Politics

Nu is a great Yiddish word that doesn't actually mean anything at all and therefore can mean almost anything you want it to mean. Even if I weren't Jewish, as a writer I would therefore love the word. It offers so much freedom without any of the limitations that actual definitions impose. In this respect it is kind of like modern art. 

Most of the time that I hear it used in conversation it means "so?" This can be what one on-line dictionary describes as the Yiddish equivalent of "whassup?" Or it can be more penetrating, not just a question about what's going on but one about what it all means, something covering all the territory between "huh?" and "WTF?"

Consequently, for most inquiring minds, it can play an absolutely key role, especially for those minds trying to make sense of what's going on in the world. Because the problem with most so-called journalistic coverage of what's happening on the international stage is that it covers the news without actually addressing the nus.

Fortunately however, you have me. At least once a week anyway, while I am writing my book. (Which you could pre-order just like you did Sarah Palin's book if a.) My book had a title and b.) You had actually ordered Sarah Palin's book which I am absolutely certain you did not. Because if you were so inclined I am sure I would have lost you up there at the top somewhere between the word "Yiddish" and the word "whassup?")

This week was particularly rich with nus. And therefore, I thought I would take a moment or two and review some of them with you. You know, to help you grok it all.

So, here goes:

• You've got to admire Eric Holder's intentions with regard to bringing Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to trial in New York City. We are a nation of laws and our system of laws ought to be up to any test, even one this onerous. Personally, I believe it is. That said, this decision could haunt not just Holder but the country. If defense attorneys argue, as they will, that Mohammed was tortured repeatedly, it could create a profound moral and legal conundrum. Because by some definitions (including my own) he actually was tortured. And if it is concluded that this constituted cruel and unusual punishment in violation of U.S. constitutional precepts and international law, how will a judge handle it? How will the nation handle it? What do we value more, the law or justice? This is troubling territory and I believe it is politically treacherous ... but it is an opportunity to demonstrate to the world that we are once again committed to holding ourselves accountable to the highest standards in all circumstances. Were we to do this, for all his wrong-doing, Mohammed will be providing the United States with an opportunity of incalculable value.
• When we look back on this past week, there will be a temptation to say it's the week that Barack Obama's Afghan policy deliberations jumped the shark. The fact that he had what was billed as a final discussion regarding four policy options that then produced his apparent rejection of the four and his call for a new set of ideas based on new parameters is being described as proof that his national security decision-making process is flawed. The fact that shortly afterwards two cables from the U.S. envoy in Kabul were leaked indicating his discomfort with sending in more troops so long as the Afghan government remains so unreliable didn't help the picture. But let's go beneath the surface a little...
• Ok, the policy process is clearly flawed. But while we focus on what's broken now, it seems indisputable that the bigger breakdown was actually earlier this year when the administration originally defined its Afghan goals. While the process may be moving too slowly, fitfully and indecisively now, the greater problem is it moved too quickly with too little analysis back then. The Spring's policy was too based on campaign rhetoric and not sufficiently based on a careful assessment of the situation on the ground. It led McChrystal to his conclusions.  It put them in the box they are in now. 
• The reality is that the outcome of Wednesday's meeting was actually the best one we could hope for. Because the president saw the options he had as flawed and shifted the emphasis...underscored later by press secretary Robert Gibbs ... to the exit strategy. He moved the discussion from "what we should do in Afghanistan" to where it should be: "what we can do in Afghanistan." And the only goal we can unquestionably meet is leaving. Think about it: to succeed in transforming the political situation on the ground we would need a commitment of many years, tens of thousands of more troops, tens of billions more dollars, a strong and cooperative ally in Kabul, committed international partners and an enemy that wasn't willing to wait us out. Of those conditions, none are likely to be met.  So figuring out how to exit while remaining positioned to deal with acute regional threats makes great sense. 
• Which brings us to Washington's favorite parlor game of the week: figuring out who leaked the Eikenberry cables. The smart money is on the White House which sees these memos (which conveniently come from an ambassador who is a former on-the-ground commander in Afghanistan) as a way to justify its shift to new goals and to offset the orchestrated leaks from the McChrystal side. For those of you who bought in to the notion of the unprecedented discipline of the Obama team, sorry for the rude awakening.  While the focus should be on the ground war, Washington is once again engaged in a war of leaks.  This is not a weaknesses of the Obama Administration per se...it is more a fact of life given the culture of Washington.
• On other fronts, the White House responded to 10.2 percent unemployment by calling for a jobs summit in December. This is one of the classic responses of a government that doesn't yet have a substantive plan for what to do. It is troubling that another such classic response is to appoint a czar. In both cases the focus is on creating the illusion of action.  Even the president seemed to recognize this when he tried to temper expectations for outcomes from the summit he announced.
• The third in the great trinity of kabuki policy outcomes is to follow a meeting with the call for another meeting. According to recent statements from Secretary of State Clinton and Climate Negotiator Todd Stern, this seems to be where we are headed with the global climate talks despite their tireless efforts to the contrary. We'll try to hammer out something as a temporary face-saver for Copenhagen and then we'll resume doing what we're doing now ... trying to bridge the gap between the developed and the developing world with regard to setting emissions targets and figuring out who is going to pay for fixing what's broke.
• On that front, read the provocative piece in Rolling Stone by Naomi Klein about the issue of "climate debt." Here's my partial solution. The developed world really does have to foot a goodly part of the bill for changes in the developing world related to climate...since we created the problem they did not. We also have limited resources and need to create jobs. Why don't countries like the United States create Green Trade Banks that provide cheap, long-term financing for green energy and climate related projects in the developing world ... provided that the projects involve content from the United States. We generate jobs. They get the capital and the technology we need.
• Think the Chinese are going to lag the U.S. on adapting to climate? See this article on a new study from the government support CCICED arguing that China should cut its emissions 4 to 5 percent per year from now through 2050.
• While college football still can't get its act together for a playoff system to pick a national champion...even with President Obama's strong endorsement of a change...we here at FP hear what the people want. That's why I will soon unveil the brackets for the year 2009 Chutzpah Bowl, pairing off category champions to see who deserves the title of world chutzpah champion. Among the contenders this week: Lloyd Blankfein for his "doing God's work" comment, Eliot Spitzer for going to Harvard this week to give a speech on ethics, Harvard for producing graduates like Eliot Spitzer and then hosting a conference on ethics, and CNN's lost but unlamented Lou Dobbs ... another Harvard grad ... for his years of Mexican-bashing despite the well-known fact that his wife is Mexican-American.  Unlike Lou, we're not xenophobic though so don't worry, the complete brackets will include plenty of non-American contenders. 
• Finally, it tells you everything you need to know about American television that the guy Comcast is reportedly picking to head up NBC/Universal should its acquisition of the media company from GE go through is none other than Jeff Zucker, whose most recent stroke of genius was moving Jay Leno to prime time, a brainstorm that will rank right up with there with "New Coke" among the most bone-headed moves in American business history. 

