Tony Curtis, RIP

News comes that Tony Curtis has passed away at the age of 85. All the obits will naturally focus on his acting career. That's fine; I enjoyed many of his old movies. His line in Spartacus, "Yonder is my father's house", which he delivered with a beer-up-your nose Brooklyn accent, just slays me every time I hear it, or even think about it.

But that's not what I think about when I hear his name, which, the obits do mention, was changed from Schwartz at the outset of his acting career. What I think about is a synagogue in Budapest.

There is a synagogue in the old part of town that has a storied history. Part of it concerns the fact that the synagogue and its grounds were used by the Nazis and their Hungarian allies to imprison a number of Jews in 1944 and early 1945. Some died there under terrible conditions and were buried on the grounds. Most of the others and many more Hungarian Jews besides were deported to Auschwitz and murdered there. The synagogue fell into disrepair after the war; in Communist times it just sat there and more or less rotted. Then, when it became possible, Tony Curtis, whose parents were immigrants from Budapest, led a group of people who paid to have it restored, and its dead properly memorialized and honored. Curtis spent well over a few million dollars of his own money on the restoration, which is beautiful to behold.

Curtis was not a religious person. He was involved in New York area youth gang wars as a kid, in which anti-Semitism played the usual leading role. When he wanted to replace Schwartz as a professional name, he picked a version of Kertesz, a Jewish family-related name from the old country. He married six times, and I think that not even one of his wives was Jewish (except maybe the last one, whose name was Deutsch). But deep down he knew who he was, and he was not ashamed or reluctant to show it.

If you're ever in Budapest, you might want to stop by the place, and sit for a few moments. I have been there: see .....

Mizpah II: A Jewcentric Aside

My discovery of the Mizpah phenomenon has developed more detail since my original post of September 15 -- hence this Mizpah II post.

Having learned that Mizpah jewelry existed, I wanted to see what it looked like. This led me to one Jean Baker, who lives in the UK. She is a serious collector of Mizpah, not only jewelry, but also old postcards and other paper memorabilia. Some of her collection is pictured on her website, but it is not particularly well identified. So I found her email address and put some questions to her. As it turns out, most of the items in her collection range from about 1880 to 1920, as I suspected. Most of the items are British, which is not surprising since she herself has been collecting in Britain; but she does have some American items, too. In particular, she has some paper items, one of which she thought, after reading my original post pointing out that the whole Mizpah thing is based on a misreading of Biblical text, would interest me. She managed to use her new scanner to send it to me, and it is great fun (for me, at least....others' tastes may differ, admittedly).

She sent a two-page brochure on Mizpah from the Magnetic Comb Company of Pekin, Illinois. When I say two-page, I mean a single sheet printed on both side and folded vertically, so that four columns of text are created. You can see all four pages of the brochure, above. The page on the far right, headed "Mizpah", is page 1. Pages 2 and 3 are in the left image, and page 4, the back of the brochure, is the leftmost column on the right-side image. In other words, the image on the left above is printed on the reverse of the image on the right. Get it?

On the basis of the printing and fonts, this brochure looks to be from sometime between 1906 and 1914. I say that because I have found mention of the Magnetic Comb Co., in Pekin, Illinois, in official documents of the State of Illinois, which used to register and inspect businesses. One, in 1906, describes the Magnetic Comb Company as a printing business. The 1911 document mentions something called "magnetic concrete." I have no idea what that is, nor am I yet sure even what a magnetic comb is. I think it has to do with the idea that if you put magnets in your comb or hair brush, it does something healthy with your hair and head. There are Chinese versions of this product available today, and I take them to be successors to some earlier original. Rather dramatic health claims are in fact made for them. (The only other possible meaning I have been able to derive for a magnetic comb is a more modern one: the combs that barbers fit onto electric hair trimmers are sometimes called magnetic combs. You can find photos on the Internet. But did such electrical hair-trimming devices exist back in 1906, or 1914? I doubt it; I don't know when they were invented and came into use--any help from readers would be appreciated here.)

I am pretty sure that, whatever Magnetic Comb referred to, it was something on the outer edge of science and rationality. Just read the brochure, which can be enlarged if you click on it (I think and hope).

The Mizpah deal of the Magnetic Comb Company of Pekin, Illinois reminds me strongly of the Prayer of Jabez business, invented some years ago by the "Reverend Dr." Bruce Wilkinson. For those who don't remember or have been otherwise spared knowledge of this, Wilkinson picked an obscure verse out of the Hebrew Bible and suggested to people--not so subtly but still carefully enough so that he would not be legally libel--that if they recited this prayer they would become prosperous. The book he created, called The Prayer of Jabez, and several follow-up volumes (The Prayer of Jabez for Women, etc.) sold wildly. The Magnetic Comb Company, and no doubt many other hucksters of the English-speaking world, anticipated Wilkinson by more than a century, even if they were not as commercially successful as he was.

Any possibility, one might ask, that the proprietors of the Magnetic Comb Company actually believed this nonsense? Not a chance, folks. Any doubts? Just go view The Music Man once again, and you'll get the proper feel for the times. (Do avoid Buddy Hackett's rendition of "Shapoopie", however; it has been known to be lethal above 20 decibels.)

