Good Fred is Back

I was wondering where he'd been. Here is from a couple of days back talking to Hannity and explaining why Barack Obama's plan to talk with Ahmedinejad, Chavez, and Kim Jong Il. Fred understands this. And it's not really that hard. Good stuff starts a little after two and a half minutes in:

This is common sense:

"you can always keep the avenues open at lower levels on a secretive basis...but there's no indication that they're going to do anything but look out for their self interest. A lot of political leaders think that they can persuade these tyrants by the force of their personality to move off their position. They won't. They look out for what they consider to be their interest, and their interest is undermining us."

Absolutely. I imagine, and in fact have some reason to suspect, we do secret-channel diplomacy with really nasty countries all the time. One great example of this is John Bolton's Proliferation Security Initiative--the brilliance of which is that nobody knows who belongs to it outside of government, because includes some countries who don't want it bandied about that they're working with the US, but don't mind dropping dime on their crazy neighbor who is buying missiles from North Korea. There's a similar program you never hear about called the Illicit Activities Initiative that deals with drugs, blockade runners, and other stuff.

I also saw a headline recently that said the evil disgusting Sudanese government was giving us tips on jihadist's movements. I shudder to think what concessions we made to them, but I hope the information was worth it. (And yet, somehow, I can't picture Barack Obama firing up Air Force One and jetting off to Khartoum to negotiate with The People Who Brought You Darfur.)

Secret diplomacy goes on under the radar all the time. What is different and more or less useless when dealing with tyrants is official, public diplomacy. To sit down with Ahmedinejad or Assad or Chavez gives regimes we are trying very hard to ostracize and shame a degree of legitimacy they have forfeited. And it makes us look like chumps. Even Hillary's little plan of sending in an envoy first to get a guarantee from the evil disgusting tyranny that such a discussion wouldn't be used for propaganda purposes--it's pathetically naive.

Perspicacious point about the "force of personality", too. So many politicians think they can persuade these hard-eyed dictators to act in a way that is not in their interest. Again, naive. And solipsistic. It shows a tragic overvaluing of the possibilities of politics, as well as of one's own importance and persuasiveness.

I liked hearing Fred come up with that in an interview. You always wonder a little bit when you see something published under his name whether some ghost writers were scripting it out for him. But this was a gut reaction, off the cuff, and he nailed it.

I don't think this will get Michelle off his back, nor should it (although I don't see any graceful way for Fred to distance himself from someone he just hired.)But an instinctive and spontaneous display of common sense from any politician is always a welcome thing, and a rare one.