Well, that's all the insight I can muster this week. Must get back to my book. If only I could figure out as Sarah Palin did how to sell hundreds of thousands of books to an audience primarily comprised of people who can't or won't read. It would take so much pressure off me...

NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP/Getty Images

For all the debate of Afghanistan and troop levels and strategies and the views of Generals McChrystal and Petraeus, there are two vital facts that have been ignored. First, we are missing the one general who is probably most essential to our ability to ultimately achieve our goals in Afghanistan (including leaving) and we are ignoring the army that will not only be most useful to that general, but also the army that happens to be the largest in both of our Middle Eastern theaters of war.

More troubling still is that the general could have and should have been appointed by the president and approved by the Congress many months ago, but the position has been allowed to remain open throughout a critical period. And the army is more or less entirely within the control of the U.S. government and yet we lack the proper mechanisms to command or control it.

Whether our goal in Afghanistan is counterinsurgency or counterterrorism, whether we are "all in" or "all out" (or something in between), whether we are there for the long haul or the short term, there are nonetheless a few things all can agree upon. We need a stronger central government in Kabul and to become stronger the government will need to better provide services, strengthen existing institutions and win the support of the Afghan people. Infrastructure and economic growth will be key elements of this success formula. As it happens, they are also key elements of the counterinsurgency strategy argued for by General McChrystal as they are essential to both winning hearts and minds and to sending a message that the option we support has more to offer each individual Afghan than do the options offered by the Taliban or by the war lords who favor the kind of perpetual tribalism that has left the country vulnerable and dissolute for centuries. In addition, without creating the conditions conducive to a strong Afghan government, we will have no one capable of Afghanizing ... which is to say, we can't leave without handing the baton to someone else.

