Posted February 7th. 2010 - Guyana Chronicle
By Rickey Singh
QUESTIONS ON FUTURE OF CARICOM'S YOUTH
HOW REALLY serious are our Caribbean Community Heads of Government in moving collectively to foster and sustain youth development, including in decision-making processes at national/regional level? This question was raised at last weekend's two-day inaugural CARICOM Summit on Youth Development in Paramaribo, Suriname, at which a comprehensive report, based on more than two years of region-wide consultations and research, was discussed.
The 14-member Commission was established in March 2007 by the Community's Heads of Government. Suriname, whose President (Ronald Venetiaan) has lead responsibility for culture, youth affairs and sports, was the venue of choice for the inaugural youth summit.
Alas! Apart from host President Venetiaan, just two other CARICOM leaders showed up for the ceremonial opening on January 29 -- Guyana's President Bharrat Jagdeo and Dominica's Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit (current chairman of the Community).
The following day (Jan.30), Prime Minister Stephenson King of St. Lucia turned up for the plenary working session. Haiti's absence, even at ministerial level, was quite understandable in the face of the horrendous earthquake devastation of January 12.
But what of the other ten leaders of the 15-member Community -- such as those from leading partner states like Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados and Belize?
The grave consequences of crime and violence for the future of the region's youth and national/regional development in general were issues of deliberations at the series of meetings and consultations that took place following the creation of the Commission.
Co-chaired by UWI Professor (emeritus), Barry Chevannes of Jamaica and former Youth Ambassador in the Community Secretariat, Yidiz Beighle of Suriname, the Commission's primary recommendations, apart from facing up to the challenging crime and violence situation, also focused on how the region's youth (between 15 to 35) could be exposed to, and be involved in, decision-making.
Stirring 'Declaration'
Despite the large absence of CARICOM leaders, the summit climaxed with a stirring ‘Declaration of Paramaribo on the Future of Youth Development in the Caribbean Community’.
The Community Secretariat was requested to prepare a ‘Plan of Action', prioritising core recommendations on strategies and modalities of implementation, to facilitate endorsement by Heads of Government when they meet for their Inter-Sessional Meeting in Dominica by mid next month.
It all seems such a familiar pattern: Serious, recurring problems of a regional nature arise. Community ministers with portfolio responsibilities become involved in recommendations.
The Heads of Government then meet, discuss (in some form or the other) and agree, as the situation requires, to establish a Working Group, a Commission, a Task Force, or some such mechanism.
Reports are then submitted, within varying timeframes and in accordance with mandates given. The Secretariat is then authorised to prepare an ‘Action Plan’, which has to be approved by Heads of Government
They subsequently meet, as convenient, and endorse the recommended Action Plan. Finally comes the big challenge -- IMPLEMENTATION. Sometimes things do go according to arrangements; sometimes they simply fall apart, adding in the process to the layers of cynicism, doubts and deep disappointment.
We have been told that the 'Declaration of Paramaribo on Youth Development’ was informed, in part, by the recognised ‘historical contributions’ of, for instance, the following:
The Commonwealth Youth Programme and United Nations agencies like UNICEF, UNDP, UNFPA and other international development partners "towards the development and empowerment of Caribbean youth…"
In endorsing the main recommendations, the Declaration urged support of "policies and programmes to engage the creative intellect and energy of a diverse youth population in facing the challenge of globalisation and the CSME (CARICOM Single Market and Economy);”
Further, for the development of "national and regional youth governance networks with clearly articulated roles for National Youth Councils, Caricom youth ambassadors and other national/regional structures..."
Good for the framers of the 'Declaration'. Better still, for the endorsement given at the Paramaribo Summit. Now we await the proposed 'Action Plan' for authorised implementation by the Heads of Government.
Will they accept the challenges involved? They are still to effectively address the far wider issues involved for the realisation of a 'single economy and a single development vision’.
Posted January 31st. 2010 - Guyana Chronicle
By Rickey Singh
Changing face of T&T Politics Hope springs from Panday’s defeat
THE SENSATIONAL defeat last Sunday of Basdeo Panday as political leader of Trinidad and Tobago’s major opposition United National Congress (UNC) has been generating a mix of hopes and speculations about the real possibility for changing the culture for changing the culture of party politics in that twin-island state.