What interests me particularly about the brochure is its classic Jewcentric content. On the one hand, it exudes an aura of Jewish chosenness even as it indulges in the standard anti-Semitic stereotypes of the era. So, as you can read for yourself above, "For thousands of years the secret of the Mizpah has been confined to the Hebrew race. From poverty they have attained riches. Success has been theirs in love, as well--you hear of no Hebrew divorces. Health is theirs to a ripe old age." And yet: "Did you ever observe how a Jew could start out as a pack-peddler and in a few years have a store and later become a great banker, money-lender and millionaire?/Have you said to yourself? `It isn't intelligence--for he is dull; it isn't hustle--for he is slow; it isn't hard work--for he takes life easy.'"

After this, as you can see, there follow two quotes about the promise of wealth afforded by Mizpah. The first has no source implied; the second is attributed to "a wise old sage in Bible days. . . " Both are made up completely out of whole cloth.

But it seemed a common view -- else why use it to get on the good side of potential buyers of Mizpah rings -- that Jews were dull, slow and took life easy. How did that come about, since I think it is safe to say that neither Jew nor gentile today in America (or Britain) would think this an accurate general description of Jewish character?

Of course, I don't know, but I can venture a guess. Since American Midwesterners in those days had little contact with Jews other than immigrants who were indeed pack-peddlers to begin with, it is not hard to figure out how at least some of these stereotypes set root. Jews were reticent, since they feared prejudice on account of their "stranger" status. Most did not speak fluent or unaccented English, so typical Americans may well have taken that for "dull." They were slow, perhaps, because they were damned tired shleping all over the countryside with their wares, even those who eventually were able to buy a horse and wagon.

As for taking life easy, this is puzzling. What would made people think that Jews took life easy? Maybe compared to the life in Eastern Europe they fled, they smiled a lot in Illinois. Who knows? As for the idea that there were no Jewish divorces, clearly, non-Jews rarely knew Jews well enough, outside of business exchanges, to know whether they were happily married or not. And one suspects that marital matters would not readily come up in business-related conversations between Jews and others. This made it easy for the Mizpah hucksters to make such a enviable claim without fear of rebuttal. Message? Buy a Mizpah ring and your spouse will shape up and do you right.

I wonder how many rings they sold.

More Nobel Wisdom from Jimmy Carter

In today’s New York Times, former President Jimmy Carter tells us that the North Korean regime is ready for a deal. Should we believe him? We don’t have to answer on the basis of mere supposition. There is some history here.

On June 22, 1994, after Carter’s return from Pyongyang carrying what became known as the Agreed Framework, he was interviewed on CNN by Judy Woodruff. Here is an excerpt from that conversation:

Jimmy Carter: . . .what the North Koreans were waiting for was some treatment of their exalted leader with respect and a direct communication. . . .I think he was quite ready. I didn’t have to argue with him. When I outlined the specific points that I had been informed in Washington was the administration’s policy. . . . with very little equivocation he agreed. . . . I think it’s all roses now. . . . I’ve known that there were people in Washington who were skeptical about any direct dealing with the North Koreans. They were already condemned as outlaws. Kin Il-sung was already condemned as a criminal. . . . And it was kind of a miracle and almost an incredible statement that Kim Il-sung gave me in response to my proposals, and it was hard to believe. . . .

Judy Woodruff: Are you absolutely persuaded that the North Koreans are going to honor this agreement, that while the talks are going on that it’s not just a matter of buying time on the part of the North Koreans, that they will not secretly pursue the program they were pursuing earlier, the nuclear program?

Jimmy Carter: Judy, I’m convinced. But I said this when I got back from North Korea, and people said that I was naïve or gullible and so forth. I don’t think I was. In my opinion, this was one of those perfect agreements where both sides won and got what they wanted and there were no—nobody blinked, nobody had to yield. . . . I think the most important lesson is that we should not ever avoid direct talks, direct conversations, direct discussions and negotiations with the main person in a despised or misunderstood or condemned society who could actually resolve the issue. And we went through this for ten years when nobody in our government would meet or talk with Yasser Arafat. The Norwegians did, and they were the ones that brought the peace agreement last summer. . . .

I think this blast from the past speaks for itself. Obviously, the extent to which Carter was wrong in June 1994, about both North Korea and Yasser Arafat, is nothing short of breathtaking. The North Koreans did cheat, big time, and there was no Israeli-Palestinian “peace agreement”, only a framework for negotiations that ultimately failed.

One has to hand it to Carter: He is consistent. One also has to hand it to the New York Times; it is, too.

Mizpah

I was delighted to read about Denver’s Mile High Station in the September/October 2010 issue of Humanities, and was particularly intrigued by the photo of the Mizpah Arch. Pamela Carter-Birken tells us that the departure-facing side of the arch contained “the Hebrew word MIZPAH, meaning God watch over you while we are apart.”

A lovely sentiment, to be sure, but the word mizpah -- really mitzpah, since the second letter in the word is a tzadi, not a zayin, but our alphabet has no symbol for the “tz” sound, so substitutes in transliteration a “z”-- literally means no such thing. As with all Semitic languages, Hebrew is quite compact in written form, but even Hebrew cannot generally express an entire complex sentence with a single four-letter word, as mizpah is in the Hebrew alphabet.

