What is happening to John McCain? This is a man that many of us who are liberals and Democrats used to admire because of his willingness to be an independent thinker and to work across the aisle in the Senate to accomplish things for the American people. The McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform law is just one example of that.
But recently, Senator McCain seems to have become unhinged. His recent attacks on UN Ambassador Susan Rice for her remarks on the Benghazi incident seem so unreasonable and full of venom that it leaves many of us wondering what is happening to him.
This isn't totally new. Ever since his campaign for the Presidency against Barack Obama in 2008, his shocking selection of Sarah Palin for his VP nominee, and his humbling defeat that November, he hasn't seem to be the same person. All I can figure--and obviously it is just speculation on my part--is that he has become embittered by his defeat and can't get over it. It must be difficult knowing that you came so close to being President and then let it slip through your hands.
But, just to give the Senator the benefit of the doubt with regard to this Susan Rice issue, I went back and viewed the interview that she gave to NBC's 'Meet The Press' five days after the Benghazi incident. I had never actually seen it, and so I wanted to see for myself what she said. You can view it below, and the specific section of the interview relating to the Benghazi tragedy runs from the 1:50 to about the 3:40 minute mark (although it's helpful to watch it from the beginning to get the full context).
My take on her interview is that she was giving an articulate and careful response based on the information she had from our intelligence agencies at the time. There was (and is) uncertainty about what motivated the attacks on the Consulate and the CIA station nearby. Clearly, it was an armed attack by "extremist elements", as she says here. Why they did it was uncertain and may never be known for sure. What role the infamous American video played in it is uncertain. What we DO know is that the attack in Benghazi came in the context of simultaneous mob actions across the Middle East in reaction to that video. Whether Benghazi was exactly the same or somewhat different is still an open question.
There was (and is) no cover-up here. Susan Rice said nothing wrong or inaccurate here, based on the current information the administration had.
In other words, the attacks on her from John McCain and the conservative news media are unwarrented and, in my opinion, politically motivated, in an attempt to damage President Obama.
That this is probably true is further evidenced by the fact that yesterday, while an official briefing of the Benghazi incident was being given to the Senate Homeland Security by several national security agencies, instead of attending the briefing to hear the evidence, John McCain decided to skip it so that he could give a news conference in which he continued to slam Susan Rice and President Obama.
Bingo!
Friday, November 16, 2012
Saturday, November 10, 2012
How The Mighty Have Fallen: The Rise and Fall of David Petraeus
I first got a sense of David Petraeus several years ago when I was having dinner with a group of male friends in Winston-Salem. I only knew one of them, who was a good pastor friend, and the others were his friends. One of those guys was recently out of the army, where he had worked as a personal assistant for General Petraeus. He talked with wonder in his voice about this General Petraeus.
Petraeus was a fitness fanatic, he said. He was a workaholic, who pressed his staff to work just as hard. He was an intellectual, with the smarts to go very far, very fast. And he said other things that I can't remember now. But I came away thinking to myself, this General Petraeus sounds like a General George Marshall or even a Dwight Eisenhower, someone who could be President.
Ever since that night, I've paid attention to the career of David Petraeus. I watched him as he ran things in the later stages of the Iraq War, as he moved on up to Middle East Commander, then took finally the Afghanistan assignment under President Obama.
Frankly, I was surprised and somewhat worried when President Obama assigned him to the position of CIA Director. I wrote back then in these pages:
And, now, apparently, David Petraeus has been brought down by an extramarital affair. In a way, it's not that surprising, given how many prominent men of upstanding character have been laid low by that scourge. Sad but true.
Some are speculating that this could have something to do with the Benghazi incident. It's certainly not impossible, but it seems improbable to me. But in this day and age, if it does have anything to do with this, we shall find out. There are few secrets anymore.
Ever since that night, I've paid attention to the career of David Petraeus. I watched him as he ran things in the later stages of the Iraq War, as he moved on up to Middle East Commander, then took finally the Afghanistan assignment under President Obama.
