I explained my lamentation by noting that:

… far too few government officials and reporters are bothering to assure the public that this outbreak is no more deadly than the garden-variety flu that kills over 36,000 Americans every year.  And, even though it’s a new strain, the fact that over 99% of the people infected worldwide have recovered indicates that this swine flu is no more likely to grow into a pandemic than SARS or the Avian flu.

[Swine flu causing more panic than pandemic, TIJ, April 28, 2009]

In fact the death rate from Swine flu so far is no greater than that of the seasonal flu. Therefore, it seems foolhardy that governments, particularly throughout the developing world, are depleting emergency funds to combat this phantom pandemic. Especially when simply admonishing people to wash their hands would suffice.

New estimates suggest that the death rate compares to a moderate year of seasonal influenza… I think we can say we are in a category 1 pandemic [as opposed to the highest category 6, which the WHO declared earlier this year].

(Dr Marc Lipsitch of Harvard University at a meeting of flu experts being held by the US Institute of Medicine in September)

In any case, one could be forgiven for thinking that the US Center for Disease Control (CDC) would have ensured that there was a sufficient supply of the Swine flu vaccine available at this point to administer to all individuals duly panicked by the government’s dire warnings.

Yet the media are replete these days with stories about vaccine shortages. In fact, government officials concede that they have less than a quarter of the 160 million doses they promised in July would be available by now.

Not surprisingly, this has led to lines outside flu clinics and hospitals that resemble bread lines during the Depression. 

More to the point, there’s no denying that if George W. Bush were still president, he’d be suffering a torrent of criticisms for this CDC failure.  And the most charitable criticism would have been that he clearly did not learn a damn thing from FEMA’s spectacular failures during Hurricane Katrina.

So why not Obama…?

Especially given that frustration turned to moral outrage yesterday when it was reported that a Brownie-like official in his administration made the boneheaded decision that Wall Street bankers should join healthcare workers, pregnant women and young children on the priority list of those receiving rationed doses of this highly coveted vaccine.

What an incompetent, hysterical mess!

Related commentaries:
Swine flu causing more panic than pandemic
We have more to fear from common cold than swine flu

Preliminary reports indicated that military police killed him at the scene.  But, even though shot, he’s evidently still alive and in custody. Two other soldiers who were arrested as suspects have since been released.

Fort Hood is the largest military base in the world.  It is home to over 50,000 personnel. In providing initial insights as to motive, military commentators focused on the role Fort Hood plays not only as the place of no return for soldiers heading off to war but also as a debriefing center for those returning from war.

On the one hand, they suggested that the anxieties of an 18-year-old soldier being deployed for his first tour of duty might have triggered this massacre; while on the other, they suggested that it could have been the post-traumatic stress of a seasoned soldier coping with multiple deployments.

But I imagine this will all change, even if subtly, now that the gunman has been named as Nidal Malik Hasan. For, even though none of them would dare say so, I suspect most commentators are thinking that this gunman must have been an al Qaeda operative/sympathizer or a garden-variety Muslim fanatic.

Never mind the complicating irony that Hassan (39) is a psychiatrist who specialized in treating combat stress disorder. Also, he reportedly harbored conscientious (Islamic) objections to being deployed to fight against fellow Muslims, which he was scheduled to do on November 28.

Whatever the case, there’s no denying that the shock of having a military officer perpetrate this massacre is compounded by the fear that this perfectly sane and rational soldier might have been inspired to act by al-Qaeda propaganda.  Not to mention that it now forces military brass to wonder whether there are any others like him, simmering with jihadist fervor and just waiting to attack: beware the anti-Muslim witch hunt / backlash….

It’s difficult enough when we lose these great Americans in battles overseas. It’s horrifying that they should come under fire at an Army base on American soil.

(President Obama)

Frankly, I would like to think that this “horrific outburst of violence” will compel Obama to reconsider his decision to send more troops to Afghanistan. But I fear it will have no such impact.

Meanwhile, whatever Hasan’s motive is determined to be, I’ve always marveled at the fact that the post-traumatic stress of fighting in two senseless wars does not drive more soldiers to go postal….

My thoughts and prayers go out to the families of those affected and to all members of the US military - all of whom must be thinking there but for the grace of God….

Related commentaries:
Picture of Obama saluting war dead…

No storyline in the soap opera ‘As the Yankees Turn’ provides more yearly fascination than watching Steinbrenner spend obscene amounts of money to lure the best players to New York only to have them play - during the critical October pennant race and World Series - as if they were bought with phony dollar bills (and were just giving him what he paid for…).

[Fall classic: the Yankees lose again...! TIJ, October 10, 2007]

This quote should indicate how much I have reveled in chronicling the Yankees’ failure since 2000 to win the World Series, which, understandably, they’ve been expected to win each year.

