But political change – slow, to be sure – is taking place in Kazakhstan: a vast oil-rich and landlocked country in Central Asia, which gained its independence in 1991, when the Soviet Union collapsed. The Russians had both tried to colonize (22.8 percent of the population is Russian) and use Kazakhstan as a dumping place for prisoners, for nuclear facilities and for some of the worst environmental experiments, particularly dooming the Aral Sea by reversing the rivers that once fed it.

In mid-January, Kazakhs went to the polls for an election that could be the beginning – just the glimmering of a beginning — of a new era of democracy in Central Asia. In itself, this election was a small affair and was criticized as such by observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).

Myself and a colleague were invited as journalistic observers. We stayed in Astana and observed voting in just two locales, which were orderly and had a movie-set feel to them. We even got to watch President Nursultan Nazarbayev enter the voting booth, exit it and drop his ballot into a transparent box.

Fur-wearing voters drop their ballots into a box at the National Academic Library polling station in Astana.  Photo: Linda Gasparello

The OSCE observers were critical of the way the government determined which parties could participate. They were also critical of the high polling numbers provided by the government, which claimed 80.7 percent support for Nur Otan, the party of the president, a former Soviet official who moved quickly from communism to capitalism but hesitatingly to democracy.

Yet in his 20 years of near absolute power, Nazarbayev has been popular. He has had the unique good fortune of being able to deliver above the expectations of his people.

Nazarbayev has been skillful in positioning Kazakhstan as a friend to everyone. By doing so, he has cultivated comity with his some of his irascible neighbors, including Russia, China, Iran, as well as the less-friendly other “stans” that border his sprawling, underpopulated country (about 16.5 million people).

He also has fostered good relations with ethnic minorities, including Uzbeks, Ukrainians, Uighurs, and many more. Likewise, with 40 religious groups: Kazakhstan is a predominantly Muslim country (70 percent, 26 percent Christian) with a secular tradition. Muslim women do not cover their heads; men are clean-shaven; the call to prayer does not ring out over Astana; and minority religions are permitted, including Buddhism and Judaism.

Cleverly, Nazarbayev has also given his people a shiny bauble to be dazzled by: Astana. In a little more than eight years, this architectural extravaganza has risen on the Central Asian steppe. Astana is spectacular and incorporates a kind of World's Fair-meets-The Emerald City architecture: There is a building that looks like giant golden egg in a white-branched nest, one that opens like a flower's petals, and one that looks like a yurt. The best architects in the world, like Britain's Norman Foster, have been invited to play – and they have let loose.

Palace of Peace and Harmony in Astana  Photo: Linda Gasparello

But Nazarbayev's days as the Wizard of Oz may be drawing to a close, and the tentative nod to democracy may be an acknowledgment of that. He is 71.

A new generation of ambitious, gifted and well-educated men and women now walks the streets of the capital; young people who wonder about the paternalism, want to play on a world stage, and do not remember the bad old days of Soviet domination. They worry about the pipelines that take Kazakh oil in many directions – at present, mostly into Russia and China. Especially, they worry what will happen when their president passes from the scene.

After the disappointment of the Arab Spring, dare the world hope for a democratic birth on the Central Asian steppe? I think so. – For the Hearst-New York Times Syndicate

The lost art of debate — and other wordy topics

Guests: Aram Bakshian, author and critic; Atul Singh, Fair Observer

ASTANA, Kazakhstan – Rome wasn't built in a day. Neither was this fantasy
city, which lies in the flat, semi-arid and steppe north-central region –
but it seems like it.

After Kazakhstan gained its independence in 1991, the city and the region
were renamed Akmola, meaning “white shrine” in Kazakh.

In 1995, the city was designated as the country's future capital. On Dec.
10, 1997, the capital was officially transferred from Almaty, a Silk Route
city in the mountainous southeast, to Akmola. The new name, Astana,
meaning “capital,” was bestowed in 1998.

A stately presidential palace  Photo: Linda Gasparello

The word “astana” in Kazakh, by one account, comes from the Persian verb
to stand, “istandan,” particularly in respect or awe. The city of Mashhad
in northeast Iran, which is the burial place of the 8th Shi'ite Imam Reza,
is an “astana.”

Visitors can't help but stand in awe of the modern capital and the man
responsible for building it, President Nursultan Nazarbayev. He's built
Astana in much the same way as al-Mansur, the Abbasid caliph, transformed the small Persian hamlet of Baghdad into a powerful and prestigious city in 762 A.D.

Astana's futuristic skyline has been formed in 12 years, with brio,
bulldozers and billions in expenditure. The Baiterek monument and
observation tower, the capital's symbol, is one of many architectural
wonders. The 105-meter structure is named after the mythical tree. Its
base and consists of white steel girders bundled like branches. An
observation deck, 97 meters up the base  (symbolizing the year of the
capital transfer) supports a 22-meter-diameter gold-mirrored globe,
representing the golden egg laid by the mythical bird Samruk.

