Althouse: "I am the kind of person who would not be in the least surprised if, in the very middle of my Presidency, I were to be summoned and led off to stand trial before some shadowy tribunal..."

November 28, 2014

"I am the kind of person who would not be in the least surprised if, in the very middle of my Presidency, I were to be summoned and led off to stand trial before some shadowy tribunal..."

"... or taken straight to a quarry... Nor would I be surprised if I were to suddenly hear the reveille and wake up in my prison cell, and then, with great bemusement, proceed to tell my fellow prisoners everything that had happened to me in the past six months... The lower I am, the more proper my place seems; and the higher I am, the stronger my suspicion that there has been some mistake."

Czech President Václav Havel said in 1990.

19 comments:

khematite@aol.com said...: Those Czechs can be so Kafkaesque.; 11/28/14, 12:07 PM
campy said...: Going by the headline, I figured the speaker was Obama.

He's that much of a drama queen.; 11/28/14, 12:20 PM
Ann Althouse said...: "Those Czechs can be so Kafkaesque."

If you click through to the article, you'll see that he was openly acknowledging his affinity with Kafka.; 11/28/14, 12:22 PM
Ann Althouse said...: "Going by the headline, I figured the speaker was Obama."

Yeah, I made you do that.; 11/28/14, 12:22 PM
The Drill SGT said...: Havel was a real Mensch; 11/28/14, 12:37 PM
Fred Drinkwater said...: You can learn most of what you need to know about a guy by knowing who wants to put him in prison.; 11/28/14, 12:58 PM
James Pawlak said...: I can recommend another candidate!!!

We still have many armed Americans who will volunteer for THE firing squad.; 11/28/14, 1:02 PM
Birkel said...: When people talk about how anybody who wants to be POTUS should not have the job, I tend to agree. Vaclav Havel seems to be a man who did not want the job in his own country but accepted the responsibility in spite of his own apprehension. He was no climber.

I hope we can find a POTUS in 2016 who reluctantly answers the call. I hope they answer the call for the good of the country and not their own self-aggrandizement.

I remain, reluctantly, pesimistic.; 11/28/14, 1:36 PM
richard mcenroe said...: By the second excerpt you know it couldn't POSSIBLY be Obama. He couldn't show that kind of humility or self-knowledge if you threatened to send his kids to Gitmo...; 11/28/14, 1:54 PM
MadisonMan said...: That's a healthy attitude for a leader to have unless they verge into paranoia (I don't think Havel is) -- because it means they will constantly be striving to do better to stave off their fears.; 11/28/14, 1:57 PM
Kohath said...: Humility is a sign of wisdom. I wonder if US leaders will ever show any.; 11/28/14, 2:44 PM
Birkel said...: Wisdom, Kohath, is in incredibly short supply. Also, it's harder to demonstrate because there are fewer proxies that directly implicate wisdom. Wisdom is usually demonstarted in leadership positions and often in executive positions.

Obama displays almost no wisdom but plenty of calculation.

Perhaps a candidate with executive experience will be called to serve.; 11/28/14, 3:30 PM
William said...: The only truly anti-Marxist artists and intellectuals come from Communist countries.; 11/28/14, 5:01 PM
DavidD said...: " 'The lower I am, the more proper my place seems; and the higher I am, the stronger my suspicion that there has been some mistake.' "

The not-Obama.; 11/28/14, 5:02 PM
William said...: In the same issue of The New Yorker, there's a lengthy article on Angela Merkel. She grew up in east Germany. She was never involved in any protests against the government. Oddly enough, that's proof of her bona fides. Most of those so involved were Stasi informers......I wonder why Merkel doesn't have more of a feminist following. She succeeded in politics and in the field of quantum chemistry (whatever that is). Are feminist icons chosen strictly for their ability to annoy men?; 11/28/14, 5:12 PM
Birkel said...: Merkel complained that Obama was spying on her. Therefore she cannot have a feminist following.

Also, Merkel is not a fish in need of no bicycle.; 11/28/14, 6:30 PM
The Godfather said...: So Havel just kind of mentions to Gorbachev, in passing, that he was recently in the U.S. And he doesn't say, All I got was this peace pipe.

The implication is clear: The U.S. has my back. In 1990, that meant something.

Not the same message as Hillary!'s reset button, was it?; 11/28/14, 9:58 PM
Unknown said...: How people use the word "bemused" is often difficult to comprehend. I never use it myself as a result. It makes everything stop.

A "toney" way of saying "amused"? No.; 11/28/14, 11:06 PM
Gabriel said...: @William: he field of quantum chemistry (whatever that is)

It's quantum physics applied to atoms and molecules. It's theoretical chemistry.

I used to be a chemical physicist; there's a guy with the same first and last name as I have who is a physical chemist.

The border between physics and chemistry is hard to map, but the denizens of each region know each other by their shibboleths.; 11/29/14, 1:59 AM