Central to our ability to achieve these goals are the people in the U.S. government who are specifically organized to handle post-crisis intervention and reconstruction functions. Unfortunately, despite our regular need for such capabilities, we don't actually have a department or agency that is specifically built and sufficiently supported to achieve these goals. This despite the fact that such interventions have been among the most regular and crucial functions of the U.S. government for decades. Hopefully, Secretary Clinton's QDDR process will produce some recommendations to remedy this.

In the meantime, the next best thing we have is the U.S. Agency for International Development, a worthy but inefficient and often lumbering entity. Nonetheless, it is going to play a critical role in what we do in Afghanistan ... or it can and should play such a role. It also has related and vital roles to play in Pakistan, Iraq and other regions where state failure or state weakening create security as well as humanitarian risks. 

These are the things it has. What it doesn't have is a leader. It is now almost November and the new administration has failed to arrive at a candidate for the job everyone can agree on and who can pass the muster of the absurd vetting processes that now dog would-be senior officials and impede this government's ability to function. We came close a while back but the candidate withdrew his name. There is behind the scenes scuffling over this one, partially because there is a sense the agency needs to change and there is a division of opinion as to whether it should be more independent or more closely integrated into the State Department. (The correct answer is "b." The work of A.I.D. is a critical component of American statecraft and the levers of its function need to be controlled by America's chief diplomat.)

Whenever this missing general is brought on board however -- and one can only hope that it is very, very soon -- he or she is going to have to cope with another reality that is not fully understood by most Americans and which is vital to the function of the U.S. government and to our success or failure in Iraq and Afghanistan. And that is how we get to the phantom army I mentioned earlier.

That army represents the majority of people currently on the ground in those two countries on behalf of the U.S. government and is therefore the largest single force on the ground in our Middle Eastern theaters. It is the army of contractors that have become the Hamburger Helper of American military and diplomatic initiatives in our two current wars. 

One person who does understand this evolving reality is Middlebury College Professor Allison Stanger, author of One Nation, Under Contract: The Outsourcing of American Power and the Future of Foreign Policy. The book, now out from the Yale University Press, is a must read for anyone interested in how foreign policy really works in the 21st Century. And it reveals a reality that is radically different from what many expect. Stanger calls Iraq and Afghanistan America's first two "contractor wars" because so much of the work done in each country is being done by cadres of workers reporting not to the U.S. government but to the lowest bidder. She points that the lion's share of AID's budget actually goes to contractors -- that in effect, AID is essentially a contracting agency.

Stanger sees benefits to this approach -- getting the right people for the job, creating efficiencies -- and she sees weaknesses -- Blackwater, anyone? But the vital message of the book is that the system has undergone a massive change but our views of it and the strategies and tactics we apply have not. Nothing makes this point more clearly than the fact that the largest army on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan does not actually report up the chain of command ... or, for that matter, any coherent chain of command. Single capable individuals, like Richard Holbrooke, help mitigate this with energetic management of non-military operations ... but the Holbrookes of this world are few and far between and throwing czars at problems is no way to provide lasting solutions.

To achieve whatever success is possible in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, and ultimately the Palestinian Territories and elsewhere is going to require that we address these two problems. First, find that missing general. Then, let's get down to the business of understanding what business we are really in ... and create the strategies and structures we need to make the most of what we've got.

DAVID FURST/AFP/Getty Images

The Republican Party has, since the days of Ronald Reagan, prided itself as the party of lunch-bucket Americans and main-street values. And what could be more lunch bucket, more main street than the National Football League?

So when the players of the NFL line up to oppose the bid for St. Louis Rams ownership of alpha Republican Rush Limbaugh, it is more than just football news. It is a sign that the voice of America's right-wing party has become odious precisely where it should be most embraced ... particularly when the express reason for the players' opposition is their discomfort with Limbaugh's message of hatred, of his role as the Old Faithful of right-wing media bile.

One can only imagine how the former sportscaster Reagan would react to the news that his replacement as his party's great communicator had become so offensive that he had put the players of the NFL on the defensive. The Reagan message was about broadening the Republican base, about building a new coalition. The Party of Limbaugh is about exclusion and anger ... and it's not sitting well with constituency after constituency.