Bird's-eye view: Baiterek monument  Photo: Linda Gasparello

“According to a Kazakh legend, the Samruk laid an egg bright as the sun at
the top of the Baiterek, but at night an evil dragon gobbled it up. When
the patience of the local Kazakhs ran out, they killed the dragon,
allowing the sun-like egg to brighten up the world,” Dilip Hiro wrote in
his latest book on Central Asia.

The tower's observation room – from which visitors can see much of the
city – features a malachite pedestal topped with a 4.4-pound block of
solid gold, in the center of which is an imprint of the president's right
hand. A plaque suggests that visitors place a palm on the imprint and make
a wish, which on special occasions triggers the playing of the national
anthem. (Recently, I was told, the lyrics were changed because Nazarbayev thought they were too downbeat for a dynamically developing country.)

Golden touch   Photo: Linda Gasparello

Also installed in the chamber is a wooden globe, with 17 rays signed by
representatives of the world's religions. The globe commemorates the First
Congress of the Leaders of the World and Traditional Religions, which
Astana hosted in September 2003. The Palace of Peace and Harmony, a stone
and glass pyramid, 62 meters high, was built for the 2006 summit of
traditional religions in Astana.

Palace of Peace and Harmony  Photo: Linda Gasparello

Kazakhstan is home to over 130 ethnicities, practicing over 40 religions.
“Kazakhs are aware of the need for peaceful coexistence on our planet,” a
tower guide said.

British architect Norman Foster, who designed the tower and the pyramid,
has put an enormous imprint on the city. He also designed the Khan Shatyr,
or the “king's tent” – a regal 150 meters high with a 200-meter elliptical
base). It's a stately pleasure yurt, housing shops and restaurants, indoor
beaches and waterfalls, as well as a mini golf course and botanic gardens.

Khan Shatyr recreation center   Photo: Linda Gasparello

Foster's latest design, the Abu Dhabi Plaza, is a matrix of staggered
high-rises, the highest of which will be 88 stories – and the highest building in Central Asia. The mixed-use complex, which will include hotels, offices, residences, a reinvented traditional marketplace, light rail and year-round gardens, was inspired by “a sister” project in Abu Dhabi, the Central Market Redevelopment.

 “We're a little competitive with Dubai – just like siblings,” a young
Kazakh told me with a laugh.

I jumped on an airplane for London this week. I could do it because of something of inestimable value in my pocket: a passport.

Most people take passports very much for granted, except those who have ever been without one. They know how confining it is to be without the right paperwork. They know what it's like to take the first step into the ghastly limbo of statelessness; a ghoulish existence outside of the law and its protections, outside of normal society, and outside of the right to earn a living.

This sub-societal life, where at least 12 million people reside in the United States, is a place too far for Mitt Romney to comprehend. His immigration proposals have the irrationality of ignorance and the cruelty of those who are committed to not knowing.

Evelyn Waugh, the British writer, talked about the morbid lack of curiosity of colonial settlers in Africa to the indigenous populations. Romney and his cohorts have a morbid lack of interest in the 12 million or so illegal immigrants who live on the fringes of our society, often doing its dirtiest work.

Statistics never tell the story; in their way, they obfuscate it. They don't tell of decency, generosity, kindness and nobility or despair, hurt and suffering. They tell us that 6 million Jews were killed by the Nazis, but that is just a statistic. To comprehend the horror, you must walk around Auschwitz or some other camp to see where the deeds were done; to see the hair and shoes of the children; and to know, in my case, that these toddlers were my contemporaries. You have to extract the individual from the data, and look him or her in the eyes.

Not for Romney and other Republican savants. For them, the 12 million are just people who have broken laws – laws they choose to treat as immutable. They are less than human and should be denied education, employment, medical treatment.

These people live in the fear of being rounded up and deported, often to countries they don't know and sometimes where they don't speak the language. The children, a small minority of those who are here illegally, who the DREAM Act sought to help, are among those that the immigration fanatics would punish for a crime committed by their parents: wanting a better life. The sins of the fathers will be vested on the sons.

The life of the illegal, the stateless person, is one of degradation, exposure to exploitation and fear.

My late friend, Johnny Prokoff, who was a much-loved bartender at the National Press Club in Washington, used to tell his own life story of the vulnerability and suffering of the stateless. Prokoff left Lithuania at a time when there was so much poverty that there was a small industry in killing lice in garments with a hammer. The trick, he told me, was to kill the vermin without damaging the garment. It was a necessity induced by poverty.

The young Prokoff stowed away on a ship and began a seven-year odyssey as the property of various ruthless captains. Sometimes they would demand sex, always they would make stowaways work, and never would they let them land on any shore. Also, they would sell them to other captains – slaves, in fact.

