Fun Stuff

Take it from me, there is only one certain method for determining whether someone is from New Jersey or not: They will refer to a trip to the beach as going "down the shore." However, the handcuffs are another dead giveaway.

Once again, my home state has been thrust into the limelight in a massive corruption case that involves a failed philanthropist named Solomon Dwek who lived, appropriately enough in a town called Deal (which is, as any Jerseyite knows, "down the shore"), a guy from Brooklyn named Levy-Izhak Rosenbaum who could get you a slightly used pancreas for a good price, a bunch of rabbis who laundered money through charities they controlled, cash from Israel, bankers in Switzerland, the mayors of Hoboken and Jersey City (where it is fair to say this case is not the first to offer a whiff of scandal), a member of Governor Jon Corzine's cabinet and a host of other bit players who you might find milling around catching a smoke outside the Vince Lombardi Service Area on the New Jersey Turnpike.

Dwek, (pronounced in much the same way Barbara Walters would pronounce "dreck" which is the Yiddish word for shit), is now somewhere in the witness protection system (hopefully for his sake in the custody of Marshall Mary Shannon as played in "In Plain Sight" by the irresistible Mary McCormack.) Seeking to save his own skin after getting caught floating a bad check for $25 million, our guy Solomon-the-wise...er...guy, started helping the Feds round up corrupt pols.

One big-time Fed anti-corruption prosecutor called New Jersey the most corrupt state in the nation. (Which is probably true since technically, the District of Columbia is not a state.) Jon Corzine, who has a tough election race later this year that just got tougher, said "Any corruption is unacceptable-anywhere, anytime, by anybody. The scale of corruption we're seeing as this unfolds is simply outrageous and cannot be tolerated."

Noble words. But has Mr. Corzine so quickly forgotten his roots either in Washington or at Goldman Sachs? While the colorful cast of slimeballs arrested yesterday has restored pride of place to my home state in the corruption league tables, let's face it, what was really shocking about the reported payoffs was that the prices were so low. This was penny ante stuff. Ten grand for a building permit. That kind of thing. It can't hold a candle to the millions that are pumped into the campaigns of federal politicians who guide laws subtly this way and that or turn bills into Christmas trees of goodies for key constituents or who simply look the other way when oversight is concerned...for example, in the case of the financial community. Just for example, Governor.

There are cultural and definitional hurdles we need to get over with regard to the corrosive effects of buying and selling influence in our society. Corruption is offensive when it involves $97,000 stuffed in a box of Apple Jacks cereal as in this latest New Jersey case...but dress it up in the finery of federal campaign finance laws designed to institutionalize the power of the few and its suitable for high society senatorial or presidential fundraisers in Hollywood, Houston, or the Hamptons.

I call this later phenomenon "corruption within the law." And it as many times more pernicious than payoffs in diners in Bergen County as it is more expensive ... even if it doesn't quite invoke the backroom at Bada Bing or Satriale's quite as evocatively. That's because the effects are so much more widely felt in society ... as in the case of Wall Street selling the view that it didn't need much regulation or that it needed cheap money bailouts or in the case of the oil and auto industries rental of the levers of U.S. energy policy for the past several decades.

But I guarantee you that tonight America's most trusted newsman (which according to a new TIME Magazine poll is Jon Stewart...who is neither a newsman nor does he actually represent himself as being trustworthy, quite the contrary) will devote time on his show to tape or pictures of the perp walk of the five dirty rabbis or the car loads of mayors and assemblyman as if they were the face of corruption in America. Which may be appropriate because they are as much about comedy and as far from the real story as is "The Daily Show."

Nonetheless, the real uncovered corruption aside, as a Jersey boy, there is something irresistible about this particularly tale. It's the bastard short story of Mario Puzo and Philip Roth (with a hint of Damon Runyon by way of Sholom Aleichem) and who can object to that. Further, we take pride in our scumbags in New Jersey.

In fact, that reminds me ... earlier this week I was having lunch with FP supremo Moises Naim at the Palm Restaurant in Washington.