Listen to the rationale offered by NFL Players Association Executive Director DeMaurice Smith in an e-mail to the executive committee of his union: "Sport in America is at its best when it unifies, gives all of us reason to cheer, and when it transcends. Our sport does exactly that when it overcomes division and rejects discrimination and hatred." Clearly, Smith believes that Limbaugh is representative of such discrimination and hatred and he is not alone. At least seven league players have already spoken out against the purchase, and with Smith's encouragement you can only imagine there will be many more to come.

It's no wonder when you consider that among Limbaugh's most famous recent gaffes and offenses (and there are many even if you don't include his drug abuse) was the statement that "the media" was rooting for black quarterbacks like Donovan McNabb to do well and therefore gave him more credit than he deserves. It's not the only instance in which his racism has bubbled to the surface ... and yet the party dares not repudiate him. The notion that the party of Lincoln has become the party of Limbaugh beggars the imagination.

Oh sure, we'll no doubt hear from Limbaugh that the union represents millionaires and is hardly representative of the true "values" of its fans. But, it also represents a group of custodians of the NFL brand that happens to include a large number of empowered athletes of diverse backgrounds who actually have both the stature and the guts to stand up a guy who would instantly become the Marge Schott of football. (Schott was the racist owner of the Cincinnati Reds awhile back.)

To international observers, this is an important story because it underscores a little understood fact: Obama is much stronger than he may appear because his opposition is much weaker than it is either shrill or loud. Obama is about to win a victory in health care. Ridicule the Nobel Prize all you want (and it was ridiculous), it is hardly going to hurt. He will send at least some quantity of additional troops to Afghanistan and blunt critiques that he is not listening to his generals. And the Republicans have done nothing and are being led by people like Limbaugh who deepen divisions every time they open their mouths.

Limbaugh's dittoheads will continue to howl at the moon and wish Dick Cheney was still the most powerful man on Earth ... but this incident is just another example of why having lost their grip intellectually they are continuing to lose it politically. That's why, while the world may have thought that all the important football news that was occurring this weekend had to do with World Cup qualifications, the biggest win for the people on the planet who wish to see unilateralism and America the bully consigned to the dustbin of history may have had to do with the strange American version of the sport ... and it took place off the field thanks to athletes exercising not muscles but their right of free speech. 

Once again, it seems that old maxim of American football strategy is being proven true: The one sure way to success is to shut down the Rush.

William Thomas Cain/Getty Images

This may have been the best month for Brazil since about June 1494. That's when the Treaty of Tordesillas was signed granting Portugal everything in the new world east of an imaginary line that was declared to exist 370 leagues west of the Cape Verde islands. This ensured that what was to become Brazil would be Portuguese and thus develop a culture and identity very different from the rest of Spanish Latin America. This guaranteed the world would have samba, churrasco, "The Girl from Ipanema," and through some incredibly fortuitous if twisted chain of events, Gisele Bundchen. 

While it took Brazil sometime to live up to the backhanded maxim that it was "the country of tomorrow and always would be," there is little doubt that tomorrow has arrived for the country even if much work remains to be done to overcome its serious social challenges and tap its extraordinary economic potential.

The evidence that something new and important was happening in Brazil began to build years ago, when then President Cardoso engineered a shift to economic orthodoxy that stabilized a country racked by cycles of boom and bust and mind-blowing inflation. It has gained momentum however, throughout the extraordinary term of the country's current President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

Some of that momentum is due to Lula's commitment to preserving the economic foundations laid by Cardoso, a courageous political move for a lifelong labor leader from the opposition Workers Party. Some of it is due to luck, a changing global energy paradigm that helped make Brazil's 30 years of investment in biofuels start to pay off in important new ways, massive discoveries of oil off Brazil's coast and growing demand from Asia that has enabled Brazil to become a world agricultural export leader and assume the role of "breadbasket of Asia." But much of it is due to great skill on the part of Brazil's leaders in seizing a moment that many of their predecessors likely would have fumbled.

Of those leaders, much of the credit goes to President Lula who has become a bit of a rock star on the international scene, harnessing energy, drive, charisma, uncanny intuition, and common sense so effectively that his lack of formal education has hardly been an impediment. Some goes to other members of his team, such as his chief of staff Dilma Rousseff, a former energy minister who has become a very tough chief of staff and a possible successor to Lula. But I believe a large amount of it ought to go to Celso Amorim, who has masterminded a transformation of Brazil's role in the world that is almost unprecedented in modern history. He has been Lula's foreign minister since 2003 (he also served in the same role in the 1990s) but I think there is a fair case to be made that he is currently the world's most successful foreign minister.

