Opinion - Georgie Anne Geyer

  • SPEECH DELIVERS DESPERATELY NEEDED MORAL INSPIRATION

    Georgie Anne Geyer - 18 hrs ago

    WASHINGTON -- Just as the toughest young Republicans were suddenly engulfing him in criticism over everything from targeting conservative organizations on taxes to covering up the diplomatic tragedy in Benghazi, President Obama gave what must be one of the best speeches of his political life.The speech came right smack at the beginning of Washington's commencement season, and the tale around town was that, even while everyone was expecting Obama to succeed dramatically in his second term, he already was riding for a fall. ... More »SPEECH DELIVERS DESPERATELY NEEDED MORAL INSPIRATION

  • MARATHON BOMBERS ARE PART OF LARGER PICTURE

    Georgie Anne Geyer - Thu, May 16, 2013

    WASHINGTON -- The one thing no one has suspected Dzhokhar Tsarnaev of being is a closet essayist. The idea of this young Chechen/Dagestani/Khrgyz man who, with his brother is accused of the vicious Boston Marathon bombings, making notes on his ideas had not entered the bio.And yet, as I write, news sources are reporting new information about Dzhokhar. Lying helplessly in the landlocked boat he was hiding inside of, in the small Massachusetts town outside Boston where they had fled, he wrote several primitive but revealing thoughts on the hull of the bullet-pocked boat with a pen he found. ... More »MARATHON BOMBERS ARE PART OF LARGER PICTURE

  • BLOOD AND VIOLENCE RUIN SPRING'S SUNNY PROMISE

    Georgie Anne Geyer - Mon, May 13, 2013

    WASHINGTON -- Strange that I had taken a week off, thinking, "This will be the most beautiful week in May, and I shall be free to bird-watch and perhaps even dangle my wintered toes in the Potomac." For this is the time in our nation's capital when every miserable barren bush, every poor droopy tree and every hopeful sprout suddenly blooms forth in red, yellow and orange.Moreover, Washingtonians themselves are joined by oodles of tourists, filling up the sidewalk cafes, asking interminable directions to places we natives don't know, and smiling in the sunshine. ... More »BLOOD AND VIOLENCE RUIN SPRING'S SUNNY PROMISE

  • OUR HISTORY SHOULD TEACH US NOT TO INTERVENE IN SYRIA

    Georgie Anne Geyer - Thu, May 2, 2013

    EDITORS: Georgie Anne Geyer is taking a one-week vacation and will not file columns dated for May 6 or May 9. Her regular schedule resumes with the column for May 13.WASHINGTON -- Turner Classics has been playing and replaying the great film "Lawrence of Arabia" this year. Perhaps this is some backward or perverted honor of the now-aging "Arab Spring," or perhaps it is simply because Peter O'Toole makes such a magnificent T.E. Lawrence, the desert-mad Brit who led the Arabs to moments of grandeur in World War I. ... More »OUR HISTORY SHOULD TEACH US NOT TO INTERVENE IN SYRIA

  • CULTURAL UNDERSTANDING IS LACKING IN BOSTON STORY

    Georgie Anne Geyer - Mon, Apr 29, 2013

    WASHINGTON -- The first time I met the legendary Sam Jameson we had tea in Tokyo in 1979. He told me with unwavering assurance why he was dedicating his life and talents to Japan.This tall, stolid Yankee with the open Midwestern smile had arrived in the island nation with the U.S. Army in 1960, when World War II had still not really ended. Parts of Japanese cities were still in ruins and mentalities were still mired in confusion. Gen. Douglas MacArthur, the brilliant American substitute for the emperor after the war, had gone home, but the future had not yet arrived. ... More »CULTURAL UNDERSTANDING IS LACKING IN BOSTON STORY

  • MURKY ASYLUM PROCESS CLOUDS SUSPECTS' U.S. RESIDENCY

    Georgie Anne Geyer - Mon, Apr 22, 2013

    WASHINGTON -- There remain many unknown facts about the Boston bombers from the faraway region of Chechnya, but perhaps the most important ones have not even been brought up.WHY were Chechens, of all peoples, even here in the United States? Why had they, apparently, been awarded asylum status by an American immigration judge? And does the present policy discussion about immigration law intend to correct the gross violations of asylum law in any new legislation?First, the Chechens. ... More »MURKY ASYLUM PROCESS CLOUDS SUSPECTS' U.S. RESIDENCY

  • FOREIGN OR DOMESTIC TERRORIST -- BOTH DEMAND OUR VIGILANCE

    Georgie Anne Geyer - Thu, Apr 18, 2013

    WASHINGTON -- From the beginning of our formation as a big and prospering new nation, we Americans have tended to underestimate one of the great sources of our wealth and, especially, our security.We did not like to think that anything outside ourselves was important to our success. But America had what few other countries had, and this factor protected us up to the end of the 20th century.I speak of the simple fact that our great continent has been a land protected by the arms of the two great oceans. ... More »FOREIGN OR DOMESTIC TERRORIST -- BOTH DEMAND OUR VIGILANCE

  • GORBACHEV DEMANDS REAL DEMOCRATIC REFORM IN RUSSIA

    Georgie Anne Geyer - Mon, Apr 15, 2013

    WASHINGTON -- Five years ago, I met and talked for some time with Mikhail Gorbachev on a beautiful island just outside Venice. He had grown dour and paunchy then, changed from the upright man who helped Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush overthrow communism in the 1980s.He didn't smile for three days during the conference we were attending, and when I asked him about democracy in Russia, he simply said that it would take time, as with any country, to develop a true working democracy. Then he sank back into his gloom. ... More »GORBACHEV DEMANDS REAL DEMOCRATIC REFORM IN RUSSIA

  • MAYBE FEMINISM NEEDS A NEW PERSPECTIVE

    Georgie Anne Geyer - Thu, Apr 11, 2013

    WASHINGTON -- It may be that I am the only American who thought that Barack Obama's off-the-cuff comments to California Attorney General Kamala Harris about her looks at a fundraiser recently were not only not "sexist," but were charming.If he had said, "Hey, lady, you're really a babe," one would certainly have had reason to complain. But all the president said in introducing her was that Harris was "brilliant and she is dedicated and she is tough," before adding that "she also happens to be, by far, the best-looking attorney general in the country."OK, let's test it. ... More »MAYBE FEMINISM NEEDS A NEW PERSPECTIVE

  • NEWSPAPER 'KID' FOUGHT CANCER LIKE A MAN

    Georgie Anne Geyer - Mon, Apr 8, 2013

    WASHINGTON -- Roger Ebert's death, and his funeral this week, are making the Chicago movie man even more famous than he was in life. He leaves us after becoming that unique and lucky man who for millions came to be a golden-voiced philosopher of the silver screen.Critics of American public life now fear Roger's loss means that newspaper coverage of the movies has essentially died with him. Could that really be? Roger and I, as it happens, were both newspaper people of the same great era of newspapering. We worked in the same city and in the same building. ... More »NEWSPAPER 'KID' FOUGHT CANCER LIKE A MAN

  • OLD MOVIES ARE LACKING THE NEW WOMAN

    Georgie Anne Geyer - Thu, Apr 4, 2013

    WASHINGTON -- Turner Classic Movies (TCM), which show on TV here in Washington around-the-clock, have had a strong and lasting effect on me. This is not because all of the movies are perfect or even that good. It is not because they improve my moral mettle. And it is not because they have taught me how to be Betty Hutton during the day and Greta Garbo after 8. No, it is something more.If anyone has addictively watched Turner Classics as I have, I wonder whether he -- or, particularly, she -- has any of the same responses I've been having. ... More »OLD MOVIES ARE LACKING THE NEW WOMAN

  • THE NEW COMMUNISM

    Georgie Anne Geyer - Mon, Apr 1, 2013

    WASHINGTON -- Oh, the devil for it! We had thought, or been led to think, by the reportage on Northern Africa and the ongoing activities of al-Qaida, that the French invasion of Mali in March had pretty much freed up the great old cities of Gao and especially Timbuktu.I had felt a particular rage toward these savages of the new Islamic caliphate, whose special talents seem to run along the lines of raping women, wiping out villages and burning irreplaceable historic manuscripts. ... More »THE NEW COMMUNISM