Even probably carrying the potential of influencing political patterns, including voting tradition, in multicultural societies beyond Trinidad and Tobago in CARICOM.
The most charismatic of post-republic Trinidadian politicians, the former trade union leader, Prime Minister for seven years, founder-leader of the UNC (successor to the United Labour Front) for 20 years, has reacted very badly to his defeat at age 77.
Screaming “sabotage,” for instance, over boxes of UNC membership cards discovered at party headquarters after the results were declared -- when, from all credible sources, his overwhelming defeat was based on a democratic voting procedure.
Worse, defeat by a woman -- Kamla Persad-Bissessar, a former Attorney General in his cabinet who triumphed, the first time around, where all male challengers had previously failed, to dislodge from the leadership helm the ‘comrade’ they had for years revered as the ‘Silver Fox’ for his assumed political astuteness.
As this was being written, backroom negotiations were taking place for Persad-Bissessar to now replace Panday as parliamentary Opposition Leader as well.
This would require her securing the support of at least seven of the UNC’s 15 parliamentarians in the 41-member House in which Prime Minister Patrick Manning’s governing People’s National Movement controls 26 seats. The same arithmetic applies if Panday hopes to retain the post of Opposition.
There were signals of the likelihood of Panday relinquishing the post to avoid even wider divisions and much more bitterness. The hour of decision on the UNC’s future and new kind of politics in Trinidad and Tobago may well have arrived a week ago today.
I cannot recall an example in the modern political history of the Caribbean region where, other than in Trinidad and Tobago, a major parliamentary party conducts its internal election of office bearers, including the leader, in the manner of a national election, with all the customary mix of ‘bad-mouthing’, divisiveness, and personal bitterness.
And, as a consequence of that democratic process of direct membership voting (as distinct by delegates), the founder-leader of the party suffered a humiliating defeat.
This unique development, one that introduces a new concept in internal party democracy, and mocks ‘maximum leadership’ politics, was stunningly dramatized last Sunday when Panday suffered his humiliating defeat by Persad-Bissessar, the woman he had embraced and nurtured politically for many years.
Bitter conflicts resulting from leadership challenges are known to many political parties in our region and the world over. They are certainly familiar to governing and opposition parties in Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana, Jamaica, Barbados, St. Lucia and Grenada.
However, what occurred at the UNC election was more than a political earthquake for that party. It would have telegraphed a clear message also to Prime Minister Manning’s PNM that the ‘ole politics is in jeopardy and new ways for achieving or retaining State power must be found -- the sooner the better.
The rise of Persad-Bissessar to the UNC’s leadership also widens the window of opportunity for more meaningful integrated involvement of women in the politics of that major plural society where race and cultural differences have often been exploited by both opposition and ruling parties to secure and sustain power.
Of course, in Jamaica, the populist ‘Sister P’ (Portia Simpson-Miller) had years earlier carved her name in history by defeating her male challengers to succeed the retired PJ Patterson for leadership of the People’s National Party (PNP). The situation was quite different in the UNC’s leadership contest.
The overall results of the new leadership structure of the UNC, with Persad-Bissessar and the flamboyant Jack Warner, of regional/international football fame, as leader and chairman, respectively, could only have resulted by the twin factors of a significant departure from traditional Hindu-based norms by that party’s voting women members, plus the shocking misreading of the situation faced by Panday, the once lionized ‘Silver Fox’.
Afro-Trinidadian women, who, by and large, have acquired a more encouraging profile in political activism on issues of women’s rights and gender equality, would undoubtedly welcome the promise of change that has resulted from Persad-Bissessar’s leadership victory and declaration: “This is a small step for the UNC, but a giant step for the nation…”
It could be “a giant step” indeed if those from both the UNC and PNM yet to overcome their imprisonment from race-oriented and class-based politics, carefully analyse and act on the multi-messages resulting from the outcome of the UNC internal elections.
While a bitter Panday continued to lampoon his opponents in the UNC, Prime Minister Manning had already started to drop open hints in the media about possible ‘snap election’.
At the time of writing, she seemed short of two, but with a strong likelihood of achieving that goal as her parliamentary colleagues grapple with the reality of the extent of her virtual 12-1 defeat of Panday, and what the leadership change could mean for the UNC’s return to power.
