Obama Schools India on Democracy and is, Sadly, Vindicated

Former US President Barack Obama in an interview said, in brief comment as reply to a question about India and the visiting PM Narendra Modi, that the country needs to protect all its citizens including minorities else the country will get pulled apart. This honest simple truth telling has irked the legions of foot soldiers of Modi who brook absolutely no unflattering comment from within India or from abroad. A senior member of Modi’s cabinet chose to join issue with the President but sadly the President, barely few days after his comment, stands vindicated. 

In 1927 Katherine Mayo published ‘Mother India’, a book that eviscerated India shining a spotlight on the plight of women, children and untouchables (as they were then called). The book arrived as India was locked in a struggle against a colonial regime for freedom and invited blistering attack from none other than Gandhi himself. Gandhi called the book “a drain inspector’s report”. Lala Lajpat Rai who had lived in US for 10 years then published, with a note of apology, a book that, in turn, eviscerated US for its racial inequities. He did atone for that book with another that was quite warm about USA. Notably he titled the book as “The United States of America: A Hindu’s Impression”. He chose to identify himself as Hindu and not Indian. While nationalists hauled Katherine Mayo over the coals firebrand leader of Dalits from Chennai, M.C. Rajah, celebrated the book for highlighting the plight of his fellow men that caste Hindus, who dominated the nationalist struggle, sought to deny or whitewash. Note, it wasn’t until 1933, after the Poona Pact, would Gandhi turn his immense charisma towards ameliorating the plight of the Depressed Classes.   

Post-Independence India got no reprieve from the likes of Naipaul and Gunter Grass in the early decades of freedom as the country was picking itself up from colonial rule and bootstrapping itself to progress.  Naipaul's first two books on India, "An Area of Darkness" (1964) followed by "A Wounded Civilization" (1977), advertised his disappointment with India and with what he considered symptomatic ills that go beyond the then present day poverty and squalor. Indians were infuriated then. The books are certainly outdated and India may very well say Naipaul was shown to be wrong but the books do contain nuggets that still ring true. Naipaul recounts how the country was more eager to celebrate Hargovind Khorana for his Nobel Prize than for understanding him. I saw a repeat of that with Venky Ramakrishna. Gunter Grass notoriously asked why should India bother with literature while there is depressing poverty in Calcutta streets. Naipaul's last book on India, "India: A Million Mutinies now" (1990) was relatively tame. In an ironical twist Naipaul's criticism of the Middle East is now eagerly lapped up by the Parivar brigade. 

While Katherine Mayo was lambasted for not showing sympathetic understanding to a country under a colonial yoke and Naipaul was hated for being excessively harsh on his ancestral land that was picking itself up from the ruins Obama's criticism comes at a very different juncture in India's trajectory. Today, India is the 3rd largest economy, a country that has opened doors to all multinational companies, a burgeoning upwardly mobile middle class, a country where billionaires are no longer unicorns, cars are no longer only the preserve of the rich and air travel is as common as a train ride and much more. With all that one would expect the country to be mature in its response to a former president but that did not happen. In today's India criticism of the country is seen as criticism of the infallible and indomitable leader and any criticism of the leader is ipso facto a criticism of the country, nay, even worse, the Sanatana Dharma that stretches across millennia. 

Barack Obama did not say anything that he did not say in 2014, as chief guest to India's Republic Day Parade. Speaking at Siri Fort Obama said the following and I am quoting in extenso:

We are strongest when we see the inherent dignity in every human being.  Look at our countries -- the incredible diversity even here in this hall.  India is defined by countless languages and dialects, and every color and caste and creed, gender and orientations.  And likewise, in America, we’re black and white, and Latino and Asian, and Indian-American, and Native American.  Your constitution begins with the pledge to uphold “the dignity of the individual.”  And our Declaration of Independence proclaims that “all men are created equal.”
 
"In both our countries, generations have worked to live up to these ideals.  When he came to India, Martin Luther King, Jr. was introduced to some schoolchildren as a “fellow untouchable.”  My grandfather was a cook for the British army in Kenya.  The distant branches of Michelle’s family tree include both slaves and slave owners.  When we were born, people who looked like us still couldn’t vote in some parts of the country.  Even as America has blessed us with extraordinary opportunities, there were moments in my life where I’ve been treated differently because of the color of my skin."
 
"Many countries, including the United States, grapple with questions of identity and inequality, and how we treat each other, people who are different than us, how we deal with diversity of beliefs and of faiths.  Right now, in crowded neighborhoods not far from here, a man is driving an auto-rickshaw, or washing somebody else’s clothes, or doing the hard work no one else will do.  And a woman is cleaning somebody else’s house.  And a young man is on a bicycle delivering lunch. A little girl is hauling a heavy bucket of water.  And I believe their dreams, their hopes, are just as important, just as beautiful, just as worthy as ours.  And so even as we live in a world of terrible inequality, we’re also proud to live in countries where even the grandson of a cook can become President, or even a Dalit can help write a constitution, and even a tea seller can become Prime Minister.  (Applause.)" 

"In our lives, Michelle and I have been strengthened by our Christian faith.  But there have been times where my faith has been questioned -- by people who don’t know me -- or they’ve said that I adhere to a different religion, as if that were somehow a bad thing.  Around the world, we’ve seen intolerance and violence and terror perpetrated by those who profess to be standing up for their faith, but, in fact, are betraying it.  No society is immune from the darkest impulses of man.  And too often religion has been used to tap into those darker impulses as opposed to the light of God.  Three years ago in our state of Wisconsin, back in the United States, a man went to a Sikh temple and, in a terrible act of violence, killed six innocent people -- Americans and Indians.  And in that moment of shared grief, our two countries reaffirmed a basic truth, as we must again today -- that every person has the right to practice their faith how they choose, or to practice no faith at all, and to do so free of persecution and fear and discrimination.  (Applause.) 

"And it’s when all Indians, whatever your faith, go to the movies and applaud actors like Shah Rukh Khan.  And when you celebrate athletes like Milkha Singh or Mary Kom.  And every Indian can take pride in the courage of a humanitarian who liberates boys and girls from forced labor and exploitation -- who is here today -- Kailash Satyarthi.  (Applause.)  Our most recent winner of the Nobel Prize for Peace.  (Applause.)"
 
"So that's what unifies us:  Do we act with compassion and empathy.  Are we measured by our efforts -- by what Dr. King called “the content of our character” rather than the color of our skin or the manner in which we worship our God.  In both our countries, in India and in America, our diversity is our strength.  And we have to guard against any efforts to divide ourselves along sectarian lines or any other lines.  And if we do that well, if America shows itself as an example of its diversity and yet the capacity to live together and work together in common effort, in common purpose; if India, as massive as it is, with so much diversity, so many differences is able to continually affirm its democracy, that is an example for every other country on Earth.  That's what makes us world leaders -- not just the size of our economy or the number of weapons we have, but our ability to show the way in how we work together, and how much respect we show each other."  

