Too Serious A Matter

Memo to Obama

2008-03-03T16:08:00.001-08:00

TO: Barak Obama
RE: How You Could lose the Election

The conventional wisdom is that you will be the Democratic nominee. And the conventional wisdom is that the Democrats will have many advantages in November:

Americans are tired of Bush;

Americans are tired of this awful war in Iraq;

Americans are tired of other Bush disasters, like the response to Katrina;

Americans are tired of all those tax breaks and other gifts that have been given to the wealthy;

Americans are tired of all those nasty things Bush has done to the environment.

You are a far better candidate than McCain.

Most of the issues help the Democrats—especially health care and the environment.

The Democrats have more money.

They even have Oprah.

The economy is headed South faster than a goose with dysentery.

Winning the election in November should be a cakewalk, right?

Wrong.

The Republicans still have fear. And, as long as the Democrats allow them to, the Republicans have “the surge” and all the political benefits it produces.

Why?

Because you and Senator Clinton have allowed the phrase “the surge is working” to roam around the political landscape almost completely uncontested.

This has allowed McCain and others to make a variety of illogical arguments about the war in Iraq. I’ll get to those in a moment—but first the surge.

The Surge

Baghdad and other cities in Iraq are more secure.

McCain would have you think this is because more US troops are in Iraq. That is only part of the reason violence has subsided. Much of decrease in violence is because the Shiites and the Sunni’s have decided to take a time out.

The Mahdi Army—made up mostly of Shiites—is maintaining a cease-fire.

The Sunni’s have severely reduced their violent ways. For the short term, they’ve seen the benefits of not attacking other Sunni’s. They also have decided to take weapons and money from the US. This way, when it is time to fight, they will have bullets and plenty of buckaroos. This has sometimes been called the Sunni Awakening. A more accurate representation might be, “arming for a civil war.”

Working?

Because comments about the surge working have been largely uncontested, because the overall situation in Iraq is complicated, because the reporting by the media has been so poor, and because on this issue the Democrats have acted like their old, incompetent selves, many Americans think that Iraq is on the mend.

This is nonsense.

Democrats have to explain how bad things are in Iraq.

Only on the military front are things noticeably better:

Sunni and Shiites still hate each other.

Homes in Baghdad get power around twelve hours a day—six less than under Saddam.

Oil production has not yet returned to pre-invasion levels.

Elections that were to take place in October have been cancelled. This shouts that Iraqi sovereignty remains a dream.

Political progress in Iraq is tinier than a freckle on a midget.

Corruption and incompetence run rampant throughout the Iraqi government.

Many US efforts in Iraq remain pathetic. For example, a large chunk of weaponry was supposed to be headed to the Iraq security forces: 110,000 AK-47s, 80,000 pistols, 135,000 units of body armor and 115,000 helmets—that’s right, enough equipment to make even a dumb white racist feel comfortable while taking a stroll through Watts—all of it, has been lost.

And there’s more bad news:

The Madhi Army—that’s the Shiite’s—their cease fire is about as durable as wet dollar bills.

The Sunni Awakening is being held together by substances that have the tensile strength of chewing gum.

Strategy

You don’t have to be a strategic genius to know it is better to attack a weak position than a strong one. The great military strategist, Sun Tzu said as much, “In war, the way is to avoid what is strong and to strike at what is weak.”

The idea that the surge is working is a strong one.

You and other Democrats have to debilitate this idea.

Republicans have made all kinds of political hay while the sun hasn’t been shining because they have been able to separate the surge from the overall health of Iraq.

You and other Democrats have to expand the overall definition of the surge to include essential services and political progress. The US could be in Iraq for a hundred years. But unless there is progress on essential services, unless the Iraqi government gets its act together, the US forces are little more than security guards at a rock concert.

The more you and the Democrats let the idea that the “surge is working” go uncontested, the longer Bush Administration’s concept of the surge remains credible.

As long as it remains credible, for McCain and the Republicans, the surge creates a giant platform.

McCain’s Plan

McCain argues that since the surge is working, the US should remain in Iraq. McCain argues that since the surge is working, the US can win the war in Iraq.

McCain hopes assertions like these will add credibility and gravitas to his “no surrender” rhetoric.

Your abilities to tap into huge reservoirs of emotion have been essential to your electoral successes. You are such an amazingly good communicator that you have been able to use concepts like “hope” and “change” to inspire people.

Most politicians use fear.

If comments about the surge are allowed to go unchallenged, fear of America losing the war Iraq may rise.

Many politicians will be reminded how, way back in 1972, the McGovern Democrats managed to lose an election and to immolate the Democratic Party’s national security credentials. The party still suffers huge issues regarding national security.

Polls suggest that the war in Iraq is not at the top of the list of voters’ concerns. But unless you change your tactics, it will be.

You have shown that emotion trumps the logical constructs Senator Clinton has been trying to create. But you’re brand of emotion—hope and opportunity—is very vulnerable.

McCain is intending to wave a huge flag. It’ll look like an American flag. But it’ll have fear written all over it: Fear of losing the war in Iraq. Fear of change. Fear that voting for you will lead to catastrophe.

McCain will try to plant that flag of fear smack dab the middle of the idea that the surge is working.

The Democrats should be saying things like, “Looking at Iraq only from a military point of view is what got us into this mess to begin with.”

Democrats have to link the surge with all the problems in Iraq.

You’re a smart guy. You know that hope and opportunity trump logic.

But do not forget this: fear trumps hope and opportunity.

A Few Minutes in the Life of a Superdelegate

2008-02-23T13:13:00.000-08:00

A month ago Dan was an overworked Democratic pol. He spent most of his life doing thankless, anonymous tasks for the Democratic Party. His cell phone almost never rang.

Now he’s a superdelegate.

He still spends most of his life doing thankless, anonymous tasks for the Democratic party. Only now his cell phone rings a lot.

Last Wednesday morning Dan was in a good mood. The day before he’d attended a Clinton rally where he’d had his picture taken with Senator Clinton.

His girlfriend called him. She asked him how it went with Clinton.

“Fine.”

“Don’t tell me ‘fine.’ What’d you talk about?”

Dan didn’t say anything.

“Money?”

“No.”

“Strategy?”

“No.”

“Some sort of Hail Mary pass that would save her campaign?”

“No.”

“So what’d you talk about?”

“Pocket protectors.”

“You may be talking with the next president of the United States and
you talked about pocket protectors?”

Dan was talking to his girlfriend via his cell phone, but he nodded.

“There was a guy—”

His girlfriend interrupted, “Who had a pen leak in his shirt. So you talked about pocket protectors. Dan, you were talking with Clinton. You couldn’t have said, ‘Let’s raise some more money? Let’s adjust to what Obama does better? Let’s organize better? And you talked about pocket protectors?”

“The senator agreed with me. The guy who’d had a pen leak, his life would be better if he’d worn a pocket protector.”

Dan had only recently given up wearing a pocket protector. His girlfriend counted it as a victory. The truth is less valiant. The stationary store where Dan used to buy his pocket protectors went out of business.

“Dan, you’re not thinking about wearing a pocket protector again are you?”

Dan has his faults. But he wasn’t an idiot. “Of course not.”

“Phew. That was close.”

He had to go. He had another call.

With Slick

Dan looked both ways, then he crossed a street. Then he looked at his cell phone. Someone other than his girlfriend actually was calling him. He put his cell phone to his ear. He heard a familiar voice. It said, “Hi Dan, Bill Clinton here.”

“Slick! Good to talk with you.” Then Dan remembered that the former President did not like the nickname. Dan apologized.

The former president was gracious.

They chatted—or rather the former President talked.

Dan knew the former president was calling to woo him. Dan knew that this phone call was no more than a political gesture done to solicit Dan’s vote as a superdelegate. But Dan savored the moments the former President talked to him.

The former president tried to persuade Dan to endorse Senator Clinton.

Dan had another call, but he ignored it. Dan said he was waiting until the primaries were over to pledge his vote.

President Clinton praised this tactic. “Don’t want the people think the politicians are tilting the process.” The former President went on to say that the new administration would need bright young minds like Dan’s.

Dan knew he was being pandered to. But he loved it.

The former President asked Dan what he was doing. Dan was on his way to the post office. Then he was going to a bookstore. His girlfriend was taking a class and had to write a paper on the Mideast. He was going to pick up a book for her.

They said goodbye.

As Dan stepped into the post office, Dan’s phone rang again. Again Dan looked at his cell phone. It was definitely his cell phone. And it definitely was ringing.

Michelle Obama had called him. She boiled down a version of her stump speech. She said that Barak cut his teeth on Chicago politics. It doesn’t get much tougher than that. Barak is tough.

Dan had heard the stump speech. He liked the stump speech. But he preferred talking with the former President. He told bigger lies.

As Dan stepped out of the post office, Dan’s cell phone rang again.

He looked up toward the sky. He expected to see pigs flying.

But above him was just regular old sky.

“I hear you’re writing a paper.”

“Dan, this is Madeline Albright.” Albright was Secretary of State under Clinton. “I hear you’re writing a paper.”

Dan wasn’t writing a paper. His girlfriend was. But he listened politely as Albright shoveled quotes to him.

Dan’s favorite quotation was one he’d heard the former Secretary of State say before, “The Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.”

Dan realized the Clinton camp was not missing an opportunity to massage an opportunity.

Soon after his conversation with Albright ended, Dan’s cell phone rang again. “Dan, this is Bert Wooster. I’m with a plastics trade group. Hear you have a shortage of pocket protectors in your neck a the woods.”

Dan realized someone from Senator Clinton’s staff no doubt had contacted Bert.

Bert schmoozed Dan for a few minutes.

Pictures and Pain

Then Dan realized that the Obama campaign had e-mailed him pictures. Dan opened his cell phone and admired the pictures. Dan saw himself smiling as he stood next to Michelle Obama. Dan saw himself smiling as he stood next to Barak Obama.

Then Dan felt a pain in his chest.

The pain seemed to have tossed him backward.

A large black woman shouted at him, “You tryin to be stupid?”

Dan had no idea what was going on.

He felt a gust of wind. Soon he realized the gust of wind came from an SUV that had raced past him.

The black woman continued to yell, “Wat you doin? Starin at those pictures when youse about to walk across tha street? Mista, you ain’t got the sense God gave a turnip.”

Dan realized what had happened. He’d been thinking about the phone calls he’d been getting. He’d been looking at the pictures. For a moment he had forgotten that he was being pandered to.

For a moment he was dazzled by the people he had been speaking with.

Then he realized he’d almost walked onto the street.

The large black woman probably saved his life.

She continued to yell at him. But he felt nothing but kind, warm, fuzzy thoughts about her. He thanked her.

She shouted at him, “Dat SUV coulda squashed you—you coulda been flatter n week-old Pepsi.”

He got it. The black woman was trying to tell him that looking at photos on your cell phone is a dangerous thing to do . . . if you are crossing a street. Dan also realized that taking the comments from politicians too seriously also was very dangerous.

But important people wanted to talk with him. Important people wanted Dan to think he was important. It was nice being noticed. It was nice to be courted. Dan closed his cell phone and smiled.

Janus and Jerry

2008-02-15T16:03:00.000-08:00

Line of the Week

Comes to us courtesy of Late Night’s Conan O’Brien, "After John McCain swept yesterday's primaries he purposely stole a line Barack Obama's been using, 'I'm fired up and ready to go.' When Obama heard this, he stole a line McCain's been using, 'I'm old and not sure where I am.'"

Janus and Jerry

When Janus and Jerry met for dinner last Wednesday, Janus was in a lousy mood. Her mood was not difficult to explain. For the last six months she’d been working eighty hours a week for Hillary Clinton.

In the last days, the senator had lost eight primaries in a row. Obama had taken the lead in the delegate count. And he’d also managed to capture all the momentum and most of the good headlines.

Jerry is not as organized as Janus would like. She’d arrived at seven-thirty; he arrived at eight.
They talked about the campaign for a while.

Jerry said, “The tears were good.”

“The what were good?”

“The tears . . . the tears Clinton cried . . . in New Hampshire.”

Janus nearly snapped at him, “The tears were a hundred years ago.”

Jerry gave a look that shouted, “What do you want from me?”

Janus said, “I want evidence that Clinton has a sense of humor.”

“Clinton laughed once.”

“In 1952.”

“Janus, you’re tired, you should get some sleep.”

“You know the news is bad.”

“It’s darkest before the dawn.”

“I think it’s about eight o’clock in the evening.”

Crash and Burn

Jerry told Janus about a satellite that was falling to earth. The US was going to spend sixty million dollars to shoot it down. Jerry figured it was a spy satellite of some sort. Otherwise they would let it crash and burn.

“’Crash and Burn,’ that’s not a bad title.”

“For Bush’s memoirs?”

“I was thinking of our campaign.”

The waiter arrived. Janus said, “Most of the time the campaign is important people talking about trivial things.”

Jerry said, “I thought that’s what a game show was.”

The waiter laughed.

Janus wondered if a game show format could be used as an effective campaign advertisement.

The waiter handed Jerry and Janus their menus. Then he left.

Jerry asked, “Is it okay if I order this fancy thing? This what do you
call-it?”

“They call it ‘the super.’ ”

“Is it okay if I order ‘the super’?”

“Can you spend a half an hour waiting for your dinner?”

He nodded.

“Can you spend an hour eating dinner?”

He nodded.

“Do you have forty-nine ninety-five?”

“No.”

“Then you can’t order the ‘super.’”

Later, when the check came, Jerry didn’t reach for it.

She said, “What is this, you’re not organized? You don’t have any money.” Janus continued,

“What is this? The Clinton campaign?”

I Thought it’d be Over

Jerry said, “I thought it’d be over weeks ago. Whenever I date someone for a while, it always ends in February.”

“Jerry, I haven’t been dating you, I‘ve been living with the Clinton campaign.”

“And seeing me on the side?”

Janus nodded.

Jerry asked, “Your job is your life, and your life is your mistress?”

Janus got angry, “Jerry you don’t get it. I’m a woman. You’re a man, You can’t be my mistress.”

Jerry nodded.

Janus continued, “I’m trying to tell you that we don’t have to break up . . . just because it’s February.”

“So there’s no one else?”

“Jerry, I barely have time for you.”

“So I’ve been addressing the wrong things—I’ve had a lousy strategy.”

Janus nodded.

Jerry said, “So you’re saying dinner and a movie and sex—”

“Jerry, when have we had time for a movie?”

“We saw a movie once.”

“Jerry we saw a movie last August.”

“So you’re saying dinner and sex means—”

“It means dinner and sex.”

Jerry looked as if he’d just seen a John McCain roller-skating in a buffalo herd.

Janus said, “So you get it?”

“Of course.”

Janus smiled.

A few seconds passed.

Janus asked. “Are you sure you get it?

Jerry replied, “I never get anything. But when I’m out with an attractive woman and she says, ‘Do you get it?’ I nod.”

“Good tactic Jerry. Good tactic.”

Jerry said, “So you don’t care that I blew it? That I thought we’d be done by say the beginning of February?”

“Of course I care.”

“But I’ve had a lousy strategy, I’m not as organized as I should be, I miss things, I don’t have nearly enough money, I don’t adjust fast enough, I feel I have to lob some miracle pass to catch up . . . I get a sense that it’s all over.”

“Jerry are you talking about us, or are you talking about the Clinton campaign?”

“I don’t know.”

A Dead FAX Machine Comes to Life, Judas, GW, and the Environment

2008-01-23T14:47:00.000-08:00

Recently, I was slaving away at my desk. As someone who is always in the pursuit of the newest nuance in American culture that rocks the American political scene, I was looking for pictures of a very attractive starlet—without any clothes on. As a picture was beginning to appear on my computer screen, the lights on a long dead FAX machine flashed. The machine coughed and wheezed. Soon it was makin more noise than a two-dollar radio. Then the long dead FAX machine spit out a few pages of text.

Backstory

A wiser person would care more than I do about how and why the long dead machine came to life. Being the geek I am, I didn’t bother with anything like that. I read the FAX.

The FAX was mostly the transcript of a conversation between two people. One was that famous traitor from yesteryear we’ve all grown to know and hate—Judas.

The other participant in the conversation we know as a quixotic blending of twangy simplemindedness, verbal gaffes, and tactical blunders—G. W. Bush.
Judas and Bush are just gabbin away.

And they are sweatin more than a hooker in church. They’re sweatin because they’re in hell. For those of you who care, it doesn’t look at all like Dante’s hell—or even like Wal-Mart the day after Christmas. It looks a lot like a grid-locked freeway . . . somewhere in Georgia . . . in late August.

GW is appealing to move on up, if not to the right side of the big politician in the sky, at least to a slightly cooler locale.

Judas doesn’t have a whole lot to do. So he’s helping with GW’s appeal.

After reading the transcript, I did a little fact checking. It soon became obvious that the words Bush says are not rubba-dub-dubbed, shellacked and spit-polished, or even toilet flushed exaggerations. Bush has said all the comments attributed to him.

Just a Little More Backstory

Much of the dialogue addresses a proposal California and twelve other states championed. They petitioned the Environmental Protection Agency. Inside the Washington beltway, we call it the EPA. Rumor has it that GW calls it epa.

California and twelve other states petitioned the EPA to allow their states to create fuel efficiency standards that are more strict than those the Feds have. These higher standards would require automobiles sold in their states to burn less gasoline. This would make the air cleaner and reduce the demand for fossil fuels.

As you would expect from an administration that has excrement-for-brains, the EPA denied California’s request.

Because the story of the California petition and the EPA denial deserves a great deal more attention than it garnered, and because Judas—unlike so many in the media, asks not one but a series of follow-up questions—the transcript of the conversation follows.

Judas and GW

Judas began this way, “More than one person has whispered to me that they think your policies on the environment distill the essence of your administration. Would saying that be putting words in your mouth?”

"I don't particularly like it when people put words in my mouth, either, by the way, unless I say it."

“Regarding the EPA ruling on the suit brought by California and some other states. Did Governor Schwarzenegger call you specifically to talk about this issue?”

"All I can tell you is when the governor calls, I answer his phone."

“Don’t you think it would be more fair to future generations if Americans did more to clean up the environment?”

“All of us in America want there to be fairness when it comes to justice."

Judas continued, “Would you say that the Bush administration has had a negative impact on the environment?”

"I'm going to try to see if I can remember as much to make it sound like I'm smart on the subject."

“Would you like to comment on why it took so long for the EPA to issue it’s ruling?”

"This process has been drug out a long time, which says to me it's political."

“Fred Krupp, president of Environmental Defense supported the California initiative. He responded to the EPA ruling by saying, ‘This decision is like pulling over the fire trucks on their way to the blaze,’ Would you like to respond to comments like this?”

"There's a lot of blowhards in the political process, you know, a lot of hot-air artists, people who have got something fancy to say."

“Many say that the EPA ruling is a victory for the auto industry and that rulings like this will decrease the levels of trust people have about politicians.”

"There is distrust in Washington. I am surprised, frankly, at the amount of distrust that exists in this town. And I'm sorry it's the case, and I'll work hard to try to elevate it."

Cheney’s Clout

“Many say that rulings like this one by the EPA provide more evidence of the Vice President’s clout.”

"I think that the Vice President is a person reflecting a half-glass-full mentality."

“How do you respond to the assertion that this EPA ruling is ‘more of the same’ from your administration?”

"I think—tide turning—see, as I remember—I was raised in the desert, but tides kind of—it's easy to see a tide turn—did I say those words?"

“Other nations are taking profound steps to improve the environment. Many suggest the EPA ruling will cause the US to fall farther behind other industrial nations in this regard.”

"I aim to be a competitive nation."

“Many argue that the EPA ruling is further evidence that you have little idea what is really going on in the world.”

"[I]t's a myth to think I don't know what's going on. It's a myth to think that I'm not aware that there's opinions that don't agree with mine, because I'm fully aware of that."

“Many say this ruling provides more evidence that you aren’t fully informed on the issues.”

"I glance at the headlines just to kind of get a flavor for what's moving. I rarely read the stories, and get briefed by people who are probably read the news themselves."

“Many have criticized your support of the coal industry. Do you think that criticism is justified?”

"We're spending money on clean coal technology. Do you realize we've got 250 million years of coal? Yet coal also prevents an environmental challenge."

“Won’t many view the EPA ruling as just another attempt by your administration to distort the facts regarding global warming.”

"See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda."

“Critics of your environmental policy suggest that it will cause long term harm to America. Do you have a response to that?”

"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we."

Finally, the Truth about the New Hampshire Polls

2008-01-23T14:31:00.000-08:00

It seems like an eon has passed since the pollsters and many of the pundits were bollixed by the results of the New Hampshire Primary. Before the primary, polls (and plenty of pundits) shouted that Obama would win—and probably by a significant amount.

He lost.

Polls (and pundits) suggested that on the Republican side, that McCain would win—and he did. Many who are obsessed with politics wonder how civilization could continue while the mystery about the New Hampshire Polls remained unsolved. Just how could one series of polls (for the Democrats) be so wrong, while the other (for the Republicans) could be so right?

Clinton said listening to voters had helped her find her voice.

Many zeroed in on a teary moment Clinton shared with voters and the media the Monday before the primary.

Some suggested that it was the debates that had made Clinton the front runner before the Iowa

Caucuses, the debate that took place the Saturday before the primary had done it again.

The Bradley Effect was mentioned as another possible reason why the polls had been so wrong. The Bradley Effect is named after it’s first victim, former LA mayor Tom Bradley. The Bradley Effect suggests that voters overstate to pollsters about how likely they are to vote for a black candidate—which is a polite way of saying that a significant percentage of voters lie when they tell pollsters they will vote for a black candidate.

Other reasons were floated:

Pollsters stopped polling on Sunday; the election was on Tuesday.

Many voters, confident that Obama would win, didn’t vote.

Students didn’t vote for Obama in the numbers that had been expected.

Many voters were torn between Obama and another candidate became confident that Obama would win. So they had voted for the other candidate.

Some said the surprise was the result of a synergy of all of the reasons.

Finally, The Truth

Hours of investigative reporting—mostly spent plying people with booze—have led to other causes for this apparent polling gaffe:

A fundamentalist suggested that the polling screw-up happened . . . because God wanted it that way. He said if Senator Clinton appeared to be gaining influence, then the Republicans would have a Democrat to hate.

He then went on to explain why hating the Democrats was “the Christian thing to do.”

An aide to Rudy Giuliani camp attributed the polling gaffe to 9/11. No further explanation was given.

But after a few drinks, she showed me a card. It was titled, Responses for the Media.
1) This is a direct result of 9/11.
2) This is a result of 9/11.
3) Though all the data isn’t in yet, when it is, we are confident there will be a connection between this event and 9/11.

I told her that it looked as if she had a very challenging job.

I suggested we use the card she was given to replace the dartboard in the bar.

She smiled and said, “I’ve got something better than that.” She opened her Louis Vuitton Mirror Image Briefcase. Then she retrieved a series of pictures. She had pictures Huckabee, Romney, and Clinton. Some of the pictures had targets superimposed on the faces. She said, “These would be much better for the dartboard.”

“I can see you are a veteran campaigner.”

She smiled. Then she said, “This is my third New Hampshire Primary.”

A spokesperson for an association of anti-immigration groups blamed the polling problem on Hispanics who had come to New Hampshire illegally.

I asked him if he’d been drinking since the 2004 New Hampshire Primary.

He said, “I’ll drink to that!”

My guess is that he would have drunk to George Lopez being elected president.

I reminded him that Hispanics made up less than three per cent of the population of New Hampshire.

When he heard that, his expression made it obvious he was very surprised. Loudly he said, “These guys are organized!”

A small group of people from the International Community For Alien Research joined me for a few drinks. I thought they were making up the name—to get free drinks. After, I Googled the organization. It exits. (And you thought I was making these up!). They had boxes of buttons and a few signs that identified them as Kucinich supporters. They said the polling gaffe was the result of extra-terrestrials influencing the election.

When I told a political veteran about this comment, she replied, “There’s a group of Kucinich supporters?”

A nice guy from the Club For Growth looked at me with a dour expression on his face, then he said, “This so-called polling error is really the result of market forces doing what they do best.”

When I told the guy that I wanted funny comments, the spokesman smiled and said, “This is the result of market forces doing what they do best.”

A few drinks later, I told him that I’d seen his wife coming out of a hotel room with a tax and spend liberal.

He put on his glasses and said, “This is the result of market forces doing what they do best.”

A woman who described herself as a passionate Democrat told me an interesting story.

According to her, George Bush ordered former FEMA officials infiltrate the cadre of New Hampshire election workers. She said, it was a brilliantly executed plan to flummox the Democrats and their pollsters.

This provoked one of the Kucinich supporters to ask, “George Bush constructed a brilliantly executed plan?”

A spokesman for Liars Anonymous said he had data suggesting that the Bradley Effect wasn’t in play. “Voters didn’t lie to the pollsters; but they did lie when they voted.”

I asked him, “How do I know you’re telling the truth?”

He responded, “Is the Pope Jewish?”

Ten Things We Should Take From the Iowa Caucuses

2008-01-04T11:49:00.000-08:00

1) America is a great nation. Selecting a President is a very important process. Having the first event of that process take place in Iowa is absurd. Ethnically Iowa does not represent the US. Iowa’s economy is not microcosm of the nation’s. Because the event is a caucus and not an open primary—well, that doubles the absurdity of the exercise.

2) A day is a lifetime in politics. The ultimate absurdity of this year’s election process has been dubbed the Super Duper Primary. It takes place on February 5 when twenty-four states are scheduled to hold a primary or a caucus. The Super Duper Primary is thirty lifetimes away.

3) Since 1976, winners of the Iowa Caucuses have not done well. Of the five most recent presidents, only one triumphed in the Iowa Caucuses the year he was first elected president—G. W. Bush.

4) Over a hundred thousand more Democrats went to the caucuses than Republicans. Combine that with the electoral surge that the Democrats made in 2006 and you’ve got this: many Democrats are very happy right now, and there are more nervous Republicans than you can shake used Florida butterfly ballot at.

5) Huckabee and Obama won convincing victories. For that they garner the benefits of winning the Iowa Caucuses. In the hours after the caucuses, they will raise thousands of dollars. And the bright lights of free publicity will shine on them. The downside is that they will have a King Kamehameha-sized target on their backs.

6) In the immediate future, Huckabee has more challenges than Obama. Huckabee does not have the infrastructure in New Hampshire that he will need to make the most of his Iowa successes. There are not nearly as many evangelical Christians in New Hampshire as there are in Iowa. This group served as Huckabee’s base in Iowa. Republican economic conservatives loathe Huckabee. They’ll suggest Huckabee is crazier than a dog in a hubcap factory.

7) Huckabee and Obama gave very good victory speeches. But even here, the Democrats took the prize. Obama’s victory speech was incredibly good. More importantly it showed how unified and coherent his campaign is. Obama blended change, hope, and optimism into a whole that transcended anything the Republican candidates can deliver at this point. At this moment in space-time, Obama has the whole package: a Republican administration many dislike that Obama can run against, positions on issues that a majority of Americans favor, a sterling campaign, a Super Duper-sized recyclable container overflowing intangibles—he’s charismatic, he has a savvy wife with a winning smile, and two incredibly adorable children—and so much money he’ll be able to spend it faster than a jackrabbit on moonshine.

8) Senator Clinton took some very serious hits. Obama earned more votes than she did from the senators most prized constituencies: Democrats, women, Independents.

9) It’s refreshing that Edwards and Huckabee did well in Iowa—though they spent far less money than their opponents. (Huckabee won and Edwards came in second.) Don’t be derided by the talk of their success. Most of the time, in American politics, money remains paramount. After the New Hampshire Primary, money will be of tremendous importance.

10) The next stop in the absurdity we call the American political process is almost as bizarre as the first one. New Hampshire offers an open primary. This is a good thing. Voters may vote for any candidate. Sadly for those who prefer the absurd, this is not Cook County, voters will have to be alive to vote and voters will only be able to vote once. But considerable silliness remains. The primary is happening in a state that ethnically and economically does not represent America.

Last week in this space I offered suggestions to make the primary process more sane. Many wrote—and a few shouted—that I had it all wrong. They argued that we shouldn’t fix the process, we should make things more absurd. To that end I have two suggestions.

11) The first event in the 20012 primary season should be in Hawaii. It will blend the worst of a surfing competition—why not?—with a caucus—this way only a tiny percentage of the state’s population will participate. The winner will be determined by the loudest “Cowabunga” a candidate’s supporters may shout from the beach. They will shout in response to tricks a candidate—or a proxy—does on a surfboard.

12) As he did this year, every election year, Chuck Norris must endorse a candidate. Norris’ endorsement will insure that Chuck Norris jokes will continue to be created and told. This will add an appropriate leavening to the election process which, as we all know, is not silly enough. A few favored Chuck Norris jokes follow:
When the Boogeyman goes to sleep every night, he checks his closet for Chuck Norris.
Chuck Norris has already been to Mars; that's why there are no signs of life there.
Chuck Norris can slam a revolving door.
Some people wear Superman pajamas; Superman wears Chuck Norris pajamas.

For those of you who while reading this were distracted by your lattes, cell phones, pagers, iPods, jobs, spouses, kids, families, or the latest crack about Britney Spears, the title of this piece suggested that there were ten things we should take from the Iowa Caucuses. The last two were items numbered eleven and twelve.

Fixing the Primary Mess: The Fair Primary

2007-12-29T11:09:00.000-08:00

There are times when life imitates satire. One happened recently when George Bush commented on his education policy, “Childrens do learn.” Way back in April during the first Democratic presidential debate, Joe Biden, a man who is not known for his brevity, answered a question with a one word answer. Students of satire wait with baited breath for those moments when Hillary Clinton is warm and funny at the same moment, the powers that be in baseball show something that represents a backbone, and Paris Hilton turns down an opportunity to be photographed.

But I have left out one of the most absurd processes known to humanity: the Iowa Caucuses.

Whether you are a romantic or a cynic, I think you have to agree that the President of the United States holds a position of considerable influence and authority.

Given it’s importance, shouldn’t the first formal step in the election process be a sane one?

Of course it should.

Is it?

Of course not. Exhibit A: the Iowa Caucuses.

Is Iowa a microcosm of America? Let’s see, Iowa is 91% white.

That doesn’t represent America.

Does it have the same urban/rural mix as the US?

No.

It its median income in the economic middle of the US?

No.

Religiously, does it represent America?

No.

In national elections, does it have a history of voting for the candidate who is elected President?

No.

There’s more bad news.

Is the process that voters go through during the Iowa caucuses similar to the one they will visit later?

No way.

During the Iowa Caucuses less than seven per cent of the Iowa voting public meet in rooms and yak for a couple hours. They make a convoluted journey through a minefield of complex rules. The sum of these idiocies leads one candidate being declared a winner.

However, there is one tremendous benefit the Iowa primary gives us. Iowa is a relatively small state. Candidates can meet and talk with Iowans in small arenas. This is a good thing.

Let’s remember a purpose of a primary is to select the candidate from a party who is most likely to win the presidential election. Therefore, it is an excellent idea to hold the first primary in a state that is a microcosm of the United States.

The benefits of the first electoral exercise are obvious. The winner gets a tremendous boost. If the candidate gets this boost from a state that is a microcosm of the US, that victory will be good for the candidate, the candidate’s party, and the country.

Missouri Gold

Right now, Missouri is the state that is most like the US. It has the same rural/urban mix as the nation. It has the same percentage of Christians, African-Americans, and union workers as the nation. It ranks twenty-seventh in median income—for those of you who are mathematically challenged, that’s one step away from being exactly in the middle. Like the US, it has two blue coasts (the areas around St. Louis and Kansas City) with a large area of red in between.

Missouri is not one of the behemoth states. Relative to some of the electoral monsters out there, it’s downright small. It is roughly ten per cent larger than Iowa.

There’s more good news. Given the various ways that Missouri mimics the US, it should not surprise that Missourians have voted for the president longer than any other state. They’ve done so since 1960. If you allow one exception, in 1956 when it voted for Stevenson, the string goes back to 1904!

I am not advocating that the first primary be held in Missouri for the next century. I am advocating that the first primary be held in the state that comes closest to serving as a microcosm for the US.

Also, the first electoral exercise should mimic the larger exercise many of us go through the first Tuesday in November. It shouldn’t be an event where a tiny percentage of the state’s population participates. It should be a statewide election.

Call it the Little America Primary.

Regarding That Regional Primary Thing

Rightly, there is a good deal of support for rotating regional primaries. There are various plans. All divide the country into regions and rotate the regions. This would be a very good thing. Every region would get a turn at going first. Most years most regions would have a say in the nominating process. Rotating regional primaries would eradicate the primary traffic jam we will experience in 2008. However, most rotating regional primary proposals keep the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary in tact.

The New Hampshire Primary is another bad tradition of American politics. New Hampshire is 97 per cent white. It ranks first in median income. It has no history of voting with the country for the candidate who becomes president. New Hampshire doesn’t mimic the demographics of the nation.

But like Iowa, New Hampshire is a small state. This allows candidates to meet and listen and talk with citizens.

Small States

I suggest we keep the benefits of the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary. Elevate the importance of the small states. It’s easy.

Require each region to vote in a particular month. Have Region One votes in February, Region Two in March, and so forth. Hold the first primary in a region in one of the small states in the region.

Every region has one humongous state. You know what I’m talking about, states like California, New York, and Texas. If the primaries held there occur on the same dates of other primaries in the region, the large states will steal most of the thunder. So let the biggest state in terms in a region—at least in terms of electoral wallop—have a stand alone primary.

That leaves two weekends for the rest of the region. Bundle the states together so that it is easier for the candidates to campaign and to buy television time. This will mean each region will have a southern section and a northern section.

To be fair, rotation within a region will be necessary. The small states in the region can rotate to determine which goes first. During one election cycle the southern section would go first, in the next, the northern.

