The Washington Post editorial page is generally not on board the Obama Surge in Afghanistan.
Charles Krauthammer, with a title that I find to be sort of hilarious -- "Uncertain trumpet" -- of course hates it because Obama did it, and it's not endless war.
On the more liberal side of the equation, Eugene Robinson hates it, too. Krauthammer is pretty easy to just laugh at -- what with his quavering trumpets and all -- but I listen to the Pulitzer Prize-winning Eugene Robinson. He has concerns about the deadline (in a diametrically different way than Krauthammer does), and he has concerns about how terrorist networks -- and terrorism itself -- exists as an entity to actually fight.
It never made sense to think of the fight against terrorism as a "war" because it's not possible to defeat a technique or an idea by force of arms. George W. Bush chose a path toward a more or less permanent state of costly, deadly, low-level war. Barack Obama should have taken a different course.
David Broder laid out the president's Afghanistan strategy as a kind of pick-the-least-worst option deal with respect to political fortunes next year and in 2012.
Michael Gerson offers a backhanded compliment, of sorts.
On the flip side, the Secretary General of NATO thinks it's all a good idea.
As I said before, I'm not particularly a fan of war. I don't like it, and I don't want it. That being said, I was impressed with Obama's speech, and thought he made the case for more troops as well as could be expected. At this point, we'll just have to see how it goes.
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The train has gone off the tracks for a former staffer for ex-Representative Christopher Shays; he's in deep trouble.
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I know this isn't really his fault, but I already thought Charlie Crist was gross. Now he's even more gross.
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Can you believe these people get elected to anything?
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And speaking of insufferable idiots who shouldn't be elected to anything: here's your pro-rape GOP story, courtesy Pensito Review.
These Republican Senators are without shame.
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I guess this means that Flyin' Jeff Kottkamp can get back on board the plane.
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I work very hard to keep the stuff I do for my actual job separate and apart from this blog. It's important to me on an ethical level, and it's important because I want to keep my job.
That being said, we've spent a lot of time and effort there lately re-designing our website. I can thank the team at MityMo for their work on it -- we got a great product, and my Communications Specialist, Eddie Burch, for his extraordinary effort.
Anyway, if you get a moment, and you're curious about what it is I do, check it out: www.jwbpinellas.org
Also be sure to check out our data site: www.AboutPinellasKids.org. Might find some good information there as well.
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At long last, it is Friday... finally. Get on board.
And because I can't find a song I like on stinkin' YouTube...
GO AHEAD AND ASK -- YOU KNOW YOU WANT TO: Do you have a political question? Who doesn't. Go ahead and ask me. I can't promise you'll like the answer, but I can promise to try. Well. I'll try to try. How about that?
Just email me: bkirby816 AT yahoo DOT com
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Dear Spencerian Editors:
On a local political radio station, one of the reporters stated that it is a crime to protest/complain against President Obama's decision on continuing to support the Patriot Act put in place by the Bush administration, is this true?
Angelo
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Dear Angelo:
What a really good question, thank you.
Okay, first: stop listening to those "political" radio stations. Except for my friends at the award-winning Florida Progressive Radio! (How's that for a shameless plug?)
Angelo, the short, easy answer to your question is no. I would encourage you to look at the actual act, which I've linked to in your question. Despite many of the problems of the Patriot Act (which we'll get to in a minute), we are still guaranteed our freedom of speech, our freedom to peaceably assemble, and our freedom to petition the government about stuff we don't like. It's the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, and no one has taken any white-out to it, yet.
Now, that being said, some have argued that this is exactly what the Bush/Cheney Administration was trying to do with the Patriot Act.
But first, back to why I answered your question with a definitive "no." The Patriot Act does not make protesting a crime. Where your radio friends are getting confused is that the act defines something new called "domestic terrorism." The recent tragedy at Fort Hood, and the subsequent debate, demonstrates that there is certainly no consensus around the concept of what a "terrorist" is, or what "terrorism" is -- domestic or international. The Patriot Act has done nothing to clarify this, and in fact has only muddied the waters by identifying whatever "domestic terrorism" may be. Here's the language from the act itself:
...the term ''domestic terrorism'' means activities that -
(A) involve acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State;
(B) appear to be intended - (i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or (iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping;
and
(C) occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States.
Okay, (A) I can understand. In other words, we're using this new phrase -- "domestic terrorism" -- to describe things that are criminal and pose a danger to others. I can deal with that, though to be honest with you, I'm not sure what was wrong with just calling them "criminals" before.
I'm skipping over to (C). This makes sense. I mean, "domestic" means the "territorial jurisdiction of the United States." Hey, it's the law -- they have to spell it all out.
You're going to have some problems in (B). We don't want people -- "domestic terrorists," apparently -- intimidating or coercing the civilian population. That's fine. And I don't want anyone affecting the conduct of government through any of those awful, violent things, either. And we have determined that intimidation and coercion are bad -- remember (A)? -- but this whole influencing policy thing...
What if I want to, say, peaceably assemble with some buddies of mine, and, oh, I don't know, petition my government for a redress of grievances?
All of a sudden we're put in a position of asking some frightening questions. Who now determines what "peaceable" means? What if those people decide that it's not peaceable? What if they decide that it's annoying? What if they decide it's coercion?
Are me and my buddies now "domestic terrorists"?
Hey, if you think this hasn't happened, Angelo, you'd be wrong.
Finally, this is supposed to be about political questions, so let me point out that this is as much President Obama owning the Patriot Act as it is President Bush giving it to us in the first place. Angelo, I don't like the Patriot Act because whether or not it actually criminalizes anything (and it does), with respect to what we've talked about here, it at the least has a chilling effect on free speech.
