affinity to this key, strategic ally. As the fabled “crossroads” where East meets West, historical homeland to Christians, Jews, and Muslims, with a legacy of both cosmopolitan tolerance and brutal repression, the complexity and symbolism of Turkey’s national narrative suited POTUS’s diplomatic enterprise very aptly, allowing him to articulate some policy priorities that distinguish him from previous administrations and, perhaps more importantly, offered a chance to shore up ties with a crucial Muslim-majority ally.

Now, finally, we share the common goal of denying Al Qaida a safe haven in Pakistan or Afghanistan. The world has come too far to let this region backslide and to let Al Qaida terrorists plot further attacks. And that’s why we are committed to a more focused effort to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat Al Qaida. That is why we are increasing our efforts to train Afghans to sustain their own security and to reconcile former adversaries. That’s why we are increasing our support for the people of Afghanistan and Pakistan, so that we stand on the side not only of security, but also of opportunity and the promise of a better life. (April 6, 2009)

As for those recent “efforts” in Afghanistan and Pakistan, POTUS is right that the U.S. needs as many capable and savvy partners as it can muster in order to achieve its ever broadening and increasingly nebulous security goals. At the risk of harping on the issue, it must be mentioned that the U.S. military’s reliance on Predator drone attacks to target the best-hidden and most tenacious militants in the craggy badlands of Waziristan in the Tribal Agencies along the Afghan-Pakistan border is proving to be at once dismally inadequate and violently inaccurate. Precision-guided weapons, featuring the best in military video-game technology – technicians firing remote missiles from command centers in Nevada – turn out to be very blunt instruments indeed. The 60 drone attacks launched since January 2006 boast an impressive 6 percent success ratio: 14 “suspected” Al Qaida targets killed and 687 civilians dead, an astonishing proportion of them women and children. Ironically, human intelligence assets on the ground – thanks to friendly Pakistani and Afghan informants – are largely responsible for the 14 successful “hits” in this spectacular display of state-of-the-art, postmodern tech-warfare. Militant to civilian kill ratios in Iraq are not much better, unless 15% amazes anyone as a staggering achievement in precision weaponry, and even that figure assumes that all adult males killed were “insurgents,” an outrageous stretch. If ordinary Iraqis are statistically three times more likely to be killed in a U.S. air strike than by a crude roadside bomb, is it any wonder that our efforts are not popular?

I know there have been difficulties these last few years. I know that the trust that binds the United States and Turkey has been strained, and I know that strain is shared in many places where the Muslim faith is practiced. So let me say this as clearly as I can: The United States is not and will never be at war with Islam. In fact, our partnership with the Muslim world is critical, not just in rolling back the violent ideologies that people of all faiths reject, but also to strengthen opportunity for all its people. (April 6, 2009)

Turkey is a country that has permitted, though begrudgingly at first, U.S. armed forces to use both its airspace and several ground bases to facilitate the war in Iraq. Turkey is also a country with a restive Kurdish minority bordering the “liberated” Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdistan; thus, Turkey has a vested, continued interest in the U.S. occupation of Iraq and the maintenance of basic security, avoidance of sectarian civil war, and territorial contiguity in its newly democratic neighbor. But that doesn’t mean the American invasion and occupation are popular there. Like the Iraqis and the young American soldiers sent to fight them, average Turks, no matter how disgruntled, are stuck with the war for now.

I also want to be clear that America’s relationship with the Muslim community, the Muslim world, cannot and will not just be based upon opposition to terrorism. We seek broader engagement based on mutual interests and mutual respect. We will listen carefully; we will bridge misunderstandings; and we will seek common ground. We will be respectful, even when we do not agree. We will convey our deep appreciation for the Islamic faith, which has done so much over the centuries to shape the world, including in my own country. The United States has been enriched by Muslim Americans. Many other Americans have Muslims in their families or have lived in a Muslim-majority country. I know because I am one of them. (April 6, 2009)

Turkey also enjoys U.S. support for its dilatory European Union membership-bid (France and Germany oppose it), not to mention the billions of dollars in annual aid that make it the third-largest single recipient of U.S. funds, behind only Israel and Egypt. As a longstanding member of NATO, Turkey has also contributed troops to the U.S.-led military operations in Afghanistan, as obligated by Article 5 mandates (i.e. “an attack on one is an attack on all”). For all these reasons, Turkey was a natural staging ground for POTUS’s induction into the veritable mine field of Middle East diplomacy, albatross around the neck of many an American president.