  • NEW TECHNOLOGIES OF WAR DEMAND NEW RULES

    Georgie Anne Geyer - Mon, Mar 25, 2013

    WASHINGTON -- At a meeting here recently with high-level Obama officials, a group of foreign correspondents had lots of time to ask them what we had learned from the Iraq War. It was, after all, the 10th anniversary of the start of that half-witted enterprise.Following all the usual dismal questions about how the George W. ... More »NEW TECHNOLOGIES OF WAR DEMAND NEW RULES

  • OUR FRIENDSHIP WITH ISRAEL MAY TAKE A NEW TURN

    Georgie Anne Geyer - Thu, Mar 21, 2013

    WASHINGTON -- Whenever the three words "Obama in Israel" have been mentioned together over the last four-plus years, the responses on both sides of the conversation have been the voices of negativity. It has been widely noted that Israel takes the United States too much for granted in simply assuming it can get any of the newest weaponry from Washington; and more and more Americans wonder just exactly what it is that they are getting from our "strategic friendship" with Israel. ... More »OUR FRIENDSHIP WITH ISRAEL MAY TAKE A NEW TURN

  • ANGER AROUSED BY WALL STREET GREED STILL SMOLDERS

    Georgie Anne Geyer - Tue, Mar 19, 2013

    WASHINGTON -- When President Obama arrived for his first term in 2009, my own delicate answer to the problem of the Wall Street financiers who were robbing the country blind was simple: "He has to hang someone!"He didn't, and so a shadow hung over his first term. My belief is that this was the reason many Americans couldn't quite swing with Obama. The president had never identified a symbol of a Wall Street that showed nary a modicum of regret -- never identified a symbol and then destroyed it in the kind of rage ordinary people were feeling. ... More »ANGER AROUSED BY WALL STREET GREED STILL SMOLDERS

  • CATHOLICS' JOY MUST BE TEMPERED BY REMEMBERING HISTORY

    Georgie Anne Geyer - Thu, Mar 14, 2013

    WASHINGTON -- It was a breathtakingly dramatic week, from Rome to Buenos Aires. It was a week upon which, it might well be argued, the basic moral principles of one-fifth of humanity depend. It was a week when a humble Italian-Argentine Jesuit intellectual became the new "Prince of Rome."One would have to be insensitive not to hear and almost feel the raindrops falling on the thousands of umbrellas of the faithful waiting in St. Peter's Square for the great announcement. ... More »CATHOLICS' JOY MUST BE TEMPERED BY REMEMBERING HISTORY

  • WASHINGTON COULD USE A SPOONFUL OF SUGAR

    Georgie Anne Geyer - Mon, Mar 11, 2013

    WASHINGTON -- For the last year, one band of presidential malcontents -- out of how many, one dare not guess at -- had it that President Obama was not meeting with his opposite numbers in Congress often enough to bring about some political bonhomie that might save the union.Why wasn't our leader having Republicans over for a White House meal (the "Take a Conservative to Dinner" group)? Did he really have to have dinner with Michelle and the children EVERY night for fear those two beautiful little girls might go crazy? After all, the presidency is a pretty big job and the kids do see him often. ... More »WASHINGTON COULD USE A SPOONFUL OF SUGAR

  • HUGO CHAVEZ: THERE WAS NO WILL FOR HIS WAY

    Georgie Anne Geyer - Thu, Mar 7, 2013

    WASHINGTON -- When I had the only interview that Hugo Chavez gave to an American in 1998, just a week before he was to be elected to his historic and somewhat wild-eyed presidency, he was a well-dressed chap who declared himself quite sure about who and what he was.At the time, when the hemispheric conservatives feared "another Fidel," the clean-shaven and charming Chavez told me in his beautiful mountaintop apartment overlooking Caracas: "I am not a communist, not a fascist. I am a Bolivarian, whose ideology exists as an ideology of liberty. ... More »HUGO CHAVEZ: THERE WAS NO WILL FOR HIS WAY

  • RUSSIAN ORPHANS PAY THE PRICE OF POLITICS

    Georgie Anne Geyer - Mon, Mar 4, 2013

    WASHINGTON -- On the surface, the story of Russia and its woebegone orphans is a sad but clear one, ending only in more anti-Americanism from Minsk to Pinsk and from the Volga to the Lena to the Ob.Somewhere along those byways, in post-Soviet Russia, Moscow decided that many of the massive number of Russian orphans who are in state-run institutions would be put up for adoption in the United States. Over the last 20 years, some 60,000 have been sent to America. But now the Russian state has raised a barrier against adoptions to the U.S. ... More »RUSSIAN ORPHANS PAY THE PRICE OF POLITICS

  • TWO IMPORTANT JOBS ARE FILLED BY TWO GOOD MEN

    Georgie Anne Geyer - Thu, Feb 28, 2013

    WASHINGTON -- I ask to be forgiven this once for being so lightheaded as to think we may be entering a new age. A better age. A workable age! I actually do think it is a more hopeful age.My reasoning is owing to the fact that two fine men -- two different kind of men from most of those who have led us for the last two decades -- assumed their jobs this month. It just happens that they are arguably the most important jobs we have in the nation outside of the presidency.I liked the way they both behaved as they entered their important offices with new confidence. ... More »TWO IMPORTANT JOBS ARE FILLED BY TWO GOOD MEN

  • RICH HISTORY LIES BURIED IN SAUDI SANDS

    Georgie Anne Geyer - Mon, Feb 25, 2013

    WASHINGTON -- When anyone with even minimal curiosity peruses the maps of the Middle East, one of the first things to assault his senses is the immense deserts that begin and seemingly never end from Tunisia and Egypt to nearly Yemen and Oman. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is ALL desert, including the magnificent but deadly sand hills blown into unimaginable forms in the wasteland that's appropriately called the "Empty Quarter. ... More »RICH HISTORY LIES BURIED IN SAUDI SANDS

  • TIME FOR ETHICAL AND MORAL REBOOT

    Georgie Anne Geyer - Thu, Feb 21, 2013

    WASHINGTON -- Random thoughts about America today as yet another great snowstorm threatens us at the gates:I'm trying to make some sense out of our leaders here in the nation's capital, but the thoughts do not yield to a cogent or orderly outcome.The Republicans are, as we know, somewhat fanatical about the government being responsible for everything bad -- from Genesis to changes in the weather -- yet think of this: If we're honest, so many events this winter are actually due to the vagaries of individual human beings. ... More »TIME FOR ETHICAL AND MORAL REBOOT

  • 'KNOW YOUR ENEMY' IS FIRST RULE OF WAR

    Georgie Anne Geyer - Tue, Feb 19, 2013

    WASHINGTON -- As impossible as it seems, it's been 10 years -- an entire decade in which so much else could have been done -- since our leaders sent us off to Iraq to do what only their psyches and egos could answer for.Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz -- they were largely the ones who reawakened their bitterness and anger at being stopped at the Iraqi border with Kuwait in the 1991 Gulf War, and not going to Baghdad to get the mass murderer Saddam Hussein.They never really forgot that insult to their manhood, and when President George H.W. ... More »'KNOW YOUR ENEMY' IS FIRST RULE OF WAR

  • ARAB SPRING TURNS TO WINTER IN TUNISIA

    Georgie Anne Geyer - Thu, Feb 7, 2013

    WASHINGTON -- When the "Arab Spring" came noisily to life two years ago, political analysts were nearly uniformly stunned that it came first not in the big, overpopulated, troubled countries like Egypt or Syria, but in smaller, prosperous Tunisia on the northern coast of Africa.The French government and press, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank: All verified that Tunisia, with only 10 million people, half Arab/Berber and half Italian/French, was "the" example for the Middle East. ... More »ARAB SPRING TURNS TO WINTER IN TUNISIA

  • WE IGNORE HISTORY AT OUR PERIL

    Georgie Anne Geyer - Thu, Jan 31, 2013

    WASHINGTON -- During the 1990s, when I was passing through Tunis while covering the Middle East, the country's foreign minister paused for a moment in his description of Tunisia's problems and spoke of how the Afghan war of the '80s had affected all of North Africa."We've been seeing," he said soberly, "the hundreds of young men from this part of the world pouring back across the north of Africa, angry and bitter after the Soviets finally left Afghanistan. Even though the Russians lost and the mujahedeen -- in effect, these young men -- won, they seem to have nothing to live for. ... More »WE IGNORE HISTORY AT OUR PERIL

