Home » Tea Leaves and Smiling Handshakes: How Newt Gingrich Missed the Message
Tea Leaves and Smiling Handshakes: How Newt Gingrich Missed the Message
Posted: Wednesday, April 22, 2009
by Walter Rhett
Charleston Perlo
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I am often called "old school," and I agree. I keep alive a tradition in my writing that writers must be committed to the truth as they know it. That writers, use reason and experience, take words, and craft ideas to evaluate the acts and ideas of others. That writers compare, analyze, and argue about dramatic changes that, underneath, are often simple common sense. In this tradition, writers provide evidence when they take a point of view. As a member of the old school, I thrive to offer concrete examples. History is my supply chain, writing is my weapon; you, the reader, assess my aim.
In my old school calling, the purpose of writing is to lead to new and wider human choices, a more noble sense of freedom, and the banishment of nonsense as a frivolous waste of time.
Today, in writing about the "smiling handshake" between Barack Obama and Hugo Chavez at the Summit of the Americas, I want to achieve all three.
Let's begin first with the nonsense. I agree with Newt Gingrich that leaders must speak out with forceful courage, but when he opened his mouth, I see clear evidence, in history and by analogy, that Newt's point of view is more misleading and harmful than the handshake between Obama and Chavez that Newt stridently slammed. Newt called the handclasp "the wrong signal." He said he was "not for deluding [himself] by handshakes and smiles." Oh? Not deluded? Nonsense. Newt was completely tricked.
Newt, a former Speaker of the House and member of Congress from Georgia, asked rhetorically how a Head of State can greet warmly a dictator who repeatedly calls for the destruction of the other's country and makes quips that blast and disrespect its leadership? That smiling handshake, according to Newt, will become propaganda to suggest that Chavez's views and insults are magnanimous and legitimate in the court of world opinion and in the central yards, courtyards, and porches of the global masses.
Newt contends the shake acknowledged the Latin despot, Hugo Chavez, and will lead to his distorted views about America being accepted and commonplace in world opinion. In Newt's view,the handshake symbolizes our acquiescence and acceptance of Hugo Chavez's invectives, negatives, and political mission.
First, the evidence of history, especially in looking at diplomacy, tells a different story. And history has the weight of truth.
Ah, Hitler. Europe indulged his aggression instead of acting decisively. True. But Hitler went to war; he moved troops, conquered nations, directed air strikes and tanks. History since then, in Bosnia, Rwanda, Georgia, and Israel, has pointed out that military expeditions must be met with firm, rapid and unwavering responses.
Will the smiling handshake lead to a grab for power, an armed invasion, a massing of troops to cross national borders, a dramatic shift in American strategic interests? No. Military actions are not "signaled" by handshakes; any leader who views a smile as a "strategic" or symbolic weakness is deluding himself.
But Chavez's words have rightly angered many Americans. Does the handshake meaning we accept, even symbolically, his disrespect? No. No more than a teacher accepts a student into a classroom the next day who was fighting and cursing, and yelling epithets at authority figures. No. No more than political opponents, including Gingrich, who label their domestic adversaries as "socialist," or suggest that opponents were "sowing the seeds of hatred," or pals "with terrorists," or possess a desperate hope for current policies "to fail." No. Although Chavez has called America "the biggest menace of the planet," and said that "capitalism leads straight to hell," and claims his "assassination is cheaper than an invasion," he is still only a loudmouth trying to dirty the US reputation. Chavez has also said, "the axis of evil is Washington," and on 9/11,"US imperial power planned and carried out this terrible attack against its own people." He even called Obama an ignoramus.
No one accuses Venezuela's President, Hugo Chavez, of being a wise man or careful with words. He craves attention. He pursues it relentlessly, by good and bad ends.
As the Peck's bad boy of statecraft, Chavez is a braggart, a blowhard, an idiot and class clown who seeks legitimacy through mischievous behavior. And Chavez will find none through his non-conforming political insults and taunts unless we in America give it to him by our reaction to his antics.
Don't engage the erstwhile bully. Don't show an obsession and thin skin. Don't make it obvious that Chavez has touched a nerve or gotten under the veneer. Don't govern in anger. Instead, ignore Chavez. Smother him with kindness, thereby outrageously exposing and rendering him ineffective by contrast. Be loose, but stay firm. Reveal by the example of courtesy and regard, Chavez's belittling and silliness for what it is.
I say, shake the hand; make the contrast. It can't, by any stretch of mind, endorse Chavez's insane views.
In fact, a number of historical examples are evidence for this approach. In Charleston, during the Revolutionary War, Mrs. Rebecca Motte hosted a thank you dinner for British and American officers who helped put out a fire at her plantation house. Despite her unwavering support of the American fight for liberty, her even-handedness toward the enemy and her offer of hospitality to friend and foe won her the honor of being the namesake for Charleston's chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution.
But Gingrich angrily resents Obama's breach of the unwritten American rules of statecraft: silence and the back of your hand to your enemies. For Gingrich, Obama overstepped.
In Gingrich's criticism and in his logic is a hidden idea.
History lets us pull out this hidden idea. Statecraft's source of prescribed conduct is borrowed from European states led by Monarchs. The rules have been passed down from the times when Kings and Queens ruled the Western world. In the old days, the breach of the arcane labyrith of rules could enrage a Sovereign and result in a beheading, the lost of status, a forfeit of priviledge, or banishment. Kings and Queens often used imtimidation and fear as weapons. In monarch states, fear was a healthy sign of respect.
Newt brings this royal mindset and sense of the imperial presence into modern times. He seeks to continue its ancient role in modern-day diplomacy.