It is impossible to pinpoint just one turning point in Amorim's efforts to transform Brazil from a lumbering regional power of dubious international clout into one of the most important players on the world stage, acknowledged by global consensus to play an unprecedented leading role. It may have come when he played a central role helping to engineer a pushback by emerging countries against a business-as-usual power play by the U.S. and Europe during the Cancun trade talks in 2003. It might have been the canny way the Brazilians have used issues such as their biofuels leadership to forge new dialogues and influence either with the United States or with other emerging powers. It certainly involved his embrace of the idea of transforming the BRICs from acronym to important geopolitical collaboration, working with his counterparts in Russia, India and China to institutionalize the dialogue between the countries and to coordinate their messages. (Arguably the BRIC helped most by this alliance is Brazil. Russia, China and India all earn places at the table due to military capabilities, population size, economic clout or resources. Brazil has all these things...but less than the others.) It also involved countless other things from the Brazil's deepened and tightened ties with countries like China, it's promotion of both investment flows and a reputation for being comparatively secure in the face of global economic reversals, the comfort level America's new President has with his Brazilian counterpart -- even extending to encouraging them to play a role as a conduit to, for example, the Iranians. Agree or not with their every move in places like Honduras or in the OAS on Cuba, Brazil has also continued to play an important regional role even as it is clear its focus has shifted to the global stage.

Nothing illustrates how far Brazil has come or how effective the Lula-Amorim team has been than the events of the past few weeks. First, the countries of the world cashier the G8 and embrace the G20, guaranteeing Brazil a permanent place at the most important table in the world. Next, Brazil becomes the first country in South America to be awarded the right to host the Olympics. Yesterday's FT carried news that "Asia and Brazil lead rise in consumer confidence", a reflection on the reputation that the government has effectively sold (with the bulk of the credit going to a resurgent Brazilian private sector.) And this week's stories out of the IMF-World Bank meeting in Istanbul show a further institutionalization of Brazil's new role with agreement to change the structure of the International Monetary Fund. According to today's Washington Post: "The nations also preliminarily agreed to reshape the fund's voting structure, promising a blueprint for giving more clout to emerging giants like Brazil and China by January 2011."

Not a bad few days work. And while it's Brazil's Finance Ministry you'll find at IMF-World Bank Meetings, the undisputed architect of this remarkable transformation of Brazil's role in Amorim.

Much work remains to be done, of course. Part of it has to do with the new role that has been shaped. Brazil wants a permanent place on the U.N. Security Council and more of a leadership role in other international institutions. It may well earn these, but it will have to maintain its growth and stability to get there. Further, Brazil seems inclined to minimize regional threats such as those posed by Venezuela (Brazilians tend to look down their nose at their neighbors to the north almost as much as they do toward their Argentine friends to the south ... and thus they under-estimate the ability of men like Hugo Chavez to do too much damage.) And they have an election coming up that may change the cast of players and of course, that can alter the current trajectory in any number of ways -- good and bad.

But it is hard to think of another foreign minister who has so effectively orchestrated such a meaningful transformation of his country's international role. And that's why if I were asked today to cast a ballot, my vote for world's best foreign minister would likely go to Santos' native son, Celso Amorim.

One note on yesterday's post: I received a note late yesterday from a spokesperson for the British Embassy taking issue with my assertion that the British Ambassador had joked that he wasn't getting much attention from the Obama administration. The thrust of their point was that "the Embassy denies categorically that the Ambassador made these remarks, even in jest, and that in our view the relationship between the UK and USA remains as close as ever -- whatever the noises off by febrile commentators in the media." While I stand by my story, their email to me on this was so civil and well-argued that I felt it only fair to pass on their views. I would take the "febrile commentators" point personally, but I had a flu shot only yesterday so they can't possibly mean me.

AFP PHOTO/JUAN MABROMATA

Earlier this year, a veteran member of the European Parliament from Britain's Conservative Party, made news when he stood up to British Prime Minister-in-waiting David Cameron's alliance with right wing Polish politician Michal Kaminski. That MEP, Edward McMillan-Scott, accused Kaminski of being a "fascist" with "anti-Semitic, homophobic, and racist links." 

