Impossible Scissors

Fallen Apple

2011-10-05T21:50:00.002-05:00

Tonight we pause with heavy hearts to remember Steve Jobs. As the face of our digital revolution, he changed the lives of virtually everybody on the earth as consumer electronics change the way that we communicate, do business, study the universe, and entertain ourselves.

When the home computer revolution began during the mid-70's, three firms captured the nation's attention. Standing next to established industry giants Commodore and Tandy was an unlikely competitor: the plucky Apple computer, founded by college dropout Steve Jobs and his friend Steve Wozniak in his parents' garage. The Old Apple II, with its green-on-black monitor, crude graphics and lack of lower-case letters, was a far cry from anything we'd consider a usable computer today. Yet it blew people away in the 1970's thanks to a then-revolutionary spreadsheet program called VisiCalc.

Apple computer soldiered on, with Woz as the hardware guy and Jobs as the man with the vision to grow his Apples everywhere. Even after the arrival of giant IBM into the personal computer market and the flood of low-cost DOS boxes that followed, Apple pushed a graphical interface (first pioneered by Xerox before the PC revolution began) and made computing easy to use for the masses.

The growth of his company required solid leadership; Steve Jobs used his vision to successfully lure John Sculley away from Pepsi to be his firm's CEO. The Jobs-Sculley alliance was destined to end in disaster, as slow Mac sales and Jobs's often-erratic decision-making forced his ouster from Apple.

If the story ended there, Steve Jobs would have still been a widely-known personality. But his vision and faith in the power of electronics to change the way we live drove him to perservere at his new firm, NeXT Computer. NeXT was innovative technically but a commercial flop. It was the former attribute that convinced then-CEO Gil Amelio to bring back Steve Jobs by buying out NeXT and using its operating system to bring the outdated Macintosh platform into the new century.

Steve Jobs wasted little time after the NeXT merger in becoming Apple's CEO, killing the Macintosh clone program, eliminating most of the company's slow-selling product lines, and unveling the iMac to a skeptical public. During fall 1998, iMac became the computer that saved Apple from bankruptcy. A company that had lost $2 billion over two years was suddenly showing a profit. And yet again, Apple was unveiling a computer completely unlike anything the industry had ever seen. Under the hood, iMac wasn't very impressive. But most importantly it looked cool. Steve Jobs gambled the company on the prospect that people would be willing to pay for a computer that was easy on the eyes, instead of being just another bland beige box. After so many years of having to digest specs on CPU speed, RAM and hard drives, the public just ate up the iMac.

Apple's string of hits under the new Jobs regime just kept growing. The iPod in 2001, iPhone in 2007, and iPad in 2010 still continue to keep us entertained and informed in ways most people would have dared not dream of when the Apple II launched in 1977. Apple didn't invent the mp3 player, smart phone, or tablet computer. But Steve jobs had the market savvy to figure out when consumers were ready to embrace these technologies, as well as the marketing genius and aesthetic savvy to say that his company's electronics weren't nerdy, but the new cool. The spirit of Apple's cult-like popularity and hipster chic were born out in the hugely-popular "I'm a Mac" television spots with Justin Long. They were enough to make me say that Apple's new slogan should be "Electronics for Hipsters."

And along the way, Steve Jobs cultivated the personality and charisma of a rock star. It was on display as far back as the unveiling of the first Macintosh when he triumphantly boasted that his computer would be "insanely great." But during Steve Jobs's second act, consumers knew that the unveiling of Apple's top-secret new product would change the world again. He was a consummate showman and public face for a company that was always leading with innovation under his watch.

Steve Jobs had plenty of blunders along the way, and his often-abrasive personality and drive to succeed alienated many people along the way. For me, the most shameful instance was the way Steve Jobs repaid Gil Amelio for bringing him back to Apple--by undermining his leadership and persuading the board of directors to fire him, all in the course of six months. Yet history does vindicate the Jobs ascendancy as CEO, particularly because Jobs killed Gil Amelio's Mac clone program which contributed to the Apple turnaround.

Apple will continue to prosper for years to come, but nobody can fill the shows of its rockstar CEO who had the audacity to dream of ways that machines would make our lives easier and help us to achieve new heights. He will be sorely missed.

Warriors Without a Cause

2011-08-08T18:05:00.003-05:00

When I heard about the crash of a Navy SEAL helicopter in Afghanistan that killed its crew of 38, my feelings of sadness were tempered with anger. Anger to kill every Taliban I should meet, of course, but also an anger at a president and an administration who are squandering the lives of our armed forces in Afghanistan without a clue as to what they are trying to accomplish.

To be fair, the Bush administration didn't have a clue about Afghanistan either. Former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld described Afghanistan as a war that was won within a few months of the Taliban's fall from governance. The administration treated it like an "economy of force" operation while optimistically holding elections. But by 2005 the Taliban had regrouped in Pakistan and resumed their incessant offensive to return to power.

The Obama administration realized that the Taliban controlled the momentum of the war, but it was of two minds in prosecuting it. The Gates-Clinton camp wanted to ramp up the troop levels and take the fight to the Taliban. The Biden-Eikenberry-Holbrooke faction wanted to ramp down and abandon nation-building, focusing on negotiations with the Taliban and limited missions against al Qaeda leaders.

What we've ended up getting from the Obama White House is an 18-month surge, followed by a drawdown over the next year back to pre-surge levels (and a complete withdrawal by 2014.) But what goal are our troops fighting for in Afghanistan? What will the country look like when it's time to go home? And is that a goal that's worth dying for?

I think the Obama administration has pinned a lot of hope on "negotiations" with the Taliban but it's taking the attitude of "we'll take what we can get." President Obama has claimed that we're "negotiating from a position of strength." That's a bald-faced lie when we've already announced our exit date, the Taliban is able to wage attacks with impunity, and their leaders are sheltered in Pakistan. Truthfully we will need to hammer the Taliban for at least one more fighting season before they're ready to make any real concessions.

If America is truly negotiating with the Taliban, we'll either be negotiating the terms of the Taliban's surrender (the World War II approach,) or negotiating a way for the Taliban to return to power without making us look bad (the Vietnam approach.) President Obama should take the nuanced view that the Bush administration took towards the Iraqi insurgency: negotiating with nationalist and tribalist Sunni insurgents in exchange for their assistance against irreconcilable groups like al Qaeda. The core Taliban, those insurgents who want to restore hardline Islamic law, put the Afghan women back into burquas, and assert Pashtun dominance over the Tajiks and Uzbek minorities, cannot be reconciled or negotiated with. And the US military effort should be a merciless campaign against their leaders rather than negotiations.

The Afghan insurgency should not be a hard one to quell. 60% of the population consists of the Tjiks and Uzbeks in northern and western Afghanistan who hate the Taliban. And of the 40% Pashtun population in the south and east, there is little love for the Taliban either. But America has announced that it won't be sticking around, and the Pashtuns are being intimidated into supporting the Taliban. This is the consequence of the "war by timetable" strategy that the Democratic party has been promoting since Vietnam.

A responsible strategy in Afghanistan would realize that governance in the Pashtun areas will be corrupt for the forseeable future, and not pin its hopes on a shining example of democracy. But we need a "good enough" state in Afghanistan that can unite Pashtun, Uzbek and Tajik leaders against the Taliban, and field a competent army to protect the population centers. The Soviets actually left a competent Afghan army behind, in spite of their limited successes in nation-building. Post-Soviet Afghanistan fissured into civil war because the Soviets and Russians were not willing to spend the money on the military assistance funding that the Afghan communist government needed to fight off the mujahedeen.

On the homefront, the American people have grown weary of this war. They want to declare victory because Osama bin laden is dead, not realizing that the Afghan war is about denying sanctuary to the future bin Ladens. They want to spend money rebuilding America, even though continued funding will be a key factor in helping the Afghan National Army preventing the Taliban from rebuilding itself. And Americans need a president who can set a realistic goal for what America can achieve in Afghanistan, rather than playing to the populist sentiment. America's armed forces need somebody who will tell them why they are fighting and dying, instead of the lies about election-driven timetables and negotiating to save our reputation. We should hope that by January 2013 they will get a president who understands the nature of war. Until then we can only pray for their safety.

Fixing a Ponzi Scheme

2011-06-07T17:17:00.002-05:00

Economics columnist Robert Samuelson is calling for civility in the Medicare reform battle, casting Paul Ryan's controversial plan for Medicare in a sympathetic light. For being a Newsweek staffer, conservative Republicans will find him a voice of reason on this issue of eminent importance. Democrats might not want to hear him out, but the fate of the nation may very well hang in the balance.

Within American politics, the most toxic issue for any politician to openly discuss is reform of entitlement programs like Medicare and Social Security. The American people were suckered into these Ponzi schemes with the promise of paying in now, and collecting during their retirement. And entitlement programs are truly Ponzi schemes on a scale that Bernie Madoff would only dream of; after all, they rely on having more people paying in than cashing out at any given time. The difference is that Bernie Madoff's victims made a choice to join his scam, while the American people have no say on whether they partake in Medicare of Social Security.

Any time a politician proposes the slightest threat to Medicare or Social Security benefits, Americans revolt into wild gyrations. When President Bush broached the subject of Social Security reform in Spring 2005, he saw a major dip in his polling which he never recovered from. Even modest changes like raising the age of retirement meet with fierce resistance. (The age of 65 was set during an era when the average life expectancy was 68. Is it so unreasonable to change this now?)

So far, Paul Ryan's taken a similar amount of heat for the Medicare voucher idea (even though his plan won't go into effect until 2022 at the earliest, if ever.) The Ryan plan works on the principal that if retirees get government vouchers to cover their medical care, the health care providers won't order unnecessary tests or charge exorbitant rates for services. As it stands, the government already caps the amount they will pay for services under Medicare, and that hasn't led to any reform of the system.

Within the auto repair industry, consumers are protected from being gouged by industry standards for how many hours can be charged for a job, based on the work that needs to be performed. Right now the medical industry does not have a similar system to prevent doctors from performing unneeded tests on patients.

In a larger sense, the issue of uncontrolled Medicare costs is tied to a bigger cancer that has spread throughout the healthcare industry. The risk of malpractice lawsuits increases the professional insurance premiums that doctors have to pay--and often motivates them to schedule excessive diagnostic testing. The American people, the taxpayers and the doctors are getting squeezed, while the trial lawyers and insurance providers are getting richer. We know that Obamacare has failed as a comprehensive answer to America's healthcare crisis because it sidesteps the pervasive problems that are driving up the cost of care. It will be impossible to control Medicare costs with any approach that steers clear of medical malpractice reform.

The Great Raid

2011-05-02T00:34:00.002-05:00

Nearly ten years after the 9/11 attacks were carried out under his orders, Osama bin laden has been brought to infinite justice. Here's what we know so far:

--In 2007, detainees from the Afghanistan theater of operations identified a courier by nickname who had been personally involved with Osama bin Laden.

--By 2009, this courier had been identified by name.

--In August 2010, the intelligence community had enough information to link the courier to a high-security mansion in Abbottabad, Pakistan in high-level briefs to President Obama.

Between August 2010 and today, Navy SEALS extensively rehearsed the operation to successfully breach the mansion and kill Osama bin Laden. (Was there any doubt that US forces would spare his miserable, worthless life instead of shooting him on sight?)

President Obama authorized the assault today, utilizing a team of over 20 SEALS and two helicopters. After roughly 40 minutes, Osama bin Laden, an adult son, the courier and his brother, and a woman used as a human shield were dead. All American forces safely returned after destroying a helicopter that was damaged during the mission.

The mission was fraught with risk. The SEALS had no idea how much resistance to expect from bin Laden's security detail; there was no guarantee bin Laden would even be in the mansion when the choppers arrived.

I'll definitely give President Obama credit for taking the risk and pressing on with this mission. (I also question whether the death of Osama bin laden is a face-saving way to pull out of Afghanistan as quickly as possible.) But the mission to kill Osama bin Laden was the product of years of intelligence-gathering by our top spy agencies, plus the boundless courage, skill and professionalism of our armed forces. The world's worst criminals often find ways to hide for years at a time, but no scoundrel will ever escape justice forever.

The Least-Bad Way Out

2011-03-30T20:30:00.003-05:00

President Obama told the nation on Monday that America's interest in Libya was the protection of Libyan civilians from Moammar Qadaffi's murderous regime. While that statement might ring with clarity, it's a commitment that's every bit as open-ended and nebulous as it is noble.

The current Libya mission will be put to a serious test in the days ahead now that the rebels have been pushed back to the territory they held when the bombing started. The rebels just don't have the firepower to repel rocket, mortar, and tank attacks from the Qadaffi loyalists. America would certainly be tempted to go the next step and start attacking Libyan army positions outside of rebel-held towns.

America's position in Libya is truly a no-win situation. If we go all-in with airpower to defeat the Libyan army and overthrow Moammar Qadaffi, the rebels begin the messy process of trying to rebuild (salvage?) a failed state. It's encouraging to see the State Department engaging in dialog with the rebel leadership, but they are unlikely to find common ground. This rebellion has more to do with tribal rivalries than any genuine desire to build true democracy.

The alternative, if we continue with our humanitarian mission of protecting the rebel strongholds, is a protracted and open-ended air war that will cost America billions, put our airmen at more risk, and lead to a Libyan stalemate between the warring parties. Europe, already dealing with the clash of cultures from waves of north African immigrants, will bear the brunt of the Libyan refugees from the ongoing conflict. The price of oil will be inflated across the world. Moammar Qadaffi could even resume the terrorist bombings of American airliners and European nightclubs. Nobody wins from a lengthy Libyan war.

The model of Operation Allied Force against Yugoslavia (Serbia) in 1999 may provide America, Europe, and the rebels the easiest of many challenging courses of action. By bombing Libyan military and leadership targets, the US and its allies could force Qadaffi to the negotiating table for a peace settlement. President Obama would have to abandon his goal of "Qadaffi must go," but it could result in a peace deal that gives the rebels self-rule in the teritories they currently hold. Islamic countries would need to step up and provide peacekeepers to enforce the terms of peace in the rebel enclaves. It might be a tough pill to swallow for the Islamic countries, but after all the military aid they've received from the US it's the least they can do to help us out of our predicament.

The Great Health Insurance Swindle

2011-03-29T17:19:00.002-05:00

I've realized for a while that Americans are getting swindled when it comes to health insurance. Dean Zarras has a great piece in Forbes laying out the case against the current insurance model. Hopefully more people will catch on to what a ripoff they've been subjected to for the past several decades, and Congress can get more serious about promoting medical savings accounts and rolling back the insurance mandate from ObamaCare.

A for-profit company like an insurance company must take ion more revenue than it pays out in claims; the insurance rates are designed to ensure that the average American, over the course of his or her lifetime, is paying more for insurance than they normally would for the out-of-pocket costs associated with their health care. It's important to note that while access to healthcare is a human right, access to health insurance should be anything but. In many ways, the health insurance industry embodies everything that's screwed up with healthcare in America.

The best point that Dean Zarras makes is that nobody expects auto insurance to cover routine maintenance like oil changes. But why do Americans expect routine medical services to be covered by their health insurance? A high-deductible, low-premium health insurance plan is the way to go for most Americans, to ensure that unexpected and catastrophic health problems are covered.

With ObamaCare, the last Congress controversially mandated that the vast majority of businesses provide insurance for their employees. Rather than making the bloated insurance companies even richer, why isn't Congress mandating that all employers give their employees the option of having contributions placed in a medical savings account?

Obama to Qadaffi: Let's Dance?

2011-03-25T16:27:00.002-05:00

When America goes to war, presidents usually try to drum up as much public support as possible. Popular opinions of wars inevitably erode over the length of the conflict, but presidents arely go to war when the majority of the American public is opposed. One of the most unique things about the current military action in Libya is how weak the public support is. Only 51% of Americans in a recent survey approved of the president's handling of Libya, compared to 75% support for Operation Desert Storm and 70% support for the initial invasion of Iraq in March 2003 when those wars began.

The march to war with Libya has been muddled with mixed messages from the White House. While President Obama was clear in saying that Moammar Qadaffi needed to go because he had lost his legitimacy (if he ever had any,) he would not commit to military action unless it was requested by the Libyan rebels, the Arab League and the UN. Eventually his hand was tipped thanks to the intervention by advisors like Hillary Clinton & Samantha Power. A UN resolution was passed on March 18; by March 19th there were bombs over Benghazi.

A wise professor of mine once used the term "Washington War Dance" to describe the tradition of presidents stirring up popular support for war before committing their forces. George H.W. Bush's administration was able to work from August 1990 to January 1991 in villifying Saddam Hussein and casting their mission in the gulf as noble before going to war. President Clinton had Christiane Amanpour of CNN for weeks to put the atrocities in Kosovo on television so he could wage war against Serbia. George W. Bush had 10 months etween his 2002 West Point commencement address and the March 2003 invasion of Iraq to sell American on the imminent danger of Saddam Hussein, weapons of mass destruction, and Iraqi al Qaeda.

Admittedly, President Obama didn't have much time to work with in laying out his case for the Libyan war. The rebel victory he likely counted on never materialized. Indeed, the rebels were on the cusp of defeat before the bombs started falling. But the American people were never prepared for the possibility that their armed forces would have to directly intervene to save these ragtag rebels. The administration's spokespeople and media organs did little to convince Americans that this was a noble mission worthy of American blood or treasure.

Now Americans are left wondering how long this war will last or what we hope to achieve. President Obama wants to protect Libyan civilians, but how do we know when the mission is accomplished? Most of the airstrikes thus far seem to have been defensive in nature, protecting the rebel enclaves without helping them to break out or march on Tripoli. But Americans are left bewildered when they try to ask what the acceptable end-state looks like in Libya. Now that he's committed Americans to war, President Obama needs to be a leader and give us a reason why we should fight.

Obama-Style Regime Change

2011-03-19T21:28:00.002-05:00

Operation Odyssey Dawn began today with airstrikes against Libyan armored vehicles and air defense installations. Beyond the initial questions of the impact these strikes are having, the much wider question is how deep America and its allies will get sucked into the changing of regimes in Libya.

There can be no doubt that Libya's Qadaffi regime is depraved, and the world would be better off if it were swept into history's dustbin. Qadaffi likely ordered the terrorist bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie Scotland in 1989, and the blood of the doomed airliner's passengers is covering his hands. Yet American policymakers had to pour over the question of whether its long-standing vendetta with the Libyan despot is worth the lives it puts at stake in a wider war to push the regime out of power.

Airstrikes against Libya are being carried out under a UN resolution aimed at protecting Libyan civilian protesters against Qadaffi's air force. Qadaffi has obviously used excessive force against his own people in an effort to quell the uprisings against his regime. At the same time, Qadaffi faces a legitimate armed threat from members of his own armed forces who are leading the rebellion. Using military force against armed internal threats is not a violation of the laws of war, and the UN does not have legal jurisdiction to intervene within Libya's civil war.

America's reaction to the Libyan uprisings is deeply rooted in the guilt of Spring 1991, when Shiites and Kurds took President George H.W. Bush's words to heart and rose up against Saddam Hussein. Yet American pilots, who owned uncontested control of Iraqi airspace, had to watch helplessly as those rebels were slaughtered. Policymakers in America did not want to deal with the consequences of Shiite and Kurdish success if they succeeded in ousting the Saddam Hussein regime. Enforcing a no-fly zone against the Iraqi helicopters who shuttled elite Republican Guard forces to the rebel strongholds may have turned the tide of that battle. There is no doubt that the Obama administration wanted to avoid a grim replay of that shameful moment in America's past.

President Obama's supporters, who cheered when their standard-bearer called Iraq "a dumb war," now find themselves behind a president who lacks a legal causus belli for yet another war of regime change. It's doubtful that Libya will be as costly on a human scale or protracted as Iraq was, yet the nation building following the end of the Qadaffi regime will likely get just as messy. Will America have the stomach for the alliance-building and possible sectarian score-settling that are likely to accompany the birth of a new Libya? Or will President Obama draw the line with the politically-safe option of keeping America's war effort to a strictly aerial one, regardless of the realities on the ground? It's easy to get into the Libyan civil war, but it will be much harder for America and its allies to get out.

Sacked

2010-06-23T18:47:00.002-05:00

In the US military, one of the surest ways of getting knee-deep in trouble is to publicly criticize your chain of command. So it probably shouldn't be surprising that General Stanley McChrystal has been relieved of his command over US forces in Afghanistan following the criticisms he and his staffers made of Vice President Biden, Karl Eikenberry, and National Security Adviser James Jones to a reporter for Rolling Stone. Yet the incident underscores what I've long perceived as President Obama's ignorance and indifference towards military affairs.

Very rarely during US military history has a president relieved the commander of US forces in the middle of a large offensive. Yet that's exactly what has happened with General McChrystal and President Obama, in spite of the offensive in Marja and the impending offensive in Kandahar. President Lincoln changed commanders several times during the civil war because of a stagnant and failing war strategy. President Truman relieved General MacArthur in Korea, because MacArthur took the extreme step of calling for nuclear escalation against Communist China in what was supposed to be a "UN Police Action." Should US forces in Afghanistan have to pay the price because their commander and his aides had the gall to refer to "Vice President Bite-Me?"

Maybe there are legitimate reasons to change commanders at this difficult stage in America's toughest war. General McChrystal has recently drawn the ire of former green beret and embedded reported Michael Yon (a true straight-shooter who tells what the soldiers are seeing on the front lines, without a partisan axe to grind.) McChrystal's restrictive rules of engagement didn't win him much love amongst the troops. It's a difficult but necessary task in counterinsurgency warfare to tell soldiers they have to put themselves at increased risk in the name of intangible goals like "winning hearts and minds." Still, the leadership shuffle has everything to do with insubordination, and no bearing whatsoever on a detached commander-in-chief's perspective on a war he never wanted to fight. Whoever leads US forces in Afghanistan will have to face a futile timetable that calls for success by mid-2011 before Obama's phased withdrawal begins.

There is never an easy way to change combatant commanders in the middle of a fight. Even for General David Petraeus, the change in leadership represents time lost. It leads to additional chaos and confusion on the battlefield which get people killed. We really should question the judgement of President Obama if he should punish a general officer during the middle of a war over an issue of petty name-calling. There is an appropriate time for punishments after the general has returned from theater, his tour of duty complete. But my fear is that the soldiers under McChrystal will pay a far heavier price in blood for their commander-in-chief's wounded pride.

The Kagan-Myers Effect

2010-05-13T09:54:00.003-05:00

President Obama will leave a lasting legacy on the supreme court by appointing Solicitor General Elena Kagan to replace liberal justice John Paul Stevens. At this point it appears the Republicans will save their political capitol and reserve a filibuster for a different issue. Elena Kagan will likely be the junior justice and the third woman sitting on the current court.

At the same time, I can't help but notice the double-standards and hypocrisy which mark the judicial appointment process. Elena Kagan's situation is similar to that of Harriet Myers. Both women had never served as a federal judge before being appointed to the highest court in the land. The difference is that Harriet Myers had been appointed as George Bush's popularity was in free-fall. Democrats saw her as a chance to rebuke a weakened president. Conservatives abandoned her out of concern she would not be conservative enough. The inexperience of Harriet Myers was an easy way for the Bush white house to withdraw her nomination and instead appoint Samuel Alito, a committed conservative voice on the court. In spite of opposition from liberal Democrats, Alito was able to secure nomination because he appealed to the conservative faithful. Alito's judicial experience could have served as a smokescreen for the conservative republicans and handful of democrats who supported his appointment.

Now that Elena Kagan is lining up to join the highest court in the land, I am disappointed that she isn't receiving the Harriet Myers treatment over her lack of judicial experience. Again, I suspect that "judicial experience" is used as an excuse to weed out unpopular appointments. Senators harangue about "judicial temperament" and not pre-judging cases, yet the truth is far more sordid. The court is becoming more partisan, to the point where Anthony Kennedy is the court's only swing vote who can't be seen as a consistent liberal or conservative.

If President Obama wants a consistent liberal judge to take the place of John Paul Stevens, that's his perogative as the president. But for a guy who criticized Harriet Myers on the basis of her experience, is it a bit much to ask him to find somebody with judicial experience?

The Arizona Rebellion

2010-05-01T00:33:00.003-05:00

Illegal immigration is a federal crime, punishable by deportation. Yet the US government has been extremely lax in its enforcement, and millions of illegal immigrants live and work in the United States. So the state of Arizona is taking matters into its own hands. The nationwide outcry concerns Arizona's empowerment of its state police to check on a person's citizenship "where suspicion of illegal immigration exists."

The challenge facing authorities is how to determine "suspicion of illegal immigration" without indiscriminately picking on Mexican-Americans. Does merely "looking Mexican" constitute grounds for a search? If I were a Mexican-American, I would hope that I could live my life without being pestered for proof of citizenship by the police. Even being an illiterate in English may not be reasonable grounds for raising the police's suspicion. (After all, there are millions of English-speakers in America who are incoherent in their native tongue.) The issue of racial profiling has scared the feds away from enforcing the existing immigration laws, to the point where they are a mockery of the law. The only fair way to enforce the immigration laws is to check the citizenship of everybody who is pulled over by the police. Even if you're a pasty white guy named Bubba with an American flag tattooed around your bicep, you should have no problem showing some kind of proof of citizenship during your next traffic stop.

I don't expect the Arizona immigration law to last very long. Previous attempts by states to enforce immigration laws (such as using the state's National Guard to patrol the border) have been challenged on grounds that only the federal government has the power to enforce national immigration laws. Even with four solid conservative votes on the Supreme Court, it's likely that this separation of powers will doom any attempt to enforce Arizona's new immigration statute.

Perhaps Arizona, and indeed the US Congress, should consider some real measures for fighting illegal immigration. As fond as the Obama Administration has been of nationalizing private businesses (such as banks and auto companies,) maybe it should pass a new law authorizing the seizure of any business that employs illegal immigrants. It will certainly make employers shit their pants at the prospect of hiring somebody who can't provide legitimate proof of citizenship. And if immigrants who haven't gone through the naturalization process can't find work, what will motivate them to risk hopping the border in the first place?

The Barack: People's Champion, or Corporate Champion?

2010-04-18T19:13:00.002-05:00

The title, referencing former wrestler, Dwayne Johnson, is a good introduction for debate on Obama economic and regulatory policies. Conservative critics have called Obama a socialist. The president's supporters have decried that the "socialist" label is nothing but a racial code-word. Libertarian-Republican Ron Paul has offered up a different take on the situation: Obama can't be a socialist, because he's really a corporatist.

The distinction between the ideologies of socialism and corporatism is very fine. In both systems, the lines between the government and large corporations are blurred, and free-market forces are thwarted. More government regulation tends to favor a few large corporations in each sector rather than small businesses. Only the large corporations can afford to do business once the regulations, lawyers and lobbyists start getting involved. The difference is that in corporatist systems, corporations dictate policy, bend the system to do their bidding, and generally wrap the government and taxpayers around their finger. Under socialism, the government dictates terms of business to the corporations.

