Shot Across the Bow (or Wing)

Maybe I'm just too cynical for my own good, but I refuse to take this story at face value. Not that it can't be true, mind you: Israel needs to purchase replacements for its aging Skyhawk trainer-bombers, so it's looking in various directions including at a South Korean plane. That part I certainly hope is true. What isn't credible to me is that anyone takes such a scenario seriously.

Such a transaction must be worth a billion $, or three, and many years of followup purchases. Since 1968 Israel has purchased all its aircraft from the US. Why, earlier this decade when El Al needed to purchase a few civilian jetliners and had landed a fine offer from Airbus, the pressure from the American government was so intense that the deal fell through and the planes were purchased, as they always are, from Boeing. El Al is a private airline; the Israeli Air Force (IAF) is a government agency, all that more susepctible to political pressure.

What's the chance that the appearance of this story in Haaretz at this particular moment reflects a purely commercial deliberation? Pinkt jetzt, as they say in French? No connection whatsoever with the mutual dissatisfaction between the Netanyahu-Obama offices?

I think not.

Fun Summer Reading

A while ago two Australian friends suggested I should read some of Malcolm Gladwell's books. Not long thereafter I was in the States, and inexplicably found myself in a bookstore (that's never happened to me before, at least not that day). Two Malcom Galdwell books were lying there, orphaned, so I had to redeem them. They were The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference his first book, and Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, his second. (In the meantime a third has come out, Outliers: The Story of Success but I haven't read it).

Both proved much better for airplane trips than the silly films you can hardly see on a tiny screen with poor color and low quality earphones.

The Tipping Point is the more useful of the two (for some of us, hopefully): it describes why some products succeed at viral marketing and others don't. Gladwell's thesis is that marketing epidemics (and other ones, too) succeed when they have three things going for them: That you've got the right people spreading the word, that your product is sticky, and the context is right.

There are three kind of "right people". The ones who know everybody and their cousin, and always tell people about things (he calls these the Connectors). The ones who really know what they're talking about so recommendations from them bear weight (the Mavens). And the Salesmen, meaning the people who convince you you really can't live without whatever it is they're peddling.

Sound easy enough, doesn't it? But that's only the first of three conditions. Whatever it is you're peddling has to be sticky, which means your attention stays with it or returns to it for long enough for you to adopt it (buy it), and also tell all the other folks. Finally, you've got to have the context right – and I don't see how that can be done in most cases, though Gladwell makes it sound easier than it is.

Emanuel Rosen, in his The Anatomy of Buzz Revisited: Real-life lessons in Word-of-Mouth Marketing, follows many of the same ideas, in a book which is more of a manual and less fun to read. Gladwell is for the stimulation, Rosen is for making it happen, I suppose.

Blink is not a practical book at all. It talks at length about how sometimes we're very good at getting something right instantaneously, especially very complex things; then again, sometimes we're not good at it at all. He introduces us to the idea of "thin slicing", which basically means the ability to relate to the very small number of things which truly matter in a situation, while disregarding all the noise. The rest of the book is about knowing when you've thin-sliced correctly or not, and how in some cases it's possible to think matters through and train yourself to go for the essentials and dump all the rest. It's a fun book, but not fully convincing: life, I fear, is more complex, sometimes, to the extent that whatever rules you might wish to deploy so as to reach thin slicing, well, sometimes they'll work, and other-times they won't.

No Negotiations for Peace

Powerline analyzes the two recent editorials an Obama's Israel-policy. The one in the New York Times is hopeful and supportive, whle recongnizing there's a problem. The one on the Washington Post is more critical, and contains a crucial point:

But the administration also is guilty of missteps. Rather than pocketing Mr. Netanyahu's initial concessions -- he gave a speech on Palestinian statehood and suggested parameters for curtailing settlements accepted by previous U.S. administrations -- Mr. Obama chose to insist on an absolutist demand for a settlement "freeze." Palestinian and Arab leaders who had accepted previous compromises immediately hardened their positions; they also balked at delivering the "confidence-building" concessions to Israel that the administration seeks. Israeli public opinion, which normally leans against the settler movement, has rallied behind Mr. Netanyahu. And Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations, which were active during the Bush administration's final year, have yet to resume.