I know there are those who like to debate Turkey’s future. They see your country at the crossroads of continents and touched by the currents of history. They know that this has been a place where civilizations meet and different peoples come together. They wonder whether you will be pulled in one direction or another. But I believe here is what they don’t understand: Turkey’s greatness lies in your ability to be at the center of things. This is not where East and West divide; this is where they come together, in the beauty of your culture, in the richness of your history, in the strength of your democracy, in your hopes for tomorrow. (April 6, 2009)

One thing Turkey is certainly at the center of is the quixotic U.S. war in Iraq, which is nowhere near over. And oh, how POTUS knows it! To a Turkish university student who asked about POTUS’s hopes for “peace at home, peace in the world,” he offered an unusually frank and sincere admission concerning the difficulty of his present position vis-à-vis that inherited imperial misadventure in Babylon:

States are like big tankers; they’re not like speedboats. You can’t just whip them around and go in a new direction. Instead, you’ve got to slowly move it, and then eventually you end up in a very different place. So let me just give you a few examples. When it comes to Iraq, I opposed the war in Iraq. I thought it was a bad idea. Now that we’re there, I have a responsibility to make sure that as we bring troops out, that we do so in a careful enough way that you don’t see a complete collapse into violence. So some people might say, “Wait, I thought you were opposed to the war. Why don’t you just get them all out right away?” Well, just because I was opposed at the outset, it doesn’t mean that I don’t have now responsibilities to make sure that we do things in a responsible fashion. (April 7, 2009)

Later that day, after the “town hall” Q&A session in Istanbul, POTUS made a surprise visit to those very troops in theater, at Camp Victory in Baghdad. The former POTUS often spoke of American troops as having “liberated more than 50 million Iraqis”; one day, historians may speak of the current POTUS as having liberated more than 150,000 American soldiers. And although that day of deliverance hasn’t yet arrived, POTUS received hearty applause when he reminded troops of the glimmers of light now visible at the end of the long, labyrinthine tunnel that their commanders have shuttled them through since March 19, 2003.

Point number two is, this is going to be a critical period, these next 18 months. I was just discussing this with your commander, but I think it’s something that all of you know. It is time for us to transition to the Iraqis. They need to take responsibility for their country and for their sovereignty, and in order for them to do that, they have got to make political accommodations. They’re going to have to decide that they want to resolve their differences through constitutional means and legal means. They are going to have to focus on providing government services that encourage confidence among their citizens. (April 7, 2009)

Of course, 18 months is not fast enough according to some, and too fast according to others. In fact, even the Iraqis seem divided on the question, though many took the recent sixth anniversary of Saddam Hussein’s forced deposition as an opportunity to raise voices of protest concerning the sluggish pace of change under the protection of the benevolent American “tanker” and its sanctioned native deputies. Even POTUS’s top commander on the ground, General Ray Odierno, briefly spoke up against the timeline, citing a need for more – not fewer – troops given the recent uptick in violence. Later, he recanted, recalling, apparently, that POTUS is his boss. But neither internal nor external dissent seems likely to deter POTUS from sticking to his word on the withdrawal, over which Iraqi opinion never held much sway in the first place, despite strident declamations of “Iraqi sovereignty” issuing from American politicians, left and right. To Prime Minister Maliki, POTUS acknowledged his regret at the loss of life in recent bombings in Baghdad:

But we should not be distracted, because we have made enormous progress working alongside the Iraqi Government over the last few months. Overall, violence continues to be down. There’s been movement on important political questions. But we have been reminded that there’s more work to do. I communicated to the Prime Minister that we are strongly committed to an Iraq that is sovereign and stable and self-reliant. And as Prime Minister Maliki was already aware, we have committed ourselves to a strategy that ensures a orderly, responsible transition from U.S. and coalition security forces to Iraqi security forces. (April 7, 2009)

Despite POTUS’s noble intentions to do well by the Iraqis while offering praise to the battle-weary American soldiers, it’s hard to remain aloof to the fundamental paradox of his position, caught, as it were, between gradually removing, essentially, a supremely expensive police force and maintaining the necessary illusion that Iraq has somehow benefitted from going-on seven years of what is locally interpreted as an obscene, imperial occupation. Contemplating the probable mess that departing American forces will leave behind, beginning in August 2010 and culminating in December 2011 (not exactly “[whipping] them around” by any standard), one cannot help but recall those pellucid lines from a late chapter of a great American novel: “They were careless people, Tom and Daisy – they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.”