Mizpah does not literally mean “God watch over you while we are apart”, but, as any speaker of Hebrew knows and as any Hebrew-English dictionary will affirm, it is a noun that means simply “lookout” (not as a sentry but as a place). A secondary meaning is “watchtower.” It comes from the verb tz-f-h or tzofeh (nearly all Semitic verbs are composed of a root made from three consonants), which means to look over from a height (as opposed to “look over” meaning to inspect or “overlook” meaning to miss seeing something). That is why the Hebrew word for bird is “tzipor”, literally a creature that looks over its environment from a height.

Ms. Carter-Birken is in no way at fault here, however. She did not invent the more expansive translation, but rather inherited it from an accepted understanding of a Biblical phrase—specifically, Genesis chapter 31, verses 48 and 49—in the Anglo-American Protestant tradition. She is merely repeating what the typical resident of Denver thought it meant back when.

Indeed, the word Mizpah, taken to mean “God watch over you while we are apart”, gave rise to a category of jewelry (broaches, mainly), postcards, poetry and the like around the end of the 19th century in both Britain and the United States. (It does not seem to have caught on in other places.) Since then towns, steamboats, Masonic lodges and several other things in the United States have been named Mizpah, always in the letters of the Roman alphabet, never in the Hebrew alphabet. At the present time a woman named Helena Lind is trying to make a business out of Mizpah, claiming that the word bears sacred and secret meanings thousands of years old. Check it out on the Internet.

The original reason for all this is fairly straightforward. From the time of the Puritans, Anglo-American Protestant leaders and laymen alike have demonstrated an affinity for the symbols and personalities of the Hebrew Bible. But the Protestant expositors of the Bible who thought Mizpah meant “God watch over you while we are apart” seem to have allowed their fertile imaginations to trump their frail knowledge of the Hebrew language. Mitzpah was a fairly common place name; the Hebrew Bible contains about half a dozen such geographical mentions. It was called that (as well as Galeed, which mean heap) in the Genesis text noted above because of the heap of stones that Jacob and Laban used to mark and symbolize an agreement between them, not the other way around; Jacob and Laban did not make a heap of stones because there was already a general belief that such a heap, called a mitzpah, connoted a divine blessing or a broader sentiment. A place called Mitzpah just meant an elevation from which one could get a panoramic view of what lay below, period—like Mitzpe (slight spelling variation, same word) Ramon today in Israel, a spot in the Negev that overlooks a huge crater called the makhtesh. To get this backwards is testimony to the interpretive fecundity of those Anglo-Protestant expositors. For it to then turn into a kind of cultural curlicue in the Protestant tradition is both amusing and, in an entirely harmless way, wacky.

The more grandiose translation of Mizpah derived from the story in Genesis seems to exist only in the Protestant tradition. Catholics don't have it, and Jews have not used the word mitzpah as a symbol of anything, or as a short form of the phrase “may God watch over you while we are apart.” There is no Jewish mitzpah jewelry using the Hebrew script, at least none I have ever seen. Note, too, that the Jewish liturgy does contain a “traveler’s prayer,” called t’filat ha-derekh in Hebrew, which asks God’s protection whilst one is one the road, separated from friends and loved ones. The prayer’s main part consists of slightly over a hundred words, not a single one of which is any form of the verb tz-f-h.

54 Notes

On December 3, 2009, two days after President Obama’s speech on the Afghan War at West Point, my annotations to that speech appeared in AI Cont’d. Altogether I wrote 90 notes to the President’s text, some having to do with the policy substance and implications of his remarks, some with what Peggy Noonan once called “the black arts” of the speechwriting craft. After December 3 I returned to my annotations to add several “afternotes” commenting on subsequent developments. On the whole, I think my comments, not least the predictive ones, have stood up well. So when the President spoke last evening about the end of combat operations in Iraq, I thought I would try my hand at annotative commentary again. And again, my comments break down into two categories: the speech as a form of craft (one that I practiced myself for a few years, not for the President but for two Secretaries of State), and the policy substance of what was said (concerning an area of the world in which I have long taken a special interest). As before, too, the President’s words are above the line, my comments below in the form of footnotes; the problem is that the blog technology doesn't allow the notes to appear at the bottom of a page, so you have to bob up and down to match the comment to the text on which it comments. This time I came up with only 54 notes; it is, after all, a shorter speech.

* * *

54 Notes….

on the Remarks by the President in Address to the Nation on the End of Combat Operations in Iraq, Oval Office, August 31, 2010, 8:00 P.M. EDT

Good evening. Tonight, I’d like to talk to you about the end of our[1] combat mission in Iraq, the ongoing security challenges we face[2], and the need to rebuild our nation here at home.

I know this historic moment comes at a time of great uncertainty for many Americans. We’ve now been through nearly a decade of war. We’ve endured[3] a long and painful recession. And sometimes in the midst of these storms[4], the future that we’re trying to build for our nation -- a future of lasting peace and long-term prosperity -- may seem beyond our reach.

But this milestone should serve as a reminder to all Americans that the future is ours to shape if we move forward with confidence and commitment.[5] It should also serve as a message to the world that the United States of America intends to sustain and strengthen our[6] leadership in this young century.

From this desk, seven and a half years ago, President Bush announced the beginning of military operations in Iraq. Much has changed since that night. A war to disarm a state became a fight against an insurgency. Terrorism and sectarian warfare threatened to tear Iraq apart. Thousands of Americans gave their lives; tens of thousands have been wounded. Our relations abroad were strained. Our unity at home was tested.