Under the Obama Administration, there have been three major forays into the merging of corporate and government power. The first was TARP, which bailed out large banks to the tune of $700 billion in a largely-unaccountable manner. In fairness, TARP started under George Bush, and John McCain shamefully joined Barack Obama in voting for it. But TARP has been an instrument for the president to attempt dictating corporate CEO salaries and other corporate governance. Additional measures proposed by the administration, like the financial regulation bill and closing some tax loopholes, have run into significantly more resistance. It's unclear who is truly playing who in the TARP game.

When it comes to the government takeovers of Chrysler and GM, it's clear that the government has both hands on the wheel. The existence of a government auto czar certainly reinforces that relationship. Chrysler is now the company which will produce the fuel-efficient, subcompact cars that are demanded by the government, rather than the market. GM will push America towards gasoline alternatives with its Chevy Volt. The president's allies in the United Auto Workers get a piece of the pie; the UAW health insurance fund now holds a controlling interest in Chrysler after the White House leaned on Chrysler's secured creditors and the bankruptcy courts. Still, the auto industry has gotten a few choice deals, such as the "cash for clunkers" program which took running vehicles off the road and subsidized the purchases of new ones.

Surprisingly, the most clear-cut example of corporatism during the Obama Administration has been the health-care bill. The portion which was most objectionable for me was also the component that received broad support from health-insurance companies: the mandate for individuals and corporations to purchase health insurance. The government is fattening up insurance companies, delivering them a large group of unwilling clients who, if given the choice, would opt to purchase smaller levels of coverage or none at all.

Whether you call it socialism or corporatism, the Obama Administration has taken some very firm steps towards melding corporate and government power over the lives of individuals. The stereotype has held that Republicans favored the corporations over individuals; the Dems have, up until now, successfully conflated the free market with unchecked corporate power. Admittedly, Republicans actions have been more corporate than free-market, even if the rhetoric says otherwise. But the actions of the Obama Administration have been no better and in many ways have been more corporatist than those of Republicans. Only when the government refrains from subsidies will we truly get a competitive marketplace that is responsible to the consumers.

Obama's Dream, America's Nightmare, and Stark Reality

2010-04-09T11:03:00.002-05:00

President Obama's recent review of America's nuclear weapons doctrine and his negotiation of nuclear reductions with the Russians is being spun as "a step towards the president's dream of a nuclear-free world." Some conservatives and Republicans are taking umbrage with elements of the new doctrine such as not using them against non-nuclear states. Most of those changes do not bother me; rather, they're a reflection of a world where the shadow of nuclear warfare between superpowers is a fading memory.

The downside to the new policy is that nuclear weapons will no longer serve as a deterrent to America's true nightmare: the use of weapons of mass destruction by terorrists and rogue states. The commander-in-chief should not take any options off the table if the nation is attacked by nuclear, chemical, biological or radiological weapons. Even the use of high-explosives like hijacked airliners should make the president at least consider the possibility of using nuclear weapons.

Ongoing deliberations within the administration highlight the issue they're sidestepping: the US lacks any coherent policy for deterring nuclear attacks by terrorist groups and suicidal regimes, and it will be caught frozen like a deer in the headlights if it should ever need to retaliate against such scoundrels. Rep. Tom Tancredo once suggested that the US should destroy Islamic holy sites like Mecca if Islamic Militants ever used nuclear weapons against the US. He was widely chastized for his remarks. While his strategy would prove counter-productive, he deserves credit for at least considering an issue that we may have to deal with at some point in the future, and to which few members of the US government have given any thought.

Prescription for Failure

2010-03-19T11:40:00.003-05:00

President Obama appears to be on the cusp of success. This Sunday he will likely get the House Democrats to approve the ten-year, $940 billion health care bill. A major campaign promise will be fulfilled; now that's change we can believe in.

Change for the health insurance industry is coming, alright. Except that the bill only strengthens the existing problems in the health insurance system. Too many Americans have the attitude of "somebody else should pay my medical expenses," while forgetting that health insurance is a profit-driven industry. To stay in business, health insurance vendors ensure that the average American pays more in premiums than they receive in benefits. Most Americans would be better off paying routine healthcare costs out-of-pocket, and paying a smaller premium for insurance that would kick in during catastrophic health crises and end-of-life care.

What we get instead with the Obama plan is a government mandate for insurance; Americans will have to buy the level of health insurance coverage that the government deems fit for you, or pay a fine. It's anti-choice and it only fattens up the insurance industry which already has Americans bent backwards over a fence. Medicare payments are being cut, too. If Obama thinks that healthcare providers will cut their rates out of the goodness of their hearts, he will be sorely mistaken when more and more doctors stop accepting Medicare. And once the insurance providers are forced to accept people with pre-existing conditions, the premiums will only increase across the board for everybody.

The healthcare debate has been framed by the president and his congressional allies. All of the bill's proponents are ignorant of basic, free-market economics. They live in a fantasy where the government can simply dictate the cost of healthcare through public health insurance. While that scheme is dead for now, they still think they can reduce premiums by mandating coverage and forcing more people to buy in. My news for them is that premiums are never going down relative to the level of coverage. They will only go up. That's how the free market works. But the health insurance market is so heavily-regulated that it's anything but a free market. It's bound to be even less free (and even more expensive) if the health insurance bill passes on Sunday.

Stupor Bowl

2010-02-07T02:35:00.002-05:00

In spite of the nationwide excitement, I'm not thrilled about this year's Super Bowl. It will likely be an exciting game, but I detest both of the teams playing in it. I am not going to force myself to watch it.

The Saints? They play a dirty game. They were playing to injure my hero (and man-crush) Brett Favre. And in spite of two Adrian Peterson fumbles, a Bernard Berrian fumble, two Favre interceptions, an idiotic "too many men in the huddle" penalty, and a botched handoff, they still needed to win the NFC championship game on the first possession in overtime. The Saints did not beat the Vikings; the Vikings beat the Vikings.

My problems with the Colts have more to do with their ownership and management than their players. Colts president Bill Polian pulled his starters during the last two games of the season, throwing away a chance that the Colts would run up an unbeaten record and go down as the greatest team in NFL history (next to the 1985 Chicago Bears, who went 18-1 and won the Super Bowl.) Colts owner Jim Irsay is an uber-liberal who threatened to veto Rush Limbaugh's bid to buy a minority stake in the St. Louis Rams. So much for the idea that liberals are tolerant and accepting.

I really wish that both teams could lose the Super Bowl. But I'd settle for third-string quarterback Curtis Painter coming in for Peyton Manning and embarrassing the Saints.

Ballad of a Tin-Eared President

2010-01-22T14:08:00.002-05:00

If you listen to the pundits, the only problem facing the Obama presidency is his focus on health care in place of a populist desire to see jobs created. The president seems to be following the sage advice by giving speeches on his jobs programs in hard-hit Ohio today. If we listen to the mainstream media, the shift in strategy will soothe people's economic fears and slow down the anti-Democrat train that picked up steam with big Republican wins in New Jersey, Virginia and Massachusetts.

The formula for saving a floundering presidency seems to be the Bill Clinton model; after getting hammered in an off-year election, move from the left to the center and pre-empt popular Republican ideas like welfare reform. While I was no Clinton fan, I admire his shrewdness as a politician. Bill Clinton ultimately made decisions based on how they affected the chances he (and later Al Gore) would be elected. Barack Obama is far more ideological; he uses rhetoric to try and sell his ideas, but there's been no evidence he'd abandon them.

One of Bill Clinton's saving graces was his attitude towards American business. He raised taxes in his first term, but he was not, on the whole, a committed opponent of American free enterprise. Barack Obama does not trust the free market to create jobs. Big businesses are cash cow to be raided in the form of additional taxes to support his social programs. "Stimulus" and environmental legislation are the prefered vehicles this administration has used for job creation and retention.

In the short term, the president's gamble might pay off. The illusion that he cares about turning the tide of rising unemployment may stop the bleeding that Democrats have been bracing for in 2010. But the president's plan to let the Bush tax cuts expire, coupled with his plans for new taxes on large banks, are a recipe for a double-dip recession in 2011-2012. Assuming Democrats hold onto the House and Senate this fall, voters will justifiably blame the president and Democrat congress in 2012 for the ongoing unemployment misery.

Barack Obama cannot fix the economy because he is Barack Obama; a partisan leftist ideologue who may alter his rhetoric, but he'll never acquiesce to the tax cuts that banks, large businesses and even individual Americans will need to grow a stagnant economy.

The Battle for Late Night

2010-01-15T10:53:00.002-05:00

Late night talk shows are supposed to be funny, but NBC's handling of its late-night talent (plus Jimmy Fallon, to whom the word "talent" rarely applies) is becoming sad and even tragic. Back in early 2004 when NBC announced Conan O'Brien's ascencion to The Tonight Show, I had a hard time seeing how the arrangement would work. How would audiences react to Conan O'Brien's zaniness on the flagship, long-running late-night show? To a lesser degree, what would Jay leno be doing on an NBC prime-time show?

It turns out that my fears were a bit misplaced. While I'm not a huge Conan fan (aside from Triumph the Insult Comic Dog,) I think he's done a fine job hosting The Tonight Show. It's been toned down just enough to appeal to his new time slot's wider audience, while still remaining faithful to everything he had done in his old time slot.

My concern should have been with Leno. Bear in mind that I love Jay Leno's jokes and his equal-opportunity skewering of all our politicians. But his decision to host a slightly-tweaked version of his former show during a prime-time slot was not a winner. Let's face it: a late-night show with late-night ratings still can't generate the ratings needed to compete in prime-time. Had Jay elected to host a variety show or a half-hour of stand-up comedy every night, the situation might have been better. But Jay loved his talk show format too much to give it up or change it substantially.

Now NBC is engaged in a battle of comedy titans and will likely let Conan walk with a huge payoff while returning Jay to The Tonight Show. It would be nice if NBC could fire Jimmy Fallon and return to the status quo, but that dog won't hunt. Conan knows that he's an A-list talk show host, and he shouldn't settle for anything less than the time slot he currently enjoys. Like many fans of late-night talk, I'm disappointed that Jay didn't re-tool his show into something that would actually be competitive during prime-time (even if he had to move his show's start up by an hour or two.)

NBC has been done in by its depth of talent. It wanted to keep Conan happy while preventing Jay from jumping ship to another network. Its desire to stop its talent from defecting to its competitors has created so much bad blood among the fans that NBC's late-night ratings may never recover from this debacle.

Items of Interest

2010-01-10T23:29:00.002-05:00

The Man of Steele
RNC Chairman Michael Steele is making some Republicans steamed with ill-timed comments, particularly on his party's chances of winning back Congress. It strikes me as odd that the RNC chairman is having plenty of foot-in-mouth moments, while the DNC chairman has been fairly silent. When control of the White House was in Republican hands, it seemed like the DNC chairmen (first Terry McAuliffe, then Howard Dean) were making outrageous statements to the media and giving their partison firebrands more red-meat to chew on. The RNC chairmen (like Ken Mehlman & Marc Racicot) were very tight-lipped, quietly raising money behind the scenes.

The job of the party chairman, first and foremost, is to serve as fundraiser-in-chief. Michael Steele's comments haven't been serving the purpose of firing up the Republican base into pouring boatloads of money into the Republican party. Instead, Republican donors are giving money to Conservative issue-based organizations (like "Conservatives for Patients Rights" and other opponents of ObamaCare.) And perhaps the idea of parties as major fundraising organizations is drawing to a close. After all the "Tea Party" movement has not truly embraced the Republican party, because the Tea Party protestors know that Republicans have a history of paying lip-service to small-government conservatism, then discarding those ideals when it becomes convenient.

But the bigger problem that Michael Steele sees, and one I agree with, is the slim chances the Republicans have for winning back either house of Congress in 2010. There are too few seats in play, and not enough viable candidates to chase them. Moreover, there is no central leader for the Republican cause and no unified vision for using small-government principles to help America out of its recession. The silver lining is that a Democrat-controlled Congress gives Republicans a bogeyman to run against in 2012 when President Obama seeks re-election.

I Hope It's Sunny on Planet Obama
The president's stumbles on the road to health care "reform" and his sinking poll numbers point to a growing disconnect between the President and the people. As Peggy Noonan astutely pointed out, the President seems to be narrowly focused on health insurance while the rest of the nation would rather see answers to the problems of 10% employment and economic recession. For President Obama, I think the health care debate has always been a personal crusade. After all, his mother was saddled in medical debts by the time she succumbed to cancer. Those sad circumstances might embolden Obama to fight harder, but there are times when we need to realize we've been emotionally compromised. Like a man who kills in a fit of rage, our passions can overwhelm our best judgments. The debate over health care is one of insurance, rather than the quality of care that can separate patients between life and death. While medical debts affect too many Americans, the high unemployment numbers are a greater danger to so many more.

President Obama needs to awaken from his fantasy where he controls the debate over the country's future. Instead, the debate over the country's future controls the president. But this wouldn't be the first time a fantasy has overtaken the president. His deflating poll numbers are tied to shattered illusions he surrounded himself with. Liberals believed Obama would redistribute the wealth, pay the heating bills for the poor, and withdraw from Iraq and Afghanistan. Eventually they realized that there's a difference between being a president and a miracle-worker. Some centrists and conservatives created the fantasy where Obama was a pragmatic centrist, forging consensus and seeking to find common ground. (Even I held out hope that this would be the case after he was elected.) But the opponents of his far-left agenda are realizing that Obama is attempting everything he claimed he'd do during his candidacy. There's no doubt that Barack Obama's campaign courted the fantasies. Now he's rolling in the shards of glass from the toppled house of mirrors.

All is not lost for the Obama presidency. ObamaCare will likely pass, before the president moves on to the Card Check bill, Education, Cap & Trade, and his other core issues. The question is whether he can successfully move to the center as Bill Clinton did after the disastrous 1994 elections, or whether he stays the same starry-eyed leftist that he's been for his entire life in politics. Losing seats to the Republicans this November will likely be a wakeup call that American voters will no longer be fooled by vague notions of hope and change.

The Paganization of Christmas

2009-12-22T22:47:00.002-05:00

As any scholar of Christian history knows, the Christmas holiday is rooted in pre-Christian traditions. It marries the Roman winter holiday with traditions from the Germanic festival of Yule. Keeping these familiar elements intact was key to Christianity's success in converting heathens during the early centuries of the Christian church.

As time passes, Christmas loses more of its Christian nature and returns to its Pagan roots. Corporations view Christmas as a time to dig out of debt and turn a profit. We're bombarded with commercials telling us that you need to buy your wife a diamond or a Lexus in order to be a good husband. We're bombarded with six non-stop weeks of Christmas music, beginning a week or more before Thanksgiving. In fact, every recording artist under the sun feels an obligation to crank out an album of soulless and derivative Christmas songs. (Perhaps the most egregious example of this is Barbra Streisand's Christmas efforts.)

The sense of obligation has much to do with the cheapening of Christmas. It's become a secular gift-giving holiday with little or no sense of the reason behind the gifts. People often buy and give because everybody else is doing it, even if they "don't even believe in Jebus." Isn't our giving supposed to symbolize the gifts of the Magi to the Holy Family, and indeed the ultimate gift of a savior and teacher by God the father to a sinful people?

In the Christmas madness, the teachings of Jesus are often lost. Every day I see the rudeness, aggressiveness and lack of compassion on the part of everyday people. Some of it is directly related to the materialism of corporate Christmas, but much of it is the everyday byproduct of an angry society in a world that desperately needs the teachings of Jesus more than ever. Perhaps it's just a small minority who are guilty of frequent cruelty, but they drag everybody down. After all, it only takes one "whoops" to wipe out a hundred "atta-boy"s.

The problem with Corporate Christmas is the bait-and-switch we've gotten with the symbols of Christmas. We don't see the Christian symbols of the Holy Family and Magi in a manger with the Christ-child. Instead, we get the Germanic and Norse images of reindeer, elves and a fat-ass in a red suit. I recently saw a church sign reminding people that Santa didn't die for their sins. The sign's message gave me gleeful images of Santa Claus nailed to a cross and flayed with a whip. The Corporate Christmas mythology is helpful to fuel the rampant and unchecked consumerism they want to see. It makes Christmas something whimsical for children while obfuscating the Christian significance of the holiday.

Christmas is often regarded as a children's holiday, perhaps because it is the celebration of Christ's humble birth. I can remember the magical way Christmas morning felt as I unwrapped each gift and marveled at whatever plastic form was underneath the wrapping. But the temporal joy of toys is tempered by the haste with which my interest in them died. In hindsight, it seems like all the Herculean labors my father went through in search of the ideal Christmas toys were a fool's errand. Perhaps my case is an exception, since I have the attention span of a fruit fly. But I'd have traded all of the Christmas toys in the world for quality time and a better relationship with my father during the formative years of my life.

In Christmas shopping and Christmas cheer, I'd ask all Christians to constantly ask themselves, "Is this how Jesus would handle my situation?" This is a challenge for me as much as (or more than) any of my readership. The most precio9us gift of all is neither gold nor frankincense nor myrrh. It's the gift of time we spend with the people we love and the strangers we should get to know. Our lives are measured by how we use this most precious gift of all.

Missing the Mark on Health Insurance

2009-12-17T19:12:00.001-05:00

A trend begins to emerge in the Obama decision-making process. While President Obama seems to have a pretty keen grasp on identifying the key issues that face Americans, he too often settles for yet another wasteful big-government program that completely misses the issue. We saw it on the stimulus package, where the need for short-term job creation was satisfied with long-term funding for traditional Democrat constituencies. The result is an average cost to the taxpayers of over $240,000 for every job created.

We're seeing the same worrisome trend during the health-care debate. President Obama believes that the burdens of rising health-care costs endanger the standard of living for all Americans. He's right, at least as far as identifying the problem is concerned. But his preferred solution was a publicly-subsidized health insurance plan that subverted the forces of supply and demand while ensuring that the health insurance "haves" pay for the health insurance "have nots."

Here's a radical idea: rather than coming up with a health insurance plan that completely ignores basic laws of supply and demand, let's come up with one that does a better job of embracing supply and demand than our current system. Why limit people's health insurance choices to the plans offered by employers, or the plans based within their state's borders? Reduce demand by allowing health insurance providers to offer discounted rates to people who make healthy lifestyle choices. Mandate higher co-payments for routine medical services, deterring abuses of the system. Increase supply through government grants to aspiring doctors and health-care providers. Buy the rights to patented drugs and second-source them to other pharmaceutical companies.

President Obama correctly identified the risk-aversion of doctors as a factor in driving up health-care costs, often involving needless diagnostic procedures to confirm a diagnosis and avoid lawsuits. But the fear of massive malpractice suits also means higher insurance rates for health-care providers, which are passed onto the consumers in the form of higher fees for services. Will the Democrats ever get serious about curbing the damages during malpractice lawsuits, at the expense of their trial-lawyer constituents?

Even with market-based reform, some people won't be making enough money to afford health insurance. While I feel that health insurance is often overrated (especially for healthy people, whose premiums serve to pay for sicker patients,) there should always be the option of enrolling in expanded Medicaid program. Nobody ever said that Medicaid was very good, but it's better than nothing for people who can't afford basic health-care. While some congressional Dems have been touted a Medicare expansion, the fact remains that Medicaid, not Medicare, was designed for meeting the needs of people below retirement age who need medical care. An expanded Medicaid meets the basic needs of people who aren't served by a market-based system, and gives people an incentive to better themselves, earn better jobs, and earn enough money to afford better health insurance.

The Scum of the Earth Comes to Illinois...

2009-12-17T01:51:00.002-05:00

... and for once, I'm not talking about Chicago Mayor Richard Daley. Rather, I'm talking about the transfer of al Qaeda inmates from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba to the underutilized prison in Thomson, Illinois. While the proposed transfer marks the beginning of the end for Gitmo as a symbol of perceived American abuses towards Muslims, the problem is never going away. The Thomson prison will likely be more transparent than Gitmo when it comes to media scrutiny, but it still won't stop America's critics from claiming abuse of captured al Qaeda terrorists.

Why was Thomson chosen over other underutilized prisons in places such as Montana? It all boils down to federal money and new jobs. The transfer to Thomson prison guarantees 500 or so new jobs in the state that sent Barack Obama and Dick Durbin to the senate. The president and the senior Senate Democrat still manage to bring the pork back home.

The residents of Thomson, and perhaps the nearby Quad Cities, welcome the move for its economic benefits. But the state of Illinois as a whole will likely reject having the scum of the earth in their own backyard. It will certainly be a major theme of Rep. Mark Kirk's bid to win one of Illinois's Senate seats back for the Republicans in 2010. The chances of escape from the maximum security prison in Thomson are remote, but not impossible. It wouldn't be a stretch to imagine an escaped al Qaeda hitch-hiking or carjacking his way to the Chicago suburbs, where he'd find refuge with sympathetic elements of the Muslim community. Opposition of Illinoisians to terrorists in Thomson is NIMBY-ism in its purest form; yet sometimes the NIMBY's have a good point to make.

In thinking of the financial, legal and national security ramifications of the Thomson move, I'm starting to get sentimental about Gitmo. It was far from an ideal solution to the problem of captured "illegal combatants" who did not fit within either the US criminal justice system or the Geneva Conventions. But of all the bad solutions to the problem, Gitmo was the least bad.

The Schizoid Surge: Road to Defeat

2009-12-02T02:23:00.003-05:00

The American people have not been well-served by the reporting from Afghanistan; reporters are reluctant to either embed with the military or go native in a country that makes Iraq look like the Ritz Carlton. But they're not getting good coverage about the way Washington is handling Afghanistan, either.

Most press reports about President Obama's Afghanistan plan focus on sending 30,000 troops within the next six months. They tend to downplay the decision to retreat from Afghanistan between 2011 and 2013. The 30,000 troops may help to secure Afghanistan's population centers. But the second aspect of the strategy, the "date certain" for a phased withdrawal, ensures that the lives lost during the Afghan surge will have been lost in vain.

The president is trying to appease the factions within the Democrats and amongst the American people who have grown weary of Afghanistan. He's ascribed to fantasy stories from Carl Levin about training Afghanistan's army, and Joe Biden's delusion's that al Qaeda is finished in Afghanistan.

There's roughly 18 months between the start of the Afghan surge and the beginning of the withdrawal. Does anybody really think that 18 months is enough time to secure the Afghan populace, build its government's credibility, and build an army with any capability as a cohesive fighting force? The Iraqi Army and Iraqi government both required five years before America felt it was safe to start drawing down. And the challenge in Afghanistan, where central government and uniformed armies are alien concepts, is far greater than the one of Iraq's nation-building.

The war categorized as "the good war" to wipe out al Qaeda's safe haven after the 9/11 attacks is certainly doomed to failure, and no soldier should be asked to risk his life for an effort that America's leaders have no desire to win. In Afghanistan, the Karzai government will likely collapse within three years of America's withdrawal, just as the Soviet-backed government of Mohammed Najibullah did. And it will come as no shock when Hamid Karzai's mutilated body will be paraded around on CNN by the Taliban after they retake Afghanistan. A terrorist attack on American soil with the magnitude of 9/11 attacks won't be much of a shock either; al Qaeda will have no deterrent towards rebuilding in Afghanistan or attacking America after witnessing our lack of resolve in Afghanistan.

The notion of "Have you forgotten?" may seem like a schmaltzy lyric from a patriotic country balad, but the righteous anger and horror we once felt towards al Qaeda is gone. America has pledged its allegiance to a man who worshipped at the altar of "God Damn America." And now he's hoisting the white flag of surrender while asking our troops to die for a lost cause. The Obama Afghan strategy is about accepting defeat but delaying it past the end of his first term. President Obama wanted to make sure that the next president wouldn't be inheriting this war. I only hope and pray that our next president is a gutsy leader who will replace the schmuck from Chicago in 2012.

Ditherer-in-Chief

2009-11-29T21:37:00.003-05:00

When it comes to Afghanistan, our media tells us that we're in good hands. Commander-in-Chief Barack Obama had taken his time, carefully weighed his options, and came up with a really, really smart strategy that he's going to unveil to the nation on Tuesday. It will be one thousand times better than any dogmatic knee-jerk reaction we would have gotten from the old "Cowboy-in-Chief."

The simple portrait splashed across our televisions by Obama's media sycophants, yet again, is a romanticized view of a far grittier reality. The arguments about Obama's thoughtfulness are far weaker than the view that the president spent two months dithering on an issue that has broad repercussions for the security of our nation.

Does anybody remember General McChrystal's very public appeals for 40,000 more troops? That was back in September. Since then, the president has conducted (according to published accounts) ten very involved strategy sessions with his most trusted military and foreign affairs advisors. Holding the meetings may show thoughtfulness, but does it really take two months to hammer out the details of a new strategy? Time is an unaffordable luxury (much like ObamaCare) while our soldiers' lives are still in harm's way pursuing the stagnant old Afghanistan strategy.

During these past two months, President Obama has made his priorities known. ObamaCare is his most pressing priority. Steering the Olympics to his Chicago cronies even seemed like it obscured Afghanistan on Obama's radar screen. Our nation is at war with jihadists halfway across the globe, but our president is waging war against the health insurance companies at home. Does our commander-in-chief have his priorities straight?

All the criticism of George W. Bush as a dogmatic and reactionary decision-maker comes from people with partisan axes to grind. Members of his inner circle saw Bush as far more studious and open to opinion than his critics would ever concede. Problems occurred when Bush too often deferred to the paranoia-tinged judgments of Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld rather than listening to the cooler heads in the room (Condi Rice, Stephen Hadley, Richard Armitage and even Colin Powell before he turned into a mindless Obama-lover.)

A careful examination of counterinsurgency strategy in Iraq shows the futility of dithering during an active war. The Bush National Security Council spent much of 2005 and 2006 debating counterinsurgency options, using terms like "Clear Hold Build" to describe strategies whose application to the theater of operations was spotty, at best. In fairness to President Obama, President Bush also took roughly two months between the firing of Donald Rumsfeld and the public announcement of the "surge" strategy in January 2007. But the surge strategy had to be forced on a military establishment that was resistant to counterinsurgency. It originated on the outside, thanks to historian Fred Kagan and retired Army chief-of-staff Jack Keane. It also faced considerable resistance from the Washington establishment, which viewed the Iraq Study Group as official top-cover for abandoning Iraq to a future of anarchy.

It's said that if a frog is placed in a pot of water that's heated slowly, he'll be boiled so gradually that he won't know what's coming next until it's too late to fix it. With President Obama, the slow heat of Afghanistan is catching up to his presidency, and he seems oblivious to it. Unless he starts to realize that there are far greater dangers in this world than American health insurance companies, his presidency will be boiled to death.

Music Review: "Battle Studies," John Mayer

2009-11-25T13:33:00.002-05:00

As my longtime readers likely know, I'm a huge fan of "Room for Squares," John Mayer's debut album. It was pure heaven; thirteen folk-inspired pop songs dealing with an awkward young man's desire for acceptance. I also enjoyed his sophomore effort, "Heavier Things," which was more of a mainstream pop-rock album spanning the gap between songs of awkwardness and songs of love and heartbreak.

After two really great albums, "Continuum" really felt like a kick in the balls. Sure, John Mayer really developed as a great blues guitarist in the mold of Clapton or Hendrix. But a lot of the songs didn't resonate with me. And the mixture of heartbreak-themed pop ballads with bluesy songs just seemed incoherent.