Let’s summarize. The ides of a rotating regional primary is a very good one. But kick things off with a primary in a state that most represents America. Then in February start a series of regional primaries. Dedicate the first primary in each region to a small state. Give the Big Kahuna in each region a stand-alone. And let’s help the candidates a little and bundle the rest of the region into two sub sections. And within each region, rotate.

Call it the Fair Primary.

Some other Good Ideas

Every contest is a primary—no straw votes, no caucuses, no beauty contests.
All primaries have proportional representation. If a candidate wins half the vote, that candidate is awarded half the delegates.

So that people who work have more of an opportunity to vote, hold the elections on Friday and Saturday.

Polls close at the same time on Saturday throughout the region. Because all the states in a particular primary will be in one or two time zones, this should not be difficult.

But polls may open early. And on Friday they may remain open late. For example, areas with a large Jewish population may elect to have polls open early on Friday to allow plenty of time for people to vote before the Sabbath begins. Some areas may elect to remain open late on Friday—so that people have plenty of time to vote after work.

Make the first primary an open primary. Voters may vote once for candidate from any party. This will make the sampling even more like a cross section of America.

All these ideas will make the process more fair. And every election season it will invite new groups of people into the process. This should stimulate interest in a process central to the lives of all of us.

This would be a good thing.

Natterings

Nattering nabobs of negativity will raise all sorts of flags. The first will revolve around tradition.

My response. . . If it’s a bad tradition, change it.

Another will response will be, How will the current system be changed?

The parties, realizing what a mess things are this year should address the problem.

Call me old-fashioned, mid-Victorian, and all too provincial, but it seems to me that if something is broken and you are going to fix it, it is far better to fix the thing completely—rather than do a patch job.The current primary system is silly and chaotic. The rush to be heard early in the process is a just a symptom of a larger problem within the process we have now.

The Fair Primary is a vast improvement to the way we do things now—and it is darn close to fair.

Steroids in Baseball, Global Warming, and Iraq

2007-12-14T13:35:00.000-08:00

Our neighbors are hosting a foreign exchange student named Suddya. He is from the Ukraine, and he is an unusually bright young man. Occasionally, he wanders by to ask me questions about America. Soon after the Mitchell Report came out on the use of steroids and other unauthorized substances in baseball, Suddya came by.

I opened a few soft drinks, and we sat down.

“In my city, some very . . . how do you say? . . . not good people came into town. Zey had wild parties dat lasted late into da night.”

“Were they political fundraisers?”

“No.”

“Zey stole. Zey cheated.”

“Oh, so you had Hollywood accountants visit the Ukraine?”

“No.”

“Zey did drugs and drank and made much bad news.”

“Brittney Spears and Lindsay Lohan were in the Ukraine.”

“I think they were what you call organized crime, the Mobe.”

“The Mob?”

Suddya smiled at his mistake. Then he nodded. “What you would call a sheriff kicked their cans out of town.”

“You have a very good sheriff.”

“Kicking za tin down za pike.”

“Dis phrase you have in Amerika, Kicking za tin down za pike. ”

“Do you mean, Kicking the can down the road?”

“Yes. Dat is da phrase. It means?”

“It means that we are not solving the problem now. We are waiting until later. We are postponing. We are procrastinating.”

“And for years . . . dis applied to baseball and steroids?”

“Yes. Long before lots of people started asking questions, baseball players started to look like the Michelin Man.”

Suddya had seen a great deal of American television. He knew what the Michelin Man looked like. “So rather dan solve za problems steroids created, rather dan solve dos problems early, baseball vaited til later?”

“Yes. This is what ‘kicking the can down the road’ means.”

“But vaiting to solve da problem later, dat means when [the] problem is addressed, well by then [the] problem is worse.”

“Exactly.”

Suddya asked, “Vhy did baseball vait so long to address [this] problem?”

“A lot of it has to do with money. When baseball players were hitting baseballs as if they were golf balls, lots of people came to see the games.”

“Vat you call revenues, dey went up?”

“Talk of steroids would have lowered revenues.”

Suddya asked, “Von’t revenues be hurt more because of da long wait to solve da problem?”

“Probably.”

“And because da leaders didn’t do anything, din’t za problem . . . become worse?”

“Certainly.”

“I think I don’t understand America bery well.”

“The classic response is that leaders don’t want to make waves. It will damage their credibility.”

“Isn’t vat you call credibility, isn’t dat ruined . . . for not acting sooner?”

“Good point.”

“Won’t the man who runs baseball lose his job?”

“Probably not.”

“Why not?”

“Because the owners like him.”

“But he screwed down.”

“In America we call this screwing up.”

Suddya smiled at his mistake.

“Dis is nonsense.”

“Most look at it this way: If the commissioner of baseball had brought attention to the steroid problem years ago, it would have caused controversy. Attendance would have declined. Baseball’s television ratings would have declined. Owners would have objected. The players union would have objected. A lot of fans would have objected. The commissioner might have lost his job . . . But if he waits til the problem is out in the open, and then he addresses it, he is seen as a problem solver.”

Suddya’s forehead was a sea of wrinkles. “Dis is nonsense. Da problem got much worse. The cost vill be higher. Some players who took steroids vill have shorter lives. Kids who took steroids because their athletic heroes did vill have shorter lives.”

“You are, of course, right.”

Suddya asked, “Aren’t there plenty of vays da head of baseball could have drawn attention to dis problem?”

“Yes. But most would have required the commissioner of baseball to get his hands very dirty.”

“Aren’t dere plenty of vays da commissioner could have drawn attention to the problem vithout getting his feet filthy?”

“The expression is ‘getting your hands dirty.’ And the answer to your question is, ‘Yes’ there are plenty of ways any leader can raise in interest in an issue without getting his hands dirty.”

“In Da Godfather, there vere reporters who wrote vat the Godfather wanted.”

“That is a good point. In America there is no shortage of reporters who will report what almost anyone wants reported.”

“Da movie Amazing Grace recently came out on DVD.”

I nodded.

“In the movie, da prime minister and a man named Wilberforce team up to end da slave trade in England. Wilberforce got his hands dirty, the prime minster, he vorked behind the scenes.”

“You are very smart young man.”

“Certainly da head of baseball knows . . . how do you say?”

“How to finesse a situation like the one he was in?”

Suddya smiled. “Yes. Dat is what I meant.”

“Clearly the commissioner didn’t have the will.”

Not Just Baseball

Suddya started waiving his hands in the air and talking loudly. A television network studio executive could have realized that Suddya was upset. “And it’s not just baseball! Decades ago ve had da greenhouse effect. Only now are ve really beginning to do something about dis global warming.”

I nodded.

Suddya continued, “De other day where I lives, we had to clean up old newspapers and magazines. I played kooky and read a few.”

“Hooky. You played hooky.”

He smiled at his mistake. “I read lots of old stories about za war in Iraq. In Iraq, Bush has done a lot of kicking za tin down za pike.”

I nodded.

“And because of dat da government in Iraq is a mess. And because of dat the police in Iraq are a mess. Dis kicking za tin, it creates big problems, no?”

“Yes, it creates big problems.”

“And da Democrats. Did dey stop Bush from kicking za tin?”

“No.”

“So dis kicking za tin down the pike, it seems to be very American? Yes?”

“Yes. It is very American.”

“I have one more question. In Amerika you call da Mobe—”

“The mob.”

Suddya smiled at his mistake. “In America, you call da Mob, organized crime, yes?”

“This is correct.”

“Well this mistake dat comes from kicking za tin down za pike, dis waiting so long to address steroids in baseball, dis waiting so long to address global warming, dis waiting so long to address da government in Iraq, is dis disorganized crime?”

Line of the Week

“Education is the engine that makes American democracy work. And it has to work, and that means people have to have access.” Harvard’s president, Drew Faust, on the announcement that the university will significantly increase aid to many students.

Wouldn’t You Love Somebody to Bomb?

2007-12-07T15:07:00.000-08:00

Some of my best friends are mystical. They think their dreams tell them deep and pervasive truths. I’m not a mystical person. My dreams usually tell me to stay away from spicy foods. But yesterday I didn’t eat spicy food, and last night I had a very strange dream. I know it was a dream. But it seemed so clear and obvious and true—well, all that made it seem like it wasn’t a dream at all.

In the dream, Bush and Cheney were in the Oval Office. There was large portable cork board in the oval office too. On it pictures Hillary Clinton and Arianna Huffington had been hung with care. Each picture had a thick blue paper frame around it.

During the conversation, Bush threw red darts at the pictures.

My dream had a soundtrack. The Jefferson Airplane sang “Wouldn’t You Love Somebody to Bomb?” They sang it to the tune of their sixties classic, “Somebody to Love.”

My dream started as Bush threw a dart. It barely hit the frame the outlining the picture of Hillary Clinton.

“Hitting the frame counts. Mr. President. Good shot.”

Bush smiled.

“Mr. President. I was sent in to talk with you about the NIE report on Iran.”

As Bush aimed a dart, he said, “I’m listnin.”

The Bad News

“Well the news is not good Mr. President. It’s not good at all. The National intelligence Estimate has issued a new report.”

“So?”

“Well there’s news in it sir.”

“Let’s have it.”

“Well according to the National Intelligence Estimate, Iran closed down its nuclear weapons program four years ago.”

“Who put the report together? Wing nuts and moonbats?”

“That’s a problem Mr. President. Our people put the report together.”

Bush hurled a dart. It flew high and wide to the right. It landed on the large chair that rests behind the desk in the Oval Office.

“Oooops.”

“Don’t worry sir. Our media unit has a great patch kit.”

“You don’t say?”

“Tomorrow you’ll never know there was a hole in that chair.”

“Don’t suppose it has a patch that covers Iraq?”

“No Mr. President. It only works on chairs and couches . . . and things like that.”

As Bush hurled a dart, he said, “I’d like to put a patch over the mouth of—”

The dart hit the picture of Hillary Clinton.

Cheney said, “Good shot Mr. President.” Cheney continued, “Mr. President, the NIE report was put together from reports from . . . ahh . . . many of our intelligence gathering services.”

“Our people wrote that report?”

Cheney nodded.

Bush said, “Traitors.”

“I agree Mr. President.”

“Look into it.”

“I’ve just begun to look into it.”

“Good work.”

Bush picked up another dart. “Dem fella’s in Iraq stopped buidlin nukes four years ago?”

“Iran.”

“What?”

“People in Iran stopped building nukes four years ago.”

“Iran, Iraq—whatever—four years ago they stopped building nukelear bombs?”

“That’s right Mr. President.”

“That was before the election.”

“Mr. President your math is improving.”

Red Card

The President smiled. Then he said, “For years now we’ve been goin ballistic about Iran.”

Cheney’s forehead wrinkled. Cheney pulled a red card out of his jacket. He looked at Bush, and in an angry tone said, “Racheting up the rhetoric.”

“Right.” Bush closed his eyes as he said, “Don’t’ say, Goin Ballistic. Do say, Rachetin up the rhetoric. Don’t say, Goin ballistic. Do say, Rachetin up the rhetoric.” Bush opened his eyes. “I got it.”

Cheney smiled and put the red card back in his jacket.

Bush threw a dart. It landed on Hillary Clinton’s face.

Cheney said, “Good shot Mr. President.” Then Cheney said, “The news I just told you about has brought bad news.”

“Let’s have it.”

“Well the Democrat bloggers are having a field day.”

“Bush threw a dart at the picture of Arianna Huffington.” It was wide right.

“Almost Mr. President.”

Bush threw another dart at Huffington’s picture. And then he threw another. The fourth dart hit the paper frame around Huffington’s picture.

“Good shot Mr. President!”

Change in Direction

Bush looked at Cheney. “Well we’ll just have ta find somethin else to get people scared about.”

“That’s a very intelligent comment Mr. President. To me it seems to be a lesson the Democrats never learn. But you’ve got it down pat.”

“Instincts. Always had good instincts.”

“Right Mr. President.”

As Bush aimed another dart, he said, “The Democrats are always scary. Could we try to scare the country about the Democrats? Imagine their idea to bust the budget for health care for kids. What do they think I am? Some kind of a dope? Kids don’t vote. Do they think I’m an idiot?”

“Mr. President, I have a meeting in an hour. It’s about what we should scare people about next sir.”

“Good job.”

“But this NIE report does present problems for us.”

Bush’s throw missed both pictures.

Good ol Days

“Tough shot Mr. President.”

Bush said, “Eisenhower. Eisenhower had it easy.”

“How so Mr. President?”

“It was easy for him to find someone to hate. The Cold War was goin on. And he had that dude—what was his name?”

“Joe McCarthy?”

“Right. Eisenhower had that McCarthy dude scarin every grandmother in the US about communists.”

“Right Mr. President.”

“Ahh, those were the good ol days.”

“Mr. President, obviously we’ll play the fear card.”

“What other card is there?”

“The Iranians are still enriching uranium. Obviously we’ll play the fear card with the enrichment thing.”

Bush nodded as he hurled a dart toward the picture of Hillary Clinton.

Cheney continued, “As opposed to the Bush tax cuts. Those tax cuts are enrichment things that work in a better way.”

They both smiled.

Cheney continued, “At the meeting I spoke about earlier, we’ll look at long term ramifications of this NIE report.”

Cheney’s Plan

Bush said, “So this NIE raport. That basically ends our plans for Iran.”

“Afraid so Mr. President.”

As Bush grabbed a dart, he said, “Your plan to scare the piss outta people about Iran n maybe drop a firecracker or two in their back yard. It was a good plan Dick.”

“Thank you Mr. President.”

“Would a diverted everyone from the election some. Sure as heck woulda stopped people worryin about the dang economy. Would a gone a long way toward helpin the party in November.”

“Bush threw a dart. It missed the picture of Hillary Clinton.”

Bush continued, “But what I really liked about your plan was it woulda allowed us ta do the things we need ta do.”

“You’re right again Mr. President. Sometimes The Constitution does get in the way of what’s right and best for America.”

“Dat’s my point! Dat’s exactly my point. Tha Constitution. In you’re meetin today, find somethin that will let us . . .”

“Bend.”

“Dat’s it. Dat’s exactly it.”

“Find something that will let us bend da Constitution.”

“Right Mr. President.”

Bush threw his last dart. It missed both pictures.

I have a memo here from Karl Rove. Cheney continued. Holding the memo, Cheney said, “Rove suggests you get bigger pictures.”

“Dat Karl. Dat Karl is a good ol boy. He never stops thinkin. Bigger pictures. Ain’t that an idea? Tommorra have someone get bigger pictures for me ta throw darts at.”

“Excellent idea Mr. President.”

“N get me a picture of that Oprera lady.”

“Ms. Winfrey?”

“Dats the one. Dat’s the one. Remember. Find something that will allow us to do the things we have to do to make this country great.”

Cheney nodded. Then he said, “Remember Mr. President. The Constitution is just a piece of paper.”

“That’s my boy Dick. That’s my boy.”

Line of the Week

Following the shooting death of Redskin’s safty Sean Taylor, there was a rush by many to speculate that events from Taylor's checkered past had provoked his attack and later death. Police now say that the assailants were burglars. Writing in Sports Illustrated, Jim Trotter noted, "Didn’t we learn anything from the Duke lacrosse case?"

A Short Political Dictionary

2007-12-07T15:03:00.000-08:00

For politicians, few things are more hazardous than telling the truth.

My favorite example is President Carter’s energy initiative. Way back in 1977 then President Carter hoped to inspire Americans to solve it’s energy problems. He deemed the cause, “ the moral equivalent of war.” He was right. He spoke the truth. Had we followed his advice, we would not be in the energy mess we are in now. But people didn’t want to hear the truth. Many people laughed at him.

When he was governor, Jerry Brown suggested a satellite should be launched into orbit to speed emergency communications for the state. This proposal earned him the name Governor Moonbeam—and, you guessed, it laughter. California eventually adopted a similar proposal.

An esteemed political consultant initiates young candidates on the perils of the truth. He has the pols he advises read the short story, “Tombermory.” In the story, a cat talks, and get this, the cat tells the truth! Forget that a person has taught a cat—an animal with the brain the size of a walnut—to talk. Characters in the short story are so fed up with the truths the cat tells, that they deem it appropriate to have the cat killed.

As I write this in a warm hotel room in Des Moines, it is 12 degrees Farenheight outside. But the Iowa caucuses are merely weeks away. That means the rhetoric is heating up.

A Public Service

So, as a public service I offer a few translations of political doublespeak.

“There’s a lot of free media in Iowa.” TRANSLATION: There are homeless people who have more money than this campaign does.

“I’m having a great time here in America’s Heartland.” TRANSLATION: I haven’t had this much fun since I had a barium enema.

"I'm delighted to share this stage with so many great people." TRANSLATION: The guy to my right is nuttier than squirrel turd. The bozo on my left is about as sharp as a cue ball.

“I would like to thank the lovely Jane Smith for that wonderful introduction.” TRANSLATION: I wouldn’t take her to a dog fight—I'm afraid she'd win.

“Let me be perfectly clear.” TRANSLATION: Uhoh I just quoted Nixon, one of the least trusted people in the history of American politics.

“Let me say this about that.” TRANSLATION: I have no idea how to answer the question I’ve just been asked.

“He says he will cut red tape. Right. He’ll cut it lengthwise.”
TRANSLATION: Even the politician is bored with his/her stump speech.

“His new proposal is weaker than a midget’s pinky.” TRANSLATION: That sausage I ate for breakfast repeats faster than a machine gun.

“I believe in America.” TRANSLATION, Did I just quote a line from The Godfather?

“We face unprecedented challenges.” TRANSLATION: Gosh I love that line. It scares people big time, and it doesn’t force me to commit to anything.

“Elect me to be your next president and one of the first things I will do will be to assemble a panel of experts to solve this problem.” TRANSLATION: I’m going to table this puppy til people are sunbathing in Siberia.

“His new proposal is such a mess, you’d have to think it was written by a co-hog.” TRANSLATION: Gosh I’m tired. And what the heck is a co-hog?

“I’m talking about a return to values. American values. The same values that made this country great, and the same values that will return this country to greatness.” TRANSLATION: If I say the word “values” enough, and do not, repeat do not qualify it with examples, or anything that reeks of deteail, if I say “values” enough people will think I have values that are similar to their values.

“It’s great to be in Iowa.” TRANSLATION: Gosh, it’s cold here.

“I support ethanol subsidies.” TRANSLATION: I know ethanol subsides raise the price of corn, I know ethanol doesn’t burn all that much cleaner than gas, I know ethanol isn’t all that good of an idea, but man can I pander!

“I do not believe in evolution.” TRANSLATION: The idiot who is asked me this question pretty much proves what I’am saying.

“The Iowa caucases are a great tradition” TRANSLATION: I know only four percent of the state votes. I know a caucus is not at all like a state-wide election. I know Iowa’s racial makeup does not reflect America’s. I know Iowa’s economic interests do not reflect America’s. But, I can pander better than a hungry hooker.

“He panders better than an hungry hooker.” TRANSLATION: God I’m good.

“There is something about Rudy.” TRANSLATION: I’m not going to say he’s got a temper like mule driver. I’m not going to say he surrounds himself with Yesmen. I’m not going to say he trotted around New York City in a dress a few times. I’m not going to say that he lived with gay men for a while. I’m not going to say that he has been married three times or that he flirts with a lot of very queer Democratic ideas, but I can infer all that.

“It’s still early.” TRANSLATION: I’m behind.

At this point in the campaing, polls are notoriously inaccurate.” TRANSLATION: All together now, It’s great to be in fifth place. It’s great to be in fifth place.

“With all due respect . . ..” TRANSLATION: I’m about to stab one of my opponents with a rhetorical sword.

“I’m glad you asked that question.” TRANSLATION: Are they ever going to stop harping on that. When that happened, Moby Dick was a minnow.

“I’m delighted to be in Ottumwa.” TRANSLATION: What kind of a hick city is this?

“When I first learned of the Senator’s comments on immigration, I thought, ‘This is bad.’ ” TRANSLATION: Did I just quote a line from The Titanic?

"I'm delighted we've had such a detailed discussion of the issues that are important to all of us." TRANSLATION: Thank goodness the media stay so far away from most of the issues. Where the media leads, the people will follow. I haven't had a tough question on an issue in days.

“I can’t wait to come back to Iowa,” TRANSLATION: We gotta get outta this place.

Regarding Henry

Henry Hyde died last week. From 1975-2007 he was a Republican congressman from Illinois. He was a pro-life, pro military Republican. He broke with is party on gun control and the war in Iraq. His actions led him to be tangled in the imbroglio we now politely refer to as the Savings and Loan Scandal. While he was an attack dog for the Clinton Impeachment hearing, Salon.com published a story stating he’d had an extra marital affair from 1965-1969.

Hyde is mentioned here for a story he told that helped stop term limits legislation. It gets my vote for one of the great political stories ever told. It went something like this. The brain surgeon is about to operate on you. You’re head has been shaved. There are markings on your head where the surgeon will operate. And you turn to him and ask, “You haven’t done this for more than two terms have you?”

Kudos

To PBS’s show Now for its report this week on a series of efforts to reduce voter turnout. The show details how picture ID requirements reduce the number of poor people who vote. It also explains a series of efforts that reduce the turnout of people who frequently vote Democratic.

Line of the Week

At the Middle East Peace Summit in Annapolis President Bush met with Israeli Prime Minister and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas for a photo-op. And all parties involved were anxious to shake hands and get on with the serious business of what each party did to anger the other.

But the podium was in the way of the handshake.

This provoked Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to say to President Bush, “Mr. President, if we move from the podium, they will see us shaking hands together.”

Forgivable faux pas? Metaphor for Bush’s presidency?

Election 2008: Hillary beats Rudy

2007-09-28T15:38:00.000-07:00

For reasons that are very easy to explain, Hillary Clinton will win the Democratic nomination.

Let’s not forget the obvious. She is smart. She’s savvy. She is very disciplined. She has excellent name recognition. She is intimately connected to the Bill Clinton presidency—a presidency that proliferated many economical and political prosperities. She has been more than competent during her six years in the Senate.

She is a good candidate. Unlike many, she will do the boring things (fundraising and more fundraising) and the painful things (more fundraising and even more fundraising) that are necessary to win.

One of her chief advisors is a former president, and a man who has one of the best political minds ever to step onto the American political stage.

She has assembled a team of experienced and talented pols to attempt to herd the thousand or so clowders of cats that have to be cajoled and charmed—and kicked and threatened—if a candidate intends to play the toughest of all games at the highest levels. She and they have run an excellent campaign.

Edwards and Obama have on occasion bettered her. Two examples include Edwards at The Riverside Church and Obama during the celebration of the March on Selma.
Edwards and Obama may, on occasion, go deep well. But Clinton grinds out the political ground game better than any of the other presidential candidates.

She is either very talented or very lucky.

As a green politician in charge of President Clinton’s health care initiative, Hillary’s tight-ship demeanor angered allies. Her unwillingness to bend now and compromise later made it easy for her foes to challenge and then defeat her efforts.

Her natural eagerness to be part of a pack was one of the many reasons she voted for the war in Iraq.

These were mistakes of the highest order.

Bad decisions—like the ones Hillary Clinton made years ago on health care and being an early supporter of the war in Iraq—usually turn into a sticky and gooey grime that politicians can neither hide nor dilute. Clinton has managed to turn a couple hectares of this glop into a mine rippled with deep, rich veins of experience.

Unlike Clinton, Obama made the right call on the war in Iraq all those years ago. He wisely attempted to make this campaign about judgment—and not experience.

Clinton has outflanked him. To voters, her experience matters more than his far more prescient judgment.

Obama’s entry into the race, and Clinton’s stature in the Senate have reduced Edwards to a third placer—in a country that can barely keep track of two candidates. Edwards has two things Clinton probably never will attain: a folksy likeability, and one issue for which he holds a genuine and deep passion—reducing poverty. But Edwards’ inability to gain traction outside of Iowa and Obama’s entry into the race have prevented Edwards from going head-to-head against the senator from New York.

Edwards and Obama are some of the best politicians to work a large hall in decades. But neither has achieved a similar mastery of the serial press conferences we call debates.

Clinton did.

She has survived the hits that plague every serious candidate. Last August two books were written about her. This allowed many of the sins of her past to be wadded into giant bombshells that were lobbed her way. More recently, one of her more effective money raisers developed a series of legal problems.

She and her team have responded quickly and effectively—without her or the machine suffering significant damage.

Her team has stolen effectively from the Bush 2000 campaign. There have been almost no long and deep discussions about controversial matters. But she has appeared and appeared (and appeared) in forum after forum. She appears to be accessible, but she hasn’t really been all that forthcoming. Unlike her husband, she has can focus like a laser on her message. And unlike most politicians, she is careful to temper whatever passions she has—she has committed no significant verbal miscues.

And she has shown she can triumph over prejudices. Months ago polls showed that Americans would rather elect a black man than a white woman to our nation’s highest office. But still she leads in the national polls.

For voters who favor Democratic policies or simply want change, the best news about the Clinton campaign is that she has neither said nor done things that will scar her deeply during a national political campaign.

Why Guiliani?

For reasons that are difficult to explain, Giuliani will win the Republican nomination.

Do not underestimate this man. He has managed to take one good day—his actions on September 11, 2001 and work them into such a froth that people think he is not only a good politician, but that he is also an effective leader.

Years from now people will still be scratching their heads and wondering aloud how a moderate Republican who is pro-choice, pro gun control, and has a very non-conservative approach to immigration could succeed so long and so well as a Republican presidential candidate.

He is a very savvy politician.

He speaks clearly. He deflects well. He’s projected images of toughness and decisiveness in a world that values the same.

He has been able to position himself above most of the fray.

This creates the calculus that others in the top tier will have maneuver to get what Giuliani never has aggressively sought—the mantle of the standout conservative who is from the conservative wing of the conservative party.

So like all successful politicians he has a good combination of talent (working one issue) and luck (all the others mauling each other to be the one to take on Giuliani).

A couple things will have to happen for Giuliani to succeed. McCain or others may attack Romney. Romney may just flop as the result of many of his earlier flips.
And Thompson must continue to be too timid to unleash the brimstone necessary for him to rise to the top of the top tier.

Whether Romney and the other contenders fold before the South Carolina primary, or someone emerges from the pack to challenge the current Republican leader, Giuliani will triumph.

The Election

The comments Giuliani has made about Iraq and health care and immigration—the same comments that helped him earn the nomination will hurt him a great deal—especially at first. His comments on the Iraq war and health care will hurt him with conservative Democrats and left leaning independents. His comments about immigration will hurt him with the conservatives in his party.

Clinton’s positionings as well as her message of change and hope will help her a great deal—especially at first.

Clinton will talk tough about domestic issues but adopt a play-it-safe policy on Iraq. The war in Iraq will ebb and flow in importance. Health care and apprehensions about the environment will be real assets to Clinton. Controversies about Giuliani’s decisions as mayor of New York and concerns about his lack of foreign policy experience will haunt him. Therefore, as they do in most presidential elections, on the issues, the Democrat will have the illusive high ground with most Americans.

But as it is every election year, Americans and its media will continue to be reluctant to be overly logical or particularly detail oriented. And because of this and other reasons, personality will play a far more important role that it should. Many will love Giuliani’s persona of the tough-guy decider. Hillary’s chilly public demeanor and multifaceted caution will plague her. In matters where personality triumphs, Giuliani will prevail.

Clinton will beat the experience drum.

Giuliani will try to cast thunderclouds of fear over the country.

There will be a lot of gibberish. Pundits will talk and talk (and talk) about whether back-to-back Clinton administrations, followed by back-to-back Bush administrations should be followed by another administration headed by someone named Clinton. There will be a lot of gibberish about what role Bill Clinton will have in a Hillary Clinton administration. A law prevents him from holding a cabinet post, so it is likely he will be an ambassador at-large.

There will be a lot of gibberish about Giuliani wearing dresses, living with gay men, and about his troubled relationships with members of his own family.

Both campaigns will respond to threats quickly, run successful ads, and campaign heavily in what the punditocracy will call the purple states.

The senator from New York will be admired for doing so well and being liked so little. The former mayor of New York City will be admired for doing so well while running against so many classic Republican policies.

Women, Hispanics, voters with graduate degrees, and many young people will support Clinton—often with what some might even call passion. Huge numbers of white men will line up behind Giuliani. And in November 2008 Clinton will be elected president.

In retrospect, to many it will not appear ever to have been all that close. But this will be a deception only fools and diehard Clinton supporters will embrace.

And it’s Aftermath

After the election, America will pat itself on the back—and almost every other part of its metaphorical anatomy—for being so open to a women—and a black. A more intelligent response will be from those who wonder why it took so long a woman or a black to reach so high and travel so far. Votes cast by Hispanics in the election will provoke many to use the words like “sea change” and “transformational.” The realities of Obama’s campaign will be tweaked as his future is aggrandized.

As Shrub’s presidency ends, many will consider the foolish decisions he made. There will be catalogue after catalogue of the failed policies he mismanaged. There will be assessments of the impact his mistakes had on his presidency and his party. Most will be far too kind. Only a few will be as harsh as the truth suggests they should be.

Many of the messes Shrub made are particularly pervasive, corrosive, and sticky. Plenty will wonder if Hillary Clinton—or anyone—is smart enough, savvy enough, determined enough, as well as talented and lucky enough to make political gold out some of the goo Shrub and his cronies will leave behind.

As teams of bright, passionate, and optimistic people prepare to grab the reigns of the most powerful nation the world has ever seen, optimisms and enthusiasms will flow naturally . . . and far too easily. Let’s hope that many in Clinton’s administration maintain an understanding of history as well as something that resembles balance. Those who do will have to realize how easily it will be for the blowback from the recent past to make a shambles of the present. Most of the problems Shrub faced are now worse because of his response to them. When the hoopla of the election finally fades, sober minds will have to realize that the problems that drowned Shrub’s administration could wreak the same havoc with Hillary’s.

A Conversation from an Undisclosed Location

2007-06-29T11:06:00.000-07:00

The other day Dick Cheney had an interesting conversation with one of his aides. The aide meant well. The aide meant to help the Veep create some talking points for a critique that could come up.

The aide began, “Well a Mr. Vice President, we need to brainstorm some strategies for questions that may come up.”

Cheney replied, “Good idea. By the way, as far as the media is concerned, where am I today?”

The aide responded, “Sir, per your directions you are at an undisclosed location.”

Cheney said, “Good. I heard a joke the other day. That shows I have a sense of humor doesn’t it?”

The aide replied, “Well sir, I think simply hearing a joke is not really evidence—”

Cheney barked back, “Course it is.”

The aide responded, “Very well sir.”

Cheney said, “The comic said that I will be the only person to be buried at an undisclosed location.”

The aide snickered.

Cheney asserted, “See, I do have a sense of humor.”

The aide said, “Right sir.”

Angers Easily

Cheney gave the aide an order, “Compile a list of people who have been buried at undisclosed locations.”

The aide responded quickly, “Right sir.”

Then Cheney said, “And look in to it.”

The aide asked, “What sir?”

Cheney replied, “Getting buried in an undisclosed location you idiot!”

The aide looked at his list. It was titled “Qualities of a Psychopath.” The first item on the list was, “Penchant for secrecy.” He frowned. Then he said, “Right sir. Now, if I may. The last few days have not been good days for you in the media.”

Cheney responded, “What do you mean?”

The aide commented, “Comments about your office not being entirely in the executive branch—well sir, these comments have the chattering classes chattering.”

Cheney’s face turned red. Then he shouted an expletive.

The aide looked at his list that noted the qualities of a psychopath. The second item on the list was, “Angers easily.” He shook his head. Then he said, “I have here before me a list of qualities.”

Cheney said, “Get to the point man. Get to the point.”

The aide looked at the list. The third item on the list was “impatient.” The aide said, “We need to be prepared for this sir. We need to be prepared—probably even with jokes.”

Cheney responded quickly, “Jokes? What am I supposed to be some sort of entertainer? Americans want tough politicians, if they wanted jokesters, they would elect wimpy Democrats—not strong, virile manly Republicans.”

The aide responded, “Right sir. Still we must develop some strategies.”

Cheney said, “Strategy smategy. Bring in the army. Mow em down. Raise the flag. Praise mothers. Play the national anthem.”

Meekly the aide said, “Sir, this list of qualities I have. Sir, they deal with specific physiological issues.”

Cheney shouted back, “Wimpy Democrat talk!”

The aide responded, “Precisely sir. The aide looked at his list. The next item on it was, ‘Veers off track easily.’”

Cheney’s face turned red. He stormed about his office. “Don’t these wimpy Democrats have anything better to do than come up with idiotic ideas?”

The aide whispered, “Sir the list wasn’t made by a Democrat.”

Cheney uttered an expletive. Then he uttered another. Then he said, “Independents!”

Press Find Something?

The aide cleared his throat. He gathered his courage, then he said, “Sir, the list was created by an expert. And he’s a Republican. That’s part of the problem. There’s more bad news. The list is all over the Internet. It’s so easy to find that we think that even the media will stumble onto it.”

Cheney shot back, “The media find something? You’ve got to be kidding!” Quickly Cheney rattled off a list of things the administration had done that the media had not yet discovered.

The aide said, “Sadly sir all kinds of computer searches lead to this list. Somehow it got tangled up with nude pictures of Paris Hilton.”

Cheney slammed his hand into his fist. Then he said, “Damn, they’re sure to find it then.”

Cheney paced. Then he said, “Okay, let’s have at it.”

The aide responded, “I have before me qualities. Sir, this may be difficult to take sir.”

Cheney said, “I’m tough.”

The aide continued, “Well sir. I have before me ‘Qualities of a Psychopath.’ ”

Cheney chuckled. “Who says I don’t have a sense of humor?” He chuckled again. “Describes Hillary doesn’t it?”

The aide looked away.

Cheney stopped pacing and stared at the view. He said, “Wyoming is great this time of year.”

The aide responded, “Sir our time is almost up. And we must get to this.”

Cheney asked the aide, “Do you hunt?”

The aide looked at his list. He looked at Cheney. He shook his head. He cleared his throat. “Sir, according to this list sir, psychopaths tend to avoid questions. They tend to avoid taking responsibility.”