  • KERRY IS FITTING SUCCESSOR TO CLINTON

    Georgie Anne Geyer - Tue, Jan 29, 2013

    WASHINGTON -- An old quote from President Obama has played over and over in recent days on television since his impressive inaugural address. In effect, he said that he was not against all wars, but that he was against the people who start them. ... More »KERRY IS FITTING SUCCESSOR TO CLINTON

  • OBAMA'S SECOND TERM MAY GIVE US NEW VOCABULARY

    Georgie Anne Geyer - Thu, Jan 24, 2013

    WASHINGTON -- The world may turn out to be not much different during Barack Obama's second term, but from what we have to go on now, the language to describe it certainly appears to be.All you've had to do, in these weeks since the election, is to listen carefully to the words used on both sides to describe the other's ideology or makeup. Each side is using not words that could be construed as insulting or nasty, but rather as politically loaded -- words that still have plenty of provocative history clinging to them.Words like "collective," for instance. ... More »OBAMA'S SECOND TERM MAY GIVE US NEW VOCABULARY

  • WE COULD LEARN A FEW THINGS IN NORTH AFRICA

    Georgie Anne Geyer - Mon, Jan 21, 2013

    WASHINGTON -- While never abandoning the possibility that I'm the one who is peculiar, I find myself considering whether the questions being asked on television about events in Mali and northwestern Africa are not, in fact, themselves notably peculiar."Why did we let the French get ahead of us? Why didn't we just go out there in the desert and clean it up?" one anchor actually asked. "It's been six hours since the attack," another put forward, referring to the Jan. 16 attack by Islamic radicals on Algeria's In Amenas gas facility. ... More »WE COULD LEARN A FEW THINGS IN NORTH AFRICA

  • 'ZERO DARK THIRTY' IS A WINDOW INTO THE FUTURE

    Georgie Anne Geyer - Thu, Jan 17, 2013

    WASHINGTON -- For those of us who think we have seen every war film Hollywood can offer, I have a surprise for you: "Zero Dark Thirty" rates up there on the topmost level with "Sergeant York," "From Here to Eternity" and "The Bridge on the River Kwai."Doubtless Americans are rushing to see it because they feel they know the "real story" about how American SEALs, backed by the CIA and special operations forces, were able to get Osama bin Laden.There he had been, the world's "most wanted" ideological renegade and killer, in a secret, grimy, three-story house in suburban Pakistan. ... More »'ZERO DARK THIRTY' IS A WINDOW INTO THE FUTURE

  • KARZAI'S CORDIAL MEETING LEAVES QUESTIONS UNANSWERED

    Georgie Anne Geyer - Mon, Jan 14, 2013

    WASHINGTON -- My, it is surely nice, after the cordial, cooperative visit between President Obama and Afghan President Hamid Karzai last week, to finally have some clarity sprinkled over our confusing wars.Unquestionably, the American president's words were the most reassuring as he spoke Friday at the White House: "The reason we went to war in the first place is now within reach: ensuring that al-Qaida can never again use Afghanistan to launch attacks against our country."Starting this spring," he said, "our troops will have a different mission -- training, advising, assisting Afghan forces. ... More »KARZAI'S CORDIAL MEETING LEAVES QUESTIONS UNANSWERED

  • OLD WARS ARE CONSTANTLY FOUGHT ANEW

    Georgie Anne Geyer - Thu, Jan 10, 2013

    WASHINGTON -- Step right up, ladies and gentlemen of America, for what is sure to be the best show since Lady Bird tried to teach LBJ table manners. We have come to a point in American history where the war-crazy Republicans are cursing two of the nation's greatest war heroes ... And who knows what the war heroes are going to do next?On the surface, the situation about to spring on the nation involves two fine middle-aged Americans. Both have brilliantly served their country in war and in peace. Former Sen. ... More »OLD WARS ARE CONSTANTLY FOUGHT ANEW

  • TALE OF ARMSTRONG'S TRANGRESSIONS ARE WRITTEN ON HIS FACE

    Georgie Anne Geyer - Mon, Jan 7, 2013

    WASHINGTON -- It may be my own quirky and subjective view, but it seems to me that Lance Armstrong's face has reflected more of his transformation over the last two decades than does his biography.I could, of course, be remembering wrongly, since I have never met the man and am working only from photographs in newspapers. Or it may be that I am misjudging certain expressions of his. But his face has become hardened, toughened and even contorted as he has gone through years of barefaced "innocence." He is now rumored to be on the verge of a confession. ... More »TALE OF ARMSTRONG'S TRANGRESSIONS ARE WRITTEN ON HIS FACE

  • OUTRAGE IN INDIA MAY BE HARBINGER OF CULTURAL CHANGE

    Georgie Anne Geyer - Thu, Jan 3, 2013

    WASHINGTON -- Many years ago, in 1971 to be exact, I was covering the Middle East for the old Chicago Daily News when I came upon horrific cultural practices being exercised on women. From the northern Arab states to central black Africa, young girls were being tortured in order to be "chaste" and "pure" as wives and mothers.So, of course, I wrote about it, certain as the rising sun that I would change those worlds.The practice that so enraged me -- and many educated Egyptian, Sudanese and Saharan women -- was known as "cliteridectomy," or "female circumcision," or just plain "cutting. ... More »OUTRAGE IN INDIA MAY BE HARBINGER OF CULTURAL CHANGE

  • SOFT ISSUES NEED ATTENTION AS A NEW YEAR BEGINS

    Georgie Anne Geyer - Thu, Dec 27, 2012

    WASHINGTON -- A new year is once again upon us. It comes, as they all do, with the soul of unbeatable determination. It's love at first sight, and then disappointment as reality sinks in. This year, the view over the cliff is harsh and unrelenting, waiting for us to jump.Yet while we are talking almost exclusively about the "hard" issues ahead of us -- economic breakdown here, currency rate-fixing in Europe, and guns mowing down our children -- our serious issues aren't necessarily the hard ones. ... More »SOFT ISSUES NEED ATTENTION AS A NEW YEAR BEGINS

  • NEW YEAR BRINGS NEW REASONS TO HOPE

    Georgie Anne Geyer - Fri, Dec 21, 2012

    (EDITORS: Geyer will file one column during each of the next two weeks -- on Thursday, Dec. 27, and Thursday, Jan. 3.)WASHINGTON -- I almost hate to say it, but I feel relatively optimistic about the New Year. Am I mad? Quite possibly. I am quite aware that we still face going over the fiscal cliff, 20 innocents were massacred by a crazy young man in Connecticut and fellow Americans have lost homes, jobs and respectability.But it seems to me that we may have turned a corner. ... More »NEW YEAR BRINGS NEW REASONS TO HOPE

  • OBAMA RISES TO LEADERSHIP IN WAKE OF NATIONAL HEARTBREAK

    Georgie Anne Geyer - Mon, Dec 17, 2012

    WASHINGTON -- If this was not President Obama's finest hour, one has to wonder when or where it will be.His speech before the disbelieving parents, children, clergymen and neighbors of Newtown, Conn., Sunday night carried through on the difficult task of being mournful one moment, intellectual the next and bitterly angry the next. Suddenly, unless I'm mistaken, the man who never quite became a convincing leader during his first term became a president one could believe in. ... More »OBAMA RISES TO LEADERSHIP IN WAKE OF NATIONAL HEARTBREAK

  • NO LAUGHING MATTER

    Georgie Anne Geyer - Mon, Dec 10, 2012

    WASHINGTON -- So now we know -- or ought to know -- when a hoax is not a hoax. The popular definition would seem to be that a hoax remains simply a hoax when everybody survives it. But the denouement of the case of the two Australian DJs who phoned the hospital where England's Kate was resting does not, unfortunately, meet that test.We all know by now that the nurse who took the phone call from Down Under has committed suicide and that everybody from St. James' Palace to King Edward VII Hospital, a favorite healing place of the royal family, is enraged about the foolish and frivolous prank. ... More »NO LAUGHING MATTER