It was with some hesitation that I bought "Battle Studies," John Mayer's fourth studio album. I was immediately relieved to find that the incoherence of "Continuum" has been remedied. Predictably, the constant theme of the songs on "Battle Studies" is that all's fair in love and war. If love is a battlefield, Pat Benatar has good rounds to sue John Mayer. It's impossible to listen to any of Mayer's original songs and think they weren't written about Mayer's on-and-off flame, Jennifer Aniston.

The first track, "Heartbreak Warfare," seems like it's influenced by Seal's "Crazy" more than anything else. "All We Ever Do is Say Goodbye" is a return to Mayer's folk-influenced roots.

My favorite song on the album is "Half of My Heart," a track that blends the folk and blues influences into a very catchy tune. Taylor Swift lends her vocals, but her contribution is so short that you wonder why they bothered flying her out to the studio. Had Mayer and Swift sang the song as a true duet, I think it would have been an instant classic.

"Who Says" is the first single, and it sounds too much like "The Heart of Life" from "Continuum." Maybe I'm not very keen on it because if its nonstop references to getting stoned.

There were plenty of other great songs on "Battle Studies." "Perfectly Lonely" hearkens back to the gems on "Room For Squares" like "Love Song for No One." "Assassin" is funky and fun; "Friends Lovers or Nothing" reminds me of the melodies from "Slow Dancing in a Burning Room" or "In Repair" from "Continuum," and that's not a bad thing.

Overall I really enjoyed "Battle Studies," and thought that it was a return to the coherent pop-rock of the "Heavier Things" period in John Mayer's career. It's not quite as good as "Heavier Things," and I doubt John Mayer will ever be able to top "Room for Squares." But it's a tall order to follow, and "Battle Studies" is a solid pop-rock album that will make a great stocking stuffer for all music lovers out there.

Reinventing History, The Jimmy Carter Way

2009-11-18T23:20:00.002-05:00

According to a recent interview with former president Jimmy Carter, the only reason why he didn't serve a second term as president was because he didn't launch a military mission to rescue American hostages trapped in Iran. But it was a wise and noble decision, because 20,000 Iranians would have been killed during the mission.

Jimmy Carter has been called "our greatest ex-president." I don't know if that's because of his legitimate humanitarian contributions after leaving office, or because so many people were glad to see him leave. But by this point it's clear that he's either losing his mind, or he's desperately trying to talk up an undeserved legacy to fit the Nobel Peace Prize he won several years ago.

For starters, there WAS a mission to end the Iranian Hostage Crisis, authorized by President Carter. It was called "Operation Eagle Claw." And it was aborted at an early phase after a fatal collision between two aircraft at a staging point. Reflecting upon the ill-fated rescue mission, it's probably for the best that the mission was aborted before progressing any further. It was a hopelessly complex plan that involved rendezvousing with a CIA team at the captured embassy, evacuating hostages with pre-positioned vehicles, and overtaking a soccer stadium as a staging point for flying the hostages to safety. The mission had the potential for even greater failure and loss of life had it gone any further. As to Jimmy Carter's figures of 20,000 fatalities, they don't appear to be substantiated with any expert's credible estimate of how violent a realistic hostage mission would be. If anything, Jimmy Carter is creating the strawman argument for a more comprehensive military mission that was never seriously considered.

Jimmy Carter's world view of 1980 is far rosier than anybody alive at the time would remember. It ignores the high unemployment rates, double-digit inflation, economic stagnation, price-caps and rationing on gasoline, the Moscow Olympic Boycott, and the Soviet War in Afghanistan. In short, 1980 was a pretty miserable period for America. President Carter admitted as much in July 1979 by declaring that America was at "a moral and spiritual crisis." Nothing he had done since the infamous "malaise speech" had given Americans any reason to think that this crisis would come to a close.

Ronald Reagan's candidacy in 1980 turned the nation upside-down. At first many Americans didn't know what to make of the actor-turned-Conservative-activist. He had served as governor of California. Then he shook things up within his own party by challenging the sitting president, Gerald Ford, who was largely overwhelmed by the highest office in the land. But near the end of the campaign, voters found in Reagan a voice that told them it was okay to be proud of the good America had accomplished and believe in the promise of tomorrow. It was time to abandon the past decade of self-flagellation and apologies that were exemplified when Jimmy Carter abandoned Iran's decrepit Shah in the face of the Ayatollah's fanaticism.

1980 was not a single-issue presidential race; it was a race built on vision. Ronald Reagan believed in projecting America's strength and rejecting the economic thinking that caused stagflation. Jimmy Carter kept telling us to give the old order more time to work. In the end, American voters turned a close race into a Reagan landslide and broke overwhelmingly for The Gipper.

American Jihad

2009-11-09T18:40:00.002-05:00

We are learning more and more about Malik Nadal Hasan, the Army Major and psychiatrist who murdered 13 people and wounded 30 more at Fort Hood. There are two separate and conflicting portaits of the murderer: the first is the able psychiatrist who was described as "a loyal soldier" and wore his uniform to Friday prayers. The other is the angry opponent of US foreign policy who praised suicide bombers in internet postings, cleaned out his apartment in preparation for his suicide mission at Fort Hood, received reprimand for undisclosed problems dealing with patients, and shouted "Allahu Akbar" as he opened fire on his unarmed victims.

Even more shocking is the revelation that intelligence agencies had recorded Hassan attempting to contact known members of al Qaeda. If these reports are true, they're a repeat of the same bureaucratic paralysis that allowed the 9/11 attacks to happen. The forces of political correctness, excessive concern for the privacy of potential terrorists, and dysfunctional relationships between intelligence and law enforcement agencies blocked any reports of Hassan's descent into radicalism from reaching his superiors before he could murder 13 people.

There have been far too many senseless deaths owing to post-traumatic stress disorder from combat in Iraq and Afghanistan. In those cases, the emotional trauma on the shooters is justifiably called "tragedy." Some media commentators have claimed that Hasan suffered vicariously through the combat scars of his patients. While true to some degree, it's absolute rubbish for explaining why Hasan lashed out yesterday. While his imminent deplopyment to a war he opposed seems to have set off his rampage, it still doesn't explain why Hasan chose the path of murder as his means of lashing out.

The only explanation is that Hasan was waging a one-man jihad. Malik Nadal hasan is an American terrorist.

It's silly to think that the terrorist or jihadist labels should be reserved only for people who have sworn their allegiance to Osama bin Laden with a video crew present to record the moment. But a terrorist is anybody who initiates violence to achieve their political objectives. And a jihadist is anybody who invokes Allah to excuse their murderous misdeeds. Regardless of whether Malki Nadal Hasan is revealed to have ties with any known jihadists, he is the very definition of a homegrown terrorist. Perhaps the only silver lining in the story is that Hasan survived and will never achieve the martyrdom he so desperately craved.

Obama Dithers While Afghanistan Burns

2009-10-26T18:37:00.002-05:00

President Obama's deliberations over Afghanistan, ongoing since September, are proving to be agoni9zingly slow for many observers of international and military affairs. At the same time, American forces are still taking casualties in pursuit of the futile existing strategy as morale continues to drop and faith in the mission subsides.

Dick Cheney has emerged from the shadows to accuse president Obama of "dithering" in Afghanistan. General McChrystal has requested 40,000 troops to get the job done, so let's get moving. The White House retorts with a 'not so fast' and claims that the president wants to make the best decision possible.

For starters, there's two problems with the White House's justification for delay. If President Obama is spending a significant amount of time listening to Joe Biden's reservations, he needs to cut it out. After all, Joe Biden has never made a correct foreign policy decision in his life. He's delusional to think we can avoid major conflict with the Taliban, even if our mission focuses solely on fighting al Qaeda. As long as infidels remain in Afghanistan, the Taliban will fight them. There can be no coexistence in Afghanistan until American leaves or until the Taliban is defeated as a competent fighting force.

The other reason for possible delay would be the upcoming Afghan runoff elections, scheduled for November. The President likely wants a legitimate government before committing to a new strategy. But history doesn't support his decision. If anything, governments gain legitimacy when they can ensure the security of the common people. It's much harder for governments to start from a position of legitimacy and try to build security. The civil liberties available under a legitimate government often contradict the actions needed to impose security. Iraq is an example where the government lacked legitimacy because the common people felt threatened. It wasn't until he cracked down on the Shiite militias that Nouri al Maliki was able to gain a measure of legitimacy as Iraq's Prime Minister.

The delay in the Afghan decision boils down to two incompetent politician-leaders. One is Joe Biden, and the other is Hamid Karzai. Success in Afghanistan is too precious to be entrusted to either.

FOX Hunt

2009-10-19T18:48:00.002-05:00

The Washington "FOX Hunt" is definitely on as the White House steps up its war of words against FOX News Channel. Communications Director Anita Dunn, advisor David Axelrod, and chief of staff Rahm Emmanuel are all on record saying that "FOX News" 'isn't really news' and it exists to make money. FOX News, for its part, seems to be enjoying a ratings bump stemming from their newfound public exposure.

The simmering war of words forces me to pause and ask whether the Bush Administration ever singled out media outlets for criticism. Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't remember Tony Snow ever getting on the case of Keith Olbermann and MSNBC, or Dana Perino busting on CNN. Like FOX, MSNBC and CNN have their share of pundits who try to pass opinion off as reporting. The difference is that FOX is very critical of the president, while CNN and MSNBC swoon every time he reads off a teleprompter. I always thought the White House was supposed to be above petty and partisan shots against their detractors in the media. Then again, we're in the season of "change" in the Oval Office. Apparently "change" also includes a coarsening of the political discourse in Washington.

I'm reminded of the presidential campaign, when the Obama campaign launched an "Obama Action Wire" to discredit and smear author David Freddoso for his thoughtful critique The Case Against Barack Obama. The technique reminds me of the rabble-rousers who aim to shout-down anybody they disagree with and dominate the stage. For an administration that seeks to break the conservative stranglehold on talk radio, it's not particularly good at opening itself to intelligent criticism. Rather, President Obama and his staff are trapped in perpetual campaign mode. All I'm seeing from the White House is election-style tactics at controlling the message instead of providing truly bipartisan leadership.

Hopefully President Obama will realize that public attacks against FOX News, like the previous spat with Rush Limbaugh, only strengthens the opponents of the White House while eroding the dignity of the office. If he truly has what it takes to be a leader instead of a politician, he'd tell his staff to kill their childish bickering.

In Afghanistan, it's Go Big or Go Home

2009-10-08T13:46:00.002-05:00

Recent reports suggest that President Obama is prepared to accept a bigger Taliban presence in Afghanistan, focusing on protecting the central government and ramping up offensive operations against al Qaeda. In doing so, he'll be rejecting the recommendation of General McChrystal for 40,000 more troops to regain ground lost to the Taliban.

Henry Kissinger has some important insights into the Afghan riddle. Instead of the current strategy analogous to holding 100 percent of Afghanistan for 75% of the time, he suggests that holding 75% of the territory for 100% of the time is the better choice. It appears that General McChrystal was of the same mindset, choosing to abandon remote outposts (like the one ambushed last weekend, where eight Americans gave their lives in its defense) in favor of keeping the cities safe from the Taliban. The question is how much of Afghanistan we can hold if the president is going to short-change his commanders of the resources he's requested to accomplish the mission.

When it comes to Afghanistan, you have to go big or go home. The current troop levels coupled with the current tactics have resulted in losing ground to the Taliban. It's not even clear that a change in tactics will help the situation as long as troop levels remain unchanged. The troops are getting demoralized as the Taliban regains its influence. They see their comrades dying with nothing to show for their sacrifice. If the president isn't serious about giving this mission the resources it requires, he should pull the troops out now and hand a major propaganda victory to Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar. President Obama seems to be choosing the path of maximized casualties and delayed defeat if he keeps troop levels near today's current numbers.

Afghanistan has a good chance of becoming America's second Vietnam. The sad analogy includes the fact that presidential micromanagement of the war contributed to the mission's failure.

Obama's Crucible in Afghanistan

2009-10-02T23:38:00.003-05:00

Whether he knows it or not, the legacy of the Obama presidency hangs on the decisions he makes during the next few months in regards to Afghanistan. Forget healthcare, cap & trade, card-check, or stimulus spending. If President Obama doesn't take decisive action soon, he'll be the man who lost Afghanistan and handed Osama bin Laden a major victory. If he endorses General McChrystal's strategy for stabilizing Afghanistan, there's at least a fair shot Afghanistan will resemble something other than a failed state, and give the Muslims of Southwest Asia an alternative to the Taliban's hardline rule.

On one side of the debate are General Stanley McChrystal, commander of US forces in Afghanistan, and CENTCOM commander David Petraeus. The military commanders see the need for a great number of reinforcements to Afghanistan to secure their tenuous grip over the country. The US is currently playing whack-a-mole with the Taliban. The Islamist militia pops up in areas where there is no US presence, the US and allies send in the cavalry, and the Taliban melts away to fight another day. More troops are needed to protect the Afghan populace and prevent the Taliban from regrouping.

On the other end of the debate are politicians like Joe Biden, Carl levin, Dianne Feinstein, and even pubdits like George Will. They would rather save US offensive efforts for wiping out al Qaeda fighters in Pakistan, turning the Afghan mission into one of training an Afghan army.

The last time anybody asked for Joe Biden's opinion on foreign policy, he proposed splitting Iraq into three states, which would only have exacerbated the tensions during that country's period of sectarian violence. Like that proposal, his Afghan ideas might sound good at first glance, but they're entirely impractical. As the generals have pointed out, Afghanistan may be just a year away from slipping into irreversible Taliban control. The politicians have a good point that more foreign troops may alienate the Afghan people, but increased Taliban violence and control over their lives is guarnateed to alienate them even more. Training an army is a very difficult task; the Iraqi Army training began in earnest in 2004; it wasn't until 2008 that it was capable of independent counterinsurgency operations. The task is even more difficult in Afghanistan, where the lack of a uniformed military tradition is a serious impediment to creating a professional army. A professional army also needs a somewhat-stable government to issue marching orders, dictating massive nation-building effort in Afghanistan. Clearly, more time is needed to stand up an Afghan Army, and foreign troops may be the only way to block the Taliban's return to power.

One assumption of the Biden argument is that the Taliban's return to power will not mean the return of al Qaeda to Afghanistan. At this juncture, al Qaeda would rather hide out in the lawless Pakistani frontier than take their chances with the Americans in Afghanistan. But if America were to leave, would the equation change? Odds are good that it will. Bear in mind that al Qaeda's ultimate goal is establishing fundamentalist Islamic governments in all Muslim nations. There's no doubt that Osama bin Laden would view American abandonment of Afghanistan as a major victory, and Jihadis around the world would be emboldened to carry out new offensives against all vestiges of secularism within the Muslim world, and possibly outside the Muslim world.

Back in late 2001 or 2002, the "Out of Afghanistan" debate would have been unthinkable in a country that was still engulfed by the righteous anger stemming from the 9/11 attacks. That things have gotten so bad reflects poorly on President Bush and his cabinet. In reading the book Cobra II, I was struck by Donald Rumsfeld's premature declarations of victory in Afghanistan, to the point where his staffers used the token US force in Afghanistan during that time frame as part of its calculus for the size of force that was needed to stabilize Iraq. Donald Rumsfeld disdained nation-building, even though nation-building was exactly what Afghanistan needed. If the Bush Administration was ever serious about nation-building in Afghanistan, the necessary troops for doing so were tied up in Iraq. Barack Obama was right to say that Iraq was a distraction from Afghanistan, but now he faces a greater challenge. Criticism from the sidelines is easy, but making the decisions as an untested commander-in-chief is hard.

In some ways, the internal White House debate on Afghanistan is confusing. Didn't the president say back in the early spring that there would be a military and civilian surge to accomplish the goals of nation-building in both Pakistan and Afghanistan? A pair of Newsweek articles (here and here) give some great insight into the current debate. So what changed since early spring? There are many factors, including Hamid Karzai's dirty re-election in Afghanistan and rising US and allied casualties. But I think the biggest factor is sticker-shock. President Obama's early rhetoric on Afghanistan came before General McChrystal's assessment that possibly 40,000 more troops are needed, bringing the total NATO forces in Afghanistan to 110,000. It's a military force rivaling the one that had occupied Iraq, and it couldn't be deployed to theater overnight. It also means this war is going to get very costly in terms of casualties and budget. The Biden approach is advertised as "Faster, Cheaper, Better." Unfortunately, it's a faster way for the Taliban to wrest control of Afghanistan away from its admittedly-crooked government and nascent army.

President Obama has some tough decisions to make, and I hope for our country's sake he succeeds. In fact, if he succeeds in Afghanistan, it will outweigh all the damage he's done to our country with his reckless spending. He talked tough on Afghanistan as a presidential candidate; as a president, he still needs to prove that he wasn't just joking when he promised to refocus America's attention on "the real war on terror" in Afghanistan.

Real Environmentalists Support Nuclear Power

2009-09-23T15:49:00.003-05:00

With the United Nations focusing yet again on the issue of climate change this week, "Cap and Trade" legislation is gathering the attention ofthe US Senate again. The House bill passed earlier in the summer with a handful of Republican votes after many blue-dog Democrats balked.

To make the legislation more palatable in the Senate, Joe Lieberman is resorting to an interesting tactic: including funding for coal and nuclear plants to win Republican votes. It's an interesting strategy that threatens to alienate many of the liberal Dems who originally supported the Cap & Trade bill.

It's hard to see what more funding for coal-fired plants would accomplish, even the so-called "clean coal" plants. But nuclear power promises electricity for years to come, while emitting no carbon dioxide or gases that cause smog. If I were a Senator, I'd be tempted to vote for the cap & trade bill solely if it had provisions which would wean America away from coal towards nuclear power.

Because "clean" power sources like solar and wind are decades away from meeting America's power needs, the more pragmatic environmentalists are starting to come around. But the bulk of the environmentalist community still rejects nuclear power out of fears of meltdown, nuclear theft, and spent fuel reprocessing and storage. None of these issues is impossible to deal with. After all, we're living in the era of "hope"; these issues have been largely solved by the scientific community, but political considerations prevent them from being implemented. Even President Obama is guilty of closing the door on Yucca Mountain, even though study after study has shown Yucca Mountain to be the best place to store spent nuclear fuel.

The proponents of anthropomorphic global warming present us with a false choice between the economic impacts of "cap and trade," the faraway future of clean, renewable energy, or runaway global warming. But if our nation gives nuclear power the support it deserves, we could combat the potential for anthropomorphic global warming without sacrificing our quality of life.

Conceding to Putin

2009-09-18T23:06:00.004-05:00

When it comes to "change," the areas of defense and foreign relations are ripe pickings for a president that wants a blanket undoing of the Bush legacy. President Obama announced that the US would abandon plans to place missile defenses in Poland and the Czech Republic. Instead, the US will guard against Iranian missile attacks with sea-based defenses and mobile radars.

The danger the Obama Administration is running comes from this concession to the Russians. While the president might view the change as a step towards an improved defense against Iran, the Russians view it as weakness. At least George Bush understood that the perception of American weakness by hostile nations and terrorist groups can be just as dangerous as real weakness.

For Russia, American missile defenses have been perceived as hostility. The reality is far more innocuous, as the Russians have more than enough missiles to overwhelm any possible American defense. The European component of the missile shield was an extra insult to the Russians, because it represented further strengthening of America's ties with Russia's old clients.

Understanding Russian foreign policy is best accomplished under the mindset of paranoia. Russia had been attacked by Germany twice in the 20th century; the Russian response was installing puppet governments in the nations that buffered Russia from the defeated Germany. With the collapse of Communism in Europe, the new Soviet fear is American influence in the former satellite states and the breakaway Soviet republics. The Russian invasion of Georgia last summer (Remember that one? When the best response Obama could muster was some mealy-mouthed words about the UN?) was a bald-faced aggression designed to weaken Georgia's pro-American president.

The Russians are nervous about missile defenses in Poland and the Czech Republic because they create an American military presence within Russia's "buffer zone," and they're a further step towards the integration of two former Soviet satellites into the western European community. Again, it's a Russian delusion that either of those nations want anything to do with the Russians. The central Slavs of Poland and the Czech Republic have always sided with the Catholic Church over the Orthodox Church, the Roman alphabet over the Cyrillic alphabet, and with the western Europeans over the eastern Slavs. Poland and the Czech Republic have always been, for all intents and purposes, part of the western European cultural heritage. America must unequivocally tell the Russians to butt out.

So what does this have to do with Obama and missile defense? Because it creates the appearance that America will cave to Russian demands. There are perfectly legit reasons for wanting a system that's more mobile and flexible. I see a lot of virtue in the system that the administration currently favors, although I harbor my doubts as to whether it can detect, track and intercept Iranian missiles at the same range that the ground-based system could. But pulling the missile defenses out without replacing them with some other type of military presence looks like unilateral withdrawal in the eyes of the Russians. If nothing else, the president could have offered a pullback from Poland and the Czech Republic if the Russians agreed to be more cooperative on the Iranian nuclear program. But now that card is lost to us, tossed off the table forever.

The fallout from the central European pullback will linger for quite some time. What will an emboldened Russia do next in regards to Iran or central Europe? Which American ally in the former Soviet block will Putin invade next? Apparently the new foreign policy consists of fecklessness in the face of Russian authoritarianism. The mantra of "hope" need not apply to America's supporters in central and eastern Europe.

Broken Will

2009-09-12T10:14:00.002-05:00

Imagine my surprise a week ago to learn that with the remembrance of the 9/11 attacks coming quickly, conservative commentator George Will thinks it's time to get out of Afghanistan.

Anybody who read Michael Scheuer's 2004 tome Imperial Hubris probably foresaw what's happening in Afghanistan: a xenophobic population turns against the US and throws its support back to the warlords. Scheuer argued that US should have left the Taliban in place and focused its efforts on wiping out al Qaeda. It sounds nice, but it's hard to see the Taliban allowing free reign for the Americans to take out their al Qaeda benefactors, or how we can keep a broken al Qaeda from regrouping when the issues of poverty and political oppression within the middle east still drive young men towards "jihad."

One of George Will's big points is that there's no will to sustain a large force to protect the Afghan populace for decades. Indeed, I rejected the argument "Iraq is a distraction from Afghanistan" because the Bush Administration was never serious about sending a large force to Afghanistan, regardless of whether we invaded Iraq. Among our NATO allies, countries like the UK and Canada are taking the bulk of the casualties, while Germany, Italy and France are keeping their troops safe in rear-echelon positions. So why is our commitment to the mission waning? It would seem like the policymakers truly have forgotten the horrors of 9/11 and aren't willing to take all necessary steps to prevent al Qaeda's resurgence.

The scariest part of thinking about Afghanistan is having no idea what the end state will look like. At least Iraq resembles a predictable end-state; Iraq has a strong central government with an army that's capable of containing the country's residual insurgency. Afghanistan is still one of the world's poorest countries, and culturally is verymuch living in the stone age. What does Afghanistan have to look like before we can leave? Does Afghanistan need a ceremonial leader who vests the real political power in regional warlords? What quality of life to Afghans need before we can declare Afghanistan safe? There will undoubtedly be a need for a humanitarian mission in Afghanistan long after the military one has ended. But with so many warlords, many of whom operating independently of the Taliban, how do we get them all together to root out al Qaeda and the Taliban?

The Afghan puzzle is one of history's greatest challenges, and I hope that the Obama defense and state departments are up to solving it. It's a fight that seems futile as much as it seems brutal. Yet the consequences of failure are hard to escape, and reverberate seriously across the globe.

Obamacare and the Feserting Wound

2009-08-18T18:23:00.003-05:00

Public plan or no? That's the question President Obama faces in pitching his vision of healthcare reform. The American people are quickly learning that "change" and "reform" can often be two very different things, and they're coming out to denounce the idea at townhall meetings with Democrat lawmakers. They're justifiably angry at the prospect that the government could become more intrusive in their healthcare choices and jeopardize the quaity of healthcare insurance that most Amerians already receive. And they're savvy enough at math to figure out that our nation's deep debts will make a taxpayer-subsidized plan unsustainable without taxing the middle class. Blue-Dog House Democrats from conservative districts realize this, and it's clear that there aren't enough votes for the public plan to ram it through the House.

To be fair, publicly-funded health coverage is not a shotgun-blast that will kill the private health insurance industry. Rather, it's the pin-prick would that never heals. It gets infected and bleeds until the industry slowly dies. President Obama's "post office versus UPS" analogy is fairly apt until he glosses over its fatal flaw: FedEx and UPS really don't compete head-to-head with the postal service. After all, how frequently do most people receive letters and greeting cards from UPS? Instead, the private carriers offer a higher-quality, higher-priced service for those critical deliveries that consumers wouldn't trust to the postal service.

The health insurance business will be quite the same. What checks will exist to ensure that employers don't dump their existing coverage and push employees onto Obamacare? For that matter, how many people will jump ship from their current insurance companies, lured by the promise of Obamacare's lower premiums? As time goes by, Obamacare will siphon away more and more people from private plans until just a handful of large insurers remain in the game, and they'll survive in an atmosphere of increased government regulation and oversight.

The ludicrous idea that a government plan will "keep the private industry honest" stems from the minds of men who either don't understand the capitalist system, or reject its basic tenets. Government competition doesn't control prices; competition between private-sector entities controls prices.

To that end, there isn't enough competition in the health insurance industry. We live in a culture where people expect employers to give them good health insurance, and they get railroaded into an employer-provided plan. Why can't every employer pay employees a healthcare stipend they can put towards an insurance plan of their own choosing? And why can't consumers choose insurance providers who operate outside of their home state?

The spiraling costs of healthcare can't be solely blamed on the capitalist system (or the mockery of capitalism which exists in today's regulated healthcare environment.) Massive damage payouts in medical malpractice cases force doctors to pay higher premiums to run their practices. And these costs are passed on to the consumers of healthcare. Would laws capping medical malpractice damages lead to lower premiums for healthcare providers, and would consumers see a benefit for this tort reform?

For people who still want the government to do something to lower health costs, they may want to revisit "Kerrycare" before pressing on with Obamacare. During his failed presidential run, John Kerry proposed government subsidies in the case of "catastrophic health emergencies." The idea should be examned closely. Depending on your definition of a catastrophic emergency, the plan may prove very costly to the taxpayers. But it could also bring down the premiums that consumers currently pay for medical coverage.

There are a lot of options on the table for true reform within the American health insurance system. The Democrats do Americans a disservice the longer they fixate on a public health insurance plan. The public plan has no guarantees that it will do anything to improve the cost or quality of healthcare, aside from the strong-arm tactics the government can employ to force providers into taking less than market rates for their services. The only guarantee is that the public plan will saddle Americans with more taxes and debt than we already see.

Survivor Series 2012

2009-07-08T01:22:00.003-05:00

It seems like not a week goes by without the media pronouncing the political death of another Republican contender for the presidency in 2012. All of this amounts to a portrait of a leaderless party going to shambles. Indeed, it may take a while for the Republican party to regain its footing and find its relevance in the era of "Obamunism." With that being said, the race for 2012 is already starting to shake out.

For starters, scratch South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford. His sleazy philandering will not endear him with "family values" conservatives, let alone the always-crucial undecided voters. You can also draw a line through the name of Sarah Palin. Her irrational resignation last week should give everybody pause about taking her seriously.