Rather damning, if you ask me: When George Bush was President talks between Israelis and Palestinians were intense, and eventually led Ehud Olmert to make concessions his voters never authorized him to make. The Palestinians, assuming Obama would win the elections in the US, saw no need to respond to Olmert's offer. That was in September, and now we're in August. Ten months have passed, seven of them with President Obama, and there are no talks underway at all.

Powerline doesn't see how Obama can fix things:

As a far more cogent editorial in the Washington Post explains, therein lies the folly of Obama's overbearing demands regarding settlements: it put him in a position where, to be seen in Israel as an honest broker, he now must act in ways that would undermine his status with the Arabs. Had he accepted Israel's concessions on settlements and not overreached, he would not have stumbled into this dilemma.

Israel's Report on the Gaza Operation

Israel has published a report on the Gaza Operation. It's apparently not final, since some of the IDF investigations have yet to be completed, but it deals with a whole plethora of issues, from law and international law to methods of waging war and civilian casualties.

The summary is here; the full report is here.

I intend to read it next week (164 pages), and then I'll come back and comment. I recommend other people join me in doing so. You also might want to see who in the media and blogosphere is relating to it and how.

Since I haven't read it I can't comment on its content. I do however look forward to people relating to its content in a rational way. Statements such as "this is Israeli propaganda, we know that in advance" are not helpful. If anyone reads it and can then explain why it's simply propaganda, I'm listening.

Energy from the Jerusalem Sun

We've got lots of sun this time of year. It's possible someone (actually, two someones) are close to figuring out a way to make use of it.

Responsibility to Protect

You'd think the idea that powerful nations ought to intervene to stop genocides would be a no-brainer. Of course, there's the problem that the sons (and daughters) of powerful nations need not necessarily pay with life or limb to clean up the worst messes humanity makes. That's a legitimate point. And you'd be sure to spot the danger that deciding where to intervene will always be subordinate to the politics of the matter. And of course, inevitably the malicious fools will demand intervention to stop Israel's genocide of the rapidly multiplying Palestinians.

Having said all that, however, I stand by my first statement, that stoping genocide is the right thing to do, even if it has been done only very rarely. My understanding is that it was even agreed upon at the United Nations back in the 1950s, when there was still some hope the United Nations might prove worth its electricity bills.

Apparently I was wrong. The UN is still haggling about the idea, and seems of a mind to drop it. If I follow the argument, it is that the likely candidates to stop genocide are the powerful, rich nations, while the genocidaires are often in poor, undevelped countries, and powerful-rich-vs-poor-undeveloped, poor and undeveloped always have the moral high ground. Or some such argument. Noam Chomsky is at the forefront of the people who'd prefer mass death to American actions to save lives.

Just for the record, by the way: one of the few cases I can think of where outside powers intervened to stop a genocide was in Cambodia. The Vietnamese invaded and stopped the slaughter, backed by the Chinese; most of the rest of the world condemned them for doing so. International politics can be a very strange place.

The End of Israel?

Here are some ruminations for Tisha'a be'Av, the 9th day of Av, on which we mourn the destruction of the Temple, a long long time ago. Could it happen again?

Because of its length, I've put this post over here.

Nastiness Inspired by Israel

Robert Mackey at the New York Times tells a troubling story about what he calls India's Wall of Death.

Well, sort of. Actually he tells a rambling tale that starts with Indian women who have joined the Border Security Force. Since most of us have never heard of the BSF, he helpfully sends us to a recruiting film they've posted on You-Tube, while smirking about its resemblance to Bollywood films. I assume such a film fits into a context its intended Indian audience recognize, and which the rest of us don't, so perhaps the smirk is unwarranted. The article then wanders on to tell how violent the BSF is - even their own website says so - and then it brings various people who tell that the violence is unjustified and wanton. Since they say so it must be true, apparently, because Mackey wastes no time on any attempt to figure out what's really going on. You might be interested to hear that while he cites a statistic from the BSF website about 4,814 people they've killed in 19 years, and sets this up so we think they were mostly innocent villagers, he fails to cite the number from the same webpage whereby 1,375 BSF men have also died. I guess the innocent villagers were armed and shot back. Or perhaps sometimes shot first. It's hard to know if you parachute into the story from the stratosphere and immedately begin pontificating.

The BSF link, by the way, is here. Mackey forgot to add it.

