The enduring myth about 'The Ugly American'

A watched pot never boils, but a watched candidate had better not boil over or his/her political foes will make a tempest of what he says. The sheer stamina of the three presidential candidates — two of them, Obama and Clinton, jousting feverishly with each other for the privilege of doing greater battle with the other, McCain — is breathtaking. Their every word, almost their very breath, is analyzed for a possible slip that can be exploited for political advantage. The marvel is that they maintain at least a veneer of civility.

But the focus of the political campaign has changed markedly. The tragically misconceived war in Iraq is still an open sore we have been unable to heal, draining precious lives and resources.  But the more immediate concern of the body politic is now jobs and what is happening to the economy.

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Here is an opportunity for the candidates to articulate their philosophies, but also a caution against being too specific. For example, both Clinton and Obama have taken potshots at the North American Free Trade Agreement that links this country with Canada and Mexico, implying that it has been responsible for the export of jobs and hinting that they would like to amend the terms.  Several studies of NAFTA refute many of the allegations. Moreover, if the United States were to try to reopen the agreement, both of our close neighbors likely would have some changes of their own to suggest that might not be to our advantage.      

 Similarly, the temptation to blame our difficulties on China obscures the real cause of many of the ills, which is the Bush administration’s policy of just letting the bills mount up and  borrowing to pay them, without asking any sacrifice to meet at least part of the cost through taxes.  Both parties in Congress ought to insist — but surely won’t — that a requirement be engraved in stone that henceforth anyone advocating a war must stipulate plausible means of financing it.

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Barack Obama has been on my radar screen ever since we met him and heard him speak at a newspaper conference in Illinois four years ago, when he was still a state senator.  I read and was impressed by his second book, “The Audacity of Hope,â€� but unaccountably had not until recently looked at his first book, “Dreams of My Father.â€�  What an incredibly rich background!  

The son of a black Kenyan father, who met his white mother while studying at the University of Hawaii before pursuing a Ph.D. at Harvard, the young Barack Obama spent four years with his mother and subsequent stepfather in Indonesia before returning to Hawaii. From prep school in Honolulu, he graduated from Columbia University and Harvard Law School as editor of the Law Review. He worked as a community organizer, university lecturer and civil rights lawyer in Chicago before entering politics in 1997. An unusually broad experience from which to seek to unite America and heal its divisions while facing its problems.

But I cannot resist twitting him for his mistaken description of a few persons his mother encountered in the U.S. embassy in Jakarta as “caricatures of the ugly American.� At the risk of boring readers, I repeat that the Ugly American was the hero of a novel by that title by William J. Lederer and William J. Burdick; he was the fellow doing the hard work in the American aid program in the Philippines during the 1950s while the handsome and vain ambassador looked on. In another incarnation I knew Lederer in Washington. He was a retired Navy captain.

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The well-intentioned effort of Jane and Bob Keiter with the assistance of Elyse Harney to promote the Ragamont House as a Salisbury history center has met emphatic resistance from persons who have worked hard for the historical projects of the Salisbury Association, the guardian of town history for 106 years.  Pieces of that history are found in several locales, in the Holley-Williams House now to be sold, as well as in the Scoville Library and, of course, the headquarters in the Academy Building where old photographs are stored and a detailed exhibit of Salisbury in World War II is in preparation.

Certainly it would be convenient to have more of the components of the town’s history more centralized.  But at a time when the financial resources of the community are committed to a new fire station and probable new transfer station, it would be extravagant to ask citizens to contribute yet again for the purchase of a building, however handsomely it has been restored, for which a real need has not been demonstrated. Other community needs, especially for more moderate-income housing, in my mind should have a higher priority.

Yet the exchange of ideas is useful, and perhaps some new venue for the Ragamont will emerge.  The criticism is sometimes heard that the Salisbury Association seems to be a closed corporation of “inâ€� people, and the organization needs to take care to refute any such impression. Town historians have contributed so much of their time and talent — Virginia Moskowitz, Norman Sills and now Katherine Chilcoat — to portray the town in its broadest terms.

Although the present suggested use of the Ragamont may not be feasible, the association needs to be careful to welcome new people and new ideas. History projects must include everyone who is interested; the more people who are willing to work, the richer the experience can be.

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What a glorious musical weekend — the seamless, almost liquid notes of flutist Eugenia Zukerman with her piano accompanist, Anthony Newman, at the Hotchkiss Elfers Hall Friday evening; the striking sets and appealing new performance of old favorite “La Bohèmeâ€� in the Metropolitan Opera simulcast at the Mahaiwe Theatre in Great Barrington Saturday afternoon; and the magnificent vocal and baroque instrument concert by Crescendo at Trinity Church in Lime Rock Sunday afternoon.  In this area treasures are at every hand.