Yet the current groups that keep this tradition alive are gangsters, too many legions of inner city youth, and a few dictators. For many gangsters, dictators, and lost youths, the failure to show deference or fear, justifies an aggressive indifference, and sometimes agression.
This is the heart of Newt's position. He embraces the same views as those who demand "props" by increasing tension, isolation, and threats until others break in fear. His criticism implies that to win election to the highest national office is to "jump in" a code of behavior that the Head of State is honor bound to maintain, lest the national "rep" be tarnished and the other "gangs/nations" get the wrong signal. He seeks to have the US pursue a policy of aggressive indifference.
Casually thumbing through history provides abundant credible evidence that the Ginrich "rule" of statecraft, employed by monarchs, gangs, and dictators, has been violated many times for good means and with good results.
Northern Ireland experienced a historic handshake of unity between Ian Paisley and Bertie Ahern in 2007.
Ronald Reagan shook hands with Mikhail Gorbachev, and the cold war ended. But at the time, a Soviet leader had pounded a shoe on a New York UN conference table, promising America "we will bury you," and the Soviet Union had tried to install missles in Cuba, and had 1000s of megaton nuclear warheads pointed at America, ready to launch.
Begin and Sadat shook hands and earned a Nobel Prize when they crafted a peace accord.
Lincoln extended extraordinary courtesies to family members from territories in rebellion. A member of Charleston's Middleton family received a handwritten pass to ensure her safety travel through troop lines.
Henry Kissinger and China's Chou En Lai shook hands and opened the door to this once coummunist arch-enemy becoming America's largest trading partner.
Nelson Mandela and F. W. De Klerk's 1992 handshake on Mr. Mandela's release from 26 years of solitary imprisonment on Robben Island marked a new chapter in South African history, when soon after, Mr. Mandela becoming the country's first universally elected African leader.
Lee and Grant's handshake at Appomattox ended a war that had left America a house divided, and begin the healing of America into one nation.
Other handshakes rocked the status quo: Tony Blair and Colonel Gaddafi ('04), Kim Jong-Il and Kim Dae-Jung ('00), Yasser Arafat and Yitzhak ('93), and Ireland's Gerry Adams and Bill Clinton ('95).
Only Donald Rumsfeld's handshake with Saadam Hussein is seen to have backfired.
And with the exception of Lee-Grant, Mandela-De Klerk, or Sadat-Begin, none of these handshakes, including Obama-Chavez, led to a transfer of power, or a re-assignment of policy or authority, or confused the world community about the policies, stands, and strategic interests the disparate leaders pursued.
Thirdly, seen from the Venezulan side, history again weighs in, and creates a shudder about Newt's position. From the Venezulan view, motives and issues go far beyond indignation about appearances, inappropiate signals, and the proper trappings of power. Seen plainly from the Venezulan side is a huge trap that Newt, and former Vice President Chaney, Senator Judd Gregg of NH, and Senator John Ensign, NV, in their dark bombast of temper and haste to score political points flat out missed. In their rush to dissent and to enflame public passions, they missed the trap. Not only did they miss it, by their call, they are actually urging the country to go against its strategic interests!
Like chess, the trap begins with a simple objective and operates on a simple misdirection. Chavez's main ambition is to tighten his grip on domestic power. Ask yourself for a minute, why then does Chavez consistently lash out against America? How does this fit into his goal? Do his strident, off-base attacks serve his agenda? Yes. Chavez asserts the nonsense claim that Venezula suffers because the US inflicts Venezula's distress.
Chavez blames the domestic pain on the unseen hand of the corrupt, greed, immoral US. He argues the US works against Venezula through his opposition, entering the country through the backdoors of shady subtefuge. Thus justified, this compells Venezula to turn to Chavez with fear and faith in his leadership.
By his own logic, Chavez is the only one with the strength to stand up to and turn back the consuming, insatible, morally blind dragon of the US. Disease epidemic breaks out? The US is conducting biological warfare. Building burns? US agents set the fire. Even Simon Bolivar's death is redefined as American meddling in Latin affairs.
To justify and expand his power, Chavez claims the hand of the CIA, US government, and its proxies in every problem Venezula has, and in every attempt by Venezulans to break his stranglehold on power.
Under previous policy, Chavez had the perfect foil. Ignoring him played right into his hand. Untouchable, removed, and unknown, America was feared--and became an easy target for "gringo-baiting." And Chavez perfected his anti-US rants as his prime means of widening his control of Venezula.
The handshake changed that. What appeared to be outrageous breach actually diminished the credibility and viability of a dictator inside his own country. The smiling handshake dismantled and defeated his previous strategy. Because Obama wouldn't take the bait, Chavez is now forced to search out new scapegoats. Unfortunately, many of those who disagree with him inside Venezula are now the object of his scorn and oppressive actions. But change in Venezula has advanced; that handshake deprived Chavez of one of his major ideological weapons. That handshake was not the wrong signal, it substantially reduced the substance of a tyrant's threat.
Republican Senator Connie Mack, who attended the Summit, issued this statement about the handshake upon his return: "President Obama was right not engage in the theatrics of others and to instead deliver a message that the United States seeks to be a friend, an ally and a partner with all of the people of Latin America."
But you wouldn't know it, listening to Newt Ginrich.
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Walter Rhett Walter Rhett attended Ohio State and writes from Charleston, SC. He writes about national and global affairs with an eye on Southern history and culture and enjoys listening to his readers.
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Top-level comments on this article: (1 total)
I do know from experience that the best defense is no defense. It gives your enemy no where to go if you don't fight back. I enjoyed your article and it was great food for thought.
Linda D
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