The media has already buried Bobby Jindal's political future. But what's their basis? Because he fumbled the delivery of his rebuttal speech after a major Obama address? I admit that I am biased here, because I read (and largely agreed with) the text of the speech and never bothered watching his delivery. But we are living in the age of a teleprompter presidency, and too many Americans think that smooth talk is an acceptable substitute for coherent policy. Can Bobby Jindal recover? I think he can, and after all, the Bush presidency certainly lowered the bar for our expectations of a president's speech-delivery capabilities.

The rising star among Republicans is Virginia representative Eric Cantor. During the fight over the first stimulus bill, Cantor led the critics of "porkulus" with intelligent and well-delivered criticism. He may not be ready to run in 2012, but he will likely be a presidential contender in the years to come.

With all that being said, I think that Mitt Romney has the upper hand in the race for the Republican nomination in 2012. Back during the 2008 primaries, I was critical of Romney for his opportunistic flip-flops on social issues, but I recognized his strengths on fiscal matters. I thought he'd be a good choice for John McCain's running mate, rather than the ego-maniac from Alaska. The 2012 election will largely be a referendum on the inevitable failure of Obamunist Obamanomics. The American people are starting to see through the veneer of public healthcare plans, government ownership of banks and auto manufacturers, pork-barrel politics that poses as "stimulus," and back-door taxes that pose as environmental measures.

President Obama may have passed his constitutional law classes, but he deserved to fail whatever math courses he was forced to take at Occidental and Columbia. America's debts are manifesting themselves as inflation, and taxes are strangling economic growth. The Obama strategy of more taxes and exponential spending only compunds our problems; Mitt Romney would stand the best chance of capitalizing on this in 2012. Not to mention the fact that he doesn't have the baggage of so many other Republican contenders.

As fun as this speculation from three years out has been, I have a confession to make: I plan on "throwing my vote away" and voting for Ron Paul in 2012.

A Media Without Shame

2009-07-05T01:57:00.002-05:00

During her resignation speech, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin cited her need to be with her family as part of the reason behind her resignation. Usually when a politician cites "a need to spend time with my family," it's a convenient way of backing out when other factors (imminent scandals, infighting within the party, etc.) would have forced a resignation under less desirable circumstances. In short, it's a way of saving face.

But in the case of Sarah Palin, there's some validity behind her claim. Within a week of her selection as John McCain's running mate, it was clear that the media had declared "open season" on Sarah Palin's family. Most prominent were the unsubstantiated & spiteful rumors and constant scrutiny which followed teenage daughter Bristol Palin and her pregnancy.

In covering the Palin family, the media violated its cardinal rule regarding the families of public figures: unless the family members have done something notable to become public figures in their own right, they should be off-limits. Now, we've all heard of the veritable rogues' gallery of embarassing presidential family members, including Billy Carter, Hugh Rodham, Roger Clinton, the Bush Twins, and even George Obama. Maybe the media paid too much attention to their foibles. The media at least ignored some of the more salacious rumors I've heard about Chelsea Clinton, and justifiably so. But the full assault and scathing near-condemnation that has faced Bristol Palin is utterly unjustified.

Politicians have thick skins when it comes to public criticism. It's a prerequisite for the job. But when defenseless family members become fair game, what's a politician to do? Do you step back from the spotlight to protect the people you care about? Or do you stick with it to show the critics that their sniping will never succeed? My hope tonight is that the Palin family will finally be able to savor the privacy they have always deserved.

Sarah Palin and the Celebrity Presidency

2009-07-04T14:42:00.002-05:00

Sarah Palin was a relative unknown in American politics until last August, when she was thrust into the spotlight as John McCain's running mate. Up to that point, she was the obscure governor of Alaska with less than two years of job experience and a short record that at least offered glimmers of hope for small-government reformers. But her career as Alaska governor came to an abrupt end with her unexpected and unexplained resignation today.

The conventional wisdom behind the Palin resignation is that she's preparing for a presidential run in 2012. Yet there are a lot of problems with that scenario. Governors don't resign their posts when they're three years away from the election. It only heightens a weakness of a Palin presidential candidacy: her lack of political and executive experience. If anything, she should be using her time as Alaska governor to shore up her reformist, small-government credentials.

But there are plenty of times in our modern political climate when the conventional wisdom should be thrown out the window, and Sarah Palin's case should be one of them. We're living in an era of ego-driven politics, where personality and charisma are far more important than professional accomplishments or positions on the issues. Of course there's a double-standard at play, when Barack Obama's lack of experience is seen as an asset while Sarah Palin's inexperience is a liability. But the media and a majority of the American populace will reliably turn into sycophantic lapdogs at the sight of a tall and smiling president who fills their ears with glowing rhetoric while the job losses pile up, the national debt sinks into an inescapable abyss, and a disturbingly-growing slice of the American economy comes under federal ownership.
In the months since the election, Sarah Palin hasn't left the national scene. She's been traveling the country giving speeches, rallying the conservative faithful, and feuding with David Letterman. It's clear that her heart is already in the 2012 primaries rather than the Alaska governor's mansion.

Sarah Palin and Barack Obama have little in common politically, but their personalities are far more alike. Both possess an inflated sense of self-worth and egomania. Neither possessed the professional accomplishments that American voters should look for in choosing a president, yet both took the fast-track towards the highest office in the land instead of seeking to pay their dues first.

Overruled

2009-06-29T18:16:00.001-05:00

Ever since the landmark University of California v. Bakke ruling, the US Supreme Court has gradually been chipping away at Affirmative Action statues and hiring practices. The trend continues with today's ruling in Ricci v. DeStefano, where white firefighters were denied promotion by the city of New Haven, Connecticut because an insufficient number of minorities had met the qualifications for promotion.

In writing for the majority, Justice Anthony Kennedy refuted the city of New Haven's argument that the promotion test at the center of the case could have left the city fire department open to a discrimination lawsuit. In the dissent of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, she argues that nobody is entitled by rights to promotion. I really have to take issue with Justice Ginsburg here; if a government is not obligated to ensure that all people are judged based on personal achievement, then it has failed in its duty of protecting the inalienable rights of its citizens. There is no reason why the City of New Haven (or any other city, state, or federal agency) should deny merit-based promotions to qualified individuals on the basis of race alone.

In spite of the important legal precedents at play, the most prominent story is the role played by Supreme Court appointee Sonia Sotomayor. It's a unique situation when the Supreme Court rules on a decision made by a prospective member, and in this case Sonia Sotomayor emerged with some prominent dings in her armor. Not only was her decision overruled by the court she wants to join, but her appellate ruling was criticized by both sides for its cursory attempts to address the existing case law.

The Ricci ruling is an important victory towards creating a society that racks and stacks people by merit, and discredits New Haven's truly idiotic attempt to punish qualified people in the name of racial equality. While it's a setback for the career of Sonia Sotomayor, it's unlikely to deter at least 51 Senate Democrats from confirming her and preserving four reliable liberal votes on the Supreme Court.

Requiem for a Jacko

2009-06-29T08:57:00.003-05:00

While the world was largely stunned by the sudden passing of pop icon Michael Jackson, the reaction I picked up from many people I work with was best summed up as "little boys will be able to rest soundly tonight."

Nobody disputes that Michael Jackson was an insanely gifted singer, songwriter and dancer. Even after his reputation was tarnished by charges of child molestation, his music continued to be covered, parodied and imitated. Can anybody forget the South Park Halloween episode where Chef and a horde of zombies did the "Thriller" dance? Did anybody question why Alien Ant Farm covered "Smooth Criminal" or Chris Cornell sang "Billy Jean" long after Michael had receded from view?

At the same time, Michael Jackson's image could never recover from the child molestation charges. He was always eccentric as an adult, but the 1993 and 2003 allegations were too much for the public to stomach. While I suspect that Jacko did touch underage boys in inappropriate ways, the charges were never proven in a court of law.

Michael Jackson was so many contrasts in one package. He captured America's hearts as a poor black boy, but gradually morphed into a person who was wealthy, white and feminine. He publicly wanted to help disadvantaged children, yet little boys learned to fear him. And Martin Bashir's documentary on Michael Jackson really cut to the heart of the contradictions. Michael was a child celebrity who never got the chance to enjoy his childhood. To compensate, the adult Michael never really grew up. He had no sense for appropriate boundaries when dealing with underage boys because his heart was just like theirs. He was really a boy (albeit a scarred, pill-popping boy) until the day he died. As Jonah Goldberg succinctly put it, Michael Jackson's tragedy was not in the way he died, but in the way he lived. He was undone by the fame, fortune and celebrity which made him, and didn't have the chance to enjoy all that his talent had earned.

My last positive memory of the "King of Pop" came during the fourth grade, when my school put on a musical that concluded with all grades singing "Heal the World." Our music teacher even got one of the girls to dress like Michael Jackson. Lyrically, "Heal the World" is simple fluff and not a particularly complex song. But maybe the world needed a song that could convince them, with Michael's boylike naivete, that "there are people dying, but if you care enough for the living, make a better place for you and for me."

Let's remember those words, and pray that all of the scarring affecting everybody around Michael Jackson can heal.

Not Quite a Falling Domino

2009-06-20T17:54:00.002-05:00

I never thought I’d live to see the day when Iranians lined the streets and challenged the authority of the Supreme Leader. For all my life, Iran has been a hardline Shiite theocracy, descended from the revolution which brought Ayatollah Khomeini to power in 1979. While nobody knows how this standoff will end, the fact that it occurred at all is seemingly miraculous.

What is so different about this Iranian election which has led to so much hostility between the people and the government? For many commentators on the right, the creation of a democratic government in neighboring Iraq could be a factor. It’s an interesting question, but the direct link between Iraqi democracy and Iranian riots can’t be made.

For the Iranian people, there has always been a yearning for freedom and human rights. The rule of the Shah during the 50’s through the 70’s was in many ways a repression of the elections which brought Mohammed Mosaddeq to power. The revolt against the Shah was a popular uprising against his authoritarian government. But like The Who sang in “Won’t Get Fooled Again,” the new boss was the same as the old boss, and the rule of the Supreme Leader became a different flavor of the authoritarianism that the Iranians rejected in 1979.

While the Iranian people have a natural desire for the freedoms of liberal democracy, the actions of the Supreme Leader in reaction to Iraq’s invasion, occupation and rebirth have played a key role in fermenting the riots we see today. The Iranian leadership naturally feared that Iraq would be America’s staging grounds for an attack against Iran’s nuclear sites, and sought to sway the nascent Iraqi state by sponsoring Iraqi Shiite militants. They tied Israel’s hands by instigating another war with Lebanese Hezbollah. The election of a hardliner like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2005 was all but assured by Iran’s Guardian Council when selecting the presidential candidates. For the Guardian Council, they needed a hardliner like Ahmadinejad to project Iranian defiance towards the United States, Israel and the Iraqi factions who opposed a Shiite Islamic government.

The Ahmadinejad presidency bought the Guardian Council some time, but it alienated the Iranian people. It made Iran into an international pariah of Holocaust denial while turning its back on needed economic reforms at home. It’s hard to explain why the Guardian Council would allow a reformer like Mir Hossein Mousavi to run for president against Ahmadinejad in the first place if it wasn’t going to allow him to win under any circumstance. Perhaps elements of the Council want real reform. Perhaps they thought the Iranian people would accept the fraudulent election returns and abandon hope in the reformers. But the Iranian people took the election seriously, and they won’t settle for a fictitious vote tally.

Mir Houssein Mousavi is far from a perfect candidate in the eyes of the west; in many ways he’s still a revolutionary of 1979 vintage, trying to bring the country back in line with the revolution’s ideals. But he supports many needed reforms that would improve the basic liberties of the Iranian people, and it’s hard to see how he could be worse than Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. For a Supreme Leader and Guardian Council who are afraid of a fundamental change in Iranian society, he’s probably the worst enemy they could have imagined.

You say you want a revolution

2009-06-16T22:06:00.002-05:00

It’s been said many a time that the only thing worse than being America’s enemy is being America’s friend. Implicit in that statement is America’s proclivity towards abandoning an ally when it’s been politically convenient to do so. There’s no more apparent case of this than the Kurdish and Shiite uprisings against Saddam Hussein in 1991. President George H.W. Bush told the Iraqis unequivocally that if they were tired of war, they should topple Saddam Hussein. The Iraqis lived up to their end of the bargain, but the administration was afraid of what it would cost to nation-build in post-Saddam Iraq. The US armed forces were ordered by their leaders to helplessly sit on the sidelines while the Republican Guards slaughtered the would-be revolutionaries.

Fast forward to 2009, and the protests of the Iranian people against the rigged election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad are forcing me to recall the bitter memories of 1991. While many western observers hope that we’re witnessing a counter-revolution that rolls back much of Iran’s 1979 revolution, nobody is placing any bets as to how this is going to turn out. The lesson to be taken from recent revolts in Iraq, Serbia, Venezuela and elsewhere is that popular uprisings succeed when the regime’s armed forces choose to sit on the sidelines, or defect to the side of the revolutionaries. The Iraqi uprisings of 1991 were put down because the Iraqi Army and Republican Guards, in spite of the defections in the face of the American onslaught, were able to pull themselves together and reposition their forces to fight the rebels. The fall of Slobodan Milosevic in Serbia can be tied to the Serbian army's refusal to back him in the face of election-related revolts. In order for Iran’s counter-revolution to succeed, they must convince the Revolutionary Guards and regular army to stand down and ignore President Ahmadinejad and the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khameni. At this point it’s too early to tell what will happen on this front. Thus far, the task of dispersing the protests has fallen upon militias and other instruments of the police state short of the Revolutionary Guards or Iranian Army.

President Obama has taken a lot of heat from conservatives who want him to openly support the revolutionaries. They are no doubt going through the flashbacks of 1991 Iraq, as well as Candidate Obama’s epic failure to condemn Russia’s brazen invasion of Georgia last August. I’m certainly sympathetic to their concerns. But an endorsement of the revolutionaries by an American president could de-legitimize their movement. It’s important to remember that the revolution against the Shah in 1979 was not launched out of religious zeal whipped up by Ayatollah Khomeini; it was a backlash against the authoritarian Shah and a perception of excessive American meddling in Iran’s affairs. The Ayatollah Khomeini cunningly harnessed Iranian nationalism and twisted it into support for his theocratic regime. If I were president, I would take a middle ground by expressing grave reservations about the election’s legitimacy, and calling for the UN to investigate.

Battle for the Court

2009-05-26T22:23:00.002-05:00

After weeks of guessing, President Obama laid out his Supreme Court appointment as Sonia Sotomayor. While the appointment is historic as the first Hispanic woman nominated to the nation's highest court, it's also an important test of the Obama judicial philosophy.

It's important to note how the court's nomination hearings have historically proceeded. In recent history, there's been a tendency for many members of the opposition party to show deference to the president and give him the person he appointed to the nation's highest court (with Robert Bork being the exception of a nominee who was scuttled by the opposition party.) The questioning of nominees has avoided questions on how specific issues would be decided by the court, but it has become a forum for determining the temperament and judicial philosophy of the judges.

The most important recent change to the judicial approval process during recent memory was the use of filibusters by Senate Democrats against Bush-appointed judges, leading up to the so-called "nuclear option" and the "Gang of Ten" during Summer 2005. The use of filibusters against judicial candidates had never been exercised before, and it eventually caused leading Republican Senators to consider a change to the chamber's filibuster rules. Eventually cooler heads prevailed, and Senate Democrats agreed that they'd only filibuster in "extreme" cases. President Bush got his judicial nominees, John Roberts and Samuel Alito, approved over the "nay" votes of senators like Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

While some Senate Republicans have been talking of a judicial filibuster long before the new appointee was announced, they clearly don't have the votes to pull it off unless Judge Sotomayor is so radical that she makes a few Democrats balk as well.

And this is where the Obama judicial philosophy comes into play. President Obama believes that "empathy" and "social justice" need to be factored in along with the rule of law by federal judges. In other words, he wholeheartedly believes in an activist, interventionist court that legislates from the bench. And truth be told, no judge is above letting personal biases influence their interpretation of the law (reference Harry Blackmun's statements regarding Roe v. Wade being 'a necessary step towards the liberation of women.') But President Obama is bold enough to admit that he supports judicial activism, the rewriting of agreed-upon laws by an appointed court rather than legislators selected by the voters. The question facing the US Senate is whether Sonia Sotomayor shares in President Obama's radical beliefs. The onus is on the US Senate to find out. Sonia Sotomayor may well be a qualified judge, but the Senate owes the American people a hearing that is neither a Democrat rubber-stamp nor a partisan Republican attempt to curb the tide of Obama-mania.

Barack Obama is George Bush's Third Term

2009-05-17T18:10:00.002-05:00

The title of my post is tongue-in-cheek, but I did want to look at two recent Obama policy decisions which seem to validate that maybe George Bush wasn't as dumb or malicious as his detractors made him out to be.

First we have the issue of detainee abuse photos taken in Iraq and Afghanistan. The ACLU has been seeking these photos for years, and a federal judge ordered their release. "Not so fast," the White House is saying. The president asserts that they will only seek to inflame anti-American sentiment among the world's Muslims. and I agree with him 100%. At a time when Iraq's wounds are finally starting to heal, is there anything to be gained by digging at old scars? The photos don't help anybody, and only serve to reinforce Muslim perceptions that US gleefully tortures and humiliates their people.

Even more controversially, the Obama Administration plans on restarting the military tribunals for captured terrorists that were proposed by the Bush Administration and approved by congress. For years, liberals decried the tribunals as unconstitutional, while ignoring the similar tribunals that arch-liberal Franklin Roosevelt authorized for Nazi saboteurs during World War II. While the Obama tribunals will afford the defendants with more protections than the Bush implementation did, they're still an acknowledgment that certain terrorists captured on the battlefield cannot be tried under US law, but they must be imprisoned indefinitely for the safety of decent people around the world.

Is it ironic that Senator Obama criticized the anti-terror policies (such as military tribunals) that he now supports? It's easy to be critical when you're a Senator from the opposition party. But viewing the world through the eyes of commander-in-chief certainly changes one's perspective.

I disagree with the president on a lot of issues, but on these two I think he's acting strongly and responsibly in his role as commander-in-chief. I hope this is a good sign for his overall strategy for keeping our nation safe, and I support him 100% in this regard.

Keeping them Honest

2009-05-10T23:26:00.003-05:00

When I was reading this MSNBC article about President Obama and congressional Democrats debating plans for healthcare "reform," I was amused to see the phrase "President Barack Obama and many Democrats say a government option would serve as a check to keep the private insurance industry honest."

Let's take that previous statement to its logical conclusion and say that every private industry needs competition from the government to "keep it honest." So we'll get the government providing health insurance, operating banks, generating electricity, and producing automobiles to ensure that the insurance, banking, power and auto industries are "honest" and giving consumers the best product they can. (I hope the irony behind my last statement isn't lost.)

There's a very fundamental problem with this idea. The private sector can never compete with the government. After all, the government doesn't need to charge fair market value for the goods and services it offers. Just leave it up to the taxpayers and the Chinese bankers to eat the shortfall from the operating losses. The corporations at least know that if they mismanage their company or if they're not competitive, the company will go bankrupt and get liquidated (unless you're too big to fail, in which case the White House will shovel a few billion dollars your way and strong-arm your creditors.)

Plenty of room exists for reforming our healthcare system and expanding access for lower-income Americans. But most Americans are satisfied with their health coverage, and the government should avoid any "reforms" which put existing healthcare beneficiaries in jeopardy. A public plan would represent a grave threat to many existing health insurers, and Republicans would be wise to fight it. They probably won't have the votes to filibuster, but they can at least put up a fight that they can run on during future elections.

Hanging by a loophole

2009-05-09T22:06:00.002-05:00

President Obama unleashed a new plan to close corporate tax loopholes this past week. A key provision would end overseas tax shelters that corporations currently use to avoid the tax-man. In effect, this would amount to a corporate tax increase.

In one sense, I agree with the president's moves in the direction of "simplifying" the tax code. I favor a flat-rate tax with no write-offs or deductions. But the president and I differ in that I favor a low flat rate, while the president wants a high flat rate on corporations.

It's important to ask why corporations go through the trouble of creating the overseas tax shelters to begin with. If the corporate tax rate in the US was reasonable, the tax havens wouldn't be worth their time. But with the corporate income tax close to 40%, it's easy to see why corporations exploit every loophole and deduction they can.

President Obama is well-aware of the reasons why corporations exploit loopholes in the tax code. The problem is that he views corporations as his cash-cows for defraying costs associated with healthcare and other ambitious spending plans. If the president isn't careful, his milking of corporate cash-cows will quickly become the slaying of the golden goose.

Water-bored

2009-05-05T21:12:00.005-05:00

Self-flagellation seems to be a uniquely American trait. President Obama has it in spades, using his first hundred days to apologize to the nation and the world for what he views as the mistakes of his predecessor. Nowhere is this more apparent than his condemnation of “torture” against enemy combatants at Gitmo and elsewhere. The focus has been placed on waterboarding, a practice used against three high-ranking al Qaeda leaders to make them believe they were drowning and coerce them into divulging info. Furthermore, the Obama Administration is treading a dangerous line by threatening to prosecute Bush Administration attorneys who approved the “enhanced” interrogation techniques.

As Americans, we must ask ourselves three questions. First, is waterboarding a form of torture? If that is true, we must then ask whether torture is ever justified. Finally, if we are going to resort to torture as a means of interrogation, is waterboarding the most effective method? International laws on torture do not name specific practices, so the definition is by its very nature subjective. Yet I think most Americans could reasonably call waterboarding a form of torture.

The much thornier issue is whether torture is ever justified. President Obama, having gained great insight into interrogation during his years as a lawyer, legislator and community organizer, assures us that we can get good intel from interrogations without resorting to torture. (That last line was sarcasm, folks.) This has prompted Dick Cheney to call for the release of memos which dispute the assertion, claiming that Khalid Sheik Mohammed only divulged details of the 9/11 follow-on plot after being waterboarded. Former CIA director George Tenet has also defended the intelligence value of the practice. Even a liberal civil rights attorney like Alan Dershowitz has argued that, in cases where a terrorist attack is imminent, interrogators should be able to secure presidential permission to use a regulated form of torture to extract information.

A vast majority of Americans aren’t afraid to resort to torture if they have reason to believe it will prevent an imminent terrorist attack. Heuristic evidence of this runs on our televisions every Monday night. Jack Bauer is not afraid to use torture if it’s the only way to protect his country. It may not be the main reason why Americans are so fascinated with “24,” but it’s a big part of who Jack Bauer is. He ignores the bureaucrats and the politicians to get the job done and defend America.

So if Americans really believe that torture is justified to prevent an imminent terrorist attack, is waterboarding the best solution to the problem? I am not an expert, and I'm agnostic on the question. Neither is President Obama and expert, and I doubt he's asked for the opinions of a wide variety of psychiatrists to get their professional opinion. The White House and Congress have a duty to investigate this by seeking multiple professional opinions, and to exercise oversight over the FBI, CIA and other government agencies to ensure that only the most effective interrogation methods are used.

An even bigger issue is whether the justice department will prosecute officials who approved “enhanced interrogation techniques,” or turn them over to international officials who want to prosecute Americans on torture charges. This is an extremely dangerous precedent, because it represents an unprecedented prosecution of executive branch officials for differences in policy. The American system is built on the belief that revolutions take place peacefully through elections. Prosecuting Bush administration lawyers is tantamount to Che Guevara butchering the supporters of the Batista regime after the Cuban revolution. It will only lead to an unending cycle of reciprocity every time the White House changes from one party to another. Didn't President Obama claim that he wanted to move forward and not dwell on the past?

Ultimately, the prosecution of people who were acting in good faith to protect our nation will have a chilling effect on anybody involved in the frontlines of protecting the United States from terrorism. Few people will act decisively to protect America when the attorney general is threatening to put you on trial, or hand you over to an interventionist judge in Spain.

The Obama position on torture ultimately sends a dangerous message to everybody who seeks to kill Americans and destroy our way of life. The United States will not pursue you to the utmost of its ability, and we will not do everything in our power to ensure that we’re never attacked again. If Americans are slaughtered in terrorist attacks, it will be cold-comfort to tell their grieving families, "Don't worry, at least we didn't torture anybody before your loved ones were murdered."

He's Exactly Who He Said He Was

2009-05-01T21:14:00.002-05:00

Amidst the media jubilation over the first 100 days in the Obama presidency, it’s important for all Americans to review their commander-in-chief’s performance and accomplishments. Looking back provides a clearer picture of the direction in which our country is heading. In that regard, a lot of people are going to be disappointed.

During the run-up to the election, many disillusioned conservatives and Republicans threw their support behind Candidate Obama in the belief that he would govern as a centrist in the mold of Bill Clinton. While I never bought this line of reasoning during the election, I started to fall for it during the period of time when the president-elect was picking people for his cabinet. But 100 days into the presidency, it’s clear that President Obama is exactly the same person he said he was during the campaign. Usually it’s good to stay true to your word, but in this case it’s almost scary that he believes in his own vapid campaign rhetoric.

The Obama campaign won a lot of people over with nebulous promises of “hope” and “change.” But astute political observers could hear Candidate Obama speaking about “spreading the wealth” and global warming and big-government solutions on healthcare. People who crunched the numbers could tell that even with tax increases and an Iraq withdrawal, there was no way Obama could balance the budget due to the untold billions he was planning to spend. But rational thought rarely plays a role in presidential politics. Barack Obama was elected, and he’s now expected to deliver on his promises to be “everything to everbody.”

The first 100 days have not been as dramatic as those of Franklin Rooselevelt, but the consequences will nevertheless be felt for generations to come. The stimulus package, budget bill and extension of TARP ensure that it will be a long time before we see a balanced budget again. The announcement of Gitmo’s imminent closure has left Attorney General Eric Holder scrambling around Europe, trying to get our allies to take potentially-dangerous detainees off our hands (nevermind the issue of detainees who still pose a clear and present danger to the United States.)

The next 100 days will bring even more change, although “hope” will be hard to come by. Card-check legislation (effectively ending secret-ballot union elections,) the cap & trade tax, a renewed assault weapons ban, and a government-backed healthcare plan (which will compete with private insurance) are all up for consideration in Congress. The President also gets to pick a new supreme court justice to replace David Souter. All of these votes will resonate across the American political spectrum for decades.

The hope for a centrist Obama was destroyed due to the overwhelming control the Democrats enjoy in the House and Senate. Senate Republicans need to face facts: Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins aren’t reliable votes, and the Republicans effectively have only 38 senators. Without any filibuster power, Republicans can’t do a thing to stop any Obama legislation unless they can raise enough doubt among Senate Democrats to get 41 votes for filibuster. President Obama is intoxicated with the illusion that his electoral victory is a mandate for drastic change. That’s not too different from George W. Bush in early 2005, but the key here is that there’s no practical reason President Obama needs to compromise with Republicans on anything. He can get his bills passed without a single Republican vote. And due to the country’s shifting demographics and political mood, the electoral map still favors a Democrat majority in the Senate after the 2010 elections.