These are the rough waters encountered[7] during the course of one of America’s longest wars. Yet there has been one constant amidst[8] these shifting tides.[9] At every turn, America’s men and women in uniform have served with courage and resolve. As Commander-in-Chief, I am incredibly[10] proud of their service. And like all Americans, I’m awed[11] by their sacrifice, and by the sacrifices of their families.

The Americans who have served in Iraq completed every mission they were given. They defeated a regime that had terrorized its people. Together with Iraqis and coalition partners who made huge sacrifices of their own, our troops fought block by block to help Iraq seize the chance for a better future. They shifted tactics to protect the Iraqi people, trained Iraqi Security Forces, and took out terrorist leaders. Because of our troops and civilians -- and because of the resilience of the Iraqi people -- Iraq has the opportunity to embrace a new destiny[12], even though many challenges remain.

So tonight, I am announcing that the American combat mission in Iraq has ended. Operation Iraqi Freedom is over, and the Iraqi people now have lead responsibility for the security of their country.[13]

This was my pledge to the American people as a candidate for this office. Last February, I announced a plan that would bring our combat brigades out of Iraq, while redoubling our efforts to strengthen Iraq’s Security Forces and support its government and people.

That’s what we’ve done. We’ve removed nearly 100,000 U.S. troops from Iraq. We’ve closed or transferred to the Iraqis hundreds of bases. And we have moved millions of pieces of equipment out of Iraq.

This completes a transition to Iraqi responsibility for their own security.[14] U.S. troops pulled out of Iraq’s cities last summer, and Iraqi forces have moved into the lead with considerable skill and commitment to their fellow citizens. Even as Iraq continues to suffer terrorist attacks, security incidents have been near the lowest on record[15] since the war began. And Iraqi forces have taken the fight to al Qaeda, removing much of its leadership in Iraqi-led operations.

This year also saw[16] Iraq hold credible elections that drew a strong turnout. A caretaker administration is in place as Iraqis form a government[17] based on the results of that election. Tonight, I encourage Iraq’s leaders to move forward with a sense of urgency to form an inclusive government that is just, representative, and accountable to the Iraqi people. And[18] when that government is in place, there should be no doubt: The Iraqi people will have a strong partner in the United States. Our combat mission is ending, but our commitment to Iraq’s future is not.[19]

[20]Going forward, a transitional force of U.S. troops will remain in Iraq with a different mission: advising and assisting Iraq’s Security Forces, supporting Iraqi troops in targeted counterterrorism missions, and protecting our civilians. Consistent with our agreement with the Iraqi government, all U.S. troops will leave by the end of next year. As our military draws down, our dedicated civilians -- diplomats, aid workers, and advisors -- are moving into the lead to support Iraq as it strengthens its government, resolves political disputes, resettles those displaced by war, and builds ties with the region and the world.[21] That’s a message that Vice President Biden is delivering to the Iraqi people through his visit there today.

This new approach reflects our long-term partnership with Iraq -- one based upon mutual interest and mutual respect. Of course, violence will not end with our combat mission. Extremists will continue to set off bombs, attack Iraqi civilians and try to spark sectarian strife. But ultimately, these terrorists will fail to achieve their goals. Iraqis are a proud people. They have rejected sectarian war, and they have no interest in endless destruction. They understand that, in the end, only Iraqis can resolve their differences and police their streets. Only Iraqis can build a democracy within their borders. What America can do, and will do, is provide support for the Iraqi people as both a friend and a partner.

Ending this war is not only in Iraq’s interest -- it’s in our own. The United States has paid a huge price to put the future of Iraq in the hands of its people. We have sent our young men and women to make enormous sacrifices in Iraq, and[22] spent vast resources abroad at a time of tight budgets at home. We’ve persevered because of a belief we share with the Iraqi people -- a belief that out of the ashes of war,[23] a new beginning could be born in this cradle of civilization. Through this remarkable chapter in the history of the United States and Iraq, we have met our responsibility. Now, it’s time to turn the page.

As we do, I’m mindful that the Iraq war has been a contentious issue at home. Here, too, it’s time to turn the page. This afternoon, I spoke to former President George W. Bush. It’s well known that he and I disagreed about the war from its outset.[24] Yet no one can doubt President Bush’s support for our troops, or his love of country and commitment to our security. As I’ve said, there were patriots who supported this war, and patriots who opposed it. And all of us are united in appreciation for our servicemen and women, and our hopes for Iraqis’ future[25].

The greatness of our democracy is grounded in our ability to move beyond our differences, and to learn from our experience as we confront the many challenges ahead. And no challenge is more essential to our security than our fight against al Qaeda.[26]

Americans across the political spectrum supported the use of force against those who attacked us on 9/11. Now, as we approach our 10th year of combat in Afghanistan, there are those who are understandably asking tough questions about our mission there. But we must never lose sight of what’s at stake. As we speak, al Qaeda continues to plot against us, and its leadership remains anchored in the border regions of Afghanistan and Pakistan. We will disrupt, dismantle and defeat al Qaeda, while preventing Afghanistan from again serving as a base for terrorists. And because of our drawdown in Iraq, we are now able to apply the resources necessary to go on offense. In fact, over the last 19 months[27], nearly a dozen al Qaeda leaders -- and hundreds of al Qaeda’s extremist allies -- have been killed or captured around the world.

