Brzezinski: Presidents & U.S. Foreign Policy

"...the next 20 months will be crucial"

I'm not a praying man, but I might start.

clipped from www.npr.org Washington has squandered its first chance at global leadership, says Brzezinski, who was national security adviser under President Jimmy Carter. Brzezinski tells Robert Siegel that George H.W. Bush merits a B, while Bill Clinton receives a C and the current president, George W. Bush, an F. There is still opportunity for America to regain its prestige, Brzezinki says, but he warns that the next 20 months will be crucial. If the U.S. war in Iraq worsens and if it expands to Iran, then Brzezinski warns the era of American global pre-eminence in the world will prove to be historically very short.

The importance of valid disagreement

This is a great clip and certainly one that needs to be shared.

clipped from ravimohan.blogspot.com Paul Graham says, in one of his essays (emphasis mine) "....Why do you need other people? Can't you just think of new ideas yourself? The empirical answer is: no. Even Einstein needed people to bounce ideas off. Ideas get developed in the process of explaining them to the right kind of person. You need that resistance, just as a carver needs the resistance of the wood. In my experience, this need for "friendly resistance" extends to far more than creating startups. Every time you have a new idea, you need people you can bounce it off. To get any real benefit out of this process you need people with a complex combination of characteristics. They should have firm (but not rigid) opinions on their own have logical reasons for those beliefs and be able to articulate them clearly are driven by ideas and not ideology not attach their egos to their opinions. be willing to concede a valid argument even if it forces them to possibly re-examine their beliefs know how to listen

Snow job: An a-ha! moment

This piece on Tony Snow goes a long way to explaining the moral decay on the right and what now passes for debate amongst the "facts don't matter" crowd. It is all about "winning the half hour" which is based not on demonstrable facts but on bluster, momentum, and impression. If this passes for discourse for long our nation's future is in jeopardy.

clipped from www.washingtonpost.com

Snow seems to treat his encounters with the press more like a cable show than as an opportunity to provide the public with a fuller picture

His prime goal seems to be to "win the half hour" -- which generally entails out-talking and mocking your opponent, rather than mustering facts and actually staking out a persuasive position.