Cheney said, “Nonsense. Look how I took responsibility for shooting my buddy.”

The aide responded, “Sir, the wimpy Democrats will respond that you waited a long time to address that sir.”

Cheney swore. He uttered an expletive. Then he uttered another. Cheney paced. His face turned red again. He pounded one fist into another again. Cheney uttered an expletive about what wimpy Democrats should do to themselves.

The aide responded, “Another good idea sir. But if you will look at the next item on the list, it says, ‘They fly into rages.’ ”

Cheney stormed about his office. His face turned red. He pounded one fist into the other. “You think this is a rage? I’ll show you a rage!”

Remorse

The aide responded, “Sir, I don’t think that will be necessary. This next one could prove difficult.” The aide cleared his throat again. Then he said,“ ‘Psychopath’s lack remorse.’ ”

Cheney shouted, “Remorse! What is this poppycock? I showed remorse after I shot my friend.”

The aide said, “Wimpy democrats will point to the number of civilians killed in the Iraq war. They will say that most days more civilians are killed. They will suggest that our numbers about the civilian dead in Iraq are very conservative. They will make a case that you have not shown remorse on this matter.”

Cheney continued to pace. He was not talking now, he was shouting, “I showed sorrow. Go dig up some picture of me.”

The aide asked, “Picture?”

Cheney responded, “There’s one where I’m with President Ford . . . and we’re together . . . and I was crying.”

The aide said, “Sir, you were watching a football game.”

Cheney nodded. “It was a horrible day.”

The aide continued, “A team from Wyoming lost in the last seconds.”

Cheney said, “That’s remorse.”

The aide added, “Right sir.”

Cheney said, “Good work. Hit em when they’re not ready. Release the picture before the end of the day. Say it’s a routine thing. That’ll show remorse—if this remorse thing comes up.”

Cheney smiled.

The aide smiled.

Cheney continued, “This idea to inoculate me against this idiot charge that I’m a psychopath. This is an excellent idea I had isn’t it?”

The aide said, “Well yes it would be sir, if it was your idea.”

Cheney: “What’s the next thing on your list?”

The aide suddenly found the view out the window interesting. Cheney asked what the next item on the list was.

The aide said that he really must be going.

Cheney barked, “What’s the next thing on your” he uttered an expletive “list?”

In a whisper the aide said, “Takes credit for the work of others.”

Quickly Cheney said, “Let’s move along. I’ve got a parade or something to go to don’t I?”

The aide said, “Yes sir. Some passionate supporters wish to throw a celebration for you.”

Cheney’s chest puffed up, and he smiled. “Ah yes.”

“It’s to celebrate a comment you made about the war in Iraq. You made the comment during the run up to the war in Iraq.”

Cheney said, “Ahh those were the days.”

The aide continued. “Sir a party hack . . . a party official found a picture of an Iraqi hugging an American soldier. A group want to celebrate the comment you made about how the Iraqi’s will welcome us as liberators.”

Cheney stared out the window for a while. Eventually he mumbled, “May not be a good idea to celebrate that.”

The aide added, “Your supporters are very excited about the event sir.”

Hen’s Teeth

Cheney smiled, “Well it would be unwise not to yield to the wishes of our loyal supporters.”

The aide responded, “Especially now sir. Especially considering your supporters are about as rare as hen’s teeth.”

Cheney turned to face the aide, “I just saw a pile of hen’s teeth. Thousands of the things. It’s a myth that they’re rare. “

The aide responded “Right sir.”

Cheney started pacing again. “We should gather more of them. Store them at—”

Excitedly the aide added, “At one of your undisclosed locations.”

Cheney smiled. “Very good! I’m glad I thought of that.”

The aide said, “Sir I do recall. Well there was something over a year ago. Scientists induced chickens to grow teeth.”

Cheney added, “Of course they did! Was it one of those amazing tobacco scientists who can’t find smoking causes cancer?”

The aide shook his head.

Cheney asked, “One of those National Rifle Association scientists who show that guns don’t promote violence?”

The aide said, “No sir. One of the scientists was from the University of Wisconsin. He and others claim that growing teeth in chickens will help us understand evolution more.”

Cheney screamed at the aide. “We aren’t using that word in this office you idiot!”

The aide panicked. The aide’s mind raced as he wondered what word he was not supposed to use. Then he remembered. “Sorry sir. I won’t use the ‘e’ word again.”

The aide looked at the list. He frowned. He said, “I think discussing the rest of the items on this list. Well sir, I don’ think that would be very productive.” The aide looked at watch. “And besides sir, we’re just about out of time.”

Cheney said, “Hen’s teeth. Good idea. Get right on it. Collect a lot of em.”

The aide said, “Right sir. The next item on your schedule has you attending an event.”

Cheney said, “Oh really.”

The aide replied, “Yes sir. It should be fun. Ann Coulter is opening a charm school.”

Logic 101 and the Libby Pardon

2007-06-25T10:35:00.000-07:00

Professor Smith ended the previous class stating, “Next time we will discuss the appeals that Scooter Libby be pardoned.”

The members of the class groaned.

Smith’s announcement meant they would have to do homework. They would have to do research. They would have to think.

Professor Smith began the next class, “Harrington, background please.”

Harrington said, “Scooter Libby used to the chief of staff of the Vice President, Dick Cheney. Recently, Scooter Libby was convicted on three counts of perjury and one count of providing false statements. This last count often is correctly reported as obstructing justice.”

Professor Smith commented, “It is often a foolish act to try to comment in a logical manner about illogical actions. Therefore, it is often a foolhardy act to comment in a logical manner about American politics.

“But there is a strange aspect about these appeals that Libby be pardoned. If you examine the strategies rigorously, some of the sillinesses at play really do turn out to make sense. However, there are a host of comic incendiaries and a series of irrational land mines along the way.”

Professor Smith asked a student to state one of the arguments that Libby be pardoned.

Some Arguments

Fontella raised her hand, “One argument to pardon Libby is that there was no underlying crime.”

“Repsonse?”

Fontella continued, “This is nonsense. Perjury is a crime. Providing false statements is a crime. That there was no guilty verdict on some other crime that led to the other charges is irrelevant.”

Professor Smith smiled.

Fontella smiled.

Alicia raised her hand, “Some suggest Libby should be pardoned because Libby wasn’t responsible for the original actions against Valerie Plame. It is the comments about Plame that started the complex series of events that led to the Libby trial.

“But this argument also is ludicrous. Let’s say Joe and Moe rob a bank. Joe and Moe are not caught. But Scooter lies to law enforcement officials about what he knows about Joe and Moe. In that scenario, Scooter still has committed a crime. And Scooter’s crime is still a crime even if Scooter had nothing to do with Joe and Moe’s crime.”

Professor Smith and Alicia smiled.

“No crime has been committed”

Professor Smith continued, “Hang in there. It gets sillier. Can anyone tell me what Fred Thompson said on this matter?”

Michael raised his hand, “Fred Thompson is running for the Republican presidential nomination. But he is not yet officially running. He has positioned himself as a conservative. He used be a senator. He used to star on TV’s Law & Order. About the chargers made against Scooter Libby, Thompson said, “It was obvious to me that no crime had been committed.”

Smith interrupted. “Hereafter, you may refer to Mr. Thompson as Law and Order Fred.”

Many in the class laughed.

Michael didn’t laugh. Michael has been in college for over three years. He has learned to throw a Frisbee (and so has passed the graduation requirement for many colleges and some universities). He has smoked pot. He has had his first sexual experiences. Michael even has learned one of the hardest lessons in life, he has learned to like dorm food. But poor Michael remains an overly serious young man. He did not laugh.

When the laughter died down, Michael continued, “Perjury is a crime. Providing false statements is a crime. Thompson also suggested that the special prosecutor process is unfair. Few things in life are perfectly fair. But the process the special prosecutor’s actions were legal. Legally,
Thompson’s arguments don’t amount to a hill of beans.”

Smith asked, “Anyone have a response?”

Louise sat in the back row. Her feet were on the chair in front of her. She said, “There is of course the absurdist defense. It goes something like this, This is American politics. It doesn’t have to make sense.”

Most students laughed. Smith smiled.

Pandering

A student that others called Goodytwoshoes raised her hand. She cleared her throat and then said, “The people making the argument to pardon Libby are in positions of influence. But unlike presidents and legislators, few have to answer for the influence they exert. So to some degree they can say what they want. They don’t have to act on what they say. This puts them in a perfect position to pander.”

Goodytwoshoes continued, “These arguments do make some sense if you bring in the idea of pandering. Clearly, the people making these arguments are playing to their base. Or, if you prefer, they’re pandering. Pandering does energize a party’s voters. It does make headlines. It does persuade voters to give money, to support you, and to get others to do the same.”

Law and Order?

A disheveled student who hadn’t shaved in a week said, “Many of the same conservatives who are arguing that Libby should be pardoned get very hot and bothered about illegal immigrants. Many conservatives use the word ‘amnesty’ to describe a process that does not provide amnesty. They use the word ‘amnesty’ to describe an aspect of an immigration bill that has been proposed. It would require illegal immigrants to pay a very hefty fine and file paperwork with a bureaucracy that is far worse than your local not-so-friendly DMV. The word ‘amnesty’ is being used to describe a process that forces people to deal with a bureaucracy that in many ways doles out more than its fair share of cruel and unusual punishment.”

Professor Smith replied, “Once again Mr. Poole, thank you for dropping in your weekly joke about the DMV. The members of the class also thank you for your daily attempt to steer the discussion away from the topic.”

Poole took a little bow and smiled.

Smith continued, “We will return from our diversion. Are there other arguments put forward to pardon Mr. Libby?”

The Fall Guy

Candice raised her hand. “Another argument is that pardoning Libby will end speculation about Libby being the fall guy. This too is nonsense. If people want to speculate about Libby being the fall guy for actions by Bush, Cheney, and or others, people will speculate. It is even logical to assume that a Libby pardon will give credibility to those who argue that Libby was a fall guy. This would increase speculation . . . not suppress it.”

Smith asked, “No doubt there are other arguments. But for now let’s look at the larger picture. What do all of these arguments miss?”

Poole replied, “Anything logical.”

Smith responded, “Yes.”

Jaunita raised her hand, “The general standards for any presidential pardon are that the convict has expressed remorse and has served time in jail.”

Smith added, “And why have these elements not been included in the arguments that have been made to pardon Mr. Libby?”

Jaunita continued, “There’s no connection. Libby has not expressed remorse. Libby has not yet served jail time.”

Smith nodded. “Very good. The next step in our discussion is obvious.”

Judge Sentelle

None of the students moved.

Smith said, “Mr. Poole, what’s wrong with lawyer jokes?”

“Lawyers don’t think they’re funny. And people who aren’t lawyers don’t think they’re jokes.”

Smith asked, “Chantelle, What does a lawyer use for birth control?”

“The only lawyer I know uses his personality.”

Smith asked, “Mr. Carlton, A dead dog is on the road. On the same road there also is a dead lawyer. What’s the difference between a dead dog and the dead lawyer?”

“There are skid marks in front of the dog.”

Except for poor Michael, the students laughed at the lawyer jokes. Poor Michael had the sense of humor usually allotted to aardvarks, network studio executives, and dead mules.

Smith continued, “Connection?”

Carlton raised his hand, “Mr. Libby has lawyers. They will appeal.”

Smith nodded. “Where is it most likely this verdict will be overturned?”

Chantelle raised her hand, “President Regan was careful to appoint Judge David Sentelle to the appeals court that will hear cases tried in the DC area. Sentelle is a conservative. Sentelle was one of the judges who overturned the convictions of Oliver North and John Poindexter during Iran Contra. Sentelle was one of the judges who appointed Ken Starr to investigate Bill Clinton. And on the appeals court where Sentelle serves, only two of the three votes cast are needed to overturn a conviction.”

Smith added, “Let’s consider two scenarios. In one, the Libby verdict is overturned. In another, Bush pardons Libby. Given either of these scenarios, how do all these illogical calls for a pardon become, in some way, logical?”

No student raised a hand.

This makes sense?

Professor Smith paced a little then continued, “If you drill down deep enough, all this noise about Libby does . . . in some way . . . make sense.”

No student raised a hand.

Smith continued, “All this illogical noise about Libby is now part of the public dialogue. Illogical, silly, and dysfunctional as this conversation is, it is in the public arena. Therefore . . ..”

Poole raised his hand, “In some way it will provide political cover if Libby’s conviction is overturned . . . or if he is pardoned.”

“And what is another word for this political cover?”

“Camouflage.”

“And additionally?”

“These organs have all but shouted to the world that should a verdict be overturned or a pardon be issued, that they will again restate their opinions on these matters.” Poole smiled.

Smith continued, “Thank you Mr. Poole. I can see this class has not been an entire waste of time for you.”

Smith smiled. “Good. Next class be prepared to discuss vacuous truths, dumb blonde jokes, and Paris Hilton.”

Better Late than Never

Since 1989 automakers have been required to produce automobiles that get on average 27.5 miles per gallon. SUV’s and small trucks were somehow considered not to be automobiles and were allowed to get, on average, 22.2 mpg. Last week the Senate approved new standards. By 2020 all vehicles will have to get, on average, 35 miles per gallon. By 2015 half the new vehicles will have to run on 85% ethanol.

It is not certain that the House will pass the measure or if the President will sign it.

Clearly, national security concerns over imported oil, global warming, and the high price of gas helped moved many who for years had opposed such legislation to now support it. It certainly is a start. In the diseased world we live in this was heralded as good news. But such comments are far too polite: actions like this should have been taken years ago.

Line of the Week

Courtesy of Craig Ferguson on The Late Late Show, It's a great day for Hillary Clinton. She chose a song for her campaign. She's chosen a song by Celine Dion. ... Is that wise, choosing a Celine Dion song? Cause you know, she is a singer best known for the theme to a sinking ship? It's not really what you want to do.

Father's Day 2050

2007-06-18T12:05:00.000-07:00

Idiots of the Week

Once again the prize goes to the US media. As they should be, the media and the chattering classes are doing stories about the report card Shrub’s Administration will issue about the war in Iraq. Frequently the phrase “militarily and politically” are being used. This is a good thing. It implies that the media is doing stories and the pundits are considering more than simply the military efforts in Iraq. It implies that the report card should also consider how well the Iraqi government is performing.

There is other good news.

Many are suggesting that the actions and comments by Shrub and his lieutenants imply that whatever the news from Iraq, the Shrub Administration will argue that it is too early to tell if the surge is working. Reports and commentary suggest that whatever the news is in September that Shrub will do all he can to keep the war going. This way mopping up the mess will be left to another administration. The clearest evidence to support this theory are comments Shrub’s press secretary, Tony Snow, made last week, “I have warned from the very beginning about expecting some sort of magical thing to happen in September.”

The Fault Dear Media

But as they have in the past, the US media and particularly the punditocracy are making a horrible mistake.

There’ s not nearly enough talk about two other components to the war. If the US is to succeed in Iraq, four things have to happen. The first two have been given attention in the media: the US military has to suppress the insurgency, the Iraqi government has to be a dynamic, positive, and competent force in the country.

The other two components of success have not: the status of the Iraqi security forces (its army and police force) and the status of the Iraqi infrastructure. The Iraqi security forces will have to standup and take charge when US troops leave. And when the US leaves, a competent infrastructure has to be operational so that essential goods and services are delivered routinely: Iraqi’s need to have electricity as well as easy access to food, water, and clothing. Their sewage systems have to work. Their oil and other industries have to produce revenues.

It is easy to understand why Shrub and his administration have no desire to talk about the Iraqi security forces and the Iraqi infrastructure—there’s very little progress being made in these arenas. But because the media is so often acting like a loyal puppy dog, Americans are not reading and hearing about these second two components enough.

This is a mistake of the highest order.

Kudos to Jon Stewart

For catching Shrub’s press secretary, Tony Snow, lying. Stewart showed video tape from March 15. Snow said that the firing of the US attorneys was performance based. Last week at a press conference, a reporter commented to Snow, that earlier Snow had stated that politics was not involved, the firing of the US attorney’s was performance based.

Snow interrupted, “No, that is something—we never said that.”

Line of the Week

Courtesy of Jay Leno, host of The Tonight Show, "Scooter" Libby [is] going to jail unless they—unless President Bush acts quickly. Yeah.

And today, the city of New Orleans said, "Good luck with Bush acting quickly. Let us know how that goes – give us a call. Let us know how that works out, that quickly thing."

Father’s Day 2050

Last Sunday, Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe had a pleasant Father’s Day with his family. When he went to bed on Sunday night, it was Father’s Day 2007. When he woke up, it was Father’s Day 2050—and some of his grandchildren wanted to talk with him.

They gave him a robe and slippers. They led him to a comfortable chair. It was morning. He was hungry. He asked for coffee and steak and eggs.

His grandchildren gasped.

One of his grandchildren said, “Do you know what that would cost?”

Inhofe replied, “A few bucks.”

The grandchildren gasped again. “The steak and coffee alone require the use of over 50,000 gallons of water. Not even gazillionaires can eat a meal that requires the use of so much water.”

The Senator barked, “What’s this hogwash?”

One of the grandchildren pulled a gadget out of his pocket. He pushed the gadget’s screen a few times. Then he said, “Look at the date on the newspaper.”
Inhofe said, “2050. So?”

One of the grandchildren said, “Things are different now.”

Another said, “The world is a different place than when you were here.”

Bubbles

One of the grandchildren picked up the gadget the Senator had. She pushed a few things on the gadget’s screen. She showed Inhofe the picture on the gadget’s screen.

Inhofe said, “What’s that?”

“It’s a picture of Oklahoma City from 30,000 feet.”

Inhofe said, “It’s a picture of a fishbowl put over a city.”

One of the grandchildren said, “All the cities have them now.”

Inhofe said, “Fishbowls?”

One of his grandchildren said, “We call them bubbles.”

Another added, “They are made of glass, plastic, and some stuff you don’t know about yet.”

Inhofe asked, “Don’t know?”

One of his grandchildren said, “The air is so bad we had to put bubbles over the cities.”

“Well that’s a good thing.”

A grandchild asked, “That the air is bad is a good thing?”
Inhofe said, “It’s a good thing that we have the technology to build the bubbles.”

One of the grandchildren showed his grandfather the contents of a suitcase. “These are the medications I take in a year for my asthma.”

Inhofe said, “Well it’s good you have those medications to take.”

The grandchild coughed. “Doctors tell me that a hundred years ago I wouldn’t have developed the asthma. They say that I got it from the bad air.”

Inhofe responded, “Oh.”

One of the grandchildren said, “We have a little movie we’d like to show you.”

One of the grandchildren pushed a button. A thin screen descended from the ceiling. The lights dimmed. Images appeared on the screen.

A Short Movie

The first images were still pictures taken of glaciers. The still pictures made it obvious that the glaciers were melting.

One of the grandchildren said, “These pictures were taken when you were alive.”

Then there was a film clip of Senator Inhofe. He said:

“Catastrophic global warming is a hoax.”

“No meaningful warming has occurred over the last century."

"Global warming is still considered to be a theory and has not come close to being sufficiently proven."

Another picture appeared on the screen.

One of the grandchildren said, “This was taken the day you said that everything on which the environmentalists ‘based their story, in terms of the facts, has been refuted scientifically.’ ”

Another grandchild added, “This picture was taken the day you said, ‘Global Warming is the second-largest hoax ever played on the American people, after the separation of church and state.’ ”

One of the grandchildren said, “This is what remains of the ice cap at the North Pole.”

It was a picture of water.

A grandchild said, “This is a picture of the dikes they had to build to keep Miami dry.”

Another of the grandchild said, “This is a picture of the dikes used to keep London dry.”

Another grandchild said, “This is a picture of the dikes—”

Inhof replied, “Enough already with the dikes!”

They saw a picture of a desert.

One of the grandchildren said, “In 2001 this was a meadow.”

They saw a picture of a lake.

Then they saw a picture of a dry and shallow valley. One of the grandchildren said, “What used to be a lake looks like this now.”

They saw some numbers. One of the grandchildren said, “This number represents the number in thousands of the people killed in a year by something connected with global warming.”

The little movie ended. The lights came back on.

Laughing Stock

One grandchild said, “Clearly you were wrong about global warming.”

Another grandchild said, “But it’s worse than that. A lot of people were wrong about global warming.”

A granchild added, “You’re a laughing stock.”

Inhofe replied, “Me?”

Another grandchild said, “A laughing stock is just the start of it.”

The Senator wagged his finger in the air and said, “I am James Inhofe. I’m the senior senator from the great state of Oklahoma. Kay and I are the proud parents—”

A grandchild said, “That was then, today you’re a laughing stock.”

Inhofe replied, “Well a company I ran did have some problems.”

A grandchild added, “Quaker Life Insurance Compnay went bankrupt. But people who hate you, people who laugh at you don’t even bother with that. It’s very small potatoes.”

Another grandchild commented, “ ’Inhofe’ is now a synonym for Luddite.”

Inhofe asked, “What’s a Luddite?”

A granchild said, “Anyone opposed to progress.”

Another grandhild said, “Movies have been made that contrast your comments—espcially about global warming—with reality.”

Another grandchild said, “One comedian, when he was in trouble, just said your name—and people laughed. It became his signiture joke. He’s used that joke to provoke millions of people to laugh.”

Inhofe waved his hand in the air. “Politicians have been providing fodder for comedians for years.”

A grandchild said, “You are the poster boy for the worst of your generation.”

Another granchild said, “Poll after poll after poll shouts to all that you’re reputation is worse than murderers, rapists, and horrible polticians.”

A grandchild said, “You’re reputation is even worse than George Bush’s.”

A granchild commented, “I didn’t know that.”

Yet another grandchild added, “That’s old news. In recent polls he’s even lower than Paris Hilton.”

Inhofe asked, “Paris Hilton is still alive?”

Another grandchild said, “She’s gotten some really bad publicity of late.”

One Question

One grandchild said, “Clearly you were wrong about global warming. There’s no doubt you’re now a laughing stock. Study after study shows that comments you made and actions you took slowed the progress on global warming. “

Another grandchild turned to Inhofe and said, “We know you got over a million dollars in contributions from oil, gas, and other energy companies. We know that the money they gave encouraged you to say and do the things you said and did.”

One of the grandchildren said, “We called you here to ask you one question.”

Inhofe sat up in his chair. “Okay, what is it?

One of the grandchildren asked, “Was it worth it?”

“Huey” “Dewey” and “Louie” in Disneyland

2007-06-11T14:09:00.000-07:00

Huey: What is it?

Dewey: It’s a letter from the Pentagon.

Louie: A letter from the Pentagon?

Huey: A letter from the Pentagon.

Dewey: Is there an echo in here?

Louie: There’s no echo. There’s no “in here.”

Huey: Because we’re outside.

Dewey: This is outside?

Louie: It’s a theme park.

Huey: Were inside a theme park.

Dewey: Which is outside.

Louie: Thank goodness we’ve got that straight.

Huey: You said there’s a letter from the Pentagon.

Dewey: I thought I had it right here.

Louie: What’s in it?

Huey: A lot of military guys—

Dewey: No, what’s in the letter?

Louie: It’s a letter that says we may be under surveillance.

Huey: Surely you must be kidding.

Dewey: Don’t call me Shirley.

A gray haired man who also was waiting in line said, “You can call me Shirley.”

Louie: The Pentagon wrote a letter?

Huey: Who taught a building how to write?

Dewey: The pentagon isn’t

Louie: a building, it’s

Huey: a bureaucracy.

Dewey: One thing bureaucracies can do

Louie: is create paperwork.

Huey takes the letter.

Huey: It’s not from the Defense Department.

Dewey: It’s from someone who says he works in the Defense Department.

Louie. A leak.

Huey: Are you

Dewey: sure your name is

Louie: Shirley?

Shirley: Surely.

Backstory

Recently three of the countries best political satirists met—no, I was not invited to join them. A nice person in the Homeland Security Office sent me a transcript of their conversation, complete with color pictures that were taken of the event. The satirists met at Disneyland. The reasons are obvious. The satirists find the absurd very attractive. Clearly, Southern California was the perfect place for them to meet. While they were waiting to take the Splash Mountain ride, much of their talk turned to politics.

The satirists, either for reasons related to their natural playfulness or a harebrained attempt to maintain anonymity referred to themselves as Huey, Dewey, and Louie.

Huey: I still don’t know who this guy who claims to be Shirley is.

Dewey: I hear Splash Mountain is sometimes called Flash Mountain.

Louie: As in take a picture . . . flash.

Huey: Flash? I knew a dog named Flash. Did someone let a dog in here?

Dewey: You want a dog to take a picture?

Louie: There’re no dogs in Disneyland.

Huey: Pluto’s a dog.

Dewey: And Pluto’s in Disneyland.

Louie: Pluto’s a planet.

Huey: Not anymore.

Dewey: What have you been doing?

Louie: Getting your news from the President?

Huey: They call it Flash Mountain as in flash . . .

Dewey: as in women flash

Louie: their features.

Good Time to be a Satirist?

Shirley said, “No doubt it’s a good time to be a satirist.”

Huey, Dewey, and Louie frowned.

Shirley: Whattareya talkin about? Huey wrote a spoof on McCain shopping in Baghdad and how safe it was—as long as he was wearing a flack jacket and a helicopter was flying overhead. A month later the same thing happened in real life.

Dewey wrote that really funny piece on how the all but one of candidates of the party of family values—all but one of them were divorced. Louie wrote that over a year ago. Now, a year later, all but one of the candidates for the party of family values are divorced—all but one of em. And the one who isn’t divorced, one of his ancestors was a polygamist.

Years ago Louie wrote that very funny piece about how the Democrats would regret voting for the war in Iraq. That too has happened.

As I said, this has got to be a great time to be a satirist.

Huey, Dewey, and Louie: Surely you must be kidding.

Shirley: I definitely am not kidding. We live in hilarious times.

Huey: That’s the problem.

Shirley: How is being funny a problem—when it’s your job to be funny?

Dewey: Our job is to be funny?

Louie: That’s what he said.

Huey: I thought our job was

Dewey: to poke fun at hypocrites,

Louie: deride the self-important,

Huey: shine a light into areas of darkness,

Dewey: and

Louie: make a few bucks.

Shirley: Anyway, so why are you guys depressed?

Huey: Law and order Republicans are talking seriously about a pardon for Scooter Libby—a man found guilty on four—

Dewey: Count em

Louie: four

Huey: felony counts.

Dewey: As the great Yogi Berra said,

Louie: You could look it up.

Huey: And the Democrats are being Democrats.

Dewey: Policies of the Pro-life party have killed hundreds of thousands in a war their policies started.

Louie: And the Democrats are being Democrats.

Shirley: What does that mean?

Huey: That means the Democrats are just preaching the politics of opportunity.

Dewey: It means they haven’t learned what they should about fear.

Louie: So what’s new about that?

Huey: Nothin.

Dewey: That’s the Democrats

Louie: being Democrats.

Take Nixon

Shirley: This can’t be all that different from other times. In other times politicians did stupid stuff. Take Nixon for example.

Huey: I don’t want to take Nixon.

Dewey: Do you want to take Nixon?

Louie: Not if you paid me.

Huey: He’s dead.

Dewey: Why would I want

Louie: to take a dead man?

Huey: My wife, now someone could take my wife.

Dewey: Please!

Louie: We should try

Huey: to be a little serious.

Dewey: Who can be a little serious?

Louie: You’re right.

Huey: We’re not good at being a little anything.

Shirley: So how’s Bush all that different from Nixon?

Dewey: Nixon wiretapped a few people; Bush wiretapped half the nation.

Louie: Nixon did some good things.

Huey: Environmental Protection Agency.

Dewey: He helped get the amendment passed that lowered the voting age to 18.

Louie: He opened the door to China.

Huey: Détente with Russia.

Dewey: What’s Bush done that’s good?

Louie: Well he goes to Texas a lot, and when he’s there, he generally doesn’t do much.

The Heart of the Matter

Shirley: Are you complaining that your job is too easy?

Huey: We try to be incongruous and absurd

Dewey: provocative and ridiculous.

Louie: Usually we do this by exaggerating

Huey: a trait or a quality

Dewey: a policy or a position.

Louie: The people we’re to ridicule, they do these things naturally.

Huey, Dewey, and Louie: It’s a horrible time to be a satirist.

Shirley: Why’s that?

Huey: Because the people we’re to make fun of are being so ridiculous that to exaggerate what they do,

Dewey: well to exaggerate what they do is

Louie: not possible.

Huey: They’re the satirists.

Dewey: And they’re not even trying to be satirists.

Louie: Imagine how that makes us feel.

Kudos

To Paul Begala and CNN for getting the gaffe thing right after the second Republican debate. Many media sources criticized Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee for confusing the date that Reagan died (June 5—the date of the debate) with the day he was born (February 6). Begala correctly pointed out a far more serious error made by Mitch Romney. Romney said, “If you're saying, let's turn back the clock and Saddam Hussein had opened up his country to IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] inspectors and they'd come in and they'd found that there were no weapons of mass destruction – had Saddam Hussein therefore not violated United Nations resolutions – we wouldn't be in the conflict we're in. But he didn't do those things, and we knew what we knew at the point we made the decision to get in.”

Begala noted correctly that in September 2002 Saddam Hussein did allow IAEA inspectors into his country. They did not find evidence that the country had weapons of mass destruction.

The failure of the media to notice the mistake, the failure of many to urge that the mistake be corrected, and the failure of the media to correct this mistake speak volumes about the weaknesses of the media today.

Line of the Week

Courtesy of The Late Show with David Letterman, “Paris Hilton is behind bars, but still no word on Osama”

On Hillary's Problems

2007-06-04T08:20:00.000-07:00

Often I go to great lengths to avoid talking about politics after work. Once I went to a costume party dressed as an angry protestor. I carried a sign that announced, “I don’t want to talk about politics!”

I hadn’t been at the party five minutes before a woman came up to me. She pointed to the sign and said, “Very funny.” Without taking a breath—or laughing—she began sharing her opinion about some dumb thing a politician had done.

The darndest thing about people is that sometimes they say something worth hearing. Not long ago I was at another party and the same woman came up to me. She couldn’t wait to tell me about the members of her book club. All of them are women. They’re all Democrats or left leaning independents. She told me, “The other day politics came up. Soon we were talking about Hillary. Each of them said, ‘I don’t like her.’ ”

Being the intrepid adventurer I am, I realized that my next mission in life was to find some voters who liked Hillary. I didn’t think it would be too hard.

Early Findings

Since then I’ve been trying.

I’ve found plenty of people who support her. I’ve found plenty who hope she is the next president. I’ve met many who admire her. Strange things happen after I ask, “Well, do you like her?”

Loud and bold supporters become quiet. Soft-spoken and civil supporters become shy. And a lot of people either rub the toe of their shoe in the dirt . . . or stare off into space . . . or hasten to change the subject.

I went to a focus group. It lasted two hours. One person in the focus group agreed with Ms. Clinton on all the major issues.

He was asked, “Will you vote for her?”

Later I chased him down. I asked, “Why can’t you vote for her?”

“Don’t like her.”

This likeablity thing is important. If you like a candidate, you are more willing to forgive the candidate when s/he makes a mistake. If a candidate is likeable, then the candidate will get votes and often money from people whose positions are more aligned with another candidate.
As the nice man who was running the focus group later said to me, “Emotions often turn off logic.”

I wanted to ask, “Who’s logical?” But that, I suppose, is another conversation.

The nice guy who ran the focus group added, “If a candidate is liked enough, people who logically wouldn’t have voted for him or her, very often will.”

The nice guy continued. “Reagan was so well liked that millions of Democrats voted for him. Reagan was so well liked that millions of people who were hurt by Reagan’s programs—millions of those people voted for him.”

If you Need an Excuse

Flying to Iowa I wandered into a dark area of an airport I shouldn’t have been in. Security found me. I thought I was a gonner. I envisioned being questioned. I envisioned being put in jail. I saw myself doing the perp walk. I got goose bumps.

A tall security guard who looked like a retired linebacker approached. He barked, “And just what are you doing here?”

“I’m looking for someone who likes Hillary.”

“Oh. Wanna borrow my flashlight?”

A few days later, I was late for a business meeting.

As I entered I mumbled, “Sorry, I was looking for someone who likes Hillary.”

My boss replied, “Well I’m surprised you’re here at all.”

In Iowa

I passed much of this week in Iowa. I figured Iowa would be the perfect place to find someone who likes Hillary. Iowans are warm—they have to be to survive those artic blasts that roll in from Canada. Iowans are patient—they have to be, life moves at a slower pace there. When you are in Iowa, you do a lot of waiting.

Again I found people who supported Hillary. Again I found people enthusiastic about her candidacy. But I found no one who likes her.

Now I could have cheated. I could have wandered into an office where supporters for Senator Clinton were working. Even if they didn’t like her, they would have to say they did.
These things get around. No one would want it getting around that they worked for a candidate they didn’t like.

I could have called members of Hillary’s family. I could have called Bill. He’s got a light schedule now. He might even talk with me. He’d tell me he likes Hillary.

I went to town hall meetings for Democrats. I went to town meetings for Republicans.

I never met anyone who likes Hillary Clinton.

Multi-tasking

The on-line magazine I work for is just getting started. I’m doing a lot of publicity for the magazine. Many times a week I’m a guest on a radio talk show. Recently, while a Clinton rally was winding down, I got a call on my cell phone. It was two o’clock. The talk show I was to appear on started after the news—at 2:05. I connected my phone to an earbud and put the earbud in my ear.

The rally ended. I listened to the news.

It came time for the talk show to begin. I stepped outside.

Fifteen minutes later a guy came up to me. The radio show I was a guest on was beginning a long commercial break.

They guy introduced himself. His name was Sam.

Sam was a Hillary supporter.

I asked him if he likes Hillary.

He did what politicians often do. He didn’t answer the question I asked. He answered the question he wanted to answer.

When Sam was younger, he had “worked security at rock and roll shows.” He’d done this in the DC area. First President Ford’s daughter and then President Carter’s son came to some of the shows where he worked. Sam saw Secret Service people “all the time.”

