Lessons from the McChrystal Debacle
Posted in Main Blog (All Posts) on June 28th, 2010 4:32 am by HL
Lessons from the McChrystal Debacle
Frank Rich, New York Times
THE moment he pulled the trigger, there was near-universal agreement that President Obama had done the inevitable thing, the right thing and, best of all, the bold thing. But before we get carried away with relief and elation, let's not forget what we saw in the tense 36 hours that fell between late Monday night, when word spread of Rolling Stone's blockbuster article, and high noon Wednesday, when Obama MacArthured his general. That frenzied interlude revealed much about the state of Washington, the Afghanistan war and the Obama presidency "” little of it…
Dark Clouds That Spelt Doom for a PM
Peter Hartcher, Sydney Mng Herald
The specific sequence of events leading to Kevin Rudd's destruction began with the results of opinion poll.Specifically, it was a "˜"˜word cloud,'' a cluster of the words that voters offered when asked to describe their prime minister.Each word is printed in a typesize to reflect how commonly it came up. The dominant word glaring from the “cloud” was ''arrogant'', followed by ''weak''. Never mind that these seem to convey wildly different conceptions of the man. The Labor powerbrokers who …
Why China Has Reason to Worry
Jonathan Fenby, The Guardian
If it wasn't so utterly predictable one would have to admire the symmetry. Having resisted pressure to make their child behave better, the parents of the errant offspring suddenly announce a week before the annual meeting of parents and teachers that they will fall into line. There is relief all round and, indeed, the child does do as the authorities and other parents want. Once the PTA meeting is over, however, the old game resumes.That looks rather like China's currency policy. Last week, the central bank in Beijing announced a “flexible” regime for the yuan with a…