The next four or eight years will certainly be ones of change. But if you’re a supporter of fiscal discipline and constitutional government, hope will be hard to come by.

I See Your Specter Has Turned

2009-04-29T00:43:00.003-05:00

A witty line uttered by James Bond to his nemesis Emilio Largo during a game of chermin de fer in the film Thunderball is a pretty good summary of today's political defection. Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Spector has left the Republican party and is now caucusing with the Democrats.

If Specter's official statement is credible, he feels that the party has moved too far to the right and abandoned him in the center. On certain social issues his argument is valid, seeing as how Specter has never been one of the social conservatives and never drew common cause with the so-called "religious right." At the same time, Arlen Specter has brazenly offended the fiscal conservatives and libertarian-leaning Republicans through his deference to the Obama budget and "stimulus" package. Should we consider Repoublican resistance to trillion-dollar defecits a sign that the party has moved too far too the right? Apparently Arlen Specter thinks so. Multi-generational theft and corporate welfare are now considered "moderate" and "centrist" in the new political parlance.

Arlen Specter has given Senate Democrats a filibuster-proof majority (with Al Franken's victory in Minnesota all but assured.) But is that any change from the status quo? Specter stood with Susan Collins, Olympia Snowe, and the Senate Democrats in supporting the stimulus package. Arlen Specter was never a reliable Republican vote, nor has he ever been a staunch supporter of fiscal discipline or limited government.

The Specter defection boils down to one thing" re-election. In 2010, Arlen Specter would have faced a stiff challenge from conservative Republican Pat Toomey. The same battle took place in 2004, and Specter needed President Bush's support to squeeze out a tight victory. With Specter's leftward shift, there's no way he could have beaten Toomey in 2010. The change in caucuses assures that Pat Toomey would run as the Republican challenger against Specter (as either a Democrat or Independent. But it's unlikely the Dems would run anybody against an independent Specter to avoid splitting the vote.)

If Republicans want to gain abck seats in 2010 and 2012, they need to bury their socially-conservative past. Instead, they must embrace a common-sense message of limited government and balanced budgets, framed in a way that appeals to most Americans. There are signs the Republicans are starting to recognize this, although the American public has yet to comprehend the imminent dangers of Obama economic policies. Arlen Specter was never part of that solution, and the Republican party is better off without him. Good riddance to yet another big-spending, corporatist political hack.

GM: Government Motors

2009-04-28T20:29:00.003-05:00

This past week has given the American people adrmatic glimpse of the future for the domestic auto industry. General Motors is ending the Pontiac brand after 83 years of production, laying off 21,000 workers, and perhaps most importantly, may see the $13+ Billion it's received from the US government turn into an ownership stake in the company.

The story isn't much different at Chrysler. After taking billions in bailout cash from the feds, the smallest of the Big Three is scrambling to meet the government's April 30 deadline for restructuring so it can get more bailout money. Chrysler's creditors will likely accept a pittance in exchange for the debt. The United Auto Workers will likely own 55% of Chrysler while Fiat will take another 35%, leaving just a sliver open to the public (assuming the government doesn't buy the remaining 10%.)

And for all the government intervention, all the taxpayer-funded life support, and all of the restructuring, there's still a very good chance that at least one of the two auto companies will still undergo a surgical bankruptcy. And all this time, the government (particularly the president and house speaker) have been telling us how unfathomable a bankruptcy would be.

The dropping of brands like Pontiac shouldn't be surprising. After all, the 1980's marked a shift from distinct brands to "badge engineering," where a Pontiac G6 was a Chevy Malibu was a Saturn Aura. The car was the same, the sheet metal and name were different. Layoffs shouldn't be surprising either. They're an inevitable yet painful part of any slowdown in production.

What's really different here (although not surprising in light of the current president and congress) is the degree of government intervention. The White House essentially fired GM CEO Rick Wagoner. The government may soon own a good chunk of GM. The government is essentially controlling the fate of Chrysler with all of its stipulations on bailout money. And part of that manipulation is making the United Auto Workers (who have yet to make serious concessions to make their companies more competitive,) the majority-owners of Chrysler. And the government can justify this abuse of power to the people by claiming that bankruptcy is intolerable when in fact it may be inevitable.

The government will soon own GM and it's already calling much of the shots. The "proletariat" will soon own a majority of Chrysler. In spite of the rhetoric about those evil "corporatist" Republicans, it's our Democrat President and congress who are melding corporate and government power. Is this much different from Soviet Russia where the people supposedly owned thje means of production? Is this different from Mussolini's "syndicates" where the corporation and the goverenment were inseparable from each other? In spite of the Republican party's flaws, at least they pay lip-service to the idea of free markets and letting economics, not an interventionist government, decides who wins and loses in business.

But I Don't Want to be a Pirate!

2009-04-13T19:19:00.002-05:00

Whether Americans realize it or not, this past week's engagement between the US Navy and Somali pirates is the opening salvo in a long-term war against high-seas piracy.

I've seen several media outlets heaping praise upon President Obama's handling of the situation. The reality is that the choice in this instance was pretty cut-and-dry, and that future battles on the high seas will truly put the president to the test. The pirate standoff lasted far longer than it needed to. Lethal force should have been authorized from the get-go, as long as the safety of hostage Richard Phillips could be assured during the operation. The US government should never entertain the option of paying a ransom to criminals such as the Somali pirates.

Because pirates are not lawful combatants under the Geneva Conventions, the status of the captured pirate creates the first test of the Obama Administration’s post-Gitmo policy towards detained combatants. The federal courts in New York and Washington are both fighting to put the surviving pirate on trial, with Kenyan courts remaining an option.

The rise of piracy in the waters off the coast of Africa represents no less than another front in the Global War on Terrorism (or whatever the Obama Administration is currently calling it.) There is no doubt that Somali pirates will declare war against American vessels after three pirates were killed by Navy snipers this weekend. The inevitable US Navy response to increased piracy will be increased patrols against pirate vessels. More incidents like the one this past week will surely follow, and American casualties will be inevitable. But this standoff is the inevitable result of shipping companies who have been too willing to pay ransoms, incentivizing piracy in a country that has known only warfare and stark poverty for most of its history. Ultimately the US may need to readdress the failed state that is Somalia to solve the underlying issues that are driving the recent trends in piracy.

If this seems like history repeating, that’s because it is. The new war against the Somali pirates has many historical parallels with Thomas Jefferson’s war against the Barbary Pirates. We can only hope President Obama has the same resolve in his first major test as commander-in-chief.

Death on a Tree, Life from a Tomb

2009-04-12T19:42:00.002-05:00

I wanted to wish my readership a Happy Easter and briefly talk about some of the stories published this week about the "historical Jesus." For the skeptics of basic Christian theology, the rather shocking revelations about the historical Jesus represent some kind of tangible discrediting of Christianity. As a believer, I don't view the "historical Jesus" as a contradiction of the Gospel message. The Gospels serve as a record of Jesus's words and deeds. The historical Jesus has often been contradicted by the societal norms followed by Christian groups over time, but it doesn't invalidate the message of love preached by Jesus of Nazareth. If all people took the lead of Jesus, we could build a more just and humane society.

It was interesting to read that within the Roman Empire, crucifixion was a rare punishment, reserved for those revolutionaries who threatened the empire. It was also considered the greatest humiliation that the state could mete out to an individual. Does that mean the crucifixion story was a fabrication of gospel writers who needed to sell the faith to a Jewish community that sought a militant leader? Could the Pharisees & Saducees have framed Jesus as a militant leader when presenting their case to Pontius Pilate? I think a strong case can be made for the latter. After all, the inscription on the crucifix charged Jesus for declaring himself "King of the Jews."

The irony of Jesus's story is that Jesus truly was a revolutionary, not one of swords and shields but able to win hearts and minds nonetheless. Christianity overcame the Roman Empire slowly but steadily, validating the faith of the believers in the early church. As a Christian, it serves as a further reminder that Jesus was truly God became man, word becoming flesh. Not only did he humbly subject himself to human suffering, but he chose the most humiliating death of all. For the masses who were not sold on the teachings of Jesus, they may have viewed the crucifixion as the repudiation of yet another false messiah in a Jewish community that desperately sought one. Yet somehow the Christian message perservered in spite of the humiliation, in spite of the persecution. To me, that's not a coincidence of a messianic cult's success. The spread of Christianity is validation of what C.S. Lewis called "the true myth." Christianity beat the odds and beat the Roman Empire. That's all I need to justify my faith.

The Afghan Strategy

2009-03-28T13:57:00.002-05:00

President Obama unveiled his strategy for Afghanistan yesterday, promising more troops, more aid, and a growing realization that Pakistan will be key to Afghanistan's stability. On the surface, the strategy is promising, especially from the perspective that the US must win "hearts and minds" by improving the lives of the Afghan people in one of the world's poorest countries.

At the same time, the strategy isn't fundamentally different from the Bush strategy towards Afghanistan. The number of troops and amount of foreign aid may be higher, but the basic blueprint is the same. For those reasons, I don't expect the Obama strategy for Afghanistan to have much different results from the previous approach. As long as America's hands are tied when dealing with Pakistan, the Taliban and al Qaeda will maintain safe havens from which to mount offensives against the US and its dwindling number of NATO ally forces.

At the opposite end of the spectrum is the approach endorsed by Michael Scheuer in his 2004 book Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing its War on Terror. The former head of the CIA's bin Laden Unit believed (and presumably still believes) that the Afghan people would quickly grow tired of American occupation and resist our attempts to nation-build. He suggested leaving the Taliban in power and instead waging an intense and focused campaign against al Qaeda and the terrorist who are directly involved in plots to attack America. Scheuer's ruthless and scorched-earth approach to counter-terrorism would presumably include offensives into the frontier areas of Pakistan, without the sanction of Pakistan's government. The Scheuer approach certainly has its problems, such as the question of what the Taliban would do to resist if the Americans suddenly showed up in Afghanistan to root out its al Qaeda backers. It also leaves unresolved the question of preventing al Qaeda's resurgence after the US declares victory and heads home.

The relative popularity of militant movements like al Qaeda in the Islamic world has roots in many cultural factors, including the belief in Sharia law's superiority over secular law, the rampant poverty that exists throughout much of the Islamic world, the failed autocrats who have mismanaged their countries, and feelings of victimization extending from the Crusades to the British protectorate to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and ultimately to America's growing involvement in middle eastern affairs. These problems all need to be corrected, and a punitive expedition like the one advocated by Michael Scheuer will not fix them.

America and the rest of the world need to recognize that Afghanistan and Pakistan will remain multi-generational problems that cannot be solved during a single president's term. The Bush Administration got many things right in Afghanistan, particularly during the initial military operations which wrested the major cities from the Taliban. But it failed to recognize how much was needed of the non-military instruments of national power to prevent the Taliban's return. The Obama approach deserves a chance, and America's allies need to be more supportive with manpower, money, and the other resources required for nation-building.

If Afghanistan can be fixed at all, the difficulty of this challenge will make Iraq look like a cakewalk by comparison. But the world cannot forget the horrors of the 9/11 attacks of the past, and the carnage yet to come if we should fail.

Random Thoughts on a Drinking Holiday

2009-03-17T20:07:00.004-05:00

Before I spend the evening with my obligatory glass of Guinness and "The Boondock Saints," I needed to clear my head of some thoughts that have been rattling around. It's best that I commit them to the electronic medium now before I drink to forget them.

Payback, Obama-Style
President Obama is taking a lot of heat all-around based on the recent round of executive bonuses granted by AIG. Congressional Dems are already looking to recoup those bonuses through proposed taxes. And Americans are right to get angry about these "rewards for failure" being underwritten with taxpayer dollars. But that's the inherent problem with government bailouts of private industry. When the people are funding an institution, the people should have a say. Once the government start buying shares in the banks, it starts slip-sliding down the slope to, I daresay, socialism. In this case, a bank bailout is the first step towards possible nationalization of the banks. I would prefer that we not have to prop up zombie banks with taxpayer dollars at all. But the Great Depression's ghost still haunts us with the specter of too many bank collapses pushing us into an intractable economic morass.

Why address the problem when you can make fat jokes?
Conservative radio talker Laura Ingraham is taking on Meghan McCain (yes, John McCain's foxy daughter) and making snide comments about her weight. And it's all because Meghan McCain speaks the truth about the problems facing the Republican party. How dare somebody point out that Republicans have lost touch with younger voters, and failed to make the case that limited government can benefit them as much as it does all Americans? Heaven forbid that somebody remind Republicans that they need to make a concerted effort to use all organs of the "new media" (including You Tube, social networking sites, weblogs, and online fundraising) to get the message out and to mobilize Republican voters. Meghan McCain is not some leftist troll trying to destroy the Republicans. She criticizes out of a sense of "tough love" for the party. If anything, Meghan McCain has her finger on the pulse of young voters, and conservative Republicans would be wise to accept her criticism in a constructive fashion. If they lash out and denigrate her as Laura Ingraham recently did, they live in denial of the problems dragging the Grand Old Party down. Unless drastic changes are made during the next three years, Republicans can guarantee an Obama landslide in 2012 and the possibility of a Biden run in 2016.

"He Deserves His Silence"
Former president George W. Bush recently said that President Obama 'deserves silence' from his predecessor. The lack of criticism from our former commander-in-chief is refreshing. The old precedent was for preceding presidents to maintain a respectful silence towards the decisions of the man currently holding the highest office in the land. That all changed during the presidency of the oft-reviled GWB, when Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter felt no inhibitions towards undercutting the decisions made by the man holding their former position. And even President Ford had his criticisms which were made in private, although the media had no compunction about airing them publicly after the former president had passed away.

For a man reviled as "Chimpy McBush-Hitler," it's refreshing to see him honorably try to return to the old precedents and, in a dignified way, let the current president get on with his job. George W. Bush, for all his flaws, knows how difficult it is to be "the man in the arena" and take accountability for the tough decisions facing our nation.

The treason of Rush Limbaugh? President Obama’s search for a new bogeyman

2009-02-03T21:47:00.003-05:00

The first major political battle during the Obama Administration appears to be a shouting match of the most juvenile variety.

In one corner we have Rush Limbaugh. A fixture in right-wing talk radio since 1988, Rush is no stranger to controversy. If nothing else, he revels in it. Like so many other talking heads, he runs his mouth to gain attention and boost ratings.

Perhaps President Obama didn’t get the memo, because he’s calling on congressional Republicans to “quit listening to Rush” and support his so-called stimulus bill. But by making Rush Limbaugh into his new bogeyman, President Obama will quickly learn that resisting the radio talker will only make Rush stronger.

Already the word “treason” is being used by left-wing commentators in regards to Rush Limbaugh. He has said that he wants President Obama to fail, in the context that he thinks the Obama agenda will ruin America. Again, it’s another example of Rush coming up with a phrase that will generate maximum controversy (and ratings.) But it’s enough to get Rush branded as a traitor. Limbaugh’s critics probably believe that any opposition to the “stimulus” bill is treasonous because the alternative (in their view) is the second coming of the Great Depression.

The word “treason” is flung around too readily in modern America. For the right, opposition to Bush foreign policy is treason. But now the left thinks that it’s treasonous to oppose the Obama Cult of Personality. Perhaps it’s time to cool the rhetoric and realize that there’s a good reason why treason is the only crime defined in the US Constitution. If prosecutors couldn’t nail John Walker Lindh for treason, it’s clear that very little falls within that narrow definition.

For Rush Limbaugh, the battle with the Obama Administration is a personal one. Rush’s success can be attributed to Reagan-era policies at the FCC which eliminated the arbitrary “Fairness Doctrine,” where the government decreed “equal time” for opposing viewpoints. But Nancy Pelosi wants to bring this doctrine back, and it will be a big blow to Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and other titans of right-wing radio (including some whom I happen to admire, like libertarian Larry Elder.) While President Obama opposes the original “Fairness Doctrine,” he has expressed support for forcing more “local” programming onto radio stations, thus crowding out the nationally-syndicated broadcasters. While the “big dogs” like Rush & Hannity will likely survive any moves towards “Localism” in talk radio, the second-tier syndicated talkers will probably see their audiences crumble. But Rush is bringing attention to the issue now, and any moves on the part of the administration to regulate the content of talk radio will be cast as a personal vendetta between President Obama & Rush Limbaugh.

In fairness to Rush, he seems to have a better understanding of bipartisanship than Barack Obama does. Rush reasons that, if Barack won 54% of the popular vote, then 54% of the stimulus money should be spent on the social programs and pork-barrel spending requested by Democrats. But the 46% that John McCain won should go towards tax incentives to get people spending money again. The Obama approach to bipartisanship has been to guilt-trip Republicans into supporting a pork-heavy bill, while offering up childish gloats such as “We won.” In spite of the rhetoric from the left, there are plenty of alternatives to the current stimulus bill that will be far more effective than the current package. The worst course of action isn’t inaction; rather, the wrong action may be far worse.

As it currently stands, the Republican party is weaker now than at any other time in my life. There isn’t even a standard-bearer, as Mitch McConnell and John Boehner try to rally opposition in Congress, Michael Steele tries to get the RNC back in order, and Sarah Palin & Bobby Jindal prepare for possible White House runs in 2012 or later. If nothing else, Barack Obama’s vilification of Rush Limbaugh is giving marginalized conservatives a face they can rally around.

My words of advice to a young president who has about as much time in federal service as I do: try making some concessions and work towards a genuine compromise. And don’t pay too much attention to Rush Limbaugh, because you’re only giving him what he wants.

American Gladiators: A Super Bowl 43 Preview

2009-01-31T20:42:00.001-05:00

In my mind, there’s nothing more cathartic than Super Bowl Sunday. It’s ironic that I should feel this way, because I’m generally deterred by overblown spectacle and hype; the Super Bowl epitomizes all of those things. But my fascination with pro football transcends any interest I have in other sports. I think that the storylines and drama of the NFL, which occur both on and off the field, compel me to take interest in whatever football game is playing at the time—even if my beloved Chicago Bears aren’t playing.

Personally, I'm pulling for the Cardinals in this game. It doesn't hurt that my great-grandfather was a fan of the Chicago Cardinals. He claimed that the wrong football team left town fifty years ago. In the years since then, the Bears have put together many dismal seasons during which I might have agreed with him, had not the St. Louis, Phoenix and Arizona incarnations of his team been even more pathetic on the playing field than the hapless Bears. So the Cardinals are my sentimental favorite. It doesn't hurt any that I'm spiting President Obama, Vice President Biden, and Steelers owner Dan Rooney (an early Republican defector to the Obama candidacy) by opposing the Steelers.

For Super Bowl 43, we have the Cardinals playing to win their first championship since they were the Chicago Cardinals in 1947. Coach Ken Whisenhunt is looking for “revenge” against his old team, the Steelers, for passing him over when looking for a new head coach. Kurt Warner is leading a second team into the Super Bowl after every other team had given up on him. Larry Fitzgerald, the Cardinals’ seemingly-unstoppable wide receiver, is playing in the big game while his father watches from the sidelines as an objective sports journalist. The Steelers’ Hines Ward, MVP of Super Bowl 40, expects to play in spite of injury. His team’s quarterback, Ben Roethlissberger, also has a grudge against Ken Whisenhunt for comments he made about Roethlissberger’s motorcycle accident affecting his performance during the 2006 season.

Maybe all of the grudges are fabrications, and the storylines for this game are overwrought. But they add to the spectacle of compelling entertainment. It’s the modern equivalent to the Roman Circus Maximus, where cheering the gladiators and watching the lions feast on the Christians was enough to distract the people from the problems of a corrupt, crumbling empire and a fiddling emperor. I say “bring on the game,” and let our nation enjoy a cathartic moment together.

EDIT: I have been informed by an erudite friend (and probably the only person who regularly reads this blog) that Circus Maximus was primarily the site of chariot races, while the Colusseum and other venues played host to gladiators and lions. In spite of the historical error, the point is still relevent: we Americans need our spectacles and entertainment. Now bring on the Super Bowl!

A Not-So-Shiny New Eco-Economy

2009-01-29T20:29:00.002-05:00

Recently the radio waves have been filled with advertisements for “Cap and Dividend,” promoting “a new economy” that’s better for our environment. It sounds so wonderful based on the clueless guy who gets all the details from the female narrator about how Cap & Dividend will make his life so much better without any drawbacks. I mean, the repetitive “cha-CHING!” sounds stand as testimony to all the money Americans will make from the carbon cap & trade plan.

Behind the glittering generalities of the radio spot is the cold truth: the only thing new about a cap & trade economy is that environmentalism is the new justification for old, failed policies of income redistribution from a handful of wealthy individuals and corporations. Populist politicians can get behind this because they’re buying the support of a larger constituency comprised of the middle and lower classes. On the surface, it may seem like a good idea that corporations have to buy unused carbon credits from average-Joe Americans. But corporations aren’t producing carbon for carbon’s sake. They produce carbon dioxide because it’s the byproduct of the goods and services Americans require. As long as the need exists, the carbon dioxide will be produced. While a "Cap & Dividend" system might encourage a look at alternative energy, the free market still favors traditional forms of energy as cheaper than the alternatives. The net effect of “cap and dividend” will be an across-the-board increase in the cost of services and consumer goods to compensate for the carbon credits that have to be purchased.

If America was serious about fighting carbon dioxide, maybe it would get serious about promoting the spread of nuclear power as a carbon-free source of energy. But Democrat administrations have opposed nuclear fuel reprocessing since the days of Jimmy Carter; Barack Obama opposes safe storage of spent nuclear fuel at Yucca Mountain. So much for “change we can believe in” on energy policy.

The Big Gamble on Compact Cars

2009-01-21T20:25:00.002-05:00

Fiat is acquiring a 35% stake in Chrysler in a cashless transaction. The fact that the nation’s third-biggest automaker is giving away over a third of itself to an Italian firm would probably shock most Americans if they were aware of what was going on. While Fiat isn’t bringing any cash to the table right now (aside from retooling at plants where Chrysler produces small cars,) the Italian automaker’s business plans may be able to contribute to the long-term recovery of Chrysler. Moreover, it puts an ironic twist on Cerberus Capital Management’s acquisition of the company roughly 18 months ago in a bid to rebuild the struggling auto maker before selling it off.

For American automakers, the profit model has relied on high markups on large vehicles like trucks and Jeeps, while smaller automobiles make little or no profit for the manufacturer. Perhaps Fiat’s respected auto models will be able to turn a profit in the US under the Chrysler brand. Conversely, Fiat could find a bigger market for the most respected elements of the Chrysler business (Dodge trucks and Jeeps) in Europe and other markets where Fiat’s sales are strong.

Fiat is putting itself at great risk, banking on the belief that Americans will be drawn to small cars, and that Chrysler can change its business model to make a profit off them. It would be easier for Fiat to build its existing cars and sell them under the Chrysler name, even though this would lead to the shutdown of several Chrysler plants and the layoffs of most employees who worked there. In the near-term, gasoline is at historic lows and the small-car boom hasn't materialized. But this isn't a long term trend, and Fiat's gamble may pay off if the company can wait patiently for a few years.

A World Without Glass Ceilings

2009-01-19T14:24:00.003-05:00

Today a nation remembers civil rights leader Martin Luther King and his work on behalf of bringing racial equality to a nation with a past of deep-seeded scars. Tomorrow it inaugurates Barack Obama as its 44th president, and its first president of African ancestry.

The inauguration of Barack Obama is a moment that many Americans believed they'd never see. The hope that many citizens placed in the American system is tainted by the pervasive belief that American society is inherently unfair to non-whites, and that they will always be held back in some way from achieving their full potential. Seeing Barack Obama take the oath of office will hopefully serve as a dramtic symbol that the most significant glass ceiling has been shattered. From this moment on, all Americans should feel inspired to pursue their dreams, undeterred by fears of an unjust society.

The value of seeing the presidential inauguration should reinforce the fundamental trait of American government: that revolutions can take place without a shot being fired, and the people out-of-power can pledge their allegiance to the new government. That was Rev. King's message all along, and tomorrow represents the fulfillment of a significant part of his dream.

From the perspective of a person who did not vote for Barack Obama, I hope that the next administration will bring a new civility to Washington, where people can debate ideas based on their merits and not make things personal. I appreciate the efforts the president-elect has made to forge concensus, and I hope that the centrist track he has taken on many of his cabinet selections will guide his time in office. I pray for our new president's success and will support him in any way that ensures America's prosperity.

News Tidbits

2009-01-17T00:23:00.002-05:00

Bitter Clingers
In his recent Newsweek piece, Daniel Gross argues that George Will and Amity Shlaes "bitterly cling" to the notion that the New Deal didn't work. An ironic choice of words, in light of Barack Obama's speech from last year about people who are "bitter" about their economic condition and "cling" to guns & religion.

But in a bigger sense, I have to ask whether Mr. Gross even bothered reading Ms. Shlaes's book on the New Deal, The Forgotten Man. The book isn't perfect, but it lays out a compelling case that the crash of 1929 became the Great Depression due to Herbert Hoover's tariff & tax policies. The Roosevelt administration wisely repealed the Hawley-Smoot Tariff, but it only compounded the failings of Hoover tax policy. Further, it made the situation worse by continuously experimenting with the monetary policy and by encouraging industry collusion with the National Industrial Recovery Act. The Depression was prolonged, and even led to the depression-within-a-depression of 1937. While the onset of World War II helped to end the Depression, it was also the onset of stability in monetary policy which helped America to recover.

While most Americans are convinced we're in the current economic crisis due to a failure of the government to regulate, there are those (including yours truly) who feel that excessive regulation (i.e., the Community Reinvestment Act) helped to get us here. The voices of economic libertarians should be no less valid now than when the economy was strong.

Casey at the Bat
Bob Woodward tries to cull lessons from the Bush presidency in a recent Washington Post op-ed. While Woodward had unprecedented access to the Bush White House, that doesn't mean all of his conclusions were valid. He uses General George Casey as an authority on how the president didn't understand the situation in Iraq. It should be noted that General Casey was commander of US forces over a span of over 2.5 years in which the situation deteriorated out of control. It should be kept in mind that General Casey, looking to protect his own image and legacy, can't be expected to deliver an account of events devoid of spin. What efforts did General Casey make to keep the president educated about the situation? Without corroborating witnesses, it's tough to judge.

We Are the Champions?
Rep. Edolphus Towns wants college football to adopt a playoff system, ensuring there is only one undisputed champion of college football. Barack Obama once made the same pledge. It's a good idea with which many fans agree. Take the top eight or top twelve (perhaps top sixteen) teams and force a playoff to ensure no ambiguity over the championship. But the government shouldn't be mandating what college football should be doing to crown its king. Due to the money involved in college sports, the Bowl Championship Series has been cemented as a New Years' tradition. There will have to be an argument made to the BCS host sites that a playoff system will net them more money, while still preserving the traditional conference rivalries that have been present during college bowl games.

Bowing to Blago

2009-01-07T20:02:00.002-05:00

The US Senate is poised to accept the nomination of Roland Burris to fill the vacant Senate seat of Barack Obama. In doing so, they are legitimizing the waning authority of Illinois's embattled governor, Rod Blagojevich.

