Secretary Albright and President Bartlet

Just back from Barnes and Noble in Union Square, where Madeleine Albright was promoting her new book, "Memo to the President-Elect". She spoke well for 20 minutes, starting with an obligatory funny story—this one about flying off to China, when a Bosnian-born guard at Chicago airport recognised her in the queue for security at departure, told her she was a legend in Bosnia, and insisted on a photograph. The line of passengers behind grew restive.

"What was that all about?", asked a lady behind, when Ms Albright rejoined the queue.

"I used to be secretary of state", said Ms Albright.

"Of Bosnia?" replied the lady.

I enjoyed Ms Albright's argument that diplomacy was best compared, not to chess, but to billiards. You shoot a ball into a bunch of other balls and hope that the knock-on effects work out in your favour. But at least some of the knock-on effects will always be unintended and unforeseen—as Pakistan now is the unintended consequence of Western policy in Afghanistan.

The new book is half an explanation of how the national-security and foreign-policy apparatus works in Washington, DC, half a primer on the big issues likely to face the new president next year. Ms Albright suggests that newly elected leaders are often surprisingly ignorant of the mechanics of power, and from my own more limited experience I have to agree.

I remember discovering to my surprise (and delight) a few years ago that "The West Wing" was widely studied by political leaders in post-communist central Europe as a primer in liberal democracy. I met a policy adviser to a Hungarian prime minister who insisted in particular on the wisdom of a "West Wing" episode in which President Bartlet wanted a cure for cancer as his legacy. That was indeed what voters wanted, said my Hungarian interlocutor: a vision that swept them off their feet, not incremental reform that tried their patience.

....

I thought also of "The West Wing" last week when I came away from David Mamet's new play, "November", about a crude and unpopular American president (no, you guess) in his last weeks of office. It has a slow start, picks up speed and confidence for a marvellous middle hour, then collapses into a silly-slapstick conclusion. Terrible plot, lifted by some wonderful lines—the president says, of a prospective bribe: "I want a number so high that even a dog can't hear it."

"November" is opportunistic rather than profound—which makes it less useful, as a study in power and corruption, than the real-life politics that it seeks to ridicule. And, by attempting to depict life in the Oval Office with any measure of truth (even poetic truth), it demands a comparison with "The West Wing" from which it comes off poorly. Happpily, "November" is less than two hours long, and Nathan Lane is terrific as the president. Recommended in this production, but the play would not survive a lesser actor.

First Proof  Politics  

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