Before I turn to Nirmala Sitharaman's half baked repartee I'll draw attention to the salient parts of Obama's remarks. Here's a then sitting American president in a foreign country freely talking about the racial inequalities and prejudices back home and citing personal experiences. The usual Fox News crowd might have been irked but there was no brouhaha about this rare breach in traditional etiquette because America had become more comfortable talking about its ills and its unique president who tended to get professorial. It is not like Obama was lecturing 'down' to India, he was talking 'to' India. A Nehru or a Rajiv Gandhi might've understood him better.

Nirmala Sitharaman thought she was delivering a zinger by saying that Obama who as president went to war with Muslim countries. America did not go to war with Iraq or any Middle Eastern country 'because' it is an Islamic country. Let us remember that days after 9/11 at the National Cathedral a Muslim cleric, at the invitation of the then US President George W. Bush, offered prayers. Bush went to great lengths to disavow any notion of Islamophobia. On 9/18, a week after 9/11, Bush visited a Mosque to expressly declare his resolution against hate crimes. His attorney general pursued and punished perpetrators of hate crimes. One can be against the Iraq war but one cannot attribute Islamophobia as the motivator. 

Ms Sitharaman is equally unaware of Barack Obama's famous speech at Cairo University in June 2009, at the very start of his presidency. Here too, the world saw an American president, being self critical, of course within the parameters of what was politically possible. A few quotes:

"Violent extremists have exploited these tensions in a small but potent minority of Muslims.  The attacks of September 11, 2001 and the continued efforts of these extremists to engage in violence against civilians has led some in my country to view Islam as inevitably hostile not only to America and Western countries, but also to human rights.  All this has bred more fear and more mistrust. 

So long as our relationship is defined by our differences, we will empower those who sow hatred rather than peace, those who promote conflict rather than the cooperation that can help all of our people achieve justice and prosperity.  And this cycle of suspicion and discord must end. 

I've come here to Cairo to seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world, one based on mutual interest and mutual respect, and one based upon the truth that America and Islam are not exclusive and need not be in competition.  Instead, they overlap, and share common principles -- principles of justice and progress; tolerance and the dignity of all human beings. 

I do so recognizing that change cannot happen overnight.  I know there's been a lot of publicity about this speech, but no single speech can eradicate years of mistrust, nor can I answer in the time that I have this afternoon all the complex questions that brought us to this point.  But I am convinced that in order to move forward, we must say openly to each other the things we hold in our hearts and that too often are said only behind closed doors"

 

Mr Modi's party is notorious for intentionally excluding Muslim candidates in order to consolidate the Hindu vote. Whether it is the parliament or a state legislature wherever BJP gains political ascendancy Muslim representation has taken a deep knock. Over the last 10 years new words entered the political discourse in both US and India, in USA the words "Black Lives Matter" came into being and in India the words "cow lynching" came into being. That difference speaks volumes.

America is a country that sits at the global crossroads with an immense power that it has wielded to do good and harm, too. Obama himself won the presidency scolding the country for going into Iraq. Critique American foreign policy all you want until hell freezes over. Be my guest. Maybe I'll even help with details. That said America has more often been India's friend. It is sheer stupidity to claim that only today India commands respect on the global stage. Anyone who suggests that is ignorant of history. Jawaharlal Nehru's visits to US were huge successes and the man was feted in cities, universities and press clubs across US. Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi too had their successes. America's relationship with India had its fair share of dips too.

Even as Ms Sitharaman was trying to one up Obama a tragedy unfolded in an Indian town. In Nasik a Muslim was killed on suspicions of having beef and now 11 are arrested. This 'cow lynching' only vindicates what Obama said. Take the recent horrific train tragedy that claimed the lives of hundreds of Indians, of all religions and castes; barely within hours of the tragedy social media was agog with rumors that a mosque was nearby, the mosque turned out to be an ISKCON temple. This kind of hatred is not normal and Obama did not even go that far he merely offered a simple truth.

Tamil publisher Badri Seshadri, echoing the sentiments of fellow Hindutvaites, suggested that going forward American presidents visiting India should be quizzed on school shootings and racial inequalities. I've ZERO issues with that. Who knows maybe it'd indeed stir the American public to promulgate better gun control and we'd be better off for that. Joe Biden has acknowledged systemic racism even in his inaugural speech. The words "systemic racism" are now no longer radioactive, at least to the sensible and morally minded citizens. Curiously Badri Seshadri, who spent several years as student in US but never bothered understanding anything about the country, added "foisting cases on Trump" to his list of supposedly embarrassing topics that an American president ought to be quizzed. Actually in that same interview Obama was asked just about that. To Badri and others I'll say please go see what Trump's own former attorney general and Vice President said of his conduct. America's justice system is not a kangaroo court. 

Barack Obama schooled India on the responsibilities of a democracy and sadly he stands vindicated. 

 References:

1. Obama Speech at Siri Fort transcript  https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2015/01/27/remarks-president-obama-address-people-india

2. Obama Speech at Cairo, transcript https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/remarks-president-cairo-university-6-04-09

3. Bush visits Mosque https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2001/09/18/bush-visits-mosque-to-forestall-hate-crimes/d6c41c9c-9e89-4008-b7f9-292e352bc7c7/#

4. India Today Tweet by Rajdeep Sardesai https://twitter.com/IndiaToday/status/1673352565730459649?s=20

5. Badri Seshadri tweet (and my reply) https://twitter.com/arvindkannaiyan/status/1673306422237442049?s=20

6. Obama interview by Christiane Amanpour https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/23/politics/obama-amanpour-what-matters/index.html

Hillary Clinton: A Role Model for Girls. Period

Hillary Rodham Clinton stands poised to make history and shatter, what she aptly called, the 'hardest glass ceiling' by becoming the first woman president of United States and yet women voters have not only been lukewarm to her candidacy but many even consider her in terms that are no less sexist than her male detractors, of whom there are legions. Sexism is a state of mind and has little to do with the gender of the detractor.

A group of women professionals shared a photograph of first ladies, current and former, and went gaga over Michelle Obama while omitting any mention of Hillary Clinton. These professionals, incidentally, also want to encourage, through mentorship, other women to aspire and achieve professional success which they feel needs training to surmount the odds of the working place where women are still seen as less than equals. Asked "what about Clinton" the response was "the jury is still out". This is stunning sexism and would be called out as such if a male had said it. Michelle Obama is a charismatic first lady and remains a traditional first lady espousing non-controversial feel good causes like combating obesity, a national epidemic, with feel good initiatives like growing a vegetable garden in the White House and by exhorting people to exercise more. On the other hand there's Hillary Rodham Clinton, former first lady, first woman senator from New York, first woman to win primaries in a major party, first woman nominee of a major party and former secretary of state. How could a group of strong willed independent minded women, especially those who run a group meant to promote women leadership, ignore Clinton and hold Obama higher? Sexism, albeit of a different kind from the readily recognizable one by males.

