Catholic Bishop hails Dr Asri and lauds Morgan

August 26, 2011

by Terence Netto @http://www.malaysiakini.com

Catholic Bishop Dr Paul Tan Chee Ing today hailed former Perlis mufti Dr. Asri Zainul Abidin as an “emancipator” and lauded nominal Muslim Barry Morgan’s “candor” in the latest round of exchanges on the vexed question of Christian proselytisation of Muslims.

Asri, fast gaining a reputation as a preacher of unconventional depth, chided the authorities for being negligent of the welfare of the Muslim poor, the more desperate of whom, he said, were forced to seek recourse in Christian charity.

Muslim apathy to their poor, said Asri, was what drove some desperate adherents of the faith to apostasy which was then blamed on aggressive Christian proselytisation.

The issue boiled up on the national horizon after an incursion by Jais on a fundraising dinner in aid of HIV/AIDS victims at the Damansara Utama Methodist Centre on Aug 3.

The presence of 12 Muslims among a crowd of 120 attendees has become a national cause celebre.

In an immediate reaction to Asri’s remarks, Bishop Paul, who is head of Catholics in the diocese of Melaka-Johor, told Malaysiakini:

“When I read what Asri said, I felt the instinctive reaction one poet had for another’s work when he said, ‘I wanted to go to the man that wrote that and say something.’ This from me to Asri would simply be, ‘Thank you, emancipator’.”

Bishop Paul Tan, who is concurrently president of the Catholic Bishops Conference of Malaysia, elaborated:  “If I were to say what he said, I would expose myself to accusations that I was intruding on Muslim affairs.

“Asri has said what many of us Christians have wanted to say but could not for fear of offending Muslims: that they should look to their poor before accusing us of proselytising.”

The Jesuit-trained prelate added: “I call Asri an emancipator in the same sense of Christ’s description of the truth as that which will set you free. What Asri has said is true and has set Christians free of bondage to a lie: that Christian charity, which is mandated by the faith and rendered to all who are in need, has in some cases led to Muslim apostasy, which some Muslims regard as subversion.

“This is the lie that Asri’s remarks have nailed; hence my calling him emancipator.”’

Candid views by a Muslim

Bishop Paul Tan said he was delighted to read the comments of Malaysiakini reader Barry Morgan, a nominal Muslim, whose disclosure of his difficulties in nurturing an adopted child “helped to shed needed light on the same issue of Christian help to those in need.”

“Morgan’s candor about his and his wife’s difficulties spoke of the pain many feel in their personal journeys of faith in this world and their encounters with people willing to help.

“Morgan’s story illustrates the insight of a saint Catholics revere. This is Francis of Assisi who said that it is in giving that we receive. Christians are encouraged to give because in doing so they feel they receive God’s grace.”

The Bishop concluded: “One can hide truth for a while but not for too long. Truth has a way of rearing its head and coming down hard on the one who hides it.

“I don’t want to go further because it is in the peculiar nature of religion that it becomes feeble in the utterance. So I shall stop here except to once again iterate my salutations to Asri and my respects to Morgan.”

My advice on the issue of proselytisation

by Barry Morgan@http://www.malaysiakini.com
August 25, 2011
3:52pm

COMMENT: My name is Barry Morgan and I’m 85 years old. I am a Malaysian citizen who arrived from England in 1948 just when the Emergency was commencing.

I worked in plantations and at one time owned an estate in Bruas, Perak. Since the time I sold the property in the late 1990s, I have had more time to follow national issues.

The one that preoccupies me these days is apostasy from Islam. In 1964, I married a Muslim and embraced the faith.

My wife and I had four children and we adopted two others, one an Indian girl. We brought her up as a Muslim but when we attempted to obtain an identity card for her in 1983, it was refused.

The officer at the Ipoh Registration Department made a huge fuss and insisted the girl was Indian and Hindu. My wife, who passed away last year, remonstrated but was unsuccessful in shifting the officer.

