The Holbrooke Factor

Roger Cohen lobbies hard for the inclusion of Richard Holbrooke in a very powerful role in an Obama administration. I would say the fact that this seems relatively unlikely to happen was emblematic of the reasons to prefer Obama over Hillary Clinton. I think nobody doubts that Holbrooke is an very able practitioner of a certain brand of diplomacy, but his judgment and substantive ideas about broad policy questions leaves much to be desired.

He's the leading light of the clan of self-proclaimed "national security Democrats", that faction of the party sufficiently "serious" about foreign affairs to have seen the deep wisdom of a costly and destructive invasion of Iraq. Holbrooke's big critique of the war is that "It was a mistake to seek the second -- and unnecessary -- Security Council resolution. I wrote an op-ed about this six weeks before the disaster in The Washington Post, and predicted that we were heading into a diplomatic train wreck, so this is not simply hindsight."

Comments

"Lovvies?" I kind of like that one, especially when you're talking about Cohen.

Posted by mwg | July 10, 2008 7:26 AM

"Lovvies"? Jesus, I can't believe you get paid to do this...

Posted by A New Fox News Fan | July 10, 2008 7:32 AM

Is Cohen trying to show the corruption of the foreign-policy elites? Not one word about Holbrooke's views, just a lot of hoo-hah about how he deserves a role because he is one of the in-crowd, and a lot of guff about Holbrooke's personal qualities and relations. (Well, Cohen does mention Holbrooke's work in Bosnia, but given how much space he had that's very thin.)

Posted by Matt Weiner | July 10, 2008 8:07 AM

If you liked Bush administration foreign policy, you'll love Holbrooke.

He's pushy, arrogant, "US is always right and helpful" jerk. He was supposedly first in line to be Secretary of State for both Kerry and Clinton, which is the worst plug you can get.

The Beltway--where "qualifications" is the same as "connections."

Posted by some guy | July 10, 2008 10:01 AM

My father is a retired diplomat who worked with Holbrooke. He is also an Obama supporter. He can't stand Holbrooke and thinks it would be a horrible mistake for Obama to bring him into his administration.

Posted by cnnr | July 10, 2008 10:08 AM

I am a retired diplomat who knows Richard Holbrooke. Holbrooke is an asshole. Enough said.

Posted by Traven | July 10, 2008 10:53 AM

Retired diplomats read Matt Yglesias? Cool!

Posted by Mike | July 10, 2008 11:04 AM

Back when I liked Obama enough to be exercised about arguing against Clinton's nomination, I frequently said that -- judging from her voting record -- the only objection that Clinton had (and has) to the Iraq war is that Richard Holbrooke wasn't in charge of it.

For better or worse, this distinction between Obama and Clinton still holds.

Posted by Eric Scharf | July 10, 2008 11:43 AM

My father is a retired diplomat who worked with Holbrooke. He is also an Obama supporter. He can't stand Holbrooke and thinks it would be a horrible mistake for Obama to bring him into his administration.

Posted by cnnr | July 10, 2008 10:08 AM

I am a retired diplomat who knows Richard Holbrooke. Holbrooke is an asshole. Enough said.

Posted by Traven | July 10, 2008 10:53 AM

I too grew up in the Foreign Service; Holbrooke was Assistant Under Secretary of Sate for SEAsia, back when the US send arms via Sianouck to the Khmer Rouge. I agree with cnnr and TRaven.

Posted by djeri | July 10, 2008 12:18 PM

A "national security Democrat" (they also go by the name of Liberal Hawk) is a man or woman whose greatest fear in life is that some low rent conservatist dipshit will call them a pussy. Obama is not infected with their disease and he should stay away.

Posted by silviodante | July 10, 2008 12:43 PM

He's pushy, arrogant, "US is always right and helpful" jerk. He was supposedly first in line to be Secretary of State for both Kerry and Clinton, which is the worst plug you can get.

And for Gore in 2000. Hopefully we've gotten that bug (Holbrooke as Secretary of State) out of our system.

Posted by Andrew | July 10, 2008 1:19 PM

On the question of Holbrooke being an asshole: my assumption has been that all very ambitious and successful people are assholes -- on the theory that a willingness to be an asshole to get what you want is one of the things that differentiates the very-successful from the moderately- or not-very-successful.

(Hence I assume that Matthew Yglesias, a quite successful blogger, is an asshole. Along, probably, with all of his friends.)

Now, I know exactly zero very-successful people personally, so I don't have even anecdotal evidence to back this up. But it seems like others on this thread might. Am I all wrong in this?

(No, I don't really think MY is an asshole. I was trying to be funny. The thing about his friends, though, is dead serious.)

Posted by social democrat | July 10, 2008 2:38 PM

"Jesus, I can't believe you get paid to do this..."

Does anybody get paid at The Atlantic? Clearly their IT staff doesn't the way their stupid server works.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | July 10, 2008 5:50 PM

I think they have to pay to work here, don't they?

Holbrooke is almost certainly an asshole, but as social democrat astutely points out, some jobs call for an asshole. I think Holbrooke is a talent in this regard that won't go to waste in the first Obama term.

Posted by robert powell | July 10, 2008 8:03 PM

social democrat and robert powell: I know and have known many "very successful" people. And you are right: most of them are real assholes. But the best of them knows how to filter that, and are only assholes to the people they need and can simultaneously afford to kick to the curb.

Re: Holbrooke in particular: My father worked at the State Department, and was himself a successful career diplomat who got where he did from talent and hard work rather than connections(and maybe a degree of assholeness, although I didn't experience it). As a diplomat, he came into contact with a lot of very successful people, in politics, journalism, and business as well as the foreign service. So if he thinks that Obama would be making a big mistake to hire Holbrooke, I think his definition of "asshole" is probably more specific and substantive than just a personality he dislikes.

Posted by cnnr | July 10, 2008 9:45 PM