Whether it is 2008 or 2016 women in the democratic primaries did not flock to Clinton but they backed Obama and Sanders enthusiastically. In both cases Clinton was seen as not "progressive" enough compared to her rivals. This is not the place to litigate the merits or demerits of those arguments.

The Lady in the Pant Suit. Image courtesy http://cdn-img.instyle.com/sites/default/files/styles/622x350/public/images/2015/06/061715-hillary-clinton-pantsuits-lead.jpg?itok=LI0CvZMq

Lost in the din was the fact that while Clinton got no favors for being a candidate who could make history. She was rather held to a different standard, mostly because the candidate was Hillary Clinton and almost as frequently because it was a woman candidate.

Clinton has been in the national public eye for over 20 years since her husband got elected as president in 1992 and yet it was not until this year did the media unearth a little spoken of speech delivered by her in 1969. Clinton led a group of students and demanded from the dean of Wellesley that a student representative should be allowed to give a speech during Commencement. Clinton herself was the chosen speaker. Echoing FDR she said "Fear is always with us but we just don't have the time for it now. Not now". In her speech Clinton passionately spoke of poverty, student diversity and most importantly, rather shocking  to some, rebuked a sitting senator who was the Commencement speaker. Senator Edward Brooke, first African-American elected to the senate, cautioned against "coercive protests" in his speech. Clinton, ad libbed extemporaneous remarks to say "Part of the problem with just empathy with professed goals is that empathy doesn't do us anything" and she went on to say, in words that a Obama or a Sanders would later use, "for too long our leaders have viewed politics as the art of the possible. And the challenge now is to practice politics as the art of making what appears to be impossible possible". A young girl changed tradition at a hoary university and went beyond just rising up to the occasion and verbally dueled with a senator.

In 1995 Clinton gave a rousing classically feminist speech in Beijing that told the world "women's rights are human rights". It was, given the fragile state of US-China relations at that time, a gutsy speech and one that inspired many women.

"Women's Rights Are Human Rights" -- Hillary Clinton in UN Conference at Beijing in 1995

Today voters remember the Whitewater investigation, more appropriately it should be called witch hunt, as the start of the perpetual air of suspicion that would always hover above Hillary. What is less remember or completely unknown is Hillary redefined the role of a spouse of a politician in office. Not since Eleanor Roosevelt had a politician's spouse played a pivotal role in the administration. Whether as first lady of Arkansas or of the nation Hillary lived up to the promise of Bill, "two for the price of one". In Arkansas Hillary chaired the Education Standards Committee that literally reformed Arkansas schools to make them one of the nation's best from what used to be one of the worst.

Hillary Clinton and her campaign have not done a good job of introducing her to the voters. Bill Clinton's speech about his wife in the Democratic convention provided a sweeping view of the person Hillary was. As a Yale student Hillary involved herself in laws regarding child abuse, migrant labor and legal assistance for the poor.  She went on to write an oft cited article in Harvard Law Review titled "Children under the law".

When Bill Clinton lost the 1982 gubernatorial election he became, as he joked, 'the youngest ex-governor'. Hillary worked to get him rehabilitated and in response to suggestion that her retention of her maiden name does not help she changed her name to Hillary Rodham Clinton. That's the price a woman had to pay.

We forget that before Obamacare there was Hillarycare. Clinton fought a bruising battle for Universal Healthcare. The battle almost derailed her husband's nascent presidency. Her mastery of the subject remains unrivaled. In 2008 Obama airily promised universal healthcare without a provision called 'mandate' unlike that of Clinton's. Clinton's plan that included a 'mandate' was derided as a 'tax'. As president Obama's plan included a mandate and the US Supreme Court later called it a tax. While her efforts to overhaul the nation's healthcare burned to the ground Clinton gained a small but very significant victory by working with her Republican detractors to create a Children's Health Insurance Plan (CHIP). Today that plan helps millions of poor children get lifesaving health care. If this is not leadership what else is?

Hillary Clinton's run for the US Senate showed her at her best. Ridiculed a 'carper bagger' Clinton worked her heart out to earn the votes and her opponent's sexism helped. During a debate Clinton's opponent Rick Lazio walked up to her podium and glowered above her and hectored her into signing a declaration.

Asked about her high unfavorables recently Clinton opined that her favorability ratings are usually very high while she's in office as First Lady or Senator or Secretary of State but drop, precipitously, when she's running for office. It was an astute observation that says she shares an interesting relationship with the  electorate. Her brilliance and experience is never in question and, to be fair, she herself is in question when she is seeking office but, to be equally fair, some of those questions are often in the tone of "any woman, but this woman". This is despicable cop out by those, men and women, who hold Clinton to a harsher standard because she is a woman to pretend like they would vote for a better woman. No and No and not at all.

Clinton has sponsored more successful bipartisan legislation than Obama and Kerry. In the Senate Clinton earned the very grudging respect of her GOP colleagues who had declared earlier never to do anything that would even remotely help her look good when she decides to run for the presidency. Though she entered the senate as a former first lady she played by the rules in a chamber that has archaic rules of seniority. A landmark work of her in the senate was getting the healthcare help that firemen of New York City who worked at the World Trade Center needed. She took on the Bush administration and got billions for New York City. A representative of the Firemen Union, a traditional republican supporting group, expressed admiration recently for her work. How this work even rated as "jury is out" category by a group that purportedly exists to help women become leaders? Pray, what kind of leaders do these women want to create? Ah, the politically correct woman leader who'll plant vegetable garden and talk about healthy diet. If a man had drawn such a distinction he'd be called, correctly, a sexist and these women should not be spared that label either.

8 years later things were not much different when she ran for the presidential nomination. At New Hampshire two men stood in a Clinton rally holding up a T-shirt that read "go home and do laundry". Clinton, running for elected office, had to manage an adroit chuckle to brush it aside with a "the last vestiges of sexism are alive". Charged endlessly that she's icy and does not show 'human warmth' Clinton partly won the state when in a candid moment she almost choked answering how she picked herself up every day despite the drumbeat of defeat from all quarters. Nobody thought it was abominable when a debate moderator cheerfully asked why she is not liked by many, because, after all, a woman should be liked by all. Never mind that all politicians, male or female, are not universally loved. Obama and Bush remain hated by half the country and yet it is only Clinton who gets that question. Obama, in an unfortunate moment for him, interjected to answer, without even looking at her, "you're likable enough Hillary". Clinton won New Hampshire, narrowly. The world loves a woman when she acts, well, 'womanly', looking askance for support and craving public approval but hates her when she is strong and is a rampart of strength.