Frankly, I was surprised and somewhat worried when President Obama assigned him to the position of CIA Director. I wrote back then in these pages:
And as for Petraeus at CIA...what the heck? Why place a fairly controversial Army general and Special Forces expert at the head of a civilian agency that is supposed to (primarily) collect intelligence? The trend toward the 'militarization' of the CIA is very bad. It will only increase the tendency to use the agency for covert operations overseas, rather than objective intelligence gathering. And frankly, you can't run a civilian bureaucracy like the CIA as you would run a military organization, without distorting and corrupting its original mission. Anyway, putting Petraeus at CIA kills two birds with one stone for Obama: he keeps a certified warrior/killer busy doing what he loves, and he also keeps Petraeus from running for President at least until Obama is done.Washington Post foreign policy columnist David Ignatius writes about Petraeus this morning, and he says this about his time at CIA:
Petraeus’s 15-month tenure as CIA director was short and, compared to his rocket-like ascent to four-star rank in the Army, something of a bumpy ride. He was a man who was used to a large staff that executed his orders, and what he found at the CIA was something closer to a covert university campus, with experts who behaved as if they had tenure, and a culture that prided itself on being contrarian and difficult to manage.I happen to know at least one CIA analyst, a young woman and personal friend who has worked for the agency on the Middle East desk for several years. And I can tell you that she fits well the description above as to the culture and staff of the CIA, of "being contrarian and difficult to manage".
It wasn’t an easy fit, and within weeks, you began to hear grumbling from the CIA’s ranks about how Petraeus was trying to put his personal mark on every tree and fire hydrant in sight, asking too many questions, and pushing in his annoyingly relentless way for results.
The smartest thing Petraeus did was to form a partnership early on with Michael Morell, who was acting director before his arrival and resumed that role Friday. Morell is a career analyst and veteran of the mill that produces the famous “PDB,” or president’s daily brief, and he knew the agency’s culture — or at least the analysts’ version of it. His task was to encourage Petraeus when his commander’s instincts made sense for the agency, and dissuade him when his ideas were counter-productive.
Petraeus’s critics within the agency think Morell was co-opted by Petraeus. But there’s considerable evidence that, when appropriate, the deputy director was prepared to tell the boss the unpleasant truth. In any event, Morell came away a fan—recognizing that although Petraeus had a rocky start, his ceaseless pressure had been good for the agency.
“Petraeus is one of the best managers I have seen,” Morell said through a spokesman Friday. “He figures out where he wants the organization to go, and he drives it in that direction. He does this through relentless focus. He remembers what he asked for. Three weeks later he’ll say at the morning meeting, ‘Whatever happened to that? Is that done yet?’ I’ve never seen anyone with his drive — ever.”
Not that it was easy. “This place does not like hierarchy. People respect you because you do a job well, not because you’re the director,” observed one senior agency official. Petraeus had gone from “an organization trained to salute to one that was like herding cats,” another official said Friday, and it was “a huge transition for both sides.”
And, now, apparently, David Petraeus has been brought down by an extramarital affair. In a way, it's not that surprising, given how many prominent men of upstanding character have been laid low by that scourge. Sad but true.
Some are speculating that this could have something to do with the Benghazi incident. It's certainly not impossible, but it seems improbable to me. But in this day and age, if it does have anything to do with this, we shall find out. There are few secrets anymore.
Friday, November 9, 2012
Election Prediction 2012
Just for the record, I want to post here my prediction for the election that I put on my FB wall about 11 AM on Tuesday, election day:
"Prediction: 290+ electoral votes for Obama. But whoever wins, may it be a clear victory, so we can move on! Peace...."
Turns out, I was too conservative. Obama got 332 electoral votes. It was "a clear victory"!!
"Prediction: 290+ electoral votes for Obama. But whoever wins, may it be a clear victory, so we can move on! Peace...."
Turns out, I was too conservative. Obama got 332 electoral votes. It was "a clear victory"!!
Conservatism Is Dead....American Is Finished....All Is Lost
Wrong. Conservatism is not dead...the Republican Party is not caput....and certainly America is not finished.
