Ambition

http://www.despair.com/ambition.html

Part of the charm of the late, great Richard C. Holbrooke is that you could insult him to his face and he would take it as a compliment. He was not one for much self-reflection. More amazing was that those who knew him felt no need to dispute the slur—it was likely true. He did not embarrass and he was not restrained by humility or sentimentality.

Washington always attracted and encouraged men like him, confident, glib, and self-aggrandizing—bullet-proof. They befriend the important and flirt from high-profile issue to the next.

Holbrooke went from opening China to resolving Yugoslavia’s civil war to containing Afghanistan. He attached himself to Averill Harriman and Clarke Clifford (both men who had their own detractors). Holbrooke tagged himself as a problem-solver.

He was successful and influential, but never trusted. He was well-known and always available. He was everywhere. His greatest attribute was an ability to seek out and ingratiate himself to the famous, talented, and important.

Holbrooke instinctively knew how to separate the important from the unimportant people; whom to ignore or step on. He did not associate with the worker bees nor give them much credit. Despite all these “talents,” he never attained the position he most coveted, that of secretary of state. There was just something too untoward about him. Not every diplomat is a statesman.

Although there are many contenders for the “next-Holbrooke” (send me your list), one name is most often heard: Steve Clemons  of the New American Foundation and blog, The Washington Note. He used be a Japan hand, but is currently an expert on Egypt.

A recent New York Times article “A Guy as Keeper of the National Guest List?”  seems to promote Mr. Clemons as the next Holbrooke. Indeed, the article coyly refers to Holbrooke at the end of the article.

The Times White House reporter, Helene Cooper, interviewed a clearly bemused Les Gelb, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, as to his suggestions for the next White House social secretary, a position that has never been held by a man.

“How about Steve Clemons?” Mr. Gelb suggested, referring to the Washington foreign policy wonk and social butterfly whose “salon dinners” at Restaurant Nora in Dupont Circle are popular with diplomats, journalists and government types. “I’ve never heard of a meeting where someone didn’t tell me Steve was there,” Mr. Gelb said. 

Ms. Cooper then proceeded to interview Mr. Clemons over an expensive lunch:

Mr. Clemons, the director of the American Strategy Program at the New America Foundation, said no one from the White House has called him yet, but if they did, he’d jump at the chance for the job. “When I used to live across the street from Spago in West Hollywood, I’d say, ‘that’s what I want to be one day,’ ” Mr. Clemons said over lobster tails at BLT in Washington. “I wanted to be the D.C. maître d’ at Spago.” 

There you have it; ambition in Washington is simply being the maître d at the right venue. And not being embarrassed about it.

The men's room

More kudos for Steven Clemons and his blog The Washington Note. According to one of Steve's blast emails, Time Magazine cited his blog as one of their ten favorite.

They admired his inside reporting on the Washington foreign policy scene. It is true, his access sometimes seems incomparable. And he is always somewhere, especially places women dare not go. He also seems to spend as much time in airports as Tyler Brûlé and he isn't even Canadian.

The blog is very amusing, especially on the rare times he actually writes for it. Most of the serious posts are from guest bloggers. Otherwise, Steve aggregates or appropriates others' ideas and accomplishments. He organizes, moderates, and comments on policy issue programs. He is at the table.

Mostly, he talks about himself on his blog. There are lots of pictures of him and his dogs; and loads of description of the latest important sounding conference or person he is attending [sic].

He has big dogs.

My favorite post was during the 2008 Republican National Convention that he was purportedly blogging on, though the resulting posts were few and short on substance. He reports:

I've been having chats with quite a few hard core Republicans about this and that, including the Sarah Palin choice. In fact, I stood at a urinal next to Tom DeLay today at the St. Paul Hotel as we, well, you know. . .into a bunch of ice. He lamented how ice had sort of disappeared from most urinals and had become old-fashioned. We didn't get to Palin.

Yeah, like most women, she was not all that interesting anyway.