POTUS Studies Abroad

by Joshua H. Liberatore

A whirlwind eight-day, six-nation trip overseas gave POTUS a chance to reintroduce himself on the world stage, galvanize key strategic relationships, and engage in some delicate negotiations in the post-Bush era of foreign policy, après le divorce, so to speak. As has been reported, the trip was something of a personal triumph. POTUS proved to be a very popular, sought-after, and photogenic visitor to the Continent, and was warmly received in Turkey – fulfilling a campaign promise to stage a major policy speech in the Muslim world – where he met with students, members of the Grand National Assembly, and heads of state.

Politically, the outcomes were more mixed. POTUS didn’t persuade European governments to increase stimulus spending (many had already pushed the limits of national budgets and political will); he wasn’t able to augment the number of non-American combat troops in Afghanistan (some new support and training troops were pledged); he failed to recruit European detention facilities to accommodate soon-to-be displaced Guantánamo “terror suspects” (France accepted one prisoner). But all told, POTUS “represented,” as the slang term has it. And in doing so, he put a dignified face on America’s image abroad.

What stood out from our perspective were not the news-worthy points rehearsed above, however, but the subtler moments of cultural exchange, those je ne sais quoi moments of recognition that POTUS wasn’t in Kansas anymore, and not even in Chicago. Moments when he showed his humanity through those small, forgivable blunders familiar to novice travelers and untried expats the world over. His education began in London:

I’m going to call on one foreigner – [laughter] – actually, I’m the foreigner. That’s why I smiled. One correspondent not from America, and then I will . . .

[Many reporters began speaking at the same time.]

We’re not doing bidding here. [Laughter] Come on. But I also want to make sure that I’m not showing gender bias. So this young lady right here; not you, sir, I’m sorry. (April 2, 2009)

POTUS was careful to follow his usual discipline in taking questions, alternating “boy-girl-boy-girl,” as he likes to say, now making careful extra efforts to integrate unfamiliar journalists from the Other Side, from publications not read, programs not viewed, by Americans. This involved some degree of admirable risk and gameliness on his part, as became evident when POTUS called on Rui Chenggang of China’s state-owned Central Television, whose first question was proffered, “on behalf of China”:

Q. First of all, you’ve had a very fruitful meeting with our President. And during the Clinton administration, U.S.-China relationship were characterized, in Clinton’s words, “strategic, constructive partnership.” During the Bush era, it was – the catchphrase was quote-unquote, “stakeholder” – the Bush administration expects China to become a responsible stakeholder in international affairs. Have you come up with a catchphrase of your own? And certainly, it is not the G-2, is it?

My second question is on behalf of the world. Politics is very local, even though we’ve been talking about global solution, as indicated by your recent preference over American journalists and British, which is okay. [Laughter] How can you make sure that you will do whatever you can so that that local politics will not trump or negatively affect good international economics? Thank you, Mr. President.

That was a lot for POTUS to respond to in the absence of prepared notes: to characterize the U.S.-China relationship within “the new era of responsibility” and to assure a watching world that the traditional, Americo-Eurocentric status quo of previous administrations was open to revision. Actually, Rui seemed to pose the same question in two different ways. POTUS did his level best:

Well, those are excellent questions. On the first question, your American counterparts will tell you I’m terrible with those little catchphrases and sound bites. So I haven’t come up with anything catchy yet, but if you have any suggestions, let me know. [Laughter] I’ll be happy to use them.

In terms of local politics, look, I’m the President of the United States. I’m not the president of China; I’m not the president of Japan; I’m not the president of the other participants here. And so I have a direct responsibility to my constituents to make their lives better. That’s why they put me in there. That accounts for some of the questions here about how concretely does me being here help them find a job, pay for their home, send their kids to college, live what we call the American Dream. And I will be judged by my effectiveness in meeting their needs and concerns. (April 2, 2009)

Although it’s not likely POTUS will call on reporters from CCTV again anytime soon, the questions from friendly “Brits” – as POTUS has twice referred to them, somewhat ill-advisedly – did not prove to be much easier. In Strasbourg, Edward Luce from The Financial Times phrased the issue more politely perhaps, but equally pointedly: Did POTUS subscribe to the belief in American exceptionalism “that sees America as uniquely qualified to lead the world”?