Within Afghanistan, I’ve ordered the deployment of additional troops who -- under the command of General David Petraeus -- are fighting to break the Taliban’s momentum.
As with the surge in Iraq, these forces will be in place for a limited time to provide space for the Afghans to build their capacity and secure their own future. But, as was the case in Iraq, we can’t do for Afghans what they must ultimately do for themselves. That’s why we’re training Afghan Security Forces and supporting a political resolution to Afghanistan’s problems. And next August[28], we will begin a transition to Afghan responsibility. The pace of our troop reductions will be determined by conditions on the ground[29], and our support for Afghanistan will endure. But make no mistake: This transition will begin -- because open-ended war serves neither our interests nor the Afghan people’s.

Indeed, one of the lessons of our effort in Iraq is that American influence around the world is not a function of military force alone.[30] We must use all elements of our power -- including our[31] diplomacy, our economic strength, and the power of America’s example -- to secure our interests and stand by our allies. And we must project a vision of the future that’s based not just[32] on our fears, but also on our hopes -- a vision that recognizes the real dangers that exist around the world,
but also the limitless[33] possibilities of our time.

Today, old adversaries are at peace, and emerging democracies are potential partners. New markets for our goods stretch from Asia to the Americas. A new push for peace in the Middle East[34] will begin here tomorrow. Billions of young people want to move beyond the shackles of poverty and conflict. As the leader of the free world, America will do more than just defeat on the battlefield those who offer hatred and destruction -- we will also lead among those who are willing to work together to expand freedom and opportunity for all people.[35]

Now, that effort must begin within our own borders. Throughout our history, America has been willing to bear the burden of promoting liberty and human dignity overseas,[36] understanding its links to our own liberty and security. But we have also understood that our nation’s strength and influence abroad must be firmly anchored in our prosperity at home. And the bedrock of that prosperity must be a growing middle class.[37]

Unfortunately, over the last decade, we’ve not done what’s necessary to shore up the foundations of our own prosperity. We spent a trillion dollars at war, often financed by borrowing from overseas. This, in turn, has short-changed investments in our own people, and contributed to record deficits. For too long, we have put off tough decisions on everything from our manufacturing base to our energy policy to education reform.[38] As a result, too many middle-class[39] families find themselves working harder for less, while our nation’s long-term competitiveness is put at risk.

And so at this moment, as we wind down the war in Iraq, we must tackle those challenges at home with as much energy, and grit, and sense of common purpose as our men and women in uniform who have served abroad. They[40] have met every test that they faced. Now, it’s our[41] turn. Now, it’s our responsibility to honor them[42] by coming together, all of us, and working to secure the dream that so many generations have fought for -- the dream that a better life awaits anyone who is willing to work for it and reach for it.[43]

Our most urgent task is to restore our economy, and put the millions of Americans who have lost their jobs back to work. To strengthen our middle class[44], we must give all our children the education they deserve, and all our workers the skills that they need to compete in a global economy. We must jumpstart industries that create jobs, and end our dependence on foreign oil.[45] We must unleash the innovation that allows new products to roll off our assembly lines, and nurture the ideas that spring from our entrepreneurs. This will be difficult.[46] But in the days to come, it must be our central mission as a people, and my central responsibility as President.

Part of that responsibility is making sure that we honor our commitments to those who have served our country with such valor. As long as I am President, we will maintain the finest fighting force that the world has ever known, and we will do whatever it takes to serve our veterans as well as they have served us. This is a sacred trust. That’s why we’ve already made one of the largest increases in funding for veterans in decades. We’re treating the signature wounds of today’s wars -- post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury -- while providing the health care and benefits that all of our veterans have earned. And we’re funding a Post-9/11 GI Bill that helps our veterans and their families pursue the dream of a college education. Just as the GI Bill helped those who fought World War II -- including my grandfather -- become the backbone of our middle class[47], so today’s servicemen and women must have the chance to apply their gifts to expand the American economy. Because part of ending a war responsibly is standing by those who have fought it.[48]

Two weeks ago, America’s final combat brigade in Iraq -- the Army’s Fourth Stryker Brigade -- journeyed home in the pre-dawn darkness. Thousands of soldiers and hundreds of vehicles made the trip from Baghdad, the last of them passing into Kuwait in the early morning hours. Over seven years before, American troops and coalition partners had fought their way across similar highways, but this time no shots were fired. It was just a convoy of brave Americans, making their way home.

Of course, the soldiers left much behind. Some were teenagers when the war began. Many have served multiple tours of duty, far from families who bore a heroic burden of their own, enduring the absence of a husband’s embrace or a mother’s kiss. Most painfully, since the war began, 55 members of the Fourth Stryker Brigade made[49] the ultimate sacrifice -- part of over 4,400 Americans who have given their lives in Iraq. As one staff sergeant said, “I know that to my brothers in arms who fought and died, this day would probably mean a lot.”

Those Americans gave their lives for the values that have lived in the hearts of our people for over two centuries. Along with nearly 1.5 million Americans who have served in Iraq, they fought in a faraway place for people they never knew. They stared into the darkest of human creations -- war -- and helped the Iraqi people seek the light of peace.[50]

In an age without surrender ceremonies, we must earn victory through the success of our partners and the strength of our own nation. Every American who serves joins an unbroken line of heroes that stretches from Lexington to Gettysburg; from Iwo Jima to Inchon; from Khe Sanh to Kandahar -- Americans who have fought to see that the lives of our children are better than our own. Our troops are the steel in our ship of state.[51] And though our nation may be travelling[52] through rough waters[53], they give us confidence that our course is true, and that beyond the pre-dawn darkness, better days lie ahead.