For his part, Manning is by no means sitting on his hands, and has alerted his party’s central committee to the possibility of a “snap election” later in the year. Local government election is expected, but a national election is not due before 2012.
The PNM leader would be anxious not to allow the UNC to settle down under the leadership of Persad-Bissessar, knowing of the alignments and re-alignments that could occur with Winston Dookeran’s Congress of People (COP) and the evident disaffection within the traditional base of his own party.
After all, at the 2007 general election, the combined valid votes for the UNC and COP totaled 52.37 per cent, compared to the PNM’s approximately 46 per cent.
The COP, however, did not get a single seat for its own 148,000 portion of total votes cast, by virtue of the first-past-the post electoral system.
Posted January 24th. 2010 - Guyana Chronicle
By Rickey Singh
HARSH REALITIES OF HAITI'S AGONY --US media, televangelist & CARICOM
THERE SEEMS to be a strange reluctance, if not insensitivity, by mainstream United States media -- CNN and Fox News in particular -- to virtually ignore the admirable efforts also of other nations -- especially Cuba's -- in providing emergency humanitarian aid for earthquake-ravaged Haiti.
The reality is that for all the overwhelming focus on the large-scale involvement of America's growing military presence -- soon to reach approximately 10,000 -- and its civilian personnel from various agencies -- other nations are also engaged, though at lesser levels -- in feverish rescue and restoration activities since life in Haiti was so fundamentally changed by that mind-boggling earthquake on the night of January 12.
Last Wednesday, the reputable Washington-based think-tank, Council on Hemispheric Affairs (COHA), asked in a research memorandum: “Why is there almost no media coverage of Cuba's medical assistance in Haiti?”
COHA went on to catalogue some of this assistance, highlighting in particular Cuba's medical programme in Haiti that has been ongoing since 1998, and with the presence of some 344 doctors long before the earthquake disaster for which it had rushed an additional 30 doctors, even as other nations (including Caribbean Community states), were desperately seeking to establish priority needs, including at least one field hospital.
At that same time, the controversial American televangelist, Rev. Pat Robertson, an unsuccessful presidential candidate, teased for a 'foot-in-mouth' problem, was attributing the earthquake nightmare to claims of a Haitian "pact with the devil."
Those who recall the outpouring of blame from Robertson and the now late Rev Jerry Falwell (former leader of the very conservative ‘Moral Majority’ religious/political network) against the American Civil Liberty Union (ACLU), ‘abortionists. gays and feminists’ for America's horrible 9/11 terrorist attacks, would not be surprised by his gross insensitivity, if not ignorance.
Of course, this is the same prominent religious leader who is on record as calling for the assassination President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, only to later offer a form of ‘repentance’.
What is really surprising is not the problem Pat Robertson may have with himself in understanding others. More relevant is the concern being voiced over the very scant -- worse, exclusion -- of coverage by mainstream US television networks of the involvement by nations such as Brazil, China, Venezuela and Cuba, as well as the Geneva-based 'Doctors Without Borders’.
The Caribbean region, and CARICOM in particular, seem not deserving of any coverage by North America media enterprises, despite being among the first to initiate actions for assessment teams to fly into Haiti; only to be frustrated in initial efforts to establish a field hospital, then followed by a thoughtful offer from Jamaica for its strategically-placed airports to be available for use by international aircraft carrying emergency aid to the earthquake-wrecked country 45 minutes away.
At least US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton was to go on record as recognising Jamaica as being "pivotal" to the region's general outreach to Haiti during a meeting she had with Prime Minister Bruce Golding on the evening of January16 at the Norman Manley International Airport that followed her visit to Port-au-Prince earlier that day.
With virtually every recurring major natural disaster, or political upheavals suffered by Haiti over the past ten years in particular, governments and agencies of CARICOM have reached out in providing various forms of emergency relief, outside of political/diplomatic engagements.
In the wake of the earthquake disaster of cataclysmic proportions, the Community, of which Haiti became a member in 1997, was jolted into an even more rapid response, as part of international rescue and recovery efforts in that Caribbean nation now in ruins.
There is, however, the danger of our witnessing a déjà vu scenario when it comes to involvement in the more challenging post-reconstruction demands.