I told him I was not with the Secret Service.

“I know, I know. You’re with Treasury. That’s what they all said. I got to compliment you.

When you left the room, I couldn’t figure out who the other agents in the room were. ”
He pointed to the car I was leaning on. It was a tiny Japanese car I’d rented.

“And they used to drive boxy American cars. No more.

“And the earbuds. They were always white. I can see you’ve gotten more sophisticated.”

The radio program was still playing commercials. So I asked Sam, “Do you like Hillary?

He loved her chances. He loved Bill.

“Please. I’m really interested.”

He backed away. “Don’t get me wrong. I’d never harm her or anyone. Not a soul. I don’t even kill flies.”

“But do you like Hillary?”

“Goodness no.”

The commercial break ended. I had to return my attention to the radio program.

While a caller on the radio program asked me a question, Sam said, “Love the way you blend in now. Wish they did that in my day. Keep up the great work!”

I knew the civil thing to do was to repeat that I wasn’t a member of the Secret Service. But I had to respond to a question from a caller who was listening to the radio program.

Soon I realized: I do work that probably is as difficult as working for the Secret Service. I do work that probably is as challenging as working for the Secret Service.

I look for voters who like Hillary.

Idiots of the Week

Speaking on National Public Radio on March 31, NASA Administrator Michael Griffin said, “I have no doubt that global–that a trend of global warming exists. I am not sure that it is fair to say that it is a problem we must wrestle with.”

A NASA climate scientist, Jim Hansen, said Griffin’s comments showed “arrogance and ignorance.” A scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, Jerry Mahlman, said that Griffin was “totally clueless” or “a deep antiglobal warming ideologue.”

In a related story, his wife asked him if taking out the trash was something he could wrestle with.

As you no doubt know, Andrew Speaker, an Atlanta resident has a rare form of tuberculosis. He traveled to Europe to get married—as if people don’t get married in Atlanta? Though he was on a “no fly list” the Department of Homeland Security allowed him to reenter the country.

Obviously Mr. Speaker makes our idiots list as does the Department of Homeland Security. But the Democrats do as well for not criticizing the Bush Administration and the Department of Homeland Security enough. This is one reason why Democrats lose so many elections. They don’t do the fear thing well. Speaker’s entering the US shows how poorly managed The Department of Homeland Security it. American’s should be scared about this issue. Once again the Dems blew it.

Oh, and in case you were wondering what Mr. Speaker’s profession is, he’s a lawyer.

Bush—hereafter referred to as Shrub—the term was first coined by the late Molly Ivins. It is used in this column as an affectionate homage to a talented colleague. This week Sir Shrub called for the fifteen biggest polluters to agree to non-binding agreements to cut emissions. They would start in ten years. Each country would create its own plan.

This is just like talk about the hydrogen car. Everyone loves it—especially automakers and the oil industry. It will go into effect so many years from now that it does nothing, nothing to change behavior in the short run.

If Shrub wanted to do something about global warming, he could lobby the Senate to endorse the Kyoto Treaty. If Shrub wanted to do something about global warming, he would urge the Environmental Protection Agency to approve the California plan to reduce emissions from automobiles. If Shrub wanted to do something about global warming, he could endorse the German plan. It would cut global greenhouse gas emissions to half of what they were in 1990. And it would do this by 2050. Shrub and his administration reject this proposal. He claims it is impractical.

And finally the US punditocracy and the editorial boards of the various media outlets deserve the IOW award for not calling Shrub’s environmental initiative what it is—a PR initiative to divert attention from the problem.

Line of the Week

Conan O’Brien on Late Night said, “Sources at the Pentagon—ah this is interesting—say that several factories in Iraq will soon begin making clothes to be sold in the United States. Yeah. That’s right. Yeah. Cause Americans only want two things from Iraq: a stable central government and affordable quality men’s wear.

Inside the Bush Administration

2007-05-28T14:36:00.000-07:00

The Bush Administration isn’t really as incompetent as it may appear to be. For example, there is a report—some allege it is merely a dream someone had, but what do they know? The report/dream is that high-ranking members of the Bush Administration are already interviewing people to be the next Attorney General.

See, they really do have foresight.

If you have been completely captivated by American Idol, you will need to know that Mr. Gonzales has come under all kinds of attention that public officials are loathe to attract. It’s really been a lot of silly hubbub over nothing. Just that some federal lawyers who were Republicans were fired—fools allege they were fired for very political reasons. They weren’t prosecuting Democrats or they weren’t prosecuting them fast enough.

There is that matter that Gonzales either didn’t know about the idiocies going on in his own department or that he did . . . and let it go on anyway.

A former Justice Department senior official has given damning testimony to the Senate.

Then there’s the matter of the high-ranking Justice Department official who took the fifth. Rumor has it that many senior officials in the Justice Department are looking for this fifth that that the high-ranking official took.

The missing fifth may have been found, but e-mails about its whereabouts are missing. Fortunately for the Justice Department news of the missing fifth haven’t reached the media yet.
All these concerns will easily be put to rest if we simply see how effectively senior members of the Bush Administration work. A brief sampling follows. To protect the guilty—we don’t pretend that anyone involved with any of this is innocent—names have been changed.

Bob: Well Mr. Smith we’d like to thank you for taking time from your busy day to interview for the position of Attorney General.

Smith (smiles): I’m delighted to be here.

Ray: Would you explain how you obtained your current job?

Smith: I don’t recall.

Bob and Ray smile. Ray whispers to Bob, “Precisely the way Gonzales put it. This guy is very good.” Bob nods.

Ray: Where did you go to law school?

Smith: Regent University.

Bob: That’s the law school founded by televangelist Pat Robertson. Over 150 of its graduates now work in Justice.

Smith (smiles): Our motto is "Christian leadership to change the world."

Ray: Regent certainly has done that.

Bob: Do you have a comment about the fact that many of your colleagues from Regent work here at Justice.

Smith: I've now been made aware of the fact that there was a conversation with the President that basically mentioned the same thing in October of 2006.

Bob looks through some papers. Then he whispers to Ray, “Exactly what Gonzales said, word-for-word.”

Bob: You don’t have much experience as a lawyer?

Smith: No.

Ray: Good. So you haven’t developed any bad habits.

Smith smiles insincerely.

Can You Spell “Potato”

Bob and Ray confer and agree he has a winning smile. Bob whispers to Ray, “Reminds me a little of that fellow Quayle.”

Bob: Can you spell potato?

Smith correctly spells potato.

Bob and Ray become so excited they almost give each other high and low fives at the same time.

Ray: Could you give us an example of when you used good judgment?

Smith: I don’t recall.

Again Bob and Ray exchange smiles. Ray says, “Just the way Gonzales put it. This guy is good.”

Bob: What would your priorities be?

Smith: The protection of civil rights, the protection of our voting rights, the protection of our civil liberties.

Bob shuffles through some papers. Then he whispers to Bob, “Why, that’s , why that’s, that’s exactly the way Gonzales put it. Very good.”

Ray: There are sensational rumors that the Justice Department has lost a fifth. If you accept the job of Attorney General, you will have to respond to rumors. How would you respond to this one?

Smith: People are concerned about a missing fifth of scotch?

Bob: Goodness no. Just a missing fifth.

Smith: Sounds like a musical term to me. I’d blame it on those Flappers.

Bob: Do you mean Rappers?

Smith: Yes. Thank you.

Ray: When did you decide to apply to work for the Justice Department?

Smith: I don’t recall.

Bob shuffles through papers. Then he nods. To Ray he whispers, He can quote this Gonzales guy real good.

Getting Rid of Unwanted Baggage

Ray: The job we are considering you for carries with it a lot of baggage.

Smith (smiles insincerely): If I may be allowed to brag. I hold the North American record for losing more baggage than anyone.

Bob: More than even the Denver Airport?

Smith: When it comes to loosing baggage, the people who work at the Denver Airport are rookies.

Ray: We place a great emphasis on loyalty here. This of course is why we are letting Mr. Gonzales go. This will allow us to be loyal to our pedigree which of course is to watch your backside my boy, if I may pass along something of advice to a man as young and talented as you are, Watch your backside my boy. Watch your backside.

Bob elbows Ray. Ray turns and looks at Bob. Then Bob says: Could you give us an example of how loyal you are?

Smith: Being loyal is the best revenge.

The Reagan Connection

Bob: At the moment the Justice Department is suffering something of an image problem. It will all blow over of course. It’s just some more liberal nonsense. But it is, for the moment, a problem. Just how would you address it?

Smith: My grandfather helped Ronald Reagan at a low point in his career.

Ray: You can’t mean Bedtime for Bonzo?

Smith (nods): Reagan worked with a chimp in the movie. The chimp’s contract was renewed. Reagan’s was not.

Ray chuckles. Bob casts a sneer in his direction. Ray’s face goes stoic.

Smith: There’s a scene in the movie where the chimp wanders onto a ledge. Reagan steps out onto the ledge . . . to save the chimp. People in the audience often yelled to Reagan, “Jump! Please jump!”

Bob and Ray lean forward.

Bob: Well . . . did Reagan take the advice?

Smith: It was a movie sir.

Bob and Ray: Oh sorry.

Ray: Well a connection with the Gipper. This is good news indeed.

Ray passes Bob a note. It reads:

Good news: Tell Gonzales he can leave now. We’ve found the perfect man to replace him.

Not so good news: No leads on the missing fifth. Suggest that if the cover story on the missing fifth blows, we blame it on the flappers, ah, some rapper fella or something.

Kudos

To Joe Paterno—the grand old man of college coaches handed down some old-school punishment. Recently a few of his players were involved in a fight. Charges are still pending. Paterno did not look the other way. In this era of spin, he took another tactic. He announced that this season after home games the entire team would clean Beaver Stadium—where Penn State plays its home games.

The 80 year-old said, "We're all going to do it. Everybody. Not just the kids that were involved. 'Cause we're all in it together. This is a team embarrassment."

Sometimes the old school is the best school.

To John Edwards who, during a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations, said, "The war on terror is a slogan designed only for politics, not a strategy to make America safe. It's a bumper sticker, not a plan.” He added, “It has damaged our alliances and weakened our standing in the world."

To Bill Ridhardson for running what is so far the best political advertisement.

Richardson sits before a man interviewing him for a job. The man appears to be looking at a resume and then says:

Mmmm hmmm. Hmmmm …

Ok, 14 years in Congress. U.N. Ambassador. Secretary of Energy. Governor of New
Mexico. Negotiated with dictators in Iraq, North Korea, Cuba, Zaire, Nigeria, Yugoslavia, Kenya … got a ceasefire in Darfur …nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize four times …So … What makes you think you can be president?

His face displaying a playful grin, Richardson then says, “I’m Bill Richardson and I approved this message.”

Line of the Week

While on HBO’s hold-no-punches Real Time with Bill Maher, actor-director Ben Affleck commented on the weepy, maudlin, sappy, overly-emotional, and sappy performance House Minority Leader John Boehner made this week before his colleagues. Affleck said, “I don’t want to judge anyone who’s had bad acting moments.”

Kudos to "Race Beat" and Republican Surrealists

2007-05-21T09:28:00.000-07:00

In 1955, John Chancellor, who was then a reporter for the Chicago Sun-Times, was in Mississippi. Emmet Till, a teenage boy visiting Mississippi from Chicago recently had been viciously beaten, murdered, and then hidden in a river. Suspects were found. A trial was held.

An all-white jury found the defendants not guilty. It was in this volatile and turbulent atmosphere that Chancellor was interviewing a black woman. He was confronted by a phalanx of white men wearing overalls. Many carried pitchforks and other intimidating tools. The men clearly were out to get Chancellor.

Chancellor considered a variety of responses. He held up the microphone of his tape recorder and said, "I don't care what you're going to do to me, but the whole world is going to know it."
The threat was an empty one. The microphone was attached to a tape recorder, not a radio transmitter. Had the mob acted against Chancellor, it easily could have ruined the man’s tape recorder. But the threat dispersed the mob.

It is one of my favorite stories—because it is a very good story, because it is true, and because it is more than a story. It’s a little morality tale that represents the larger story that was going on. Many reporters and editors were doing gutsy things. By telling the truth about what they were seeing, they were exposing powerful and ugly exhibitions of ignorance. The exposition of these ignorances was helping to address them.

The Chancellor story and a host of others make The Race Beat: The Press, the Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation a fascinating and very human story. But it is the larger arcs of the novel that show how the press generally long ignored and then often aggressively pursued the race story in America that makes it such a compelling and important book.

Race Beat

I get plenty of invitations to go hunting with Dick Cheney—one may even be legitimate. But I never have been invited to have dinner with the Pulitzers or any of the members of the various committees that award the coveted Pulitzer Prize. Nor do the people who award Pulitzer Prizes consult me for advice. Over the years I have criticized Pulitzers and, at times, have criticized the awards the Pulitzer committees have conveyed.

But this year they got one of the awards right. This year the Pulitzer for historical non-fiction was awarded to The Race Beat. The book, researched and written over a sixteen-year period by veteran reporters Gene Roberts and Hank Klibanoff is a gem.

The authors begin with a nod to a Swedish economist and lawyer who in 1944 published The American Dilemma, a work that told some of the dark truths about how blacks were treated in the US as well as how little of this news was reported widely.

The authors of Race Beat suggest that the murder of Emmett Till in August 1965 changed all that. Till, a teenage boy from Chicago, was visiting family in the tiny Mississippi town of Money. Till may have whistled at a white woman. Later, he was beaten and brutally murdered. The acquittal of the defendants exposed the racial pathologies and judicial perversions that had been going on for decades in the region. The Chicago black press covered the story. Soon the white press did as well.

An unusually creative journalist William Bradford Huie paid the defendants in the trial—and the men who murdered Till—to tell their story. In January of 1956 it was published in Look. The story shocked readers and showed editors that the race story had legs.

According to the authors of Race Beat, it is the Till trial and the repercussions of it that alerted northern white reporters and editors to the importance and power of stories about race. But not everyone got the wake-up call.

Race Beat follows the story of race in America and how it was and often wasn’t covered by the various factions—Northern press, Southern press, black press, television. Race Beat shows how television producers learned to use the tools of their medium to cover the stories revolving around race. The authors often step back from the crises and conflicts to explain the larger historical context.

The book details stories of many courageous white Southern reporters and editors—the way The Arkansas Gazette covered the integration of Central High School in Little Rock is an iconic but certainly not the only example.

There are times when even the best-intentioned reporters failed—according to the authors of Race Beat the Watts riots stand as just one illustration. The authors often criticize Southern papers for attempting to exile watered down versions of race stories to the back pages. They also chastise the New York Times for failing to step up to the truth.

Race Beat and the Pulitzer Prize it earned for history may not have come at a better time. Newspapers in America are dealing with various assaults—new technologies, massive layoffs, increased pressure to become even more profitable—all at a time that readership is shrinking. Race Beat provides a powerful reminder of the importance of good reporting. It holds up to the reader a provocative mural that shouts how simply telling the truth can serve as a powerful catalyst for change—something valuable at any time, but especially one where the truth seems to be taking so many ugly and powerful beatings from so many different sources. More importantly, Race Beat not only shows what good reporting can do, it frequently provides a model of it.

Republicans Acting like Surrealists Part I

Testimony last week before the Senate Judiciary committee revealed a story that seemed too incredible and bizarre to be true. In March 2004, James Comey was the Assistant Attorney General. Comey and the then attorney general, John Ashcroft had determined that wireless wiretaps were illegal. They had decided not to renew their support for such activities. This came at a time when the Attorney General Ashcroft was in the hospital to have his gall bladder removed. While Ashcroft was hospitalized, Comey served as Acting Attorney General. White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card asked Comey to approve continuing the authority to wiretap. Comey refused. Card and other administration officials, one was Alberto Gonzales (who was then White House Counsel but as I write this is Attorney General), rushed to Ashcroft’s bed. The head of the FBI, Robert Mueller, also accompanied Card.

Comey beat them there. Carr sought to have Ashcroft sign the continuance. Ashcroft refused and said that Comey was Acting Attorney General.

The story gets worse. Comey testified that Carr was upset. Later that day Carr asked Comey to come to the White House immediately. Comey replied that he would not come tot the White House without a witness.

And there’s more: Card pushed to have the continuance authorized. Ashcroft, Comey, and Mueller—the head of the FBI—said that if the authorization was continued, they would resign. Only then did the Bush Administration back down.

To suggest this was damaging testimony to the Bush Administration is to suggest that the Titanic was a little ship. The incident has been compared to the Twilight Zone, The Sopranoes, Absurdist Theater, Twin Peaks—and no doubt a lot of other wild and crazy fictional endeavors. The incident shouts to the world that Alberto Gonzales either does not understand or does not respect US laws.

Many of the chattering classes are predicting that because of these and many other indiscretions that Attorney General Gonzales will have to resign. But the Bush Administration can’t want this to happen. If Gonzales goes, they will have to put forward another candidate for the office. If the candidate does not appear to be squeaky clean, unbiased, and non-partisan, that means a long, complex, and damaging confirmation hearing. And if someone with some gravitas and sense of fairness does get the job, s/he no doubt will find more evidence of blundering, backslapping, and miscarriages of justice at the department that is supposed to be above such shenanigans.

Lines of the Week/Republicans Acting like Surrealists—the Sequel

The second Republican debate was held last Tuesday. It was notable for many things. Though Fox News had over ninety minutes to ask the candidates questions, education, health care, and the environment did not come up. There’s nothing surrealistic about that from Fox, that’s not unusual for them. But check this out, during the debate, not one but three Republican presidential candidates were witty—and generous enough to provide this week’s installments of the lines of the week.

Colorado congressman Tom Tancredo, “I am glad to see conversions. I am glad they happen. But I must tell you I trust them when they happen on the road to Damascus, not on the road to Des Moines.”

Arizona Senator John McCain: “We spent money like a drunken sailor, though I never met a sailor drunk or sober with the imagination of the US Congress.”

Former Arizona governor, Mike Hucabee: “We’ve had a Congress that spent money like John Edwards at beauty shop.”

Tancredo probably was more interested in debilitating Romney’s character and highlighting his flip-flops than winning any prizes for wit. McCain has used the line and variations of it before—but probably not as effectively. Still this was an unusual if not monumental moment in Republican political history—three witty moments in ninety minutes—from my point of view, the last two were-laugh-out loud funny. That’s a record that may last longer than most.

Idiots of the Week

Bush and his administration for going through the idea of creating a “war czar”—the formal name is Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Adviser for Iraq and Afghanistan Policy and Implementation. According to the Administration, the czar will be able to cut through bureaucratic red tape. Creating the war czar position and all the aides that will accompany it is similar to initiating the post of Director of National Intelligence in 2005. Rather than solve problems, the issues are disguised by creating another bureaucratic layer. Perhaps this also positions yet another person, who when things turn really ugly in Iraq, will be scapegoated.

Three Big Things

2007-05-14T15:56:00.000-07:00

This was an unusual week. Big things happened—three of them.

We’ll start at home.

“Things have to change.”

On Tuesday eleven moderate Republican members of the House of Representatives met with the President. After the meeting they said they told him the "in the most unvarnished way that they possibly could that things have got to change" in Iraq. Other comments they made suggested they would remain loyal to Bush’s Iraq policy through September. Many would translate that to mean: “If we Republicans don’t change our tune on the war, my political career will be over about an hour after the polls close in November 2008.” They also probably stated that unless the US policies in Iraq changed, that the war in Iraq probably would have profoundly negative long-term affects on the Republican party.

Bush has heard comments like this before. He has rebuffed comments like this before. Two days after meeting with the moderate Republicans, Bush announced that he would be open to the idea of benchmarks.

Bush did not say he and Congressional leaders had agreed on the benchmarks. He did not say that he would link benchmarks to funding the war.

Still, it’s easy to envision a scenario that would begin to extract the US from the war. Benchmarks are agreed to. Benchmarks are attached to funding. The US fails to meet the benchmarks while unpopularity about the war continues to grow. The ideas from the Iraq Study Group are talked about and talked about and talked about. Hopefully Senator Biden’s idea of a soft federation of the three main sectarian groups is Iraq is added to the mix. The President and the Congress agree on a plan. US forces begin to leave.

But let’s be realistic. Bush shows no signs of being open to a plan like this. He shows every indication of extending the surge or something like it to the end of his term and letting his successor clean up the mess he has made.

Still, the meeting the Republicans had with Bush last week is telling. It informs Bush and the US that very soon Republicans will begin to defect from the Bush strategy in Iraq. When they do, they will break the trail for others to follow. This will clear the way for any number of scenarios that will reduce the US presence in Iraq.

The Republicans realize that the more they are linked with failed policies in Iraq, the more likely it is that they will pay the piper during the next election. Which is why the Democrats are using phrases like “support the troops” at every opportunity and making guarantees that funding will not be cut off. To many it appears that Democrats are moving forward with the deliberate speed of your average turtle on downers. They are doing this for many reasons. One of the most important is that they don’t want to repeat the repercussions of Vietnam—where anti-war protests and actions were later perceived as being disloyal to the troops. Actions Democratic party leaders took to end the war in Vietnam and the way they presented themselves enabled them to be branded as soft on national security. This crippled the party for decades.

The Republicans and the Democrats know that far more than the next election is at stake. The party that emerges from the war in Iraq with the better record on national security probably will have political advantages that echo for decades.

But back to the war the US is fighting in Iraq—actions taken by Republican lawmakers this week may mark the beginning of the end.

Exit: Stage Left

Last Thursday Britain’s Prime Minister, Tony Blair announced he would step down next month. When he came to power ten years ago, he rode the momentum of a huge landslide. His youth and energy, intelligence and charisma added dynamism to his administration.

He achieved peace in Northern Ireland. He helped calm troubled waters and end horrible human rights violations in Sierra Leone. He was one of the leading crusaders for intervention against Milosevic in Kosovo. Along with most of his European brethren, he supported US efforts to fight the Taliban in Afghanistan.

At home he had the leverage and the skill to change the constitution to give greater autonomy to Scotland and Wales. He increased spending in health care and education. His calm demeanor and steady hand helped soothe the shock of the terrorist attack that plagued London in July 2005. Perhaps his brightest moment in the public eye came after the death of Princess Diana. While the royal family elected to remain distant from the bright spotlight Diana’s death created, Blair stood at center stage, expressed his shock and concern, and called her “the people’s princess.”

Under Blair’s watch England’s economy has far outpaced the sluggish economies on the Continent. Since Blair has been in office, job growth in Britain also grew much faster than in the rest of Europe.

Blair’s successes at home and abroad helped convince the English that the Labour Party could be effective leaders. They rewarded Blair with three landslide victories. And many think that he has moved the political center of England to the left.

It was Blair’s strident support for the war in Iraq and his close affiliation with Bush led to his downfall. Bush saw in Iraq an opportunity to spread democracy and direct Iraqi oil toward to the West. Blair certainly was not blind to these opportunities. But unlike Bush, Blair brought to the conflict his crusader spirit. Blair supported the war in Iraq too quickly and without equivocation. His steadfast support of the war and Bush’s policies has led many to attack him as Bush’s poodle.

As the news from Iraq turned sour, Blair’s popularity plummeted. Scandals also plagued his last months in office.

In June he will be succeeded by Gordon Brown—currently the number two man in the Labour Party and Chancellor of the Exchequer. (In the US and many countries his position would be called Secretary of the Treasury.) Brown is widely respected within his party. Though Brown lacks Blair’s baggage on Iraq, he also does not have Blair’s warmth, style, or charm.

Blair’s stepping down clearly marks the end of an era—and a new beginning. The Labour party hopes that the party may be reborn without being replaced.

Trade Regulations

Democratic legislators and the Bush Administration reached an agreement on Thursday that will expand most future trade agreements. The agreed that in the future trade agreements with other countries will contain the following provisos.
o Child labor and forced labor will be banned.
o Labor rights will be guaranteed.
o National and international environmental laws will be enforced.
o Poor people will have greater access to generic drugs.
o The US will have greater authority to ban vessels coming into US ports.

This agreement is the result of a push by Democratic leaders to revise issues they have had for years with the Bush Administration’s trade agreements. It is a big deal. It does good things. The agreement shows that the Bush Administration can be realistic and that there is some evidence that Democrats have a spine.

Commonalities

These events show that personality matters. Bush’s rush to war and a-historical method of fighting it led to shallow and often silly tactics and policies. Blair’s crusader idealism short-circuited a process that should have provoked the US to improve its strategies.

They show actions often have consequences.

They showcase the vulnerability of a tragic flaw. Bush could not see the horrific consequences the war in Iraq would bring. This weakened his party and gutted his presidency.
Blair flaw has deprived Blair the mantle of greatness.

The events of this week show that the core of most political actions is a power play.

They show that politics can create horrific responses (the war in Iraq) and intelligent solutions to complex problems (Northern Ireland, Sierra Leone, Kosovo, the new trade regulations). Sadly, they also show that time, often years of it, is necessary for politics to do the hard work necessary to do good work.

Kudos

To Derek Fisher. Fisher is a guard for the Utah Jazz. Monday he missed practice and the first three quarters of the second game of the playoff series with the Warriors. Most who talked about his absence in public said he was not present for undefined “personal reasons.” Early Monday Fisher was home. With his wife, he comforted his 10-month-old daughter. On Monday in New York City she was operated and given chemotherapy for retinoblastoma, a rare form of eye cancer. Once the operation was completed, Fisher boarded a plane and flew to Utah. He entered the game late, played very well, and proved crucial to the Jazz’s victory that night. But he took his performance on Monday to a new level, when, after the game, he told the story of his daughter’s illness and urged parents to have their children’s eyes tested.

Idiots of the Week/Line of the Week

The US military gets the idiot award for not doing more to address the perils that flow from this statistic: a recent poll suggests that 47 % of US troops think that it is okay not to treat Iraqi’s with respect.

Rudy Giuliani gets both the IOW and LOW for the pretzel-like logic and contorted statements he made to defend his position on abortion. As he has in the past, he commented, “I don’t always agree with myself.”

At The Doug Moe Academy of Sartorial Splendor and Architectural Design: Drinks with My Republican Friend

2007-05-07T16:14:00.000-07:00

For years I was able to quip, “None of my best friends are Republicans.”

Then I met Harry. Like me, he can’t stay away from politics. Like me he likes to drink.

Harry’s wife thinks the main reason we get along has nothing to do with any of that. Neither one of us look at the bright side of life. Harry and I think we are realists. Given the sunny attitude Americans bring to nearly everything, we are considered pessimists by most.

Harry’s wife thinks we get along so well because well, you know that old chestnut about the glass of water and whether it is half empty or half full. Harry’s wife says we look at that proverbial glass of water and say, “Its almost gone—and will you look at all the contaminants that are in it?

Friday Harry and I were in the same town. And so Friday night we met at Moe’s and gabbed.

He was in a lousy mood. He didn’t see how the Republicans could win the White House in 2008.

I asked him why.

Big Stuff

“Mostly its this damn war. Conservatives are not supposed to be nation builders. Conservatives are not supposed to be eager to be international activists. And it shows. Bush has botched this war just about every way it can be botched. The war will be wall-to-wall bad news from here til 2008.

“If you do the math, it’s even worse. Something like 61% of Republicans support the President on the war. But only 27% of American’s support the President on the war. The Republicans can’t win that battle. To get the nomination it looks as if Republican candidates will have to support the war. And with that in their portfolio, there’s no way they can win the general election where the war is the central issue.

“Then there are the other major issues. The issues that are making headlines: energy independence, national health care, immigration, the environment—these issues play to the strengths of the Democrats.”

He took a sip from his drink.

“There’s a classic problem with Republican politics. For the Republicans to be united and enthused, the conservatives have to be on board. All the conservatives have to be on board. That probably means the nominee has to be a conservative—or someone with a helluva lot of charisma—nobody in the current field has that. So for the Republicans to win, they probably have to nominate a conservative. And a moderate is at the top of the heap right now. That’s a problem.

“And then there’s the problem with the candidates.

“Romney is handsome. Guiliani has a viable street cred. McCain is liked by a variety of people. If the Republicans could roll all those qualities into one candidate, they would have a verifiable A-list candidate. The way I see it they don’t really have an A-list candidate. Guiliani and McCain are close. But close is not good enough.

“And the Democrats have three of them.”

Harry nodded.

Guiliani

I asked him about Guilliani.

“Sure he’s leading the polls. With the field the Republicans have now, he’d have to. Someone has to lead. That doesn’t mean that person deserves to lead. I think about Guiliani, and I roll my eyes. Did you get the answer he had to the abortion question at the debate last night? He said it would be okay of abortion was made illegal. He said it would be okay if remained legal. You can’t answer a question on an issue as important as abortion that way and be a viable candidate. You just can’t.

“Moderate Republicans have reason to like Guiliani. But as conservative Republicans find out more about his pro-choice status, his three marriages, that one marriage was to a second cousin, that his values don’t really fall into the classical Republican family values—my god, for a while he lived with two gay men. Can you imagine what conservatives will think when they hear about that! Two gay men! And all those pictures of him in drag—that’s enough to sink a campaign.

“It may not matter all that much, but I hold a grudge against Guiliani that he dropped out of his campaign to run for the senate against Hillary.

“And then there’s all that shady stuff that he can’t drop. His business partner, Bernard Kerik, did more shady deals than some gangsters. His law firm is a lobbyist for that Socialist Chavez. A socialist! My God, is this guy trying to be stupid?

“A cynic could say that Guiliani is where he is because he had one great day—on 9/11—the way I see it, that’s not going to be enough to move conservatives en masse to become passionate about him.”

McCain

I said the word “McCain,” and Harry winced.

“As I see it, his central problem is that he was a rebel. Conservative Republicans never warmed to his rebel bit. They saw it as something like disloyalty. Two things made McCain popular with independents—his crusades for campaign finance reform and against Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthy. They are the same two positions that give conservative Republicans the jitters.

“Now he’s flipped on the Bush’s tax cuts. He was against them. Now he’s for keeping them. He’s embraced noted evangelists.

“He’s abandoned his rebel status. He’s tried to be someone more classically conservative. But this has unsettled many who liked the old McCain.

“He’s old. If he served two terms as president, he would be 80 at the end of his second term—if he lived that long.

“He’s had many health issues. He’s had cancer.

“He doesn’t like to do fundraisers. He’ll do em, but he doesn’t like em. Bad mistake. You can’t let stuff like that out. Big mistake.”

Harry finished his drink and ordered another.

“I have nightmares. I have nightmares that McCain is the Republican nominee, and during the first debate with the Democratic nominee, a reporter asks this question. ‘When you were shot down over Hanoi, you were shot down because you ignored the warning that a missile was headed toward your plane. You waited too long to try to dodge it. That caused you, your family, and, to some extent, your country, great pain. Will you say you made a mistake ignoring that warning? And what evidence can you present that you have learned from this incident and that you will avoid similar cocksure reactions in the future?’

“And in my nightmare, McCain blows it. He won’t say waiting to dodge the missile was a mistake. He fumbles the rest of the question. And it’s over for him.

“Don’t ask me about Romney. Don’t ask me about Romney. He’s a Republican Kerry—a flip flopper—a political opportunist conservatives will forever be suspicious off. He’s smooth. Sometimes he’s even slick. But he’s not warm enough to get people to trust him. I don’t care that Romney’s a Mormon—not a twit. I don’t care that one of Romney’s forefathers was a polygamist. It makes me question the sanity of his forefathers. But lots of people who are just fine thank you have nutty forefathers. My grandfather was a fan of the Washington Senators—a perpetually lousy team. You can’ t get much nuttier than that.

“But it matters that there is all that ignorance out there about Mormonism. Romney could hit this Mormonism thing out of the park if he showed some cajones. It would put some spine in his campaign. But he hasn’t done it yet.”

Harry took a sip from his drink. Then he said the word “Advisors.” He said it with contempt and hate and enough vitriol to start a forest fire.

The “P” Word

“Now Regan had many of the liabilities these guys have. He had passed a very liberal abortion bill in California. He had changed some of his positions, toned down others. But he was warm. He was likeable. People trusted him.

"Conservatives loved him. They were passionate about him.

“And to me that’s a central problem for the Republicans. They have their good moments. They have their strengths. But I don’t see any of em stirring passions.

“That’s really what elections are about. Elections are about passion. If you can get passion on your side, you’re halfway there. Some of the top three Republicans are likeable—sometimes. Every now and then they’re warm. But I don’t see passion. The passion is with the Democrats.”

“And I don’t see A-list.”

Polls suggest six in ten Republicans agree with Harry. But Harry didn’t need to be reminded of that.

Thompson—Fred not Tommy—the Actor not the Guy from Wisconsin

“So you agree with those who say, former Senator Fred Thompson, a man who wasn’t even on the stage the other night for the debate, won the debate?”

Harry nodded. But he didn’t smile. “Thompson has his series of issues. He’s got cancer. It may not affect him at all, but he’s got cancer. That’s a huge liability. Thompson has values issues. His first wife was pregnant when they married. Like so many of the Republican candidates, he’s divorced and remarried. He’s late to the party. He’ll be behind raising money. He’ll have trouble, at first any way, getting talented advisors. And there’s already someone in the Republican race whose name is Thompson.

“But he does have genuine conservative bonafides. He has presence. He has a great voice and phenomenal name recognition. If he’s smart, he’ll get his act together before he declares. If he does that, he could freeze Republican fundraising efforts. Then if he enters and makes a big splash, well that could be something to make me smile. That could make me smile. And if he does that, because he’s a conservative, because he’s an actor, and because he’s likeable, people will compare him with Regan.

“Now, if all that happens, and it’s likely that it will, that could be interesting.”

But Harry’s not the kind of guy to get out of a serious funk simply because something might happen in a few weeks.

Good News for Harry

I tried to cheer him up. “It’s early. The polls suggest that a few Republicans could win the election. The tables could turn ten times between now and November 2008. The war could change dramatically. It could end, or be as good as over. That would give Republicans a fighting chance. Or something bizarre could happen that could help the Republicans on this issue.