Thank you. May God bless you. And may God bless the United States of America, and all who serve her.[54]

---

[1] It would have been better to have said “the U.S. combat mission” rather than “our combat mission.” When you begin a Presidential speech, you should begin formally, with proper nouns spelled out. This is not a fireside chat.

[2] We face where? In Iraq? In the Middle East? In the world? This is an unfinished phrase that leaves the listener wondering and distracted; not a good thing to do, especially in the first conceptual breath of a speech.

[3] It would have been better to say “We are enduring”, because this Great Recession is obviously not over. For unemployed people, the use of the past tense seems sort of insulting.

[4] The introduction of the weather metaphor here strikes me as an example both of over-writing and also of trite choice. If any metaphor has been overused, this is it. It comes across, to me at least, as exceedingly hackneyed and almost exudes insincerity. It’s a Hallmark metaphor, at best. It also sounded flat out of the President’s mouth when he delivered it. It sounded like his heart wasn’t in it.

[5] Yes, nice, but it helps make my point about why I don’t like the weather metaphor. We cannot control the weather. Using such language makes it seem like wars, not least ones we start, are natural events, but of course they aren’t. That makes the weather metaphor a category error, if one thinks about it. Fortunately for speechwriters, very few people ever do think about such things.

[6][6] This is, strictly speaking, a grammatical error: The pronoun that goes with United States of America is “its”, not “our”, but this is violated by almost everyone in the speechwriting business these days. That doesn’t make it right, however; it still hurts my ears.

[7] This is a terrible sentence, clunky in every way. It should be past tense, not present. There are those stormy waters again, too. “Encountered” has to be the wrong word. How about “endured”?

[8] I don’t like “amidst” here; excessively purple. “Amid” would have done nicely.

[9] More weather; now I’m getting seasick.

[10] I’ll bet he is, too, but use of the word “incredibly” may suggest to many something quite different: that he is not to be believed. Why? Because a lot of Americans in uniform think that this Administration has ignored Iraq over the past 18 months, and will ignore it in future whether it is in our national interest to do so or not. And many believe that the President’s July 2011 off-ramp for Afghanistan is serious, too, regardless of conditions on the ground, because the President wants to run for re-election without being a war president, and damn the consequences.

[11] “Awed”? Another bad word choice. We are awed when we are simultaneously impressed and surprised. No one who has been paying attention should be surprised by what the U.S. Armed Forces have done in Iraq. I’m “deeply grateful” would have been a lot better.

[12] I would have ended the sentence with “destiny”, and begun a new paragraph here that names some of the challenges ahead. Doing that would offer some evidence that the President understands the situation, and suggests that he cares about it. And then I would have noted that these challenges ahead are not amendable to military solutions, and that would have provided the right transition into the next sentence, which is the deliverable of the speech, insofar as it has one. It would have set that deliverable up properly; as it is, it sort of blurts its way onto the listener out of nowhere.

[13] Yeech. Better like this, to avoid a passive voice construction: “I declare the American combat mission in Iraq to be over. Operation Iraqi Freedom has come to an end as Iraqis assume primary responsibility for their country’s security.” Much better, see?

[14] Very awkward: “Iraqi” and “their own” do not match up. Easy to fix, but no one fixed it.

[15] Should say, “security incidents are near their lowest level since….” There is no reason to mention any “record” – this is clumsy, lazy writing.

[16] Double yeech. Really terrible writing. What’s wrong with, “This year, too, in March, Iraq held credible democratic elections that…..”? It would have been good to mention the month; concretizes the narrative some and again shows the Presidents knows some details of what he is talking about. A minor matter, true, but a missed opportunity all the same.

[17] As “Iraqis work to form a government” would be better, since it’s obviously been difficult, and that difficulty is a major problem on the larger stage. It might have been nice at this point to add a sentence something like this: “The process of forming a government has been a difficult one. Americans are not accustomed to such a lengthy process in a parliamentary system. But it should not be forgotten that the process of forming a genuine democratic government is both relatively new for Iraqis, and a marvel in the eyes of Iraq’s Arab neighbors, for whom such a noble test has not yet arisen.”

[18] Don’t need the word “And” here, and it hurts the flow.

[19] This key sentence, in my view, needed elaboration. The next paragraph is really very thin gruel. And this is the place, I suppose, to reflect on what the President did not say that he might usefully have said. There is nothing, anywhere in this speech, about the significance of Iraq’s future for the Middle East and the Muslim world—and the American interest in such developments. The word Arab is not mentioned. The word Muslim is not mentioned. We had a coalition in Iraq, which, while make-believe in some respects, was not entirely so. Great Britain is not mentioned in this speech—all the others who helped are mentioned only in passing and in the briefest way imaginable. UN personnel suffered tragedy and trauma in Iraq—this also is not mentioned. These are all opportunities lost, it seems to me, to make some useful points and do a little retail diplomacy from the top. The fact that none of this was done suggests, again to me at least, that the President’s attentions, matching his body language here, are elsewhere. Well, it is what it is, then, but it’s too bad. And it may well bear a price the nation may have to pay.