Once, that is, the mass burial of an estimated 200,000 corpses have been completed; thousands of other victims have received emergency medical attention, and the more than one million desperate victims reached in time with food, water and medicine.
Pledges Vs Deliveries
The danger alluded to is a likely return to official political rhetoric by CARICOM on matters like ‘debt forgiveness’ for Haiti, or the even more sensitive issue of ‘reparations’ by France from which Haitians had won their independence in 1804.
France bears a tremendous guilt for Haiti's current shameful status as the poorest nation in the Latin America/Caribbean region by a stubborn refusal to offer even a token response to the cries for reparations from a country where mothers have been forced to feed children on so-called ‘patties’ made out of baked earth mixed with salt.
One of President Jean Bertrand Aristide's more significant political initiatives, before being ousted from power in 2004, was to formally petition France for reparations of approximately US$21 billion, calculated in today's equivalent to an estimated 150 million gold francs that liberated Haitians had to compensate the French for winning their freedom.
Coincidentally, a month after his petition for reparations to the then government in Paris, Aristide was forced out of power by the USA, with the collaboration of France.
Currently, some of the political excitement over Haiti is focused on a series of ‘aid donors’ conferences, with one hurriedly hosted by the Dominican Republic last Monday, at the request of the European Union, and another planned for later this week in Canada.
The conference in Santo Domingo, attended by some CARICOM leaders, came up with proposals (‘guesstimates’ seem more correct) for an envisaged US$10 billion restoration/reconstruction programme for Haiti over a five-year period.
Truth is, though CARICOM should not be expected to confirm it, there is much cynicism abroad in this region about these ‘aid donors’ meetings for Haiti, due to the recurring gulf between ‘pledges’ made and failures to ‘deliver’ on commitments to implement projects.
For instance, a donors conference last April that coincided with the appointment of former President Bill Clinton by UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon as the world body's Special Envoy to Haiti, had pledged US$350 million in multilateral and bilateral assistance. But Haiti was still querying absence of ‘deliveries’ before the earthquake nightmare.
The foreign media's coverage, and CARICOM's apparent weakness in any consistent lobbying initiatives for ‘debt forgiveness’ -- or to embrace the more challenging question of Haitian pleas for 'reparations’ from France -- are some of the harsh realities to be faced in the wake of the most horrendous natural disaster in our Caribbean region.
Posted January 17th. 2010 - Guyana Chronicle
By Rickey Singh
CARICOM IN "COMA" - new initiatives urgently needed for recovery
EVEN AS the Caribbean Community Secretariat remains intensely engaged in commendable regional humanitarian aid efforts for earthquake-devastated Haiti, the prognosis for any significant advancement in CARICOM's major programmes during the first half of this second decade of the 21st Century does not appear encouraging.
Indeed, with a perceived trend towards a narrow nationalism, masked in a few cases as new approaches in trade, immigration and economic policies, there lurks the danger of an undermining of the growth of a once robust regional spirit to make a reality of the Single Market and Single Economy (CSME).
At present, while the CARICOM Secretariat is preparing for the first Inter-Sessional Meeting of Heads of Government for this year, scheduled for Dominica next month or early March, there are serious misgivings about the way forward for the CSME -- the Community's flagship project originally targetted for inauguration in 2015.
In November last year, one of the foremost collaborators in the regional enterprise that is CARICOM, Sir Shridath Ramphal, had painfully noted in addressing a forum of distinguished West Indians in Port-of-Spain on ‘Regional Progress and Challenges’:
"As with West Indies cricket, regionalism can be damaged if we forget our trust and are ruled by short-term fixes. We did not become independent of Britain to scatter our regional heritage to the winds of passing fortune. But we are being tempted to do just that; and CARICOM is blowing in the wind..."
Sir Shridath, a former long-serving Commonwealth Secretary-General and Chancellor of the University of the West Indies, warned:
"The CSME has lost credibility. Shame overwhelms us as we create the Caribbean Court of Justice and cling, unwanted, to the Privy Council. If things continue to fall apart like this, the centre will not hold. CARICOM is in comatose; and without intensive care, a coma can precede death…"
Sir Shridath's ‘straws’
Asked last Wednesday (before the announced Haitian earthquake disaster) whether he still felt the same way about CARICOM as he did at last November's symposium in Port-of-Spain, Sir Shridath told this columnist: "Unfortunately, I still do," then quickly added:
"If I am to clutch at straws, I would derive hope from the recent initialling of the treaty to establish an OECS Economic Union; and the potential for deeper cooperation between Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago as exemplified in current negotiations involving the operations of Air Jamaica..."