“You said that if Fred Thompson enters the race, it changes the dynamics completely. You said he’ll probably enter the race. If it matters, I agree. That changes the dynamics completely.

“Democrats lost to GW Bush—twice. They have a genetic predisposition toward botching presidential elections. They screwed up their message ending the war in Vietnam. They could screw up the way they end the war in Iraq. If they botch that, the election could go to the Republicans.”

Harry shook his head. “A-list candidates don’t make those mistakes. The Dems have three A-listers. Forgettabout what the polls say. The way things stand now, Republicans are dead meat.”

Idiots of the Week

This week four deserve the honor.

George Tenet who in his memoir which was published this week, At the Center of the Storm: My Years with the CIA notes that in August 2001 he met with Bush. Though he had the data to support it, Tenet did not impress upon the President the possibility of an attack like the one that took place on 9/11.

Also, attention must be paid to the three Republican candidates for the Presidency—Senator Brownback, Gov. Mike Huckabee, and Rep. Tom Tancredo—who raised their hands to answer the question, “Is there anybody on the stage that does not agree, believe in evolution? ”

Line of the Week

Courtesy of Craig Ferguson on The Late Late Show, “President Bush was on American Idol last night. . .. He made an appearance and afterwards the phone lines were jammed with people trying to vote him off.”

Handler’s Notebook: Party Debates with a Whole lot of Candidates

2007-05-01T16:10:00.000-07:00

In Man of the Year, Robin Williams portrays a TV host who has a nightly TV show. He’s a good deal like Jon Daily. Unlike Daily, the Williams character ends up running for President. At a debate, the Williams character goes deep. He rants. He violates the rules. He launches an oratorical outburst that is wild and crazy, comical and provocative. He condemns special interest money—it has to create an obligation. He attacks politicians who back things like the hydrogen powered car. Its fruits will come so far down the road that companies—and therefore politicians—will be able to continue to do business as usual for years.

The debate sequence in the movie creates a series of wonderful moments. It’s zany. It’s engaging. And it’s very funny.

Few watching the Democratic Presidential Debate on Thursday were hoping to stumble onto moments that were that captivating and rich.

They were not surprised.

The debate did not include anyone who was wild or crazy, anyone who had a world-class wit or who was particularly provocative.

As the debate rambled on, it occurred to me that independently or as a group, all but two of candidates had agreed to follow most of the rules that would be in the notebook of any seasoned handler.

Instructions

1) Before the debate, lower expectations for yourself. Try to raise them for the other candidates. (This was one reason an e-mail about Edwards’ abilities as a lawyer was circulated before the debate. It was an attempt to raise expectations for him.)

These rules are standard operating procedure for politicians and so cut and paste neatly into your debate prep.

2) If asked about terrorists, be sure you talk about killing the bastards. Democrats don’t want to appear to be soft on terrorism. If they are to be considered more credible than Republicans on national security issues, Democrats can’t appear to be soft on terrorism.

3) Do not say anything stupid. (You don’t want to pull a Gerald Ford and while the Cold War is raging say something like, "There is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe, and there never will be under a Ford administration.")

4) Never answer the question you’re asked to answer. We know this has been part of your DNA for years, but it should be repeated. Never answer the question you are asked to answer. Never answer the question you are asked to answer. Are you getting it?

5) Instead, take something from the question you are asked and use that as a springboard for what you want to talk about. For example, Senator Blowdry, what is your position on apple imports? Talk about how you love apples, always have, how they are as American as Mom, apple pie , and the American Dream.

6) Never worry about a follow up. The American reporters rarely ask a follow up. (On the rare occasion that one does, follow the same advice as is noted above.)

7) Be civil. The first primary is months away. (Don’t go raising those negatives now.)

8) Every question will be loaded with bait. Bait is anything that causes you to do anything that violates any of the rules. Never take the bait. Never take the bait.

9) Never take the bait.

10) Don’t tell the truth about the consequences of any of your actions. The truth always involves some negatives. Always emphasize the positives.

11) And never tell the truth about taxes—unless they can be cut.

12) Use any means necessary to brag about yourself. No stretch is too far.

13) Use the phrase “I’m proud” as often as you can.

These rules apply not to everyday campaigning, but apply to the debate.

14) This is an extension of rule number seven: Be civil. Don’t attack your fellow Democrats. Do attack GW Bush. It’s easy, just pick one of the items that follows that is the most relevant to the question you’re not answering: the war in Iraq, the war in Iraq, the war in Iraq, the war in Iraq. If things are going well, you may toss in Bush’s awful response to Katrina every now and then.

15) Be sober. We’re betting that not even John Edwards—who will smile at the sight of a pieces of litter on the side of the road—will not smile during the debate. That litter is part of one of two Americas and whichever one it is a part of, he wants the votes that may be garnered from it.

16) Regarding Kucinich and Gravel: Kucinich is the really little guy; Gravel is the one even you won’t know. He has white hair and white eyebrows. Kucinich and Gravel will grandstand. They will try to be outrageous. This will show how different they are from the rest of the pack. Don’t think of Kucinich as a short politician. Think of him as five feet six inches of bait. Never take the bait he offers.

Kucinich and Gravel will, over time, make themselves irrelevant. Kucinich is against war—he’ll never make it on the national stage. Gravel can’t walk across a room without saying something in a stupid way. Don’t attack them. Attack GW Bush. See rule number fifteen.

17) After the debate, look as if you won. Hold, kiss, but do not steal any babies. Mingle.

18) After the debate, avoid commenting on who won the debate. Say something like, “I think the Democratic party won the debate. “

On Message?

Clearly most of the Democrats got and more importantly followed most of the memo.

Obama was tossed a softball question that allowed him to pounce on the idea of killing terrorists (rule two). He failed to pounce. Instead he listed rational and sober responses to a terrorist attack. When you are talking about national security, it is not a time to be sober and rational. If we had done this we never would have had McCarthyism. We would have had a very cool cold war. When it comes to foreign policy, Americans don’t understand sober and rational. Obama didn’t talk about hunting down and killing the terrorists.

For years Clinton has been encumbered with the challenges presenting herself as a candidate who is not a wimp. She pounced on the idea of attacking terrorists.

The one area where the Democrats are vulnerable is on national security. For decades Republican have owned the fear card. They can scare people better than bushel basket of Hollywood thrillers. Because of this, they can scare people into voting for them. If the Democrats are going to win in 2008. they will have to own the issue of national security. They have to take the fear card from the Republicans.

Here, Obama was offered an early and probably a relatively painless lesson.

Who Says Politics is not Absurd?

Brian Williams, anchor of the NBC Nightly News hosted the debate. He asked, “Senator Biden, words have, in the past, gotten you in trouble, words that were borrowed and words that some found hateful. An editorial in the Los Angeles Times said, ‘In addition to his uncontrolled verbosity, Biden is a gaff machine.’

“Can you reassure voters in this country that you would have the discipline you would need on the world stage, Senator?”

Biden paused, responded, “Yes.” Smiled—just a little, and wisely did not say anything else.

The audience laughed.

Williams said, “Thank you, Senator Biden.”

And the audience laughed even louder.

Biden who was not elected to the Senate when he was 29 because he is a warm and funny guy, got the only big laugh of the evening? Biden, who has earned a reputation of “uncontrolled verbosity” is pithy?

Who says we don’t live in strange times?

This Week

should be a good one for Democrats. Former Bush aide, Paul Wolfowitz, is in so much hot water at the World Bank that he may have to resign. The former head of the CIA, George Tenet will be making the rounds publicizing his new book, At the Center of the Storm: My Years at the CIA. All the attention his book tour will bring to the intelligence gaffes leading up to the Iraq war will not be welcome at the White House. And on Tuesday, the new appropriations bill will be delivered to the President—on the fifth year anniversary of his victory celebration on the deck of the carrier, USS Abraham Lincoln. It was on this day that Bush declared, “Major combat operation in Iraq have ended. In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed.”

Kudos

To NBC, the format for the debate was refreshing: short responses, questions centered around a theme, avoiding the windbag thank yous at the beginning, a few questions that demanded very short answers. This format enlivened a prescription that can be deadly.

To Bill Moyers and the opening segment in the newest edition of his PBS series Bill Moyers Journal. For the first time, Moyers showed a television audience how the American media responded to the distortions the Bush Administration presented during the run-up to the war in Iraq. Even when a few reporters exposed the cracks in the Bush Administration’s façade, most of the media folded up like a cheap lawn chair.

Idiot of the Week/Line of the Week

Who would have thought that with all those Democrats talking for so long before, during, and after the debate that one of them would not garner the award this week? Instead it goes to Laura Bush. It is difficult even in a world riddled with absurdity as ours is to get more absurd than this. While on the Today show Laura Bush commented on the suffering going on in Iraq, “Believe me, no one suffers more than their president and I do."

Instead of yielding to absurdity, the line of the week honor go to Tim Rutten who wrote an appreciation of reporter and author David Halberstam who died last week in a car accident. Halberstam did some of the best early reporting on the civil rights movement in Nashville. He was one of the first reporters to tell the truth about the bad news emerging from the war in Vietnam. When Halberstam was 30, he won the Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on the war in Vietnam. He was the author of twenty books. One of his early efforts remains a classic. The Best and The Brightest chronicles the hubris, ignorance, and narrow-mindedness that characterized the Kennedy and Johnson administrations’ management of the war in Vietnam. Of Halberstam, Rutten wrote, “We have an expression in journalism to describe the sort of lethargy that comes on reporters of a certain age: ‘losing your legs.’ David Halberstam never lost his legs.”

“A Far Deeper Malady”

2007-04-23T15:51:00.000-07:00

Like many, the evening of the tragedy at Virginia Tech, after work I poured myself a drink and turned on the television. I watched the horrific pictures on the television, and I listened to the accounts of the madness that occurred that day.

Like many Americans I stared at the television in blurry amazement. I ingested a large quantity of alcohol. And I wondered why.

Often my thoughts drifted to a comment Dr. King had made forty years ago.

One year to the day before he was assassinated, Dr. King gave what I think is one of the greatest speeches in the history of our country. In the speech he articulated his reasons for taking a firm stand against the war in Vietnam. He did this before a group called the Clergy and Laity Concerned about Vietnam. After listing many of the reasons why he opposed the war in Vietnam, King said, “The war in Vietnam is but a symptom of a far deeper malady within the American spirit, and if we ignore this sobering reality, we will find ourselves organizing clergy-and-laymen-concerned committees for the next generation.”

The slaughter that occurred at Virginia Tech shouts to us that the “far deeper malady” that King commented on continues to grow like a bouquet of cancers in the heart, mind, and soul of America.

The Murderer

The man who committed the Virginia Tech murders had a history of mental instability. He bought the guns he used legally. He bought the ammunition he used legally. He probably bought the magazines he needed to fire off so many rounds so quickly legally. He killed thirty-two people before he killed himself.

To me the atrocities that were committed at Virginia Tech provide a convincing argument for improved gun safety. At the very least we should close the loopholes in the current laws that allow people with a history of mental instability to purchase firearms. We should not allow people with a history of mental instability purchase ammunition. We should not sell hollow tipped bullets as easily as we sell cold medicine.

The guns that were used in the Columbine killings were purchased illegally. To me this suggests we should crack down on the illegal avenues used to sell and distribute weapons.

After the murder of President Kennedy there was an outcry for greater gun safety. Similar pleas were heard the weeks after Dr. King and Robert Kennedy were killed by the National Rifle Association. And for their undaunting work to fight off efforts to increase gun safety and reduce the number of deaths due to firearms in this country this week we award the idiot of the week honor to the National Rifle Association.

America remains a violent nation. Legislation that was promoted to increase gun safety falls short of its goals.

Politicians are fond of using phrases like “law and order” and “tough on crime.” Improved gun safety is popular with the police and most of the population. But it was clear from the statements politicians made this week that there will not be a huge push to improve gun safety laws. The US also refuses to crack down on the traffic in illegal guns.

The Facts Mam

This week one of the saner comments from America’s punditocracy was spoken by Mark Shields. On the NewsHour With Jim Lehrer Shields noted a statistic that we all should ponder. In World Wars I and II, in Vietnam, Korea, and the first Persian Gulf War, 659,763 Americans died. Between 1980 and 2004—that’s just 24 years—firearms in America killed more than twice that number—more than 1,427,000.

Shields provided one more statistic. Take the nations with the 26 best economies. Then count up the number of deaths due to firearms in all 26 countries. 83% of those who died because of firearms, died in America.

Iran: Past is Prologue

Americans are not just violent at home, our actions trigger violence abroad.

In 1953, the US backed a coup of Iran’s Prime Minister, Dr. Mohammed Mossadegh. The coup was largely a response to Mossadegh nationalizing Iran’s lucrative petroleum industry.

Mossadegh’s actions were very popular in Iran. The US backed coup was successful. Mossadegh was ousted. Iran developed a west leaning and very autocratic and oppressive government. It was headed by Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. The US supported the Shah’s regime and western based oil firms operated in Iran. Dissent within Iran grew. The Shah’s government grew very unpopular. In 1979, the Shah left Iran. Soon his government collapsed.
It is to parody understatement to suggest that US efforts in Iran were not successful in the long term.

Some of the lessons from the US’s experience in Iran are obvious: they hate us there; they didn’t like us taking their oil; they certainly don’t like us having a great deal of influence in their country; much as we may love the short term profits foraging around a country in this region may yield, we weren’t very good at controlling events in Iran.

More US Adventurism

Nor did the US learn what it could have from the US debacle in Vietnam. In Vietnam the US fought a primarily political conflict in a largely military way. And it fought the military component miserably. It fought a mostly guerilla conflict with conventional means. It did not provide nearly enough troops to fight the war it hoped to win. It failed to train the native army. It failed to force the political system in South Vietnam to take strong measures to fight corruption.

While the US was conducting adventures in Iran and Vietnam, the institutions of the US failed. Neither retired senior military nor the active senior military addressed the errors that were being made. The US media basically cheered from the sidelines while these conflicts were initiated.

Then beginning in March 2003, G.W. Bush and the US repeated many of the same mistakes it had made in Iran and Vietnam—this time the US made the mistakes in Iraq. Since then over 3300 US soldiers have died, over 24,000 have been wounded. Over 60,000 Iraqis have died. And the US has spent over 418 billion dollars.

Iraq is in the middle of a civil war. At its best, the Iraqi government is only moderately effective. The Iraqi army is riddled with incompetence. The Iraqi police force is an absurd, corrupt, and very unfunny joke. The entire region is agitated. “Debacle” seems too kind a word to describe the US experience in Iraq.

The High Price of False Honor

The end the US achieved in Vietnam in 1973 was very similar to an end the US could have in achieved in Vietnam four years before. During that period over 34,000 US and over 100,000 Vietnamese soldiers were killed; a million Vietnamese and 100,000 Cambodians were killed; over 100,000 US troops and a million Vietnamese were wounded; about 150,000 children were made orphans and 60, 000 women were made widows.

The people of the US were told that the war was being continued so that the US could achieve “peace with honor.” The agreement that ended the war brought neither peace nor honor. Soon the North controlled the South. And because the peace agreement did not hold, any honor the US achieved was counterfeit.

Clearly honor, even the synthetic variety, is expensive.

Oil Again

Since the thirties oil has been a national security issue. Since the thirties, foresightful leaders should have recognized this and taken reasonable steps to address this vulnerability. Very few did. For decades our leaders should have been saying, Let’s try something else to address the oil shortage (hint, conservation, alternative fuels, alternative energy sources). For decades our leaders didn’t do this.

Commonalities

You don’t need to be an expert to realize that in the last decades the US has done some pretty stupid stuff. You don’t need to be brilliant to realize that unless we begin to repair our ways, most of these problems will get worse. The longer we wait to address them, the costlier the solution to all of these problems will be.

There are some commonalities.

Certainly in all the situations that I have mentioned, when events were unfolding, Americans did not seek out nor were they given much of the truth about what was really happening. In most of these situations, when some of the truth was exposed, plenty went to great lengths to deny it. Remember the hue and cry when the phrase global warming was first used? Some will remember the shrieks of laughter that followed President Carter’s comment in April 1977 that the struggle to gain energy independence created the “moral equivalent of war.”

Special interests have done what special interests often try to do—skew policies to what is best in their narrow perception of a short-term future—and damn the consequences for everyone else.

Greed, apathy, denial, selfishness, and other usual suspects circulated wildly as these problems exploded.

Detours

Whenever someone tries to address a problem, there almost always are many who seek to detour the solution. There are plenty of ways to avoid addressing the maladies before us.

A few of the more obvious diversions:

Many will talk and talk (and talk) about how complicated it is to solve many of these problems.
There no doubt are some kind and well-intentioned people who would like to talk and talk (and talk) about diagnosing the problem. (My guess is that if the malady were reduced to one ailment, and if that ailment bit us on the nose, too many of us would deny the bite and its source.)

Finger pointers have plenty of places to point.

Some will simply suggest our leaders let us down. We certainly elected the leaders who have let us down. As a people we certainly have, for the most part, sat idly by while the Americans one another at home and committed violent absurdities abroad.

And it is very easy to quibble with the list I have created. Every special interest group in the country has its own list of issues to champion. Certainly the long and largely silly debate by those who suggest global warming is a hoax is another example of this far deeper malady. Other examples are easy to identify: our reluctance to clean up the mess that exists in so many of our schools, our reluctance to repair a health care system that has huge and obvious flaws, our reluctance to reduce the deficit, our reluctance to fix a the system we use to nominate presidential candidates from a political party—the current incarnation seems to have been cobbled together by the village idiot and a lobbyist for the television networks.

There’s plenty more.

We’re reluctant to educate our population to eat better and exercise more. We’re reluctant to encourage many Americans take the steps needed to get their personal finances in order. We’re reluctant to reduce the slaughter on our roads by providing incentives for safer cars. We’re reluctant to do the research necessary to determine why so many children now have attention deficit and other disorders. We seem to have little desire to change our prisons from crime colleges many are now and do the hard work needed to make jails and prisons institutions that improve the moral fiber of the inhabitants. The list could go on and on.

Clearly

There’s violence in the heart of America. There’s fear and hate in its soul. America and Americans often refuse to learn from mistakes or seek out the truth in a time of crisis. And there’s blood on its hands. We’re going to become even more ill, or we’re going to have to take serious measures to address these problems.

When he spoke at Riverside in April of 1967, Dr. King said, “Somehow this madness must cease.”

We can continue to do little to address the issues that sicken our world and pollute our souls.

Or, for each of the issues, we can do something, learn from it, and improve our response.

Money Money Money

2007-04-09T14:52:00.000-07:00

Candidates running for president passed a milestone on March 31. On that day they had to begin the process of filing forms that will tell the world how much money they have raised.

As is perhaps almost always the case with something like this, some things happened as expected: Senator Clinton raised more money than anyone. She raised 25 million dollars. And she has 10 million dollars left from her senatorial campaign. Even I can do that math—she has 35 million dollars. And, as expected, she won the first money primary. Also as expected, the Democrats raised more money than Republicans. And, as expected, most of the top tier candidates and many of the others, raised enough to stay competitive.

Inside the Numbers

As is perhaps always the case with something like this, there were a few surprises. Senator Obama won the laurel of “beating the expectations.” He gathered 24 million buckaroos. Senator Obama has more good news. He had nearly 100,000 donors. Many have not given all they can. This shows he has an incredibly large base of financial supporters—perhaps the largest in history.

There is some disconcerting news for Senator Clinton. Senator Clinton started the money primary with the names of 250 thousand donors. She got money from 50 thousand of them. Many have given all they can give for the primary season and for the election in November 2008. Quite a bit of the money she has now she can’t be spend unless she gains the nomination. It also means that she doesn’t have as wide a base of economic support as Senator Obama has.

Republican Mitch Romney also did much better than expected। He raised over 23 million. One of the better lines of the week certainly goes to the McCain staffer who said that Romney earned 7 million for every per centage point he has in the polls. You probably can do that math—though he raised a lot of money, Romney is not doing that well in the polls—last week he was lagging at 3 per cent.

Romney had other problems this week. He not only goofed. He flip-flopped in a way that made others think of John Kerry. While attempting to court the votes of hunters, Romney said he was a lifelong hunter. Turns out the facts suggested that he did not own a registered gun and he may have only been hunted twice in his life. The prompted Joan Vinnochi a columnist for the Boston Globe to opine, “Leave it to Mitch Romney to shoot himself in the foot with a gun he doesn’t own.”

Had Senator McCain been running four years ago and raked in what he did this year, he would have smashed records. As it is, his 12.5 million placed him way back in the heap and forced him to reconstitute his financial apparatus—polite talk for taking his advisors to the woodshed.

There were a few other surprises. Governor Richardson of New Mexico, did better than expected. He brought in 6 million dollars.

Why Money is Sooo Important

Money is a necessity to play the games of politics today. It buys that all important television time. It allows candidates to buy advisors and top of the line technicians. These things are incredibly important.

Money also conveys a legitimacy. If a candidate is still very much in the running, then s/he is likely to be successful raising more money. The converse is also accurate. And if a candidate runs into a controversy, the money usually stops coming in. The candidate needs a reserve to keep the campaign going until it the winds of controversy die down.

Money also serves as a status symbol. It is a giant advertisement to show how viable a candidate is. As with everything in politics it is good to match expectations; it is even better to beat them. And when someone like Obama, who has to contend with an experience deficiency, can get money from 100,000 donors, well performances like this go a significant way to erasing the stigma’s that hang around less experiences pols.

The oversimplified bottom line of all this is that all the major contenders passed muster. They all have enough to fight another day. They all have enough to spend the money they have to spend to by the airtime they need to purchase.

Money as a Predictor

Excepting 2003 when GW didn’t play the money game—he didn’t have to—in the last two election cycles, the candidate who raised the most money during the quarter we just completed, went on to win the nomination of his party. In 2000 Bush and Gore won the contest. In 2003 Kerry did.

It is now appropriate to write this: it’s early, and having money is not the same as spending it well.

In 1979 and 1980 former Governor John Connally seemed to have all you needed to be the Republican nominee. He was experienced, he was articulate, he was conservative, and he had raised a lot of money. After months of campaiging and he burned through 11 million dollars—and earned the support of one delegate. He got the message and withdrew from the race. Mrs. Ada Mills has since been immortalized in political trivia lists as the “11 million dollar delegate.”

In 1996 Phil Graham won the money primary but ran such a sloppy campaign that he withdrew before the New Hampshire primary.

Having all this money in politics probably does some good things. It probably goes a significant way to discourage Gore and Kerry from entering the campaign. For the Democratsm, this is a good thing. They have plenty of A-list candidates. They don’t need the complicated playing field made even more complex by the subtraction by addition that comes from either of these veterans joining the fray.

For Americans in general, talking about money is a great deal easier than talking about the issues. So these quarterly reports give the pundits in the country at least a week to talk in highly serious and often nuanced tones about the campaign without having to dance around something tricky like the issues.

The Horserace

If the race for the nomination is a lap around a horse track, we aren’t even at the first turn yet. Still a few comments may be made.

The Republican field is a mess. Conservative Republicans are a constituency in search of a viable candidate. McCain who was thought by many to be the front runner is not. The front runner, Guilanni has a host of personal (all those divorces) and political problems (his leftish stands on abortion, gays, and the environment). Independents leaned heavily toward the Democrats in the 2006 midterms. Unless the Republicans put together a credible candidate who can unite the party, independents will not have many reasons to lean toward he Republicans in 2008.

Senator Clinton’s hope of a smooth walk to the nomination have hit some significant bumps. She leads in many polls and according to many pundits clearly has the inside track. But her desire to be the inevitable candidate has not panned out. Many remain uncomfortable with her personality. Senator Obama certainly has the charm, momentum, and, yes the charisma, to be a very credible candidate. He is an impressive campainger, and recently has made it obvious that he is a very impressive fundraiser. He introduction to the American people is going well. But he will have to maintain his momemtum as he becomes more specific about his positions on many issues. The pundits often try to count Edwards out. His candor about his positions on many issues—especially health care—and his classy appearance with his wife after her cancer returned, vaulted him back onto the A-list. And he still leads in Iowa.

Some of the Bad News

It is interesting how little commentary there was this week about the perils of having so much
money involved in this year’s contest.

Having all this money in politics won’t pass any smell test.

Many suggest it is far better to have private dollars in political campagins. It keeps public dollars out of it.

I couldn’t disagree more. Let’s take a quick tour of how much this private money is costing us.

The Democrats have long collected money from teacher’s organizations. And for years the Democrats have not pushed to have substandard teachers fired. Nor have Democrats pushed to make it easy for people with experience and talent to become teachers in public elementary or high schools. This is ridiculous. You could win the Nobel Prize in Literature, the Pulitzer Prize in Literature, and be a celebrated lecturer, but still have to jump through a hundred hoops to teach English in a public high school. This too is ridiculous.

The Republicans (and plenty of Democrats) are so completely in bed with the oil companies that even when the oil companies are doing very well, legislators throw tax breaks and other incentives their way—which allows oil companies to earn even higher profits. Exxon/Mobile made a record $36.13 billion in 2006.

For a variety of reasons, and campaign money is one of them, very few politicians will speak out against high-ticket defense department expenditures. Few politicians are speaking out about the abuses within the Defense Department. This is one of the many factors that prevented the US armed forces from being as prepared as it should have been to fight an insurgency. An insurgency depends not so much on high tech and gold plated weapons systems. An army that hopes to succeed against an insurgency does need simple, relatively inexpensive technology like body armor. And it needs anti-guerilla training.

An independent commission reported last month that ninety percent of all National Guard units don’t have the equipment or the training they need to perform in battle.

In reports to Congress, the Government Accountability Office stated that $1.2 billion in supplies shipped to Iraq couldn’t be accounted for. It also identified $35 billion in excess supplies and equipment. One hundred million dollars in airline tickets were never used. Ninety-four per cent of Army National Guard and Army Reserve soldiers experienced problems with their paychecks in 2004. The Defense Department’s Office of the Inspector General declared the department hopelessly “un-auditable.”

The Government Accounting Office discovered that Defense Department contractors underpaid federal taxes by around 100 million dollars. Less than 1% of that—under $700,000 has been collected.

Just five years ago, the Pentagon's top five weapons systems were estimated to cost $291 billion; today the estimate is nearly twice that, $550 billion.

The F-22 Raptor fighter is the poster child du jour for Defense Department’s financial responsibilities. The cost per plane rose 189 percent—$125 million to $361 million. Development time has increased more than two years. Despite all this, the Pentagon has paid $848 million in bonuses to the lead contractor.

The worst part of this sad saga is that the public has been so docile. Public initiatives to bring some sanity to Defense appropriations have not succeeded. Public initiatives to get private money out of the election process also have fallen short.

Years ago there was an advertisement for engine oil. It explained the problems car owners risked if they did not change the oil in their cars regularly. The advertisement ended with a cartoonish character saying, “You can pay me now, or you can pay me later.”

Clearly, when it comes to the horrific effects of spending private money in public elections, Americans clearly have decided to pay the piper later.

Line of the Week

From the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fourth Assessment Report, “Observational evidence from all continents and most oceans shows that many natural systems are being affected by regional climate changes, particularly temperature increases.”

Admittedly they would have gotten a lot more attention if they had written it up something like this: Yo, you dumb earthlings. End this idiotic debate about whether or not there is a thing we call global warming. No, don’t soften the image of it all by calling it “climate change.” People are warming a planet that very much liked the temperature the way it was before industry and automobiles and homes starting dumping so much garbage into the air. Thousands, perhaps millions of people are gonna die because of this. Entire ecosystems will vanish. It is likely that hundreds of animal species and thousands of plant species are going to become extinct. Some coastline cities will, over time, be flooded, and a lot of people who live in-land will soon have beachfront property. Things we are doing now won’t do as much as throwing a snowball into Washington to stop it. It’s time to take names and kick ass.

Idiot of the Week

The US news media for not giving enough attention to the report issued last Friday from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

At The Doug Moe Academy Of Sartorial Splendor And Architectural Design: Trying to Explain The Surge

2007-04-03T10:17:00.000-07:00

The agreement is a simple one. I provide drinks and anonymity; the people I’d ask to come would tell me what they really think—no verbal camouflage. I’d ask them to meet at the Doug Moe Academy of Sartorial Splendor and Architectural Design. It’s a bar for political junkies. We had settled in.

I had intended to make some prefatory remarks.

I had intended to thank them for coming.

I had intended to regale them with a flurry of one-liners that would create the perfect ambiance. I was sure that the mood of the moment would inspire me with the perfect quips. But if that didn’t work I had an oldie courtesy of Jay Leno: “You’ll remember a while back that an aide to the prime minister of Canada called President Bush a moron. Well that's not fair. Here's a guy who never worked a day in his life, got rich off his Dad's money, lost the popular vote, and ended up president. That's not a moron, that's genius!”

I intended to mumble a little about just why I had asked ten noted psychiatrists and psychologists to meet. I wanted to hear what they had to say about why President Bush had decided on the surge policy in Iraq rather than one of gradual withdraw.

And then I was going to seque into the discussion with something like this: The mid-term elections had been a disaster for the Republicans. I know Bush tends to go to bed early, but no doubt someone told him about the election after he woke up.

Surely Republican politicians realized how much the President’s policies in Iraq hurt Republican politicians in the last election. Since the election, Republican politicians had been urging Bush to get out of Iraq. Surely Republican politicians don’t want US forces in Iraq the next time there’s a national election.

The Iraq Study Group had gotten a lot of attention. And a tsunami of commentary had followed it. The Iraq Study Group had recommended a gradual withdrawal.

The election, the lobbying that had followed it, and the Iraq Study Group had given Bush enough political cover to set up a nudist colony.

Bush certainly had enough political cover to start downsizing the US presence in Iraq.

Given the fact that there is so much bad news coming out of Iraq: The government is weak and corrupt. The Iraqi army is a mess. The Iraqi police force is probably is worse shape than the army. Clearly there is a civil war going on. With Republican politicians urging Bush to get the US troops out of Iraq and with all the political cover the Iraq Study Group provided, it seems to many a slam dunk that Bush would take reasonable steps to extricate the US from Iraq. So why did he elect to escalate?

None of the prefatory stuff happened. They started without me.

Round One

“What do you expect from a simpleton?”

“What do you expect from someone who hasn’t studied history?”

A shy, skinny young man said, “I think I’m in the wrong place. I thought this was the meeting some sit-com writers called to work out some problems—.”

The others around the table laughed.

Then one said, “Dysfunctional family, kid that tortures animals, troubled teens?”

The skinny guy replied, “Yea, that’s the show.”

“You’re in the right place.”

Take Two

And so it went. But I wanted a real discussion. I thought it might be entertaining, perhaps even amusing. I hoped it would be funny. So I asked, “This surge thing, was it simply an act of denial? Does Bush just not get it?

“Or maybe it’s an attempt to extend the war so the next President has to clean up the mess. That way Bush can blame the next President for mucking things up so much.”

But the psychiatrists and psychologists wouldn’t talk about what I wanted to talk about.

“Let me tell you a story,” one woman said. “Years ago, one time Laura offered GW some criticism. They had driven home after a public function where GW had given a speech. The speech had not gone well. So one time she offered some criticism. She suggested the speech hadn’t gone well.

“He drove the car through the garage wall.”

A few of the dumb white guys at the table laughed.

The woman who told the story was livid. “A minor criticism leads to a violent response. Do you think a guy who did that would respond in a civil way to criticism about the war?”

I made yet another attempt to get the discussion back on road I wanted it to travel down. “But sending 21,500 more troops to Iraq is like adding two more security guards to a frenzied rock and roll show. It’s not nearly enough.”

“What do you expect from a guy as psychically scarred as Bush?”

“You want to see psychic scars, talk with poor people who were victims of Katrina, talk with rape victims, talk with veterans who accidentally killed one of their fellow soldiers.”

And I had hoped this was going to be a funny column.

“When GW was younger—“

“Seven . . . he was seven.”

“His sister died of leukemia.”

“She was three. Just three-years-old when she died.”

“GW wasn’t even told his sister was ill until after she died. Don’t you think he would feel just a little guilt over that?”

“GW’s parents are alleged to have played golf the day of the funeral for their daughter.”

A Normal Guy?

“When GW was a kid, he tormented frogs by putting firecrackers on their butts.”

“He has temper tantrums.”

“The man doesn’t speak English well. Remember, ‘Is our children learning?’ “

“He blames others for his mistakes.”

“His is the story of a man who changes but barely grows.”

A woman interjected, “Gee those last comments make him sound like most American men.”
None of the dumb white guys at the table laughed.
“GW wasted years of his life drinking—why he was even arrested for driving drunk. He probably used other drugs extensively. I think he is prone to escapist tendencies.”

“Ah I don know doc. I drank like a fish and did so much coke I had to have my nose cauterized. And now I have a wife, two kids, a cat and a dog, and a mortgage.”

“A cat and a dog?”

“They get along fine. It’s the kids that fight.”

“You don’t say.”

I’d given up. But fortunately someone asked, “Shall we attempt to get back on track?”

The skinny guy looking for the sit com writers commented, “This is better than any sit com meeting I’ve ever gone to. Is all this true?”

“Damn straight.”

Another Angle

I’m recording dialogue here. A world of fact checkers couldn’t check all the facts that have been served up here in time to get this column published before the 2012 election.

“GW told a college professor that the poor are lazy and they wish to remain that way.”“During his watch, Texas conducted more executions than any governor in the state’s history.”

“I think he’s a man who tried to emulate his father—and failed . . . at nearly every stage. His father was a young pilot in the Navy; GW had an incredibly low test score for someone accepted to be trained as a pilot. GW followed his father to Yale. His father was a star on the baseball team; GW was a cheerleader. His father was a successful oil man; GW’s firm was nicknamed El Busto.”

“GW has made a mess of every stage of his life . . . for example the National Guard bit. And most of the time his father’s cronies swooped in to save him . . . for example the National Guard bit. But Iraq is too big of a screw up, too big of a blunder for his father’s cronies to save.”