But I always knew that, sooner or later, the players on this best team  money could buy would finally play up to their potential.  And so they did last night - by defeating the defending champion Philadelphia Phillies 7-3 in game 6 at Yankee Stadium to win the 2009 World Series 4 games to 2.

No thanks to Alex Rodriguez (A-Rod), though, who struck out (again) with the bases loaded,  blowing an opportunity to seal this championship in the third inning.  Frankly, I don’t understand why this guy is the highest-paid player in the game … and by such an absurd margin, making 33 million this year, which is 12 million more than the second-highest paid, and far more productive Yankee, Derek Jeter.  

Not to mention lingering suspicions that Rodriguez has yet to come clean about his use of steroids….

The New York Yankees have now won 27 titles - the most of any team in baseball history.  Never mind that they’ve been on the losing side of 13 World Series - the most of any team….

But so ends this run of ‘As the Yankees Turn.’ 

Congratulations boys … Yankees redeemed!

Related commentaries:
Yankees on precipice of redemption
A-Rod comes clean about steroids…kinda

President Barack Obama’s political clout was on the line Tuesday as Virginia and New Jersey chose governors in contests that could serve as warning signs for Democrats about the public’s mood heading into an important mid-term election year.

(LIZ SIDOTI, AP National Political Writer)

This quote reflects the dire warning that political pundits of every stripe have been propagating in the run up to these off-year elections.  But it’s patent nonsense.

Frankly, it’s bad enough that these pundits hype mid-term elections, which are held midway through four-year presidential terms, as a referendum on an incumbent president’s re-election prospects. This, despite the fact that presidents have routinely defied the notion that devastating party losses in these elections portend their reelection doom - as Bill Clinton did in 1996.

Yet these talking heads have spent the last few weeks pontificating about what doom would follow for President Obama if his party’s (Democratic) candidates were to lose in the few, plainly inconsequential off-year elections that were held today - a mere year into his first term.

But - with all due respect to Virginia and New Jersey, where supposedly pivotal gubernatorial elections were held, and to New York, where one supposedly bell-weather congressional election was held - these off-year elections are no ”test of Obama’s clout” whatsoever.  

Actually, the politicians who won or lost are such bid players on the national stage that the only thing worth mentioning about today’s results is the fact that the billionaire mayor of New York City, Mike Bloomberg, spent over 100 million to be re-elected in a squeaker.  He must really love his job.

To be sure, though, the relative rout by Republican candidates is a bad omen for congressional Democrats in mid-term elections next year.

Of undeniable (local and national) significance, however, is the result of the referendum on gay marriage that was held in Maine.  Not least because similar referendums held on this issue in 30 other states have been defeated “by the people” - even in putatively liberal California.

Alas, now the people of Maine, who were presumed to be most sympathetic to gay marriages, have too.  In fact, they voted in rather decisive fashion to deny gays and lesbians the equal civil right to marry - a right the rest of us take for granted.

So much for keeping alive the HOPE Obama inspired….

Related commentaries:
Court upholds California referendum banning gay marriage

* This article was published originally last night at 10:01. I have updated it to correct initial reports that Maine had upheld the gay marriage law.

Why else would Benedict XVI, the most conservative and doctrinaire pope in modern times, implement liberal reforms just to make it easier to increase his flock of tithing worshipers….

Specifically, the Catholic Church seems hell-bent on exploiting the irreparable rift that developed in the Anglican Church a few years ago over the ordination of women priests and the consecration of gay bishops:

In a March 2005 column, I predicted that the battle within the Anglican Church over the role of women and gays would eventually blow its worldwide communion asunder. Back then, some of the most influential dioceses in the United States and overseas (especially in Latin America and Africa) threatened to secede… Because, they claimed, ordaining women as priests and consecrating gays as bishops (to say nothing of performing gay marriages) amounted to a “Satanic attack” on the Church.

[Internecine battle for the soul (and property) of the Anglican Church, TIJ, December 18, 2006]

Interestingly enough, a significant number of white Anglicans became so disaffected that they abandoned their white leader, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, and joined a rival worldwide communion headed by a black leader, the Archbishop of Nigeria, Peter Akinola.

More to the point, though, the Catholic Church clearly saw this internecine battle within the Anglican Church as a divine recruiting opportunity.  And to make it easier for Anglicans to jump ship, the pope decreed on October 20 that even married Anglican priests would be welcome on board his ship of faith.

Never mind that this decree makes a mockery of the declaration the pope made in 2006, in which he:

… reaffirmed the value of the choice of priestly celibacy [insisting that] opening up the Church to a married priesthood is no cure for the sickness that is plaguing Catholicism in its historic birthplace of Western Europe.