Having introduced us to an organization we'd never heard of, poked fun at its self image by choosing one item divorced from any context, convinced us it's an outfit of bloodthirsty gunslingers which routinely kills villagers, he then embeds a British Channel 4 film to prove the whole thing. If there are pictures in a film, it must be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

Finally, having convinced us this is an ugly story, he informs us the Indian fence was inspired by Israel, and he helpfully recommends we read what he calls a "fascinating article" published by an Indian we know nothing about in a UAE newspaper. UAE, in case you don't know and he doesn't tell, is United Arab Emirates. Just the place to learn about Israel. So I read the fascinating article. The author knows about India, though I have no way of telling how acceptable his analysis is; he certainly knows nothing about Israel beyond a clischee here and there.

Parting shot: If Israel hadn't inspired the Indians, none of this would be happening, we're led to understand. Of course, the fact that lots of people are dying along the Indian fence, while the Israeli one has played a demonstrable role in saving thousands of lives goes unmentioned. (Yes, over the years four or five people have also died along it, but they weren't villagers tending their fields). The source for this nasty allegation? Jonathan Rugman, at Channel 4. Except that even as he makes this unsubstantiated claim, he also demonstrates how false it is, by noting that the Indians began constructing their fence in 2000. The Israelis began constructing theirs, I remind you, in 2002. Perhaps they were inspired by the Indians?

Top notch journalism, 2009.

No-One Really Cares About the Laws of War

The Guardian is an antisemitic bastion; the Mondoweiss people are beyond rational discussion. One reason why I return again and again to the Economist is that if they aren't rational, no-one is; if they can't get a story right, who will?

This week they've got two articles on the Pakistani war against the Taliban (in Pakistan). One, an editorial, mostly crows about how the Pakistani army seems to have won a round and must continue; the other, a descriptive article, is, well, descriptive.

Both tell how the army won, but in a most revealing way. Take the opening paragraph of the leader, for example:

LONG reviled for their reluctance to fight the Islamist militancy that they themselves helped unleash, Pakistan’s generals have a rare victory to boast of.
In a three-month offensive against the Taliban in North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), the army has regained control of the lofty Malakand region, killing hundreds of militants. This has done less damage to civilian life and property than two previous, failed offensives in Malakand. The local Pushtuns, over 2m of whom were displaced by the fighting, are now returning home. They mostly support the army’s efforts. (My italics, of course).

This observation is then fleshed out, just a wee bit, in the second article:

SULTANWAS, a once-prosperous village in Pakistan’s North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), is now a bomb site. Its white concrete houses, gaudily decorated thanks to migrant wages sent back from Dubai, lie in heaps. Debris that had billowed in great clouds after army jets bombed the village in early May litters the surrounding fields. The Taliban, who had occupied Sultanwas a few weeks before, had no chance; 80 allegedly died in the rubble.
Involving some 40,000 troops, the army’s action has been devastating. Over
2m have been displaced, in what may be the biggest unplanned movement of people
since the 1994 Rwandan genocide. Hundreds are reported to have been killed. Yet the army, which has received unprecedented public support for its attack on the Taliban, is claiming a great success.

Should we take a closer look? The Pakistani army bombed its own towns, millions of its own civilians became refugees, but no worry. There were fewer civilians killed than last time. How many fewer? Why dwell on such things. Were many towns pulverized - well, probably, since the article tells that billions will be needed for reconstruction efforts, but why allow such minutiae to bother us when a glorious victory over the Very Bad Guys has just been had.

The theory of Just War distinguishes between waging a just war (this one certainly is), and waging a war justly. Yet the more I follow the way we report to ourselves on the wars of the world, the more I become convinced this distinction is meaningless in the real world. Wars are judged bythe first criteria only. When going to war is justified, no-one cares about the way it's waged, if carefully or barbarically. When the decision to be at war is unjustified, no-one cares how careful the warriors are; they'll be damned. Though there's then a second twist, which is that if it's our country at war, we won't report on the full impact it's having; this would explain why to this very day it's basically impossible to find an honest reckoning of the two battles of Faluga, say, even tho most of the media really didn't like that war. But the "home team" effect over-rode their distatse.

If we're honest about it we must recongnize that Israel's wars are unacceptable to most of the rest of the world irrespective of the way they're waged, which is why no-matter what the reality is the reports about it are automatically the opposite from reports such as these about Pakistan (or Afghanistan, or Iraq, or have your pick). And the reason for this is profound and fundamental. It's not - as I used to think - that Israel insists on using military force in a post-military world. The world isn't post military. Just look at how the Economist eggs the pakistanis on: more! Keep on Going!