“It appears as if GW doesn’t have remorse for anything he’s done.”

“He probably isn’t a recovered alcoholic . . . but just a drunk who has dried out.”

A Fitting End

One person at the table wasn’t drinking—he said he had a long drive home. He took a sip from his soft drink and added, “Forgive me for being a little too persnickety, but one must have a brain to have it analyzed. I’m not so sure Bush has one.”

Nearly everyone laughed.

Then someone said, “What does all that suggest about Kerry?”

They laughed louder.

One man nearly had tears in his eyes as he said, “And what does that suggest about Gore?”

They laughed even louder.

Like an Idiot, I Trudged On

One person suggested that the comments that had been made were, perhaps, a little over the top.

Most responded to the comment with a look that implied they were lost and stunned. It was the look you might see on the face of a five-year-old who was very excited because his birthday party was going to begin in a few hours. Then someone told him that the party had been cancelled.

A woman mentioned the new Norah Jones song, “My Dear Country.” She said, “It has this one line, ‘Who knows? Maybe he’s not deranged.’”

Everyone at the table laughed.

There are times in my life when I am a fool and a romantic. This was one of them. I really thought this conversation could be saved. So I asked, “Let me see if I’ve got what you’ve been trying to tell me. Are you saying that I framed the question poorly?”

They looked puzzled.

This wasn’t good at all.

I mumbled on. “I suggested the surge in Iraq was motivated either by denial or raw political calculation. Are you suggesting I was oversimplifying a very complex diagnosis?”

Three or four people said, “Whaat?”

I couldn’t figure out what I was supposed to take from all this. “Are you saying that GW being stubborn and not learning from his mistakes makes him like most guys?”

Five said, “Of course.”

Five said, “Of course not.”

Like a fool, I continued, “Are you saying that because GW is so psychologically scarred that he’s a more dangerous man than even his critics suggest?”

One person replied, “I’ll drink to that.”

Another replied, “You’ll drink to the sun coming up.”

Yet another added, “It’s not that GW’s so screwed up. There are millions of screwed up people in the world. It’s not that he’s screwed up, it’s that we elected the summbitch—and we elected him twice.”

I replied, “So are you saying that the war in Iraq is a symptom of a deep malady within the American spirit?”

A few of the people looked at each other and whispered. One person said, “Oh that’s very good.”

Another mumbled, “Where did you get that?”

I loved the inference that I got it from somewhere—that I didn’t think of it myself.

A few minutes passed. I wondered if perhaps I simply was taking things too seriously. Perhaps if I just had a few more drinks before the meeting started . . ..

One of the guys at the table who had had too much to drink asked, “Did I hear someone say that Bush started a nudist colony?”

This provoked a loud laugh.

I thought of something else, “So are you saying that Bush’s psychological issues are so weird and complex that they can’t be simplified—that they can’t be boiled down?”

A few mumbled a little.

One person pointed his drink toward me and said, “Hey this guy is good.”

Another asked, “Have you been working as a shrink for a couple decades and not told us?”

“Shrink? Me? No way. I just hang around with politicians.”

They laughed. “Well that explains it then.”

They ordered another round.

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The Idiot of the Week Award goes to the editors of TIME magazine for the content of their cover story The Global Warming Survival Guide: 51 Things You Can Do to Make a Difference. Certainly the topic deserves a cover story, and many of the suggestions in the magazine are sound. But none of the suggestions include: voting for candidates who have good ideas about how to address global warming, contributing money to an environmentalist organization, taking some form of political action as meek as writing a letter, or, perish the thought, reading one of the many good books or seeing one of the many good documentaries on the topic. Clearly Democratic politicians aren’t the only people in America in need of vertebrae replacement surgery.

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Too Serious A Matter provides intelligent, provocative, and often funny commentary about the often convoluted intersections of politics, strategy, and history. The title of the blog comes from De Gaulle’s comment, “I have come to the conclusion that politics are too serious a matter to be left to the politicians.”

“Uncharted Waters”

2007-03-26T15:28:00.000-07:00

It’s Friday afternoon. It’s time to write my column. True to form, I procrastinate. It’s off to the grocery for sodas and chips.

I’m on my way to the checkout when I see Henderson. He’s a nice guy. But Henderson is not the sort of person you ever have a short conversation with. Normally I avoid Henderson. But with the blank computer screen awaiting me, I’m delighted to see him.

“Saywhat?”

We talk about Kobe Bryant’s phenomenal corkscrew jump shot three-pointer. We talk about filing our taxes—neither of us has. Soon we reach the point of the conversation where I normally would say goodbye and move on. But Henderson leans toward me and says, “I had a strange experience last night.”

Henderson leaves for work every morning at the same time. He returns from work almost every evening at the same time. He and his family have chicken cacciatore for dinner every Wednesday. He has been playing golf on Sunday afternoon with the same three other guys for nearly a decade. Every Sunday afternoon he leaves to play golf at the same time. You get the picture. When Henderson says something strange happened, well it’s enough for you to sit up and “Saywhat?”

“You’ve got to see this”

Henderson says, “Last night. It’s after dinner. The kids are in bed. My wife says, ‘You’ve got to see this.’

“She cues up a videotape. It’s from C-Span. My wife whose tastes are about as normal as they come has taped something from C-Span.”

Henderson steps a little closer and speaks in a whisper, “She’s taped a press conference.”

My first thought is, Hey wait a minute. I’m the one in the neighborhood who watches C-Span. I’m the geek who watches press conferences. Henderson’s wife made fun of my viewing habits at a party not all that long ago.

“So we’re on the couch and John Edwards and his wife come down this staircase thing, and they stand on this lawn and Edwards goes on about how his wife has had some tests.

“For a while I’m looking at my wife. I’m looking at the TV. I’m thinking, What in the heck is going on? It’s Thursday night. The basketball tournament is on. I have some e-mails to read.

“But as the news conference continues, I get more interested in what’s going on. And then Edwards says his wife’s cancer has returned. And they stand there and take questions and talk with more than some degree of intelligence and to the whole world they’re saying words like “breast” and “not curable” and they’re standing there in the sunshine . . . and I can’t take my eyes off the television. I look to my left and my wife is crying. And then I realize I’m crying.”

The Facts Mam

John Edwards is running for the Democratic Presidential nomination. He has consistently been running third in the polls—behind Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama. But Edwards is leading the polls in Iowa—the first state that holds an official caucus.

Edwards was Kerry’s Vice Presidential running mate in 2004. Before that he was a senator from North Carolina. Edwards and his wife were lawyers. She played an active roll in his campaign in 2004. She has been playing an active roll in his campaign this time around the track.

When John Edwards was young, his family was poor. His wife, Elizabeth came from a military family. He made a mint as a lawyer. They had two children. The boy, Wade, was a little too good to be true. He was an honors student, modest, likeable—he even had a dry sense of humor. In 1996 Wade Edwards was killed in a car accident. After their son died, John and Elizabeth Edwards had two more children.

Shortly before the election in 2004, Elizabeth Edwards was diagnosed with breast cancer. She was treated and the cancer retreated. This week John and Elizabeth Edwards and everyone who cared to notice learned that the cancer had resurfaced in a rib. There also may be small portions of it in her lungs.

Political pundits are using phrases like “uncharted waters” to describe John Edwards’ political status right now. Many Americans are applauding John and Elizabeth Edwards for their candor and their poise. Many Americans think John and Elizabeth Edwards should fold up their tent and go home.

Truth and Politics

Almost all politicians have a very unusual relationship with the truth. For some politicians the truth is like clay—something that can be molded to suit them. For some politicians the truth is something to be danced around. Most politicians like to tell their version of the truth. Indeed, one of the maxims of politics is, The candidate who tells the best story wins. This is almost always the version of the truth the candidate likes to tell.

I have a theory that great presidents make the most of the truth. A good example of this is President Johnson’s vigorous efforts to pass Voting Rights legislation. The same theory suggests that awful presidents avoid the truth. In the long term, such habits are ruinous to the country. A good example of this is President Johnson during the Vietnam war. He couldn’t change the awful truth about the war. By denying the truth about the war, he insured the US would lose the conflict, that his often glorious presidency would be marred by it, and that the suffering the war caused would be magnified.

Let’s be honest. Most politicians want as little to do with the truth as is possible. Telling the truth creates problems. You start telling truth, and soon people want more of the stuff. Pretty soon voters start asking questions that require honest solutions. And if you want problems, nothing creates them more than honest solutions. Can you imagine the tsunamis of vitriol that would be created by an honest solution to the deficit? What about all the damage to honor and tradition that an honest response to the war in Iraq would produce?

There is another maxim of politics—script everything. This is because bloopers travel at a speed faster than light. Bad news travels through the American media at a volume that is louder than your average rock concert. Campaign events are scripted so thoroughly to minimize the chance of bloopers will mar or even ruin a campaign.

Which is what made the Edwards press conference so unusual.

They spent the whole time—the whole time—talking about the awful truth of Elizabeth’s cancer. They spent the whole time speaking without a script. And they looked alternately poised and serious--and cheerful and open.

And There’s More

No one in our culture can say the word “cancer” without eliciting a great deal of emotion. Most of us live most of our lives knowing and caring about and praying for a few people who have cancer—or are in what we will hope will be a long period of remission from it.

But on Thursday, John and Elizabeth Edwards stood on a grassy lawn in North Carolina in front of reporters and a host of cameras. And they told the truth about an emotionally charged topic.

Some, like my friends the Henderson’s, thought them noble and grand and more than a little heroic.

A Few Comments

The obvious reaction is for someone like me to comment on it all. Obviously, for a few days the public eye will turn toward John and Elizabeth Edwards. Obviously, whatever many may think about John and Elizabeth Edwards, most will applaud their candor and their dignity. Edwards’ positive ratings will go up. His character ratings will go up. For the short term, he probably will become more popular in the polls. For a very brief period of time comics will not tell jokes about him. The news of Elizabeth’s cancer will require the candidate to add yet another balancing act to his repertoire. Now, in addition to being all the things all candidates have to be, John Edwards will have to balance being an energetic and dedicated campaigner with being a kind, attentive, and sympathetic husband.

But as I write these words, I really have only a few thoughts that amount to a hill of beans. I hope Elizabeth Edwards lives to be a hundred and twenty. I hope she outlives all of the people who think she should go home and stare at the walls of her house and wait to die. Whatever she ends up doing on Inauguration Day 2009, I hope that she continues to be as candid and as articulate and as gutsy and as brilliant and, yes, as mind bogglingly beautiful as she was in front of all those cameras last Thursday.

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Too Serious A Matter provides intelligent, provocative, and often funny commentary about the often convoluted intersections of politics, strategy, and history. The title of the blog comes from De Gaulle’s comment, “I have come to the conclusion that politics are too serious a matter to be left to the politicians.”

A Tragedy of Errors

2007-03-26T15:18:00.000-07:00

This just in . . . last week an agency of the Defense Department issued a report. It provided an update on the war in Iraq. The report referred to the conflict in Iraq as a “civil war.”

In a related matter a spokesperson for the Pentagon said that another Defense Department agency is about to issue a statement that . . . check this out . . . “rejects the theory that the world is flat.”

March Madness

This week many in America are happily consumed with a basketball tournament and what is often called March Madness. The literal among us are perhaps too quick to remind too many that the tournament often ends in April. Anyway, an all too familiar form of madness revisited the Democratic presidential hopefuls.

General Pace, the person in charge of the Joint Chiefs of Staff had a much-discussed conversation with the editorial board of the Chicago Tribune this week. He said, “I believe homosexual acts between individuals are immoral and that we should not condone immoral acts. Saying that gays should serve openly in the military says to me that we, by policy, would be condoning what I believe is immoral activity.”

So it seemed that General Pace was going to be the runaway winner of the idiot-of-the week award.

Until the Democrats got into the mix.

Both Little-Miss-Cautious Hilary and Gimme-a-big-smile-Obama were asked to respond to the General’s comments. Senator Clinton said, “I’ll leave that to others to determine.” Obama’s comments were equally bland.

For an entire day both fumbled and bumbled as if they were trying to imitate the milquetoast qualities of Gore and Kerry at the same time.

The Democrats, after all theses years, after two failed presidential campaigns, are still making comments that make it appear as if their spine has left them.

Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell

The “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy is fifteen years old. This is now a post Will and Grace America. Many think that the “don’t ask don’t tell policy” will not last long if a Democrat is elected president. Young voters simply do not have the paranoia about gays that other generations had. And they are right. A list of gays who helped the US win wars would embarrass even the most self-righteous homophobe. I’ll stop at three stories.

Before the United States was the United States, Baron Von Stuben transformed the Continental Army into a disciplined and effective fighting force.

He was gay.

During World War II General Eisenhower ordered his secretary, WAC sergeant Johnnie Phelps, to create a list of the names of all the lesbians in her battalion. She responded, "I'll make your list, but you've got to know that when you get the list back, my name's going to be first." Eisenhower decided he did not need the list. He decided not to take actions against gays.

US Marine Eric Alva was the first US service member to be injured in the Iraq war. He is gay.

Joke of the Week

This week the story of the week is best summed up by the joke of the week—courtesy of Jon Daily of The Daily Show.

“Good news for the Bush Administration, just one week after the outrageous Walter Reed Medical Center Scandal. That story is gone—off the front page, way back now in Marmaduke Country.

“There’s a new kid in town and his name is Outrageous-Fired-Federal-Prosecutor’s-Attorney-General’s scandal. Yes in one week it’s been revealed that the Administration screwed over wounded vets, the most revered people in America, and lawyers, the most reviled people in America.

“Proving, They’ve got range.”

Escalation

Escalation is a strange thing. We usually use the term to refer to military action. But it is a mainstay of politics.

Monday we were welcomed by the wonderful story coming from the lips of General Pace. Tuesday there was more bad news out of the Justice Department and the firing of the US attorneys.

The Bush Administration, proving they are not completely incompetent then pulled out a chestnut they no doubt had been keeping in the wings for a while. They released the news that Khalid Shaikh Mohammed was behind most of the ugly things Al Queda has been up to in the last years. This included the 9/11 attack, the death of journalist Daniel Pearl, and a host of other incidents.

Khalid Shaikh Mohammed has been in US custody for more than three years. No doubt releasing this information late Tuesday was intended to knock the stories about Mr. Gonzales’ troubles into the hinterlands.

It didn’t work that way.

Gonzales had stated that he did not recall knowing all that much about the firings of the Republican US attorneys.

E-mails released this week showed he knew a great deal about the firings. And that story had enough traction to mow down the Jolly Green Giant and all his buddies.

Hot Potato

US attorney’s are fired all the time. But they are fired only rarely during mid-term. These attorney’s were fired in December, after the Bush Administration knew that the Democrats would control the House and the Senate. Six of them had positive performance reports. Some were prosecuting or had prosecuted Republicans.

No one would complain if a US attorney were fired during a change of administration. Few would complain if a US attorney were fired to give a job to someone to repay a political debt. But to fire US attorneys at mid-term, because they were taking actions against Republicans—well if such charges are provable, the Bush Administration has a hot potato the size of Texas in its lap.

Credit and Blame

Three months ago, Congressman and uber Democratic activist Rahm Emanuel was harping about this story—and few responded. Cleary he was right and all those who ignored it were wrong. And credit should be given to bloggers who helped keep the story alive.

The really bad news for the Bush Administration is that Democrats clearly are willing to let this fire burn for a while. They can subpoena Gonzales. They can supbeona Rove. They even can supboena Harriet Meirs who has left the Bush Administration. The President can’t do much to prevent Gonzales and those who work for him from being subpoenaed and testifying under oath. But Bush can play hardball about people from his staff appearing under oath.

To most whatever it is that the Bush Administration is doing will not pass any smell test. Clearly the evidence may be read to suggest that the Bush Administration has something to hide.

Today

Gonzales and his charges in the Justice Department look like bozos for pursuing the firings when they knew it had the potential to provoke some heat in a House and a Senate dominated by Democrats. Gonzales and his staff look even more foolish when news surfaces as it did this week that Gonzales’ chief of staff warned them to "Prepare to Withstand Political Upheaval."

Down the Road

There are a host of possibilities.

The Democrats have to savor this one: what the Republicans are trying to cover up is so bad that it warrants all the heat they are now taking.

This is possible, but not likely.

At this point the story seems to be about competence. The Democrats seem certain to go on subpoena driven fishing expedition to determine if there is something deeper and darker that will be revealed. They probably relish the idea that a story like this could dominate the headlines for weeks.

And as one week of bad news seques into another for the Bush Administration, the Democrats have to love their chances in 2008.

But to think this way would be a horrible mistake for the Democrats.

No matter how badly the Bush Administration bungles the war in Iraq and domestic matters, if the Democratic front runners continue to bumble the way Senators Clinton and Obama did last week, Americans will rightly turn away from Democrats again.

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Too Serious A Matter provides intelligent, provocative, and often funny commentary about the often convoluted intersections of politics, strategy, and history. The title of the blog comes from De Gaulle’s comment, “I have come to the conclusion that politics are too serious a matter to be left to the politicians.”

Drinks with Harvey: The Libby Verdict

2007-03-22T14:34:00.000-07:00

I was at a party once with a woman who believed in reincarnation. After she met my friend Harvey, she said that in a previous life she thought Harvey was “a great white shark—a miracle of evolution—an eating machine.”

I think the woman at the party was a victim of understatement. Harvey is more like a T-Rex on steroids.

“People are laughing in hell.”

When I got to Moe’s, Harvey was waiting for me. I hadn’t even ordered a drink before he said, “I hear people in hell are laughing.”

I had no idea where this was going. And I was tempted to parse his comment . . ... There are not supposed to be people in hell, there are supposed to be souls there. But with Harvey, parsing is not the wisest of options.

“People in hell are laughing,” Harvey laughed, “Yeah, GW’s week on earth is like what their life is like now.”

But Harvey didn’t want to talk about GW’s week from hell: the congressional hearings on the health care given to veterans . . . the hearings about the lawyers in the Justice Department who were fired—many think they were fired for political reasons. Harvey didn’t even want to talk about the news on Friday that the FBI committed thousands of violations of the Patriot Act. Harvey didn’t want to talk about the protests GW was dancing around during his visit to South America.

Harvey wanted to talk about the Scooter Libby conviction.

The Facts Mam

Last Tuesday, the former chief of staff of Vice President Cheney was convicted on four counts—two counts of perjury, one count of making a false statement to the FBI, and one count of obstructing justice.

Libby will be sentenced June 5. Conventional wisdom suggests Libby will be given one-and-one-half to three years in prison. Libby is the highest-ranking White house official to be convicted of a felony since the Iran-Contra scandal in the 1980s. Many think Bush will pardon Libby.

The week’s national political news wasn’t all sour. Al Kamen, a columnist for The Washington Post is running a contest. He has asked readers to submit guesses regarding when Bush will pardon Libby. Those who submit the ten closest guesses will win a t-shirt.

“It would have taken me ten minutes.”

Harvey said, “Ten days. Took the jury ten days. Wouldn’t a taken me ten minutes.”

Finally, Harvey paused long enough for me to order a drink.

Harvey continued, “I mean what were they doin? Listenin to their iPods and drinkin Pina Coladas?”

I informed Harvey that though I did have a few sources in DC, none were on the jury.

“Ah . . . columnists,” he said. “Always being cute. You know what I think of cute.”

Harvey hates cute.

He used his comment about columnists to harass me about some of the comments I have made in columns lately. I was finishing my second drink before he returned to Libby.

Controlling the Message

Harvey had used his computer to access some documents from the trial. Harvey spent a long time showing me printouts he had made that showed how Cheney and his staff had tried to control the administration’s message concerning the run-up to the war in Iraq. There were criticisms of the Bush Administration’s logic for invading Iraq. Some of the criticisms led to the Libby case.

About ten times Harvey said, “Cheney talked about going on Meet the Press because the spokesperson for the administration could control the message.” He also talked about how more conventional sources, like the New York Times and op-ed pieces in major newspapers could be used to control the news.

Harvey took a sip from his drink. Then he sighed. “God I’m glad I’m out of it.”

Like me, Harvey used to be a newspaper reporter. Unlike me, he left to pursue a more lucrative profession. He and his wife make a pile of dough selling houses.

Harvey left reporting because he got tired of being used.

Harvey said, “Often I would come home from work and feel as if I’d spent the entire day getting doused by a skunk.”

One Reason Reporter’s are a Cynical Group

Whether a reporter is covering an inauguration or an investigation, the reporter is always a conduit for various sources. Often when using comments from politicians in powerful positions, it is very easy for a reporter to feel as if s/he is being used.

Politicians have been “using” reporters for as long as both have been in existence. All good politicians try to use reporters. All good politicians try to use every tool the media has.

All good reporters and all good media outlets balance comments from powerful politicians with a healthy dose of hard work and pragmatic skepticism. Keeping an appropriate balance is easy when you do not put a high value on social graces or on being liked.

This is one reason why Harvey was an excellent reporter.

But for the rest of society, for the reporters who want to be invited to one-on-one briefings, for the reporters who want to keep their friends close and their sources closer, maintaining this balance is probably impossible.

Which Brings us to the Bush Administration

The Bush Administration pushed much harder than most to control the media. In some situations this strategy worked very well—for the short term. It is now easy to substantiate that during the run-up to the war in Iraq, that the US media did not do nearly enough to question and dig deeply into the assertions the Bush Administration was making. The US media let the Bush Administration use them too much. The US media didn’t let their pragmatic portion of their skepticism do enough work.

Sometimes an administration uses public forums to state its case to the American people—what Harvey would call using the media.

The Bush Administration used public forums to do most of the work to present the case to attack Iraq.

The Bush Administration often used high-level confidential sources to control the mop up operations—the “little” dribs and drabs that leak out of most operations. The case that provoked Libby to make the comments that led to his trial was one of these mop-up operations.

Confidential sources are crucial to many stories. The great work done by Woodward and Bernstein on Watergate often relied on confidential sources. The great work done by Dana Preist and Annie Hull to expose the bureaucratic horror and small bore cruelties veteran outpatients had to endure was also the result of confidential sources.

Confidential sources played a central role in the Libby trial.

Ten out of the nineteen witnesses at the Libby trial were reporters.

It wasn’t just Scotter Libby on trial. In a very important way, American journalism was also on trial. Seeing journalists walk to and from the courtroom certainly scarred the reputation of journalism in the US.

Harvey Pontificates

Harvey talked for quite a while about the Libby case. He said that the hardball politics the Bush Administration has played resulted in the Libby case. He said, “Many who might be sources will think often about the ‘complexities of confidentiality.’ “

Harvey said that in the future judges probably will not be reluctant—as they often have in the past—to throw journalists in jail for protecting their sources.

Harvey took a gulp from his drink. Then he continued, “There’s more. The incendiary bomb Bush’s war in Iraq has become in the Middle East is just beginning to burn. When Bush came into office, poverty was at a 26 year low. Now it’s at a 32 year high. The US now has five million more poor people than it had in 2000. The Bush Administration’s horrible response to Katrina is yet another scar on Bush’s presidency. The debt is rising faster than a hooker’s dress. We’ve lost eight years in the fight against global warming.”

Harvey took a long pull on his drink, “And Bush’s hardball politics has scuffed up the image of the media.”

Cloud of Suspicion

Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald did most of the heavy lifting that led to the Libby trial. He said, "There is a cloud over the vice-president . . .. That cloud is something that we just can't pretend isn't there."

One thing about having a few drinks with Harvey, there is plenty of time to drink. Once he gets going, you don’t even need to prompt him with questions.

Also, talking with Harvey gives you plenty of reason to drink.

“All this Cheney stuff. Of course there’s a cloud. In most administrations, the VP goes into attack mode. It’s the VP who handles the red meat of most campaigns. You can’t think that the VP can do a whole lot in any administration without some sort of consent from the President.”

“So all this talk by the media about whether Cheney will go, it’s all missing the point?”

“Exactly. Putting the VP into attack mode helps the Prez stay above the fray. All this noise in the media about whether Cheney will go plays right into the Administration’s hands. Bush’ brain, Carl Rove wants the heat on Cheney—not on GW.”

I took a sort of inventory. In a few short minutes Harvey had attacked my columns and the media. Usually in the time it takes me to sip a drink with Harvey he also can insult the American people. I was almost done with my drink. Was Harvey mellowing?

Valuable Lesson?

The obvious question for me to ask was if the Libby Trial would have any significant impact on Bush. Once again, Harvey didn’t need to be prompted. “Bush is so deep into the dumps that this can’t hurt him much. What is his overall approval rating, 29%? My goodness. A lame duck can’t get much lamer than that.”

Given the unabashedly cheery nature his comments I thought it was a time for something really depressing. “So do you think many will get some sort of valuable lesson from all this?”

Harvey put his glass down. “Some of the mud will stick. Some of the mud always sticks. But is this some sort of [I deleted an explective] morality tale playing out before an enthralled American public?”

Harvey answered his own question. “Of course not. The story’s too complex. The particulars are too complicated. Without sex, lurid pictures, sultry rumors, Americans will never en masse pay attention to such complicated stuff.”

“So the lessons will be lost on most of us?”

He nodded.

And some people wonder why reporters are a cynical lot.

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Too Serious A Matter provides intelligent, provocative, and often funny commentary on the convoluted intersections of politics, strategy, and history. The title of the blog comes from de Gaulle’s comment, “Politics are too serious a matter to be left to the politicians.”

Newton, Traction, and "Normalcy"

2007-03-21T09:26:00.000-07:00

Newton’s third law of motion is wonderfully simple and economic: For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

Politics is not that simple.

A story about neglecting veteran outpatients and some sloppy maintenance in a building appeared the front page of The Washington Post recently. It created more political reverberations that a bomb exploding in an echo chamber. The story resonates powerfully with many Americans—as well it should.

Political pros say the story has traction.

News of Congressional investigations about these matters almost certainly provoked the Bush Administration to try “to get out in front of the story.” The Bush Administration announced an investigation of its own. A few people were fired. President Bush and others made some high profile visits. These actions were taken to deflect the impact of the Congressional hearings that began on Monday.

Which Leads Us to Obama

The early stages of Senator Obama’s presidential campaign has many purposes. One is to introduce himself to most Americans. To suggest his campaign to introduce himself to America is working is to suggest that winter in the Northeast this year has been a little cold.

In some polls, he has closed to within eleven points of Senator Clinton. And, he has only just begun.

He is doing a particularly good job of winning over African American voters from the Senator from New York.

Obama’s actions have prompted Senator Clinton to formulate a variety of reactions. She decided that Senator Obama should not attract all the media attention devoted to a commemoration of one of the most important turning points in the American Civil Rights Movement—what is now called Bloody Sunday. Last week Senator Clinton announced that she would attend the festivities commemorating the event.

Then near the end of the week, former President Clinton noted that he too would attend the activities.

The annual celebration quickly turned into the political pit stop of the week.

Briefly

On Sunday, March 7, 1964, activists hoping to gain voting rights for African-Americans crossed the Edmund Pettis Bridge. Their voting rights campaign had been going on for weeks. Morale was low. They had few successes.

Near the top of the Edmund Pettis Bridge protesters were confronted by a cadre of law enforcement officials. The protestors stopped to pray. Soon the law enforcement officers hurled tear gas into the group of protestors. Then the officers beat the protestors. Television cameras recorded the violent actions.

What had been a faltering and largely ineffective protest, got traction. Movement leaders then orchestrated a brilliant protest—a march to the state capital of Montgomery.

Eighteen months later President Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act.

Jockeying for Position

Last Sunday morning, Obama addressed a group at what was called a prayer breakfast. He noted that a relative his mothers had owned slaves. He said, "That's no surprise in America!"

The comment generated a great deal of applause.

Later that day Senator Obama was at Brown’s Chapel—where the march on Bloody Sunday started.

To me the speech seemed to be mostly a response to those who had argued that he was “not black enough,” that he was not of the generation of Civil Rights Activists. He spoke of the Moses generation—the activists during the Golden Age of the Civil Rights Movement. They laid the groundwork but did not see the promised land that equal opportunity provided. Obama asserted that he and others were part of the Joshua generation—those who would see the promised land. He talked about how the actions of the Moses generation affected his parents and others of their generation.

In terms of style, I thought he started very slowly, gained momentum at about the twenty minute mark and tossed a little of the magic dust he is now is so associated with. He read most of the end of his speech. He did not follow the Hollywood maxim of “have a big finish.”

While Senator Obama was speaking at Brown’s Chapel, a few blocks away, Senator Clinton was addressing a warm and responsive crowd at the First Baptist Church. Like Obama, she spoke of the Golden Age of the Civil Rights Movement with reverence. Repeatedly she referred to finishing the march.

To me the most interesting part of the day came later. After the march participants had taken their places, but before the commemorative march across the Pettus Bridge started, President Clinton joined the group.

No doubt you have seen a faint breeze swell into a gust of wind. It was a little like that. At first a few who saw him rushed to greet and touch the former President. He responded with excitement and brio. His responses encouraged more to rush toward him. Enthusiasm filled the air and rippled through the crowd. For a moment he was more than a man, more than a former president, he was a force a nature.

After the thousands who had assembled in Selma crossed the bridge, the former President was made a member of the hall of fame of the National Voting Rights Museum.

The Billboard

On the other side of the bridge is a billboard. It thanks visitors for supporting local Civil War tourist spots. The billboard features a large Confederate battle flag and a portrait of General Nathan Bedford Forrest. The general was the first leader of the Ku Klux Klan.

I looked at the billboard and said, “That’s no surprise in America.”

A black woman next to me replied, “You got that right.”

Television

In 1964, the film shot of the protestors being attacked had to travel along a long and windy road to be broadcast. It had to be transported, developed, and edited before it could be aired. The images did not reach Americans living on the East Coast until late in the evening. Students of irony usually are quick to mention that ABC interrupted the movie Judgement at Nurenburg to show film clips of the events that later came to be known as Bloody Sunday.

News travels faster now.

About an hour after the event ended last Sunday, I turned on the television in a hotel room. As is often the case, the event played differently on television than it had in “real life.” The report on the Selma events showed Obama flying high and looking as if he was a veteran preacher come civil rights activist.

Senator Clinton looked great in a pale green pantsuit. But even with all the coaching she has been given and the months of experience she has garnered of late, she was a little shrill and very pedestrian.

In that charmingly sterile environment that seems unique to hotels and the parties I threw when I tried to become a more well rounded geek, I studied the speeches the two senators had given that morning. In terms of content, both deserved good marks. They praised the history of the civil rights movement and credited it with their and their country’s future—not a particularly difficult call. But I had to give Obama more than a slight edge. He dug deeper and rose higher.

On style points, Former President Clinton had the best moment of the day. But that did not make it to any of the television news reports I was able to see. So in the only game that really counts, Senator Obama won the day because stylistically he soared so much higher than Senator Clinton.

Senator Clinton’s response to Senator Obama’s surge in popularity—her appearance in Selma—certainly served to blunt Obama’s impact on the day. But her reaction to Obama’s success of late, also served to escalate the importance of the events that took place on Sunday in Selma. She did well, but Obama won the day—most would say by quite a bit.

Normalcy?

Senator Obama has flubbed a bit of late. His image has been tarnished. He made a comment about lives being wasted in Iraq. Some suggest he fumbled the follow-up to remarks a celebrity fundraiser made. Nonetheless, the Obama machine continues to roll along.

It is still very early in a long campaign. It is foolish to make too much of one day or one speech. But right now Senator Obama is playing offense and has momentum on his side. Senator Clinton is forced to play a good bit of defense. More importantly, the dynamics of the campaign probably will force her to do more events where she may be easily compared to Obama. Given his natural gifts and her stubborn shortcomings, Obama seems likely to be the perpetual winner of the oh-so important style contest.

For the short term it is obvious that Senator Obama has enough traction to run up an ice covered hill in his socks.

Congress is now getting very much involved with the veteran out-patient scandal. This issue, important though it is, may soon transition into the status of “politics as usually.”

Already this is a very unusual election campaign. For the first time in decades an elder-in-waiting from a current administration is not plotting to succeed his current boss. There are more A-list candidates in both parties than we often see in three or four presidential election cycles. The campaign will easily be the longest in US history. The campaign is sure to shatter all records for money raised. And this doesn’t even begin to address the issues: a very unpopular war, a massive deficit, a growing desire to address global warming—when it’s easier for most Americans to get their arms around a gas guzzler than to understand the complexities of the problem. And there is still host of problems swirling around Social Security, a health care crises that won’t go away, and a long and often loud parade of other issues.

Normalcy does not appear to be an option.

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Too Serious A Matter provides intelligent, provocative, and often funny commentary about the often convoluted intersections of politics, strategy, and history. The title of the blog comes from De Gaulle’s comment, “I have come to the conclusion that politics are too serious a matter to be left to the politicians.”

The Annual Hugh Thompson, Ron Ridenhour Awards

2007-02-26T16:23:00.000-08:00

This week many in America watched the Oscars, a rich display of glitter and glitz, cleavage and emotion, talent and yearning.

This week Barak Obama's presidential campaign earned 1.3 million in one day at a fundraiser in Hollywood, and a very rich entertainment mogul, David Geffen, derided the Clintons. According to Geffen, Hillary is "incredibly polarizing figure," and Bill’s transgressions could be huge liability for the Hillary and the Democrats.

The Clintons responding quickly. They did not want to be perceived as soft on rhetoric—a la Kerry in 2004. And they did not want Obama to have all that Hollywood money to himself.

But it was from another story having to do with Washington that we take our cue this week and offer what is hoped will be viewed as an appropriate response to the overindulgences on display this week.

After four months of investigating, Washington Post reporters Dana Priest and Anne Hull published a series of stories. They focused on the pitiable treatment veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan sometimes received, the bureaucratic horrors they often had to endure, and the sometimes awful conditions these veterans had to tolerate. As good reporting often does, the articles sent shock waves through Washington. Investigations were ordered. Promises to reform have been made. The articles represent the splendid work reporters sometimes due and serve as a reminder of how easy it is for a government agency to falter and how difficult it almost always is to do the hard work that often needs to be done to right a spider's nest of wrongs.