[The Pope Lays Down the Law on Celibacy, TIME, November 16, 2006]

So much for the infallible pronouncements of the pope, eh….

But nothing will swell the ranks of his faithful quite like the pope’s decision to allow Anglicans:

to convert as individuals, parishes or even as whole dioceses.

In fact, Reuters reports that the Traditional Anglican Communion (TAC), which has some 400,000 members, has already joined the Catholic Church en masse.

Meanwhile, to add insult to this injurious poaching, the Vatican announced on Friday that it has invited the Archbishop of Canterbury to meet with the pope on November 21 to discuss worldwide Christian unification. 

But this cuckolded Archbishop must surely know that the Vatican envisions this unification taking place under the pastoral leadership of the pope and under the banner of the Roman Catholic Church.

Amen.

Related commentaries:
Internecine battle for the soul
Pope lays down Law on Celibacy

Accordingly, I applauded President Obama when he ended this Orwellian ban.  After all, the American people should be painfully aware of the human sacrifices inherent in any president’s decision to wage war. 

Not to mention the irony of Obama insisting that he too was lifting the ban out of respect for the troops and regard for their families….

That said, I think it was a mistake for Obama to invite media coverage of him saluting the remains of 18 service members who were killed in Afghanistan on Monday; notwithstanding that going out to Dover Air Force Base “to observe up close this dignified transfer” was an unprecedented presidential move.

For this move would have been politically shrewd  (perhaps even sensitive) only if he had already announced that he was withdrawing troops from this ill-fated war.

Instead, reports are that Obama has already made what he probably thinks is the Solomonic decision to send an additional 20 thousand troops to the killing fields of Afghanistan, giving his commanding general half of the 40 thousand he requested.

Unfortunately, this means that troops are bound to be returning home in body bags throughout his entire presidency. Because, frankly, given the military quagmire Afghanistan has become, sending 20 (or even 40) thousand additional troops amounts to the proverbial tossing of a 50-foot life line to a man drowning 100 feet away…. 

More to the point, one wonders how he’ll decide which dead soldiers will be worthy of his presidential salute.  Or perhaps, henceforth, he’ll salute them all in the same spirit with which he claims he dutifully writes condolence letters to each of their families….

In either case, it does not bode well that this October has been the deadliest month in this eight-year war - with 54 soldiers paying the ultimate sacrifice.

Meanwhile, any troop escalation presents him with a political Catch-22: for on the one hand, this will not please conservative hawks who want to see enough troops deployed to rebuild Afghanistan in America’s image; while on the other, it is bound to alienate liberal doves who want to see all troops brought home, leaving that God-forsaken country to its own devices.

Of course I side unabashedly with the liberals in this context. But if Obama wants to continue waging this war, he should at least follow the Powell Doctrine by deploying an overwhelming number of troops (like 300,000 instead of the 150,000  Obama seems to think are necessary) to fight in, and take control of, every nook and cranny.  Then, under martial law, the US could build Afghanistan into a country that can govern itself, sustain itself and defend itself, just as it did with Japan after World War II.

Otherwise:

… the US legacy there will be distinguished … by tens of thousands of American soldiers being committed to Afghanistan’s “graveyard of empires” as it continues fighting this unwinnable war (following its own Vietnam precedent)…

[Without [or even with] more troops, failure in Afghanistan is likely, TIJ, September 23, 2009]

In any event, I fear that this photo-op of him saluting America’s war dead will become the defining image of his presidency….

Related commentaries:
Without [or even with] more troops…
Karzai submits to runoff election

For, on the one hand, I’m his biggest fan:

Paying tribute to Michael Jackson as the King of Pop is rather like paying tribute to Joseph Ratzinger as the Pope.  For, where his musical genius was concerned, Michael was not only entertaining, but also revered and respected to the point of seeming, well, Invincible… His musical legacy is set in platinum.

[Michael Jackson, the King of Pop, is dead, TIJ, June 27, 2009]

While on the other, I’m his most despairing critic:

Frankly, the pathological self-loathing, predatory entitlement and attention-grabbing antics that characterized his personal life were beginning to fatally undermine the appeal of his professional life.

[Michael Jackson, the King of Pop, is dead, TIJ, June 27, 2009]

It is ironic, therefore, that after seeing This Is It tonight, I left the cinema feeling vindicated both in my praise and criticism of Michael. 

This film, of course, is a skillfully edited chronicle of rehearsals for the long-awaited comeback that was derailed by his mysterious death.

But it’s probably the first time in the history of cinema that a movie has surpassed all promotional hype and critical acclaim, which is saying a lot.

