Michael Barone: Holbrooke Thought Highly of Himself — for Good Reason
[Michael Barone is senior political analyst for the Washington Examiner.]
Reading Masters and Commanders, Andrew Roberts’s magnificent account of British and American leaders in World War II, I was struck by how many of them, working very long hours and under great strain, were struck down by heart attacks while in their 60s.
This doesn’t happen anymore, I thought, with the blood-pressure and anti-cholesterol medicines many of us routinely take.
But it does, as we were reminded by the sudden death at age 69 this week of Richard Holbrooke, who was working prodigiously as Barack Obama’s special representative for AfPak — i.e., Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Holbrooke was known in cynical Washington circles for his high opinion of his own abilities and for his self-promotion with policymakers and the press. But from my own observations and frequent interactions with him, I think that his opinion of himself was justified and that it is ludicrous for ambitious Washington insiders to castigate others for a trait they share....
Holbrooke began his career as a Foreign Service officer in Vietnam, and he became known for a memo prepared during Lyndon Johnson’s administration that described the war effort there as unwinnable. He was a junior member of the Paris peace negotiations with the North Vietnamese in 1968.
Unlike some of those responsible for America’s prosecution of the Vietnam War in the 1960s, he did not draw the lessons that the use of American military power was always counterproductive and that America was not a force for good in the world....
Read entire article at National Review
Reading Masters and Commanders, Andrew Roberts’s magnificent account of British and American leaders in World War II, I was struck by how many of them, working very long hours and under great strain, were struck down by heart attacks while in their 60s.
This doesn’t happen anymore, I thought, with the blood-pressure and anti-cholesterol medicines many of us routinely take.
But it does, as we were reminded by the sudden death at age 69 this week of Richard Holbrooke, who was working prodigiously as Barack Obama’s special representative for AfPak — i.e., Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Holbrooke was known in cynical Washington circles for his high opinion of his own abilities and for his self-promotion with policymakers and the press. But from my own observations and frequent interactions with him, I think that his opinion of himself was justified and that it is ludicrous for ambitious Washington insiders to castigate others for a trait they share....
Holbrooke began his career as a Foreign Service officer in Vietnam, and he became known for a memo prepared during Lyndon Johnson’s administration that described the war effort there as unwinnable. He was a junior member of the Paris peace negotiations with the North Vietnamese in 1968.
Unlike some of those responsible for America’s prosecution of the Vietnam War in the 1960s, he did not draw the lessons that the use of American military power was always counterproductive and that America was not a force for good in the world....