Category Archives: Politics

Doom and Gloom from the Fire Swamp

Michael Sherer, over at Swampland, wrote a piece titled “Five Ways Obama Went Wrong.” Then, he wrote a follow-up called “Swampland Responds: What Went Wrong for Obama,” which used reader comments from his previous post.

It’s very interesting stuff. Some great insights.

Charles Krauthhammer, on Fox, loves apocalyptic hyperbole. He’s prone to statements like: “If this doesn’t pass, Obama’s presidency is over.”

We’re hearing a lot of nonsense like that in relation to Scott Brown’s win in Massachusetts. I, for the record, am delighted that Brown won and broke the super-majority. I’m tickled pink. I’m disgusted with the way healthcare reform has gone.

But after just one year, don’t you think it’s a bit early to write Barack Obama’s obituary? As it was with Bill Clinton?

A number of good things have happened under Obama’s presidency, many things which I’m very pleased about (but which don’t necessarily get much attention). But the healthcare mess and deficit spending overshadow everything.

I’m hoping Obama can get back on track with some of the ideals expressed in his campaign and in “The Audacity of Hope” (a book I loved). I’m not confident he will, and in my cynicism not even confident those were heart-felt ideals. But it’s okay to hope. In two years, the gloom being expressed right now could be a distant memory. He’s still in the early days of his presidency.

I suspect Obama’s doing a lot of soul-searching right now, and realizes he got caught up in the Washington game in a rollercoaster year of crises. In his deep desire to pass healthcare reform, he allowed an “ends justify the means” mentality to rule, which inserted what is essentially blackmail and corruption into the package. Either he never intended to fulfill the ideals of his campaign (Dick Cheney: “We will not be bound by the things we had to say during the campaign”), or Reality stampeded him away from those ideals.

I’d love to seem him, in his State of the Union Address, say, “The deals made in the quest for universal healthcare are wrong, should never have been allowed. So I’m calling on Congress to scrap what it’s done so far, and start over. We still need healthcare reform. But we need to do it right.”

That’ll never happen, I realize. But it would restore some confidence on my part. And I do believe he’s a person of ideals, whose heart is to be a different kind of politician. There’s still time to resurrect that potentially transformational person, though a whole lot of damage has been done. 

I might be wrong on that–I’ve been burned so many times by earnest-sounding politicians, most recently GW Bush, that I’m terribly cynical–but it’s what I saw in “The Audacity of Hope,” which shows a man who has thought deeply about a whole lot of issues. So though I’m disappointed right now, even gloomy, I cling to a few tablespoons of hope.

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Healthcare Reform for the Price of Our Soul

I would absolutely love to see the Dems lose the Ted Kennedy Senate seat in Massachusetts. That 60-vote majority in the Senate is a bad thing for America. Need to bust that up.

I’m a big believer in divided government. George Bush ran amuck when he commanded both houses of Congress. The Democrats are going the same route. If the Dems can’t muster up enough bipartisanship to gain a couple Republican votes, then they are totally inept. Which looks like the case.

I’ve been in favor of the idea of universal health care. Repeat: the IDEA. But what’s being done in Washington right now really stinks. If we must resort to corruption and blackmail to institute health care reform, then I want no part of it. These deals with the pharma companies, and the vote buy-outs in Louisiana and Nebraska, really disgust me. Plus doing everything behind closed doors. Really disappointing.

You can say this isn’t Obama’s doing, that what’s happening is happening within the halls of the House and Senate. Which is true. But you know Rahm Emmanuel is in the thick of it, signing off on all kinds of junk.

If this is the way we’re going to get healthcare reform, then I say: kill it.

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No Good Options in Afghanistan

Columnist Fred Kaplan, writing in Slate, expressed his mixed feelings toward what we should do in Afghanistan in “Confessions of an Uncertain Columnist.”

“When it comes to this war, I am the one thing that a columnist probably
shouldn’t be–ambivalent. I’ve studied all the pros and cons. There are
valid arguments to justify each side of the issue, and there are still
more valid arguments to slap each side down. And if the basic decision were left up to me, I’m not sure what I would do.”

He then gives those various pros and cons, and slaps them down. It’s a good column, showing the problems with any course we take in Afghanistan. It sums up well how I’ve felt. I’ve been going back and forth for months about whether we should increase or decrease our presence in Afghanistan.

President Obama and his advisers, military and otherwise, have been carefully working out a long-strategy. Tonight, we’ll learn what that strategy is. I may or may not feel comfortable with it, but it’s not my decision to make. Thank goodness.

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Google on the Defensive About Michelle

Google is being criticized because it allows search results to show a Photoshoped image of Michelle Obama altered to make her look like a monkey. It’s a despicable photo. Many people argue that Google shouldn’t allow people to find it.