Especially with movie critics all waxing rapturous in their reviews: with Roger Friedman, for example, hailing it as “the ‘Thriller’ of the year ” and Sam Rabin declaring that “Elizabeth Taylor’s praise [of it as ‘the most brilliant piece of film making I've ever seen'] is right on the money.”

In fact, This Is It seems a sure bet for an Academy Award next year!

I’m not a movie critic, however. So I won’t play one here.  Except that I will share this: 

My favorite MJ music video is not Beat It, or Billie Jean or even Thriller. Instead, it’s Smooth Criminal.  And it was nothing short of mind blowing to watch him outdo himself, with dazzling moves and timbre-perfect voice, when he performed (i.e., rehearsed) this song.

I was also extremely impressed by the extent to which Michael not only controlled every aspect of this extraordinary production but also demonstrated as much technical expertise as every expert he hired to help him pull it off. For example, a number of scenes feature Michael telling director Kenny Ortega how to do his job - but only in the most loving and endearing way….  

Then there’s the age-defying fact that this 50-year old exuded so much energy on stage that he seemed more of a contemporary than someone twice the age of his backup dancers, which in fact is the case.  Indeed, despite all of the rumors about his ill-health, Michael appeared in vintage form.

This Is It is a musical and cultural supernova. You gotta see it!

That said, my euphoria leaving the cinema was tempered by the show-biz thought that this film will do far more to seal his legacy (and make him a legend) than the 50 shows he was scheduled to perform ever could.

Because as brilliant as he undoubtedly would have performed in a few of them, the inescapable and wholly warranted fear is that, inevitably, his patented off-stage antics would have detracted too much from his stellar on-stage performances.  Not to mention that, after 10 shows, the novelty would have worn off, and his (aging and frail) body might have given way.

This is why I am left with the admittedly perverse feeling that, even though “a comet blazing across the evening sky, [Michael was not] gone too soon….”  

Thanks MJ!  R.I.P. (Move over Elvis, Michael’s here!)

Related commentaries:
Michael Jackson, the king of pop, is dead
R.I.P MJ

*I saw the 7:40 show last night. I immediately wrote and published this commentary, originally, at 10:31 pm.

Therefore, you’d think Australia would be solicitous about attracting new immigrants to its shores.  Yet nothing could be further from the truth.

For the record, over 1 million people migrated to the US last year; only 150 thousand migrated to Australia. 

More to the point, Australians are exhibiting as much xenophobia today in dealing with their (undesirable) immigrants, namely Indonesians and Sri Lankans, as (relatively congested) Americans are in dealing with theirs, namely, Mexicans and Haitians.

Specifically, Australians are acting as if desperate asylum-seekers from war-ravaged Sri Lanka and economic refugees from poverty-stricken Indonesia - who have been washing up on their shores in increasing numbers this year - are a threat not only to their national security but also to their (white) heritage.  The Economist posits that this reflects:

… fears, long embedded in the Australian psyche, of swarms of arrivals in the country’s north.

Actually, nothing demonstrates the irrational (if not racist) nature of their fears quite like the fact that Australians insisted this year that a “swarm” of 1,200 boat people be detained and repatriated; whereas, none of them lifted a finger in protest last year when 14,000 tourists “melted” into their country after arriving by air and overstaying their visas.

Of course, the US set the precedent for this xenophobic double standard. Because it routinely directs almost all of its immigration enforcement resources towards patrolling its Southern border (to interdict the undesirables) despite the fact that nearly half of the 500,000 annual influx of illegal immigrants arrive by air and overstay their visas.

Nevertheless, there’s no denying that, but for rabid anti-Muslim sentiments, Australia would be emulating the relatively liberal immigration policy that contributed so much to the rise of America as world leader. 

In fact, Australia is admired throughout Europe for the way it has enforced selective immigration (based on “family and government cohesion”). But this admiration reeks of the anti-Muslim sentiment that now permeates Europe and which is at the heart of Australia’s dogged attempt to control immigration from Indonesia, the largest Muslim country in the world.

Not to mention that most Australians, like far too many Europeans and Americans, now unfairly equate Muslim immigration with Trojan-horse terrorism. 

All of which makes one wonder what their new, more liberal prime minister, Kevin Rudd, meant when he pledged to implement an immigration policy that is “tough but humane.” Because he seems just as determined as his predecessors were to keep Australia as white as possible … with all due respect to the (native) aborigines.

Indeed, perhaps Rudd only intended to treat these non-white immigrants more humanely before sending them back where they came from.

This criticism reached a tipping point last week when he invited only male members of his Cabinet and Congress to the White House to play basketball.