I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism. I am enormously proud of my country and its role and history in the world. If you think about the site of this summit and what it means, I don’t think America should be embarrassed to see evidence of the sacrifices of our troops, the enormous amount of resources that were put into Europe postwar, and our leadership in crafting an alliance that ultimately led to the unification of Europe. We should take great pride in that.

And if you think of our current situation, the United States remains the largest economy in the world. We have unmatched military capability. And I think that we have a core set of values that are enshrined in our Constitution, in our body of law, in our democratic practices, in our belief in free speech and equality that, though imperfect, are exceptional. (April 4, 2009)

An honest beginning indeed, and one that had no reason not to play well back home in the Heartland. Having warmed up with some typical bromides, however, POTUS then added some nuance to his views:

Now, the fact that I am very proud of my country and I think that we’ve got a whole lot to offer the world does not lessen my interest in recognizing the value and wonderful qualities of other countries, or recognizing that we’re not always going to be right, or that other people may have good ideas, or that in order for us to work collectively, all parties have to compromise, and that includes us.

And so I see no contradiction between believing that America has a continued extraordinary role in leading the world towards peace and prosperity, and recognizing that that leadership is incumbent depends on our ability to create partnerships, because we create partnerships because we can’t solve these problems alone. (April 4, 2009)

And although punctuating this last sentence offered us opportunity for some healthy editorial debate – triumphantly for once, I persuaded my superior that POTUS’s relative clause-as-subject was flowery and legalistic perhaps, but also perfectly comprehensible and cogent – the significance of its content was lost on no one. Unlike his predecessor, POTUS appears to be aware of the consummate folly in going it alone. As for listening – which POTUS promised, repeatedly during the trip, to do – and learning from other ways, other notions, POTUS tried to lead by example. During the first of two “town halls” his team arranged, POTUS received a language lesson from a German university student in Strasbourg.

Q. Thank you. Hi, I’m Ines, also from Heidelberg, and I’m total European. [Laughter] And first of all, I wanted to tell you that your name in Hungarian means “peach,” if you . . .

The President. Peach?

Q. Yes.

The President. Oh, okay. Well, how about that. I did not know that.

Q. Yes, now you know it. And we wanted to know if you – did you ever regret to have run for Presidency till now? I mean, well, did you ever ask yourself, am I sure to manage? (April 3, 2009)

POTUS had begun the town hall “meeting” by offering a laudatory summary of Strasbourg’s long history as the site of European complexity, frequent conflict, and recent unity, but his notes hadn’t said anything about Hungarian, much less how to deal with this fraulein’s gorgeous non sequitur. Europe’s so confusing. Later, at the formal press conference, also in Strasbourg, POTUS offered a language lesson of his own to Sonja Sagmeister from the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation, who asked for POTUS’s impression of his European peers.

It was also interesting to see that political interaction in Europe is not that different from the United States Senate. There’s a lot of – I don’t know what the term is in Austrian – wheeling and dealing – and, you know, people are pursuing their interests, and everybody has their own particular issues and their own particular politics. (April 4, 2009)

POTUS’s modest gaffe – Austrians speak German (though linguists and ultranationalists might debate it) – caused an unkind and disproportionate stir in the blogosphere, but Ms. Sagmeister didn’t seem to mind (after all, she was a public policy fellow at Duke). And not unlike SUVs and genetically modified foods, the American “town hall” format proved a difficult export to push through customs, the audience at times seeming unsure of their role and reticent to applaud on cue. Moreover, “foreign” journalists asked tough questions. Despite these minor hiccups, like many exchange students venturing wide-eyed into the European wilderness, POTUS survived by dint his of natural charm and fundamental decency. What more can we ask?