As much as I dislike that photo, Google can’t take this path. And why, I wonder, aren’t those same people up in arms about all the other stuff on the internet which can turn up in search results?

You can find white nationalist sites, anti-Semitic sites, information on making a bomb, unflattering caricatures of nearly any public figure, and pretty much anything having to do with sex. All things considered, this photo seems pretty trivial. If Google censors this one photo, it opens a huge, huge door. Imagine all the people who will come storming through the door next, pointing out how their pet cause was slighted and demanding that Google make it stop.

Google says, “We do not remove a page from our search results simply because its content is unpopular or because we receive complaints concerning it.”

Except in China. There, if the Chinese government says remove it, they remove it. But in America…let the photo remain. And let those people all in a huff about it go after some of the multitude of other junk on the web which is far, far more offensive. Or, go after whoever created the photo, and the people who post it.

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Peering Beneath the Palin Fan Base

This video was shot at Sarah Palin’s book-signing in Columbus, Ohio, last weekend. Her adoring fans had great trouble saying what she stood for. I’m sure the video was shot with a particular agenda, so you need to take it with a grain of salt. The people who made it through the editing process are clearly just Palin groupies. I’m sure some thoughtful people also bought her book.

(If you’re reading this on Facebook, you’ll need to click on “View Original Post” to see the video.)

A similar video could be made at Obama events. With one big exception….

I was looking, but didn’t see anyone of color or ethnicity in the video. All reports about these signings are pretty similar in that regard. She clearly stirs up strong emotions among white people. What should we make of that? To me, it’s worth exploring.

In America, we need to be on guard concerning racial issues. We’ve come
a long way, but too many racial tensions lie dormant, awaiting a match.
A populist like Palin (or Buchanan, or Beck, or lots of others) can easily stir up those tensions, whether
intentionally or not. Now, just because the crowds around Palin are
predominantly white doesn’t mean
she condones racism in some way. That’s not a valid leap. But the situation is
something worth monitoring.

Look, I’m not out to bash Sarah Palin, so don’t go ballistic and label me a liberal dirt-monger. Palin’s a good, charismatic, engaging
person. But when I see masses of white people flocking around someone, with hardly anyone of ethnicity in the picture–well, that gives me pause.

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Did George Bush Really Keep Us Safe?

You hear it a lot, from both Republicans and Democrats: “No matter how you feel about George Bush, at least he kept America safe.”

Since I prefer to question what I hear, I’ve been musing, “Did George Bush really keep America safe?” Let me pose some contrarian ideas.

  • On 9/11, we suffered the largest attack on the US homeland since, I believe, the War of 1812. 2976 people died on 9/11, which is 500 more than died at Pearl Harbor. This happened on George Bush’s watch, and warnings were communicated to him through security briefings. He most definitely didn’t keep us safe on 9/11. It’s like saying FDR kept Hawaii safe AFTER PEARL HARBOR.
  • There was a minor attack on the World Trade Center under Clinton, but no such attacks under Bush Sr., Reagan, or any other president going back to Truman. Only under GWB were we attacked successfully. So you CAN say Truman, Ike, JFK, LBJ, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, and Bush Sr. kept America from being attacked. You can’t say that of GW Bush.
  • Since 9/11, over 6100 US soldiers have died and many thousands more have been severely wounded in Afghanistan and Iraq. On top of the 3000 already killed on 9/11.
  • When 9/11 occurred, it’s estimated that the number of committed Al Qaeda operatives was only 500-1000, most located around Afghanistan. Now, it’s estimated at around 200. We lose 200 US soldiers every 3 months. Are we okay with that kill ratio? Is that necessary to keep us safe?
  • In Afghanistan, we mainly fight the Taliban, not Al Qaeda.
    We’re involved in a civil war, not the War on Terror. The same argument
    could be made for Iraq, where the conflict is pretty much Sunni vs.
    Shiite, with Al Qaeda playing a small role. Does keeping America safe require fighting in civil wars?
  • By invading and occupying two Muslim nations, we radicalized thousands of additional Muslims, including many already living in Western countries. They will continue being a threat for decades to come.
  • Our military is stretched thin. If a conflict occurred somewhere else in the world, we would be hard-pressed to respond. We certainly couldn’t respond with overwhelming force, since our forces and equipment are focused in the Middle East. We are secure…as long as nothing else happens.
  • While we were bogged down in Afghanistan and Iraq, two rogue countries, Iran and North Korea, developed nuclear capabilities. We were simply too distracted to deal with them. Plus, another nuclear power, Pakistan, is in chaos (though things are looking better).
  • Under previous presidents, we went into Grenada, Panama, Kuwait, Haiti, and the Balkans. We did what we needed to do, then got out, or turned things over to international peace-keeping forces. Very few soldiers died in any of those engagements. 
  • Consider how different the world would be if we had gone into
    Afghanistan, beat the crap out of Al Qaeda, finished the job, then gone
    home. Instead, Bush switched his attention to Iraq, and we ended up with two
    quagmires.
  • When we invaded Afghanistan, Iran’s moderate (for them) government helped us in significant ways. But then Bush, for some reason, included Iran in his “Axis of Evil” speech. Iran’s moderates were discredited in their attempts to make nice with America, and they were replaced by hard-liners. Now, instead of a potential friend, we have a sworn enemy on the verge of having The Bomb.
  • Bush left with the US economy in ruins and deeply indebted to China. China practically owns us. How safe is that?