As it happens, there seems to be evidence that lends considerable support to all of those assertions. And how has the likely next leader of the United Kingdom rewarded the courage of this stalwart of his party who has served for a quarter century? A gold watch perhaps? No, he has given him his walking papers, kicking him out of the Conservative Party. 

Such is the character of the man who, according to this week's polls, is the heavy favorite to move to 10 Downing Street after the next general election. It reveals much about him as a man and about the kind of party he wants to run. So much for a system that thrives on debate and cherishes honesty. 

Of course if the only way to cover up the flaws in your record are with lies or enforced silence, I suppose silence is a better choice, even if it is not necessarily the one you would expect from a former flack like Cameron. In this case however, the silence speaks volumes ... not only about Cameron but about the flock of sheep who now run his party ... and one can only hope this public political execution has the same effect on the British electorate that ill-considered beheadings have done in times past. 

Whatever happened to perspectives like that of an on-again, off-again Tory from the last century who said: "The truth is incontrovertible, malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end; there it is." (And do you think Cameron would have made it above the rank of State Secretary for Snooker and Other Silly Games in a Churchill government?)

Matt Cardy/Getty Images

New York's former Mayor John Lindsay once reportedly said he "didn't trust air he couldn't see." We're raised to be that way in that part of the world.  As a rule we don't spend much time fretting about the things we can't see unless we're seated with our back to the door in an Italian restaurant.

Washington on the other hand is, for the most part, in the business of intangibles: Empty words, empty promises, speeches in the place of action, "sense of the Senate" resolutions, reading a crowd rather than sticking to principles.

Today for instance, both pundits and real people are spending hours discussing whether Obama was sufficiently "presidential" last night, whether he had regained his campaign "magic" or whether he had changed the "national mood." Most of that stuff gives me a nosebleed.

Of course, in these parts politicians prefer discussing things that can't be measured because measurements tend to be so deflating, suggesting that their jobs are not about leadership or rhetoric but are rather about what and how much they get done. Also the real numbers don't lie (unlike their statistical cousins) and so, if you lie for a living you learn to avoid them early on.

This explains a lot, notably why our national accounts never add up, why budget forecasts are always wrong, why official economic projections are seen as being a substance-less as Georgetown cocktail party conversation. Old Washington hands expect roughly the same thing from "we expect a turnaround in the fourth quarter" as they do from "let's get together for lunch sometime." 

It's even why President Obama can get a lot of credit for a speech that was, to put it mildly, arithmetically challenged. To begin with "fraud, waste, and abuse" is neither a number nor even a measurable thing. It's just a mythical creature that wanders the halls of the Congress year in and year out, much discussed but in reality untouchable and constantly growing. It's certainly not a budget item you can line out to produce a measurable saving. Further, suddenly it was argued that we could provide coverage for the 45 million Americans without healthcare by providing it to only 30 million additional people. (When numbers suffer, so do absolute terms like "universal.") Finally, it's clear we ended up with a $900 billion proposal not because that was the sum total cost of all the reform we need but rather because it was not more than $1 trillion, which was considered a line that could not be crossed politically. It's a sad thing when we start pricing much-needed transformational reforms the same way we do ladies' shoes ($99.99 rather than $100. Which numbers bear as little relation to bills I have seen recently as do most Congressional budget projections to actual results.)

Having said that, I liked the President's speech last night and thought it was very effective. It may have been too vague. It may not have been what you'd call mathematically rigorous. It also was not, to my way of thinking, even sufficiently broad in its proposed reforms. However, it was a serious effort at addressing a critical national concern. It contained a few key principles (extending coverage, combating abuse by insurance companies, seeking savings) and it embraced ideas from both political parties. 

It was not the soaring but empty rhetoric of the campaign trail nor was it delivered by a magical president, the man who the media had made into Lincoln before he had spent a day in office. Rather, for me it was a much more real and appealing Obama, a smart, earnest political leader attempting to produce a meaningful piece of legislation. Oh I understand all about meta-messages and zeitgeists and stature and all that, but what struck me was that we were witnessing an important part of the business of democracy, of struggling over the details, of cajoling even an abusive opposition to come along.

In short, while we can save for elsewhere a debate over the specifics of the health care legislation, he made a solid stand for rationality in the face of irrational opposition, for progress in the face of intransigence. He was a man at work rather than a heroic figure and he made his case both well and far better than any of his opponents have made theirs.