POTUS is Loaded

by Joshua H. Liberatore

In recent weeks, POTUS has hit the road, pitching the merits of first, the massive stimulus package he supervised, and more recently, his budget proposal. With justifiable suspicion mounting among many average Americans that expanded liquidity injections and continued deficit spending benefit mainly corporations, banks, powerful interests, and lobby-rich industries, POTUS has also spent some time reassuring citizens about his ideas for taxation and his plans for the use of taxpayers’ money. As well he should. The anger over the AIG executive bonanzas in a year of record losses and mismanagement, all courtesy of the public dole, was palpable. But Americans often require direct instruction:

This is America. We don’t disparage wealth. We don’t begrudge anybody for achieving success. And we certainly believe that success should be rewarded. But what gets people upset, and rightfully so, are executives being rewarded for failure, especially when those rewards are subsidized by U.S. taxpayers, many of whom are having a tough time themselves. (February 4, 2009)

It’s a good thing that Americans “don’t disparage wealth,” because POTUS himself is profoundly wealthy, at least by the quotidian standards that most of us comprehend. Honest to the bone, however, he has also been quite forthright about those good fortunes. We revere the virtues of POTUS’s humble, Lincolnian roots and appreciate how natural talent, hard work, and a splendid education have rewarded him over the years. We know he wasn’t born into wealth, feels no entitlement to it, and indeed, by most accounts, distributes a good deal of it in charitable donations. None of that changes the fact that POTUS makes serious bank. And lately, by way of compassionate encouragement and with typical candor, POTUS has been offering casual reminders of his astonishing financial portfolio.

Another part of the problem with our economy and the way it was growing was that wages and incomes for ordinary working families were flat for the entire decade. Now, I don’t need to tell you this, because you’ve experienced it in your own lives. You’re just barely kept up with inflation while people at the very top – and look, I’ll be honest with you, I’m now in that category – we were seeing all the benefits. (March 18, 2009)

In 2008, book sales alone – his Senator’s salary was a modest $157,102 – earned POTUS a cool $2.5 million. In 2007, his royalties were even more impressive, grossing $3.9 million, on the strength of his two bestsellers Dreams from My Father and The Audacity of Hope. Small potatoes compared with the nearly $110 million the Clintons have made over the eight-year period following their White House residency, largely from sales of their respective memoirs, speaking engagements, and general raking it in. Nevertheless, POTUS certainly brings home the bacon. And unlike the Clintons, he hasn’t been forced to spend a good deal of his royalties on legal fees and expensive attorneys.

On the other hand, people who were at the very top of the income scale, and I’m now included in that category, we’ve seen all the benefits of economic growth when things were going well. And I actually think that contributes to a cycle of bubble and bust. And if we have a situation in which middle-class people are earning a decent living, where we’ve got bottom-up economic growth, then I think that’s good for everybody. I think ultimately that’s good for businesses. I think it’s good for rich folks, because when the economy rises, everybody does well. And you don’t get as many distortions as you’ve gotten in this sort of bubble-and-bust cycle that we’ve had. (March 19, 2009)

And even though his salary as President is capped at $400,000, recall that POTUS’s personal expenses (clothes, books, haircuts, Christmas and birthday gifts) are quite limited compared to those of most of us. Rent and travel are deliciously free, meals are taken care of, and even weekend jaunts to Camp David are publically funded. No mortgage: the house in Hyde Park is most likely long paid off. POTUS must pay taxes like anyone else, of course, but given his relative youth, even a single-term tenure in the White House will clear him another fat million. A second term would double that, and he’ll still only be 55 upon retiring, collecting thereafter an annual pension of $191,000, legally calibrated to match the salaries of current Cabinet secretaries.

Now, for the top 5 percent, they’re the ones who typically saw huge gains in their income. I fall in that category. And what we’ve said is for those folks, let’s not renew the Bush tax cuts, so let’s go back to the rates that existed back in – during the Clinton era when wealthy people were still wealthy and doing just fine; and let’s look at the level in which people can itemize their deductions. And what we’ve said is let’s go back to the rate that existed under Ronald Reagan. (March 24, 2009)

Not a bad gig all told, and even though George Washington famously refused his presidential salary and John F. Kennedy donated his, POTUS trusts us not to begrudge him his hard-earned wealth. We are, after all, Americans; we worship at the shrine of Mammon. But in light of POTUS’s fantastic fortune, no less his recent blithe public mentions of it, one begins to understand why British Prime Minister Gordon Brown felt a tad bit disappointed when, on his first state visit to the Obama White House, his door prize was a mere 25 DVDs.