  • NEW CHINESE LEADERSHIP THROWS OUT OLD FORMALITY

    Georgie Anne Geyer - Thu, Dec 6, 2012

    WASHINGTON -- We are now thankfully past the repugnant campaigns for political office in our beloved country. If there are any real rules about how our politicians should behave, one has to struggle to uncover them.American candidates spin their pasts so much that one can only wonder about their futures. Expensive negative advertising apparently turns some Americans on as much as it turns me off.So today I say, "Bless the Chinese." Yes, bless them all, from Shanghai to Shenzhen and beyond. ... More »NEW CHINESE LEADERSHIP THROWS OUT OLD FORMALITY

  • MIDDLE EAST DRAMA NEEDS SOMEONE TO TAKE LEADING ROLE

    Georgie Anne Geyer - Tue, Dec 4, 2012

    WASHINGTON -- First, there was that moment of hope in the Middle East. Even as Israeli troops massed on poor but ever-obstreperous Gaza's borders late last month, the world took a deep breath. A ceasefire was signed between Israel and the radical Hamas!Even better, the new Egyptian Islamic president, Mohamed Morsi, arrived confidently on the scene. It seemed that he would honor Egypt's peace treaty with Israel after all. ... More »MIDDLE EAST DRAMA NEEDS SOMEONE TO TAKE LEADING ROLE

  • MOVE TOWARD THEOCRACY IN EGYPT IS ONLY THE FIRST STEP

    Georgie Anne Geyer - Thu, Nov 29, 2012

    WASHINGTON -- One of the hallmarks of a good journalist, and especially a good foreign correspondent, is to bring to a story every bit of history and background you can beg, steal or borrow. This is particularly important when the story at hand is complicated and deadly. "Parachuting" in on a story without depth of knowledge, as many younger journalists do today, is virtually always a synonym for superficiality. ... More »MOVE TOWARD THEOCRACY IN EGYPT IS ONLY THE FIRST STEP

  • DEMOCRACY IS ON A ROCKY COURSE IN EGYPT

    Georgie Anne Geyer - Mon, Nov 26, 2012

    WASHINGTON -- When the first demonstrations and then riots began tearing apart Cairo and other cities of the Middle East almost two years ago, this unusual "Arab Spring" inspired many good people across the globe to outbursts of idealistic hope.Fall, ye autocrats, whether Mubarak in Egypt, ben Ali in Tunisia or al-Assad in Syria! For now cometh the new democracies never known in this biblical wilderness of authoritarian systems and structures!John F. ... More »DEMOCRACY IS ON A ROCKY COURSE IN EGYPT

  • GREED JOINS THE FEAST AT THANKSGIVING

    Georgie Anne Geyer - Tue, Nov 20, 2012

    (EDITORS: Due to the holiday, Geyer will not file a Thursday column this week.)WASHINGTON -- Most older Americans think of the Thanksgiving holiday as embodying the spirit of "over the river and through the wood, to Grandmother's house we go." They think of a jolly day whose bounty of blessings easily gives way to singing, swaying together beside a popping fireplace or walking through the snow after a good nap.Many still pause to remember that first Thanksgiving in the autumn of 1621 in New England. Plymouth Colony Gov. ... More »GREED JOINS THE FEAST AT THANKSGIVING

  • FAILURE OF MILITARY LEADERSHIP GOES BEYOND PETRAEUS

    Georgie Anne Geyer - Thu, Nov 15, 2012

    WASHINGTON -- Why did Gen. David Petraeus do it? Why did Paula Broadwell do it? Did Gen. John Allen do it at all? And did Jill Kelley do it next to the caviar?Those are the questions that have been hurtling around the hallways and reception rooms in our nation's capital. ... More »FAILURE OF MILITARY LEADERSHIP GOES BEYOND PETRAEUS

  • CASUALTY OF WAR

    Georgie Anne Geyer - Mon, Nov 12, 2012

    WASHINGTON -- When military officers, foreign correspondents or aid workers go to war, their world suddenly becomes an entirely new one. Nothing that was familiar is so any longer. They find themselves doing things they never before dreamed they would do. That, it strikes me, is most probably the situation former CIA Director David Petraeus found himself in, along with a beautiful Army reservist who was as much an obsessive on running long miles as "her" four-star general. ... More »CASUALTY OF WAR

  • LET'S HOPE MODERATION MAKES A COMEBACK

    Georgie Anne Geyer - Thu, Nov 8, 2012

    WASHINGTON -- Now that the elections are over -- and with them, at least temporarily, all the talk about the United States veering to the far left or the far right -- let us consider "moderation."The word did pop up occasionally during the 25 years of this campaign ... oops, I mean the many months of this campaign, in which we dutifully studied whether Barack Obama or Mitt Romney would be better for our digestion (so we wouldn't spit out our hatreds so disastrously) or our drinking (as we always tell our doctors, we drink "moderately"). ... More »LET'S HOPE MODERATION MAKES A COMEBACK

  • LEADERS FAIL TO CURB CASINO CAPITALISM

    Georgie Anne Geyer - Mon, Nov 5, 2012

    WASHINGTON -- Shortly before the election, new Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti, a distinguished economist who took the place of the fun-loving Silvio Berlusconi, was in Washington, and he paused several times to express his wonder at Germany's economic attitude."Why, they see economics as virtue," he expostulated wryly to Charlie Rose. "It is virtuous to be not in debt and to save. Power flows from virtue. ... More »LEADERS FAIL TO CURB CASINO CAPITALISM

  • OBAMA IS BEST CANDIDATE TO FACE CHANGING WORLD

    Georgie Anne Geyer - Thu, Nov 1, 2012

    CHICAGO -- Some lucky star was blinking over me in the unbelievable hours that a strangely tepid full moon was hanging languidly over the East Coast this week. By chance, I was in my hometown of Chicago when -- of all things! -- a tropical hurricane savaged the Northeast and brought acres of January snow to West Virginia in October.As Mitt Romney said perceptively on one of his campaign stops during the storm, "I don't think there has been a hurricane in Ohio in a long time."For me, as much as I hate to say it, these last few days have been lovely. ... More »OBAMA IS BEST CANDIDATE TO FACE CHANGING WORLD

  • DEVELOPING WORLD IS EYE OF THE STORM FOR WOMEN

    Georgie Anne Geyer - Mon, Oct 29, 2012

    WASHINGTON -- When the brave little Pakistani schoolgirl Malala was sent to a hospital in Britain -- to save her life after one of the poor examples of humanity who call themselves "men" in her country shot her in the head for wanting to learn to read -- my first thought, a sad one, was that she would never be heard from again.I also thought of that other brave Pakistani woman, Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, who was shot dead as she stood in a car while leaving an election rally outside Islamabad. ... More »DEVELOPING WORLD IS EYE OF THE STORM FOR WOMEN

  • AN ERA PASSES IN CAMBODIA

    Georgie Anne Geyer - Thu, Oct 25, 2012

    WASHINGTON -- Once upon a time, there was a handsome prince who lived in a beautiful kingdom in South Asia. His people loved him, and he loved champagne, beautiful women and his people, too. His life, however, was doomed, because it seemed that everyone in the world wanted to destroy his little country.Yet, when Cambodian King Norodom Sihanouk died in Beijing earlier this month, even those who criticized or reviled him had to admit that he was quite a guy. ... More »AN ERA PASSES IN CAMBODIA

  • DEBATES REVEAL SHIFTING VIEWS, SHIFTING PERSONALITIES

    Georgie Anne Geyer - Tue, Oct 23, 2012

    WASHINGTON -- What a strange campaign season this has been, the Year of Our Lord 2012!During the first presidential debate, we wondered who would get the dubious pleasure of waking up President Obama before the 90 minutes had passed, or who would tell him to stop nodding in agreement with Mitt Romney, the man he was supposed to be in a white heat to beat.In the vice presidential debate, Joe Biden was so hyper it seemed as though someone had plugged him into an electrical outlet. He was so busy making up for sleepy Obama that he all but "a-ha'ed" Paul Ryan into an abnormal calm. ... More »DEBATES REVEAL SHIFTING VIEWS, SHIFTING PERSONALITIES

