Talk:Jeane Kirkpatrick

Did she have any redeeming qualities in foreign policy? ClothCoat (talk) 08:55, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

The regular retcon of the Reagan Doctrine (and its underlying premise, really) is that if communism was ultimately taken down, nothing else mattered. Osaka Sun (talk) 09:00, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, and she didn't seem to get critiqued nearly as much as she should have been. As an American I find it horribly embarrassing she was head of our delegation for the United Nations Commission on Human Rights. Not surprised, really, but still embarrassed. She basically got away with everything she did. ClothCoat (talk) 09:07, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

Same as Kissinger, but the good news is that the history books will frown on them in the long-term. Once you past the lingering effects of the personality cult (ie. renewed interest in the Bay of Pigs or Douglas MacArthur's Korea shenanigans) you can't really defend these things. Osaka Sun (talk) 09:23, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

Certainly yes, but Kirkpatrick got to die a powerful diplomat and Kissinger will die before his actions really catch up with him. It makes no difference to them what history says once they're dead, and everyone will just forget anything that could be learned from their mistakes because they think they can control the situation, or because they want to show everyone they're not a pussy/"commie" in the foreign policy arena. It happens over and over and over again, Kirkpatrick was just more of an outright sociopath than these people usually are, making her especially memorable. ClothCoat (talk)

Irony? Perhaps, but not what was intended (I think)

The Kirkpatrick quote at the end is wrong. She didn't say (as currently claimed):

"Americans need to face the truth about themselves, no matter how unpleasant it is.", but rather

"Americans need to face the truth about themselves, no matter how pleasant it is."

This is why the late Chalmers S. Johnson coined the phrase "The Jean Kirkpatrick schools of analysis" to describe those foreign policy pundits which blissfully assert U.S. "goodness" as an inerrant given, exemplified by this George W. Bush quote:

"How do I respond when I see that in some Islamic countries there is vitriolic hatred for America? I'll tell you how I respond: I'm amazed that there's such misunderstanding of what our country is about that people would hate us. I am - like most Americans, I just can't believe it because I know how good we are."

I've therefore removed both the "irony" and "stop the clock" links, because they only make sense in the light of the misquote. ScepticWombat (talk) 09:28, 24 July 2014 (UTC)