I can understand the gloominess and existential despair on the part of you Republicans right now. It was a devastating defeat on Tuesday, and we on the other side know about devastating defeats and despair (think 2000 and 2004). So, you folks who lost Tuesday, you will feel better before too long. Trust me, life goes on, and the political pendulum can swing VERY quickly.
What SHOULD be dead, of course, are the lies that you were fed by the Rightwing Fun House and that many of you got sucked into: that Barack Obama isn't a real American, that he's not a Christian, that he is a Marxist, that he is an Appeaser of our enemies, and that he is lazy and stupid. If those radical and crazy ideas are not lying mortally wounded in the midst of you, then heaven help us all, because you will never recover and make the changes that you need to make. And America will pay a big price as well.
But I think you will recover. The Republican Party is a great political party, the Party of Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon (whom I admire more than some of you do), Ronald Reagan, and George H.W. Bush. These were great politicians and great American leaders, all of who can provide you with inspiration as you bind your wounds and heal. And there are new young leaders coming along who are potentially just as great.
Likewise the Conservative movement. It has a long and glorious tradition in American and in the West in general, with important thinkers and activists to imitate and revere: Edmund Burke, Russell Kirk, William F. Buckley, Irving Kristol, Friedrick von Hayek, Whittiker Chambers, Milton Freedman, George Will, and the list goes on. We need a strong and vibrant conservative movement to bring balance and traditional wisdom to our national debate.
But the fact of the matter is that you all simply got too extreme in the last number of years (just like the Democratic Party did in the 70s and 80s). And now that you have lost two big Presidential elections and also lost the Senate when it could easily have been yours, it is time for you to recalibrate, just like your GPS does when you've missed a turn in your car.
So, don't despair, just recalibrate. You're going to be fine, because there's another turn just another block or two away, and you'll soon be back on the correct route.
If you recalibrate....
I can understand the gloominess and existential despair on the part of you Republicans right now. It was a devastating defeat on Tuesday, and we on the other side know about devastating defeats and despair (think 2000 and 2004). So, you folks who lost Tuesday, you will feel better before too long. Trust me, life goes on, and the political pendulum can swing VERY quickly.
But I think you will recover. The Republican Party is a great political party, the Party of Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon (whom I admire more than some of you do), Ronald Reagan, and George H.W. Bush. These were great politicians and great American leaders, all of who can provide you with inspiration as you bind your wounds and heal. And there are new young leaders coming along who are potentially just as great.
Likewise the Conservative movement. It has a long and glorious tradition in American and in the West in general, with important thinkers and activists to imitate and revere: Edmund Burke, Russell Kirk, William F. Buckley, Irving Kristol, Friedrick von Hayek, Whittiker Chambers, Milton Freedman, George Will, and the list goes on. We need a strong and vibrant conservative movement to bring balance and traditional wisdom to our national debate.
But the fact of the matter is that you all simply got too extreme in the last number of years (just like the Democratic Party did in the 70s and 80s). And now that you have lost two big Presidential elections and also lost the Senate when it could easily have been yours, it is time for you to recalibrate, just like your GPS does when you've missed a turn in your car.
So, don't despair, just recalibrate. You're going to be fine, because there's another turn just another block or two away, and you'll soon be back on the correct route.
If you recalibrate....
Thursday, November 8, 2012
Losers and Winners
American elections produce winners and losers. That's what democracy is all about.
For example, in 1860 with the election of Abraham Lincoln, the loser (ultimately) was slavery and the winner was the enslaved Afro-American community (again ultimately) and the American ideal of 'freedom and justice for all'. In 1932, with the election of FDR, the loser was our plutocracy and the winner was the common man, who gained some protection from economic exploitation.
So who are the losers and winners this year? Here's my list:
LOSERS
MITT ROMNEY, who goes from the highest of highs to the lowest of lows.
SHELDON ADELSON, THE KOCH BROTHERS, THOMAS PETERFFY and other superrich conservatives who just threw a ton of money down the drain. They probably would have lost a lot less just going along with a slight raise in the marginal tax rate. LOL.