Hugh Thompson, Ron Ridenhour

On a March morning in 1968 Hugh Thompson was flying US Army helicopter near a village that came to be called My Lai. He landed his helicopter between some very ugly Americans and some very scared Vietnamese. By doing this, he stopped the madness that was going on in the village. News of the Americans actions in the region was duly reported to the soldiers’ superiors. And, over time, the atrocities that had been committed were buried by the very bureaucracy that was to make sure that Americans conducted themselves professionally. Months later, Rod Ridenhour had accumulated the evidence he needed to bring some light to the darknesses that surrounded the events that occurred that horrible day in March 1968. He wrote letters. The letters prompted investigations.

For Thompson, Riddenhour, and all the other anonymous heroes in the world, I offer this short—and incomplete—list of noble efforts that were recently produced to cast a splash of light upon a few of the darknesses that overpopulate our world.

Mostly DVD’s

The Inconvenient Truth: Director Davis Guggenheim weaves the science of global warming with Al Gore's personal campaign to help the environment. Who would have thought that both Gore the Bore and a PowerPoint presentation would be combined to create a story that is interesting and popular? The movie drew a great deal of attention to the problems Global Warming creates, and it won Guggenheim a well-deserved Oscar. The movie also made many question the campaign Gore ran in 2000 (he should have shown some of the passion and all of the spine so clearly on exhibit in the movie), made more think twice about the votes they cast for President in 2000 (Katrina and Iraq may also have something to do with this). The book is even better.

Darwin’s Nightmare: The Nile perch is a delicacy savored in Europe. The fish flourishes in Tanzania’s Lake Victoria. The perch is destroying the lake—it is a shark among minnows. Industries connected with exporting fish to Europe are destroying the lives of the people who need the resources from the lake to survive. There’s more bad news: pilots who fly the perch to Europe often use one leg of their flight into Tanzania to run guns into the continent. Hubert Sauper's film is enlightening, engaging, and powerful.

The Constant Gardener: This feature film was directed by Fernando Meirelles and stars Ralph Fiennes and Rachel Weisz. It is based on one of John Le Carre’s best novels. Tessa Quale (Weisz) is brutally murdered. Her husband shakes off his shy diplomatic ways and embarks on a quest to get to the heart of the matter. He cuts through diplomatic run-arounds, the noise surrounding drug company profiteering, and cover-ups. And he discovers a plan to use Africans as guinea pigs to test a new drug. There are enough likeable characters and engaging plot twists to engage even the most hard-line Disneyfile, and the film showcases inconvenient truths, moral outrage, and a hard-boiled realism rarely found in movies made for the mainstream.

Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers: Robert Greenwald's documentary illuminates a ghastly record of sleaze, greed, and other forms of incompetence associated with the American experience in Iraq. Greenwald shows that the American government is neither particularly compassionate in the way it treats its soldiers or the people it is supposed to be winning over, nor is it conservative in the way it dispenses taxpayers’ dollars.

Why We Fight: In his last public pronouncement as president, Eisenhower warned the country about the emerging military-industrial complex. Eugene Jarecki’s Why We Fight chronicles much of the history and captures many of the complex characteristics of the beast. Real patriots give copies of the documentary to their friends.

Who Killed the Electric Car? In 1996 electric cars were sheik. Tom Hanks drove one. They were fast. They ran without gasoline and so produced almost no pollution. Chris Paine’s Who Killed the Electric Car? explores why the cars which were gaining popularity were rounded up and tossed in what amounted to a dumpster.

Mostly Books

Amazing Grace: William Wilberforce and the Heroic Campaign to End Slavery by Eric Metaxas: The usual suspects: economic short-term interests, ignorance, racism, and convenience perpetuate the cruel and unusual institution we have come to call slavery. Metaxas intelligently chronicles Wilberforce’s early life as a slave trader and his conversion to Christianity and then to abolitionism. Then with William Pitt, Wilberforce energized a crusade to end the abominable slave trade in England. It was an interesting time—many of the good guys were religious zealots. Wilberforce’s drive to dramatize the horrors of slavery and to motivate others to do the right thing is illuminating—not only for what it tells us about all progressive movements—but also for the nuances that were unique to Wilberforce’s life and times.

Beyond Oil and Gas: The Methanol Economy by George Olah, Alain Goeppert, Surya Prakash: If we tell ourselves the truth, it’s not ethanol, it’s methanol that should be used to transition us from oil. No, you will not hear a presidential candidate who wants to do well in the Iowa caucus says these words. Nor will you hear it from the windbags who are pushing corn-based ethanol. Even the short list of reasons to consider methanol is impressive. It is cheap—a dollar gallon with current technology. With modest changes, methanol may be added to gasoline. That means a whole new distribution system will not have to be built—which we would need to implement a hydrogen based economy. (Unlike methanol, hydrogen creates a host of storage problems.) The many things now made from petrochemicals—for example plastics—may be produced from methanol and its by-products. Methanol may be made from coal, natural gas, or biomass—and other sources. Carbon dioxide, one of the insidious agents of global warming may be used to concoct the stuff. Yes, that means making methanol could take carbon dioxide out of the air. And if hydrogen does prove to be a powerfully good source of energy, it probably will be delivered in the form of methanol. There is more hydrogen in a liter of methanol than in a liter of liquid hydrogen. And there is a downside to the liquid hydrogen—it is stored at – 253 degrees Centigrade.

The Edge of Disaster: Rebuilding a Resilient Naiton by Stephen Flynn: Our ports are invitations for terrorist attacks. In California dikes that a minor earthquake could crumble keep salt water separate from the fresh water reservoirs that nourish most of California. Little is being done to protect us from these and a host of other possible terrorist and natural disasters. Flynn offers a gripping inventory of the problems and a sane response.

Winning the Oil Endgame by Amory Lovins, E. Kyle Datta, Jonathan Koomey, Nathan Glasgow: How to improve energy efficiency as well as business and public policy models to transition the US to sane energy policies.

One of the silver linings within the horror of the American experience in Iraq is that all along there have been many excellent and provocative books, movies, and articles about the experience. Four titles follow.

Fiasco: the American Military Adventure in Iraq Thomas E. Ricks’ effort is the best book in print about the military side of the debacle.

The inside story about how the decision to go to war was made, sold, and implemented is articulated in these often noble efforts:

Blind Into Baghdad: America's War in Iraq by James Fallows

Greatest Story Ever Sold by Frank Rich

Hubris: the Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War by Michael Isikoff

State of Denial: Bush at War, Part III by Bob Woodward

But if you are weary of the Iraq story and want to see how miserably similar it is to America’s experience in Vietnam, pick up About Face: The Odyssey of an American Warrior by David Hackworth. One of the most highly decorated soldiers in the US Army goes to Vietnam. Over time he learns how to fight a guerilla war. But he runs into a far more complex challenge when he tries to share what he has learned with his superiors in the US Army.

At The Doug Moe Academy Of Sartorial Splendor And Architectural Design: The Deal with North Korea

2007-02-20T14:02:00.000-08:00

You won’t find The Doug Moe Academy for Sartorial Splendor and Architectural Design in the Yellow Pages. Many who know of the clubs hate the secrecy that surrounds the places. Many think the secrecy is just another slab of evidence that shows to go you that the world is on skids greased with ignorance and idiocy.

Doug Moe Academies for Sartorial Splendor and Architectural Design exist in every large city in the world.

They are bars for political junkies.

The founding family—it was a group of men and women—therefore, chauvinistic slantings like “founding fathers” (and the more whimsical, “start up sisters”) seem inappropriate.

The founders are—or were—political junkies, and, therefore not automatically the most creative of spirits.

There are all kinds of rumors why the places are named after Doug Moe. None of them make sense.

There are no rumors why the phrase “Architectural Design” is in the title of the establishments. No one in the founding family was interested in architecture. None of the bars are examples of compelling or brilliant architecture. None of the bars are examples of anything other than normal, functional architecture. The bit about the phrase Architectural Design is just one of those things that is.

It’s also appropriate to note that the founders weren’t complete dimwits.

Moe’s Explained

At Doug Moe’s you can buy a drink or shoot pool, find a card game or cruise. But mostly the place is a chat room for political fanatics.

Once you’re in, you’re in for life. This makes becoming a member a good deal like being elected to Congress or confirmed as a justice on the Supreme Court—parallels many members loathe.

Way back when I joined, I simply was trying to find someone who would teach me how to roll a sliver dollar over the base of my fingers.

Ah but the lofty goals of youth all too often go unachieved.

Not too long ago, I realized that wandering through the club was an excellent—and almost effortless way—of writing a column.

Each “Academy” has a left wing and a right wing. On a given visit, members go to one wing or the other. They aren’t allowed to mix.

The manager of the Academy I frequent is an ex. She lets me into both wings—probably because she pities me. Once we parted she met and later married a tall, handsome guy, who tells funny stories. And he made a pile of dough and cashed in before the Internet bubble burst.

The Mood In The Left Wing

Going to the left wing lately is a good deal like going to a frat party. The Dems have Hillary. They have Obama. They have Edwards. Obama drew five thousand his first weekend after his announcement—in Iowa! While doing the monotonous and boring things reporters do when covering political campaigns in Iowa, I once came across a grain salesman who was giving away a new seed for free! He barely got two hundred people to show up. And Obama got five thousand.

For the Dems, there’s more good news. The former Chief of Staff for Dick “The insurgency is in its last throes” Cheney is on trial for perjury. Almost no one likes Bush’s surge. The election is too far away to worry about whether or not the Democrats will blow another one.

I’d come to Moe’s to talk about why Bush had elected to escalate in Iraq. Bush calls it a surge; I call it an escalation. I didn’t understand why he’d done it.

But when I got to Moe’s, I stumbled onto a conversation I couldn’t ignore. Two men were talking. But they weren’t talking about the surge. They weren’t talking about Obama, or Hillary, or Edwards, or even GW.

They weren’t talking about the beautiful blonde woman who was a few feet from them. Her date—or perhaps it was her husband--rambled on about water issues in the West. She looked to be a few nanoseconds away from falling asleep.

The two men were talking about the deal that was in the works with North Korea.

The Deal with North Korea, Part One

“There’s an odd couple.“

“Bush and Kim Jong Il?

“Yep.”

“So let me see if I’ve got this straight. North Korea now has one or more nuclear bombs.”

“Yes.”

“And Iraq never did—at least while GW was President.”

“Yes.”

“Yet we didn’t invade the country that did have nuclear weapons—North Korea. But we did invade the country that didn’t have nuclear weapons.”

“Yep.”

“And for a long time we didn’t even negotiate with North Korea.”

“Yep.”

“And while we were not negotiating with North Korea they developed the collateral they needed to leverage their nukes for a lot of fuel.”

“Yep.”

The Deal with North Korea, Part II

“And they’ll probably get to keep their nukes.”

“Probably.”

“And there’s all this noise about how other countries that yakked irresponsibly about nukes before they got them. Then once they got the nukes, they became more restrained and mature about how they talked about them.”

“Yep.”

“And we hope that happens in North Korea.”

“Yep.”

“Isn’t that kind of silly? Isn’t it silly to think that because one person handled a firecracker well that someone else also will?”

“Of course it is.”

“When I was young—“

“Don’t bother. Same think happened to me when I was a kid.”

“You don’t say.”

“One of my friends could juggle firecrackers—while they were lit. Never got hurt—not once. Another lit just one. He just lit one. And it ripped off a couple of his fingers.”

“And there’s another thing. I thought then when you were being blackmailed, if you delivered the ransom, you got whatever it was they had on you.”

“That’s Hollywood. That’s not reality.”

“Of course. Sorry.”

A Problem Discussed

“You know what the problem with you is?”

“What?”

“You’re logical.”

“Oh.”

“I’ll bet you never buy into that crap they try to sell you on TV.”

“You mean advertisements.”

“Yea, advertisements. Do you ever buy something because you see it on a TV advertisement?”

“Almost never.”

“Well there it is.”

“There’s what?”

“That’s your problem.”

“What’s my problem?”

“There.”

“I don’t see anything there.”

“I wasn’t pointing in a literal sense. I was being figurative.”

“Of course.”

“But if you could be more like me, if you could try to believe the commercials and spend a lot of your time trying to get the things in the commercials, well you wouldn’t have time to worry about all these so-called illogical things you think about.”

“So you’re suggesting that if I thought less and acted on impulse more, that I wouldn’t be bothered by stuff.”

“Not as much.”

“Ya think so.”

“Sure of it.”
“There are other things you can do to cut out this nonsense of yours.”

“Really.”

“Start getting scared of everything. Or better yet, help others to get scared of everything. Fear shuts down logical powers better than almost anything.”

“You don’t say.”

“Works darn near every time.”

“And yet we’re still fighting in Iraq—and not getting any significant supplies of oil from there. And North Korea successfully bribes us and others and gets to keep the bait for the bribe and it gets a lot of fuel.”

“Yep.”

“Tell me how this makes sense.”

“Bad politics.”

“Should a known.”

“And in America we think it’s the leader of North Korea whose nuts.”

“Isn’t that obvious?”

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Too Serious A Matter provides intelligent, provocative, and often funny commentary about the often convoluted intersections of politics, strategy, and history. The title of the blog comes from De Gaulle’s comment, “I have come to the conclusion that politics are too serious a matter to be left to the politicians.”

A Silly Rumor (see # 7), Ten reasons why the Democrats are—for the Moment—More Interesting, and—Perish the Thought— (near the end) A Hint of Substance

2007-02-12T13:36:00.000-08:00

In the recent past, the Democratic candidates running for President have been more interesting than the Republicans. For your consideration, exhibits one – ten:

The List

1) The Democrats have three—count em—three A-list candidates. A fourth, Governor Bill Richardson is far behind in the polls, but with the pols his status is rising. The Republicans have, at best, two A-list candidates.

2) Two of the A-list candidates aim to be firsts, Clinton intends to be the first woman President and Obama the first African-American. The third A-lister, former Senator John Edwards, has an autobiography that is a heartwarming rags-to-riches story.

3) We’ve never seen anything like Obama before—never. Of course some of the elements of his campaign are derivative. Others (John Kennedy, FDR) have sought to minimize experience by speaking of dreams and a new generation of politics. Others (Howard Dean, Ross Perot) have appealed to many who for long have dropped out of politics. Many others (in election years GW Bush was very good at this) have elevated their candidacy by telling the best story. Others have used a gentle touch and a warm smile to break through the brittle prejudices that have so maligned the past. Many others have run as an outsider and sharpened the perception that one of their opponents (in this case, Hillary Clinton) is an insider. Others have invoked the Almighty in a way that is organic and even appealing to many who find such posturings self-aggrandizing and syrupy. Others have tied the various components of their campaigns together with the soft glue of idealism and the white hot passion charisma brings to any enterprise.

This provokes speculation about when Obama’s bubble will burst. This provokes speculation about what’s in the bubble—is it filled with charisma too? 0r, if he is lifted to his current level of attention by more than a bubble—and given America’s penchant for power—many are wondering why it took so long to find someone with whatever it is that Obama’s got.

4) The Democrats front runner is Clinton. She is ahead in most polls—though not in Iowa. She certainly is ahead in the race for the buckaroos sweepstakes. She has a large and talented staff. She has one of the best political minds in the country advising her—hubby Bill. She has shown herself to be a viable candidate. All that is good news for the junior senator from New York.

But she also is a candidate who has more problems than a US auto maker. She is not a powerful speaker a la Obama and Edwards. She brings new meaning to the phrase “high negatives.” As her recent comments in New Hampshire show, she refuses to say she made a mistake voting for the war in Iraq. To those who passionately hate the war, such actions shout she is obtuse. To others she simply looks silly and far too much like the President she is trying to replace. Many think she is over-calculating. Few find her warm. People support her, but there aren’t many who like her. She will not do well with the millions who look upon the presidential campaign as if it were a popularity contest. This is not to suggest that you have to be liked to be elected president—the landslide Nixon won in 68 proves that.

But the longer people look at Clinton, the more it is likely they will see a paradox. For the long term this may be yet another negative, for short term it makes her and her campaign more interesting.

5) You didn’t have to be in Springfield, Illinois shivering in ten degree weather on Saturday to know that when Obama speaks, he fills the air with a rich blend of effervescence, warmth, and high wattage electricity. Edwards always has been a dynamic and invigorating campaigner.
Though it is not one of the more accurate adages, many who follow politics closely like to think that the best campaigner will win most primaries. Kennedy, Reagan (in 80 and 84), and Bill Clinton give credence to this axiom. When Carter beat Ted Kennedy in 80, Ford beat Reagan for the nomination in 80, and Mondale beat Hart for the nomination in 84, they provided ample evidence that disproved such maxims. But since Clinton is less than stellar campaigner and because she currently sits atop the heap . . . while two world class campaigners are in the number two and three spots in the polls—well this makes for very interesting politics.

6) Most crowded fields for a nomination quickly dwindle down to two. But if the Democrats three A-list candidates each have some stamina and staying power, the math becomes very complicated. To cite a very simple example. In a two candidate race, let’s say Candidate Red effectively hammers Candidate Blue. Red wins but his/her negatives go up. Given the same scenario and a three person race, Red’s negatives go up and Candidate White gains a significant tactical edge. Having three A-list candidates complicates the strategy a great deal—and makes the race much more interesting.

7) The Democrats have two veteran candidates waiting in the wings. Because the only cure for presidential ambition is embalming fluid—and even that is suspect . . . there are reports from a blog, fromtheotherside.com, that Nixon is still planning a comeback. Rumor has it he plans to balance the ticket with an “established Republican” who is also a longtime hunting partner of Dick Cheney (translation . . . he has nine lives). Those seeking proof of the afterlife or leaks about this rumor may seek out the oracle—some of Nancy Reagans’ letters in the Reagan Library—that Nixon and/or his ghost will make an appearance at the Comeback Diner in Paradise, California—about fifty miles north of Sacramento.

Rumors aside, there is always a chance that Kerry will think and hope (and pray) that people have forgotten his foray into standup . . . and he will attempt to return. But for Democrats, there is more bad news: Gore’s efforts on The Inconvenient Truth may yield an Oscar—another first for someone who was a major party nominee for the presidency. Whether or not the documentary wins the Oscar for best documentary, given the backbone replacement surgery Gore seems to have undergone, many will encourage him to return to the fray. Like the monster in the awful movie that refuses to die, the “Will-he-enter-the-race?” story probably will not go away for months.

8) The Republican front runners McCain and Giuliani have sided with the surge and so basically have placed their bets regarding Iraq. They now must wait and see if the surge works. They probably won’t bicker over Iraq—but the Democrats already are.

9) It appears to many that the pieces are coming together for significant work to be done regarding health care and global warming. These issues favor the Democrats. Add to this the mess Bush has made of the war in Iraq, the ricochets from the conservatives drive to make a great deal of noise about immigration that has alienated Hispanics, the echoes from the failure of the Bush Administration to respond to Hurricane Katrina, and you have a recipe that all but shouts that the Democrats should win Presidential election in 2008.

10) Most presidential elections are close, and because the Democrats have a knack for losing close elections—well that is just one more reason that for now the Democrats are more interesting than the Republicans.

American Politics and Denver Weather

Of course when it comes to politics, time follows different parameters than it does for most of us. Political winds are often a good deal like what the natives say about the weather in Denver. If you don’t like it, wait fifteen minutes. There are plenty of ways the Republicans could start soaking up a greater share of the spotlight. A McCain-Giuliani tiff could jump-start things nicely. But both candidates probably are too smart to attack so early in the campaign. Such confrontations would drive up an attacker’s negative ratings. Should Giuliani remain popular in the polls, the conservative wing of the party could rant, and if not rave, at least spend a lot of money and start some rich rumors. And there are the controversies Mitch Romney’s Mormonism brings—which could be a “story with legs” if he didn’t already have so many issues with the Christian Right.

But for a few spatters and burps, the staple of the media diet for a while probably will continue to be the Democrats.

Substance?

Which finally—thank goodness—brings us to something resembling substance, “Does this amount to a hill of beans?”

For the short term . . . No. It could work very much to the Republicans advantage to lay low, walk quietly, and prepare the big sticks that they will swing later. But if the Democrats continue to appear to be more interesting most of this year and next, then they will appear to . . . or might actually set the agenda. For the short term, sensible interest usually leads to good publicity. Good publicity leads to more good publicity which provides a fast-track to the money express. Money generates more real interest . . . as well as the opportunity to generate it synthetically should the need arise.

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Too Serious A Matter provides intelligent, provocative, and often funny commentary about the often convoluted intersections of politics, strategy, and history. The title of the blog comes from De Gaulle’s comment, “I have come to the conclusion that politics are too serious a matter to be left to the politicians.”

Biden’s Blooper

2007-02-03T12:30:00.000-08:00

At a time when the war in Iraq is going miserably, General George Casey, the officer who oversaw the mess that is now the American experience in Iraq is about to be promoted to supervise the entire army. Troubles in the Middle East continue to steam and percolate. Bad news roars out of Africa. The harsh and cruel realities of global warming gain more credibility almost every week. There is an absurdist drama unfolding in Boston as a bureaucratic post 9 -11 mentality collides with reckless guerilla marketers. We are in the middle of the annual celebration of commercials and capitalism, hyperbole and hype, glisten and glitter known as the run-up to the Super Bowl. And if all that did not provide enough for people to write, talk, and argue about, many were in a mood to criticize what was obviously a well-intentioned but inelegant comment from the Senior Senator from Delaware, Joe Biden.

For Joe Biden last Wednesday was supposed to be a good day. He was beginning his formal presidential campaign. And he had one quality none of the top tier candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination have—a surplus of international experience. When Biden joined the Senate way back in 1973, Hillary Clinton was doing a year of post-graduate study at Yale. She hadn’t even met the man many would later call “Slick Willy.” Barak Obama was a seven-year-old living in Jakarta, Indonesia.

As he took the first official steps of his presidential bid, Biden was supposed to look confident and experienced. But in an interview with a reporter from The New York Observer, Biden said Senator Obama was "the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy."

As Senator Biden later noted, if he had substituted “fresh” for clean, the comment would not have provoked the uproar it did.

The Reaction

To suggest that Biden’s comment provoked controversy is to imply that the tsunami of trappings, the plethora of parties, the overpriced commercials, and the vast quantities of glitz that make up the Super Bowl experience are all part of an exercise in restraint and modesty.

Soon it was obvious that Biden had committed a blunder.

Biden did what any political veteran should do. Via the privacy the telephone offers, he apologized to Obama. In public he apologized some more. Four hours after the original comment was posted on-line, Biden issued a statement, ''I deeply regret any offense my remark in the New York Observer might have caused anyone. That was not my intent.''

He tried to soften the comments by putting them in the context of a phrase his mother often invoked, “clean as a whistle.”

He dropped in on The Daily Show and hoped to put a comic spin on what quickly became an awful day for the Senator.

The comment allowed pundits and those courageous warriors on conservative talk radio to note that this was not the first time the Senator had put a foot in one of his orifices. Last summer, while C-Span’s cameras were on, Biden spoke to an Indian-American activist and commented, "You cannot go into a Dunkin' Donuts or a 7-Eleven unless you have a slight Indian accent." There also was that ugly moment in the Senator’s 1988 president bid when he was accused of plagiarizing speeches delivered by a British Labor Party leader—Neil Kinnock. His presidential bid ended soon after the accusation.

Biden’s gaffe is most unfortunate. He is a smart guy with a lot to offer his party and his country. His proposal to divide Iraq into three federations is one of the few on any table that might reduce Iraqi sectarian violence. His years of experience might help the Democrats balance a ticket where the presidential candidate is sorely lacking tenure.

But there are other issues circulating within the hubbub his comment provoked that cut to the heart of the way the complicated mêlée we oh so politely refer to as politics is played in the US.

Truth has an uneasy place in American political life. Americans have long responded to fear (and loathing). We lap up American chauvinism—especially when it is married with narrow-mindedness. Americans almost always find the flights of fancy politicians and the media dish out far more interesting and provocative than the often bad old fashioned truth.

Obama’s Tap Dance

Biden’s most recent verbal flub allowed Senator Clinton, who has recently displayed periods where she appeared to be omnipresent, to spend a day away from the national political limelight. Biden’s comment gave Senator Obama a chance to perform a political tap dance even a veteran pol could envy. Via a prepared statement, the Illinois Senator responded, "I didn't take Senator Biden's comments personally, but obviously they were historically inaccurate. African-American presidential candidates like Jesse Jackson, Shirley Chisholm, Carol Moseley Braun and Al Sharpton gave a voice to many important issues through their campaigns, and no one would call them inarticulate.''

Obama wisely responded with a comment about how many African-American candidates were articulate. But it wasn’t the comment Biden made about Obama being articulate that provoked controversy.

Nor was Biden’s comment directed at Shirley Chisholm, Carol Moseley Braun, or Al Sharpton. None were “mainstream” candidates.

Shirley Chisholm’s 1972 national political campaign was engaged to give black politicians an aura of legitimacy.

In 2004 Carol Moseley Braun and Al Sharpton conducted presidential campaigns that were more exercises in vanity than serious politics—though the clouds of rhetoric that tended to gravitate around Sharpton’s campaign often were leavened with his jovial nature and discerning wit. During the 2004 presidential campaign, after Howard Dean’s scream shattered his image as a bright, promising, and credible candidate, Sharpton commented, “I wanted to say to Governor Dean, don't be hard on yourself about hooting and hollering. If I had spent the money you did and got 18 percent, I'd still be in Iowa hooting and hollering.”

Sharpton responded to Biden’s blunder by stating that he took a bath every day.

Biden’s comments were about mainstream candidates. Other than Obama, the only African American mainstream political candidate for the presidency has been Jesse Jackson.

Center of the Controversy

This brings us to the center of the controversy Biden’s comments provoked—the use of the word “clean.” The first responders to the comment used the word in the context of personal hygiene—and all the ugly racist and inelegant inferences that may be drawn from it.

It wasn’t meant to address such matters.

It is possible that Biden was referring to rumors. Many suggest that for the services Jackson provided as he campaigned for candidate Bill Clinton in 1992, the good Reverend charged a great deal of money. If the rumors are accurate, neither Jackson nor the then candidate Clinton violated either the letter of the campaign laws or the spirit of American entrepreneurialism. But the transactions certainly weren’t clean.

It is more likely that Biden was referring to the liaisons Jackson had with a woman who was not his wife. When revelations about the relationship were made public, Jackson who often was accused of never meeting a microphone he didn’t like, withdrew from the microphones and the attention he is so brilliant at garnering.

So the young upstart Obama executed a savvy dodge—he did not address Jackson’s political hygiene, he did not really address the whole truth of Biden’s comment, and won praise for being sober and conciliatory. While Biden told what many consider a verifiable truth—and got skewered for it.

Such is life in America.

An obvious lesson of all of this is that Senator Biden never should have put himself in a situation where he made a comment that though true, could provoke controversy. It is likely that before Senator Biden’s first day in the presidential race was over, he and others realized that it is not experience that really matters, it is learning the lessons it is so willing to teach that counts. Clearly the experienced Senator has a lot to learn.

And Finally

But there is a larger lesson. Every candidate fumbles. In 1992 then candidate Bill Clinton made some silly comments about not inhaling marijuana. During that campaign, Clinton made many imprudently vague comments about women he was accused of having an extra-marital affair with. These comments often did not end the controversy, they continued it. George W. Bush’s actions prior to his 40th birthday may be viewed as one long and erratic fumble. In 1963 the woman who would become his wife was seventeen and driving to a party with some friends. She committed what was obviously a severe error in judgment and did not stop for a stop sign. Her car rammed into another and killed the only person in it—one of her classmates.

Clinton trudged through the dark and grey wildernesses his unwise comments elicited and became President.

When asked about his youth, George W. Bush told a story that always sounded something like this, "I know there are all kinds of rumors, but that's the political process. Let me tell you something. When people investigate my background, they're going to find that I have been loyal to my wife for 21 years, and that I've been a dedicated dad, and that, given the responsibility of the high office of my state, I have brought honor and dignity to that office." The rumors that related to Bush’s drinking and cocaine use were recently verified by a former “friend.” But years before that happened, when Bush was seeking to be elected president, he was often asked about his checkered past. The story Bush told created coils of protective concertina wire for the candidate.

George W. Bush survived his reckless past and was twice elected President. And today Laura Bush is now one of the most admired people in America.

Certainly for those who hope to entertain the idea of spending decades in American politics, it is better to act as Obama did last week. Dancing around and dodging the truth usually is a much better tactic than telling the truth—as Biden did. Many who spend their professional lives observing and commenting on politicians of all shapes and political colorings conclude that when a politician makes a mess, those who have a long career in one of the strangest and oldest of professions either suffer through (a la Clinton) or extricate themselves relatively cleanly (a la George W. Bush).

But there probably is something else at work as well. Those rare few who play the game at a high level for a long time seem to have a special armor that not only allows them to endure in spite of their mistakes but also to prevail.

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Too Serious A Matter provides intelligent, provocative, and often funny commentary about the often convoluted intersections of politics, strategy, and history. The title of the blog comes from De Gaulle’s comment, “I have come to the conclusion that politics are too serious a matter to be left to the politicians.”

They’re Laughing in Heaven

2007-01-31T09:08:00.000-08:00

For decades Art Buckwald brought his unusual penchant for wisdom cloaked in wit to his newspaper column, various books, and to the dinner circuit. He was more than a columnist. He was an institution.

He died last week.

No doubt heaven is now a happier place than it was a few days ago.

Favorite Story

My favorite Art Buckwald story harkens back to his days as a Paris Reporter. He was covering a political convention, and hordes of onlookers were waiting outside the event. It was late. It was dark. And the crowd was starved for attention.

Buckwald stood before a large window and raised his hand. The crowd responded. He raised his hand even higher. They responded with more enthusiasm. And so it went. They assumed or wanted to assume he was a bigwig at the event. He was in fact a short man who at the time was little more than a columnist for the Herald Tribune.

He and his sisters were orphans. He lied and bribed his way into the Marines. He lied his way into USC where the GI Bill funded his activities. He learned he could get the GI Bill in France. And so he went to France, and lived a leisurely life until his funding began to run dry.

He talked his way into a job with Variety. This eventually led to a job and various columns he wrote for European edition of the New York Herald Tribune. Eventually he and his wit returned to the United States.

Some of Buckwald’s More Notable Achievements

At his peak, his column, Capitol Punishment, was published in over 500 newspapers. He published over thirty books.

He married in 1952. He and his wife adopted three children.

He is rumored to have had an affair with Marylyn Monroe.

He was one of the first European reporters to do an in depth interview with Elvis Presley.

He persevered through two painful bouts with depression.

He won a lawsuit against a movie studio. He asserted that the Coming To America—which started Eddy Murphy—was based on a treatment he had written. The movie made over 350 million dollars but according to the accounting wizards in Hollywood did not make a substantial profit.

In February of last year he refused kidney dialysis. He said it was too expensive. He survived.

He good naturedly helped a friend out of a real pinch. Unless this was an unusual act for me, he probably was a very nice guy.

In 1982 his syndicated column won the Pulitzer Prize for commentary.

He established a scholarship at USC for the most irreverent student.

Throughout his lifetime he made various comments that suggested that as fantastic and bizarre many of the exaggerations he wrote about in his columns were, he could not compete with the bizarre realities that occurred in life.

A few of Buckwald's More Notable Comments

Before Nixon resigned, in 1974, Buchwald told Holy Cross College graduates, "As a humor columnist, I need President Nixon more than he needs me. I worship the quicksand he walks on."

He wrote:

"What is the patriotic consumer to do? I went into a shopping mall the other day to purchase a Star-Spangled Banner Sweat Suit. The salesman said they had some from Hong Kong for $10, some from Taiwan for $15 and a few from Pakistan for $4.
`Don't you have any that were made in America?'
`No. The only American-made items we have are these Buddhist robes. They are hand-sewn in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, by the Amish people.'"

"In the good old days, smokers could be counted on to die far before their time, and therefore did not use up their Social Security benefits or health plan credits. Nonsmokers, on the other hand, live too long and to this day are a tremendous drain on the country's finances. We're talking about hundreds of billions of dollars. So, every time we turn a smoker into a nonsmoker we're destroying the entire pension system of the United States."

"I don't want to be a wimp, but senior citizens have to pay $140 for a prescription. To make it up to them, they only pay $5 to go to the movies."

"President Bush keeps referring to the discovery of Iraq's missiles as `the tip of the iceberg.' There are some, not many, who feel that if weapons are the tip of the iceberg, then Mr. Bush is the captain of the Titanic.”

"Every two years I put out a new book and then make a tour of the talk shows plugging it. I can't do it any more because this year it's impossible for someone who is not really weird to get on TV."

"I am known in the hospice as `The Man Who Would Not Die.' How long they allow me to stay here is another problem. I don't know where I'd go now, or if people would still want to see me if I weren't in a hospice. But in case you're wondering, I'm having a swell time the best time of my life."

“Dying isn't hard. Getting paid by Medicare is.”

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Too Serious A Matter provides intelligent, provocative, and often funny commentary on the convoluted intersections of politics, strategy, and history. The title of the blog comes from de Gaulle’s comment, “Politics are too serious a matter to be left to the politicians.”

On Spineless, Spiritless, Bumbling Fools—Yes, This is About Democrats

2007-01-24T08:13:00.000-08:00

To imply that politics is always logical or always anything is to be foolishly naive. But some things are logical: In US presidential politics, content matters; style matters a lot—perceptions matter a great deal.

The last two Democratic presidential candidates were exceedingly careful. Both split hairs and massaged their prepared statements and formal comments so much that many a yellow dog Democrats found themselves nearly gagging. Gore and Kerry made so many oh so careful and flat out timid comments that many voters thought that Gore and Kerry were spineless, spiritless, bumbling fools.

