February 20, 2024

It was some years ago that my grandson eagerly showed me a video of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher opining on the leadership of the European Union.

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They’re a weak lot, some of them in Europe, you know. Weak. Feeble.

And that was almost before Ursula von der Leyen was born.

Let us analyze the world with the notion that almost all the leaders are weak. And thus ruled by their subordinates, their bureaucrats, and the narrative.

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Example One is the Carlson Putin interview — that all the best people now agree was a Carlson clown show. Putin said he proposed to Bush Senior “that the United States, Russia and Europe jointly create a missile defense system.” Bush seemed interested until he talked to his people. Then Putin proposed to Bill Clinton that Russia join NATO. “Interesting,” said Clinton, but not after he talked to his “team.”

Example Two is the Stalin Peace Note of 1952. Stalin proposed in March 1952 that foreign troops, from both east and west, be removed from a rearmed Germany, but that Germany should be nonaligned. Well, the West wasn’t going to respond to that, not after the Berlin blockade of 1948, the Czech coup of 1948, the founding of NATO in 1949, and the Korean War that started in 1950. Too much, too soon. And then Stalin died in 1953 and the new Soviet leaders were too busy figuring out who was on first in the Kremlin to propose any change in the status quo in Europe.

Example Three is the Zman on the Senate foreign aid bill for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan.

Listening to these feeble old men sing their own praises, one cannot help but think of the Politburo in the waning days of the Soviet Union. Like Washington, Soviet politics had come to be controlled by a class of geezers. Their primary concern for a long time had been keeping their spot. The result was they surrounded themselves with sycophants good only for praising their bosses. The result was the political system was incapable of responding to the brewing crisis.

Is the Zman right, or is he right?

Example Four is Phillips Exeter Academy after the George Floyd Unpleasantness. Christopher Rufo writes that at the school,