In fact, President Obama was aided in all this by those Republican opponents -- as they have ceased to be the party of Lincoln and have become the party of Seinfeld, a party about nothing.

That may be consistent with the D.C. vacuousness I mentioned at the outset, but it looked callous and irresponsible to me last night. (I am not going to get into the issue of rudeness. It's small potatoes. A kerfuffle in a teacup. These people are grown-ups. Neither party has cornered the market on idiots.)

No to me, Obama last night showed that he is maturing into the kind of workaday president that we need. His rhetoric was not just strong, it was purposeful. He looked to me like a man committed to getting this thing done. One day at a time. I believe he will and I believe when he does it will make it easier to move ahead on other issues like climate and energy. 

That kind of approach counts for a lot where I come from. It's why I think while the Republicans are channeling Jerry and Elaine, Obama seems to be zeroing in on a better model (at least I hope he is) -- the dependable, steady, grace-under-pressure approach that has put another New Yorker, Derek Jeter, center stage this week.

To conclude with an unrelated anecdote that ties Jeter's Yankees to the Mayor Lindsay reference at the outset, and which seems to me to nicely contrast how Obama appeared last night versus how the Republicans did, there is always the famous story about Lindsay's wife. She once remarked to Yogi Berra that he (like Obama) looked cool despite the heat. He responded (as though speaking to the Republican leadership), "You don't look so hot yourself."

Jason Reed-Pool/Getty Images

I know it is tempting to look at the revelations that apparently the Afghan elections were rigged by supporters of President Hamid Karzai and become frustrated or depressed. After all, Karzai is America's man, the Jefferson we plucked out of obscurity to restore democracy to that war-torn country. And yes, not only have we been fighting there at staggering cost for eight years but we are now upping the ante making it likely that Karzai will remain the spokes model for the efforts of what very well may be a force of over 100,000 U.S. troops before it is all over (in many years). 

But I am a stuffed-ballot-box-is-half-full kind of guy, one of those cock-eyed optimists that FP is known for (see Peter Bergen's recent upbeat piece on Afghanistan or just tiptoe through the tulips of the AfPak Channel blog which I can now reveal to you will soon be made into a Broadway musical starring Zac Efron as Karzai and Vanessa Hudgens as his secret love who meets a tragic fate when she inadvertently reads a book). Some people see America seemingly fighting to advance the interests of a slime bag who neither shares our values nor is grateful for the young men and women we are sacrificing for him or his people. But I see the upside, at least five benefits from election results that might make others throw up a little in their mouths.

Here they are:

• Cynics of the world rejoice...

Reports that hundreds of fake polling places were established that seemed to produce hundreds of thousands of ballots that were of net benefit to Karzai, confirm that Afghanistan is making progress. While, if these allegations are true, they are not exactly indicative of what you might call fair elections, they are not only a big step forward from Taliban "good governance" practices but they are roughly as fair as democratic practices found in many far more advanced countries such as neighboring Iran. Further, they do make one group I can relate to feel much better: the cynics who predicted that this is what would happen. Cynics have been disappointed recently, especially by apparent signs that the world is creeping out of a recession and by President Obama's principled stand, despite almost maniacal opposition to continue to fight for much needed healthcare reform despite great political risks. Calling this election right eases the pain a bit.

• And then there is the benefit of reminding the U.S. who its friends really are...

Corruption. Oppression of women. Gainsaying U.S. efforts. None of these things seem to have sent home the message to the U.S. that Karzai is not the horse on which to bet ... or even a horse you want to have wearing your colors. But perhaps the discomfort surrounding this election, which is only likely to increase in the months ahead, will help cast the true nature of the Afghan leadership in a clearer light. It'll be ugly but U.S. planners ought to have their eyes wide open as requests are made for a greater investment that is likely to lead a longer-term commitment to AfPakia.

• Perhaps it will stir up legitimate opposition...

While Afghanistan is not a country known for the rock-ribbed strength of its institutions of civil society and social justice, we can always hope that this watered-down sip of democracy or possibly its foul aftertaste may energize opponents who actually are more committed to free and fair governance.  Or perhaps it will motivate America and our allies to work harder to find people who are more credible in this regard. And give them money. Oh sure, I know that sounds like us fiddling the system much as Karzai has done but sometimes you have to break a few eggs, you know what I'm saying?