Where are the exhortations for peaceful engagement and seeking dialogue with the enemy since only that can ever succeed?

Now They Tell Us

Remember the article of faith across most of society from early 2003 at the latest, whereby George Bush was uniformly hated the world over, and his removal was an essential, urgent prerequisite for healing America's relations with humankind? I'll bet you've heard this line before, unless you spent the past six years in the Amazonian jungle, perhaps.

Well, it ain't necessarily so. People who preferred nuanced reality to articles of faith always knew that in Eastern Europe many people rather liked the American President, many in Africa likewise – and of course, those pesky Israelis demonstrated their general obnoxiousness by thinking him perfectly acceptable.

Now that the nightmare of his presidency is over and past, however, the Economist lets slip that actually, in the world's largest democracy and soon its largest country, Bush was much liked.

WHEN she landed in Mumbai on July 17th as the first front-rank visitor from Barack Obama’s administration, Hillary Clinton, America’s secretary of state, faced an unfamiliar difficulty. India was uncommonly keen on his predecessor, George Bush. In the words of Manmohan Singh, the prime minister, its people “deeply loved” Mr Bush for his efforts to strengthen bilateral bonds between the world’s biggest democracies.
At the heart of this strengthening was a nuclear co-operation agreement that made India an exception to the global counter-proliferation regime and a more legitimate nuclear power. By contrast, many Indians have looked on Mr Obama nervously. On the campaign trail, he threatened protectionism against their outsourcing industry. In office his team has paid more attention to Pakistan. America has also been paying court to China—against which Mr Bush had wanted India as a counterweight.

Carlo Strenger Proves his Point (Easily)

Carlo Strenger is a psychiatrist and professor at Tel Aviv University. I've known him, a bit, for more than 25 years, and have been following his rise the whole time. I've also started reading some of his books, though I don't think I ever read one all the way through. He's far to my left politically, but in a typical Israeli way, which means his life story is more complicated than that of many of his Western counterparts, and his positions often have more subtlety than theirs.

He has somehow worked his way onto the roster of contributors to the Guardian's Comment is Free (CiF), the paper's pseudo-blog platform for online discussion, and there he tends to write columns that would better fit into the local Hebrew-language discussion. (He also writes in Haaretz, but in an interesting twist many of us are familiar with, when writing in Hebrew his positions move even further from the center as he strives to ensure he's shocking us).

His most recent contribution to CiF is a classic case of setting up the yokels. He pokes fun at the knee-jerk fundamentals of too many on the Western Left (Israel/America always wrong; People of Color always right and so on), and tries to show why such positions might be unhelpful in explaining what's really going on in Israel and by implication, in the rest of the region.

Sure enough, the Loonies pile on in large numbers to prove his thesis by castigating him for being an Israeli.

I'm actually not suggesting you waste your time reading his column nor the responses to it. I'm just documenting the malaise, and reminding myself that it's virulence doesn't abate in the slightest merely because it's been a few months already since Israel was last capturing world headlines with some imagined atrocity.

Has Obama Already Talked to Us?

Jeffrey Goldberg took Aluf Benn's Op-Ed (which I linked to earlier today) and asked some folks at the White House if perhaps their boss ought indeed to talk to the Israelis. No, they told him, because he already has. The Cairo speech was directed also at the Israelis; the president strongly emphasized America's committment to Israel, condemned terrorism and so on.

This is true, but not relevant; indeed, if Goldberg is quoting accurately, the White House response merely underlines the problem:

I spoke to two senior administration officials who seemed to feel fairly
strongly that Benn doesn't understand what the President is trying to do.

One of the things Obama needs to address is our growing conviction that in his arrogance he underestimates our intelligence. He preaches that we need to rethink our positions while demonstrating very little understanding of the complexities we've long since worked through; he assures us public bilateral agreements made a mere four years ago never happened; he seems incapable of distinguishing between settlements even when the Palestinians have already recognised such distinctions, and his position is empowering them to renounce positions they've already accepted.