It's hard to imagine that Roland Burris actually traded influence, favors or money for the Senate seat. He's an accomplished civil servant with a long history in Illinois politics, and he's certainly qualified to be a Senator. The problem is that his appointment comes from a disgraced governor with zero credibility. Rod Blagojevich has zero friends or allies in the state government. Even the most loyal Democrats have turned their back on him.

The biggest strike against Roland Burris is that he didn't have the good sense to say no to Governor Blago. Perhaps the allure of a Senate seat was too strong, but he shouldn't have affirmed the power of an indicted governor to appoint a Senator. He should have had the good sense to turn the nomination down, and he should have added his voice to the chorus of Blagojevich opponents in Illinois. The taint of Rod Blagojevich and scandal will always loom like a cloud over Roland Burris. If he wanted a Senate seat, he should have waited to petition Lt Governor Pat Quinn once he takes over following the governor's impeachment.

It's impossible to tell if Roland Burris will make for a good Senator, of if he will win election in his own right. But his appointment will likely be the final act of Rod Blagojevich as Illinois governor.

Gotham

2008-12-17T23:44:00.002-05:00

While I take these reports with a hefty grain of salt, it appears that Eddie Murphy will play Riddler in the next Batman film, tentatively titled Gotham. Other rumors include the inclusion of Catwoman and Robin as characters.

I like the Riddler character and I definitely look forward to Christopher Nolan's dark twist on him. But I have to question whether a comedic actor like Eddie Murphy will be too lighthearted for the tone that Christopher Nolan wants to set. Joker worked so well because his insane, gleeful sadism channeled the evil clowns such as Sweet Tooth, It, John Gacy, and Doink. It's easy to envision Eddie Murphy playing Riddle more like Frank Gorshin.

Many Batman fans love to hate Robin. He takes away from the brooding tone of the Batman series, they say, and he's forever ruined by visions of Burt Ward in short-shorts. But I happen to disagree with these bat-fans. While the Robin character has been mishandled in the past, he can work into the Chris Nolan universe if he conforms to the archtype of the squire to the dark knight, the hero-in-training. Initially unsure of himself, and often clashing with his mentor, he gains experience through many tests of his character. Only gradually does he earn the status of a true hero.

I'm enthusiastic about Robin but less so about Catwoman. It stems from a leeriness over too many characters in a film, leaving precious little screen time to develop all of them. It ruined Octopussy and Spider-Man 3, and it could ruin Gotham. Christopher Nolan would be wise to stick with two new major characters and make them really memorable.

Bankruptcy of the Fiscal and Moral Varieties

2008-12-06T13:56:00.002-05:00

When Barack Obama is sworn in as president, the first item on Congress's agenda will likely be the bailout of the big three American auto manufacturers. Listening to GM CEO Rick Wagoner would give the impression that seeing any of the big three go bankrupt would be the apocalypse. Nancy Pelosi has promised that Congress will not let Detroit fail. Barack Obama has expressed willing ness in spending up to $50 billion on bailing out Detroit, which is double the amount that auto manufacturers have begged from Congress. Ford CEO Alan Mullaly is making the generous offer to waive his salary--but only if he can extort $25 billion for Ford from the American taxpayer.

With the worsening of the credit crisis, America is entering an economic system that Jonah Goldberg has described as "liberal fascist economics." Simply put, the government picks the winners and losers. Government tries to control the industry, and industry exercises an undue influence over government. It resembles Mussolini's implementation of the syndicate, mergine government and corporate power until there is no distinction between the two.

In spite of the rhetoric, bankruptcy will not be the end of the world for Detroit. If nothing else, it could spell a rebirth for a mismanaged industry that is too broken to make effective use of any bailout dollars it received.

Why is Detroit in such dire straits? It boils down to a glut of unattractive cars that consumers don't want, excess factories that are outdated, and union agreements that create unsustainable benefits packages while limiting productivity. The problem does not lie with American labor, per se. Firms like Toyota, Honda and Hyndai are doing just fine with American production of most cars that are sold in America. But the Asian manufacturers stay successful with well-engineered cars that Americans want, and they employ non-UAW employees at their American factories.

A government bailout would allow Congress to dictate the terms of survival for Detroit, while allowing Rick Wagoner and Alan Mullaly to continue their failed policies which make their companies so unprofitable. Congressional Democrats, union bosses, and auto manufacturer management are too proud to embrace bankruptcy. Nonetheless, bankruptcy would allow the Big Three to craft more competitive labor agreements, close down outdated plants, and drop car models that sell poorly. The auto executives have to learn to swallow their pride and do what's best for the future of the companies.

If the Big Three were smart enough to evolve with changing times, they would evolve into leaner companies that focus on their strengths (trucks) and invest in the future (hybrids, battery-powered cars, and alternative fuel vehicles) instead of the losing prospect of going toe-to-toe with Japan for the small and midsize car markets. For too many years, Japan has held the inside edge in innovation, The result can be seen with the prevalence of the Toyota Prius on the streets today. Americans should be asking why an American firm couldn't be ingeneous enough to field a practical hybrid car first. Bad management and lack of corporate vision should be at the top of the list of reasons why.

President Bush set a bad precedent with the $700 billion bailout of Wall Street, but Democrats and Republicans alike can share in the blame by having voted for it. At least President Bush had the good sense to tell Detroit "no" when they came asking for their share of the pork. It appears that Barack Obama is in Detroit's pocket, although I doubt John McCain would have taken a free-market approach to the economic problems, either. The American public doesn't want to subsidize the tomfoolery of Rick Wagoner or Alan Mullaly, and they need champions in Congress who will put the brakes on this madness. The Detroit bailout will be the first real test of Mitch McConnell and the Senate Republicans. If the Republican party truly stands for free markets like their rhetoric would state, they'll filibuster this ill-conceived package of pork. They'll take the heat in the media, but win the respect of the American people.

Requiem for a Literary Giant

2008-11-06T19:58:00.000-05:00

I wanted to mention with great sadness the passing of author Michael Crichton, losing his unpublicized battle with cancer. For nearly 40 years, Crichton’s novels have entertained a national audience, beginning with The Andromeda Strain. While Crichton’s body of work spanned the length of time from that seminal 1969 thriller up to the present, he achieved his greatest measure of fame for 1989’s Jurassic Park and for creating the drama ER, which has been running since 1994.

Michael Crichton’s work had a big impact on me during my formative years and greatly influenced my perspective on life. Back in 1997, a trip to the hospital prevented me from seeing the movie ~~massacre~~ adaptation of The Lost World with my friends, so they purchased me a copy of the book instead. I polished the tome off quickly and enjoyed every minute of it. I then moved on to the original Jurassic Park. In the books, Crichton portrays the hubris of humans who believe they can control nature, and expounds upon the natural world’s resiliency. Crichton’s philosophy was naturally applied towards the subject of global warming in 2004’s State of Fear, but the perspective I gained from his books influenced my thoughts on global warming long before he directly addressed the issue. Moreover, Crichton warned of the religious aspects of scientific ideas, where limited sets of data can be turned into a dogma that cannot be refuted in the minds of its adherents.

Crichton also earned a small deal of infamy for attacking the internet as a tool for research. In my younger years I may have agreed with Crichton’s critics, but as I moved into college, it became clear that the internet was 1) extremely limited as a source of in-depth information, and 2) littered with speculation and conjecture, unidentified sources, and flat-out misinformation.

Most importantly, Michael Crichton should be remembered as a brilliant man who took a hard look at the ethical ramifications of science and technology, then boiled those issues into immensely-entertaining books for the masses. He will be sorely missed.

United States of Omerica

2008-11-04T23:36:00.003-05:00

As the vote totals trickle in, it appears that Barack Obama has turned a close popular election into an electoral landslide, completing his historic candidacy. He did so by addressing the fears of a restless electorate, adhering to his message with discipline, and staying cool under pressure. I would also be remiss if I didn't mention my condolences on the recent passing of his grandmother, the women who raised him into the man he is today.

With all that being said, I'm not turning into an Obama-loving sycophant like so many conservaitves have during this campaign (Christopher Buckley and Colin Powell, to name a few.) I am not auditioning for a position of favor in an Obama Oministration. I remain committed to individual liberties, free-market capitalism, and limited government. I do not believe that President-elect Obama shares those values. While my expectations for his presidency are not very high, I pray that he may have the divine guidance to govern fairly and justly, and to seek concensus even when unilaterlaism is the easy choice.

I don't have much hope in the Obama Oministration, but I can't say it will be all bad. No administration is devoid of virtue. If nothing else, it gives the angry liberals who spent the last eight years complaining a chance to put their money where their mouths are. Let's see if they can do a better job. And because the buck stops at the top, they can't lay the blame for their failures on the previous administration.

I will be sustained over the next four years by my unfailing belief in the work ethic of the American people. America is great because of the people who perform the work of the nation each day. Ordinary Americans are going to keep plugging away, largely apathetic to the empty suits who fill the halls of power. America has endured times far worse than those we're currently embroiled in, and America will remain as strong as its people.

With music as my guide, I drift into the night listening to "Won't Get Fooled Again" by The Who and "World" by Five for Fighting. The Who warns us, "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss." An angry electorate has cast its lot for the ill-defined notion of change, and I'm afraid to find that change is meaningless without direction. The revolution has created a new beast, just as ferral as the one it just slew. America got fooled again. As John Ondrasik sings, "Be careful what you wish for. History starts now."

Et tu, Colin Powell

2008-10-19T22:48:00.002-05:00

Some political observers were stunned by the long-rumored announcement that Colin Powell is supporting Barack Obama's bid to become president.

It's not about race, Powell claims. Instead, he blames John McCain for running a dishonorable campaign and promoting the "Obama the Muslim" rumor (which actually pre-dates the primary battle with Hillary Clinton.) He is uncomfortable with the prospect of two more conservatives on the Supreme Court and claims that Obama will be better for the economy.

Let's get this straight here: Colin Powell, who purports to be a Republican, thinks that Barack Obama will provide economic leadership. For starters, Barack Obama puts the "O" back in "socialism." He openly supports "speading the wealth." Such beliefs should be anathema to Republican economic thought. Judicial constraint and strict constructionism are also core tenets of Republican philosophy. Powell's lukewarm commitment to free-market principles and judicial restraint should bring his party affiliation into question; his limited experience into both fields should bring his judgement on these issues into doubt.

As a Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, I would think that Colin Powell would know about the qualities of a good leader. Which makes it all the more surprising that he thinks Barack Obama is ready tro be commander-in-chief. Powell rightly says that Sarah Palin is not ready to be president on day one, as have many newspaper editorial boards in their endorsements of Sen. Obama. But Americans are not asking Sarah Palin to be commander-in-chief on day one. They will be asking John McCain or Barack Obama to be commander-in-chief. Is Colin Powell naive enough to think that Barack Obama, who has served in the federal government for less than four years and possesses no executive experience worth noting, will be ready to roll into the White House and take charge? Again, I think that his better judgement is being clouded.

Other commentators have suggested that the Obama endorsement is an act of revenge for the shameful way in which Powell was treated by the Bush administration. While I agree that Powell's exclusion from key decisions leading up to the Iraq invasion were downright scandalous, it doesn't make sense to me that Powell would endanger his long-running friendship with John McCain just to get back at George Bush.

The fatal flaw in the revenge argument is whether Powell would have endorsed Hillary Clinton if it was she who captured the Democratic nomination. It's hard to guess hypotheticals of this nature, but I have a hard time envisioning it happening.

I used to think that Colin Powell was a man of principle and integrity, but today I am proven wrong by his back-stabbing of Senator McCain. He's either lying by claiming that race didn't play a factor in his judgement, or he's lying by calling himself a Republican when he's endorsing a candidate who has no common ideology with the Republican party. I think that Colin Powell's endorsement is based purely on identity politics, and my estimation of his character has suffered greatly as a result.

Throwing it all Away

2008-10-08T20:11:00.004-05:00

I'm currently consigning myself to the growing likelihood that Barack Hussein Obama will be the 44th president of the United States. While I don't know if he will be more like Jimmy Carter or FDR, I don't think that either archetype is what America needs right now.

It didn't have to be that way. In John McCain, Americans have a fiscally-responsible, socially-centrist candidate who is ready to be commander-in-chief on day one. But McCain's missteps are those of a man who seems to be prying defeat out of the jaws of victory.

All of the pundits look at McCain's time after wrapping up the primaries as wasted, and they're right. John McCain spent that time talking about his "League of Democracies" and prizes for an electric car battery. While I didn't have any big disagreements with any of those ideas, none of them had much traction with the electorate, and they were quietly dropped. In the meantime, Barack Obama didn't need to wait until Hillary's departure to start branding the Bush presidency as a total failure, and branding John McCain as an aging clone of George Bush. It doesn't matter that the Bush-McCain link falls apart after a cursory examination of McCain's clashes with Bush and his record prior to the Bush presidency. If a lie is repeated often enough and goes unchallenged long enough, it becomes "conventional wisdom."

John McCain has only hit a winning message with his speech at the Republican National Convention. The failures of the Bush presidency didn't occur because Bush was too conservative. Instead, they occurred when Bush and congressional Republicans betrayed traditional conservative approaches to fiscal discipline and limited government.

In spite of McCain's sluggish, off-message start to the campaign, he shouldn't have been counted out. I think he was exceptionally ballsy when he decided to postpone campaigning and decline the first debate so Congress could react to the credit crisis. It showed that McCain was a leader, rather than a blathering and indecisive intellectual. It showed that he could put the nation's interests above his desire to be president.

Most importantly, it put McCain and Obama into a stare-down. Would Obama go into the first debate against an empty podium? Would he follow McCain's lead and go back to the capitol to get the bailout bill passed? In the end, it was Obama standing his ground and McCain blinking. He would attend the debate and decline to work through the weekend. He conceded to Obama that the credit crisis really wasn't worthy of immediate action by Congress, and relegated his "ballsy decision" to the category of political stunts and spectacle.

The pundits would say that this year is a bad one for the Republican brand. But with a Democrat-controlled Congress that's even more unpopular than the president, and an extremely liberal, extremely inexperienced candidate who has ridden a chariot of strawman arguments up to this point in the campaign, the odds should have been leveled for John McCain.

If America becomes an Obama nation, it will be the result of John McCain and his advisors failing to craft a coherent message and a vision for America. They have never once enunciated a clear means for greater prosperity through less government, less taxes and free markets. Instead, they have yielded the floor to the vapid rhetoric of "hope and change" at the expense of a growing nanny-state, a tax system built on class-warfare, and trickle-down misery.

A Hole In the World Tonight

2008-09-11T21:11:00.000-05:00

The 9/11 anniversary snuck up on me today, but I wanted to share a few remembrances of the traumatic time and a few general thoughts on the subject
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In the aftermath of the attacks, Jay Leno was determined to put The Tonight Show back on the air. But nobody was in the mood for laughter. Who would be his first guests on the post-9/11 Tonight Show?

Jay came back with none other than Graham Nash and John McCain. And the brightest moment of the night came when John McCain addressed the terrorists directly and said, "May God have mercy on you, because we won't." Those were the exact words that the country needed to hear in the midst of so much hurting.

At the same time, in a church on Chicago's south side, a racialist preacher gloated in America's newfound comeuppance. "God damn America!" he shouted to his audience the following Sunday. That preacher was none other than Jeremiah Wright, and one of his pupils would be presidential hopeful Barack Obama.

The Bush team framed the 2004 election as "September 10th people versus September 12th people." I don't believe that analogy applies to 2008. Instead, I see 2008 as a clash between those who unequivocally saw the 9/11 attacks as a great evil that had to be fought with all instruments of national power, and those who were too meek to denounce anti-Americanism in their own backyards. It's as stark a difference as "God Bless America" versus "God damn America." The presidency is no place for being meek in the face of moral confusion.
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I was listening to the Jim Villanucci radio show in Albuquerque this afternoon and heard the tale from one caller who witnessed the towers collapsing from his car, stalled on the Verrazano Bridge. This caller lost somebody special in the disaster, and he was on the verge of tears talking about it. He struck me as being very strong for having called in to share his account of that fateful day. His account made the attacks all the more personal, even as that day passes further and further into the annals of history.
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In spite of John McCain's pledge on The Tonight Show seven years ago, America's progress in combating international Islamist terrorism has been uneven. Through a combination of overseas military action and domestic law enforcement, America has prevented a major terrorist attack on its soil. Iraq, pulled into the wider terror-war for reasons still hotly debated, is finally coming under control after the "surge" under the leadership of General David Petraeus. But Admiral Mike Mullen admits that we aren't winning in Afghanistan or Pakistan.

Many people fail to see that Afghanistan is a much tougher nut to crack than Iraq. Afghanistan is one of the poorest nations on earth and runs primarily on a barter economy. It's more mountainous and more tribal in nature than Iraq. It shares a border with the tribal regious of Pakistan, which are even more lawless than Afghanistan.

As Iraq begins to resemble victory more-and-more by the day, military commanders hope to take troops from Iraq and move their replacements into Afghanistan. I'm conflicted on whether more men will really make a difference, but I hold hope that applying the general "surge" counterinsurgency strategy to the border regions of Afghanistan and Pakistan will make a difference in diminishing Taliban and al Qaeda support. The big question mark is how freely the new Pakistani government will allow the US to operate on the Pakistani side of the border, and what steps they will take to combat extremism in their own country. The harder they push against the Taliban, the harder the anti-American elements of Pakistani society push back against the government.
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The lesson in all of this is that anti-Americanism is a problem that has existed for a long time, and didn't magically appear once George Bush took office. America's enemies have a long list of grievances, ranging from the justified to the absurd. Ultimately, they reject the hegemony of America and American values. The world is engulfed in a clash of civilizations because Osama bin Laden and his followers had the audacity to launch a brazen and unjustified attack against America's weakest point: its own citizens, who lay unprepared and unarmed against what was coming.

We must all have the clarity of purpose to ensure that this never happens again.

Sticking With the Script

2008-09-04T22:06:00.002-05:00

After watching John McCain speak today, I have a fairly mediocre opinion of the acceptance speech. I remember getting chills from his speech at the Republican National Convention in 2000, and I don't think he'll ever improve upon it.

The McCain acceptance speech touched mostly on his typical memes of his experience as a POW in Vietnam and commitment to service. He did work in some responses to criticisms that he's too much like George Bush, and too disconnected from average Americans during the economic downturn. (Although the new Bob Woodward book should also help to dispel the notion that John McCain is George Bush's bosom buddy.) I did catch a few jabs at the unions, which may score minor points with the Republican base while scoring disproportionately more damage with blue-collar Americans.

By contrast, the Palin speech struck a lot of people out-of-the-blue and came as a curiosity to many, due to the historic nature of her candidacy. She got her jabs in at Barack Obama in a way that resonates with small-town America. She affirmed that she's an iron lady, and not a mere political token of diversity. The speech wasn't about policy specifics, but it didn't need to be. The speech had to dispel the giggle factor and make people take her seriously.

While Sarah Palin probably won't win over too many disaffected Hillary voters, she's what the Republican party needed to boost its morale. Many Republicans, focusing on the times when he's been a maverick against his own party, didn't view John McCain as a conservative. They would be grudgingly vote against Obama, rather than passionately vote for McCain. With Sarah Palin in the picture as a youthful conservative who eschews the liberal vision of feminism, conservatives want to vote for something again, rather than making lukewarm attempts to vote against a Democrat candidate they share zero common ground with. Sarah Palin is more than a rockstar, in the sense that Barack is the Democrats' rockstar. Indeed, Sarah Palin is the car battery connected to the nipples of the Republican Party, sending a jolt through them to wake them from their sense of defeatism.

The Republicans can keep the White House if they allow Sarah Palin to hold the Right and mobilize new voters, while John McCain runs to the Center. Working against them is the new electoral math. John McCain is in danger of losing states that were part of George Bush's road to electoral victory in 2004. Unless he can come from behind to take Democrat-leaning battleground states like Pennsylvania, Michigan or New Hampshire, it will be an Obama presidency in January.

The Buffoon Who Came Into the Cold

2008-09-01T14:35:00.002-05:00

Sean Guillory, who blogs at Sean's Russia Blog, posts a very snarky piece on Pajamas Media about Cold War II. While he does make us consider the ramifications of a second Cold War with Russia, his sarcastic tone and his underlying assumption that Cold War II is inevitable are counterproductive.

Having good relations with Russia is in America's best interest. America needs Russian natural gas supplies and does not need the Russians exporting military equipment and nuclear technology to states like Iran and Syria. At the same time, it's hard to have good relations with a nation that's invading western allies like Georgia and making threats against Poland. It's a situation that will test America's best foreign policy experts, but nobody is longing for a new Cold War, especially when we're fully consumed with fighting terrorism across the globe.

America needs to determine what its vital interests are and make decisions which strengthen our positions on those issues. Georgian self-determination and nuclear non-proliferation are probably more important than ensuring civil liberties within Russia, for instance. Once we prioritize our diplomatic shopping list, it should be easier to make the tough decisions that lie ahead.

We also need to take stock of our bargaining chips. For instance, what would the Russians be willing to give up in exchange for terminating missile defense, or further reducing the nuclear stockpile? Does America have a price it can put on any of these? America also risks its credibility if it backs down on these issues.

The enduring question is whether American can afford to tolerate the Putin-Medvedev regime in the name of preserving effective diplomatic ties with Russia. For the time being, we might not have any other choice.

You're Dangerous, Maverick

2008-08-30T09:53:00.003-05:00

The nomination of Sarah Palin as John McCain's running mate is an exciting development in the world of American politics. While she represents a big unknown (and a gamble) for the McCain team, she's a perfect fit for the campaign he's running.

At first glance, Sarah Palin's candidacy could easily be dismissed as a cynical ploy by the McCain camp to win over Hillary's supporters from the primaries. It may work for feminist Hillary supporters who were motivated by identity politics, but Sarah Palin is as conservative as Hillary is liberal.

While the Obama camp will paint her as inexperienced, Sarah Palin brings more executive experience to the table than Barack Obama, Joe Biden and John McCain combined. Serving as mayor of a small town and governor of Alaska for less than two years may not sound like much, but it's greater than zero. Candidates for the White House should be ready to sit in the hot seat, make the tough calls, and carry out enforcement of the law. Sarah Palin is the only candidate who's done this before, albeit for a short span of time.

With energy as an important issue in this campaign, it's important to bring Sarah Palin aboard as a proponent of responsible drilling in the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge. She may change McCain's opposition to the issue, or argue for it on her own. With Barack Obama's conflicted position on the popular issue of domestic drilling, the McCain ticket should be able to score major points.

My biggest reservation about Sarah Palin is that she doesn't enhance John McCain's economic credentials. But the McCain campaign is shifting the tone of the election from the economy to leadership, painting his ticket as the one that's ready to lead from day one. There are also polls to suggest that McCain is closing the gap on the question of who is better suited to handle the economy. There's much to be said about holding the line on taxes during a recession, and holding the line on spending when the nation is deeply in debt.

Most importantly, Sarah Palin is the perfect maverick to run alongside John McCain. The charges by Obama and company that John McCain is "George Bush's third term" are so dishonest that they make me vomit. John McCain has an established track record of independence, and has sparred with the president repeatedly, particularly on spending issues and the fiscal irresponsibility of the current administration. Likewise, Sarah Palin has sparred with the pork-happy, big-government Republican establishment in Alaska. The McCain-Palin team's record of fighting for fiscal responsibility should speak for itself.

In an election defined by the cliches of "hope" and "change," I have to say that I'm filled with both. I have hope that we can change to a government that stops growing and stops wasting money. But we need a pair of mavericks like John McCain and Sarah Palin to make it happen.

Catholics: the voting bloc that isn't

2008-08-25T00:15:00.002-05:00

When Barack Obama selected Joe Biden to be his running-mate, the talking heads pointed out that this will help the Illinois Senator to win over Catholic voters in swing states like Pennsylvania which broke for Hillary Clinton during the primaries. For the benefit of these pundits, I wanted to make one thing clear: there is no monolithic "Catholic voting bloc," and Catholicism has not been an issue in any presidential campaign since 1960.

The so-called "Catholic voting bloc" cuts across a wide swath of ethnic and class divisions. One-third of American Catholics are Hispanic; of the remaining two-thirds, most trace their lineage back to countries like Ireland, Italy and Poland. Catholics inhabit all social strata from the very wealthy to the very poor. In recent history, Catholics have not been bound by identity politics. After all, a nominal Catholic like John Kerry couldn't even win a majority of Catholic voters in 2004.

The positions of the Catholic church are very difficult to categorize within the American political spectrum. The church often advocates positions that are anti-war, anti-capitalist, anti-death-penalty, and pro-welfare. If those were the only factors in play, you'd think that the church was in the pocket of the Democratic National Committee. But the church also takes a hard line against abortion rights and same-sex marriage, which play into the hands of social conservaitves. The church's permissive attitude towards immigration is hard to categorize because both parties lack a coherent stand on the issue.

Further complicating the issue is that large numbers of self-described Catholics really don't give a damn for the positions that the church takes. Self-described Catholics who attend services infrequently or not at all greatly outnumber those who are in the pews every Sunday. Even among those who are active in the church, nobody is going to uncritically sign up to everything espoused by the Vatican. I mean, how many American Catholics are really saving themselves for marriage?

My friendly advice to Barack is to abandon any "magic bullet" strategy towards winning over Catholic voters. Any associations with Michael Pfleger won't be helpful, as he makes Jeremiah Wright look rational by comparison. Condescending towards voters who are "bitter" and "cling to guns and religion" probably won't be constructive, either.

Monsters Unleashed?

2008-08-16T15:30:00.002-05:00

The news networks have been playing up two monster stories over the past few weeks: the "Montauk Monster" and a claim by two men to have recovered the remains of a "Bigfoot." While I'm open to the idea of undiscovered animals among us, I'm skeptical of both claims.

When individuals come forward with extraordinary claims in the field of crytozoology, it must immediately be asked how willing they are to release their evidence for scientific study and confirmation. In the case of last year's "Chupacabra" claim, partial remains of the dead animal were preserved and released to the scientific community. The concensus was that the alleged chupacabra was really a coyote with the mange.

In the case of the Montauk Monster, the only evidence released thus far is a series of convincing-looking photographs. But no remains have been released to the scientific community, and none may have even been preserved. Without physical evidence, there's no way to determine if the monster is a hoax, a decomposed animal of some sort, or a new species altogether.

The Bigfoot photos don't look anywhere near as convincing as those of the Montauk Monster, but the two men who made the claim also say they will be releasing DNA evidence. The claim is unclear, and there's no indication why the the men have been stalling in releasing their evidence thus far. Without the original remains, there's no way that scientists can determine whether the DNA is authentic and belonging to the alleged "Bigfoot."

In the absence of more evidence, I'm inclined to think that the new Bigfoot claim is a half-baked hoax. I'm still conflicted as to whether the Montauk Monster is a more elaborate hoax, or if it's a genuine animal, albeit a known species that has decayed into some unrecognizable form.

Ron's Recycled, Rubbish Rumors

2008-08-06T00:21:00.002-05:00

Author Ron Suskind is making media waves with more unverifiable claims of malfeasance against the Bush administration. While "red meat" for Bush-haters in the middle of an intense presidential election will sell well, there's really nothing new in Suskind's book The Way of the World. He's just repackaging the same old rumors that have been around for several years.