• And while I'm on a wild optimistic flight of fancy...

And since I'm sitting here listening to the optimistic music in my head (who knew Julie Andrews even cared about Afghanistan, but I could swear I could hear something about "rain drops on poppies and bright paper packages wrapped up with string") perhaps this latest instance of a bad regime cleansing itself with the legitimizing Purell of democracy might get the rest of the world talking about establishing a more formal set of enforceable international standards regarding what really makes a democracy. For instance, what country's people wouldn't benefit from international inspectors at every election? As an American ... and a New Jersey-American at that ... I for one would welcome all the scrutiny we could get. The key is that if you don't play by common standards you are actually denied privileges whereas now all you have to do is create a Potemkin democracy (roll out the ballot boxes, who cares what goes in them?) and you get global props. Oh sure, I know this would be uncomfortable for some people (Chinese, Venezuelans, Russians, Iranians, Zelaya-supporters, Floridians) but isn't that the point?

• And then, finally, silver-lining fans...

Even if the preceding reasons to be more cheerful about the outcome in Afghanistan don't work for you, there is always the fact that as America is convulsed by the health care debate, we are reminded that no matter how badly that turns out, in the end, AfPak will be worse. At some point this year, Obama will ultimately get a healthcare bill and it will include some important reforms (despite the best efforts of Republicans who are the ones who are actually convening the political death panels that will kill off reforms and in turn the people who need those reforms to survive). It won't be a total victory ... but compared to what we are likely to come out of Afghanistan with (thanks in part to "friends" like Karzai) ... it will look like Normandy, San Juan Hill, Appomattox, and Yorktown rolled into one with a Sousa march thrown in for good measure.

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As a general rule, I'm not so keen on the way Americans go about elections. My two biggest problems are that election campaigns go on for ever-longer periods and that our campaign finance rules are simply a way to dress up rampant corruption in volumes of complex code. I'm also not so keen on the electoral college, which ought to show up on Antiques Roadshow any day now were it not for the fact that I suspect it wouldn't fetch much of a valuation.

That said, one thing America does pretty well is debate. I say this despite the tenor of recent debates and the debating skills of recent candidates. Airing differences between candidates in a televised forum is an important innovation in democracy. And it is one that has yet to come to the United Kingdom.

That seems to be changing though with reports that Tory Leader David Cameron and the LDP's Nick Clegg have now agreed to take part in a televised debate in the run up to the next election. Prime Minister Gordon Brown has thus far declined to join the fray and frankly, I don't blame him. First of all, while television is good for those with "cool" personalities, it is not so good for people with none whatsoever. Secondly, as it becomes increasingly clear that Brown's government gave a well-thought out wink and a nod to the Scottish Authorities release of Libyan bomber Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi, it is clear his team has manufactured yet another issue that can't work to their boss's advantage no matter how he addresses it.

That said, yesterday's statement that Brown "respected" the Scot decision to release the ailing terrorist certainly wasn't the way to calm the uproar over a mishandled mess that combines elements of placing compassion for a murderer over justice for his victims, alienating the U.K.'s principal ally and, no matter how many denials are made, currying favor with Libya's crackpot leader in exchange for better relations. On some level, for all the mouthwash about Megraghi's family's needs to see their dying relative (despite the unspeakable way he deprived hundreds of others of the same privilege), this is a situation in which it is clear that the Brown government has chosen to dance to the ka-ching of the cash register.

Given Brown's other bumbles (screwing up the British economy comes to mind) and the fact that David Cameron is a twit who will be an international embarrassment to the U.K. should he win the premiership, if you had to be someone on that stage you'd definitely want to be Clegg. But whatever the outcome of the exchange, it is a necessary exercise that ought to be part of the British electoral process ... and one which Brown should not be permitted to hide from.

Brown's associates argue he goes through the process of debate on the floor of the parliament every week. But for all its value "Question Time" has its own rules and its own ritual theater that invalidate it as the kind of debate to which British voters are entitled. And as the list of questions the average citizen or thinking journalist would want to ask these characters grows, the need for the debate grows more urgent and the prospect for a valuable exchange grows more compelling.

Let's see Brown defend playing footsie at a distance with Qaddafi. Let's see Cameron defend backing a racist right wing leader of the right in European parliament. This is one of those occasions where television is the best medium for providing both heat and light.

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