So–did George Bush really keep us safe? I’m just asking.

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Ten Minutes with the President

President Obama granted short interviews to a variety of news outlets while in China. I caught bits of three of them.

Major Garrett of Fox was incredible, touching on a lot of substantive areas–health care, Afghanistan, Israel–in a very short time and getting good answers. I understand that, unlike most Fox reporters, Major Garrett is well-respected among other journalists.

Chuck Todd of NBC asked good questions, too. I like Chuck Todd.

Meanwhile, the CNN guy spent his time getting Obama’s reactions to the Sarah Palin book, and asking if he was going to run again in 2012. What was that about? You get 10 minutes with the President, and those are your questions? Fluff?

Major Garrett threw in one question about Palin: “Yes or no: are you going to read the Sarah Palin book?” Obama said probably not, and Garrett moved quickly to a question about Israel. Good job. That’s what a serious journalist would do.

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After 18 Years, RNC Opts Out of Abortion Coverage

Guess whose health insurance plan includes elective abortion? That would be the Republican National Committee. It’s been part of their plan since 1991.

Michael Steele, RNC chairman, took quick action upon learning about this. “I
don’t know why this policy existed in the past, but it will not exist
under my administration. Consider this issue settled.”

This came to light via a Politico story. That’s right. If it hadn’t been for the evil liberal press, the RNC could have been spared this embarrassment and continued merrily along with their insurance plan.

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Notes to the Combatants in the “War” on Fox News

First to the Obama Administration:

The definition of stupidity is telling terrorists, “Bring it on.” In going after FoxNews, you redefined stupidity.

And hypocrisy. You accuse FoxNews of being partisan–which most of us agree it is–but then refuse to acknowledge the same of MSNBC (at least, of its evening line-up). If you’re going to stand on principle–that newspeople should be unbiased–then for heaven’s sakes, STAND on it. Consistently.

You knocked FoxNews, but gave MSNBC a pass. Why? Because Olberman and Maddow continually give you sloppy wet kisses, and you don’t want to impede the continuing flow of gratuitous saliva. Chill out.

Now, to FoxNews:

You’ve certainly gotten your mileage out of this. Milked it to death. Enough already, okay?

I’m weary of hearing your Anchors & Friends continually trumpet this War on Fox News. They always talk about this imaginary “war” in general terms, without mentioning what acts of aggression are coming from the Obama Administration. From what I can tell, here are the blitzkriegs which have been launched against you:

  1. An interview with Chris Wallace was denied.
  2. Various Obama representatives have accused you of being biased, and that hurt your feelings.

Is there more? If so, please be specific. Quit talking about this “war” in nebulous terms. Tell me when and where battles are occurring.

The fact is, the Administration did not launch a war. They launched a hissy-fit, which you then blew into a galactic conflagration. Okay, so your feelings were hurt. Quit acting your age–which is 13–and stop the pouting. It’s unseemly.

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Jon Stewart Devastates Fox News

I think this is the best piece Jon Stewart has ever done. He mostly brutalizes Fox News, then throws in jabs at MSNBC and the Obama Administration. Just delightful. (If you’re reading on Facebook, you’ll need to click on the “View Original Post” link to view the video, which is on my blog.)

Real journalists go after the story. What drives reporters is to break a story before anyone else. It’s their obsession. CBS, NBC, ABC, the NY Times, the Washington Post–they all want to break a story first. And they’ve all broken stories critical of Republican and Democrat administrations alike.

When did FoxNews break a story which was critical of the Bush Administration? Did they even investigate anything that might make Bush look bad?

If they are a professional news organization, they’ll go after Republicans and Democrats alike. I await the evidence.

Until then, I’ll pay attention to the news sources which investigate stories, and who let the chips fall wherever they fall.

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