Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (17878)	2/4/2002 1:37:27 AM
From: tekboy	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

let's put it this way: Ross has been more identified with U.S. policy toward the Arab-Israeli confict over the last decade than anybody else, including Clinton (since unlike Clinton he was there from Madrid on). In the year since he's left, he's starting taking positions that are closer to those of his harshest critics than they are to what he's advocated publicly for years. So there are four possibilities: 1. He was right then and is wrong now. 2. He was wrong then and is right now. 3. He was right then and is right now, because he actually took a different line in private while in office than the one his administration took in public. 4. He was right then and is right now, because circumstances changed at precisely the time his job did, making his old views obsolete and his new views appropriate. If (1) is correct, we shouldn't listen to him because he's wrong. If (2) is correct, we shouldn't listen to him because he has bad judgment. If (3) is correct, we shouldn't listen to him because he can't really be trusted. So the only scenario under which his current comments would be authoritative is (4), which is what you are saying is the case. You might be right, and since he has given such yeoman service to this country and the cause of Mideast peace, I and other potential critics should pause before casting aspersions on his motives. Still, before I dismiss the notion that a major influence on his current statements is a desire to mend fences with the right, I'd like to see an extensive explanation from him of just what changed when he left office, and why that change was so dramatic as to call for what often seem an entirely new set of positions. Both Ross and Indyk, the two architects of the Clinton mideast policy, are currently writing memoirs of their time in office, so I suppose we'll all be in a better position to answer these questions down the road a bit... tb@verdict:notproven.com