Eventually, Prokoff jumped ship in Mexico, made his way to the United States, married an American and was able finally to live a legitimate life.

Multiply him by 12 million. Some walked here, some came on visitors' visas and never left, and some were brought by lovers, parents or spouses. If they cannot find low-grade work as domestics, chicken-factory employees, dog washers, they must contemplate a life of crime or prostitution; creating a statistic that politicians can advertize to prove that these people are no good.

I went through a period of not having a passport, although I had a green card. Other journalists romped around the world — I stayed at home. It's a violation that one doesn't forget.

Tell the 12 million about Romney's cruel and innovative idea: self-deportation. Walk to where, Mitt? – For the Hearst-New York Times Syndicate

Obama’s strengths and weaknesses; the Internet

Guests: Tim Farley, Sirius XM Radio; Adam Clayton Powell III, University of Southern California; Wayne Madsen, Wayne Madsen Report 

For three years, we've provided ISO and MPEG-2 files of episodes for PEG stations to download. We've posted instructions on registering and downloading episodes in the Contact Us section of the Web site.

Downloading is a simple process and a reliable TV episode delivery system. Importantly, it helps us continue to provide "White House Chronicle" to PEG stations.

A discussion of Shirley’s book, “December 1941: 31 Days That Saved America and Changed the World”

Guest Craig Shirley, author

At that moment the nomination was Perry’s to lose, and he wasted no time in losing it. He entered stage right with Texas panache. Writers and broadcasters, including myself, who had the temerity to question the Texas mystique – that famous swagger – got an earful from Lone Star loyalists. One thought that I should be roped and dragged behind a cutting horse. Another volunteered to do it.

Texans with six-shooters on their hips were ready to defend the honor of their state with cordite. That was until their leader drew a bead on his own foot and fired.

It wasn’t so much that Perry forgot the government department that was bringing down the United States, but that he gave the impression he had never heard of any of his targets before they were whispered to him seconds before he walked to the podium. One prefers one’s political heroes to explode rather than implode. We want to be able to laugh out loud, not feel terribly sorry.

Poor Perry. When he had to substitute piety for swagger, it was over. We want our Texans loud and brash with belt buckles as big as lesser states.

A personal favorite of mine was Herman Cain. Damn it. I liked him; an original by any measure, I’d say. But he was brought down by something less than original: a roving eye directing a roving hand. Jobs-for-sex would not, one feels, solve the unemployment crisis.

I didn’t care that Herman the Lover didn’t know where Libya was. If it had had a Godfather’s Pizza franchise, things would have been different.

The guy was appealing. While pizza may not have the same ring as computers or pharmaceuticals, he had a great resume as a mathematician and naval officer.

It could be argued that Cain and that other roguish aspirant for high office, Newt Gingrich, at least have standard-issue libidos. The rest were, well, a little sexually hung up.

The lovely Michele Bachmann, the righteous Rick Santorum and oh-so-pure Romney, who apparently has been untouched by human temptation or anything else as messy as human beings and their needs, all suffer from moral fundamentalism. It’s hard to imagine Romney as evincing passion of any kind, even though he is the father of five.

Santorum is the most fanatically puritanical about sex. Especially gay sex. To Santorum, the family is the triumph of human achievement. Not since Oliver Cromwell, apparently, has anyone cared as much about the family or its sexuality as Santorum. For him it’s not the individual that builds the state, but only the family — unless it’s the gay family. Indubitably big government is dandy, so long as it’s in someone else’s bedroom.

The same anti-gay fundamentalism animates Bachmann and, apparently, her husband who has a clinic to “cure” homosexuals. What is it about these people that has them so frothed up about other people’s private acts?

Oh, let it go if they froth in private. Who cares now that the race is narrowing?

When Gingrich goes, I’ll be shattered. Gingrich and his wife Calista standing by him as immobile as a cigar-store mannequin, belong on the high shelf of American political bric-a-brac. Gingrich sprouting his version of history, his version of his own role in history; Newt magnanimous in his brief ascendency and bitter as oblivion threatened. This was the Man Who Would Be President unmasked. The consolation prize of National Grouch surely belongs to Newt.

Of course there was a bit player, an understudy, someone qualified but unsung: enter, stage center, Jon Huntsman. A brief appearance, exit stage left. No applause, no mention in the program even.

So dim the lights, bring down the curtain, strike the set – never have so many outrageous eccentrics so unsuited the highest office in the world so entertained so many of us for so long. Sadly, the long national farce is over. – For the Hearst-New York Times Syndicate

World events as the U.S. elections get fully underway

Guests Arnaud de Borchgrave, Center for Strategic and International Studies; Andrei Sitov, Itar-Tass; Al Leeds, The Washington Post