[20] It would perhaps have been better to tie the last sentence in the previous paragraph, which is the key sentence in the speech, to the next paragraph by saying, “And that is why, going forward, a transitional complement of U.S. troops. . .”—better than saying a “transitional force” of troops; that just sounds weird.

[21]Is he ashamed to mention the Department of State? State is in charge of this, as everyone knows, and the State Department has a Secretary. It is, all else equal, a little strange that Obama does not mention his Secretary of State, or his Secretary of Defense, or our Ambassador in Baghdad, or the last commander in the Iraq theater, General Odierno. If I had been tasked with writing this speech, I would have assumed the grace notes to include a mention of these people, as well as the current Prime Minister and President of Iraq. Without this, the speech as a whole has a desiccated feel to it. And this is, again, a missed opportunity to do some retail diplomacy, both in the interagency and viz Iraq.

[22] “and we have spent” it should be; in a speech these parallelisms are good things, whereas in essays they often are not.

[23] This comma does not belong here; it slows the flow.

[24] This, finally, is a presidential thing to do. I hope President Obama is finished with blaming most everything that bothers him on a given day on his predecessor, using President Bush as a kind of catchall political piñata. I hope this sentence signals that, but I’ll believe it when I don’t hear it.

[25] Awkward; better, “hopeful for the future of the Iraqi people.”

[26] A politically sensible thing to say, but not at all a self-evident truth. I can think of several ways to think about U.S. national security that do not elevate al-Qaeda into the number one problem.

[27] 19 months? Why 19?

[28] August? Did he not mean April, as specificed in the December 1, 2009 speech? Where did the August date come from?

[29] This is the key phrase the military wants to hear and that Secretary Gates has referred to often, “conditions on the ground.” But the President is clearly sticking to his guns to start a withdrawal next year even if the military opposes it. This is the President’s answer to General Petraeus’ swing through town a few weeks ago. This looks to be one humdinger of a civil-military pushing and shoving contest in the making

[30] This is a flaming non-sequitur. The place to have discussed the nature of non-military vs. military instruments was earlier on, where I indicated.

[31] This “our” and the next one should have been deleted.

[32] The word “just” and “also” should have been deleted. Reads much better without them, and besides, since when does an American President tell the world that the strongest country on earth is motivated by its fears? This is not a wise thing to do.

[33] Wrong word; by definition, nothing human is “limitless.”

[34] Illustrates the bizarre American shorthand that equates Arab-Israeli, and in this case merely Palestinian-Israeli, affairs for those of the entire Middle East. It is sloppy conceptualizing like this, innocently embedded in the way we use language, that abets dangerous nonsense like “linkage”, which Obama and his NSA seem to be fervent believers in; I suppose it made sense, given the timing, to mention the new direct negotiations between Netanyahu and Abbas, and I am glad that no explicit iteration of linkage showed up here. But let’s restate the obvious anyway, but it evidently needs restating: What happens in Palestine is not tantamount to what happens in the Levant, and what happens in the Eastern Med is not tantamount to what happens in the Middle East.

[35] Nice paragraph, though I was sort of surprised to see the phrase “free world.” That phrase arose during the war against fascism and endured throughout most of the Cold War against communism. It became a signal of political division after Vietnam: liberals tended not to use it because it suggested the highly abstract ideological mindset that supposedly sucked us into Vietnam. What does it mean now, with no USSR and no international communist movement to trouble us? I don’t know, which is why I find it jarring here. I think, if I had been asked to draft this speech, I would have found a way to avoid this language.

[36] This is, of course, not true, even though it sounds nice. For most of our history we have had no such ambition because we manifestly had no such capabilities. The President might want to refresh his memory of John Quincy Adams.

[37] I nearly fell over when I heard this. I cannot remember any other Presidential speech that names “the middle class” in this fashion. Typically, a President does not publicly acknowledge the existence of class differences as such. There are times when it has been necessary to speak of racial and sectional differences, as a matter of course; but class, no. And this sounds so odd coming from this President. This President, unlike most of the members of his Party, actually cares about poor people, and about redistributional justice, as he sees it, for better or worse. Most other Democrats manage to get excited about traffic gridlock and other middle-class whines, but not Barack Obama. So where on earth does this come from?

Perhaps the President thinks that the bulk of economic activity resides in the so-called middle class, and that is his point of reference. Judging from context, this seems the most likely explanation. But it does not justify or validate this usage. The term middle class as politicians and everyday citizens use it bears little resemblance to the category “middle class” as defined by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The phrase is a symbolic blockbuster in the American narrative, not a technical term. I will have to give some thought to how this language will strike people, but it strikes me as a mistake to have used it. We should not, in my view, care about a growing middle class as such, but about greater and more equitably shared prosperity across our entire society. That’s the kind of language I would have used, lest Americans who’re not quite, or think themselves not quite, of middle class status, be moved to say, “Hey, what about me, Mr. President? Don’t I matter in your eyes, too? Don’t my kids deserve your attention and concern even if they don’t live in middle class situations?”

[38] I could not agree more, but the blame here goes back further than ten years. It envelops the Clinton period, too.

[39] The phrase middle-class could have and should have been dropped. Read the sentence without the phrase—does it lose anything? Is this some sort of political stratagem, looking to the mid-term elections or to 2012? If it is, it’s power and logic are lost on me.