And when a reporter asked him during an interview on Wednesday if he thought his boys-only outings (especially to play golf) were sending the wrong message, he dismissed the criticism as “bunk,” insisting that:

I don’t think it sends any kind of message or signal whatsoever… [I have] hired women into some of the most important decision-making positions in this White House.

Fair enough….

But when I saw the video of this interview over the weekend, I thought that Obama’s defensiveness betrayed political insensitivity and tone-deafness that were truly stupefying. In fact, he seemed utterly clueless about the fact that this is precisely the kind of rationalization stuffy old white men once used to defend their good ol’ boy network, which invariably entailed bonding on the golf course.

To his credit, though, Obama is nothing if not a quick study. Because I suspect that, even before he completed that fateful interview, he was thinking of a way to redress this egregious oversight.

Therefore, it was hardly surprising that cameras caught Melody Barnes, the Domestic Policy Council Director, lumbering with clubs in tow across the front lawn of the White House heading out for a PR round of golf with Obama. 

And thus was another gender barrier broken.  It’s just too bad that cameras could not confirm whether Barnes was actually invited to play or merely to serve as the president’s caddy….

Meanwhile, a few female members of his Cabinet and Congress have insinuated that it’s probably Obama’s fear of being outplayed by girls than any desire to bond with “The Boys” that has motivated his politically incorrect choice of basketball and golfing playmates:

Jay: I know you were quite a good college basketball player. Who would win at a game of Horse? You or President Obama?

Kathleen: I actually made my college basketball team. You know? Bring it on. Give me your best shot.

(HHS Secretary Kathleen Sibelius on the Oct. 7 episode of The Jay Leno Show)

 Ouch! Game on….

Last night, in the house that Jeter built, the New York Yankees won a long-awaited berth into the World Series by defeating the Los Angeles Angels 5-2 to win the American League Championship Series, four games to two.

Of course, any team would be happy to brag about winning 40 league pennants and 26 World Series championships - as the Yankees have, and any player would be happy to brag about being on seven World Series teams - as  Derek Jeter and a couple other current players can.

But what makes this a quest for redemption is that no team in history has paid so much to accomplish so little than Yankees have done since their last pennant in 2003.  And this is why I have duly mocked their spectacular failures, in part, as follows:

No storyline in the soap opera ’As the Yankees Turn’ provides more yearly fascination than watching Steinbrenner spend obscene amounts of money to lure the best players to New York only to have them play - during the critical October pennant race and World Series - as if they were bought with phony dollar bills (and were just giving him what he paid for…).

[Fall classic: the Yankees lose again...! TIJ, October 10, 2007]

Therefore, as I congratulate the Yankees on winning the pennant this year, I feel constrained to remind their fans that failure still looms as the Bronx “bomber” try now to dethrone the defending World Series Champions, the Philadelphia Phillies.

Because let there be no doubt that, with a billion dollars invested in players’ salaries, winning the pennant, but losing the World Series will make this just another fall classic of spectacular failure for the New York Yankees….

Related commentaries:
Fall classic: the Yankees lose again
A-Rod comes clean about using steroids, kinda…

Government officials and news reporters are doing more to cause a panic than this virus will do to cause a pandemic… 

[F]ar too few government officials and reporters are bothering to assure the public that this outbreak is no more deadly than the garden variety flu that kills over 36,000 Americans every year.  And, even though it’s a new strain, the fact that over 99% of the people infected worldwide have recovered indicates that this Swine flu is no more likely to grow into a pandemic than SARS or the Avian flu.

[Swine flu causing more panic than pandemic, TIJ, April 28, 2009]

Related commentaries:
… more to fear from common cold than swine flu

Well, we have some good news… Pleasant is a free woman … God is good! 

Pleasant, of course, is former Bahamian Senator Pleasant Bridgewater.  She and ambulance driver Tarino Lightbourne are the infamous defendants in this case.

Justice Allen’s ruling of a mistrial, however, was as unwarranted as it is unsustainable:

It was unwarranted not only because deliberations were still ongoing but also because the judge merely feared, but had no proof that a juror had “communicated” with this boneheaded politician.

And it is unsustainable because it establishes the precedent that any public figure can prematurely announce the verdict in any case in a public forum and cause a mistrial - especially since a contempt citation would invariably prove a small price to pay, if issued at all.

That said, if the jury were really on the verge of acquitting Bridgewater (pictured here with co-defendant Lightbourne), this might be a case of poetic justice. 

Because instead of being able to celebrate her freedom, she will now be left hanging in legal purgatory (reportedly bankrupt, unable to work and facing millions in lawsuits based on other allegations of fraud) until her retrial … sometime next year. 

And, who knows, this second jury might be more inclined to convict - as the evidence clearly indicates it should.

What a farce!

