Dateline: above the garage in Portsmouth RI, 13 February 2005

Bill Steigerwald is the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review who interviewed me a while back for his regular segment. In this piece on Friday, he mentions the Esquire piece.

For the entire article, click here

The best and worst of Ayn Rand

By Bill Steigerwald

TRIBUNE-REVIEW

Friday, February 11, 2005

It's not easy being balanced when it comes to Ayn Rand . . .

Esquire, meanwhile, is looking editorially brighter and better these days, though it is still keeping its wheezing "Dubious Achievements" on life support. No one living can remember when they were last funny, but 2004's verbal/visual look at war, politics and scandal elicits a few chuckles.

Actually, there are more genuine laugh lines in professor Thomas P.M. Barnett's piece, "Mr. President, Here's How to Make Sense of Your Second Term, Secure Your Legacy, and, Oh Yeah, Create a Future Worth Living."

Barnett, a professor at the U.S. Naval War College, is one of the hottest American war policy experts in D.C., thanks to his info-taining power-point presentations to Pentagon brass and his best seller "The Pentagon's New Map."

Barnett says the long-term success of President Bush's big-bang strategy to democratize the Middle East and end terrorism hinges on two global bit players thousands of miles away -- North Korea and Taiwan.

Either country, Barnett warns, "is a threat to pull the president's attention away from the Middle East while simultaneously torpedoing the most important strategic relationship America has right now" -- the one with China.

Meanwhile, wielding an entertaining mix of pop culture references and Pentagonese, Barnett -- who likes Bush and agrees with his big-bang strategy -- says the road to lasting peace in Jerusalem and Baghdad starts in Tehran and ends in Beijing.

Talk about dubious achievements. Barnett's tour of the globe's hotspots and recommendations for U.S. military or political intervention is a wild, fun-filled ride that could make Condi Rice dizzy -- and Pat Buchanan cry.

COMMENTARY: Ah yes, the pop strategist strikes again. Still, there's much good to be had in making strategic thought real and important right now. With the Echo Boomers (1982-1995) coming online in a big way socially (already online in a big way technologically and in terms of consumer power), someone needs to reach back to that group, because it's very goal-oriented, very naive about the world, very ambitious about changing that world, and incredibly multi-kulti in its tolerance and political orientation. They are a natural SysAdmin generation.