  • THE STORY OF BENGHAZI IS STILL UNFOLDING

    Georgie Anne Geyer - Thu, Oct 18, 2012

    WASHINGTON -- No one was really surprised when the two candidates at the second presidential debate ended up arguing about security in faraway Benghazi, where beloved American ambassador Christopher Stevens and three aides were killed this 9/11 by terrorists. But at the bottom of the argument, there remained a strangely unanswered question.From the beginning of the debate, it was obvious that President Obama would defend his administration's wavering over whether the attack and fire were actually a "terrorist" attack. ... More »THE STORY OF BENGHAZI IS STILL UNFOLDING

  • EUROPE'S 'HOUSE OF PEACE' DESERVES ITS PRIZE

    Georgie Anne Geyer - Mon, Oct 15, 2012

    WASHINGTON -- Watching with special joy over the weekend as the European Union -- known in the neighborly "new Europe" simply as the E.U. -- was awarded the 2012 Nobel Peace Prize, my thoughts returned to three special moments in my life:-- During the early 1990s, when the Serbs' modern-day SS troops were rampaging through what had been Yugoslavia, savagely destroying everything and everybody in their wake, I would often stop in Brussels at the office of the NATO secretary-general, Manfred Woerner, the suave, handsome German peacemaker.That day he started to reminisce, passionately. ... More »EUROPE'S 'HOUSE OF PEACE' DESERVES ITS PRIZE

  • THIRTEEN DAYS IN OCTOBER

    Georgie Anne Geyer - Mon, Oct 1, 2012

    WASHINGTON -- So now we are already into October, the month when the presidential campaigns go wild or drop from exhaustion. It is the historical month of political surprises. We forget sometimes that it is also one of the most beautiful months in America, or that this year it is a month that tells us rather more than we want to know about nuclear showmanship. ... More »THIRTEEN DAYS IN OCTOBER

  • CANDIDATES BEGIN TO GRUDGINGLY ACKNOWLEDGE FOREIGN AFFAIRS

    Georgie Anne Geyer - Thu, Sep 27, 2012

    WASHINGTON -- In every presidential campaign, the theme at the beginning of the race rings out with the same words: Americans are interested only in matters at home! Who would be interested in Myanmar, whatever or wherever that might be? Look, Buster, we've got economic problems here -- is your brother working? And you, Missy --- how long since YOU had a job?China? Well, sure it's big, and it's somewhere near Myanmar, isn't it? Those Chinese were very good at building railroads out West, and they excelled at laundries. ... More »CANDIDATES BEGIN TO GRUDGINGLY ACKNOWLEDGE FOREIGN AFFAIRS

  • STEVENS MAY HAVE LOVED LIBYA TOO MUCH

    Georgie Anne Geyer - Mon, Sep 24, 2012

    WASHINGTON -- The main topic of conversation around Washington these last two weeks has not been about either of the presidential candidates, but about an American ambassador, a charming diplomat whose destiny should have been so very different from the one that finally met him. It's a tragic tale. Maybe you should drop off now.But the story of Ambassador Christopher Stevens in Benghazi on Sept. 11 is more than a tale told by madmen. It rings with the singular mourning that has swept unusual portions of the world following this fine young man's death. ... More »STEVENS MAY HAVE LOVED LIBYA TOO MUCH

  • REVOLUTIONS WITHOUT RESULTS

    Georgie Anne Geyer - Fri, Sep 21, 2012

    WASHINGTON -- Gone, gone, gone are those glory days when the idealistic young of America told New York and Washington just what they thought. (Well, almost.) Disappeared to some new zoological park are those yet-unshaped voices that dared to challenge the "Charging Bull" statue of Wall Street. (Well, sort of.)Out of sight now, the tents and the "revolutionary" romances, thrown together in the throes of the movement that would change America forever. ... More »REVOLUTIONS WITHOUT RESULTS

  • HARD TRUTHS ARE LEARNED HARD WAY IN MIDDLE EAST

    Georgie Anne Geyer - Mon, Sep 17, 2012

    WASHINGTON -- When the brutal attacks on 9/11 happened 11 years ago, there was an overwhelming mystery about them. Why would anyone do this to US? There was also a singularity about them, as though this was one attack, out of nowhere, meant to signify nothing except hatred of the United States. There was almost an accidental quality about the whole thing.Soon, we got a name for the group behind the attack -- al-Qaida -- and we went after it mostly in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. ... More »HARD TRUTHS ARE LEARNED HARD WAY IN MIDDLE EAST

  • MAKING SENSE OF NEW REALITIES IN MIDEAST IS GREAT CHALLENGE

    Georgie Anne Geyer - Thu, Sep 13, 2012

    WASHINGTON -- One of the great dangers of these last few days -- as American embassy after consulate after legation is brutally attacked in the Middle East -- is simply how easy it is for any wild-eyed fool to throw the entire world into terror.Any simpering idiot can take a picture of the Prophet Muhammad and make it look like Genghis Khan, Al Capone or a headhunter from the jungle. ... More »MAKING SENSE OF NEW REALITIES IN MIDEAST IS GREAT CHALLENGE

  • LESSON OF PAST IN CHINA SHEDS LIGHT ON PRESENT

    Georgie Anne Geyer - Mon, Sep 10, 2012

    WASHINGTON -- Attempting to rise above our "inspirational" political conventions last weekend, I gratefully picked up a book by the brilliant Barbara Tuchman that I had not read -- "Stilwell and the American Experience in China, 1911-45."This saga would surely carry me away from the increasingly oppressive policy questions of today, from the talk about decline and indecision among our ruling classes. Also, it is a big book, published in 1970; that probably meant that no intellectual smart-aleck friend of mine would argue with me about it.I settled in. ... More »LESSON OF PAST IN CHINA SHEDS LIGHT ON PRESENT

  • DEMOCRATS GATHER IN CHARLOTTE TO CHAMPION COOPERATION

    Georgie Anne Geyer - Thu, Sep 6, 2012

    WASHINGTON -- For Americans who watched the first nights of the Democratic National Convention this week, something important and revealing could be seen and heard: The party was explaining, point-by-point, what President Obama was actually thinking in his first four years.For the first time, the president's chronology of actions began to come clear even to professional political types who have been asking: "Why is he doing that? And now?"Why health care, during his first year, when it blotted out issues such as saving the economy? It still is a mystery to many, but Maryland's impressive Gov. ... More »DEMOCRATS GATHER IN CHARLOTTE TO CHAMPION COOPERATION

  • AFGHAN WAR LEFT OUT OF CONVENTION RHETORIC

    Georgie Anne Geyer - Tue, Sep 4, 2012

    WASHINGTON -- While the Democrats are meeting this week in Charlotte to ponder the last four years of their party's version of "change," the principles behind the wars we wage will surely NOT be among the major policy questions convention-goers will spend much time considering.From the Republican convention, a traveler from Mars would not have had the faintest idea that the United States, after 10 long years, was still involved in a futile war in a faraway land. Yet in the few days between the two party conventions, something revealing was occurring in Afghanistan. ... More »AFGHAN WAR LEFT OUT OF CONVENTION RHETORIC

  • ROMNEY'S MORAL INTEGRITY MAKES UP FOR LACK OF CHARISMA

    Georgie Anne Geyer - Mon, Aug 27, 2012

    WASHINGTON -- One sobering question about the Republican convention on the beautiful beaches of Florida haunts me even as, at this writing, the festivities are either beginning in Tampa or flying with windy Isaac out into the roiled waters of the Gulf. ... More »ROMNEY'S MORAL INTEGRITY MAKES UP FOR LACK OF CHARISMA

  • WISDOM IS GAINED FROM A SUMMER IDYLL

    Georgie Anne Geyer - Thu, Aug 23, 2012

    LAKE GENEVA, Wis. -- Since I was a child playing in these gorgeous Wisconsin lakes, I have had the pretentious idea that lying in the water on a plastic raft clears one's head of the drivel of exaggerated issues we worry about all year long.Lying there, I can almost feel the bad things in life and love and libido drift away in the waves.I am now supposed to admit that I have found, as an "adult," that I am wrong in this childish supposition. I am supposed to wring my hands and whimper (whimpering always helps) that this was nonsense and I regret my infantile foolishness. ... More »WISDOM IS GAINED FROM A SUMMER IDYLL