The most explosive claim is that the White House ordered the CIA to write a fake memo linking Iraq's Intelligence Service to the 9/11 attacks. The memo in question was revealed by Ahmed Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress on the same day that Saddam Hussein was pulled from his spider hole in December 2003. Not only was the potentially-shocking nature of the memo obscured by the day's developments, but the memo itself had been discredited within about a month of its announcement. It's impossible to verify if the memo was forged on the orders of the president, but it appears to be an amateurish ploy whose possible propaganda value was lost. Most likely, it was another fabrication of Ahmed Chalabi and his icnreasingly-desperate attempts to convince America that he should be the "George Washington of Iraq."

Iraq's Intelligence Service also plays a prominent role in Suskind's other "earth shattering revelation." He claims that the head of Iraqi Intelligence, Tahir Jalil Habbush, told the US and UK that Iraq was free of Weapons of Mass Destruction. In response, the western powers helped him defect to Jordan... and then ignored him, going to war anyways.

There is some verifiable fact to Suskind's revelation about Habbush. The head of Iraqi Intelligence met with both a Lebanese-American businessman and the CIA's Vince Cannastraro with peace offers that included "proof" that Iraq was clean of WMD. The problem the peace initiative was not that George Bush was a bloodthirsty warmonger (although he would probably find any arrangement leaving Saddam in power as unacceptable.) The problem with Habbush's WMD allegations is that they conflicted with the statements of other regime officials, including Naji Sabri, who claimed that Iraq still had chemical weapons. Habbush's story squares with the earlier claims of Hussein Kamel, but western intel agencies had plenty of reasons to doubt their truthfulness at the time.

The added story about Habbush being re-settled in Jordan appears to be a bit of unoriginal fiction on Ron Suskind's part. During Summer 2003, the internet was awash with the rumor that Habbush was secretly on the take from the United States. According to the story, he sold out Saddam Hussein's location in Baghdad's Mansour District on April 7, 2003, and was rewarded with a free trip to Jordan. The restaurant where Saddam was allegedly hiding was demolished by a B-1 bomber, and American officials initially felt that they'd finally pulled off the "decapitation strike" they'd been waiting for. Except that Saddam wasn't there. And there's no evidence that Habbush ever aided the Americans, entered American custody, or settled in Jordan. In fact, several sources (here and here) believe that Habbush has been directing and financing insurgent attacks from safety in Syria.

It's frustrating to see a journalist like Ron Suskind drop all pretense of journalistic ethics in order to reprint tired rumors and sell anti-bush screeds. People like Ron Suskind are making a killing off selling innuendo to a public that's too willing to accept without question. And doesn't that make reporters like Suskind into everything they've accused the Bush administration of during the run-up to invading Iraq?

Case Closed?

2008-08-01T23:16:00.003-05:00

After nearly seven years of speculation and fear, the FBI believes that the Anthrax killer from Fall 2001 was Dr. Bruce Ivins, a researcher at the US Army Infectious Diseases Institute. Three days ago, as charges were imminent, Dr. Ivins overdosed on Tylenol and Codeine in an apparent suicide. With his death, the truth behind the anthrax attacks goes to the grave with him.

It's comforting to think that justice has finally been done, and the anthrax killer will never be heard from again. But in the back of my mind are a slew of unresolved questions about how and why the attacks were carried out. If Ivins was the killer, what was his motivation? Supposedly he was seeking to spread the infection to motivate authorities to test his multi-strain Anthrax vaccine, but that makes no sense. Did he really think that his anthrax attacks against a small number of individuals could motivate the use of his experimental vaccine? For that matter, was he really leading investigators off his trail during the time he was performing his commended investigation into the strain used in the attacks? Was there any rationale, political or otherwise, behind the way he chose the targets of his attack? Lastly, did Ivins kill himself, or did he accidentally overdose as he turned to drugs as a reaction to the depression and violent tendencies that he expressed as a result of the FBI investigation?

The anthrax attacks of Fall 2001 have remained a mystery since day one. The families of the five victims will probably never have the closure they deserve. The only solace is that the killer hasn't struck again, and probably won't.

Dividers & Uniters

2008-07-30T20:40:00.002-05:00

Part of Barack Obama's "change" meme is about how he's going to make Washington work in a bipartisan fashion. That promise sounds as silly now as George W. Bush's boast of being "a uniter, not a divider" does in retrospect.

Bipartisan compromise requires two sides on an issue to find a middle ground that often leaves the fringes unhappy. Is there any area where Barack Obama takes a position that the congressional Republicans might find palatable? Aside from his general belief that more troops are needed in Afghanistan, and his opposition to the Supreme Court's overturning of the Louisiana death penalty for child rapists, it's hard to see Obama finding agreement with the Republicans on anything. Perhaps a look at Obama's voting record might reveal some substantive attempts to forge compromise, except for the fact that Obama has less than four years of US Senate votes to scour. Even his records in the Illinois state legislature are marred by all of his "present" votes that reveal nothing about how he's going to behave as president.

At the same time, John McCain has a substantial record of breaking with his party for causes he believes in. Campaign finance reform, taxes, climate change and judicial nominees are all issues in which he's joined with Democrats in the past. I happen to disagree with his votes on several of these issues, but I'd rather have a candidate who will split with his party out of genuine conviction than one who will stick with the party for political gain.

Of course, the relevance of reaching across party lines depends on who is elected in the first place. Barack Obama will have a Democrat congress behind him, and it's easy to see the congressional Republicans getting steamrolled. The result of a Democrat monopoly on the executive and legislative branches will lead to a repeat of the Republican malaise of 2003-2006. Conversely, a McCain presidency will require compromise with congressional Democrats in order to be effective.

Still, astute poltical observers can determine who will be the "uniter" and who will be the divider." The impressive way that John McCain and his "Gang of 14" handled the judicial filibuster and avoided the "nuclear option" in 2005 shows me which presidential candidate can really be trusted to reach across party lines.

Cuil Runnings

2008-07-29T19:35:00.002-05:00

I recently checked out the Cuil search engine, pronounced like the word "cool." The engine is created by ex-Google employees. My hope is that they'd come up with a search engine that will allow me to steer away from the "hippies" at Google.

Upon using Cuil, it appears that the engine still needs a lot of work to compete with the big boys. On the plus side, the interface looks really slick. Unfortunately, the search results were less relevant than those on Google, and I could see less results per page. Also missing are neat Google features like Google Maps and Image Search.

While I wish I could ditch Google and give Sergei Brin one less person to sponsor his left-wing advertisers, it won't be happening anytime soon. Google has built a robust suite of internet applications that people around the world, myself included, have grown dependent upon.

Sharpening the Knife

2008-07-28T22:32:00.002-05:00

Political commentators from across the spectrum are looking at the McCain campaign and agree that it is off-message and ill-organized. While the addition of Mitt Romney to the ticket might be able to help the organization, it's clear that unless the McCain campaign shapes up, it will not be able to go toe-to-toe with Barack Obama in enunciating a message or mobilizing the vote during these last 100 days of the campaign season.

For the McCain campaign, it means sticking to a focused message about why a McCain presidency will be good for America, while an Obama presidency is a disaster waiting in the wings. Barack Obama is particularly vulnerable on energy and foreign policy. The issue of domestic drilling could be a winner for McCain, but he needs to go on the attack and point out the folly of waiting 20 years for alternative fuels when domestic petroleum could be available as a stop-gap in ten years. Obama's positions on Iraq and Iran should also leave him vulnerable, while McCain's support for the surge was a political gamble that should be paying off.

At the same time, McCain needs surrogates to help him hone in on the #1 issue this election: the economy. Obama has a considerable edge in polling on this issue, but it's unclear if the American people understand what effect Obama's tax and tariff policies will have in fighting a recession. McCain needs somebody like Mitt Romney to stress the importance of low taxes and cutting federal spending spending when the economy is slowing and the dollar is weak.

Most importantly, John McCain needs to stand on the pillar of experience. How can we trust the nation in the hands of a man whose served the federal government for less than four years? How do we know what he'll support as president based on a miniscule voting record in the Senate?

Some political observers on the right (and a few on the left, like Bill Clinton apparently,) believe that Barack Obama is a fad who will melt down during the critical days of the election. At the same time, John McCain believes that he is a stronger candidate when he runs from a position of weakness. I would contend that it will not be enough for McCain to simply wait for Obama to melt down. He needs to come out swinging now. If the Tony Rezko, Jeremiah Wright, and William Ayers scandals have shown us anything, it's that Barack Obama is a teflon politician who can successfully deflect any hint of wrongdoing or chicanery.

Mega Man 9

2008-07-27T15:15:00.002-05:00

When I was a kid, I loved playing the Mega Man games on classic Nintendo. As the times changed, Mega Man eventually made the leap. "Mega Man 7" appeared on Super NES and sported enhanced graphics. "Mega Man 8" on Playstation and Sega Saturn enhanced the graphics further, and added extensive anime cut scenes to advance the story (which admittedly was an excuse for Mega Man to run around, jump from platforms and ladders, and shoot lots of goofy looking robots.)

Eleven years after "Mega Man 8," the Blue Bomber returns in "Mega Man 9." Unfortuantely, I think the new game is a huge disappointment. It's a re-hash of the 8-bit Nintendo games which doesn't move the series into new territory. Capcom waited so long because it was hard to see a side-scroller game being commercially-successful until the advent of streaming media and lower-cost games. But I think the problem can be attributed to a lack of creativity on Capcom's part, rather than the market itself.

To understand what makes Mega Man fun, you have to strip away the colorful (albeit blocky) graphics and side-scrolling levels. Mega Man was about shooting wacky robots, climbing ladders, dropping down shafts, and making tricky leaps between platforms (which would often disappear or drop from under you.) Mega Man was about bright, cartoony graphics and catchy techno music. While all these things worked on the old Nintendo, there's no reason why they can't be implemented in 3D graphics on the new game systems. Most importantly, Mega Man was about figuring out the correct order to fight the bosses, and which weapons were most effective against a particular Robot Master.

Back in 1996, Naughty Dog launched the gaming phenomenon known as Crash Bandicoot. The original trilogy of Crash Bandicoot games sold extremely well on the original Playstation and earned the respect of gaming critics across the world. The reason for their success was simple: Crash took all the fun from the traditional 2D platform games and brought them into a 2D, 32-bit world. There wasn't any free-roaming exploration like in Super Mario 64, but Crash served up the fun in spades. He leaped from platforms, bashed crates for power-ups, rode around on a tiger, evaded boulders, and jumped on the heads of his enemies.

Could old-school Mega Man survive in the world of 3D? Of course he could! Simply take the Crash Bandicoot style of gameplay and add shooting into the mix. An auto-targeting feature, like in From Russia With Love, would take the challenge out of marksmanship and let gamers focus on madcap shooting and platforming.

It would also be possible to move the Mega Man series in a whole new direction. Capcom had once tried such a bold move with "Mega Man Legends," an adventure game with role-playing elements and introducing a new cast of characters in a future "Mega Man" universe. Unfortauntely, Capcom abandoned "Legends" after "Mega Man Legends 2" in 2000. Would it be too hard to combine the "Legends" gameplay with the original cast of Mega Man charaters?

She kissed a girl, and some didn't approve

2008-07-22T22:45:00.003-05:00

Pop singer Katy Perry is tearing up the music charts with her hit single "I Kissed a Girl," but not everybody is amused. MSNBC's Tony Sclafani is apparently one of them. He's not too fond of her first single, "UR So Gay," either.

Katy Perry's critics will look at her background and try to draw some conclusions. Her parents were Christian ministers, and her first commercial foray into music was a Christian album released under the name "Katy Hudson." The reasoning is that her Christian upbringing has led to two blatantly homophobic songs. Except that, based on interviews and the content of the rest of the album, it's pretty clear that Katy Perry is far from the ideal of evangelical Christian virtue. If anything, she's the stereotypical "good girl gone bad."

I would advise Ms. Perry's critics to listen to the rest of the songs on her album before they pass judgement. It's pretty clear that all of her songs are very sarcastic. Is it possible that she's trying to satirize the overuse of the term "gay" as a synonym for "lame" when she sings, "You're so gay, and you don't even like boys"? Perhaps "I Kissed a Girl" is mocking pop culture's fascination with female bisexuality and "lipstick lesbians." Maybe it's telling that Madonna would endorse "UR So Gay," in spite of the respect that many in the gay community feel for her.

I am not endorsing Ms. Perry's music, and I frankly find it to be too synthesized, too artificial, and too mechanical. I think that "I Kissed a Girl" trivializes the serious issue of people who are confused over their sexual identity. But I don't think that the critics should be jumping the gun and dismissing her songs as "homophobic."

Joker & Two-Face

2008-07-20T01:07:00.002-05:00

After watching the phenomenal Batman flick "The Dark Knight," I have to ask if there's more subtext to the movie than meets the eye. The Joker obviously represents a depraved terrorist akin to Osama bin Laden. He lives only to create chaos, to unwind the very fabric of society. As Alfred says, he "just wants to watch the world burn."

But the tragic hero of Harvey Dent reminds me of Barack Obama. He runs on a promise to restore hope to the people, by fighting a corrupt system against insurmountable odds. In spite of initial success, Harvey Dent is eventually undone and corrupted through the Joker's efforts.

I often think that Barack Obama thinks he can change Washington because he's too inexperienced to realize that Washington can't be changed. Granted, Washington operates the way it does because it's been effective, to some degree, for the past 232 years. That's not to say that things will continue to work, or that other approaches will not work. But America is a nation that rarely anticipates massive shifts in its way of life, and usually changes reactively rather than preemptively.

If terrorism should rear its ugly head against the homeland again, will Barack Obama stand tall like Batman, or crumble like Harvey Dent? I'd like to hope that he could be Batman. But his unilateralist pacifism toward Iran and his blind hawkishness towards Pakistan make me believe that he will morph into Two-Face.

Idle Speculation

2008-07-10T21:43:00.002-05:00

In my email today, like millions of other Americand, I received a letter signed by the CEO's of several major airlines. In their plea, they asked me to pressure Congress to restrict speculation on crude oil. Their reasoning is that rampant speculation is driving up the price of crude and hurting all Americans.

I am deeply skeptical that speculation is a major factor in the price of oil. The simple fact is that global demand is increasing, and the supply will not increase to follow suit until untapped resources such as ANWR oil are drilled and pumped. Nevertheless, many economic commentators believe that restricted or outlawed speculation will cause a sharp decline in the price of oil and bring it back to around $60 per barrel.

If I were President Bush, I would pressure Congress to pass a temporary ban on speculation. Not because I blame speculation for high prices, but because it might require a demonstration to prove to the Barack Obama's of the world that speculation is not the root of the problem. Of course, any temporary demo would allow proponents of a speculation ban to claim that the ban wasn't in force long enough to make a difference. Nevertheless, the socialist economics espoused by Barack Obama and most congressional Democrats need to be dispelled in particularly dramatic fashion.

Health of the Insurance Industry

2008-07-08T21:24:00.002-05:00

Barack Obama claims that John McCain's health care plan will "shred" the employer-provided healthcare industry. But in looking at the performance of employer-provided healthcare, it leaves to to wonder whether this is actually a good thing.

Under the current healthcare system, in which health care is largely expected to be a benefit of employment, there's a major disconnect between insurers and customers. The healthcare companies have no incentive to provide the employees with examplary service. They are bound only to keep costs down for the employer. Is it any wonder why so many Americans complain about they quality of their healthcare and the range of services that are covered? It's time to cut the employers out of the insurance equation.

The McCain plan would incentivize more people into private healthcare plans through tax breaks and bring down the cost of private plans. The downside is that these plans are likely more selective than employer-provided plans. I also question the wisdom of making employer-provided healthcare count towards taxable income. While it's part of McCain's strategy to move people away from employer-provided insurance towards private insurance, the reaction will be much like the public revolt against fees for checked baggage on airlines. Americans will recoil at the thought of paying for something they used to get for free.

Freedom

2008-07-04T13:18:00.002-05:00

Two hundred and thirty two years ago, America's founding fathers delared their independence from Great Britain. They signed their own death warrants and branded themselves as traitors in the eyes of the crown. Over the next seven years, they would wage an insurgency against the world's most powerful army in the belief that London had broken the rule of law in its attempts to reassert control over the erstwhile colonies.

The birth of America was a watershed event in human history. Never before had the law become king of the land. The government's authority was based on a social contract between the people and the government, rather than the whims of a hereditary monarchy. The Constitution, enacted in 1789, would establish that God was the only absolute moral authority in America. This too was profound, because it ensured the government could not take away our freedom of speech, expression, or belief. The social contract further ensured that the government would not monopolize the nation's firearms, lest the government become corrupted and tyrannical.

America led the way in ensuring that all people are free to be cynical and bitter about their government. To place one's trust fully in the government is foolhardy and unpatriotic. America allows people to "cling" to guns and religion. Without the vagaries of a king to tell us what's right and wrong, we're free to pursue happiness in whichever way we feel is best.

For 232 years, America has been leading the way in the quest for greatest personal freedom. The enduring wisdom emparted from the founders of America is that limited national government and allowing for personal governance are far more effective than the totalitarian systems that have persisted from antiquity to the present. The challenge America will always face is the temptation to regress into statism. For the sake of free men, we must be resolute and never let it happen.

If He Makes it Work, is it Still a Failed Policy?

2008-07-03T21:40:00.002-05:00

Barack Obama claims that his trip to Iraq will influence his position on the five-year-old war in that country. It appears he is taking the same tack that John McCain may take by visiting the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge and deciding that he favors drilling for petroleum there.

I've suspected that Barack Obama is somewhat pragmatic on the issue of Iraq. The problem is that his primary campaign was littered with the rhetoric of "failed policy" and the 16-month pullout of "combat forces." That last term gives Obama a lot of wiggle room. Obama advisor Samantha Power prepared a paper calling for a "supporting force" of up to 80,000 troops to stay in Iraq for the immediate future. The paper wasn't widely publicized because 1) it would offend liberal Democrats who were deciding the primaries, and 2) Samantha Power was on her way out after calling Hillary Clinton "a monster."

If Obama sticks with the plan to have a large residual force after removing the combat troops, does that make him much different from John McCain? I would still argue that Obama's position needs a lot more explanation. If he believes that Iraq has been a failed policy, why keep anybody in that country at all? Does he have any long-term vision for Iraq that includes a stable, somewhat-democratic government? Will he still be claiming that Iraq has been a "failed policy" if the country stabilizes under his watch?

I'm going to need to hear a lot more from Barack Obama to see if he has any kind of strategic vision for Iraq before I'd feel comfortable with him as commander-in-chief (although I will never feel comfortable with him running the economy.) I know that John McCain has a realistic vision for what it's going to take to stabilize Iraq. He views the mission in terms of pulling combat forces out when the generals can vouch for the readiness of the Iraqi forces who will ultimately defeat the insurgency. He also knows that American logistics, airpower and special forces are essential for many years to come. Ultimately he favors a reduced presence similar to the American footprint in Germany, Japan or South Korea.

The question is whether Barack Obama has the military insight to know what's needed to complete the mission. Does he think that a residual force can be accomplished on the cheap? Does he know that special operations forces can't be effective against al Qaeda unless there's a high level of engagement with everyday Iraqis, and a stable government in Baghdad to support their mission? It's a case where Obama's eloquent rhetoric can't make up for a lack of detailed policy proposals.

Executive Orders; Or, Heart of Clarkness

2008-07-01T02:57:00.002-05:00

Wesley Clark told "Face the Nation" on Sunday that John McCain lacks the executive experience to be president. When confronted with the realization that Barack Obama has even less executive experience, Clark fell back on Obama's oratorical skills and policy positions to make the argument for an Obama presidency.

Clark's argument about executive experience is a relevant one when selecting a president, even though his conclusions are farcical. Executive experience is something Americans should look for in a president. It's easy for a Senator to vote for a bill, but it's tough for a president to be "the decider" who must enact the bill, appoint the people who will carry it out, and bear the consequences for his actions.

In that regard, I look up to governors, military leaders, and mayors of large cities as people who have the executive experience necessary to be president. I do not feel that being a senator is an automatic qualification to hold the highest office in the land.

It's easy for General Clark to complain about a lack of executive experience. How many other Americans can claim to have been the Supreme NATO commander? The same goes for another Obama ally, Tony McPeak, who called McCain "fat" and claimed that McCain received preferential treatment in his post-Vietnam military career. But if Generals Clark or McPeak want to stand on the altar of executive experience, they should be running for president themselves instead of backing a candidate whose entire political background has been spent as a legislator. McCain's command of a naval squadron should count for something, as well as his chairmanship of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

The challenge of electing the chief executive is that no executive job can prepare you for the rigors of the highest office in the land. George W. Bush was an able Texas governor, but the challenges of the presidency were far steeper than those of the Texas governor. His claim to be "a uniter, not a divider" was based on his experiences working with Texas Democrats; on the national stage, Bush learned that Washington Democrats are far less amenable to Republican notions than the Texas variety.

In recent history, Governorship has proven to be a springboard for most of the presidents: Bush 43, Clinton, Reagan, Carter, Nixon, and FDR. (Truman, LBJ, Ford, and Bush 41 were vice presidents, and the former three became president upon the death or resignation of the sitting president.) JFK was the only sitting senator in recent times to be elected to the presidency, and he was much maligned during the time between his inauguration and his murder. With two men, both senators who have never been governor, seeking the White House, it will be interesting to see who is elected and how that person performs.

Gunning for the Constitution

2008-06-26T20:30:00.002-05:00

After years of gun control debate, the US Supreme Court has finally upheld the right to private ownership of firearms under the second amendment. In the opinion of the 5-4 majority, Justice Antonin Scalia used hunting and self-defense as the justifications for private ownership of handguns.

The ambiguity of the Second Amendment has always rested on the words "well-regulated militia." In the modern era, this has been interpreted as the National Guard. But the definition of militia was much more broad during the age of America's founding. It was expected that military-aged men would be able to rise to their nation's defense, particularly at a time when white settlers and Native Americans frequently came into conflict. As recently as 1903, the Dick Act defined the "unorganized militia" as all men aged 17-45 and not part of the "Organized Militia." While this aspect of the Dick Act has not been enforced in modern times, the law has not been repealed or superseded.

The mentality of the founding fathers should leave no doubt about their true intentions regarding the second amendment. Gun control laws are examples of "negative laws," which reward people for breaking them and punish people for following them. For the men who had fought a revolution against tyranny, the idea of trusting the government with a monopoly on firearms would be appalling. Thomas Jefferson, an advocate of periodic revolutions, would undoubtedly recoil at the thought.

As much as the NRA and other advocacy groups use hunting and self-defense as justifications for gun rights, the underlying motivation behind the founding fathers was to ensure that the government could not disarm its populace and subject them to Draconian rule. Even if they didn't share in Jefferson's radical belief of periodic revolution, the original patriots understood that the citizens should be prepared to fight back against their government if the circumstances warranted. The idea of a successful uprising against the US military and local police forces may seem preposterous on the surface, but it's little different than the effectiveness that disorganized groups of insurgents have achieved in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Putting the "O" in Hegemony

2008-06-21T01:06:00.002-05:00

I've started to contemplate the increasingly-likely situation that Barack Obama will be the 44th president of the United States. When the Dems came to power in the 2006 midterm elections, I held out hope that they could try to find common ground and govern through compromise and consensus. I wasn't very optimistic that could be the case, and the dour prediction came to fruition. And while I can hope that Barack Obama can be "a uniter, not a divider," recent history gives me no reason to be so enthusiastic.

The reality of an Obama presidency is that he would come to power with both houses of Congress under decisive Democrat majorities. Even the Supreme Court would be leaning Obama's way, when looking at the recent voting record of the court's last swing vote, Anthony Kennedy. With all three branches of government under Democrat control or sympathetic to modern liberalism, Barack Obama would have a carte blanche to implement his agenda. Universal pre-school, socialized medicine, protectionist trade policies, windfall profits taxes, and capital gains taxes would all be back in play.

There is a great danger when any single party has hegemony over the executive branch and both houses of Congress. The Republican party of 2003-2006 became mired in corruption and abandoned its previous commitment to fiscal discipline. That same stagnation cursed the Democrats in 1993-4, causing their momentous defeat in November 1994. Divided government is slow and frustrating, but it often results in compromise and consensus. There's no better example of this than the battles of 1995-2000, when President Clinton and the Republican Congress were finally able to balance the budget and pass meaningful welfare reform.

The current election is reminding me more and more of the election of 1932. Herbert Hoover, largely blamed for the Great Depression, gets steamrolled by the populist Franklin Roosevelt and the hordes of voters hungry for the vaguely-defined notion of "change." While the Roosevelt administration would implement some measures that helped ease the Depression, they would implement others (inconsistent monetary policy, higher taxes and prosecutions of corporate leaders, for starters) which would only prolong the suffering of the American people during that trying time. Nevertheless, the American people were largely kept content by Roosevelt's opiate of "hope," and re-elected him three times in spite of the New Deal's inability to fully restore the prosperity of the 20's.

While I view Barack Obama's economic policies as destructive and counter-productive in this time of imminent recession, I think he has what it takes to be a popular president. He can exaggerate people's discontent and then offer himself as an optimistic alternative. Just as the American people continued re-electing FDR, Barack Obama can drug the people on the opiate of populism. He could stay popular as president, even if the economy tanks. He just needs to find the correct scapegoats, just as Franklin Roosevelt railed against the wealthy.

It is often said that Americans get whom they elect, and they often elect who they deserve. If the American people are so ignorant of economics and so ignorant of the stakes in Iraq that they elect Barack Obama, they will have to deal with the consequences: greater federal spending, less re-investment in the economy, further reliance on imported petroleum as a result of the windfall profits tax, ever-increasing fuel prices (or fuel shortages,) and an unstable Iraq that can become a haven for terrorists plotting to strike at America. Perhaps Americans need to have a failed Obama presidency in order to relegate his re-hashed McGovern and Carter policies to the ash-heap of history. At the same time, Barack Obama could walk on water as FDR did, and give people hope that transcends the policies of failure.

Homefront

2008-06-17T22:48:00.002-05:00

Barack Obama and John McCain are sparring again over "September 10th Mentalities," treating terrorism as a law enforcement problem, and domestic trials for the world's most wicked terrorists. The issues essentially boil down to an attack on, or a defense of, the Bush legacy.

John Kerry hurt himself in 2004 by saying that terrorism is primarily a "law enforcement issue." At the same time, I think that the absence of a major terrorist attack on American soil since Fall 2001 speaks to the effectiveness of domestic anti-terrorism measures in the US. While Democrats are quick to claim that victory over terrorism is achieved at home (rather than abroad,) they are loathe to credit the Bush administration for any of the thwarted terror attacks, or even for a general deterrence of a major attack through heightened security, law enforcement, and public awareness. The defenders of "terrorism as a law enforcement problem" view the Patriot Act as an enemy of civil liberties rather than an effective tool for law enforcement to hunt down domestic terrorists. While both points of view are valid, I think it's safe to say that civil liberties of law-abiding Americans are best protected through checks-and-balances rather than by a blanket repeal of an important counter-terrorism measure.