The millenials we're told don't think it's a big deal anymore to elect a woman to office. That is wrong. Dead wrong. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand in her memoirs recalled how she was taunted by her male colleagues for her appearance. It took Obama 8 years to acknowledge that Clinton, as a woman candidate, was measured by different standards.

It is ok for male candidates to strut about in the same dark suit, white shirt and red tie combo every day but Clinton's wardrobe was closely scrutinized for including when she wore tops that, horror of horrors, seemed to show just a hint of a cleavage. The storied Washington Post screamed "Hillary Clinton's Tentative Dip into Neckline Territory". From exposing Nixon and Watergate The Post's journalism had dipped, not tentatively, into 'neckline territory'. Defending the article the columnist said that how a candidate delivers the message, "the tone of voice, the appearance, the context", matters. Really? How many articles are devoted to any male candidate's wardrobe choices in that context? The Post's then media critic Howard Kurtz wrote an explanatory column about the scurrilous post article and helpfully titled it "Cleavage & the Clinton Campaign Chest".

A popular cop out admonition about Hillary Clinton is her standing by Bill Clinton despite his peccadilloes. Women, who anyway hate Hillary, often say with righteous indignation "oh I'd have left my husband". Did not Tolstoy teach us that "each unhappy family is unhappy in it's own way"? It never strikes many that Hillary and Bill could possibly love each other too much and love in such a way that it triumphs the pain. These are two very politically active spouses with a deep strain of activism in their veins. They, as a couple, have done much to shape up the Democratic party after the humiliating landslide loss of Hubert Humphrey. Marriages are complicated and the Bill-Hill marriage is complicated too but it is none of the voter's business. Let's not forget that Eleanor Roosevelt and Jackie Kennedy, not to mention a long list of others including most recently the wife of David Petraeus, all have stood by their philandering husbands.

Google the words "Hillary Clinton screaming" and you'll be surprised by the number of articles on that. Obama, Sanders and, of course, Trump all scream at the top of their lungs but it is Clinton who is considered a shrew because she speaks at the top of her voice. If she speaks softly she's seen as weak, not just weak but 'woman like weak', and if she speaks loud she's screaming. Late night comedian Jimmy Fallon mansplained to her how as a woman candidate she can never catch a break on her decibel.

Ask any working woman today and she'd confide how a male boss would look disapprovingly at her taking a sick day off or god forbid a day off to take care of a sick child. Yes, Clinton has a penchant for secrecy that is fueled by how her privacy has often been violated by witch hunting opponents and a public that simply thinks she's a congenital liar. But, it was not just her penchant for secrecy that made her to be less than forthcoming about her pneumonia afflictions. She later confided that as a woman, especially as one who's stamina is being questioned by her misogynist opponent, she thought she could downplay the news and work through the sickness. No, it is not easy to run as a woman for the highest office of the land even today.

If Donald Trump delegitimizing Barack Obama's birth and thereby the presidency is correctly labeled as racism then why is delegitimizing Clinton winning the nomination not labeled sexism? If it was ok for Obama to win the nomination powered by unprecedented turnout of the black vote why is it any less when Clinton does the same? Who gave Sanders the right to run down Clinton's victories as something she won "in the south"? First they said she won the primaries in the South. Then she won the Mid West. Then she won the North and then she won the very liberal California. Two days before the New York Primary pundits were musing over a possible humiliating loss for Clinton in her home state after Sanders held rallies attended by raucous tens of thousands, twice. Clinton won by a wide margin and then pundits and others brushed it as "oh well it's her home state".

The Sanders candidacy has cast a shadow on how brilliantly Clinton won against heavy odds. Nothing illustrates this better than what happened in the Dakotas. North Dakota had a caucus, a format that heavily favored Sanders's motivated youth vote, and Sanders won by 40 points. South Dakota had a traditional primary, a format that is truly democratic and tends to favor Clinton whose voters are older, and Clinton won by 2 points. But the real story is within. The total votes cast in North Dakota were 400 and Sanders got 250, Clinton 101 and uncommitted 10. The total votes cast in South Dakota were 53,00 and Clinton got 27046 to Sanders's 25,958. Sanders carried the Alaska caucus by 63 points by taking 440 votes to Clinton's 90 votes. In the much anticipated California primary, Clinton got 2.7 million votes and bested Sanders by 9 points to his 2.3 million votes. In New York out of 1.8 million Clinton garnered 1.05 million and beat Sanders by 16 points for his 750,000 votes. When all was done Clinton led Sanders by millions of votes and hundreds in delegate count. Yet, on the night she officially crossed the threshold and made history by becoming the first woman nominee of a major party Sanders not only refused to even acknowledge that but he even went to the extent of disputing her win.

Clinton showed what leadership is in 2008 when after a very hard fought primary Obama barely edged her, unlike how she beat Sanders handily in 2016, she not only bowed to the inevitable she turned herself into the most committed soldier to getting Obama elected. A group of African-American women told NPR that Clinton's conduct earned their respect. How Clinton conducted herself vis-a-vis Obama earned the votes of a critical section of the Democratic party and it is precisely those voters that Sanders brushed aside.

The sexism of Sanders was very latent and couched within his perfectly democratic rights to fight for an electoral victory that he thought he should get but many of his followers did not bother with any fig leaves and flaunted their sexism against Clinton. A Washington Post analysis of sexist tweets showed that of all the sexist tweets against Clinton nearly 14% came from Sanders's supporters. When Sanders's combative campaign manager Jeffrey Weaver said Clinton's "ambition" could tear the Democratic party US News rightly called it out as sexist by saying that running for the presidency, indeed, takes ambition and Sanders himself was no less ambitious by calling for a revolution and therefore to single out Clinton, a woman, for ambition is sexist. Sanders acted so sexist during a debate that left wing economist and columnist Paul Krugman said Sanders was beginning to mirror the "Bernie Bros", a virulently sexist group of Sanders supporters.

Another popular trope to discredit Clinton is to accuse anyone or any organization supporting her as being "in the tank" or, oh the horror, "establishment". This came mostly from the Sanders supporters. Sure, not every criticism of Clinton should be tagged sexist and there is ample in Clinton's conduct and ideas that could be subject to fair criticism. But criticisms often descend into delegitimization of her candidacy and her wins. Editorial boards of newspapers sympathetic to Sanders's policies gave him latitude to explain details regarding his foreign policy and his central theme of taking the financial industry to the woodshed and Sanders, to their surprise, came out woefully uninformed or to be blunt, clueless. Naturally, they all endorsed Clinton and for that sin alone they were tarred with the "establishment" brush. Commenting on a Washington Post article that sought to explain to Clinton why she's not winning by a large margin against a horrible opponent like Trump a reader listed a whole litany of epithets, "lying, imperious, vindictive, harridan". Harridan? My foot. The comment was a top pick comment. Clinton, as per the fact checking site politifact, is no more lying than Sanders and way more truthful than Trump who has no notion of what truth is. Calling for a 'revolution' is not imperious but Clinton is. Let's not fool ourselves that Clinton's candidacy is something that's not historical and that her struggle in the polls is only because it is a Clinton.