[40] He speaks as if the uniformed military are a society apart. “They”?

[41] And us. The military are “they” and we are “us.” This is a horrifying construction, and totally unnecessary, if not also revealing. Would it not have been better to say, “Our military has met every challenge, now we who are the benefactors of their courage must emulate their energy, and grit….” and so on? That would have been lots better.

[42] Again, “our” and “them.” Horrifying, as though our warriors are of another species.

[43] This sounds downright old-fashioned, pro-market and pro-liberty, and I love it. I only wish he really meant it.

[44] No, not to strengthen our middle class, but to strengthen our nation—and then the text refers to “all” our children. Since not all our children are part of the middle class, this sentence is therefore internally contradictory, or at the very least inconsistent.

[45] This is a red herring, but a popular one. It belies a misunderstanding of basic economics. The idea of energy independence, and specifically of ending our reliance on foreign oil, is not a stupid idea, but it relies on a geopolitical logic, not an economic one as is implied here. If you take the economic logic of this statement to heart, it means that the United States should be autarkic. We should not depend on foreigners for “stuff.” Now, you don’t have to like, or even to have heard of, David Ricardo to know about the idea of comparative advantage that underlies the theory (and largely the practice) of international trade. If someone else can produce something a lot cheaper than you can, for whatever reason, and you can produce stuff cheaper than he can, and you both desire some of the other guy’s production, it makes sense to trade. When we started importing oil back in the 1950s, in the Eisenhower Administration, it was because it was cheaper to buy from low-cost foreign sources than it was to produce it here at home—keep it in the ground, Ike and his advisors said, and it’ll be worth more later. That was correct. It still is. It still makes sense, on economic grounds anyway, to buy cheaper energy from abroad if we can. It reduces the cost of economic inputs, which in turn shows up in higher productivity. It also helps keep inflation down. The reason to wean ourselves off of foreign oil has to do with what the money in the hands of the recipients can finance that we do not like. That is not an economic question. The fact that the President stuck this phrase in here, where he is talking about the economy, suggests that perhaps he doesn’t understand this, and that is disheartening. Either that of this is just plain political pandering—usually a highly eligible explanation in cases like this.

[46] This is the most preposterous statement in this entire speech. For years multiple voices have been urging this Administration to privilege innovation in economic policy. From Thomas Friedman to Bob Litan to Bill Gates…..and me….well, everyone with even a little sense in these matters. And there are many ideas out there about how to do this—using tax policy, immigration reform, better use of federal R&D money, and so on and on. And what has the Administration done in this area? Next to nothing. It has preferred to cater to political constituencies like teachers union and shovel-ready-related unions that are mired in the old economy, in the least innovative sectors of our economy. It has shown a near total ignorance of and even an antipathy toward how business really works to create jobs. It is not difficult to think of government policies that can stimulate the “innovation nation” as Bill Bonvillian, writing in TAI years ago, referred to it. That the President thinks this is difficult means to me that he hasn’t given any serious thought to it, at least until now. Let’s hope that changes; we’ve wasted nearly two years on this score.

[47][47] This mention of the middle class is actually historically accurate and I don’t mind it, in this otherwise boilerplate-like paragraph, which is obligatory in speeches like this, and so nothing more need be said about it.

[48] Last sentence is a nice sentence; one of few in this speech compared to the December 1 speech and some earlier ones.

[49] Should be “have made”, I think.

[50] Another of the few elegant sentences in this speech.

[51] Also not bad, as speech sentences go; maybe the best of the lot.

[52] One too many “l”s here, I think.

[53] Now we’re back to seasickness. In all fairness, if you’re going to beat a metaphor to death in the beginning of a speech, no one can begrudge you one last pass at it toward the end. It’s even necessary in a way, if that’s how one insists on beginning. It still sounds forced and, on balance, sort of crappy.

[54] Now this “her” stuff is interesting. In a speech like this, where God has just been invoked, it doesn’t seem quite right to use “it”, though we tend these days to avoid feminine anthropomorphism in all other cases. This all goes back to when nations had female symbols for their noblest principles. So, for example, Britannia was conceived and often drawn as a woman, which is maybe why Queen Victoria just seemed so “right” as the monarch over whose empire the sun never set. In France it has been Ceres and, more recently, Mariane. In America, of course, it started out being Lady Liberty, and if case you forgot, American coins from the very beginning nearly all had on their obverse side a symbolic depiction of Liberty as a woman. When we did this, referring to America as a “her” made more sense. Referring to the United States of America as a her is more of a stretch, linguistically speaking. In 1909, the first American coin to have a likeness of an actual person made its debut—Lincoln on the penny. Jefferson comes to the nickel in 1938—before that it was an Indian, and before that Liberty—a kind of exception to the rule. The dime’s obverse was Liberty symbolically until 1946, the quarter until 1932, the half dollar until 1951. Today, Liberty is nowhere to be found, and I find that both revealing and sad. (I’d trade the “In God we trust” motto on the coinage for the return of Lady Liberty in a heartbeat.) With this is mind, it becomes a little clearer why using “her” as a pronoun for the United States strikes most of us as a little odd, though it’s not important enough (most of the time) to actually articulate. I think, had it been up to me, I would have just avoided this construction altogether by saying, “May God bless America, and all who serve our great nation.” Or something like that.