Aluf Benn, as I've said in the past, is a lefty journalist at Haaretz, a staunchly left-leaning newspaper. He has been criticizing Obama's methods of dealing with Israel, while explaining how most left-leaning Israelis think the same. If the best Obama's aides can say in response is that he doesn't understand the intricacy their boss is applying, I think they've demonstrated how Benn has got it right.

What You See and What You Don't

Fascinating article in the NYT about the ability - partially natural and partially acquired through hard work and experience - to recognize danger at a glance, before there's enough data to know what you know. The article focuses on the ability of some American soldiers to identify hidden bombs from afar, because of some minute detail that's "wrong". Much of the discussion is about the psychology and physiology of the matter: electric pulses in sections of the brain, that sort of thing.

Yet the story also demonstrates the opposite: that sometimes you can have something staring at you in the face and still be unable to see it. It starts with a true story:

The sight was not that unusual, at least not for Mosul, Iraq, on a summer morning: a car parked on the sidewalk, facing opposite traffic, its windows rolled up tight. Two young boys stared out the back window, kindergarten age maybe, their faces leaning together as if to share a whisper.
The soldier patrolling closest to the car stopped. It had to be hot in there; it was 120 degrees outside. “Permission to approach, sir, to give them some water,” the soldier said to Sgt. First Class Edward Tierney, who led the nine-man patrol that morning.
“I said no — no,” Sergeant Tierney said in a telephone interview from Afghanistan. He said he had an urge to move back before he knew why: “My body suddenly got cooler; you know, that danger feeling.”

At the end of the article, we read the rest of the story

That morning in Mosul, Sergeant Tierney gave the command to fall back. The soldier who had asked to approach the car had just time enough to turn before the bomb exploded. Shrapnel clawed the side of his face; the shock wave threw the others to the ground. The two young boys were gone: killed in the blast, almost certainly, he said.

The striking thing about the article is that it misses the central part of the event: that some Iraqi murderer purposefully used two young Iraqi boys (5 year olds) as a deadly decoy to kill Americans. The murderer knew the Americans would notice the children and want to help; he was evil enough coldbloodedly to sacrifice them for the purpose of killing Americans; and the sergeant, unlike the NYT reporter, was so profoundly aware of this possibility that it tipped him off to the danger.

Do you wonder where the murderer got the children? He didn't kidnap them as they weren't panicking; that wouldn't have worked. He probably knew them, and they knew him, and when he left them in the car he told them he'd be back in a moment and they shouldn't worry. So they didn't. But the Sergeant did.

And the reporter didn't.

Obama Needs to Talk to Israelis

Says Aluf Benn, writing in the NYT.

Third, Mr. Obama seems to have confused American Jews with Israelis. We are close emotionally and politically, but we are different. We speak Hebrew and not English, we live in the Middle East and have separate historical narratives. Mr. Obama’s stop at Buchenwald and his strong rejection of Holocaust denial, immediately after his Cairo speech, appealed to American Jews but fell flat in Israel. Here we are taught that Zionist determination and struggle — not guilt over the Holocaust — brought Jews a homeland. Mr. Obama’s speech, which linked Israel’s existence to the Jewish tragedy, infuriated many Israelis who sensed its closeness to the narrative of enemies like Mahmoud Ahmedinejad.

Natalia Estemirova: Hero of our Time

Every now and then - rather too often, regretably - I stop to write abut the deaths of faraway heroes. This week it's the Economist's fine telling of the harsh life, incredible humanity, inspiring bravery and, as a result, forseeable early death by murder of Natalia Estemirova, and many of her friends and husband before her.

It's an uneven world we live in, with extreme disparites between the lives we're given to lead. Ms Estemirova did more with the conditions she was born into than is reasonable to expect; this made her an outstanding person.

There are Settlements and there are Settlements

The NYTimes has a longish and mildly confusing article about the two largest Haredi settlements on the West Bank, Beitar Illit and Modi'in Illit, which together make up for some half of the growth of the settlements. The Haredi are far too complex a story for regular journalists, it appears, even the rather good ones at the NYT, who can't really figure them out and fall back on sterotyping and sound bites. Still, even in their clischee-ish rendition, it's pretty obvious the Obama team isn't doing anyone a service by predicating their peace-mongering on pretending these places are the same as Tapuach.

Which is precisely what I've been saying for weeks. So if you wish to exchange your subscription to the NYT to support of this channel, all you need to do is... hmmn. I'll have to figure out what I might wish you to do.