As important as domestic anti-terrorism is in the overall fight to protect our nation, a "Fortress America" mentality leaves us blind to the problems of international terrorism. The jihad knows no borders. And while it's important for all nations with effective governments to practice robust anti-terrorism measures at home, it leaves unresolved the problems of terrorism inside failed states. The example of Afghanistan is telling of the problem as a whole. The failed Afghan state became a vacuum for al Qaeda to fill, and it could always revert to that failed state if America and its allies fail in their long-commitment to Afghanistan. And Iraq, once feared for its totalitarian leadership, now teeters on the precipice of becoming a failed state with the potential to attract the world's jihadists.

The balance between domestic anti-terrorism and military action overseas should bring attention to another thorny problem: how does the criminal justice system deal with battlefield detainees? Some of the world's most dangerous terrorists now sit in Guantanamo Bay, facing possible military tribunals for their crimes against humanity. If we turn them over to the criminal justice system in the US, as Richard Clarke, Barack Obama and John Kerry suggest, can we guarantee that they will end up behind bars where they belong? The US military does not abide by Miranda Rights or search warrants when taking prisoners. Under such conditions, it may be impossible to build a legally-admissible prosecution against the top al Qaeda leaders. To compare the trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to the trials of the 1993 WTC bombers, as Richard Clarke has, is disingenuous. Most of the WTC bombers were arrested by civil authorities in the US, and none were captured by the US military. The prosecutors didn't have to deal with the legally-gray area of military detention as "illegal combatants" and didn't have to fight allegations of coercion and torture when the evidence was disputed.

I am not opposed to civil trials for terrorists, as long as it's assured that the prosecution can bring all possible evidence to bear. At the same time, I think there is adequate legal precedent for holding Illegal Combatants before a military tribunal. After all, the last military tribunal in the US was authorized by the hero of modern liberalism, Franklin Roosevelt.

It's hard to imagine such an outcry over the rights of people whose stated goal is to indiscriminately kill as many Americans as possible. At the same time, it's a reflection of the very American principle of protecting the rights of all, even the accused. The balance between freedom and security is one that should be taken patiently and civilly, and hopefully a workable balance can be achieved between both ends.

Seeds of Jimmy Carter

2008-06-10T21:52:00.002-05:00

Early into the 2008 general election, the partisan battle cries have already been confirmed. Democrats complain that John McCain is four more years of "failed Bush policy." For Republicans, the retort is that they'd rather have a third term of George Bush than a second term of Jimmy Carter.

The Obama-Carter comparison leaves many casual observers scratching their heads. It's been 28 years since the dark days of stagflation and "malaise forever." Jimmy Carter governed in a different era, but an astute political junkie can see some valid comparisons with the contemporary Democrat candidate.

Perhaps the best Carter-Obama comparison is the schizophrenia in the arena of foreign policy. For Jimmy Carter, the White House years were characterized between constant internal conflict. The most prominent examples were the clashes between pacifist Secretary of State Cyrus Vance and the realistic, somewhat-hawkish National Security Advisor, Zbignew Brzezinski. While it's uncertain which Obama advisors are advocating which aspects of his foreign policy, there's no ideological consistency to it. He's a pacifist on both Iraq and Iran, a non-interventionist on Darfur, and downright hawkish on Pakistan. An Obama presidency has the potential to make claims of "failed Bush policy" in Iraq a self-fulfilling prophecy, while simultaneously collapsing the fragile Musharraf regime in Pakistan as he sends American forces over the border to find Osama bin Laden.

The issue of gas prices, near and dear to the hearts of all Americans, is another place where Jimmy Carter's specter is visible. The Carter administration adopted populist methods of controlling gas prices. The result was cheap gas, but only on the days of the week when gas was available. Barack Obama now seeks a windfall profits tax on the petroleum industry. While such a tax may sooth the desires of populist class envy, the tax will ultimately be passed to consumers and will only exacerbate this nation's economic woes.

The most contemporary reason why the Obama-Carter comparison has legs is the stance the two men have recently taken on Hamas. It's the reason why President Bush could denounce appeasement and claim that it was a condemnation of Jimmy Carter, while simultaneously inciting screeds from Sen. Obama and Rep. Pelosi. While Barack Obama has vowed to never negotiate with Hamas as Jimmy Carter did, Americans should be asking why Hamas would feel compelled to endorse the Illinois Senator. Do they feel that his pacifism on Iraq and Iran will extend towards the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? Perhaps they feel that a softer American approach to their sponsors like Iran and Syria will give them a freer hand to continue their jihad.

The 2008 campaign will be characterized as a proxy war, with Democrats beating up on George Bush and Republicans, to a lesser degree, taking their shots on The Man From Plains. In the case of the Bush-McCain link, it's more accurate to say that George Bush has acted like John McCain over the past year, rather than vice-versa. And it takes willful ignorance to denounce policies like lower taxes or The Surge as failures. As for the Carter-Obama link, it has the potential to be a repeat of discredited populist economic policies and inconsistent foreign policy that will lead to economic stagflation and foreign policy malaise.

In closing, the proxy war prompts me to ask whether a President Obama would continue to blame the George Bush bogeyman if the economy continues to tank during his term, or if terrorists launch a major attack on US soil. It goes without saying that scapegoating is not leadership. If Barack Obama becomes president, he will need to learn that the buck stops with him.

Oil Wells that End Well?

2008-06-04T10:00:00.000-05:00

Of all the issues which will define the current election, perhaps none has the immediate personal impact that rising fuel costs possess over all Americans. The presidential race, and many congressional races, may be defined solely by this hot-button issue.

For the deliverers of Democrat talking points, the root cause of high fuel is the war in Iraq. There can be no doubt that violence in that country has been a major reason why speculators have been able to drive crude prices up to over $130 per barrel. But like the Iraq issue on the whole, can America have any assurances that the situation can improve by simply walking away from the problem? Will Iraq's oil infrastructure be more secure being guarded solely by Iraq's fledgling army? Will it receive long-overdue upgrades with only the financial assistance of Iraq's cash-strapped government? Will it be ably administered by Iraq's corrupt oil ministry? Pulling out of Iraq might diminish the motivations of some saboteurs, but it ultimately will prove to be a bane for those who expect crude prices to fall.

The price of fuel hinges on two factors which Democrats too willingly ignore: supply and demand. For years we've heard environmentalists and leftists tell us that we should "conserve our way to energy independence." I don't disagree with conservation, and there's plenty of evidence to suggest that Americans are changing their driving habits in response to high fuel costs. GM is closing four plants for production of trucks and SUV's based on sluggish sales forecasts, for instance.

If Americans are starting to reduce demand, we should apply an equal effort into increasing supply both domestically and in friendly trading partners. For decades, the environmental movement has deterred the United States from domestic oil exploration and production of additional refineries. This opposition has ossified in the years since the release of Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" and the growing trendiness of environmental awareness. But there will come a price point where Americans will throw environmentalism out the window if it will guarantee reasonable fuel costs. Extracting petroleum from the Canadian tar sands is currently prohibited under the most recent energy bill, passed primarily by Congressional Democrats. But the pressure to repeal this controversial provision will build as public outrage at the price of gasoline grows. The same can be said about drilling in the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge, or lifting the regulatory hurdles towards building more refineries to meet the increased demand since the last domestic refinery was built in the 70's.

The most frightening aspect to rising fuel costs is that there appears to be no end in sight. Even if relief comes in the form of alternative fuels or increased domestic production, it will be several years away. It makes President CLinton's 1995 veto of ANWR drilling seem painful in hindsight, but history has repeatedly shown that Americans would rather react to challenges than pre-empt them. The best we can hope for is that public outrage during this election cycle will result in action that will curb the rising fuel costs (and their ripple effect through the entire economy) several years down the line.

Running Mates

2008-05-21T18:55:00.002-05:00

Ever since John McCain wrapped up the Republican nomination, the media has been ripe with speculation about who would be his choice for a vice-presidential candidate. The most recent report has John McCain wooing potential veeps over the Memorial Day weekend.

My personal preference would be for Rudy Giuliani or Joe Lieberman as McCain's running mate. While both men have strong credentials on leadership, national defense, and crime, they could be a hindrance as John McCain tries to unify the party. While the media likes to make much of Republican anti-war mavericks like Ron Paul and Bob Barr, neither of them really threatens to steal traditional Republican voters. Instead, John McCain's biggest worry is that social & religious conservatives will not be energized to come out to the polls. While I think this is overstated in the media, it still does not bode well for a Republican who is being attacked from the right by the likes of Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter.

The perfect running mate will buttress the candidate's weaknesses, unify the base, attract independents, and possibly deliver a battleground state. The only man I know who can do this, and a man I'm not particularly fond of, is Mitt Romney.

John McCain has admitted that he's no economic genius, and the Democrats have had a field day with this ill-timed comment. Barack Obama leads in opinion polls about who Americans trust on economic issues (which boggles the mind, seeing as how Obama wants to raise taxes, tariffs and government spending in the face of recession and inflation.) Mitt Romney's business acumen should help to offset this. With the economy foremost on the minds of voters, it should be the focus of the McCain campaign in building both a solid team of advisers and enunciating specific proposals and policies.

Romney's win in the Michigan primary points to his ability to pull out a win in his former home state. Michigan has been a key battleground in recent elections, and this year will be no different. While the state has recently leaned Democrat, Republicans will have a chance there, especially if that state's Democratic primary results are ignored. Nevada is a key battleground state too; it has leaned Republican, but current sentiment against the state's Republican leaders indicates a Democratic shift. It's thought that Romney's influence within that state's Mormon community could make a big difference come November.

Charlie Crist and Bobby Jindal are both good candidates, but I think that veep talk is premature for both of them. They're both rising stars within the Republican party who will be needed to rebuild the party after the disastrous defeats of 2008 (and a string of likely defeats during the 2008 congressional races.) Charlie Crist could be counted on to deliver Florida, but it's unlikely that Florida would vote Obama (again, the alienation of the Michigan-Florida debacle will have consequences for the Democrats.) Hillary might have a chance in Florida, but this is a state which has trended Republican between President Bush's healthy margins in the 2004 election and Charlie Crist's 2006 ascencion to the governor's mansion in an otherwise-disastrous season for Republicans. Bobby Jindal might likewise deliver the battleground of Louisiana, but he is still young and has much important work to do as Louisiana's new governor.

Kerry'd Away

2008-05-18T10:54:00.002-05:00

Barack Obama has positioned himself as the candidate of the vaguely-defined notion of "change." But in looking down his overall campaign strategy, it looks like little has changed compared to John Kerry's unsuccessful 2004 campaign.

The only lesson mankind has learned from history is that mankind never learns from history. With that being said, it's important to see how John Kerry could lose to a president whose popularity was beginning to wane. As much as Democrats like to complain about gay marriage bans and Swift Boats, the most important fact about the Kerry campaign is that John Kerry ran on an anti-Bush platform without enunciating ideas and proposals which would clearly distinguish him from the president.

As much as Barack Obama claims to be running a clean campaign, the truth is that he's no less venomous than any of his opponents. He realizes that he doesn't need to attack his opponents directly. All he needs to do is compare them to the most villified president in modern history. John McCain, the maverick who forced George Bush to change his Iraq policy (and who might have prevented the current mess if George Bush had listened to McCain in June 2003) is now being chided by Obama and his supporters as "McBush"; his potential presidency is being smeared as "George Bush's 3rd Term." Even Hillary Clinton gets compared to George Bush for taking a harder rhetorical stance on Iran.

As much as Barack Obama gives angry denouncements and old age jokes when John McCain brings up the endorsement of Barack Obama from Hamas, it's akin to John Kerry's comment from the last campaign that "people in other countries want me to be president." If there's one thing American voters will not stand for, it's being told who to vote for by people in other countries. And as much as Obama gives angry retorts, he's still not addressing the bigger issue of why Hamas would view him favorably.

Elections are games of hanging a label on your opponent and making it stick. If the "McBush" smear has legs, you can bet on a decisive Obama victory this November. But if John McCain emphasizes all the times he's broken with the administration and enunciates clear policy visions of his own, he will deny Barack Obama his strawman. Better yet, it forces Obama to run on his own policy positions. If the Illinois Senator has a weakness, it comes when calling him out on his extremely liberal positions during unscripted debates.

And if Barack Obama wants to play the game of comparing people to unpopular presidents, he had better watch out. His foreign policy is as schizoid as Jimmy Carter's, he has less experience in federal government than Jack Kennedy, and his policies on taxes and tariffs hearken back to Herbert Hoover.

Isaac & Ishmael

2008-05-14T22:28:00.002-05:00

Today the Israeli nation celebrates its 60th birthday, while reactions around the rest of the world are mixed. The Land of Judaea remains divided, bitterly contested, and violent. Perhaps this is the inevitable fate of a land considered to be holy by so many people, for so many different reasons.

All parties involved are quick to point the finger of blame for centuries of innocent blood spilled. And no party remains blameless.
--Do we continue to blame the Israelis for the atrocities of 1948 which drove Arabs from their homelands?
--Do we continue to blame Palestinians for sponsoring Intifada and suicide bombings against Israelis?
--Do we blame Israel's Muslim neighbors for persecuting their own Jewish populations and forcing them to immigrate to Israel?
--Do we blame the British for withdrawing prematurely from the Palestine mandate, and rejecting the UN's sensible partition plan?
--Do we blame the Knights Templar, for establishing an ill-fated Christian kingdom in the holy land?
--Do we blame the Romans, for crushing the Essene Revolt and creating the Jewish diaspora?
--Do we blame the ancient Hebrews for waging war against the Canaanites?

This short history lesson ad nauseum should demonstrate the futility of the current conflict. As long as current generations hold the present accountable for the sins of the past, there will never be peace in the holy land.

Once we move beyond the indoctrinated hated, the feelings of victimization, and the belief that we are owed reparations, we can join Walid Shoebat and transition from hate to love. The goal should be to foster coexistence, not domination, and to improve life for all people, rather than our own people.

Missing the Mark of "W"

2008-05-10T22:07:00.002-05:00

Oliver Stone, never a man to shy away from controversy, is pushing ahead with his new Bush-biopic "W." Starring Josh Brolin as the current president and Elizabeth Banks as the First Lady, "W" may be rushed into theaters before the November election.

Oliver Stone claims that the movie is factual because everything in the script came from books. Unfortunately for the sake of history and for intellectual honesty, it appears that most of the books cited by Stone were written by such "credible" sources as Kitty Kelly & Molly Ivins, rather than Bob Woodward or Ron Suskind.

Early reports give the impression that Oliver Stone sees President Bush as a comical figure whose actions are best viewed in the light of a man trying to step out of his father's shadow. But I think Stone's view is wildly off the mark, and "W" will prove to be a weak caricature unless the current script is heavily revised.

How should history, and Hollywood, treat the character of George W. Bush? I think that tragedy, rather than comedy, should be the perspective for treating the subject. The President is a man whose defining characteristic is his almost dogmatic faith in his beliefs, and his conviction in the purpose he has chosen for himself. He is loyal to a fault, favoring his friends when it often goes against the needs of the nation. His cabinet is a mess, divided into open warfare between multiple factions. While he tries to play the part of the referee, President Bush too often sides with his Vice President. Unfortunately, the Dick Cheney of 2001 through today is far more paranoid than the level-headed Cheney of 1991.

There's a fascinating story to be told when the last chapter of the Bush presidency is written. Unfortunately, entertainers like Oliver Stone "misunderestimate" the man as a buffoon who attributes his success to luck and to sinister political actors. But for whose who are close enough to see the real George W. Bush, the story is much closer to Shakespearean tragedy.

Quantum of Song

2008-05-03T19:32:00.002-05:00

Producer Mark Ronson has confirmed that Amy Winehouse started work on the theme song for the next James Bond adventure, Quantum of Solace, but claims that it would take "a miracle of science" for her to finish it. The story meshes with the prediction of my co-worker who expected Ms. Winehouse to be "either dead or in jail" by the time the new Bond flick hits the silver screen.

If the rumor is true, it should be asked who else is appropriate to sing a James Bond theme song. I would posit that Sara Bareilles would be a perfect choice. While she's a relative newcomer to the world of pop music, her brand of moody, piano-driven jazz-pop is perfect for setting the tone to the next Bond movie. It doesn't hurt that her big-label debut album, Little Voice, was probably the best album of 2007.

Sara Bareilles's knack for writing lyrics that are sassy, defiant and still upbeat would pay off in spades for a Bond theme. Add to that the studio sense of veteran Bond producer David Arnold and we could have a real winner on our hands.

I Want to Believe

2008-04-16T21:03:00.003-05:00

After much speculation on the part of fanboys everywhere, it's been announced that the new X-Files movie will be entitled The X-Files: I Want to Believe. The plot will not involve the alien conspiracy that characterized the long-running sci-fi drama; the topic of Fox Mulder's faith will be a central theme within the self-contained storyline.

Many of the self-contained "monster of the week" episodes of The X-Files dealt with issues of faith. They usually revolved around the theme that some things in life are truly miraculous and beyond human scientific comprehension, serving as articles of faith. The issue of faith was primarily addressed with Agent Dana Scully, a scientist and an initial skeptic in Mulder's "Alien Conspiracy" who often turns to her dogmatic Catholic upbringing when her faith in science is shaken. For Fox Mulder, his faith is primarily placed in his desire to believe in the alien conspiracy. He believes in a Deist, non-interventionist God who 'serves as the stats keeper in the universal baseball game.'

The further exploration of Mulder's faith is an interesting avenue for a series that has seemingly exhausted the realm of fantastic ideas. I really hope that this movie makes me want to believe in The X-Files as a franchise again. After six years off television, I hope that Chris Carter's batteries are recharged to the point where he can deliver a movie worthy of a great franchise. The X-Files was one of my favorite dramas of all time, alongside Tour of Duty and House. Let's hope that Chris Carter & co. can rekindle the magic and make us all want to believe again.

Defender of Freedom

2008-04-13T23:15:00.002-05:00

Charlton Heston was laid to rest on Saturday, a week after his passing. He was a great American who will be often imitated, but never duplicated.

As an actor, Charlton Heston rose from humble beginnings to become a Shakespearean actor with a penchant for depicting larger-than-life characters. He gave us stoic legends like Moses, Judah Ben-Hur, Marc Antony, El Cid, and John the Baptist. Charlton Heston animated characters like Robert Neville (The Omega Man,) Captain Garth (Midway,) and Robert Thorne (Soylent Green.) He was unforgettable as the bitter and cynical George Taylor in Planet of the Apes. His career spanned six decades, with a pause for his service in the second World War.

As an activist, he could best be remembered as a man who loved America and loved freedom. As a civil rights marcher in the 60's and president of the Screen Actors Guild, he might have been pigeon-holed as a member of the political left during that era. But his involvement in the National Rifle Association, culminating with his service as president from 1998-2002, led many to dismiss him as a "right-wing wacko."

The defining trait of Charlton Heston is that he believed not only in the American nation, but he believed in the power of Americans, as individuals, to take control of their lives for the better. That belief in the power of the individual's spirit should be neither "right" nor "left." It should be a core belief of all Americans.

Bittersweet Homecoming

2008-04-01T00:36:00.003-05:00

Nearly four years after being captured by Iraqi insurgents, Sergeant Matt Maupin is finally coming home. Obviously it's not the news we wanted to hear. But as hope for finding Matt alive faded with time, the need to bring him home one way or another never wavered.

The final details of Matt Maupin's life may never be known, and the Army probably won't reveal what it does know out of respect for the family and to protect ongoing operations and intelligence sources. But it is testament to the tenacity and dedication of the Army personnel who worked tirelessly to give Matt Maupin the best homecoming they could manage under very challenging circumstances.

The only certainty about Matt Maupin's last moments in captivity is that he was an American soldier, he defied his captors, and he resisted until the bitter end. He will be missed by all, and our prayers should be with his son and the rest of his family.

It should be noted that two American soldiers remain missing, not mentioned in the AP story. They are Specialist Alex Jimenez and Private Byron Fouty, abducted during a May 12, 2007 ambush by al Qaeda on their outpost. Undeterred by fear and doubt and sadness, we must continue to search for them and ensure they come home, one way or another.
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In other Iraq news, the Washington spin machine is already at work trying to manipulate the Basra situation as "proof" that the surge has failed. It must be noted that Basra has not been subjected to the Petraeus counterinsurgency strategy. It was subject to the British zone of occupation, where the British tried "soft" counterinsurgency tactics that were aimed at building goodwill. The tangible result is that Shiite militiamen grew in numbers and firepower, drove out police and other government authorities, and assumed de facto control of Basra. By summer 2005, violence against the Brits in Basra spiked, and Royal Army forces retreated to defensive positions which made it impossible to deal with the militias.

While the Shiite militias grew in military strength, they were also empowered politically through gains in the polls. They control a sizable bloc of the Iraqi parliament, hold key cabinet positions, and have the power to bring the fragile government to a crashing halt.

The genius of Moqtada al Sadr lies not in his military tactics, but his political maneuvering. He understands that America must keep the Baghdad government together, he understands that America is too religiously-sensitive to give pursuit when his militia takes refuge in religious shrines, he exploits sectarian violence to undermine the American position while building political support for his militia, and he understands the American public's reluctance for continued warfare. His militia is a poor excuse for a military unit, but all of its tactics thus far have created the desired political effects: degrading security, furthering sectarian tension, and discrediting America's efforts to build a broad-based, parliamentary government.

I truly believe that Moqtada's political power is an insurmountable obstacle to military action against his militia at this stage in the game. He can only be destroyed in the same way he has built power: politically. He needs to be depicted as a sower of sectarian violence, rather than the solution to the needs of Iraqis. During provincial elections this October, the only means for undermining him is a broad-based coalition of Sunni nationalists, Kurdish democrats, and Shiite secularists. Forging such a coalition will be extremely difficult, but the leaders of all these factions must be made to realize that the alternative is Moqtada al Sadr gaining a plurality of seats in parliament and establishing himself as Tehran's enforcer over Iraq. While I don't hold too much hope in the short term for using "soft" power to peel away elements of the Sadrist movement, it's worth trying as the only viable strategy in the run-up to elections.

Assuming that the US and its allies can pull off a miracle and unseat the Sadrists at the polls, there's always the risk that the Mahdi Army would be unleashed in full force. If that's what goes down, the gloves will have to come off, and the militia will have to be destroyed militarily.

The most foolish actor here is Nouri al Maliki, for ordering a military operation which would certainly fracture his government. While he and his army showed initiative, it was the wrong fight at the wrong time for the embattled government. The only upside is that the use of Iraqi Army and US airpower working in synergy is a model for future counterinsurgency in Iraq.

Book Review: "Liberal Fascism" by Jonah Goldberg

2008-03-30T10:35:00.004-05:00

With a Hitler-esque smiley face and the title "Liberal Fascism" gracing the cover, a casual political observer might view Jonah Goldberg's new tome as a work of contradictory hyperbole. But after reading the introduction, it becomes clear that Goldberg is laying out a serious and somewhat-scholarly argument that modern American liberalism is a sibling of the Fascist movements that swept Italy and Germany prior to World War II. His central thesis is that, while "fascism" is a political movement with no agreed-to definition, it can best be summarized as "the religion of the state." The book's title comes from a speech by socialist author H.G. Wells, and the cover illustration was suggested by George Carlin during the course of an anti-Bush tirade.

Part partisan-polemic and part historical exposition, Liberal Fascism looks at the philosophies that fed into American progressivism (from the French Revolution to the writings of Georges Sorel) and argues that the same beliefs underpinned the European fascists. Jonah Goldberg does not argue that fascism is inherently-evil; he simply claims that it is similar to the economic planning and government interventionism that are advocated by progressives and modern liberals. He also tries to dispel the belief that fascism and communism are polar opposites; that fascism is a nationalist-socialism while Leninist communism takes more of an internationalist flavor, but Goldberg argues that both are populist and leftist movements.

In response to Sinclair Lewis's anti-fascist It Can't Happen Here, Jonah Goldberg points out that it HAS happened here. Whether you call it Wilsonian war socialism, the New Deal, the Great Society, or Compassionate Conservatism, America has often strayed from its founding principles of limited government in the form of "smiley-face, nice fascism."

The book's strongest suit is the fascinating history it dredges up, exposing historical facts that have been swept under the rug (such as Nazi animal-rights laws, or Rexford Tugwell's admission that the New Deal was a logical extension of Hoover Administration policies.) But the demands of brevity and the need to selectively choose historical facts to fit the thesis often erode the historical discussion. Goldberg often speaks in generalities and omits concrete examples when making his points. His chapter on "Liberal Racism" and eugenics could have benefited by talking about America's flirtations with imperialism at the turn of the last century, particularly in regards to the Philippines.

In spite of its partisan pretenses, Liberal Fascism is an entertaining and educational read. The hyperbole suggested by the cover is kept in check repeatedly throughout the text with sober assessments and monologues on the points the author wants the reader to take away. I give it four of five stars, but I'd only recommend it to libertarians and conservative believers in small government. Jonah Goldberg argues very effectively that the Italian and German fascist movements sprang from the same progressive ideals that were active in America, albeit with a twist imposed by the cultural conditions that existed in Italy and Germany between the World Wars. While he attempts to label fascism as a movement of the political left, he inadvertently demonstrates how the labels of "left" and "right" are utterly devoid of meaning in our society.

League of Democracies

2008-03-27T23:04:00.002-05:00

In a major foreign policy address today, Senator John McCain called for a "League of Democracies" that would address the world's problems. It's unclear if this would be a formal alliance, but it would appear to offer a stark difference from the perceived unilateralism of the Bush Administration. But in a sense it represents a similar preference to President Bush's formations of "Coalitions of the Willing" rather than working with the United Nations.

Whether formal or informal, a "League of Democracies" has potential to be a much greater force for good than the United Nations. Because the UN has always grouped together nations with diametrically-opposed interests, it has rarely become more than a debating society or a humanitarian organization. The future of American foreign policy must see the country cooperating with nations that share our common values, in pursuit of common interests. Senator McCain foresees such a league as a means of fighting the global spread of AIDS, alleviating the suffering in Darfur, and even combating climate change (hopefully in a more equitable manner than the Kyoto Accord, in which China was relieved of all responsibility for fighting emissions.)

For the far right, the League of Democracies is one step closer to a "One World Government." For the far left, a League of Democracies undermines the UN (which assumes the UN is much more effective than it actually is,) and excludes "Illiberal Democracies." For example, Iran is nominally democratic, but the elected leadership serves at the pleasure of the clerical autocracy. And the appearance of democracy in Putin's Russia seems to crumble on a daily basis as freedoms erode. For that reason, I would favor an informal "League of Democracies" that is assembled on an issue-by-issue basis, rather than a standing body whose membership is open for acrimonious debate.

In some ways, a League of Democracies already exists. It's called NATO, and its chief drawback is that it only applies to the US, Canada and Europe. I have long thought that NATO should be replaced with a new alliance between the current NATO nations and other democracies like Japan, Australia, South Korea, and India. Such an alliance would be better equipped to deal with the global threats posed by terrorism, rogue states, and humanitarian crises.

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Post script: Impossible Scissors is proud to add Meghan McCain's blog, McCain Blogette, to the blogroll. It's a quirky and somewhat-irreverent look from the inside of the McCain campaign.