  • IN A WISCONSIN STATE OF MIND

    Georgie Anne Geyer - Mon, Aug 20, 2012

    ELKHORN, Wis. -- Growing up in Chicago, my mother, brother Glen, Mickey the dog and I spent three glorious months of the year at our cabin on a lovely lake near here. Dad came up on Sundays, after working hard at his dairy to give us "the lake."Wisconsin, you see, was more than a neighboring state. Wisconsin was the place to have fun. Once you crossed the border, you were free, a state of mind true Wisconsinites were not always enamored of. All the inhibitions lay behind, in the ashes of our parents', schools' and churches' dutiful admonitions. ... More »IN A WISCONSIN STATE OF MIND

  • ALAWITES' RULING POWER IN SYRIA WAS NOT ALWAYS THE CASE

    Georgie Anne Geyer - Thu, Aug 16, 2012

    WASHINGTON -- Almost any American, looking at the 18-month civil war in Syria, probably sees a conflict of Muslim fighting Muslim, of local Syrian militias linked to a region or town fighting to overthrow the hated government.These Americans would not unexpectedly equate the growing terror in a country formerly rich in commerce and in exquisite ancient ruins with the rebellions of the Arab Spring all around it.They would repeat in knowledgeable dinner conversation that, yes, isn't that Bashar al-Assad a cruel s.o.b. ... More »ALAWITES' RULING POWER IN SYRIA WAS NOT ALWAYS THE CASE

  • RYAN CHOICE REVEALS A BIT MORE ABOUT ELUSIVE ROMNEY

    Georgie Anne Geyer - Mon, Aug 13, 2012

    WASHINGTON -- Was Mitt Romney choosing his own dangerous version of Sarah Palin when he tapped congressman Paul Ryan for his running mate last weekend, or was he an FDR, moving into uncharted, but potentially winning territory with no apologies?In short, did he choose someone too far out and too little known or, if the Republicans win, could we be in for a Romney era of political restructuring? For that is what the Ryan program is all about. ... More »RYAN CHOICE REVEALS A BIT MORE ABOUT ELUSIVE ROMNEY

  • GOODBYE, SUMMER

    Georgie Anne Geyer - Thu, Aug 9, 2012

    WASHINGTON -- What a strange summer it's been:-- When we can fly to Mars, but can't pay our grocery bill to the Chinese grocer.-- When Mitt Romney runs for the presidency on everything that contradicts the good things he stood for when he was governor of Massachusetts and head of the Salt Lake City Olympics, and when he ignores the two wars that drained and deformed us under the last Republican president, but yet he would involve us in Iran, and thus Syria and God knows where else. ... More »GOODBYE, SUMMER

  • ROMNEY'S OVERSEAS TOUR IS ANYTHING BUT GRAND

    Georgie Anne Geyer - Mon, Aug 6, 2012

    WASHINGTON -- Even after his "grand tour" of Europe, presidential candidate Mitt Romney was still being criticized for (1) that old Bain Capital cross-to-bear, or (2) the Mitt-miffs he made in friendly places like London. That was where he questioned whether the English Olympic Games of this summer were as well-planned as his Salt Lake City Winter Games in 2002.But the real dangers of the overseas jaunt -- and that seemed to be what it was because it came across as so random and purposeless -- lay somewhere else. ... More »ROMNEY'S OVERSEAS TOUR IS ANYTHING BUT GRAND

  • AL-QAIDA'S IDEOLOGY IS SPREADING ACROSS THE WORLD

    Georgie Anne Geyer - Thu, Jul 26, 2012

    EDITORS: Georgie Anne Geyer is taking a week of vacation and will not file columns for July 31 or Aug. 2. Her regular schedule resumes with the release for Aug. 7.WASHINGTON -- Few Americans, even those who are familiar with the treacherous Russian landscape, know the amazing city of Kazan. It sits not quite all the way to the Ural Mountains from Moscow and is one of the most beautiful cities in the former Soviet Union. Kazan sits along the upper "Mother Volga" in Tatarstan, with a stunning white Kremlin built by Ivan the Terrible atop a hill where he could watch the river. ... More »AL-QAIDA'S IDEOLOGY IS SPREADING ACROSS THE WORLD

  • REAL VILLAINY STALKS OUR WORLD

    Georgie Anne Geyer - Mon, Jul 23, 2012

    WASHINGTON -- The suburban city of Aurora east of Denver seems the most unlikely place for evil -- true evil -- to come marching into our lives. Residents are browned from the sun or ruddy from skiing. Colorado has always been a center of good health and outdoor activity.It's the kind of place where, on a summer's eve, young people would get their best friends together and go to a movie -- a favorite American pastime. ... More »REAL VILLAINY STALKS OUR WORLD

  • CAN U.S. ENTERPRISE DO THE RIGHT THING IN BURMA?

    Georgie Anne Geyer - Mon, Jul 16, 2012

    WASHINGTON -- When I visited the vexing and beautiful country historically named Burma 10 years ago, even I was frightened by the terrified silence of the people. When approached by a stranger, they often ran in fright. One night in the elegantly refurbished old Strand Hotel, my effort to send an email to my office was the signal for everyone in the lobby to freeze in place.Outside, the streets, which had not changed since the British were in South Asia, were silent. Booksellers did not speak. ... More »CAN U.S. ENTERPRISE DO THE RIGHT THING IN BURMA?

  • FATHERLESS CHICAGO IS A WARNING TO AMERICA

    Georgie Anne Geyer - Thu, Jul 12, 2012

    WASHINGTON -- When I was a child growing up on the South Side of Chicago, my family would drive downtown across 76th Street, get on Lake Shore Drive around the University of Chicago and sweep from there into the ever-famous Loop. It was a sight that never bored us.In the kind months, when Lake Michigan was all shades of blue, Chicagoans could not get enough of the lake's wonders. We thought our city was beautiful -- but I have to say that in those years, even at its best, it was a tough, gritty, gray city of steel mills, Mafia hit men, and a river that we had somehow made run backward. ... More »FATHERLESS CHICAGO IS A WARNING TO AMERICA

  • LIBYA MAY HOLD BIGGEST SURPRISE OF ARAB SPRING

    Georgie Anne Geyer - Mon, Jul 9, 2012

    WASHINGTON -- In the years that I covered the Middle East, Libya was always kind of the crazy neighbor. The people weren't funny like the Egyptians, they weren't beautiful like the original Arabs of the Arabian peninsula, and if they knew how to gracefully sail boats like the Tunisians, surely they never showed it.Then when the glassy-eyed Moammar Gadhafi left the desert tent in which he had been raised in the vast expanses of Cyrenaica and Tripoli and ruled over Libya for 42 dark years, the country became even crazier. ... More »LIBYA MAY HOLD BIGGEST SURPRISE OF ARAB SPRING

  • DESTRUCTION OF TIMBUKTU IS LATEST AL-QAIDA ATTACK ON CULTURE

    Georgie Anne Geyer - Thu, Jul 5, 2012

    WASHINGTON -- The wonderful patriotic film of 1942, "Yankee Doodle Dandy," was shown on TV over the Fourth of July holiday, with all that movie's potential of making you want to march up and down for your country. The original Yankee Doodle Dandy was, of course, George M. Cohan, the great Broadway producer, composer, performer, dancer and singer, played in unlikely manner by tough guy James Cagney.At one point, Cohan and his wife have decided to quit Broadway and travel around the world. "You'll have to go to Timbuktu," his partner says. "We're already booked," the irrepressible Cohan answers. ... More »DESTRUCTION OF TIMBUKTU IS LATEST AL-QAIDA ATTACK ON CULTURE