While we lunched on rare tuna salads while Lord knows what kind of nasty deals were being cut in the booths nearby, we got into a discussion of just this subject of corruption. Moises, author of the book Illicit -- recently turned into an Emmy-nominated documentary -- and thus an expert on all things sleazoid and able to say the word "bagman" in 80 languages, argued that whatever flavor our corruption took in the U.S., the Venezuelas and Russias had us beat hands down. I muttered a few words about my theories about our sanitized versions of buying and selling politicos but he scoffed. He's from Caracas and he likes his violation of the public trust big and loud and ideally involving low-life political thugs of the type who rule his home country.

Well, look at the scoreboard, my friend! We are from New Jersey and we are loud and we are proud! We've got it all. The baby-faced golden boy of Hoboken politics, the new mayor, heading to the slammer practically before he is old enough to shave. An 87 year-old Syrian rabbi. A special lingo in which payments were "invitations" and approvals were "opportunities." We're slicing people open and selling freaking body parts for chrissakes (although due to Kashrut laws you couldn't get, say, a kidney and a pound of cheese from the same guy).

So Mr. Glamorous expert on the underbelly of globalization, who's corrupt now? Boo-ya, my friend! Fuggedaboutit.   

Jeff Zelevansky/Getty Images

Washington is a city of oxymorons. It is a city of garden variety morons, as well. On the oxymoron side we have old favorites like "military intelligence," "compassionate conservative," and "government organization." On the moron side...well, in U.S. politics we have morons on both sides. 

Now we have something new however, as in Washington the oxymorons and the morons are coming together in the form of America's latest reality television extravaganza (we really needed another): "Real World Washington." This is a unique double oxymoron in that it calls itself real but, like most reality TV, it is not...and because it is suggesting, fancifully, that there is somehow a connection between Washington and the real world. As for the morons, well you need only visit the bars around the DuPont Circle neighborhood location of the Real World set and you can view for yourself the cast in all their beer-soaked glory.

At first I wondered to myself how it was that a show like "The Real World" could have become MTV's longest-running hit, now in its 17th year. After all, it's pretty formulaic. Semi-attractive young adults including at least one or two with deep psychological problems are put together in a house in which they: drink, puke, appear to grope one another in grainy night-vision camera shots, and then fight about who groped whom.

Of course, thinking of it that way, I naturally started to wonder why it took so long for the show to come to the home of American politics which have been featuring all these activities for years. (For those of you who are more insensitive than I, insert Teddy Kennedy joke here. And for those of you who don't have the stomach for such humor but still want a laugh at the expense of all that Kennedy family groping, see this link about a new book on America's zany royal family.)

Once I started thinking about politicians and groping and the real world, however, my thoughts immediately drifted eastward, out over the Atlantic, and in the direction of the world's most famous aging libido, that of the host of this week's G8 Meeting, Silvio Berlusconi. This in turn led to a thunderbolt of inspiration akin to that which struck another famous Italian in the Berlusconi mold, Michael Corleone, when he first saw the ill-fated Apollonia Vitelli. What about the Real World Berlusconi-style? What about Real World L'Aquila? Once we get the G8 leaders to Italy, why don't we lock them in a room until they actually produce something productive? And let's put it all on video! Big Brother for Big Brother! 

And to keep it interesting we can add elements of other reality shows. For example, how about a taste of Real Housewives Berlusconi-style, while we're at it. Just locking Silvio and his really (justifiably) angry, estranged wife Veronica Lario in a house for the enjoyment of tv audiences everywhere would be irresistible.But throw her in with a bunch of other world leaders? See what happens when Silvio shoots an ill-considered glance in the direction of Michelle Obama? Who's wailing on him first? Veronica, Barack or Michelle? (My money is on Michelle.) Sadly, of course, Veronica is passing on the G8 Summit, forcing the Italians to turn the wife of their president to be the hostess for the affair.

We still have plenty of fun cast to choose from, however, given that the meetings in Italy will actually be attended by more than 25 countries, including all the G20. Just think of the potential gang we could feature in the house that meet the Real World formula for diversity and mayhem. 