As a consequence, my adopted daughter was regarded as a Hindu and treated as such in school.  When she was 16 and studying in Kuala Lumpur, she met and married a staunch member of one of the evangelical Christian groups then mushrooming in the Klang Valley.

Her husband worked in a law firm which was owned by an equally fervent member of the same denomination who converted every employee on her payroll.My adopted daughter’s husband was originally a Hindu. His conversion was met with rejection by his family.

My wife and I were unhappy with our adopted daughter’s decision to become a Christian upon marriage but we accepted her right to choose her faith.

Vexed question of proselytisation

The couple had two children before difficulties in the marriage arose. My wife and I were concerned for our adopted daughter and her children.  But our concern was no match for that shown by the members of the church at which the couple worshiped. They rendered the family unstinting support and compassion which had the effect of healing the marriage.

Today my adopted daughter and spouse have three children who are happy to attend church services and live a Christian life of admirable fidelity.

I’m amazed at the support their church gives, not only to them but also to anyone in need, whether it is to unwed mothers, abused wives, children in need of daycare, the jobless, and the sick.

The support is stupendous and frequently rendered by tertiary-qualified women. Their dedication is hugely impressive.

In my occasional interactions with this group of dedicatees, I have tried to tell them they should not try to convert Muslims, the ones who resort to them when they are in need and are much taken by the evangelicals’ dedication to their welfare. The reaction to my advice was a polite silence.

Though I’m Malaysian, I’m British by orientation; I know how the British colonial administration handled this issue in India. They strongly discouraged evangelical clergymen from proselytising Muslim Indians because of the social turbulence it caused.

If the British administrators found evangelicals doing so, the latter would be on the ship back to where they came from.  In India, the mainline Protestant churches and Roman Catholics abided by the stricture against proselytising among Muslim Indians.

But these churches were not discouraged by the British from converting Indians languishing in the nether categories of the Hindu caste system.

The need to show restraint

In Malaya, the British adopted the same attitude: they discouraged Christian proselytisation of Muslims. But recalcitrants from this stricture were almost non-existent – the mainline Protestants and Catholic churches largely adhered to this restriction, subscribing to the tacit social understanding that they should not convert Muslims.

However, evangelical Christianity is a modern-day phenomenon, an importation from the Bible Belt of the United States. They take Jesus’s instruction – “Go and make disciples of all nations” – before his ascension into heaven in deadly earnest.

The Protestants and Catholics won’t attempt to restrain the evangelicals, although they frown on their missionary fervour. This is because the evangelicals would accuse them of being tepid in their faith and oblivious of Jesus’s commandant.

Also, evangelical churches are independent of each other and reject a centralised, hierarchical authority such as the Catholics have and, to a less rigid extent, the Protestants. Hence the attainment and enforcement of consensus among Christians is difficult to bring about.

One finds that on the issue of Christian proselytisation of Muslims there are a host of complexities resistant to easy resolution.

Despite the reluctance of Catholic and Protestant churches, mindful of the recent intrusion by JAIS into the Damansara Utama Methodist Centre, they must persuade the evangelical churches to show restraint on the vexed question of proselytisation.

To fail to do so will only cause uneasiness among Muslims and encourage more interventions by the Muslim authorities.  Finally, the government should take steps to facilitate adoption by Muslims.

Robert Phang to MACC: Investigate A-G Gani Patail

August 26, 2011

MACC must investigate A-G Tan Sri Abdul Gani Patail

In a press statement (see below), Tan Sri Robert Phang said that the MACC should investigate A-G Gani Patail’s link to Dato Vincent Lye and the Ho Hup Construction Berhad without fear or favour, following documentary  evidence that the A-G had received some gratification to take sides in a Ho Hup board room tussle.