NOTE: Prosecutors have vowed to retry both defendants. And Travolta issued a statement expressing disappointment but also vowing to return to testify as the star witness for the prosecution.

Related commentaries:
Travolta extortionists greedy and stupid…

… there is insufficient evidence to charge [former Premier] Michael Misick with any offense in connection with a complaint of serious sexual assault made against him by an adult female U.S. citizen, following a visit to his residence on March , 27 2008.

However, on September 1, 2008, I wrote a commentary entitled Woman in threesome with TCI Premier Misick exculpates him of rape, which was published here.

My commentary was based on the signed statement of a woman who witnessed (and participated in) the sex acts that gave rise to this complaint against the Premier. Specifically, this witness (”Vanessa”) claimed not only that all of the acts were consensual but also that the complainant initiated them.

Therefore, I admonished AG DeFreitas as follows:

I can’t imagine any prosecutor filing charges, let alone obtaining a conviction, against the Premier given Vanessa’s statement.  Moreover, it renders waiting for FBI forensic evidence a complete waste of time since any finding would be entirely consistent with consensual sex.

Which brings me to TCI Attorney General Kurt DeFreitas; because TCIslanders have been waiting anxiously for over five months for him to either charge the Premier or announce that there is insufficient evidence to do so.  Moreover, I believe there is not only compelling public interest in putting this matter to rest, but also a categorical imperative to remove the cloud of suspicion hovering over our Premier if prosecuting him has virtually no prospect of success…

Accordingly, I urge AG DeFreitas to quell the fury of speculation over this rape case by issuing an immediate statement either assuring the public that there is just cause to continue the investigation, or conceding that there is not… [He should] indicate whether Vanessa’s [eyewitness] statement has already been factored into the investigation, or whether it constitutes newly discovered evidence which might finally compel him to dismiss the allegations against the Premier - as I believe justice now demands.

[Woman in threesome with TCI Premier Misick..., TIJ, September 1, 2008]

Alas, DeFreitas’ failure not only to dismiss this sensational complaint but even to utter a single word about his purportedly ongoing investigation turned this into one of his more incomprehensible and vexing cases of serial nonfeasance.

And, after reading his all too belated press release, in which he comes across like Rip Van Winkle saying this week what he should have said 20 months ago, my incomprehension and vexation only gave way to resigned indignation.

Here, for the record, is a little more of what he finally said:

The Attorney General has applied the established evidential test … namely whether the evidence as a whole is sufficient to provide a realistic prospect of obtaining a conviction… The evidence included eyewitnesses present when the sexual behavior took place, including that which involved Mr Misick and the complainant.

The matter was delayed for a lengthy period of time as a result of pursuing forensic testing. The final results and file were referred to eminent, independent U.K. legal counsel who reviewed the evidence and provided  a reasoned  legal opinion recommending that charges not be brought against Mr Misick.

(Press release by the Honourable Attorney General Kurt DeFreitas, October 21, 2009)

Along with my fellow TCIslanders, I lament that it’s humbling enough that we must appeal to judges in the UK as the final arbiters of our judicial fate.  But it’s a national shame that our Attorney General waited 20 months for a UK lawyer to provide a “reasoned legal opinion” on whether to file charges in this case when any third-rate TCI lawyer could have provided this same opinion in 20 days.

Of course, my abiding concerns about DeFreitas’ professional competence and effectiveness are well documented. 

Therefore, I shall suffice to note here how incomprehensible and vexing it is that the British have retained this Attorney General who presided like a deaf, dumb and mute watchdog over the “endemic corruption” that compelled them to suspend our constitution and takeover the governance of our country.  Is he a sacred cow…?

Whatever the case, it behooves the British to appreciate that it is far more important for us to have confidence in his ability to manage the administration of justice in the TCI than it is for them to have confidence in his ability to consult in the abstract with authorities in the UK.

But frankly, the time for press releases and explanations from this Attorney General has passed. It’s time now for him to either resign or be removed from office!

Related commentaries:
Woman in threesome with TCI Premier Misick… 
No public interest in prosecuting the Premier…

And nothing has been more revealing in this respect than the love letters they exchanged. Here, for example, is what Nehru (68) wrote Edwina (58) in 1959:

Suddenly I realised (and perhaps you also did) that there was a deeper attachment between us, that some uncontrollable force, of which I was dimly aware, drew us to one another.

I was overwhelmed and at the same time exhilarated by this new discovery. We talked more intimately as if some veil had been removed and we could look into each other’s eyes without fear or embarrassment.

Given this, one can only imagine the passion they shared in each other’s company; especially in light of Edwina’s reputed nymphomania, which one assumes she attempted to satiate with a scandalous 30-year fling with a black man. Not to mention credible rumors that Nehru and her husband’s alleged bisexuality led to them engaging in “spicy ménage a trois” dalliances.