CARICOM's coming inter-sessional in Roseau is expected to receive a report from Barbados' Prime Minister David Thompson on the CSME Convocation he had hosted last October.
It was an occasion when representatives of both the region's private sector and labour movement did not spare criticisms of what they continue to view as yawning gaps between official rhetoric and implementation actions to generate public confidence that arrangements for advancing the CSME are indeed being seriously pursued.
A notable absentee for the CSME Convocation was the regional economist, Professor Norman Girvan, author of the seminal report, ‘Towards a Single Economy and a Single Development Vision’ that outlined a ‘road map’ for strategising and methodical implementation.
To say that Girvan has himself become disillusioned over the lack of necessary collective approaches to implement the CSME project, unanimously endorsed by the Community Heads of Government, would be to recall a similar discouraging example as it relates to Professor Vaughn Lewis' report dealing with the need for a new and more effective form of governance of CARICOM affairs. Now heading towards its 37th year of existence on July 4, 2010,
CARICOM remains divided on how and when to introduce what leading political and economic scholars, eminent private sector executives, and others regard as a necessary new administrative architecture.
At its core, as long recommended in the 1992 report of The West Indian Commission that was headed by Sir Shridath, could be a team of eminent CARICOM nationals (either three or five), armed with executive authority and focused on systematic implementation of unanimously adopted decisions by the Heads of Government.
If it's not really a case of a seeming reluctance by the Community's political directorate against sharing power with leading regional technocrats, or a preference to hide behind expedient interpretations of ‘national sovereignty’, then the Community's leaders should come clean in 2010 on what are the main barriers to the introduction of a more relevant system of governance of CARICOM.
Disappointments
Last year, when there were a lot of ‘special meetings’ of CARICOM ministers and leaders, as well as task forces with overlapping mandates, to find practical responses to the negative impact on regional economies of the global financial and economic crisis, we were told of plans for a special delegation of Heads of Government and top fiscal and economic experts to engage the International Financial Institutions in Washington.
Well, the year ended, and no such engagement is known to have occurred.
We were also informed of an expected summit of CARICOM leaders with President Barack Obama before year end. No such meeting took place, and none is yet carded for any time in 2010.
The region's people are aware of developments that resulted in the miniaturising of the once high-profile Caribbean Regional Negotiating Machinery (CRNM).
Less awareness prevails about the status quo of either CSME-readiness arrangements, or the extent of progress by the special unit in the Community Secretariat responsible for implementation arrangements for the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) entered into in 2008 with the European Union.
Of course, the first decade of the 21st Century ended last year in no surprise, but ongoing disappointments that the first decade of the 21st Century ended with no progress of significance on the much-publicised people-focused project of intra-regional free movement, particularly as it relates to skilled Community nationals. The issue remains enmeshed in immigration controversies.
The current immigration situation in Antigua and Barbuda, for example, appears serious enough to warrant some direct involvement by the governments of Jamaica and Guyana with that of the Baldwin Spencer administration in St. John's about repeated reports of unfair and inhumane treatment of their nationals.
At the symposium in Port-of-Spain on ‘Regional Progress and Challenges’ referred to earlier, Sir Shridath Ramphal had expressed the hope that the results of that event could "help bring us (the region) to our senses..."
Alas, that hope has often been variously expressed at successive CARICOM Heads of Government.
It would, therefore, be quite refreshing to discover that at their coming 31st annual summit in July -- wherever its venue, CARICOM leaders demonstrate a new readiness to advance the goals of our economic integration movement; one that will bring closure to the multiplicity of negative features and occurrences during the second half of the first decade of this 21st Century to inspire hope for a significant change, at least during the first half of this second decade when the CSME is scheduled to be operationalised.
Posted January 10th. 2010 - Guyana Chronicle
By Rickey Singh
CUBA'S 'HONEYMOON' WITH OBAMA - Havana's anger over US 'terrorist blacklist'
WITH CLOSURE of the first year of Barrack Obama's presidency, the promise of any fundamental change in USA-Cuba relations is rapidly fading and a short-lived political honeymoon now seems heading for the rocks.