He added that “…the invoices, receipts and cheque shown in Malaysia Today do not require complex forensic accounting. These documents paint a thousand words of the alleged renovation works done for A-G Tan Sri Ghani Patail’s bungalow at Seremban 2 – Sri Carcosa”.–Din Merican

PRESS STATEMENT (August 26, 2011)

BY
TAN SRI DATUK ROBERT PHANG. Justice of Peace.
Chairman – Social Care Foundation

A-G Gani Patail is again courting controversy by the revelation in Malaysia Today, which appeared on the 24th August 2011. If the allegation is not thoroughly investigated, it will be perceived badly by the Rakyat. Malaysia Today produced documentary evidence of what appears to be A-G Gani Patail receiving gratification to take sides in a corporate boardroom tussle in Ho Hup Construction Berhad. Previously, photographs had already surfaced in various blogs of AG Gani Patail with that company’s previous Managing Director, Dato Vincent Lye.

Gani Patail is Untouchable: he knows too much about all the politicians in and out of power

2. This revelation would surely destroy any residual credibility left about the AG Chambers. It appears that criminal prosecution is instituted at the whims and fancies of AG Gani Patail not on the basis of right or wrong but on might is right.

3. I have previously criticized AG Gani Patail over his Haj Trip with Tajudin Ramli’s proxy, one Shahidan Shafies. Instead of taking action against AG Gani Patail, alarmingly I was subjected to an immediate investigation by the MACC based on just a false allegation in an anonymous blog. I was then publicly humiliated when the MACC Operations Evaluation Panel (OEP) Chairman, Tan Sri Dr. Hadenan Abdul Jalil only conditionally cleared me. My demands for an unconditional and unequivocal clearance have yet to receive any response from the MACC.

4. The invoices, receipts and cheque shown in Malaysia Today do not require complex forensic accounting. These documents paint a thousand words of the alleged renovation works done for AG Tan Sri Ghani Patail’s bungalow at Seremban 2 – Sri Carcosa.

5. These documents constitute clear evidence of corrupt gratification. The MACC must show independence and courage by acting swiftly to investigate this matter. To facilitate such an investigation, AG Gani Patail MUST immediately step down. These are clear steps that must be taken to preserve the integrity of the A-G Chambers and the Government. Otherwise, the MACC will be regarded as impotent  for failing to take action against those in the corridors of power.

6. The BN Government of the day, now under the Premiership YAB Dato’ Sri Najib has to address and solve many issues. This revelation on A-G Gani Patail will certainly further discredit YAB Dato’ Sri Najib’s Government. This is very serious more so that this is the month of Ramadan. The Rakyat needs to know and certainly about AG Gani Patail. Please kindly enlighten the Rakyat on the truth or otherwise of this latest allegation against him.

7. Over to MACC. You need to do this investigation independently, without fear or favor and to not be impotent.

8. Lastly, I wish all my Muslim friends a very “SELAMAT HARI RAYA AIDIL FITRI”. Please drive home safely and enjoy with your loved ones.

“HUMBLENESS IS GOOD VIRTUE, ARROGANCE SHALL FALL, THE MEEK WILL RULE THE WORLD”.

Singapore’s First Presidential Election Campaign Ends

August 26, 2011

http://www.channelnewsasia.com

Singapore’s First Presidential Election Campaign Ends: Results Too Close to Call

Campaigning for the first Presidential Election in 18 years – and the most keenly-fought contest ever – drew to a close on Thursday (August 25, 2011).

And the four candidates, who sought to drive home distinct messages over the nine-day hustings, ended their campaigns in vastly different styles. One capped it with a “special” indoor rally; one took the chance to address online allegations; one threw a party for supporters and friends as another lobbed jibes in his direction.

With Friday designated as Cooling-off Day, candidates stepped up their campaign activities on Thursday. Former Deputy Prime Minister Tony Tan was the first to hit the campaign trail when he visited the Chong Pang market in the morning.

Giving his take on the campaign, Dr Tony Tan described it as being generally “dignified”. But he was outraged by the allegations and smear campaign against his family. He added: “(The attacks) are designed to distract Singaporeans from the true debate on the role of the President and the future of Singapore.”

He added that politics ought to be a debate about issues, instead of such personal attacks – which Dr Tony Tan said would lower the tone of politics in Singapore. His three sons also issued a media statement on Thursday to refute allegations about their National Service (NS) records. Some of the allegations circulating on the Internet suggested that Dr Tony Tan’s sons had been given preferential treatment during NS even though they were combat-fit.