Milquetoast Hall of Fame

Every political junkie has his or her lists of favorite rhetorical nonsense. One uttered by Gore way back when he was vice-president belongs in the Milquetoast Hall of Fame. While trying to distance himself from charges concerning campaign fundraising irregularities, Gore said, “And my counsel advises me, let me repeat, that there is no controlling legal authority that says that any of these activities violated any law." As the comment suggests, the phrase “no controlling legal authority” was repeated by Gore during his presentation. Eventually, Gore was cleared of any legal wrongdoing. But his comment about there being ”no controlling legal authority” was such a nasty equivocation that Gore’s awful comments contributed to the image that he was a positioning machine—and therefore not a person with the ability to speak clearly and with some modicum of intelligence.

Worse, he was perceived by many to be a candidate without a spine.

Sadly, bland, overly massaged comments are not limited to presidential campaigns. Hillary Clinton’s recent comments about Bush’s troop surge contain so many switchbacks, rhetorical figure eight’s, and other vacillations that they may deserve a separate room in the Milquetoast Hall of Fame.

It’s easy of course to blame handlers for these gaffes. One of the best political sages in the country, Joe Klein adroitly discusses the role of handlers in recent national political campaigns in Politics Lost. Clearly the handlers don’t want the candidate they work for to make a comment that ruins the candidate’s credibility. Dean’s scream after the 2004 Iowa primary is perhaps the most recent and obvious example of a candidate making one comment that destroys his ethos and sabotages his chances.

Evidence in Klein’s book and simply listening to Gore and Kerry on the campaign trail make a couple things obvious. The motives of the handlers may be sincere and sound, but too much soft-pedaling and carefulspeak turns off many voters.

Gore probably is now kicking himself a couple hundred times a day. If he had shown half the passion and a fraction of the spine very much on display in the documentary, The Inconvenient Truth, he might now be President . . . instead of the man who once was an upstart Texan governor who spoke of compassionate conservatism and provoked many conservatives to dream of sunnier days.

While the skies have darkened and various sharks—and no doubt a lot of other nasty things—are swirling around Bush and his presidency now, most Democrats are surveying the terrain and weighing their options for 2008. Which brings us once again to the current Democratic frontrunner—Hillary Clinton. Senator Clinton has great name recognition. But the name carries with it a considerable amount of baggage. One of the heavier bags is similar to one that weighed down Gore and later Kerry. By trying to position herself very adeptly in the middle, Clinton, like Gore and Kerry may overdo it with this positioning thing.

One of the more obvious (and logical) rules of politics is that a candidate who is not the current favorite must distinguish him or herself from the front runner. Which no doubt is one reason why Edwards tossed his hat into the presidential sweepstakes contest so early. Separating himself from Clinton is one reason why he has been trying to recruit young people (with short movies posted in the Internet and a whole slew of other overtures). Distancing himself from Clinton no doubt is one of many reasons why last Sunday Edwards stood behind the podium at Riverside Church in New York City.

It was at Riverside, nearly forty years ago that Dr. King gave a speech that articulated his stance against the US involvement in South Vietnam. Most of King’s comments resonate today.

King’s Speech

King’s speech was logical. Early in the speech King listed the reasons he opposed the war: It would drain resources for campaigns against poverty. Negroes were dying in unreasonably high proportion to whites (which was true at the time of the speech, but not so when US involvement in Vietnam ended); change comes “most meaningfully not via war but through non-violent action.” War damages the very fiber of what is best about America. Winning the Nobel Peace Prize increased his commitment to work for “the brotherhood of man.” It is a natural outgrowth of a Christian minister to follow Christ’s calling to love thy enemies, to increase the feelings of brotherhood amongst peoples, and to strive to end suffering.

King’s speech was provocative. He offered his version of the history of the region and of the student protests against the war. He attacked the arrogance that led Americans to think “that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them.” He condemned many of the forces he thought were essential to continuing the war, “When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.” And he called the United States “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today.”

The speech was poetic: “If America's soul becomes totally poisoned, part of the autopsy must read: Vietnam.” “One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life's highway.”

King’s speech was unusually perceptive. Where other commentators who praised or condemned the war relied on reason and rhetoric, King sought a deeper understanding. When he spoke at the Riverside Church, King said, “The war in Vietnam is but a symptom of a far deeper malady within the American spirit.” King urged America to “get on the right side of world revolution” and called for a revolution of values, which to him was “our best defense against communism.”

Edwards’ speech pales in comparison. But it is noteworthy.

It did not get extensive media coverage, so significant portions are included here.

Edwards praised King for not directing “his demands to the government of the United States, which was escalating the war.” Edwards praised King for making “a direct appeal to the people of the United States, calling on us to break our own silence, and to take responsibility for bringing about what he called a revolution of values.”

Edwards said:

Escalation is not the answer, and all you have to do is listen to our own generals to know it's not the answer. The answer is for the Iraqi people and others in that part of the world to take responsibility, to take responsibility for their own country. The best way for that to happen is for America to make clear that we are leaving Iraq, and the best way to make clear that we are leaving Iraq is to actually start leaving Iraq.

It's why Congress must step up, now, and stop this President from putting more troops in harm's way.

Silence is betrayal. Speak out, and stop this escalation now.

And I say to all of you—not just members of Congress, all of you who are here today—and the millions like us around the world who know that this is a mistake—your job is to reject the easy way of apathy and to choose instead, to choose the hard path, the path of action.
Silence is betrayal. Speak out.

Our purpose must be to restore America's leadership, moral leadership, in the world. When we speak out about the ongoing genocide in Sudan and Darfur, when we speak out against thousands and thousands of children in Africa being born with AIDS, an entire new generation of children with AIDS--(Why? Because their mother can't pay for a four-dollar dose of medicine.)—the United States of America is better than this. . .. Our people are better than this. When we speak out against human rights abuses in China and other parts of the world, when we speak out, not just about . . . poverty in the United States of America, but poverty across the globe—half of our planet, three billion people, live on two dollars or less a day—the United States of America is better than this.

If anything has been proven over the last few years, it is that raw power alone will not make you a leader. You have to actually have the moral authority to lead.

Our purpose has to be to ignite the revolution of values that Dr. King dreamed about.

You have to take action. You have to take responsibility. That's exactly what Dr. King was talking about 40 years ago from this pulpit. It is not okay to stand idly by. Silence is betrayal.

To solve these problems, we have got to counter apathy with action. We have to replace cynicism with service. We have to stop looking to others, and start looking to ourselves. To solve these problems, we have to break the silence. We need to break the silence about the extraordinarily deep divisions between the haves and the have-nots. We have to break the silence . . . about the millions of our own people who are trying every day just to survive. We need to break the silence about 46-47 million of our own people who are worried sick that if they wake up in the middle of the night with a sick four-year-old, they're going to have to go to the local emergency room and beg for health care. We need to break the silence about our country's addiction to fossil fuels and about the damaging effect that these greenhouse gases are having on God's gift to us, this green Earth.

It is time. In fact, patriotism is about refusing to support something that you know is wrong and having the courage to speak out with strength and passion and backbone for something you know is right.

The world needs to see our better angels.

Separation and a Whole lot More

Edwards’ speech, along with other statements he has made recently, make it apparent that he can speak clearly and logically.

Edwards is trying to make it obvious to the people and to the political elites that he will not make the same mistakes concerning style and carefulspeak that his Democratic predecessors made.

So in a way Edwards is doing what every upstart needs to do, separating himself in terms of content and style from the front runner. Speaking at Riverside also had other delightful sweeteners for Edwards. Because the church is in New York City, it is in the heart of Clinton’s turf. Edwards’ speech shows that he—or his advisors—know something about history—which would have benefited the US and many of its often spineless institutions while President Bush prepared the country to go to war in Iraq.

In a very important way, Edwards is doing much more than putting some distance between himself and Clinton. His stance on the war actually coheres with his policies on poverty, the environment, and foreign policy. Edwards hopes that many will perceive him to be the rarest of all Democratic presidential candidates—one with a backbone.

Clinton’s poll numbers in Iowa are down. Edwards’ numbers are up. Considering the events of last weekend, this should not come as a surprise.

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“I have come to the conclusion that politics are too serious a matter to be left to the politicians.” Charles De Gaulle

Why Bush’s New Way Forward Will Take the US Backward

2007-01-12T09:19:00.000-08:00

At 9:30 PM on November 3, 1969, President Richard Nixon made a televised address to the nation. The speech was timed to come between two large anti-war protests. One had occurred in mid-October and the other would occur in mid-November. Nixon’s motives for giving the speech were very similar to the motives George Bush had for delivering the speech he gave on January 10. Both hoped their speeches and the actions associated them would energize their bases and buttress support for very controversial wars. Additionally, Nixon hoped his speech would dull any momentum the two huge protests might create.

During his speech, Nixon presented his plan to end the war in Vietnam. Much of what he said was old news:

o the US would strengthen the South Vietnamese army so that the South Vietnamese could defend themselves;

o this would allow the US to continue to withdraw US forces from South Vietnam;

o compromise with the North Vietnamese was possible—if they recognized the US backed Thieu [ever mention election make him sole legitimate leader?] regime in the South;

o if the North Vietnamese and/or Vietcong (a group of fighters from North and South Vietnam) increased their actions, Nixon would take “strong and effective measures.”

He concluded his speech, “And so tonight, to you, the great silent majority of my fellow Americans—I ask for your support. Let us be united in peace. Let us be united against defeat. Because let us understand: North Vietnam cannot defeat or humiliate the United States. Only Americans can do that.”

A choreographed response followed. Republicans, Veterans of Foreign Wars, members of the American Legion and others sent telegrams and letters—and made phone calls. A man who was then a mostly anonymous but very successful businessman, Ross Perot, delivered thousands of letters supporting Nixon. The messages went to Nixon and to other legislators.

Nixon’s Vice President, Spiro Agnew, went into attack-dog mode. Agnew claimed the news media was a “small unelected elite” that did not “represent the view of America.” Briefly network executives criticized the attacks. But they feared that the Nixon administration would influence the renewal of their licenses to broadcast, so they acted with extreme caution. The three television networks gave Nixon and Agnew’s speeches extensive coverage and attention. The proponents of the anti-war demonstrations were not so fortunate.

Nixon’s actions controlled the news and muted the impact of the two anti-war protests that came before and after the speech. A bipartisan majority in Congress approved of Nixon’s Vietnam policy. His ratings in the polls rose dramatically.
Nixon commented to his aides, “We’ve got those liberal bastards on the run now, and we’re going to keep them on the run.”

Bush’s speech on September 10 has garnered a great deal of attention—as well it should. The speech marks a major turning point in the war. Bush’s actions in Iraq make it obvious that neither he nor his advisors are intelligent students of history. Bush’s speech on September 10 also makes it obvious that neither he nor his advisors have learned what they should have from Nixon’s handling of the war in Vietnam.

* * *

From the prospective available today, Nixon’s great silent majority speech may be viewed as platitudes punctuated by big, fat, juicy lies:

o The South Vietnamese Army, acting by itself, never was strong enough to defend South Vietnam. It was a mess when Nixon came into office in 1968. It was a mess when in November 1969 he said that the South Vietnamese would eventually be able to defend themselves. It was a mess when the US withdrew from South Vietnam.

o Nixon reneged on his demand that the North Vietnamese had to recognize Thieu’s regime.

o Nixon took strong measures, but, in the long term, they were not effective. Before Nixon gave his speech, the US had taken strong measures in North and South Vietnam before. When he gave the speech, there was little evidence that Nixon’s strong measures would be effective militarily.

o And in a few short years, the North Vietnamese defeated the South Vietnamese and humiliated the US.

Ignoring what happened years later and only looking at the short-term reactions to the speech yields entirely different conclusions. The speech Nixon gave in November 1969 and the political machinations he put in place to accent it enabled Nixon to perform some amazing political alchemy. The war in Vietnam had helped to undermine the presidency of Nixon’s predecessor, Lyndon Johnson. However, Nixon was able to manipulate the war to make him appear to most Americans to be both tough and fair. Under the spell of Nixon’s political wizardry, the dark, ugly morass the war in Vietnam became, briefly, a political goldmine. Under Nixon’s guidance, a strong and loyal following supported his efforts in Vietnam. The same core of voters who rallied to support him after the speech served as the basis for the blocs of voters who reelected him via a landslide in November 1972.

For the short term, Nixon’s plans worked—for reasons that are not surprising. Nixon knew the truth about his stance in Vietnam. He realized he was vulnerable. The US was waging a violent, deadly, and expensive war. Nixon confided to his aides how complex the conflict was and how unlikely it was that the US would prevail. So he trotted out the pomp and prestige of the Presidency, told some very big and juicy lies—especially about the abilities of the South Vietnamese Army. His comments about his willingness to compromise implied he was flexible—and therefore, fair.

Though the speech was largely a brief on why the US should continue a violent, deadly, expensive and controversial war, he used the word “peace” thirty-nine times. And Nixon emphasized that the US was handing the war over to the South Vietnamese and that the US was extricating itself from the war. Nixon appeared to be acting boldly and assertively.

At the very least, having his Vice President attack the media gave reporters something else to write about. Comments attacking the media certainly invigorate the Republican conservative base. And Agnew’s comments may even have blunted the criticism Nixon might have gotten from the print media.

Later in his presidency, when Nixon talked about ending of the war in Vietnam, he often used the phrase “peace with honor.” The pledge showcases the US’s historical amnesia and provides yet another example of how the US media failed to do its job during the conflict. Britain’s Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain used the phrase in 1938. In September 1938 British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain met with Hitler in Munich. There the two leaders brokered the Munich Agreement that Chamberlain hoped would endure and keep England out of war. The agreement gave part of Czechoslovakia to Germany. At the time the agreement was announced, it was enormously popular in England. Within a few months, Chamberlain’s actions would be viewed as a capitulation that allowed Hitler’s Germany to gobble up much of Europe. But weeks before that happened, Chamberlain returned to England from his trip to Munich. The Prime Minister greeted well-wishers and said that he had not just brought back peace; he had brought back “peace with honor.”

The lies Nixon told during his great silent majority speech (and later repeated) covered up Nixon’s biggest vulnerabilities about the war and distracted the US public from them. Nixon’s political magic allowed his administration and the American people to deny the truth about what was happening in Vietnam. Though Nixon’s short-term political brilliance helped Americans deny the truth about what was happening in Vietnam, it did not dilute the power of the mistakes the US made. The truth about the war in Vietnam eventually surfaced. The US lost the war it fought in Vietnam—for many of the reasons the US is losing the war in Iraq:

1) The US entered into the conflict without understanding the implications of the history of the region.

2) The US did not study its opponent thoroughly.

3) Other processes related to beginning the conflict were flawed. There were not nearly enough credible voices articulating the hazards of involvement.

4) Distortions muddled the “logic” for entering the conflict—proponents of the conflict sought evidence for the story they wanted to be true rather than the whole truth.

5) The US entered the conflict based on a series of lies it told itself. In Vietnam it convinced itself that it had to keep Communism in check, when both the Soviets and the People’s Republic of China sent various signals that it did not want to confront the US. The clearest were the actions the Soviet Union and later the People’s Republic of China took to end the war the Vietnamese were fighting with the French in the fifties. In Iraq, the US was convinced it needed the oil in the region and that US efforts in the region would facilitate the flow of oil to companies based in the US. History shouts that in the past, US efforts in the region—notably Iran—have been very counterproductive. Senior US officials also convinced themselves that turning Iraq into a functional democracy would be a relatively easy task. This would provide the US leverage in the Middle East and serve to check the growing animosity toward the US in Iran.

6) In both Vietnam and Iraq, the US senior officials told other lies to itself: it overestimated its abilities to influence events. It overestimated the abilities of technological muscle and economic superiority.

7) The US’s institutions let down the people of the US. There was not sufficient demand from the media, senior armed forces officers who had retired, the active senior officers of the armed forces, or the US’s politicians to demand that the difficult questions about the war be answered. This is true during all phases of the conflict. Even today, the US’s institutions have not devoted nearly enough time to the poor planning that preceded the conflict in Iraq, the number of civilian casualties, the role of corruption in the conflict, and the ineffectiveness of the US to address the high number of US soldiers killed by friendly fire. (Hearings on some of these issues will begin in the House and the Senate soon. But there should have been a much more meaningful response concerning these matters years ago.)

8) The US entered the conflict unprovoked by its perceived adversaries.

9) The US entered the conflict with an insufficient force. (Senior military officers in the US said that a million soldiers were needed to win in South Vietnam. At its peak, the US had a little more than over half that number.)

10) The US entered the conflict with a poor plan. Both conflicts were mostly political problems that demanded mostly a political solution—strong, dynamic, honest, and fair national government in conjunction with broad and successful US efforts to win the hearts and minds of the civilians in the region. A second component, having the country develop a powerful and effective army was essential for the efforts of the US to succeed. A third component, overt US military action was, like all the components, important.

11) In both conflicts, the US was abysmally slow to train the armies of the nations they were assisting. In both conflicts a failure to develop young infantry officers and a core of seasoned non-commissioned officers severely hampered US efforts to help the armies become an effective fighting force.

12) The US entered the military conflict with miserable military strategy. It planned to fight what was often an unconventional war by very conventional means.

13) Chauvinism, egocentricity, and ignorance made the US overconfident to the point of being reckless. It did not seek to investigate nor did it learn from the early mistakes it made in the region. In both conflicts on the domestic and military fronts the tactics, especially during the early years of the conflict, were horribly flawed.

14) In both conflicts the US was far too slow to attempt to win the war of ideas in the region. In South Vietnam, the US supported a series of often silly and routinely abusive governments. In Iraq, the US was far too slow to set up a legitimate and honest alternative media and to send emissaries to the people to explain how and why their world would soon be a much better one. Nor has Bush taken any significant actions to show how profoundly charismatic and fear-oriented leaders in Iraq have twisted the classical Islam to suit their purposes. Following elections, the US did not pressure the Iraqis enough to set up a government fast enough. When the government was established, the US was far too slow to mandate reforms that would make the government a more fair, stable, and reliable one.

15) Military successes at the beginning of the conflict delayed any intention the US should have had to revise tactics to address specific needs the troops had.

16) For years the US celebrated falsely optimistic reports. This is really a double-barreled mistake—the country is neither seeking out nor responding to the truth, and the falsely optimistic reports perpetuate a series of lies.

17) The US vastly underestimated its opponent.

18) The tactics and the tenacity of the insurgents muted the advantages of technological superiority.

19) For far too long, the vast majority of the senior US military officers had ample opportunity to realize that the plans for military action were flawed but continued to serve rather than articulate their concerns or resign. In Iraq, this has a particularly nasty resonance. The Powell Doctrine, articulated by General Colin Powell prior to the Gulf War was an attempt to avoid future Vietnams. The very people the doctrine was put in place to help have largely ignored it. The doctrine states that all eight questions it poses have to be answered affirmatively before an action may be taken. Clearly the US actions in Iraq led most aspects of the doctrine to be violated. Many argue that all aspects of the doctrine were.
1. Is a necessary national security interest threatened?
2. Does the US have a clear and achievable objective?
3. Have the costs and the risks been thoroughly and honestly analyzed?
4. Have all non-violent policy options been exhausted?
5. Is there a reasonable strategy to extricate the US and avoid endless entanglement?
6. Have the consequences of the proposed action been thorougly considered?
7. Is the action supported by the American people?
8. Does the US have genuine, broad international support?

20) Both conflicts were plagued by corruption. In South Vietnam, the South Vietnamese government and the South Vietnamese Army were corrupt. In Iraq, there remain clouds of mystery surrounding many of Halliburton’s dealings and far too little investigation has been done by our elected representatives or by the media to address allegations of corruption in the dispersal of US funds in Iraq and corruption in the new Iraqi government.

21) The US created and continued policies that alienated the people US wanted to win over—in Vietnam, this was the result of taking people from villages and supporting a corrupt and ineffective army and government; in Iraq failing to get basic services operating quickly (police protection, power, and water), supporting a weak and often ineffective government, and stories of prisoner abuse did a great deal to contaminate the atmosphere.

22) Someone who knew little about tactics and the various arts involved with war—especially guerilla war—ran US Defense Department during the conflict.

23) A failure to address the high number of US soldiers killed by friendly fire perpetuated these tragedies rather than reduced them.

24) There was a severe problem getting appropriate materials to the troops. In Vietnam, soldiers especially at the beginning of the conflict, had trouble getting the proper boots as well as the materials needed to clean their weapons. Gun cleaning kits were particularly needed because the weapon most soldiers used, the M-16, was such a fussy weapon. In Iraq, the US was far too slow to give all its soldiers body armor as well as armor for its vehicles.

25) The military effectiveness of US soldiers was hampered by the power of and the finickiness of the M-16. In Vietnam, the light bullet the weapon fires often prevented soldiers from mowing down jungle or trees that were in their way. Their opponent’s weapon, the AK-47, was excellent at performing these tasks. In Iraq, the light bullet the M-16 fires will not go through stucco or even many doors. When it is necessary to use the weapon in dirty or dusty environments, the weapon often jams. The weapons the Iraqi insurgents use, the AK-47 or the AK-74, work in almost any situation.

26) Senior US officials appeared callous about the number of civilians killed or wounded—not until December 2005 did President Bush mention that about 30 thousand have died. This is similar to the way senior US officials seemed unconcerned about the loss of Vietnamese life.

* * *

Though the American debacle in Vietnam provides an appropriate yardstick to show how completely the US has failed in Iraq, the US experience in Vietnam does not provide an appropriate model for an exit strategy.

To end the US experience in Vietnam, Nixon and his chief consigliere, Henry Kissinger, started secret back channel conversations with diplomats from North Vietnam. The two parties constructed an elaborate agreement that enabled the US to declare peace with honor had been achieved, withdraw its soldiers, and withdraw US forces from Vietnam. And through it all, Nixon had the trump card bombing provided. Bombing North Vietnam allowed Nixon to look tough and keep his base energized. Additionally, the massive bombing done immediately before the agreement was signed gave Nixon the false hope that the bombing would slow the North Vietnamese so much that their inevitable takeover of the South would occur long after his term was over.

Some of Nixon’s other big, fat, juicy lies connected with the cover-up that followed the burglary at the Watergate sped his departure from the Presidency long before his term was over. For all his short-term political brilliance, Nixon’s actions during the Vietnam war make it obvious that the lies—even big, fat juicy ones—and bombs are little match for an effective, determined, and often ruthlessly violent insurgency.

The agreement that ended the US involvement in South Vietnam led Nixon to announce that peace with honor had been achieved. The agreement brought neither peace nor honor. The North used the lull that followed the agreement to start to rebuild the North and to re-supply the South. Soon the North was seizing large chunks of South Vietnam. Because the peace did not last, there was no honor associated with the agreement.

During the four years that Nixon negotiated with the North Vietnamese, the US conceded most of its demands. The North Vietnamese conceded only one—that the leader of South Vietnam had to go.

During that period over 34,000 US and over 100,000 Vietnamese were killed; a million Vietnamese and 100,000 Cambodians were killed; over 100,000 US troops and a million Vietnamese were wounded; about 150,000 children were made orphans and 60, 000 women were made widows.

Nixon’s “honor’ came at quite a price.

* * *

The Bush Administration and many of the country’s senior political leaders have failed to understand one of the most important aspects of the war in Vietnam: to win, at the very least, the US had to back a sound and fair government, train the South Vietnamese army, and, for the short term, win the military component of the war. In South Vietnam, to some extent the US did perform the later, but the failure to address the other two components of the conflict effectively insured the US would lose in South Vietnam.

A similar scenario is unfolding in Iraq. The US has botched any chance it had of supporting a dynamic, effective, and trusted political regime in Iraq. The corruption in Iraq and the ethnic hatreds there all but doom the modest efforts the US has made to turn the Iraqi army into an effective fighting force.

In South Vietnam, most senior military officers were corrupt, This gave the junior officers little reason to risk doing the hard work necessary to prepare for or to win a battle. In Vietnam, the US failed to create a sufficient number of non-commissioned officers—high ranking enlisted men. Without a large pool of talented and determined non-coms, no army can be an effective fighting force.

The Iraqi army rarely takes an resourceful and active role in the fighting. And there is little evidence that it will now or in the near future be an efficient fighting force. Last summer eight battalions of Iraqi solders were to do sweep through Baghdad and severely reduce the number of insurgents there.

Half the Iraqi soldiers did not show up.

Clearly the Iraqi army did not succeed in its mission. There is considerable evidence that training of Iraqi Army has been bungled as badly as the training of the South Vietnamese army was all those years ago.

There is more bad news: The situation the US is in Iraq is, in some ways, worse than it ever was in Vietnam. In Vietnam, the US dealt with an organized, effective top-down insurgency. The insurgency in Iraq is a very loose confederation of many groups of unusually angry people. Even if Bush were willing to negotiate with the insurgents, they are so decentralized that he would not be able to find two or ten—or a hundred people who could honestly say they can effectively dictate their desires to all the insurgents. This means a negotiated agreement in Iraq is not possible.

There are other problems. Bush has long been unresponsive to the sectarian issues that divide and trouble Iraq. He has done next to nothing to calm these rifts. And attempts to curb them with force also have proved ineffective. Civil unrest is almost sure to continue because the Iraqis neither have nor are they close to having an effective police force.

Because of the sectarian violence, there are many wars going in Iraq. The US is fighting the insurgents and al-Qaida. The Sunni’s and al-Qaidi are fighting the Shia. The Kurds are trying not to fight anyone. If they win, the Sunni will fight al-Qaidi.

There are many reasons why the Iraqi army is not effective. It is difficult to realize how ineffective it is. General Abizaid, the man in charge of the US Central Command stated when speaking before a Senate committee in November that there was not one Iraqi unit that is battle ready. The Army’s own inspector general reports state that the units are understaffed, under-equipped. Some soldiers do not even have weapsons. Perhaps most importantly, sectarian issues haunt the Iraqi army. They are perceived to be so pro Sunni, that Shia’s fear them.

Iraq’s large urban population lacks, in addition to a reliable police force, the other necessities of urban life: clean water, reliable power, and access to the engines of commerce.

These failures all but guarantee that the US’s efforts in Iraq will not succeed.

* * *

During the mid-term elections the US public clearly stated that it wanted a change in US policy in Iraq. Obviously, Bush has elected not to begin an incremental withdrawal of US forces from Iraq. Had he wanted to do this, he could have used the ample political cover the bipartisan commission on Iraq provided. Bush has elected not to tell big, fat juicy lies—per the Nixon model. He has elected not to implement bold initiatives. Instead, years after the US began to encounter problems in Iraq, on January 10 Bush stated there will be a modest increase in troops in Iraq—called a surge—and a short list of other offerings.

There was some good news. Bush’s stated, ”the Iraqi government plans to take responsibility for security in all of Iraq’s provinces by November.” This may be read to mean that if the government in Iraq has not stepped forward by November, the US will begin to withdraw. That the Iraqi army will be working in concert with US forces is good. That there will be more advisors for the Iraqi army and more economic aid for Iraq is also a good thing.

But almost all the remainder of Bush’s new way forward is bad news. The centerpiece of Bush’s initiative is an increase of 21,500 US troops. Most will serve in Baghdad. Bush asserts that the added troops will provide enough to “clear, hold and build” in Iraq. Bush plans that the newfound security in Iraq will provide much needed support for the Iraqi government.

There are at least two problems with the plan. One is that there simply will not be enough troops. Senior Pentagon officials lately have been trotting around the statistic of 1:15. One soldier for every 15 civilians appear to be needed to suppress an insurgency. The new troop levels with US forces, with the Iraqi army, and the Iraqi police will get the numbers to that 1:15 ratio. But counting the Iraqi police as present or even accounted for is a huge mistake. Therefore, even using the Pentagon’s own numbers, even with the increase there will not be enough soldiers to calm the troubled waters in the city.

Another shortcoming of Bush’s initiative is that all the plans to end the sectarian violence are military based solutions. The short history of the US in the region shows that military solutions to insurgencies lead only to a wider conflict with the insurgents. The long history of fighting insurgents tells a similar story. Insurgents must be attacked militarily. But to defeat them, they must be coerced and corrupted from the within. In the middle of a civil war, ideas seem a pretty weak weapon. But they must be employed to attempt to weaken the insurgents. Economic or other means must be employed to alter their structure and corrupt their circular hierarchy.

The key to accomplishing this will vary from insurgency to insurgency. Decades ago the US government fought the Apaches. For years, the US government failed. The US would strike and kill—and the Apaches would adapt. They became brilliant guerilla fighters. And they endured. Then the US gave the Apaches cattle. The Apaches became materialistic. They fought amongst themselves about the cattle. They wavered from their circular hierarchy and began to adopt some vertical organizational structures. Their passion for fighting the US waned.

No doubt corrupting the insurgents in Iraq will be considerably more difficult that giving them cattle. The US did not defeat the Apaches militarily, the US corrupted them from within. The US has to attempt to take similar measures if it intends to defeat the insurgents.

The idea that increased military security will boost the credibility of Iraq’s political regime is flawed. It implies that Iraq’s government is wobbling now because of the insurgency. The political regime in Iraq is wobbling now because it is spineless and because it is corrupt. It is not fighting the war aggressively—it is far too kind to the insubordinate Shia forces. It lacks the tenacity necessary to fight a long and grueling war. And there are many indications that funneling finances for personal gain is happening on a scale that endangers the credibility of the regime.

There were portions of the speech Bush gave on January 10 that stretched the limits of absurdity. Bush stated that the Iraqi army will lead the way in joint exercises with the US. He also implied that relations between the US and the Iraqi government were downright sunny.

Where Nixon acted boldly, and told big lies, on January 10 Bush offered a very modest proposal. Its characteristics are compromise, false hopes, platitudes and, worse, further evidence that he lacks the most important trait of a great liar—the ability to know the truth and use the lie (or new initiatives) to distract the public from it. Clearly, Bush’s speech on January 10, will not garner the praise and generate the optimism Nixon’s great silent majority speech garnered. But, like Nixon’s speech, Bush’s will be used to buy more time for failed policies. It will be used to deny the truth about the war. It will be used to create a false sense of honor.

The US does not do itself or its future any good by being too gentle about how badly the Bush Administration has blundered in Iraq. The US does not do itself any good by responding to meek, overly modest proposals to change the situation in Iraq with muted comments or shallow criticism.

Bush’s new plan to win the war will not work. It offers far too little and it offers it years too late. Most importantly, it does not do nearly enough to address the non-military aspects of the conflict—a failed Iraqi government and an anemic Iraqi police force. It does not do enough to help improve the quality of the Iraqi army.

A tangled web of lies, distortions, and incompetencies led the US to make the mess it made in Iraq; modest efforts like the ones Bush proposed on January 10 to change certainly will not make the situation in Iraq significantly better or speed the US’s exit from the disaster.

If it was not already clear, Bush’s announcement on January 10 makes it obvious that Bush is incapable of pulling off a bold initiative in Iraq at this point in his presidency.

Nixon’s actions in Vietnam demonstrate that when running a controversial war, the tendency of politicians to tell wild and audacious lies presents at best only short-term positive results. Nixon also made it clear how much false honor can cost a country and its reputation.

Clearly, staying the current course in Iraq will not work. If modest efforts and small lies do not offer a reasonable chance of helping the US succeed in Iraq, there are not many alternatives—except seeking out and telling the cold, hard, brutally honest truth. In his speech, Bush went so far at to say, “Where mistakes have been made, the responsibility rests with me.” Pollyannas may find cause to celebrate Bush’s comment. This would be a mistake. Bush’s comment was a poorly defined bone tossed to the masses to imply Bush has undergone careful introspection and profound soul searching. The comment is far too formless and tentative to qualify as a pledge to find and respond to the unvarnished, cold, and often brutal truth.

It is very unlikely that Bush will do anything as radical as embrace and celebrate the truth about the US’s incursion into Iraq. This is because the truth presents real problems for Bush. Telling the truth means he would have to admit his shortcomings, his mistakes, and his failures. It means he would have to tell the American people that the US has failed in the region. It means that the US’s efforts to bring democracy to Iraqis and Iraqi oil to American companies have failed. It means that acknowledging the US’s efforts to make Iraq a better place have made the Middle East a worse one.

The war in Iraq is a disaster on steroids. The time for modest changes to the US’s actions in the country ended years ago. If Bush has any hope of winning the war in Iraq, huge buildups are necessary—probably on the order of 150,000 troops. The US forces must quickly learn the nuances of fighting a guerilla conflict. The US must not only fight the insurgents militarily, it must end the flow of money and material that keeps the insurgents armed and well funded. It must fight the insurgents in ways that are less violent and perhaps in the long-term more effective. It must turn the Iraqi army into an effective and respected fighting force. It must eliminate the reasons for sectarian violence and the reasons why so many Iraqi’s hate the US and its cohorts. It must play hardball with the current government in Iraq so that it becomes an effective and fair institution. It must provide essential services to the people in the cities. It must pull off a miracle of miracles and turn the Iraqi police into an effective and respected organization. It must cut a deal with the various factions so that Iraqi oil revenues are shared fairly. It must negotiate with Iraq’s neighbors to make sure that they do not take advantage of the current situation. It must take the drastic steps necessary to reduce the anxieties the Iraqis feel toward the US and its soldiers. And when it stumbles, the US senior staff in charge of the war has to regroup, learn from their mistakes, and make adjustments. To do that it has to find and assess the truth. To do otherwise is to put an old and tattered band-aid on a huge and gaping wound.

In short, to win the war, Bush must do what he and his administration has not done in the last years. To suggest that Bush, the great denier will make these changes is a fantasy.

To some, Bush’s new way forward will be American’s last best hope.

To others, it will be yet another series of pompous compromises designed to mask a refusal by Bush and his advisors to address the hard truths about the war in Iraq.

Histories lessons are clear. Corrupt governments and inadequate armies do not suppress effective insurgencies. Denial does not weaken the truth. False honor is very expensive. Failure to learn the lessons history offers to teach speeds the way for great tragedies.

fist post

2007-01-09T15:44:00.000-08:00

will be made wednesday evening