More to the point, though, it’s no wonder that Joe Wright, the director of such movie classics as Pride and Prejudice, would be so solicitous to capture this historically significant love affair on film.  And it seemed everything was in place for him to consummate this cinematic treat - with Cate Blanchette starring as Edwina and Hugh Grant as her cuckolded husband.

Unfortunately, Wright’s artistic quest for authenticity and India’s vaunted tradition of sexual repression in films proved irreconcilable.  Because here are the restrictions the government placed on his categorical imperative of filming on location in India:

No scenes of physical intimacy between Nehru and Lady Mountbatten are allowed, no gestures or actions or words of love or affection between the two.

Clearly, with such restrictions, there’s no way Wright could do justice to this love affair.  Yet the government is merely insisting that, if he wants to make this film in India, he must make it the way Indians do; i.e., in Bollywood motif where song and dance are farcical and persistent substitutes for romance … sex.

So, notwithstanding Universal’s spin about “budgetary constraints,” here’s how Wright expressed the irreconcilable difference that caused the film to be scrapped:

We were in between a rock and a hard place. The Indian government wanted us to make less of the love story while the studio wanted us to make more of the love story.

End of story….

Related book:
Indian Summer: Secret History…

This is why he expressed indignation (bordering on contempt) a few days ago when the United Nations Electoral Complaints Commission invalidated almost a third of his 3 million votes and recommended a runoff election.  He even indicated that he had no intention of abiding by its findings, insisting that Afghanistan’s IEC disagreed vehemently with the methodology the UN commission used to determine which votes were fraudulent.

Therefore, it must have taken the kind of pressure American soldiers perfected at Abu Ghraib to get Karzai to change his tune.  Indeed, he looked like an al-Qaeda hostage standing next to US Sen John Kerry this morning as he announced that he would participate in a runoff election on November 7 against Abdullah, after all.

But I don’t see how this is going to make Obama’s pending decision on troop deployment there any easier. Not least because everyone from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to Sen Kerry himself has insisted that Obama will not send over any more troops until the Afghan government gets rid of corruption. 

And, since the corruption UN officials uncovered at the presidential level is in fact endemic throughout the entire government, nobody believes there will be any change in this respect even if the next president could channel honest Abe Lincoln. This, alas, makes the outcome of the runoff election utterly irrelevant.

Accordingly, I urge Obama to stop his Hamletian dithering on this issue. In particular, he should ignore the (conservative) chicken hawks who are egging him on to surge troops in Afghanistan to follow the precedent President Bush set in Iraq. 

Because the only instructive precedent here is the one President Johnson set in Vietnam, which should warn Obama not to allow a military quagmire to doom his presidency the way a similar quagmire doomed Johnson’s.

Related commentaries:
Obama hedging against sending more troops

* This commentary was originally published yesterday, Tuesday, at 5:21 pm

By contrast, one can only imagine the despair among members of the Mo Ibrahim Prize for Achievement in African Leadership (MIPAAL) committee as they discussed all of the reasons why no African leader was worthy of being awarded this year’s MIPAAL.

Alas, this is the fateful inference one has to make after the MIPAAL committee issued a statement yesterday which read, in part, as follows:

The prize committee welcomed the progress made on governance in some African countries while noting with concern recent setbacks in other countries.  This year the prize committee has considered some credible candidates. However, after in-depth review, the prize committee could not select a winner.

For the record, though, here’s the cynical note I sounded three years ago this month, when others were heralding the MIPAAL as a truly worthy alternative to the Noble (never mind that I don’t think the Noble is all it’s cracked up to be):

Ibrahim seems to think African leaders are so congenitally corrupt that the only way “to remove corruption and improve governance” in Africa is, ironically, to bribe them….

And to prove that he intends to vest this igNoble prize with (at least financial) value that surpasses that of the Nobel Prize (at $1.4 million), Ibrahim has provided for a cash gift of $5 million over 10 years, when the winner leaves office, plus $200,000 a year for life to be awarded with his … MIPAAL. Moreover, to adorn his prize with a patina of integrity, he has decreed that only a leader who “democratically transfers power to his successor” will be eligible to receive this golden parachute.

Unfortunately, given that it’s a long-established fringe benefit for African leaders to steal at least $5 million each year of their rule, this prize seems at best an honorable perk….