  • OBAMACARE ENDS WEEK AT THE HEAD OF THE CLASS

    Georgie Anne Geyer - Mon, Jul 2, 2012

    WASHINGTON -- One has to wonder why so many Americans look down on the changes in health care. Even odder is why they would be critical of the part of Obamacare that requires everyone to have health insurance.It would seem that we have gotten the legal part of the fight more-or-less solved: Those who persist in not getting health insurance will not have to pay a fine under our interstate commerce conventions, but instead, a "tax" under our abundant tax regulations. If the whole thing is confusing to you, you have the great assurance that you are not alone. ... More »OBAMACARE ENDS WEEK AT THE HEAD OF THE CLASS

  • COURT'S RULING WILL LEAD TO HEALTHIER, MORE DECENT NATION

    Georgie Anne Geyer - Thu, Jun 28, 2012

    WASHINGTON -- It was such a great day that I'm of a mind to repeat the final words of "The Music Man," the musical about the bandleader-from-nowhere who comes to a small town in the Midwest and organizes the children into a great marching band. ... More »COURT'S RULING WILL LEAD TO HEALTHIER, MORE DECENT NATION

  • KENNEDY AND CASTRO

    Georgie Anne Geyer - Mon, Jun 25, 2012

    WASHINGTON -- One of the abiding mysteries of American politics in the last century -- the assassination of the beloved young President John F. Kennedy in 1963 -- never comes to any rational conclusion. The questions have remained so devilishly unanswered for so long that most Americans don't waste much time on them any longer.But every once in a while, someone pops up out of nowhere with another piece of the puzzle. At first you don't want to believe it, but then it makes too much sense to deny it. ... More »KENNEDY AND CASTRO

  • DISAPPEARING MANNERS GIVE WAY TO EVERYDAY HORRORS

    Georgie Anne Geyer - Thu, Jun 21, 2012

    WASHINGTON -- HBO recently aired a first-rate look at the first Bush presidency, that of George H.W. Bush. The title was, not surprisingly, "41." The program was somehow comforting, with lots of time for him to talk, in his charming mixture of upper-crust East Coast and funny slang. Eighty years old, this man has seen a lot, done a lot and, until now, been misunderstood a lot. ... More »DISAPPEARING MANNERS GIVE WAY TO EVERYDAY HORRORS

  • EGYPTIAN MILITARY SHOWS NO SIGN OF LOOSENING GRIP ON POWER

    Georgie Anne Geyer - Mon, Jun 18, 2012

    WASHINGTON -- A year ago February, the "Arab Spring" of revolutionary change hit, first Tunisia, and then the Arab world's largest nation, Egypt. Like an inexorable wind of transformation, it swept across the deserts of western Arabia. The "ancien regime" of Mubarak, father and sons, was disgraced, the Islamists were abidingly distrusted, and only the Egyptian military retained the confidence of the people.In Tahrir Square, the military largely kept order and the Egyptians covered them with flowers. ... More »EGYPTIAN MILITARY SHOWS NO SIGN OF LOOSENING GRIP ON POWER

  • DIRECT INVOLVEMENT IN SYRIA IS A MISTAKE WE SHOULDN'T MAKE

    Georgie Anne Geyer - Thu, Jun 14, 2012

    WASHINGTON -- The Syrian conflict has now officially been declared a "civil war." No lesser an interest group than the United Nations did so -- and the White House followed up with the same denominator of danger. Innocents are being massacred every day, and there is little question that the Syrian poison is spreading to neighbors Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey.This is not middle-class Tunisia nor wondrous Egypt, whose demonstrations really kicked off the "Arab Spring. ... More »DIRECT INVOLVEMENT IN SYRIA IS A MISTAKE WE SHOULDN'T MAKE

  • STRIFE IN NEPAL IS CAUTIONARY TALE

    Georgie Anne Geyer - Mon, Jun 11, 2012

    WASHINGTON -- Far across the globe, in the beautiful, but troubled mountain country of Nepal, every day brings dark news of demonstrations, riots, ethnic standoffs and the military fighting violence in the streets.It would be easy from afar for anyone -- for Americans, in particular, obsessed with our own problems -- to dismiss little Nepal's troubles as not relevant to us. We have no special interests in that country, home to a hundred ethnic groups and castes, with an increasingly assertive India on its southern border, and it is best to let it be. ... More »STRIFE IN NEPAL IS CAUTIONARY TALE

  • FOREIGN POLICY 'PIVOT' RAISES QUESTIONS OF INTENT

    Georgie Anne Geyer - Thu, Jun 7, 2012

    WASHINGTON -- Those of us who were in Vietnam during the '60s or '70s, when that war was supposed to be the one we couldn't live without, remember well the huge, strategic deepwater port and former American base at Cam Ranh Bay, about 150 miles north of Saigon.The idea from the early '60s, when we first sent trainers to the South Vietnamese army, was that, once our South Vietnamese allies won against the North, which soon they would surely do, Cam Ranh would be a friendly port for the Yanks for decades to come.Few of our unfounded predictions about the Vietnam War came true. ... More »FOREIGN POLICY 'PIVOT' RAISES QUESTIONS OF INTENT

  • QUEEN'S JUBILEE PROMPTS A REFLECTIVE MOOD

    Georgie Anne Geyer - Mon, Jun 4, 2012

    WASHINGTON -- Back in the '60s, before women had been freed of their shackles, and most of their diamonds, too, we struggling girls would have terribly earnest conversations about why there weren't any women leaders in the world. Then someone would eventually suggest reticently, "Well, there IS the queen of England."We would all shake our heads and purse our lips. Yes, but ... ... More »QUEEN'S JUBILEE PROMPTS A REFLECTIVE MOOD

  • NEW KIND OF WARFARE WILL LEAD TO SAME OLD PROBLEMS

    Georgie Anne Geyer - Thu, May 31, 2012

    WASHINGTON -- President Obama has been doing some very interesting things lately regarding the United States and wars in the modern age. With his Memorial Day speech finally giving some respect to the long-forgotten Vietnam veterans, he seemed to be resetting history, inserting important parts that were left out the first time around.Speaking to thousands of Vietnam vets and others before the shiny black granite wall of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial here, with its incised names of the dead, President Obama tried to fill in what should have been said decades ago. ... More »NEW KIND OF WARFARE WILL LEAD TO SAME OLD PROBLEMS

  • OUTLOOK FOR NEW ORLEANS: CLOUDY

    Georgie Anne Geyer - Tue, May 29, 2012

    WASHINGTON -- Were you to ask the vast majority of Americans these questions, one has to wonder whether they would be so stupid and near-sighted as to answer "yes":-- Would you like to see the single unifying force in your community be abolished, without your even raising your voice?-- Would you like to throw away the 50 cents to $1 a day ($2, on some days) it takes to maintain the one product in your town that helps to keep you educated and worldly and also educates your children?-- Would you rather not know about your City Hall and mayor, the crime gangs just about to move in on your ... More »OUTLOOK FOR NEW ORLEANS: CLOUDY

  • EGYPT STANDS ON THE BRINK OF UNIQUE DEMOCRACY

    Georgie Anne Geyer - Thu, May 24, 2012

    WASHINGTON -- For the last 60 years of Egyptian dictatorships, several questions have dominated the bedeviling "democracy" debate there. ... More »EGYPT STANDS ON THE BRINK OF UNIQUE DEMOCRACY

  • Romney's record at Bain Capital: Does it matter?

    Georgie Anne Geyer - Wed, May 23, 2012

    The issue will be the bane of our existence until November. Here it is only May – and the back-and-forth over Mitt Romney’s career in private equity at Bain Capital is already as confused as Facebook’s initial stock offering. Buffeted by TV ads, web videos, feigned outraged and zigzagging Democrats, voters undoubtedly are stunned by the sudden outbreak of high-decibel arguments over Romney’s business career. More »Romney's record at Bain Capital: Does it matter?