KARL ROVE, DICK MORRIS, AND THE ENTIRE FOX NEWS TEAM, who came across on election night as what they are: morons in an ideological Fun House of their own making.
MITCH MCCONNELL, Senate minority leader whose top political goal for the last four years was making Obama a one-term President. Seeing you lose, Mitch, gives me GREAT satisfaction.
PAUL RYAN, who is politically tainted now, through no real fault of his own (except perhaps for his decision to accept Romney's offer and put a muzzle on himself and his brain).
RUSH LIMBAUGH AND DONALD TRUMP, who just keep showing themselves to be obnoxious buffoons, unworthy of anyone's attention (except for a good laugh).
OLD WHITE MALES. Grumpy old men who don't like change much.
THE REPUBLICAN PARTY, which is now lost in the wilderness. Necessary time of purging.
WALL STREET, because it will now be forced to attend the financial equivalent of AA and go on the wagon. Dodd-Frank as tough love.
RACISTS, NATIVISTS, BIRTHERS, AND OTHER ASSORTED FAR RIGHT FANATICS, who lost big-time this year.
CLIMATE-CHANGE DENIERS, not because of Barack Obama but because of Hurricane Sandy, Chris Christie, and NY Mayor Bloomberg.
THE TEA PARTY, which continues to suffer defeat after defeat, but seems clueless as to why.
WINNERS
BARACK OBAMA, whose place in history as a significant progressive--and first Afro-American--President, should now be assured.
OBAMA'S CAMPAIGN STAFF, especially David Plouffe, David Axelrod, and Jim Messina, whom experts are calling the best campaign team ever.
NATE SILVER, the NYT electoral prognosticator who accurately predicted EVERY state outcome.
THE MIDDLE CLASS, which has been really struggling for more than 30 years now.
THE MORMON CHURCH, because one of its devout followers ran for President and it wasn't held against him by either the Fundamentalists or the Liberals. Jon Huntsman, you're next!
THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY, which is a pathetic political party, except the others are all worse. Lesser evil.
WOMEN, whose political, civil, and personal rights are protected for another political season.
AFRO-AMERICANS, whose champion was reelected President, against some mighty large odds.
LATINOS, since this election almost guarantees that there will be a grand bargain on immigration reform in the very near future.
ISRAEL, who will now be forced to be more reasonable in their demands and not take America for granted. And who knows, miracle of miracles, perhaps a grand peace will somehow result as well, though I'm not holding my breath.
CHANCES FOR PEACE ACROSS THE MIDDLE EAST, since we now have an experienced and respected President in charge of our foreign policy and as commander-in-chief. Chances are not high, but they are higher than they would have been otherwise.
THE EARTH, which at least has folks in charge who take modern science and the environment seriously.
MSNBC, whose liberals won big time this year.
MEGYN KELLY, of FOX News for standing up to Karl Rove on primetime....way to go, girl!
BILL O'REILLY, for being skeptical before the election of all the ideological rantings of so many FOX News commentators (Karl Rove, Dick Morris, etc.). O'Reilly can still be an ass at times, but he's becoming an ass that even a liberal like myself can like!
CARL LINDQUIST, this grumpy old man who, with a few others, stood alone on Facebook defending Obama against a horde of foes!! We kicked some serious butt (and had a good time doing it--except after that damnable first debate)! LOL
And the biggest winner of all was the AMERICAN PEOPLE, who made it through another democratic election without civil war. May God bless us, forgive us, humble us, enlighten us, and grant us peace.
For example, in 1860 with the election of Abraham Lincoln, the loser (ultimately) was slavery and the winner was the enslaved Afro-American community (again ultimately) and the American ideal of 'freedom and justice for all'. In 1932, with the election of FDR, the loser was our plutocracy and the winner was the common man, who gained some protection from economic exploitation.
So who are the losers and winners this year? Here's my list:
LOSERS
MITT ROMNEY, who goes from the highest of highs to the lowest of lows.
