This Post Isn't About Egypt...
...much. Call it a little oblique commentary. (As the Queen of Ricochet's unofficial First Lady in Waiting, I'm assuming some trickle-down authority here.)
Both the head of Mossad and the CIA are taking heat for not having seen the Mideast turmoil coming. Obama's apparently thoroughly ticked that the CIA didn't see either how the Tunisian uprising would end or what it would lead to in other states. I ran this by my husband, who's a mathematician, just to see him blow a gasket. (Hey, it's fun.)
Sure enough, he pronounced the eagerness to slam the intelligence services "complete [expletive deleted]". "If they put the odds of a revolution in Egypt at only 5% and then it happened, does that make them wrong?" he said. He then mentioned Michael Lewis's book The Big Short, which is about people who shorted subprime and made a killing when the real estate bubble popped. The implication is that the people who did this possessed rare and admirable foresight. They did, but so did lots of other people who shorted subprime but did it too early. They got slaughtered, and nobody's writing books about them.
Timing is everything, in other words, and getting timing right in any sphere has more to do with luck than most anything else. There are plenty of circumstances under which intelligence services should be taken to task, but not predicting a wave of revolutionary fervor that has managed to fail to burst forth for thirty years might not be one of them.
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Comments :
Jul '10
Re: This Post Isn't About Egypt...
Have they told him about the weapons of mass destruction yet? That's an evergreen.
Dec '10
Re: This Post Isn't About Egypt...
Obama plays the blame game. It is another one of his many character flaws.
Jun '10
Re: This Post Isn't About Egypt...
Somebody also forgot to tell Obama that his health care plan was wildly unpopular. Because, how else would he know?
Sep '10
Re: This Post Isn't About Egypt...
I'd rather be lucky than good and some guys have built a Presidency out of it.
Regarding Royal Succession here on Ricochet, I have encouraging words for our First Lady in Waiting. Based on reports from Ricochet's Flyover Bureau, armed female contributors and members garner more respect at traffic intersections and the Starbucks drive thru window than those who've chosen domicile in less 2nd amendment friendly jurisdictions. So, while not discounting Claire's formidable muay Thai skills, I think the existing Trifecta could break apart into a bi-lateral standoff between our Israeli based First Lady in Waiting and the Scandinavian Mountain Corps. Once Anatolia is cut off, this creates a 7 or 8 feline diaspora up for citizenship offers from friendly jurisdictions and given the aggressive posturing in this morning's commentary, the fate of the four legged brigade hangs on a single question:
Do you enjoy single malt Scotch?
May '10
Re: This Post Isn't About Egypt...
The future is not computable. History is not a mathematical function.
Jun '10
Re: This Post Isn't About Egypt...
In other news, a gas pipeline connecting Egypt and Israel exploded earlier today; cause unknown. Who knew the Egyptians were selling natural gas to the Zionist entity? And what does it mean for my holdings in Noble Gas?
Dec '10
Re: This Post Isn't About Egypt...
That is true. But if you take your average historian and your average mathematician, Ironically, I think the latter would be better at predicting what's coming next.
Oct '10
Re: This Post Isn't About Egypt...
"Nobody told me" really is the defense of a five year-old. 'Not on my watch' is taking on a different meaning - he just isn't watching. I think Obama is easily bored and never thought for a minute that external affairs would interfere with his domestic plans. At least Hillary thought about the 3 a.m. call, unlike the Ambien President.
Sep '10
Re: This Post Isn't About Egypt...
If I am reading you correctly you are saying that people who were on the wrong side of the market, short, when the market was in a solid up trend possessed rare and admirable foresight. Since when is being wrong about the future either admirable or rare. These people who were early were betting the market would turn down before their money and/or fortitude would run out. They may have been unlucky, but were first and foremost wrong.
Sep '10
Re: This Post Isn't About Egypt...
This is one of the rare times you'll find me disagreeing with you, Judith,
As I predicted mere moments ago, a fault line has opened up in our Middle East Bureau, and a Mountain Division is circling.
Re: This Post Isn't About Egypt...
Your husband is, of course, right. That having been said, Obama, Panetta, Admiral Mullen, and the folks at the CIA should have known that the situation in Tunisia and Egypt could not last -- which meant that that a seemingly insignificant incident would blow everything up. This, let me add, is true of the Islamic Republic of Iran. It cannot last -- but figuring out what is the tipping point . . . that takes nous.
Let me add that I suspect the same about China. Free elections are in virtually any polity a stabilizing force. They let off steam; they allow people to throw the rascals out without resorting to violence. They mean periodic turmoil on a fairly low-level scale, and they save us from turmoil on a horrific scale.
Dec '10
Re: This Post Isn't About Egypt...
The timing is a fool's game. For those of us with less dire responsibilities, all we had to know was that it was a bad idea to buy a house that appeared too expensive, in 2005.
The US has been trying to slowly extricate itself from its Cold War awkward relationships, for decades. Even Iraq has been an effort in that direction, you may remember, Iran had previosuly been our ally, whereas Iraq was allied with the Soviets. Egypt had been a Soviet ally and we had been trying to arrange a soft landing there, for decades.
I never imagined some neat and clean extrication from our awkward Cold War alliances. I also didn't buy a house in 2005. Between the extremes of foreclosed subprime gluttons and the real estate bears, where do the vast numbers of merely cautious fit? Obviously, we foot the bill, but beyond that.
I believe we are just scraping the surface, now, of a political and economic backlash from across the world. You cannot live in other countries and not be occasionally exposed to the tremendous distaste and resentment some have for America.
America; the "nicest" country I have ever lived in.
Re: This Post Isn't About Egypt...
Yes. And however imperfect Turkey's democracy, it is good enough that as I've clearly seen these past weeks, Turks are not inspired by the idea of revolution in the least. Not in the least. When it comes to grumbling about their government they are second to none, but ultimately they do know they can vote. This means everything.
Sep '10
Re: This Post Isn't About Egypt...
Regarding Michael Lewis, its too bad most of Liar's Poker doesn't meet the Ricochet CoC, as I think Nicole Gelinas could have a field day with the topic.
that takes nous.
I missed that the first time.