The Patriot Act exists to give law enforcement and the intelligence community a short-cut. They want to run wiretaps and gather information on people who may be plotting terrorist activity in America. This is okay, but I would have expected them to use the processses already in place (like FISA courts). For whatever reason, Obama has opted to keep the Patriot Act in place.
My hope is that Obama, over the course of his administration, will slowly untangle the Patriot Act. Not only for the sake of his political future, but for the sake of our freedoms as well.
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Got a question? Email it in: bkirby816 AT yahoo DOT com
Believe it or not, I take no pleasure in commenting on it, and will not gloat over what is apparently an abrupt end to former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee's political career. If I thought FOX News was run by people with any heart among them, I'd urge them to fire Huckabee and cancel his ridiculous show, clearly a placeholder until he could run for president again in 2012.
There are four dead police officers in Washington. The man responsible for their deaths would still be in prison today were it not for Mike Huckabee.
My thoughts and prayers are with the families of those fallen officers.
Their sacrifice, however, has brought to close a long-troubling political career. It is worth noting the failures of a man who came very close to being the GOP presidential nominee just last year.
I will also caveat right up front that I worked for the Democratic Gubernatorial Nominee in Arkansas in 2002, and we came damn close to beating him. I wish we had, even though Huckabee had already allowed for the release of Maurice Clemmons in 2000.
In a further caveat, I have been downright rude about the Huckabees. Both he and his wife, Janet, have exhibited fanatical behavior based in their ultra-right wing religion, and the results were unpleasant at best.
All of that aside, one thing missing in the coverage of the downfall of Mike Huckabee with respect to the atrocities committed by Maurice Clemmons is that Huckabee has done this before.
I wrote about the rapist and murderer Wayne Dumond back in 2007. As terrible as it is for the victims of Dumond's crimes, Huckabee pretty much got a pass from the public. We let it go. Thousands of GOP primary voters let it go. After that, FOX News let it go.
And now a whole community in Pierce County, Washington is suffering. The whole nation grieves with the families of those fallen officers and all we can ask Mike Huckabee is: why?
Don't expect an answer, at least not a satisfactory one. The Huck is not in the business of answering his critics. Our only hope can be that his lame excuses and pathetic dithering on this tragedy will hasten his exile to political and celebrity Siberia.
Good riddance.
"While heading the profit of my counsel, avail yourself also of any helpful circumstances over and beyond the ordinary rules."
-- Sun Tzu, The Art of War
Lately Republicans and our friends and neighbors who lean conservative have been down in the dumps. For good reason. For many well-deserved reasons.
I had someone of the right-leaning persuasion ask me the other day what I thought the downfall of the progressive movement might be.
And there will be a downfall of our movement. Political movements come and go in cycles, and just as our government and politics has trended conservative since the Reagan Revolution through its own downfall in what we might call the Bush/Rove years, the movement of those of us who are Democrats, progressives, or just liberal will come to an end. Whether it is sooner or whether it is later is almost entirely up to us.
So the answer to the question from my friend was "when we begin to put our ideology before pragmatic solutions." This answer, as my friend noticed, is applicable to what Republicans are going through right now. Can you honestly look at the GOP and call it the big tent party? They're the ones with the purity test, after all.
As President Obama prepares to announce his strategy for Afghanistan, I've been thinking about this a lot. I've seen a lot of my fellow Democrats and many other progressives acting in a less pragmatic way than I'd like.
It started with health care, actually. One person said that if health care reform didn't have a public option, Obama's presidency would be "a failure." Really? That seems a bit over the top.
We've gone a little crazy with the cheese whiz on the economy, too. I have seen more than once a blogger or a columnist call for the heads of Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and White House Economic Chief Larry Summers. Again I ask: really? Look, I might've structured the TARP package differently, but can we at least agree that the Obama economic team pulled the American -- and global -- economy back from the brink of unprecedented disaster? They did this just a few months ago, and now we want them fired because... the job outlook isn't very good?
You know, we never even explain the why of it -- and that's always the first symptom of ideology winning out of pragmatism. Because you don't have to explain your ideology. It just is. I am a liberal, therefore everyone has to have health care! I am a conservative, so all taxes are bad! I am a liberal, so we should always help the poor first! I am a conservative, so we should always let business take the lead!
I am a liberal, and I hate war.
I am, in fact, a fairly liberal guy (I've always thought), and I do hate war. But I also like to think of myself as pragmatic. That means asking hard questions. If I think this war is over -- and I do think the war in Afghanistan is over; the problem is, nobody told the Americans -- how do we best wind it down?
The notion that 70,000 (or so) troops can just go to the nearest airport outside of Kabul and hitch a ride home isn't practical. It doesn't work that way, as much as we'd want it to. So when I read blog posts and open letters from activist film makers telling the president he's already a failure -- without hearing the details, without thinking through the geopolitical complexities of extricating ourselves from a fragile nation at war -- I worry that folks on our side are beginning to put ideology before pragmatism.
My point is, can't we at least hear what President Obama has to say? Can't we open our minds to new and different options? War is not always the binary equation we want it to be. It's not off or on. It will take years to fully extricate ourselves from George W. Bush's and Dick Cheney's failed Afghanistan adventure. I want it to be done the right way. It's one of the many reasons I voted for Obama. So I'll give him the chance to explain himself.
Now, with all that said, I started with a quote from The Art of War. Think beyond the ordinary rules.
With all of this said, let me close with Sun Tzu again:
"There is no instance of a country having benefited from prolonged warfare... In war, then, let your great object be victory, not lengthy campaigns."