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| Mr. and Mrs. Sheldon Adelson, Losers |
KARL ROVE, DICK MORRIS, AND THE ENTIRE FOX NEWS TEAM, who came across on election night as what they are: morons in an ideological Fun House of their own making.
MITCH MCCONNELL, Senate minority leader whose top political goal for the last four years was making Obama a one-term President. Seeing you lose, Mitch, gives me GREAT satisfaction.
PAUL RYAN, who is politically tainted now, through no real fault of his own (except perhaps for his decision to accept Romney's offer and put a muzzle on himself and his brain).
RUSH LIMBAUGH AND DONALD TRUMP, who just keep showing themselves to be obnoxious buffoons, unworthy of anyone's attention (except for a good laugh).
OLD WHITE MALES. Grumpy old men who don't like change much.
THE REPUBLICAN PARTY, which is now lost in the wilderness. Necessary time of purging.
WALL STREET, because it will now be forced to attend the financial equivalent of AA and go on the wagon. Dodd-Frank as tough love.
RACISTS, NATIVISTS, BIRTHERS, AND OTHER ASSORTED FAR RIGHT FANATICS, who lost big-time this year.
CLIMATE-CHANGE DENIERS, not because of Barack Obama but because of Hurricane Sandy, Chris Christie, and NY Mayor Bloomberg.
THE TEA PARTY, which continues to suffer defeat after defeat, but seems clueless as to why.
WINNERS
BARACK OBAMA, whose place in history as a significant progressive--and first Afro-American--President, should now be assured.
OBAMA'S CAMPAIGN STAFF, especially David Plouffe, David Axelrod, and Jim Messina, whom experts are calling the best campaign team ever.
NATE SILVER, the NYT electoral prognosticator who accurately predicted EVERY state outcome.
THE MIDDLE CLASS, which has been really struggling for more than 30 years now.
THE MORMON CHURCH, because one of its devout followers ran for President and it wasn't held against him by either the Fundamentalists or the Liberals. Jon Huntsman, you're next!
THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY, which is a pathetic political party, except the others are all worse. Lesser evil.
WOMEN, whose political, civil, and personal rights are protected for another political season.
AFRO-AMERICANS, whose champion was reelected President, against some mighty large odds.
LATINOS, since this election almost guarantees that there will be a grand bargain on immigration reform in the very near future.
ISRAEL, who will now be forced to be more reasonable in their demands and not take America for granted. And who knows, miracle of miracles, perhaps a grand peace will somehow result as well, though I'm not holding my breath.
CHANCES FOR PEACE ACROSS THE MIDDLE EAST, since we now have an experienced and respected President in charge of our foreign policy and as commander-in-chief. Chances are not high, but they are higher than they would have been otherwise.
THE EARTH, which at least has folks in charge who take modern science and the environment seriously.
MSNBC, whose liberals won big time this year.
MEGYN KELLY, of FOX News for standing up to Karl Rove on primetime....way to go, girl!
BILL O'REILLY, for being skeptical before the election of all the ideological rantings of so many FOX News commentators (Karl Rove, Dick Morris, etc.). O'Reilly can still be an ass at times, but he's becoming an ass that even a liberal like myself can like!
And the biggest winner of all was the AMERICAN PEOPLE, who made it through another democratic election without civil war. May God bless us, forgive us, humble us, enlighten us, and grant us peace.
Wednesday, November 7, 2012
The Morning After
Yesterday, America reconfirmed what it had done four years ago in electing Barack Obama President. And in doing so, it took another huge step in the reinventing of the United States of America. It is a beautiful thing.
Yesterday, with his huge victory over the Republicans, President Obama entered the history books as the equal of Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson, and Bill Clinton, all 20th Century Democratic presidents who accomplished significant achievements in advancing the progressive cause of an America of freedom and justice for all.
In defeating the Mitt Romney campaign--and all of the plutocratic and fundamentalist forces that were marching behind him--Obama again demonstrated his political genius. He and his political lieutenants once again put together an electoral coalition that prevailed against a determined political foe.