• Of course, we start with the hard-partying Berlusconi. He may be 72 but he has the judgment and appetites of a 19-year-old frat boy and is certain to end up in the money shots that MTV needs. For example, see the recently released photos of him enjoying two women locked in a girl-on-girl kiss in front of him at a party at his estate in Sardinia. 

• Barack and Michelle Obama add the diversity element. In fact, this week they will actually break the color line at the G8 Summit, making it the first to actually feature a person of color sitting in one of the principal's seats. But they are also fun-loving, party people. Barack danced on the Ellen show and in Dreams from My Father he admitted to the kind of recreational drug use that one has to believe is an off-camera Real World specialty. Michelle would, of course, be the serious one in the house, the good girl who MTV clings to as a sign of the redeeming social content of the series.

• Carla Bruni knows how to party like a rock star from having partied with so many rock stars and because she is so telegenic she will be allowed to bring along her little guy, who will undoubtedly end up being the "Spencer" (to mix reality TV metaphors) of the show, mouthing off to everyone and likely getting into a fight with some of the bigger, more athletic members of Real World L'Aquila.

• One of the more dangerous of "jock" contingent will be former member of the Japanese Olympic team, Taro Aso, who competed in the shooting competition. Perfect for TV, Aso is even more dangerous when shooting off his mouth than when using a weapon. For instance, there was the time that he said sketched out his vision for a better Japan, suggesting that he wanted to help make it a country in which "rich Jews" would like to live.

• Another of the "jocks" with a professed love of weightlifting early in his life is Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. More appealing however to producers at MTV will be his tastes in music which include Black Sabbath and Deep Purple. So, two birds with one stone...he's the muscle (he still swims a mile twice a day) and the requisite head-banger of the crowd. (Perhaps this will create fireworks others in the group who were firebrands in their youth, like former secretary for Agitprop of her chapter of the Free German Youth socialist youth group, Angela Merkel. Maybe after a few beers with vodka chasers they might break out in a Karaoke performance of "99 Luftballons" or, from the Deep Purple songbook, "Smoke on the Water.")

• Sadly, this being television, some thought may have to be given to kicking Canada and Great Britain out of the G8 due to the fact that Stephen Harper and Gordon Brown are so boring. At least, there is nothing in their youths that suggests they would ever indulge in the kind of hijinks that make for good reality television. Harper and Canada even managed to take the drama out of the global financial meltdown by actually properly managing their financial systems (something that can't be said for Brown who manages to achieve a paradoxical blend of boring and yet somehow terrifying at the same time.)

Given the fact that Berlusconi will be joined in Italy by members of the G20, the cast can be expanded to included a diverse enough group of lively characters to make this one version of Real World actually look a lot more like the real world than its many predecessors. South Africa's Jacob Zuma is, for example, a party all by himself with four wives, three other fiancés, perhaps as many as 18 children, and a list of run-ins with the law that would allow him to play the bad boy role. China's Hu Jintao was reportedly fond of singing and dancing in his teen years and therefore might add a little lift to those party nights out. And although Brazil's President Lula and Zuma may only have achieved the fourth and fifth grade in school, respectively, this actually makes them educationally over-qualified by Real World standards. 

Sadly for the Real World premise...and for the real world...not many of the visiting leaders are women so we will have to rely on host Berlusconi to add a few of his close personal friends to add a little sexual tension to the show.  But what with party credentials of the crowd gathering in L'Aquila and the help of Il Cavaliere it's clear this could make for fine viewing.  If we wanted to make it something more than that...and something more than the bland communiqué machine G8 meetings typically are...we could add a different reality show twist, à la say "Big Brother" or "Survivor," in which participants are voted out after each week. Except in this instance, what we could do is rely on the general odiousness of hanging out with pols around the clock to motivate the cast to want to leave the house, but then not let them out unless they actually get something done in their negotiations. Think how that system would change the nature of summits. Although my fear is that rather than producing more productive meetings of government leaders, the requirement that they get something done would actually lead to the end of summits altogether.