Amongst the so called progressive it is an article of faith that Clinton is hawk compared to the peacenik Sanders. Sanders is a hypocrite when it comes to war. He often claims that he voted against the Iraq War resolution because he felt it did not meet his criteria owing to lack of specifics, plans etc.  By that standard he should've voted against the Afghanistan war too but he happily voted for it because he realized that voting against it would cost his senate seat and he did not, in his own words, want to lose an election for the sake of a war vote.

The Iraq vote has been used to literally pillory Clinton for nearly 8 years. What is little known is how Obama very adroitly cast only "present" votes, not even abstentions, as state legislator in Illinois and cast every vote for Iraq related resolutions later just as Clinton. Unlike Obama Clinton was not known to shy from action. Senator Tom Daschle advised freshman senator Obama to prepare a run for the presidency as early as possible and not be inhibited by lack of experience. Daschle reasoned that a freshman senator will have little or no votes to defend. Yes, Obama mounted a successful campaign because, unlike Clinton, he had nothing to defend.

From Madeleine Albright to Samantha Powers and Hillary Clinton it is interesting that strong willed women have persuaded American presidents to initiate a military action in the interest of preventing genocides. If this is hawkish then so be it. Rarely has a presidential candidate been so experienced and shown such deep engagement with issues as Clinton has. If there is one thing that Clinton will never be accused of it is inaction.

There is endless prattle about Clinton and Benghazi but little note of the fact that as Secretary of state Clinton worked with republicans to increase "survivor benefits for military families" from a paltry $12,000 to $100,00. Pray what is Sanders's legislative record, that too with bipartisan support? Nothing. Zilch. To say that he does not have a commendable legislative record because he's a puritan warrior only insults the process of democracy.

Clinton has a great record of working with republicans. As member of the Senate Armed Services committee she earned the respect of senators like John McCain. Today, faced with a Trump takeover of the White House, droves of republicans, diplomats and others, have endorsed Clinton. This is a stunning act that is often taken little notice. Newspapers in deep red states that have never endorsed a democrat in many decades have endorsed Clinton. If this person is not a role model for women who else is?

For those sexist doubters of whether a woman can be a commander-in-chief another woman from another era answered best when her island nation was threatened total annihilation by an armada.

"I know I have the body of a weak, feeble woman; but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of a king of England too, and thin foul scorn that Parma or Spain, or any prince of Europe, should dare to invade the borders of my realm; to which rather than any dishonor shall grow by me, I myself will take up arms, I myself will be your general, judge, and rewarder of every one of your virtues in the field".

The words of Queen Elizabeth spoken to her troops at Tilbury will be vindicated by Hillary Rodham Clinton. Let us then elect Hillary Clinton, not only because she's a woman but because, today, she's the best choice. Anyone voting for Trump, directly or indirectly is a traitor to the American dream and such votes have the danger of making November 8th "a date that will live in infamy". Hillary Rodham Clinton is all that stands between a racist, misogynist, bigot and the Oval office. Let's get Hillary Clinton elected so that we can make the words of Longfellow, that FDR quoted in his handwritten letter to Churchill amidst another era of great peril, come true:

Sail on, Oh Ship of State!
Sail on, Oh Union strong and great.
Humanity with all its fears
With all the hope of future years
Is hanging breathless on thy fate

References:

1. North Dakota Caucus http://www.nytimes.com/elections/results/north-dakota
2. South Dakota Primary http://www.nytimes.com/elections/results/south-dakota
3. Alaska Caucus http://www.nytimes.com/elections/results/alaska
4. California Primary http://www.nytimes.com/elections/results/california
5. New York Primary http://www.nytimes.com/elections/results/new-york
6. Washington Post Analysis of sexist tweets https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/02/24/these-6-charts-show-how-much-sexism-hillary-clinton-faces-on-twitter/
7. Sanders campaign and charges of sexism http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/opinion-blog/articles/2016-04-15/sanders-self-righteousness-allows-sexist-overtones-in-attacks-on-clinton
8. Queen Elizabeth speech to troops https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speech_to_the_Troops_at_Tilbury
9. Jimmy Kimmel mansplains to Hillary Clinton https://youtu.be/j2wBpYT6Zlo
10. Hillary Clinton and Surviving families benefits http://correctrecord.org/hillary-clinton-a-record-of-service-to-veterans/
11. Obama's "present votes" http://www.factcheck.org/2008/09/obamas-legislative-record/
12. FDR's letter to Churchill https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/churchill/interactive/_html/wc0112.html
13. Hillary Clinton's Commencement speech at Wellesley http://time.com/4359618/hillary-clinton-wellesley-commencement-transcript/
14. Why Hillary Clinton's Beijing speech matters http://time.com/4125236/hillary-clinton-beijing-speech-video/
15. Washington Post article on Hillary Clinton's 'neckline' http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/19/AR2007071902668.html
16. NYT article about the Post article on Clinton's 'neckline' http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/28/us/politics/28hillary.html
17. Washington Post article by Howard Kurtz "Cleavage & Clinton Campaign Chest" http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/27/AR2007072702369.html

BREXIT and US Elections: The Specter of Donald Trump.

"In cities, mutinies; in countries, discord; in palaces, treason; and the bond cracked 'twixt son and father". The immortal Bard's lines in King Lear capture best the Brexit shenanigans and the quote literally sums up the events leading to and after Brexit. While there is much that is yet to happen as a consequence of the vote to leave the EU, the vote and how it happened carries important lessons for the American voter in the upcoming US Presidential Election.

First, how did what was seen as unthinkable finally happen? Is the Brexit vote a reflection of a democratic upsurge where the commoners have said a resounding 'no' to the elite who, supposedly, operated like a cabal, unmindful of the interests and well being of common citizenry?

The Brexit vote, above all, as the German magazine Der Spiegel pointed out, illustrates the perils of direct democracy and the virtues of representative democracy. Democracy, with good reason, is still considered. The Economist magazine in a special set of articles on California argued that California's tradition of turning any policy proposal into a Ballot Initiative has made the state virtually ungovernable with nearly 80% of the state's revenues apportioned by commitments to outcomes of Ballot Initatives leaving little wiggle room for administrations to undertake discretionary expenditures. Thus one of the world's largest economies is stuck in a budgetary quagmire.