The latest indicator emerged last week with a stinging broadside from Havana against Washington's decision to include Cuba among 14 countries linked with alleged State-sponsored terrorism.
In the absence of any clear commitment by Obama to lift the very punitive US trade and economic embargo enforced against Cuba forty seven years ago, optimism, nevertheless, has been on the ascendancy with new arrangements on remittances and travel, as well as agreements on telecommunication and postal services between the two countries.
When Obama came under some sharp criticisms for being awarded the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize, the legendary Cuban leader, Fidel Castro, came out batting on his behalf, even as reservations were being openly expressed about his expedient "a just war" doctrine in relation to Afghanistan, as declared in his acceptance speech in Oslo.
But Havana felt it was nothing but unprovoked official hostility for Washington to blacklist Cuba among 14 countries in new security arrangements in its ‘war against terrorism’, following the foiled al-Qaeda-linked bombing attempt on Christmas Day by 23-year-old Nigerian national, Omar Farouk Abdulmutallab, on a Detroit-bound Northwest Airlines flight.
It so happens that Cuba is the sole exception of the 14 countries that are known to be Muslim nations, and with no regular flights into the USA. Other than that is the four heavily monitored daily charters that connect Havana with Miami and two other American cities.
The Cuban Foreign Ministry was last week alerting its allies in the global community, including the governments of CARICOM, of its deep concerns about the implications of being so wrongfully blacklisted by the USA, and while its citizens continue to suffer from the consequences of the almost half-a-century-old economic blockade.
Cuban/Nigerian anger
"We categorically reject this new hostile action by the US government," the Cuban Foreign Ministry said in a statement. It claimed that the “list was politically motivated, and its only goal is to justify the US policy of economic embargo against Cuba..."
Nigeria, a country of some 151 million largely Muslim people, has, for its part, dismissed it as being totally unjustified to have to bear the ‘blacklisting’ burden because of the crime with which a single Nigerian, Abdulmutallab, has been charged. It has officially demanded exclusion from the listed 14 countries.
Before Obama's, other Washington administrations had routinely sought to brand Cuba as a terrorist-sponsored State without offering any specific evidence of the USA being a victim of such a deplorable political doctrine and practise.
On the contrary, it is Cuba, as is known to the 15 member countries of our Caribbean Community (CARICOM), as well as in Latin America and other regions of the world, that has had to repeatedly expose its sufferings, at home and abroad, at the hands of terrorists, many trained and financed by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
Indeed, a few of the CIA's terrorist collaborators who have been exposed in the assassination of the former Foreign Minister of Chile, Orlando Letelier on September 21, 1976, on 'Embassy Row' in Washington, have been linked with anti-Castro Cuban emigres involved in a series of terrorist acts in Cuba and the Caribbean.
CIA-linked terrorists
Two of these CIA-collaborators were also involved 15 days after the assassination of Letelier with the October 6, 1976 Cubana airline bombing tragedy off Barbados, in which all 73 people aboard perished, most of them Cubans, and including 11 Guyanese and five North Koreans.
One of the earliest of Cuban emigres recruited by the CIA in Washington's obsession with crushing the Castro-led government in Havana, and who was involved in the Cubana tragedy, Luis Posada Carriles, is still enjoying protection in the USA.
But the US continues to ignore all requests from Cuba and Venezuela (from where Carriles had escaped, as a Venezuelan citizen, first to Panama).
Located somewhere in the bosom of America also is one of Posada's better known terrorist emigre collaborators, Orlando Bosch, who had earlier illegally entered the USA as a safe haven and succeeded in getting a presidential pardon from the elder George Bush when he occupied the White House.
In the spirit of ‘international solidarity’, to which all CARICOM governments lay claim with Cuba, perhaps they should consider sharing their own concerns over the consequences for that Caribbean nation to be now blacklisted along with 13 others following the Christmas Day bombing scare on that Northwest airline flight.
As Agence France Press (AFP) reported out of Havana last Wednesday, US-Cuba tensions are on the rise, after the foiled al-Qaeda airline bomb plot is ending Havana's "fleeting honeymoon" with President Obama.