“Our reputations and the institution of National Service have been maligned, simply to attack our father, Dr Tony Tan,” their statement said. The trio – Peter, Patrick and Philip – said they had fulfilled all obligations in accordance with the rules, regulations and deployment policies of the Ministry of Defence.

The former Deputy Prime Minister asked voters to think about who could represent Singapore at home and abroad, and protect Singapore’s reserves in light of impending economic challenges. His message focused on helping the poor and disadvantaged, something he learnt in his school years and urged Singaporeans to unite.

Dr Tan said: “As a society, we must judge ourselves by how we care for those in need. As President, I will work with the government, all political parties, civil society and the entire nation. Together, we should ensure that the last are not left behind, the lost have a guiding hand, and the least are the first in our considerations as a democratic society.”

At a press conference, former NTUC Income CEO Tan Kin Lian – who, unlike his opponents, has not contested in any General Election – also recounted his maiden electoral experience, where he named fellow candidate Tan Jee Say as the person behind his “low points”.

Said Mr Tan Kin Lian: “I invited him (to join) my team … to help formulate my strategy … he attended one of the meetings and later decided to stand. It caused some disruption to my team.”

He said that as a result, part of his support base shifted towards Mr Tan Jee Say, with some defecting to help the latter. Mr Tan Kin Lian also said he was surprised that Mr Tan Jee Say was granted the Certificate of Eligibility by the Presidential Elections Committee. “According to my common sense, Mr Tan Jee Say does not qualify,” said Mr Tan Kin Lian.

When told of Mr Tan Kin Lian’s remarks, Mr Tan Jee Say – who was in celebratory mood as he held a party at his Frankel Avenue home to mark the end of the hectic campaign period – reiterated that he had “nothing against anybody”. He felt that Mr Tan Kin Lian might have made those remarks in “the heat of the campaign”.

Earlier in the day, Mr Tan Jee Say again distanced himself from his public image. He told reporters after a walkabout: “I am not confrontational. I ask questions, that’s my role. That’s the objective of having an Elected President.”

Over at the Expo, Dr Tan Cheng Bock held his rally – the only one to be held indoors – where Singaporeans from different walks of life, from a taxi driver to a scientist, shared stories about their encounters with the former Ayer Rajah Member of Parliament.

With doubts cast on his financial knowledge, Dr Tan Cheng Bock had the last say – hours before Cooling-off Day kicked in at midnight – as he dismissed suggestions that he is a mere “country doctor”.

He detailed the diverse roles he has held over the years involving heavy financial decisions. This included serving on the boards of the Land Transport Authority and SMRT, where he was involved in building the MRT lines – including the first MRT contract worth S$4.5 billion.

“You have to make decisions to make sure this money is utilised properly. If anyone thinks I’m not good in (finance), they better go and ask LTA … and SMRT,” said Dr Tan Cheng Bock, who also highlighted his stint as an independent director at ING Asia Private Bank, and his post as the non-executive chairman of Chuan Hup Holdings for over 20 years.

The four candidates will make a final pitch tonight when the second Presidential Candidate Broadcast is aired over radio and TV in four languages before the 2.27 million voters head to the polls on Saturday. – TODAY

Leaving Regrets to Others, Vice President Dick Cheney Speaks

August 26, 2011

http://www.nytimes.com

NY Times Book Review

Dick Cheney: In My Time

By Michiko Kakutani

Published: August 25, 2011

IN MY TIME
A Personal and Political Memoir
By Dick Cheney with Liz Cheney
Illustrated. 565 pages. Threshold Editions. $35.

In an interview on NBC’s “Dateline,” former Vice President Dick Cheney says that his new book, “In My Time,” will have “heads exploding all over Washington.” Whatever readers think of Mr. Cheney’s politics, their heads are more likely to explode from frustration than from any sense of revelation. Indeed, the memoir — delivered in dry, often truculent prose — turns out to be mostly a predictable mix of spin, stonewalling, score settling and highly selective reminiscences.