If votes on Civil Rights and desegregation were left to direct democracy we'd still be living in racist America. If Kennedy had taken a referendum on nuking Khrushchev's USSR he might have received an overwhelming yes and ended the world as we know it. If FDR had gone to the people to ask if the Hitler menace should be ended before subduing Japan he'd have been voted out of office. On the other hand it was representative democracy and the channels of pressure it exerted on elected officials that kept US out of what was seen as 'European war' for long and thus making the effort to destroy Hitler that much more difficult. Seeing a Churchill still lost in his dreams of maintaining an empire the British voter denied him a mandate for the reconstruction of war torn Britain. Representative Democracy, with all its shortcomings, provides the just balance between mobocracy and titular dictatorships.

'Don't trust the experts' was the mantra of the Brexit leaders. Expert after expert warned of the consequences of a Brexit and the repeated retort was always "do you know better than the collective will and what wisdom can rival the collective will of the people".

The so called experts have earned a justifiably bad rap especially in the aftermath of the 2008 financial that brought an economic super power to its knees. Ivy League economists provided the theoretical framework for what later came to destroy the American economy. When the GOP played with brinkmanship by refusing to raise America's debt ceiling and trigger a default by the world's richest economy and thus set in motion an economic apocalypse the ratings agencies warned Americans of impending doom. GOP legislators guffawed on TV on the incredulousness of the same ratings agencies that played a vital role in causing the greatest recession since the Great Depression putting themselves as arbiters of what is sensible. The disdain of the experts for the common voter is another recurrent theme that has much validity. Jonathan Gruber, a key expert and architect of Obama's signature legislation, 'The Affordable Care Act', told an audience that Americans were sold on the healthcare reform with promises of cost containment but in reality that was not at all goal and the goal was only to expand healthcare. Gruber, very damagingly confessed, that telling the truth and leveling with the voter would not have garnered the required public support.

Politicians who say one thing on the campaign trail only to govern differently in office is another popular complaint and the Brexit vote was seen as a resounding "no more" to such politicians. Obama campaigned so shrilly against NAFTA and trade pacts that the Canadians were alarmed that a president Obama would abrogate the treaty. Yes, before Trump and Sanders there was a Obama. Obama dispatched Austan Goolsbee, who later served as economist in Obama administration, in secrecy, to the Canadian embassy to assure them that he has no intention of ripping up the NAFTA. A revelation like that would've sunk Hillary Clinton's candidacy but America was in love with Obama. As President Obama, like Bill Clinton before him, has negotiated a trade pact that would go down in American history as the largest trade pact.

All of the above can be rebutted.

From intellectuals who whitewashed the horrors of Communism to Ivy League economists who created the Financial crises they were all unmasked or exposed by other experts, not by the uninformed voter. Distrust of experts has now degenerated into crass anti-intellectualism. On this side of the Atlantic the supporters of Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump hold it as a badge of honor to distrust experts and extend their distrust to open hostility to any expert who questions the rationale of the plans floated by their candidates. It is now par for the course to besmirch any non-compliant expert as 'part of the establishment', 'the system'. Left leaning economist and Nobel laureate Paul Krugman lamented how Sanders's supporters militantly threw mud at any economist disagreeing with Sanders's plans and most importantly the costs.

The Infamous lie

If voters don't want candidates to sugar coat it or tell lies then they should start getting educated and that means stepping out of echo chambers. The day after casting a Brexit vote the most searched term in google was "what is EU?" The average Britisher voted in a referendum without even knowing what the EU was. This is dangerous illiteracy. In a way Gruber is correct. Towns that depended on EU subsidies cheerfully voted to exit. A key promise by the Brexit leaders was that they'd divert millions of pounds, that they said is being sent to EU, to supporting Britain's NIH. Boris Johnson traveled and campaigned with a bus that had the promise painted on it in large, very large, letters. A day after the Brexit vote Nigel Farage openly accepted that there is no such diversion because the promise was, simply put, a lie. Experts had cried hoarse on that only to be ignored.Trump's promises of negotiating debt, threatening NATO allies to put up money, constructing a wall, barring Muslim immigrants, deporting a 11 million Hispanics are all cockamamie schemes that are mere fantasies and can cause immense harm to the economy.

If politicians changing once in office is a crime then the Brexit campaigners are equally guilty. Once they got what they wanted the Brexit leaders sheepishly walked back their key promises. "Stopping immigration", 'Not so fast'. "Dissociating from EU completely", 'Not so fast, we need access to the single market'. An incredulous TV anchor gave Nigel Farage a real 'What the F**k' look after he walked back each of those promises. And oh despite the eagerness to unhitch themselves from the EU the Brexit campaign really, to the consternation of the EC, wants to slow walk the divorce.The Guardian newspaper ran a column titled "A pyrrhic victory? Boris Johnson wakes up to the costs of Brexit".

Here's a message to the Bernie-or-bust voters who, taking their cue from a Hollywood actress and airhead, Susan Sarandon, think that a Trump presidency might usher in the revolution quicker, by virtue of destroying everything in his way, if Bernie does not get to the Oval office. This is lunacy. A Tory minister ridiculed the protest voters who voted for Brexit nonchalantly thinking that "it would be a vote for remain, he would be seen as having stood up for principle". Each vote counts and every voter should vote carefully. Thinking "I'll vote as protest and hope to God that somehow the sane verdict prevails and I'll be safe to brag about my principled protest vote". Remember Bernie supporters who shun Hillary, Gore lost Florida and the Presidency by a few hundred votes. Every vote counts. Vote your conscience, yes, but don't vote thinking somebody might hold his or her nose and vote for the less objectionable candidate and thus prevent Trump from entering the oval office while you get to cast a 'protest vote' that you can boast about over drinks at a pub.

Did doomsday arrive in England? Yes and no. Yes, the experts were correct. A market meltdown occurred and the pound crashed. Nearly 2 Trillion dollars in market capitalization was wiped out. The day after Brexit saw a very interesting and in some sense tragic role reversals. Post-Brexit the 'exit' cheer leaders were less than eager to take over the country and make good on their promises. On the other hand the 'remain' campaigners who had roped in the experts to predict doomsday were left fending off doomsday. Today Cameron and Obama are acting responsibly to contain the damage because unlike Boris Johnson or Nigel Farage they have a conscience and could not unconscionably sit back and chuckle "I told you so" because lives are affected. When Trump says he'll renegotiate US sovereign debt he betrays his idiocy that makes him think that US debt is like the debt of a realtor who has the luxury of telling his creditors "well I have no intention of paying in full but here's what I can pay". Even a suggestion by a US president that the US will not make good on it's debt will send seismic shock waves into the world market and destabilize the dollar as the global currency in which other countries hold their debt, all of which would make any candidate think twice before speaking but not for a bloviating idiot like Trump.

From LA Times article. The infamous poster showing Muslim immigrants.