MARCO LONGARI/AFP/Getty Images

Because Foreign Policy, when done right, is not a noun but a verb, I'm leaving the country. (Ok, so it's never a verb. I'm having premature jet-lag.  But you get the idea.) None of this arm-chair punditry for me. I'm going out where you can taste that clash of civilizations and walk the flat earth. (And that's just eating and trying to get to my plane at most airports.)

During the next week and a half my business will be taking me to four continents. Admittedly, four continents in eight days is borderline insane for someone who has to fly commercial but think of all the time it will give me at 35,000 feet to contemplate the big issues and provide juicy blogs full of local color.

Consider it my Sleep Deprivation and Digestive Distress (S Triple D) World Tour...and view it as your chance to get a window on the world as I hobnob with cab-drivers, bellmen, secretaries who don't understand a word I am saying, and drug sniffing dogs. Naturally, to the extent that major developments break anywhere in the world, I will be there to offer a distinctly outside the Beltway perspective on them. And all of it will be viewed through the lens of crushing exhaustion that will add special color to it -- like hallucinations, imagery of large insects crawling all over my body, paranoid fantasies of hotel shampoo bottles coming to life, that kind of thing.

So now, in the grey light of dawn, I head to the airport with my primary achievement thus far being the ability to get all that I need for the trip into my carry-on luggage. This does not mean I am traveling light. My suitcase and briefcase together weigh roughly the same as any car from the Kia line of fine, Korean-made, automobiles. (Although I worry my luggage may actually have lower fuel efficiency.) 

Barack Obama has made it a new world in which everyone loves Americans. And I am ready to go out and collect my hugs and free drinks.

More news as it happens... 

KAREN BLEIER/AFP/Getty Images

The great Tom Ricks posted a little inspiration for me and the entire foreign policy community today. It would be rude not to return the favor. So here's one way to make the already terrific "Best Defense" even better.

Are not-quite-Miss-USA Carrie Prejean and not-quite-National-Intelligence-Council-Chairman Chas Freeman the same person? The similarities are uncanny. 

Both were candidates for important national positions. Prejean's position would make her an ambassador for America and Freeman was a career diplomat. Both were denied those positions at least in part because of the unpopular views they expressed. And both were victims of blogospheric overkill that may have done more to damage their critics than it did to them. Certainly, the longer their controversies continued to bubble, the worse their opponents looked. (Last night, for example, even the Rush Limbaugh of liberal America, Jon Stewart, closed his Prejean story with a statement that made it clear he felt the attacks on her were unfair.) 

Finally, today both are considerably better known than they were before the controversies they didn't seek and both are considerably more popular among key constituencies that are likely to provide them with long-term support as a consequence of their courage to say what they felt.    

Unfortunately for Chas (and I think for the NIC), Barack Obama did not appoint Donald Trump director of national intelligence because he might have stood up for Chas like he stood up for Carrie. (Well, he would have if he thought Chas was hot in a bikini.) But Chas's defenders in the administration folded under too much pressure from the likes of noted intelligence connoisseur Nancy Pelosi. 

In fact, given their winning smiles, the only real differences between the two are Prejean's implants and the fact that Chas is brilliant and she appears to be dumb as a box of rocks. (The rumors that Steve Rosen had nude pics of Freeman have proven to be as unfounded as some other charges against Rosen.)

That said there's a message here, people: beware the impulse to incite the virtual crowd, because as often happens with real mobs, e-mobs or their actions can get so out of control that they trample the reputations of their organizers and prove seriously counter-productive to their longer term goals. (See: Salem witch trials, McCarthyism, and votefortheworst.com.) 

Michael Loccisano/Getty Images

It looks like Miss California Carrie Prejean's problem may just have been that she picked the wrong pageant.

In case you missed the constant barrage of photos of the half-naked Miss USA runner-up that the media has been airing this week in their never ending quest for the truth (or to exploit a good opportunity to get some expensively spray-tanned skin on the air during May sweeps), Prejean is in big trouble with her pageant's organizers. They are shocked, shocked by some of her behavior. Of course, it is unclear which of her actions is really troubling them -- her semi-nude "lingerie model" photos or her appearances at her church on behalf of the National Organization for Marriage during which she spoke out against gay marriage. 