[Businessman launches the Africa No "Mo" Corruption Prize, TIJ October 27, 2006]

More to the point, here’s how I greeted the announcement of the first recipient of the MIPAAL, which Ibrahim touted - without a hint of irony or shame - as the most lucrative prize in the world:

President Joaquim Chissano of Mozambique is probably only one of two African leaders (the other being former President Jerry John Rawlings of Ghana) who met the criteria; especially the one that requires a leader to leave office voluntarily and with his reputation relatively in tact…

At any rate, after Rawlings [of Ghana] next year and, perhaps, a retired South African President Thabo Mbeki in 2009, one wonders to whom Annan’s committee will award the MIPAAL - without the stench of corruption permeating the occasion…?

[Africa's igNoble prize awarded to Joaquim Chissano, TIJ, October 30, 2007]

But, evidently, even I did not fully appreciate what a joke this prize would turn out to be. After all, despite being as qualified as any African leader could be, neither Rawlings nor Mbeki was deemed worthy. 

All the same, this vindicates my suspicion that the MIPAAL was always more about Mo Ibrahim’s ego than about promoting good governance in Africa. Now I suspect that the committee’s failure to present an award this year has more to do with his dwindling bank account than with the failure of anyone to qualify for the prize. (Forbes Magazine estimates that Ibrahim lost $500 million of his $2.5 billion fortune last year.)

There may be years where no winner is chosen, and this is such a year.

(Mo Ibrahim)

No kidding! 

Accordingly, I hope all of the international dignitaries, including former UN Secretary-General and Nobel Laureate Kofi Annan, who Ibrahim lured onto his committee to select the annual recipient of his MIPAAL, now have the good sense to resign en masse instead of continuing to be associated with this farce.

Related commentaries:
Obama awarded (affirmative action) Noble Peace Prize
Businessman launches the Africa No “Mo” Corruption Prize
Africa’s igNoble prize awarded to Joaquim Chissano

Obama would be well-advised to cut America’s losses and retreat ASAP; to let the Afghans govern themselves however they like; and to rely on Special Forces and aerial drones to get al Qaeda.

[Without [or even with] more forces, failure in Afghanistan is likely, TIJ, September 23, 2009]

In light of President Obama’s ongoing review of troop levels in Afghanistan, I published the above cartoon (accompanied by a quote from an earlier commentary) on Saturday to reiterate my abiding fear that it would be a march of folly for him to deploy more troops.

Therefore, I was extremely heartened when Obama dispatched his chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, to several talk shows on Sunday to telegraph the following change of course:

It would be reckless to make a decision on U.S. troop levels if in fact you haven’t done a thorough analysis of whether in fact there’s an Afghan partner ready to fill that space that U.S. troops would create and become a true partner in governing…

The central question is not how much troops you have but whether in fact there’s an Afghan partner.

This clearly indicates that Obama is hedging against sending troops.  And he’s doing this by changing the discussion from how many troops will be needed to win this unwinnable war to whether it’s a war even worth fighting if the Afghan government is terminally corrupt and wholly discredited.

Moreover, nothing demonstrates that this change is now afoot quite like Sen John Kerry, Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, joining forces with Emanuel yesterday by providing this political cover for Obama on CBS from the war zone in Afghanistan:

It would be entirely irresponsible for the president of the United States to commit more troops to this country when we don’t even have an election finished and know who the president is and what kind of government we’re working with.  I believe it is critical for us to be satisfied that the reform efforts that are absolutely mandatory within the government here are in fact going to take place and be fully implemented.

Ironically, all indications are that President Hamid Karzai is determined to steal the disputed August 2009 election just as Kerry and others accused George W. Bush of stealing the November 2000 US presidential election.  And anyone who believes that he’s going to implement reforms to combat corruption must also believe in tooth fairies.

Actually, Karzai seems to be banking on ruling Kabul and other (fertile, poppy-growing) areas of Afghanistan (with the help of just a few thousand US troops) instead of fighting the Taliban and other warlords for control of the entire country (with the help of the over 100,000 troops whose deployment is now under review). Because only this explains why he is so loathed to accept any UN-mandated recount of any portion of the vote that might compel him to go through a runoff election, which, given the extent of his alleged fraud in the first round, he would probably lose.  

Meanwhile, I should have seen Obama’s resistance to sending more troops coming after Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the following in a September 21 interview with the NewsHour on PBS, which was featured under the headline “Clinton: No troop moves until Afghan election resolved”:

You know corruption, I have labeled a national security threat… We’re not going to make any decisions of any significance until we know the outcome of this election.

In any event, as things stand, Karzai’s political ambition and endemic corruption in his government may provide just the pretext Obama needs to do the right thing: change the strategy for fighting America’s (global) war on terrorism from nation building in Afghanistan to launching strategic strikes against al-Qaeda wherever on the globe they rear their terrorist heads.

So here’s to Obama announcing this change and plans for a commensurate withdrawal of troops in due course….

Related commentaries:
Without [or even with] more forces...