Here is what the Brexit cheerleaders did achieve though. Britain was plagued by a rash of racist incidents fueled by xenophobia. When Trump and Farage talk in dog whistle terms about past glory they are voicing a 'white' rage against nations that are changing fast, demographically. Immigration was front and center in Brexit campaign. A notorious poster showed Syrians streaming into Britain by the thousands. Immigration from other EU countries, a freedom guaranteed by the single market, was another reason. It is no wonder that the Brexit vote pivoted on age with the youth voting to remain while the older voters going for the exit. The young college graduate needs access to opportunities across the borders and has less interest in protecting the British character. Also the Islamophobia that the Brexit campaigners unleashed was exactly like what Trump is doing. It'd do good to remember that the worst terrorist attacks on English soil were carried out by the Irish. Today the Muslim immigrant appears outlandish to the Brit and American but not too long ago the Irish, the Asian (especially Chinese) were seen likewise in America. Terrorism and immigration are indeed legitimate  concerns but demagoguery not only does disservice to the debate it perverts the debate. A curious irony in the Brexit vote and the Trump phenomenon is that both Johnson and Trump are the products of elite educational institutions.

British author Frederick Forsyth cheerfully told America's public radio station NPR that for all the doomsday predictions UK will be just fine and that the youngsters of today do not know of a time when Britain was doing just fine, alone. Forsyth is a hypocrite. He, more than any common Britisher, enjoys the fruits of a globalized world market. His books sell across borders and he signs movie deals. 'Day of the Jackal' was a Anglo-French production while 'Odessa File' was an Anglo-German production. What Forsyth enjoys he has now denied to the graduates of England. Shame on you Forsyth.

The treason that the Bard alluded to finally came to the fore when the "exit" cheer leaders suddenly found themselves facing victory and a PM who resigned. Michael Gove undermined Boris Johnson, who was widely seen to be a solo-in to 10 Downing street if the 'exit' campaign won, and was finally undermined himself. Meanwhile the labor party too erupted into full blown revolt over how ineffectually Jeremy Corbyn campaigned on behalf of the 'remain' camp and thus lost the war for unity.

The American electorate is divided along racial, educational, income and age more than ever before. And the lines are hardening pretty fast. It is fashionable for Americans to lament that their legislators don't compromise but when it comes to electing those who compromise it is the American voter who cheers purists like Sanders or a pretend purist like Trump.

What is the message for Hillary Clinton and Obama from Brexit? It is foolish to rubbish the Brexit vote as merely the revolt of the uninformed voter and xenophobia. The first principle of democracy is to respect the choice of a people. Globalization and technology have completely changed our lives but they also have upended lives by destroying vast swathes of jobs in the economy. There is real palpable anxiety amongst voters, especially those without a college degree. Obama is paying the price for his demagoguery on trade because now when he wants to pass a historic trade pact he's running into demons he had unleashed. A positive case to be made for globalization and trade. Governments need to find effective ways of ensuring that it's citizenry have a stake in the economy and not feel left behind. Obama is rising to the task of unmasking the danger Trump poses to the republic. Clinton is yet to find her voice. Clinton's trust deficit with voters is an impediment for her.

                                           Obama on Donald Trump: "Where does this stop"

Recent appearances by Obama show a marked trait in how he speaks. Obama takes long pauses, pregnant pauses, in between sentences and they seem to indicate that he thinks the danger of Trump's racism is real and grave and at the same time he's incredulous that many in the GOP are not standing up against it. On the other hand Trump doesn't know what a pause is when speaking. Clinton doesn't pause between sentences because she's delivering canned responses that she thinks she needs to say in order to appear presidential.

As voters head to the polls in November they need to do their homework, they need to question their candidates, question their own assumptions and then vote with sincerity. This election is a war for the heart and soul of America. Will America show the world that it takes more than a billionaire demagogue to destroy America?

A Guardian columnist, in a column titled 'There are liars and there's Boris Johnson and Michael Gove", quoted the lines of Rudyard Kipling:

I could not dig; I dared not rob: 
Therefore I lied to please the mob. 
Now all my lies are proved untrue 
And I must face the men I slew. 
What tale shall serve me here among 
Mine angry and defrauded young?

We could as well close with the foreboding lines of the Irish poet W.B. Yeats from his 'Second Coming'

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned.
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
.............
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

References:

1. A pyrrhic victory? Boris Johnson wakes up to the costs of Brexit http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jun/24/a-pyrrhic-victory-boris-johnson-wakes-up-to-the-costs-of-brexit
2. 'Voters in one fading port town wonder whether they were misled on Brexit' https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/voters-in-one-fading-port-town-wonder-if-they-were-misled-on-brexit/2016/06/26/fb0971de-3a42-11e6-af02-1df55f0c77ff_story.html
3. British steel town that got millions from the EU, but voted to leave anyway http://www.latimes.com/world/europe/la-fg-britain-eu-subsidies-20160701-snap-story.html
4. 'After Brexit vote, U.K. sees a wave of hate crimes and racist abuse' http://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2016/06/29/484038396/after-brexit-vote-u-k-sees-a-wave-of-hate-crimes-and-racist-abuse

What Francois Hollande Learned from George Bush and Obama Did not

It took a terrorist carnage in Paris to make the French discover the wisdom in US actions post 9/11 and for their president Francois Hollande to discover his inner George W. Bush. When a socialist French president echoes words used by a Texan Republican American president we can be sure we are living in a new era of common sense prevailing over pompous platitudes. On the other hand when an American president nonchalantly says, after a carnage in California, that he misjudged how anxious his citizens are because he does not watch cable TV, we can be equally sure that the desire for a moral halo is outstripping a dire need of sense of urgency. Amidst these two scenarios stands the divisive figure of George Bush.

The Bush that Hollande discovered and echoed was the post 9/11 but pre-Iraq war Bush. That sunny fateful Tuesday morning is etched in my memory. It was a morning when the words "the world will never be the same again" stopped being a trite cliche and became a new emphatic reality. It was the day when an age of American innocence ended. Bush who had assumed office under a cloud of derision and lack of mandate became the voice of America in a moment that he certainly would not have wished nor hoped for but he rose to the occasion. Nancy Gibbs of Time magazine wrote archly that history came down in a fell swoop and lifted him. When Bush left office with his legacy in tatters as the nation reeled under the greatest recession since the Great Depression he and many of his supporters felt that history will judge him kinder with the passage of time as it has done to Harry Truman. Their hopes were answered, sadly, when Paris felt the sting of terrorism.

Image from http://www.usnews.com/cmsmedia/3e/d07fa8ab4e693d9657bcc69b7223dd/40985FE_DA_130425bush2001.jpg 

Bush said "we are at war" and many guffawed pointing out that it was impossible for a nation state to be at war against a rag-tag motley group of non-state actors. Theoreticians trotted out to chortle that it was neither a war and even if it was war it cannot be won because it lacks a definition of what would constitute a 'win'. The Bush doctrine has now been vindicated by Hollande.