The book, written with his daughter Liz, reiterates Mr. Cheney’s aggressive approach to foreign policy and his hard-line views on national security, while sidestepping questions about many of the Bush administration’s more controversial decisions, either by cherry-picking information (much the way critics say the White House cherry-picked intelligence in making the case to go to war against Iraq) or by hopping and skipping over awkward subjects with loudly voiced assertions. It’s ironic that Mr. Cheney — who succeeded in promulgating so many of his policy ideas through his sheer mastery of bureaucratic detail — should have written a book that is often so lacking in detail that it feels like a blurred photograph.

Mr. Cheney writes that “the liberation of Iraq” was “one of the most significant accomplishments of George Bush’s presidency” — never mind the failure to find the weapons of mass destruction that were cited as a chief reason for the invasion, or a botched occupation that allowed an insurgency to metastasize for years. He describes Guantánamo as “a model facility — safe, secure, and humane” and writes that the C.I.A.’s program of “enhanced interrogation techniques” was “safe, legal, and effective.” As for Hurricane Katrina, Mr. Cheney praises President Bush for “personally” dedicating “hundreds of hours not only to ensuring an effective federal response but to reaching out to people who needed to know that their government cared about them.”

The famously tight-lipped Mr. Cheney does serve up some interesting tidbits in these pages. We learn that the “undisclosed locations” at which he spent so much time were often Camp David or the vice president’s residence; that he wrote a letter of resignation dated March 28, 2001, and told an aide to give it to the president were he ever to suffer a heart attack or stroke that left him incapacitated; and that he spent several weeks unconscious in 2010 after heart surgery.

In addition to genuinely moving accounts of his health difficulties, there are some affectionate portraits of family members in these pages, and an apology of sorts to his friend Harry Whittington, whom he shot in the face while quail hunting: “I, of course, was deeply sorry for what Harry and his family had gone through. The day of the hunting accident was one of the saddest of my life.”

In fact, the tartest sections of this book reflect Mr. Cheney’s frustration when things did not go his way. Although he is, for the most part, complimentary about President Bush (hailing him as “a visceral and forthright commander” who “strengthened all of us with his conviction”), he assumes a faintly patronizing tone in talking about cases in which Mr. Bush failed to take his advice: rejecting, say, his recommendation in June 2007 that the United States bomb a suspected Syrian nuclear reactor site to send “an important message not only to the Syrians and North Koreans, but also to the Iranians.”

In addition, Mr. Cheney gripes that the president’s siding with Ms. Rice on questions relating to North Korea seemed “out of keeping with the clearheaded way I’d seen him make decisions in the past,” and notes that Mr. Bush did not consult him in late 2006 about naming Robert M. Gates to replace Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, whom he’d previously described to the president as “doing a tremendous job.”

Mr. Cheney and Mr. Rumsfeld had been friends and operational allies since their days together in the Ford administration (where the two honed their skills at bureaucratic maneuvering), and in these pages Mr. Cheney remains firmly in denial about the Pentagon’s mishandling of the Iraq war, from Mr. Rumsfeld’s determination to conduct it on the cheap with a light, fast force, which proved insufficient to restore law and order, to his reluctance to correct course later on.

The former vice president tries to focus blame on the State Department for the lack of postwar planning, even though it has been widely reported that its Future of Iraq blueprints were sidelined by the Pentagon, and he insists that he thought the insurgents were “in the last throes” in 2005, even though there had been myriad warnings from both military and civilian sources that things were spiraling out of control.

Just as reporters and former administration insiders have noted that dissenting opinions tended to be unwelcome in the Bush White House, so Mr. Cheney demonstrates here a distinct antipathy toward people who opposed him on matters of policy. Colin L. Powell — who clashed with Mr. Cheney over Iraq and who was characterized in one of Bob Woodward’s books as thinking that “Cheney took intelligence and converted uncertainty and ambiguity into fact” — is repeatedly dissed in this volume. Mr. Cheney says he “thought it was for the best” that President Bush had accepted Mr. Powell’s resignation as secretary of state in 2004; he says that Mr. Powell handled policy differences not by voicing objections in meetings, but “by criticizing administration policy to people outside the government.”

Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill, who opposed the big tax cuts favored by Mr. Cheney, is treated similarly brusquely — much the way he was dismissed from his job in December 2002. Mr. Cheney does not discuss Mr. O’Neill’s concern that such tax cuts might lead to a dangerous deficit; rather, he makes the following odd argument, which ratifies other administration insiders’ views that the policy-making process in the Bush administration was both dysfunctional and ad hoc:

“Economic policy was being run out of the White House, and meetings to make big decisions often did not include the Treasury secretary. O’Neill should have demanded — as Hank Paulson would later demand — to be included in any White House meeting about economic policy. On the other hand, either the president or I could have said: ‘Where’s O’Neill? We should not be having this meeting without the treasury secretary.’ ”

During Mr. Cheney’s tenure as vice president, there was considerable discussion among journalists and his former colleagues about whether the man who’d once worked for Gerald Ford and George Herbert Walker Bush had changed over the years — becoming more hawkish, more ideological or more given to doomsday scenarios — because of his multiple heart attacks, because he’d made common cause with neo-conservatives, or simply because his political views had evolved.

Mr. Cheney maintains in this book that he hasn’t changed at all, that it’s the world that has changed since 9/11. He also says he told Mr. Bush, then governor, during discussions about his joining the ticket that “he needed to understand how deeply conservative I was: He said, ‘Dick, we know that.’ And I said, ‘No, I mean really conservative.’ ”

On substantive matters of policy, however, this volume tends to rehash well-known debates even as it circumvents important questions. Mr. Cheney offers no real explanation for why the Bush administration did not do more to try to prevent the 9/11 attacks, given the warnings from the counterterrorism czar, Richard A. Clarke, and an Aug. 6, 2001, intelligence brief titled “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.”

He does not explain why he said in 1994 that the United States was right not to go all the way to Baghdad to oust Saddam Hussein during the first Gulf War because that would have resulted in “a quagmire,” but foresaw no such complications in 2003. And while Mr. Cheney discusses how his views on the importance of executive power developed during the Iran-Contra scandal, he sheds little light on how he and his legal adviser and chief of staff, David S. Addington, would set about realizing this doctrine after 9/11.

George W. Bush, Mr. Cheney writes, “had a strong sense of his own strengths and weaknesses,” and in a vice president was looking “for someone who could help him govern, a person with experience in the kind of national security and foreign policy issues he knew every president must face.”

One of the few insights he delivers here about his own role as Oval Office gatekeeper — as the one who framed policy choices for “the decider” — concerns the President’s Daily Brief, or P.D.B., “which contains reports on the most critical intelligence issues of the day.”

Mr. Cheney recalls that he was usually briefed around 6:30 a.m., before joining the president for his briefing; in addition to the material the president got, Mr. Cheney received extra material, including “responses to questions I’d asked or items my briefers knew I was interested in”; on at least one occasion, he says, he would have the briefer add some of this bonus material to what the president saw.

In the last years of the Bush administration, the power of the most powerful vice president in history waned, as his predictions about Iraq turned sour, as the Supreme Court repudiated the White House on executive power and detainee rights, and as Mr. Cheney’s own approval ratings slid to 13 percent. The man whom Karl Rove nicknamed “Management” (as in “better check with Management”) and whom the C.I.A. referred to as Edgar (as in Edgar Bergen, puppet master of Charlie McCarthy) began to take a back seat to more moderate voices in the administration, like Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, whom Mr. Cheney depicts in these pages as naïve and inexperienced in her efforts to reach a nuclear weapons agreement with North Korea.

A version of this review appeared in print on August 26, 2011, on page C1 of the New York edition with the headline: Leaving Regrets To Others, Cheney Speaks.