PS. Did you note the part about the 40-year-old mayor with three grandchildren?

Antisemitism in the UK

I was talkling the other day to a friend who employs certain types of British professionals here in Israel. To my question How bad is business these days with the recession-stricken UK, he responded that his particular line is booming, and he's hiring lots of additional staff; because of the situation, he's able to choose the best of the best.

How so, I asked? Easy, he responded. It's ever less pleasant to be a Jew in the UK. Israel is The Evil State, and people treat their local Jews as contaminated by it (my formulation). Haaretz reports similarly. So if it's ever less pleasant and also business is down why stay? Better to go to Israel.

Which means the British antisemites are strengthening Israel by pushing their most talented Jews onto our shores. Heh.

Learning War as You Go

I'm too busy these days to do much blogging. If business takes off, as it may, I'll not be back for quite a while. If it slows down, as it may well, perhaps I will. Since much of what I'm working at these days is in the US, well, yet another reason to hope Obama gets his act together, I suppose.

Anyway, the NYT carried a story today about the evolving war in Afghanistan. Apparently, both sides (Taliban and Marines) are carefully watching each other, learning, and adapting. This is one of the fundamental things about warfare: just when you think you've figured out how to do it right, the other side changes their rules and you've got to start all over again, including lots of mistakes on the way. Ah, and mistakes at war cost human lives.

I sort of wish, since the war's aleady happening anyway, the broader public which has forgotten what war is all about might educate itself a bit, and become a mite less foolish. But I don't think that's happening.

Israel Won the War in Gaza

Four months of calm on the Gaza front, with almost no rockets being fired at Israel, are the result of a strategic decision by the leadership of Hamas, reports Ethan Bronner.

“Armed resistance is still important and legitimate, but we have a new emphasis
on cultural resistance,” noted Ayman Taha, a Hamas leader and former fighter.
“The current situation required a stoppage of rockets. After the war, the
fighters needed a break and the people needed a break.”

Instead of shooting, Bronner reports, Hamas is trying its hand at a different sort of struggle against Israel, cultural:

“We are not terrorists but resistance fighters, and we want to explain our
reality to the outside world,” Osama Alisawi, the minister of culture, said
during a break from the two-day conference. “We want the writers and
intellectuals of the world to come and see how people are suffering on a daily
basis.”

This should be fine with Israel. If the Palestinians ever truly renounce force and turn to, say, Ghandian peaceful resistance, Israel will indeed cave in, and make room for an independant Palestinian state. Sure, there will be extreme quibles about the final inches (Jerusalem, descendants of refugees), but since a majority of Israelis long ago accepted that partition of this tiny land with the Palestinians is the way to go, if only the Palestinains think the same - I don't see the danger.

Contrary to what the Guardianistas of the world fervently believe, Israel has no joy from Palestinian suffering, and would vastly prefer they lived normal lives alongside us while allowing us to live normal lives alongside them.

In the meantime, if what is happening in Gaza is merely a tactical lull, not a strategic decision, well, the Iron Dome system is apparently rapidly approaching deployment; every day and week that pass without fire at Sderot and its region is a day or week less until we can stop the rockets when they return.

Presidents are an Unpopular Sort of Thing

USA Today has a real cool map showing the rise and fall of presidential popularity (mostly the fall) since 1945. You can plot the map all sorts of different ways to see the data from various perspectives. Having just played with it for a bit, here are some glum insights:
1. Presidents mostly end less popular than they begin unless they're Reagan or Bill Clinton.
2. Republicans and Bill Clinton are more popular at the beginning of their 2nd term than their first (but it often doesn't last). Democrats, not. (Except Bill Clinton).
3. There doesn't seem to be any correlation between popularity and historical significance (who'd have thunk).
4. The presidents with the stablest popularity (a relative term, mind you) were either mediocre with fine economies (Eisenhower, Clinton), or Reagan (who also has a reasonable economy most of the time, come to think of it, but wasn't mediocre).
5. The most popular president ever (since 1945) was Bush 2, after 9/11. He then plumetted, but contrary to accepted wisdom, he never got quite as low as Nixon. And Truman went lower even than that, if you believe it. Remember him? He's the annonymous one who stepped into FDR's gigantic shoes, set up the postwar world order, set the rules for the Cold War that eventually brought victory, and fired McArthur.

(via Contentions)