Deja vu all over again

As the historian John Lewis Gaddis has written, "It was not that the Americans lacked the capacity to force their allies into line.. . .What is surprising is how rarely this happened; how much effort the United States put into persuading — quite often even deferring to — its NATO partners."

I thought this was an interesting quote when I saw it in the middle of a long essay the historian Peter Beinart wrote for the April 30th New York Times Magazine.

Oddly enough, when I googled it later, not only did it pop up on the Times website--but the Washington Post's as well. In slightly different form, as part of Beinert's opinion column on June 1:

As the historian John Lewis Gaddis has written, "It was not that the Americans lacked the capacity to force their allies into line . . . [but] what is surprising is how rarely this happened; how much effort the United States put into persuading -- quite often deferring to -- its NATO partners."

My original point was going to be something about how true power is when you choose not to exercise it, and instead do the hard work of persuasion, relying on the same weapons that your opponents or allies have, without thinking in the back of your mind if all else fails I can always nuke them.

I was going to cite the scenes in Schindler's List where Liam Neeson talks to the Nazi camp commadant (Ralph Fiennes) about how real power is when you choose to 'pardon' someone... but how per usual Spielberg is only half right, missing that telling someone you pardon them isn't powerful, just doing it and keeping it to yourself is.

I was going to wax eloquent on Iraq, arrogance, international organizations, Republicans, Gibbons, and history measured in centuries.

But instead I find myself wondering what the heck is going on at the Post? They won more Pulitzers than the Times this year, but they're okay with running what's essentially the Cliffs Notes version of the Times article? Did his editor not notice?

Very odd. Obviously the same news quotes frequently appear in different articles published in different newspapers. But most papers have a pretty strict policy for their op-ed pages, that they won't reprint something that's already appeared elsewhere. Not just quote-wise, but idea-wise as well.

Yo Post--you guys can run with the big dog now, at least when it comes to politics. You don't have to settle for history repeating itself.

Uncredited photo of Beinart in various places on the web.