Obama, Tiger, Golf and Politics

August 26, 2011

http://www.nytimes.com

by Thomas L. Friedman
Published: August 23, 2011

Despite the carping by critics, I’m glad the President went on vacation because one of the most useful things he could do right now is play golf — a lot of golf — but not that friendly foursome thing with his aides that he usually does. No, real golf: Match play, head to head, with real money on the line. Match-play golf is a great teacher.

As any good golfer will tell you, the first rule of match play is this: Never play not to lose. Do not wait and hope for your opponent to make a mistake. Always play the course, always play to win and always assume your opponent will do well — will make that long putt — so you have to do better.

For months now, Obama has been playing not to lose, keeping his own plans for a “Grand Bargain” on debt, deficits, taxes, jobs and investment vague, while waiting for the Republicans to say crazier and crazier stuff — like promising the return of $2-a-gallon gasoline, or insisting that climate change was made up by scientists to get research grants (but politicians taking millions from oil companies can be trusted to tell us the truth on this issue), or that Texas has a right to secede. But while the G.O.P. candidates have been obliging the President with their nuttiness, it has not helped Obama’s poll ratings.

Many Americans can see that most of these G.O.P. candidates are closer to professional wrestlers than politicians — with their fake body slams and anti-Obama bluster. All they are missing are the Tarzan outfits. This is the silly season. But I would not assume that Republicans won’t come up with more serious candidates when it counts, or that some of these candidates won’t move to the center. I would definitely assume that they’ll do better.

That’s why the last few months have been so worrying to Obama supporters. Obama surprised everyone by broaching the idea during the debt negotiations of a “Grand Bargain” — roughly $3 trillion in spending cuts over the next decade and $1 trillion in tax increases — as a signal to the markets that we’re getting our fiscal house in order. It was absolutely the right idea — as long as it is coupled with investments in infrastructure, education and research — but House Speaker John Boehner could not deliver his Tea Party-led G.O.P. caucus.

Yet rather than flesh out his Grand Bargain in detail and take it on the road — and let every American everywhere understand and hear every day that he had a plan but the Republicans wouldn’t rise to it — Obama dropped it. Did he ever try to explain the specifics of his Grand Bargain and why it was the only way to go? No.

This left his allies wondering whether he was committed to it — and really did have his own party on board for it. And it left his opponents thrilled and setting the agenda themselves. It is why Obama’s recent bus tour fell flat. People don’t want to cheer just the man anymore. They want to cheer the man and his plan — a real plan, not just generalities and tactics to get him re-elected with 50.0001 percent and no real mandate to do what’s needed to fix the country now.

Without his own Grand Bargain on the table — imprinted on the mind of every American — Obama has been left playing defense, playing to get the least-bad deal, or playing not to lose. That’s what’s producing all the “What happened to Obama?” talk and its silly variants. (He’s a loser; he’s not very bright; he’s Jimmy Carter.)

It’s all nonsense. Obama is smart, decent and tough, with exactly the right instincts about where the country needs to go. He has accomplished a lot more than he’s gotten credit for — with an opposition dedicated to making him fail. But lately he is seriously off his game. He’s not Jimmy Carter. He’s Tiger Woods — a natural who’s lost his swing. He has so many different swing thoughts in his head, so many people whispering in his ear about what the polls say and how he needs to position himself to get re-elected, that he has lost all his natural instincts for the game. He needs to get back to basics.

It’s crazy what’s happening in America today: We’re having an economic crisis and the politicians are having an election — and there is almost no overlap between the two. The President needs to bring them together. But that can only happen if he stops playing not to lose and goes for broke himself. Our problems are not insoluble. We need a Grand Bargain — where each side gives something on spending, taxes and new investments — and we’re on our way out of this.

 Run on that, Mr. President: At best you’ll generate enough public pressure (now totally missing) to shame sane Republicans into joining you, and we’ll get a deal, and at worst you can run in 2012 on a platform, which, if you win, will actually give you a mandate for the change the country needs.