Ok, we all know it couldn't be the photos, right? I mean the pageant had her appear practically naked on television. That's obviously just an excuse.  Prejean sealed her fate when she expressed a personal belief that didn't jibe with those of the new Billy Graham, America's new moral arbiter, Perez Hilton. So, the moral forces behind the event including Miss California pageant director Shanna Moakler, best known for allegedly punching Paris Hilton in the jaw during a cat fight over Moakler's then husband, scrawny, tatted-up, marginal rock singer Travis Barker, and Donald Trump, best known for his serial bankruptcies, appalling taste, and really, really bad hair, are now contemplating whether to banish Prejean to ensure that they get a more politically correct choice in place to be available for the next strip mall opening in Barstow.

(Just so there is no mistake about my view on these vitally important issues, I am all for both gay marriage and semi-nude photos of beauty queens. I am also for freedom of speech and don't think it's fair to kick someone out of a high public office like Miss California or Vice Miss USA just because they don't hold a mainstream or even a defensible view.)

But there is good news for Miss Prejean on this National Prayer Day (which begins here in Washington with hundreds of politicians gathering for a national prayer breakfast in which they bow their heads and appeal to the Good Lord that a photograph of them praying ends up in their home town paper). Saudi Arabia, this weekend will kick off its own beauty pageant, one with a uniquely Saudi spin, the fabulous, second annual "Miss Beautiful Morals" pageant. In this event, unlikely to be picked up by Donald Trump for broadcast to the U.S. anytime soon, the winner is the young woman who demonstrates "the most devotion and respect for her parents."

According to pageant founder Khadra al-Mubarak, quoted in an Associated Press story, "the idea of the pageant is to measure the contestants commitment to Islamic morals...it's an alternative to the calls for decadence in other beauty contests that only take into account a woman's body and looks." Although sadly there appears to be no evening burka competition in the pageant, there are ten weeks of classes and quizzes on pro-parent topics like "Mom, paradise is at your feet." Over 200 women compete for a grand prize of more than $2,600 (not enough to buy even one of Prejean's recent breast implants) and "other prizes." (A one year modeling contract for Miss Wahabi Hottie magazine, maybe? Featuring the latest in "Death to Israel and the Great Satan" full-coverage resort-wear?) 

Commenting on the differences between a glitzier pageant in more liberal Lebanon that actually features one piece bathing suits and the Saudi inner beauty extravaganza, the AP article notes dryly, "There are no such displays in ultra-strict Saudi Arabia, where until Miss Beautiful Morals was inaugurated last year, the only pageants were for goats, sheep, camels and other animals..."

Using unusual restraint, I will not comment on this last point except to suggest that if Carrie Prejean is in need of a replacement title sometime soon, she may just want to look into other options internationally where in addition to "Miss Beautiful Morals" she could compete for other crowns which during the past several years have included the likes of the Russian nuclear industry's "Miss Atom", Thailand's plus-sized "Miss Jumbo-Queen", Angola's "Miss Landmine", "Miss Brazil Transex", outer-space's "Miss Klingon Empire" and the good old USA's "Miss Hell-hole Swamp." And if these don't work out, after the Saudi option, perhaps the one most suited to Miss Prejean's publicized talents might be China's glamorific "Miss Artificial Beauty Contest." 

No need for a thank you note, Carrie. Just another public service article from your friends at FP.

JEWEL SAMAD/AFP/Getty Images

There is an element of lonely self-gratification to blogging that calls to mind Woody Allen's description of masturbation as "sex with someone I love." Of course he also said the same thing about one of his children. But I digress. My point is you don't need a partner to blog either. But here at FP there are some great ones (partners...not Korean stepchildren that you would consider marrying) and so when I want a little stimulation, like anyone else I just point and click around my home site. For example...

Laura Rozen has a piece referencing Joe Nye's assertion academics are increasingly irrelevant to policy. While this is certainly true, it misses the bigger point: policy is increasingly irrelevant to government. Government is reactive to a world is so complex and fast-moving that it may be that policy itself is an antiquated concept. That's not to say that we don't have policies...it's just to say that almost no one in government ever really thinks about them, they're too busy spinning the headlines, stroking constituencies and trying to keep the news cycle from blowing up in their faces.

