Seth Glickenhaus --- I

One would hardly think of the financial weekly Barron's as a bastion of liberal sentiment. Yet in the last year, they have interviewed Seth Glickenhaus not once but twice. He is founder of Glickenhaus & Co., the "$1 billion Manhattan-based money management firm." He is also ninety years old.

Last year, we put up some of his thoughts on Al Queda, Iraq and Afghanistan as our Summer 2003 "Paradox of the Month." He said, in part,

The public thinks we won the war and that it is over. They don't realize we are going to keep more troops in Iraq than we thought. The deficit will grow. We are not going to win the peace. Iraq is so divided internally it makes Afghanistan look like one unified group. Do you think soldiers know how to straighten out a country? They know how to make war. Do you think the State Department has the people and the training to help the country rebuild? Do you think we have anything like that?...

Since this one went up, we have received several e-mails concerning RALPH's editors' (and Glickenhaus') politics, ancestry, and age --- one of the milder epithets thrown at him was that he was "an old coot."

His second interview appeared on 7 June. In this, Glickenhaus is a bit more forthright --- if such is possible --- on his thoughts about the current administration in Washington. He also opined that he would much prefer to have been living during the French Revolution (he called it "a fascinating time to have been born.") He said, in part,

If Bush is re-elected --- and I don't think he will be --- those of us who regret not having been born during the period of the French Revolution are going to have their innings.