Annals of Diplomacy, Department of Snarky Gossip

The WikiLeaks massive document dump – among other things – offered plenty of mortifyingly frank appraisals of foreign leaders. Our Foreign Service officers are vivid writers and keen observers of the human condition. In their memos we find no Tonkin-Gulf-scale grand revelations of epic lying, deceit, or criminality. Just good Harvard Club snarky gossip.

• A British Labour Minister was “a bit of a hound dog where women are concerned.”
• The Italian Prime Minister is “feckless, vain, and ineffective.”
• A Singaporean envoy is quoted referring to North Korea’s Kim Jong Il as a “flabby old chap” who “prances around stadiums seeking adulation.”
• Nicolas Sarkozy is an emperor with no clothes who has a “thin-skinned and authoritarian personal style.”
• Prince Andrew speaks “cockily” and is “rude.”
• Muammar Khadaffi is described as relying on the aid of a Ukrainian nurse who is a “voluptuous blonde.”

Diplomats are perhaps more two-faced than non-diplomats. A former British U.N. diplomat, Carne Ross, observed that “there is an extraordinarily rich vein of gossip inside diplomacy.” Not only is there a lot to gossip about – Khadaffi’s nurse, for example – but diplomats tend to think of themselves as elite, and they regard politicians as “cheap and tacky.” Ross says that there is a tradition of including, in diplomatic memos, “saucily penned portraits about what these people are like in private.” An NGO that dispenses advice on diplomatic strategy cautions, “The old days are over. What you say in private is going to have to match up with what you do in public a little better than it has in the past.”

All of this is from a couple columns in a recent New Yorker. As I read them, I heard old and familiar notes playing. I know people like that. We all do. It’s not just politicians who are “cheap and tacky.”

Monk

Favorite college course: American Diplomatic History
I learned that Castro wanted to be on our side at one point but "we" did not think he was tough enough. Oh the blessing of revisionist history!

Yes, cheap and tacky come easily. Tact and insight take a little more it seems.

As I read them, I heard old and familiar notes playing. I know people like that. We all do. It’s not just politicians who are “cheap and tacky.”
Monk Originally Posted by Monk Rasputin

This -

doesn't this convo belong in the sandbox?