Steve is very popular in Washington. He got his start in Washington by helping Chalmers Johnson and a very brief stint at the Nixon Center. He is one of the "acceptable" Japan experts. The men of The Alliance Managers haul him out when they want someone to appear to disagree.

But Steve is the master of all and none. His foreign policy interests are only as deep and long as the topic is in the news. The don of this sort of self promotion is Richard Holbrooke who used to be a China hand. He is now the Special Representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan who General Stanley McChrystal described to be "like a wounded animal." Holbrooke's immediate retort to this observation has everyone in DC pulling up their lawn chairs to watch the drama and probable demise.

 Steve has been observed also following Holbrooke into the men's room.

Washington Loves Elections

Washington loves elections: any country's elections. Commenting on these are much more fun than policymaking. No hard knowledge necessary, the expert merely needs a sense of "politics," an authoritative tone, and personality.

The City's election pundits seem to follow the same rules as those running for office. Get your name out there, don't commit to too much, throw out a few sound bites, and most important suck all the air out of the room. And the goal is to get invited back or at least on network TV.

As Japan's lower house parliamentary elections approach (August 30th) self-promotional pieces have appeared in the in-boxes of Washington's Asia crowd and foreign desk editors. I cannot bring myself to link to these vanity essays as they are a tired lot of hedging on a "new day dawning" and how it will damage the U.S.-Japan alliance--maybe.

And in case, the turgid prose does not impress, there is a flood of programs on Japan's elections next week. The announcements are actually cheat sheets for desperate news editors who need a talking head or a quote. Although the blogosphere is alive with speculation on the social and cultural implications of the vote as well as how women may be represented in the Cabinet and Diet, it is unlikely that the men speaking throughout the week will note those subjects. Yes, none of the programs below include women.

The first to advertise was SAIS's Resischauer Center with JAPAN’S HISTORIC GENERAL ELECTION: IMPLICATIONS FOR US-JAPAN RELATIONS on September 1st with the very tedious Professor Kent Calder and very dull former State Department Japan hand Rust Demming. Calder, however, is considered a bit of an outsider in Washington as he does not ascribe to Team Armitage.

The conservative American Enterprise Institute is hosting the next day, JAPAN’S ELECTION: DEMOCRATIC BREAKTHROUGH? with State's head of the Japan Desk Kevin Maher; University of Virginia political science professor Len Schoppa; and CSIS's Nick Szechenyi who is Mike Green's bag carrier. The moderator, of course, is AEI's Michael Auslin, who must have been annoyed as heck that immediately after his program CSIS is holding its own talk fest, albeit with bigger names.

Most likely to be on C-Span and Japanese TV will be CSIS's UNDERSTANDING JAPAN’S ELECTIONS: WHAT THE ELECTIONS MEAN FOR ASIA AND THE UNITED STATES. This invitation-only event (you need to be worthy) is moderated by CBS newsman Bob Schieffer and features CSIS's Japan Chair Mike Green and his former business partner and now Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Kurt Campbell, with color commentary by the Tyler Brûlé (albeit with even more pretense and less talent) of Washington foreign policy pundits (he has long branched out from Japan) Steven Clemons, a blogger and fellow at the New America Foundation.

Coming in late on September 11th and having the audacity to charge ($25) but serving food is the joint Sasakawa Peace Foundation and Japan America Society of Washington POLITICAL CHANGE COMES TO JAPAN: WHAT LIES AHEAD with Columbia University's Gerald Curtis. Frankly, this is the only event maybe worth going to, but it is not free and after the news cycle.

Missing? Well there is Heritage, Brookings, Stimson, and the Council on Foreign Relations. The first two have weak Japan programs, and the latter two have small Japan programs headed by women: one pregnant and another a single mom--definitely not camera worthy.

With the exception of the Gerald Curtis talk, all the events are late afternoon and are unlikely to have even a cookie or a soda. How very disappointing.