FP ran a piece by Nestor Carbonell saying it is too early to give up on the embargo with Cuba. Yuh. Also way too early to say whether or not television will catch on or to stop hoping for a comeback by native Americans against the conquistadors. There is not one defensible reason for the embargo. In fact, it is one of the best illustrations of that definition that describes insanity is doing the same thing over and over again-for almost half a century -- and expecting a different result. (Although the technical foreign policy definition of insanity-unilateral sanctions-also applies.) Frankly, the only thing making Cuba policy worth discussing any more is the fact that it is so out of whack with reality. (I must say though, that I did like the FP Passport story about the Cuban regime poisoning diplo-pets...it's pathetic and nasty but on the level of a crazy old coot who lives in the dilapidated house down the street. Which is roughly right...if the old coot had a record of human rights violations and keeping nuclear warheads in his back yard. Still, he's an old guy, not really threatening anymore and it's time to accept change is in the wind.) The best we can hope for is that once America's Cuba policy becomes more rational...and the recent steps by the Obama administration on travel and remittances are, I feel, an irreversible step in that direction... with some luck Cuba will assume the importance it deserves among our priorities...somewhere between Curacao and Sao Tome and Principe. (I kid...it belongs between the Dominican Republic and Trinidad and Tobago.)

Tom Ricks says Slate is wrong about Israel bombing Iran anytime soon. He may be right about that. But there are those in the Israeli military who don't think bombing is the way it will go. They have quietly been speculating about an approach from the sea. Now, I know there is a whole group of Israelis who feel they're making an important contribution just by ginning up some speculation. Still, I'm just sayin'...

I reviewed carefully all the lists of books on international relations. Most fall into the category of I'd-rather-stick-my-hand-in-a-Cuisinart-than-read-this. Why is it that most books on the intersection of money, power, ambition, and human drama are so damn boring? Hint: it's not the subject matter.

Important breakthrough: All is right in the Jewniverse. (This reference is to my very own blog.) The powers that be at my daughter's high school have relented and restored the swastikas to the spring musical. It really will be springtime for Hitler, after all. Pause to daub away tear of joy. Reason has prevailed. Bad taste has triumphed again. I couldn't be prouder.)

I'm so delighted in fact, that when I turn to Steve Walt's piece on the Somali pirates in which he cautions that the weekend's triumph may be only prelude and that in any event, the issues of piracy off the African coast pale in comparison to the bigger questions confronting the world, I find I am actually in complete agreement with Walt. See what a few swastikas will do for a guy's outlook. (Mine, mine. You guys are so sensitive.)

Since I am flipping around the FP site, let me say that Net Effect is a great addition and I encourage everyone not only to visit...but to click on his links. Many are fascinating. By the way, that's a broader rule of thumb. Click the links. Some of them will surprise you. My pieces here are regularly made better by genius linksmanship from the FP editorial team.

So click the links...and remember the national anthem of bloggers everywhere...

Hey, hey- - they say I better get a chaperone
Because I can't stop messin' with the danger zone
No, I won't worry, and I won't fret
Ain't no law against it yet
Oop -- she blog -- she blog"

She blog -- he blog -- we blog...

DeclanTM/Flickr

Had lunch with a very well-known Dem whose sister lives in Chicago. She held a reception for a Chicago resident who was joining the Obama administration.

The hostess' mother was visiting from the East Coast. She was not impressed with the Chicago political crowd that showed up. "These Chicago people," she trenchantly observed, "they don't know from Tuesday." Later the conversation turned to really bad twists that history could take -- unexpected developments that could really throw us for a loop. A particularly striking example we arrived at: God arrives on earth and a group of Jewish people clamor to him and say, "God, we have been waiting and waiting and still no sign of the Messiah." And God says, "What are you talking about? I sent him years ago." And the people say, "What? We missed that? Who? Who was it?" And God says, "Why, it was Michael Dukakis."

I don't know...to me, that's funny.