Laura Bush on Myanmar in 2007:
The Burmese I’ve met, they want our affection. They want to know that we know what’s happening there.
Hillary Clinton on North Korea last week (h/t Chris Hayes):
“What we’ve seen is this constant demand for attention,” Clinton, who is in India, said in an interview that aired on Monday on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”
“And maybe it’s the mother in me or the experience that I’ve had with small children and unruly teenagers and people who are demanding attention — don’t give it to them, they don’t deserve it, they are acting out,” she said.
If there is anywhere on Earth where it is not socially awkward to be an American expatriate, I have not yet been. I suppose that’s one of the reasons I cringe when our own Dear Leaders announce that that the world exists merely to solicit their attention; that entire nations gladden at the benevolent glance of an American head of state. You get the sense here that geopolitics is a very elaborate episode of Jon and Kate Plus 8 in which one lucky nation will get mommy’s undivided attention for a few minutes, briefly quenching some long-held craving for parental affection. That a U.S. Secretary of State can be deaf to how ignorantly hubristic this kind of thing sounds would be surprising if chauvinistic rhetoric weren’t part of the job description.
shouldn’t that first quote be “Laura Bush” instead of Barb? otherwise, spot on.
Whoops, thanks Kai.
there seems to be a difference between Laura asserting that the Myanmar populace wants the U.S’ attention and Hillary Clinton pointing out how pathetic North Korea’s leadership is. I don’t disagree with your overall point, but it seems to me that you probably haven’t had the opportunity to find out just how awkward you would feel living in North Korea. Hillary wasn’t talking about average citizens of Pyongyang throwing temper tantrums …
With any other country besides North Korea, I’d agree with you. However, North Korea often does act like a petulant teenager. Sec. Clinton has a good track record of speaking more bluntly than the standard Secretary of State, but I can’t remember a strategic misstep.
Clinton was being both truthful and strategic in this comment and was not denigrating North Koreans, just their government.
Kineslaw is correct, imho. (Great site btw!)
quick point-by-point:
a) US expat awkwardness, where is the place this doesn’t occur? I humbly submit that you perceive that people care enough about who you are to even begin to form an opinion about your Americanness. I’m extremely socially awkward IN America, and often outside it too. I’m told I have more choice about awkwardness than I’ve led myself to believe.
a2) Have you been to Poland? Denmark? Argentina? Long periods spent in the latter two don’t jibe with your statement. (But this is personal experience and I’m not attacking or berating you please please believe me.)
b) sorry to be blunt, but our DL’s aren’t making you cringe. you choose to cringe. with enough practice, you can stop.
c) now to the real meat: all the rest of what you said has some truth to it, but you’re cutting the patronizing, family bits out of whole cloth. It does *sound* hubristic, and it may well be, but listen to the message for a moment: “NK/JK-Il we do not like your behavior, we think you are out of line.” that this message is couched in the “teenager” thing is just an extra.
d) don’t forget the part about this is the way things are: the US is the global economic and military hegemon, like it or not. (I don’t.) We absolutely do have the guns and the money, and some of the time, using them or threatening to makes things go “our way.”
e) moreover, NK’s recent behavior demonstrates that its own target audience is its own people, not the outside world. see BR Myers in NYT on this: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/29/opinion/29iht-edmyers.html?pagewanted=print
f) you said it yourself, but i can’t tell if you really meant it: this sort of rhetoric is indeed part of the job description. any history of diplomacy, US or not, will bear this out. these rhetorical devices are part of how states talk to each other.
I’m sorry, but I find Mrs. Clinton’s comments to be anything but chauvinistic. Even if you don’t agree with the delivery per se, the question is: Is she WRONG? No, I don’t think she is.
Whether she’s right or wrong, Ivy, is not really the issue. She’s supposed to be the nation’s top _diplomat_, and prior to the Bush Administration’s assault on the institution of diplomacy, such a statement would have been considered untoward, even in regards to a rogue state. Diplomacy matters, and diplomacy matters most in relation to enemies, because it is the only alternative to war.
But a bigger issue here too, aren’t these kinds of statements by high-ranking officials a reflection of the crassness that our culture has taken on? Our own level of public discourse in the US is quite low. Mocking, name-calling, any abuse of reasoned argument, really anything goes these days. The attitude seems to be just because I’m “right” (or think I’m right), I should let it fly.
There might be a more “diplomatic” way to say “We have good reasons for appearing to ignore North Korea right now,” but I kind of like the honesty about what’s going on.