  • HOLIDAY INSPIRES POIGNANT REMEMBRANCES

    Georgie Anne Geyer - Mon, May 21, 2012

    WASHINGTON -- Until recently, Memorial Day has been a time for men's wartime sacrifices to be commemorated. Men fought the wars, said "I do" to Uncle Sam posters pointing at YOU, while women "kept the home fires burning."But, ahhh, things do change. Slowly at first, over the last two generations, American women began "going to war" in Pentagon offices. Today, they are sharing most jobs except combat with the men. The three prominent women I am going to commemorate in my own little way today were not exactly IN the armed forces. ... More »HOLIDAY INSPIRES POIGNANT REMEMBRANCES

  • LET'S GET REAL ON CAPITALISM

    Georgie Anne Geyer - Thu, May 17, 2012

    WASHINGTON -- My excellent counselor on stocks, bonds and investments in my hometown of Chicago has long loved Jamie Dimon. My guy, for whom I am close to a charity client, has said to me many times, "That Jamie ... he's the best." Then he would add sadly, "If you newspaper people had any money, we'd put it in JPMorgan Chase."Well, perhaps this week marks the first time "we newspaper people" are damned lucky that we don't have any money to invest in the country's largest bank, with its 260,000 employees and its losses in the first half of the year moving from $2 billion to $3 billion. ... More »LET'S GET REAL ON CAPITALISM

  • RUSSIA BEGINS TO SHAKE OFF ITS PATERNALISTIC PAST

    Georgie Anne Geyer - Mon, May 14, 2012

    WASHINGTON -- Ah, spring Sundays in Moscow. Poets out basking in the early sunshine, reading their evocative words to the crowds. Writers, once described by Stalin as the "engineers of the human soul," out marching from the statue of poet Aleksandr S. Pushkin into the city. Now it would be better to call them guardians of the human soul. ... More »RUSSIA BEGINS TO SHAKE OFF ITS PATERNALISTIC PAST

  • GAY SECRECY HARMS US ALL, IN WAYS LARGE AND SMALL

    Georgie Anne Geyer - Thu, May 10, 2012

    WASHINGTON -- President Obama has jumped off the fence where he has been sitting so long and approved same-sex marriage. Telling ABC News that "same-sex couples should be able to get married" because all Americans should be treated equally, Obama's surprising words came only days after Joe Biden's jolting ones, with everybody thinking he was undercutting his president.This change marks perhaps the most difficult and sobering change in American thinking and law in decades. ... More »GAY SECRECY HARMS US ALL, IN WAYS LARGE AND SMALL

  • WASHINGTON'S SHADOW WARS UNDERMINE AMERICAN POWER

    Georgie Anne Geyer - Mon, May 7, 2012

    WASHINGTON -- Every article out of Afghanistan these days speaks primarily about the U.S. preparing to leave, but not until it can leave behind an Afghan army well-trained enough to police the country.Even President Obama, in his important speech from Bagram Air Base last week, stressed that although our troops would leave in 2014, the world should be assured that the Afghans were ready to take responsibility for their own security, a transition that will start next year. ... More »WASHINGTON'S SHADOW WARS UNDERMINE AMERICAN POWER

  • A FATE WORSE THAN DEATH

    Georgie Anne Geyer - Tue, Apr 24, 2012

    WASHINGTON -- Some weeks ago, when the comic/sinister Moammar Gadhafi was still roaming from desert hideout to city basement every night to avoid the Libyan rebels, a lawyer and I had an interesting conversation about that essentially uninteresting man."It would be a shame if he were killed in the battles," he said thoughtfully. "He'll certainly be captured in the next few days and he should be brought to trial by the Libyans.""Oooh NO!" I said, in one of my more intractable vocal tones. "We can thank God if he is just killed by his own people and then they can put that whole period to rest. ... More »A FATE WORSE THAN DEATH

  • BOYS WILL BEHAVE BADLY WHEN MOM ISN'T AROUND

    Georgie Anne Geyer - Thu, Apr 19, 2012

    WASHINGTON -- Forget the rules of the Secret Service or the U.S. Marines; it is really what the mothers of those men would have advised that would have saved them from the embarrassment, humiliation and ridicule (not to speak of unemployment) they have encountered after last week in Cartagena, Colombia.Yes, once again, we must stop to consider the kitchen wisdom that "Mother knows best."Take the venue. Mother is told that her Secret Service son is going to Cartagena to protect our president when he arrives there for the Summit of the Americas. ... More »BOYS WILL BEHAVE BADLY WHEN MOM ISN'T AROUND

  • HEROIC NGO TAKES ON BIG JOB OF GLOBAL TOXIC CLEANUP

    Georgie Anne Geyer - Mon, Apr 16, 2012

    WASHINGTON -- For those of us who have had even the slightest radiation for cancer, the idea of small cities or whole societies being "infected" by pollution, whether of lead, mercury or any one of a number of poisons left behind in careless industrial waste, does not seem so foreign, but it should be terrifying.My two months of radiation, which I never felt or saw while its rays were being quietly bounced off me by those huge, rumbling machines, at first left me with nothing amiss. After all, the sessions were not even 15 minutes in length. ... More »HEROIC NGO TAKES ON BIG JOB OF GLOBAL TOXIC CLEANUP

  • IF YOU LOVED BUSH'S FOREIGN POLICY, YOU'LL LOVE ROMNEY'S

    Georgie Anne Geyer - Thu, Apr 12, 2012

    WASHINGTON -- My colleagues in the press have been obsessing over Mitt Romney's money. And, yes, I suppose that $250 million is a lot to have for a man who apparently can't afford an extra car to carry his dog. But the predominant criticism -- that "Mittens," as they call him on the press bus, can't "feel our pain" because of his money -- is about as insipid as it gets.We don't need a president to feel our pain. When I'm in pain, I'll go to a friend, to a psychiatrist or to a doctor. When we need some leadership, I'll look for someone who can RELIEVE the nation's pain. ... More »IF YOU LOVED BUSH'S FOREIGN POLICY, YOU'LL LOVE ROMNEY'S

  • IGNORANCE, IN FOREIGN AFFAIRS, IS ANYTHING BUT BLISS

    Georgie Anne Geyer - Mon, Apr 9, 2012

    WASHINGTON -- Six years ago in Cairo, I made a point of dropping by the newly opened offices of the Muslim Brotherhood to see what they were really up to. They had been banned for years. Especially, their burning down a third of Cairo in the 1940s had not endeared them to other Egyptians.But now they were suddenly "legal" again. ... More »IGNORANCE, IN FOREIGN AFFAIRS, IS ANYTHING BUT BLISS

  • HISTORIC BURMA IS POISED TO RECLAIM ITS GLORY

    Georgie Anne Geyer - Thu, Apr 5, 2012

    WASHINGTON -- Lest you think there are no great and amazing things happening in the world, think again. Consider the beleaguered country of Burma, down on the Bay of Bengal in South Asia, and your faith in mankind will be instantly restored.For it was there, in that magical country of knowing Buddhist statues and valleys filled with pagodas, of British colonial history -- and of the famous Burma Road that carried supplies for the Allies to China in World War II -- that Nobel Peace Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi and her democrats were elected to the parliament last weekend. ... More »HISTORIC BURMA IS POISED TO RECLAIM ITS GLORY

  • SYRIA'S CIVIL WAR THREATENS ENTIRE REGION

    Georgie Anne Geyer - Mon, Apr 2, 2012

    WASHINGTON -- The headlines tell daily of more deaths in what is becoming a Syrian civil war. Underneath the surface, an increasingly worried "conversation" has been going on in the region's newspapers and among the Arab intelligentsia.To oversimplify, the concern is growing rapidly that, led by Syria, much of the Middle East is essentially forsaking its colonially imposed borders and devolving into its original historical forms.Writing recently in the Daily Star in Beirut, Michael Young, the paper's opinion editor, expressed the idea that this would take the form of "ethnic statelets. ... More »SYRIA'S CIVIL WAR THREATENS ENTIRE REGION

  • POOR RUSSIANS, HAVING TO DEAL WITH OUR SILLY POLITICIANS

    Georgie Anne Geyer - Thu, Mar 29, 2012

    WASHINGTON -- There have been many times when I have felt sorry for Russia -- for example, when it was the hardest-line Soviet state in the '60s, and an attractive middle-aged Russian woman held back her tears when she said to me, "They've killed all the best of us!"I felt sorry on New Year's 2003, 12 long years after the fall of the Soviet Union, when a group of us were riding the train from the beautiful finesse of St. Petersburg to the gray historical monolith of Moscow. As I watched out the window in the dark, I found that there was exactly one light burning in each town we passed. ... More »POOR RUSSIANS, HAVING TO DEAL WITH OUR SILLY POLITICIANS

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