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.
Monday, April 23, 2007
Monday, April 9, 2007
Money Money Money
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.
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.
Tuesday, April 3, 2007
At The Doug Moe Academy Of Sartorial Splendor And Architectural Design: Trying to Explain The Surge
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.
--------------
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.
---------
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.”
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.
--------------
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.
---------
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.”
Monday, March 26, 2007
“Uncharted Waters”
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.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
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.”
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
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.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
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.”
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.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
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.”
Thursday, March 22, 2007
Drinks with Harvey: The Libby Verdict
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.
-------------------------------------------------------------
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.”
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.
-------------------------------------------------------------
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.”
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
Newton, Traction, and "Normalcy"
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.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
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.”
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.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
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.”
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