Meanwhile, Mr. President, on a rainy day, rent the movie “Tin Cup.” There is a great scene where Dr. Molly Griswold is trying to help Roy “Tin Cup” McAvoy, the golf pro, rediscover his swing — and himself. She finally tells him: “Roy … don’t try to be cool or smooth or whatever; just be honest and take a risk. And you know what, whatever happens, if you act from the heart, you can’t make a mistake.”

A version of this op-ed appeared in print on August 24, 2011, on page A23 of the New York edition with the headline: Obama, Tiger, Golf And Politics.

A Rudderless World

August 25, 2011

I.H.T. Op-Ed Contributor

By Kishore Mahbubani

Published: August 18, 2011

The demand for global leadership has never been greater. The world is truly lost in trying to find a way out of the current crisis. America is imploding. Europe is crumbling. London is burning. The Arab Spring has lost direction. China and India remain internally preoccupied. If ever there were a moment for a global leader to step up, this is it. So why is no leader emerging?

First, the world has changed structurally, yet our systems for managing global affairs have not adapted. In the past, when the billions of citizens of planet earth lived in separated countries, it was like having an ocean of separate boats. Hence, the postwar order created rules to ensure that the boats did not collide; it created rules for cooperation.

Up until now, this arrangement has worked well. World War III did not follow World Wars I and II. But today the world’s seven billion citizens no longer live in separate boats. They live in more than 190 cabins on the same boat. Each cabin has a government to manage its affairs. And the boat as a whole moves along without a captain or a crew.

The world is adrift. The G-20 was set up to provide global leadership at the height of the latest financial crisis. The group came together in London in early 2009 to save the global economy. However, as soon as the crisis receded, the G-20 leaders retreated into their cabins again.

To make matters worse, some nations have become unmanageable. Just look at the United States.The best candidate for global leader is, of course, Barack Obama. No leader gets as much global press coverage as Obama does. But he has no time to save the world. This summer a tiny group of crazy Tea Party congressmen held him, the United States and the world hostage.

In the next 14 months, Obama will only focus on his reelection. The world will not matter. Sadly, no European leader seems ready to fill this vacuum. Nor is there a Chinese or Indian leader willing to step up. Our global boat will continue to drift in the coming months.

The second reason no global leader has emerged: The geopolitics of the world are running at cross purposes with the geo-economics of the world. Geo-economics requires consensus; countries coming together. In geopolitics, we are experiencing the greatest power shifts we have seen in centuries. Power is shifting from West to East. All this creates deep insecurity in the established powers. They want to cling on to privileges acquired from previous days of glory.

Only this can explain the rush by Europe to reclaim the headship of International Monetary Fund when Dominique Strauss-Kahn stepped down. No one doubts that Christine Lagarde is a competent administrator. But is it wise for Europe to cling on to old privileges when power is shifting? And is it wise to choose a noneconomist to run the most important economics organization at a time of economic turmoil? A secure Europe may have ceded power graciously. An insecure Europe clings to privileges.

Third, political leadership is always preceded by intellectual leadership. For several decades, the Western intelligentsia provided this intellectual leadership. Indeed, they used to happily lecture the world on what should be done. Today, they are clearly lost.

As an Asian, I used to be regularly lectured by Westerners on the inability of Asians to slay their sacred cows. Today, the Western intelligentsia seems equally afraid to attack their own sacred cows. Surely, after the damage done by the Tea Party episode, an obvious question to ask is: Have democracies become dysfunctional? Have special interest groups distorted the global agenda? Should some of them be disbanded?

Sadly, the parameters of intellectual discourse in the West have become narrower and narrower. Short-term political fights take precedence over long term strategic decisions. Only one phrase captures the current Asian perception of the West: sheer incredulity.

How could the best preachers on political courage and economic discipline in the world display none of it when the hour came?

In short, we are not going to get any great global leadership soon. And if we continue to drift, we will at least know why.

Kishore Mahbubani, Dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore, is working on a book about global governance and leadership.

A  version of this op-ed appeared in print on August 19, 2011, in The International Herald Tribune with the headline: A Rudderless World.