It is fully to George Bush's credit that he recognized that 9/11 was indeed war. Osama Bin Laden had indeed declared war against the US, only thing is unlike Clinton now the US had a president who understood that Bin Laden meant business. That a motley group of religious fundamentalists with an amoeba like structure spread across the globe could be considered an entity and waged war against was the recognized with an instinctive genius that Bush was never recognized for.

Bush, unlike Obama who needs to watch cable TV to learn what his citizens felt, channeled the rage of Americans and gave expression to the resolve that the country wanted to see in it's leader. With his arm slung over a fireman, standing over the rubble of World Trade Center, with a bull horn Bush declared "I hear you, the world hears you and those who did this will hear from us". Asked what his aim was he bluntly said, in Churchillian manner, "there's a poster out west in Texas 'wanted dead or alive'". There was no waffling, no lecturing, no elaborate reasoning just a blunt statement of the desired outcome. Time magazine columnist Lance Morrow was searing in his column calling for a 'purple rage' and advising grief counselors to stay away.

On a day when the fires were still smoldering in New York City and Washington D.C. Bush said America was attacked by those who detested her for her way of life and what she stood for. The naysayers chuckled that the attacks had nothing to do with the terrorists antagonism towards American ideals. Tellingly Hollande used those same words and said Paris was attacked for what she stood for.

Bush understood keenly that this was a different war and that the usual paradigms of war, valid for several millennia, will not suit this new war, this new manichean struggle of the 21st century. "There would be no surrender or signing aboard a ship" predicted Bush. Unlike Obama who needed a do-over of his Oval office speech against ISIS Bush delivered a new doctrine speaking from Oval office saying "we'll make no distinction between terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them". He called it a "war on terror".

Bob Woodward quotes at length Bush's speech to the Congress and the nation. Watched by "80 million" Americans Bush declared "our grief has turned to anger and anger to resolution. Whether we bring our enemies to justice or bring justice to our enemies, justice will be done". As for the new nature of the conflict Bush advised Americans that they "should not expect one battle bust a lengthy campaign, unlike any other we have seen. It ma include dramatic strikes visible on TV, and covert operations, secret even in success". Where Bush was quick to identify the nature of the enemy and help the country resolve itself for a lengthy conflict Obama was keen to ridicule the nature of ISIS by calling them a 'varsity JV team'.

Brussels and Europe at large have recognized that their cities have become sanctuaries for terrorists. It is not without reason that Hamburg was were the 9/11 plotters gathered to plot their heinous crime. A bin-Laden could not have operated without impunity but for the sanctuary provided by Kabul.

Hollande, learning from Bush, has vowed that France will cut off the oxygen for terrorist operations by choking the money flow. America due to its pre-eminent position in the world of finance could leverage institutions at its command to identify and stifle the flow of money that financed terrorist operations. When treasury secretary announced the presidential proclamation Bush flew into a rage because he wanted to make the announcement himself in order to impress upon everyone the central role money plays in terrorism and by making the announcement himself he wanted to show the world that he was deathly serious. Again, this was Bush's own idea with an instinctive realization of what the country was against and an awareness of the tools available at his disposal.

In response to the racist bigotry that is being unleashed by Donald Trump and Ted Cruz in the crazed GOP primaries both Obama and Hillary Clinton have discovered the virtues of how Bush faced the conflict by demonizing the terrorists while consciously and steadfastly refusing to demonize an entire religion or an entire people. Woodward points out how Bush repetitively emphasized that it was not a war against the Afghans or Islam. Bush, Woodward says, wanted the first bombs to dropped over Afghanistan to be food packets. Outreach to children and women of Afghanistan were key elements of Bush policy. Bush even made it a point to invite a Muslim cleric to the memorial service at the National Cathedral.

Americans have forgotten how ill organized the country was just before 9/11 and the changes that Bush ushered in. The FBI and CIA were prevented by law from exchanging intelligence, the president could not make a secure telephone call from Air Force One, while Bush Sr could go to war in 1991 with off-the shelf plans there were no off-the-shelf plans for this war, the military had been under equipped, human intelligence sorely lacked, the laws for snooping were outpaced by technological advances that the terrorists took advantage of and much more. Make no mistake Obama has retained many of Bush's security policies and has actually took the drone warfare policy to levels that even Bush demurred to do.

Bush gathered an international coalition before he went to war, something that even the French have no bothered to do with their air strikes. As much as Bush wanted to present a globally united front in the war against terror he was aware that there will be a day when the US will carry the burden alone as it does now. Obama cried from rooftops that the US lost international prestige under Bush's watch but he has been both unwilling and incapable of stitching together any meaningful coalition to carry on the Afghan operations that he found himself necessary to continue with a troop addition.

While Hollande learned from the Bush who went after bin-Laden Obama is eager to avoid being the Bush who went after Saddam Hussein. Unfortunately Obama took his caution to such an extreme that even his own Secretary of state blithely told an interviewer that "do not do stupid stuff cannot be the organizing principle of a great country". This week yet another former Secretary of defense who served under Obama went on the record to say what a detached war time president Obama is. Apparently during cabinet meetings to discuss the threat of ISIS Obama would get busy checking messages on his blackberry. Talking to left leaning public broadcaster PBS Obama blamed media coverage of the attacks in Paris and California for fueling anxiety amongst the public. 'Media coverage' is what Obama thinks is responsible for citizens feeling anxious after two brazen and heinous attacks. Thank god he was not in the presidency when Pearl Harbor was attacked.

A former administration official went on record to say that Obama dithered on cutting off the oxygen of money supply to ISIS, the oil wells, worrying about the damage to the environment. Finding political courage to kill bin-Laden, while commendable, does not compare to doing what it takes to win a war against a merciless enemy. Obama, it is now becoming increasingly evident, is no war time president. I shudder to think of what an Obama would have done before D-Day or at Stalingrad or before Hiroshima.

Obama, like many in America and elsewhere, saw Bush exclusively through the prism of the Iraq war and the mistakes of the doctrine of pre-emptive war. That is a sad mistake for even in a war as plagued by mistakes as the Iraq war was there came a moment when Bush discovered leadership, albeit much belatedly. While everyone including his own 'Iraq study group' advised Bush to cut and run from Iraq he resolved that he will not abandon Iraq to chaos and announced the surge under David Petraeus. The Iraq 'surge' was a success that Obama threw away and yielded a vacuum that ISIS was only too glad to fill in.

It is still too early to say who will take over from Obama but I'm sure that at this point anybody but Obama would prosecute the war against ISIS much better. Hillary Clinton may even be a better Commander in Chief than Obama himself.