Friday, October 15, 2010

Friday Nitpicking

Ok, so this criticism is pretty picayune, but in his recent review of Tony Blair's new memoir, A Journey: My Political Life, Fareed Zakaria writes the following sentence: "The fact is that Bill Clinton and Tony Blair were the two most successful political figures in the post-cold-war world because they understood the essential truth of economic policy in our times, which is centrist pragmatism."


Here is a one-question exam:


In fifty years, which of the following political figures will loom largest in the history of the post-Cold War era:


A) Tony Blair


B)Bill Clinton


C) Nelson Mandela


Even using Zakaria's own standard of centrist economic pragmatism, and even ignoring the decades before 1990, the answer is C.



[Crossposted]

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Professor Catsam how are you? I found Nelson Mandela to be an amazing person, especially politically speaking. I truly enjoyed reading and learning about him. I hope all is well with you and that classes are going well.
The Best
JB