The Republican Party and the conservative movement are in disarray on this day after. They held onto the House of Representatives, but lost both the Presidency and their attempt to regain control of the Senate. The Tea Party movement especially suffered some pretty big defeats.
The FOX team of contributors in particular has a lot of egg on their face, after the sordid attempt by Karl Rove to overturn the decision of the FOX network (and their Decision Desk) to declare Ohio (and therefore the Presidency) for Obama. It showed the split between, on the one hand, their more 'reality based' people and, on the other hand, their ideological spinmeisters.
Dick Morris, with his crazy talk about a Romney landslide, should be quietly but firmly led to the door. Why does Fox put up with people like him, when he is so manifestly wrong? It is laughable. And Karl Rove should also retire to whatever estate he has in Texas, because he has had his day, but that day is over.
And what in the heck is with Donald Trump? Revolution?
Unfortunately, the Rightwing Fun House, with its crazy mirrors ideology, will keep distorting reality and warping the minds of millions of Americans. It's too much a part of our culture, present and past. But fortunately, we have a majority of this country who haven't fallen for their 'psychotalk', as Ed Schultz would put it. And that majority spoke loud and clear yesterday!
So now we get to move forward, with a President in the White House who runs a cautious (and now experienced) foreign policy, who continues to bring our economy back from the brink, and who is committed to trying to craft common sense, centrist solutions to our country's problems.
President Obama now has both a fresh mandate for his leadership, and the grounding of four years of experience and maturity in office, which should help him hit the ground running. Amen to that.
Yesterday, with his huge victory over the Republicans, President Obama entered the history books as the equal of Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson, and Bill Clinton, all 20th Century Democratic presidents who accomplished significant achievements in advancing the progressive cause of an America of freedom and justice for all.
The Republican Party and the conservative movement are in disarray on this day after. They held onto the House of Representatives, but lost both the Presidency and their attempt to regain control of the Senate. The Tea Party movement especially suffered some pretty big defeats.
The FOX team of contributors in particular has a lot of egg on their face, after the sordid attempt by Karl Rove to overturn the decision of the FOX network (and their Decision Desk) to declare Ohio (and therefore the Presidency) for Obama. It showed the split between, on the one hand, their more 'reality based' people and, on the other hand, their ideological spinmeisters.
Dick Morris, with his crazy talk about a Romney landslide, should be quietly but firmly led to the door. Why does Fox put up with people like him, when he is so manifestly wrong? It is laughable. And Karl Rove should also retire to whatever estate he has in Texas, because he has had his day, but that day is over.
And what in the heck is with Donald Trump? Revolution?
So now we get to move forward, with a President in the White House who runs a cautious (and now experienced) foreign policy, who continues to bring our economy back from the brink, and who is committed to trying to craft common sense, centrist solutions to our country's problems.
President Obama now has both a fresh mandate for his leadership, and the grounding of four years of experience and maturity in office, which should help him hit the ground running. Amen to that.
Monday, November 5, 2012
What This Election Is Really About
This is a very close election, with the final national polls showing it basically tied while the swing state polls give a slight edge to President Obama. But, given all the uncertainties, this election could go either way. I am resigned to that fact personally and while I'm expecting an Obama victory, I also wouldn't be surprised at all to see a President Romney on Wednesday. So I take nothing for granted here.
For the last two year, the Republicans were not looking for someone they really liked, because that was not to be had. (For some reason, the Republicans haven't really been happy with their nominees since the days of Ronald Reagan some three decades ago. They think they would have been happy with Gov.Chris Christie, but I think that's wishful thinking.) Rather they have been looking for someone--anyone--who could manage to drive Barack Obama from office after just one term.
They may or may not have found that person in Mitt Romney. We'll know after tomorrow.
Romney has turned out to be the perfect stealth candidate. He has flown under the political radar, his true ideology and political convictions undetected and unknown. He has given very few interviews to the press. He has kept his personal finances hidden in an almost unprecedented way. He has switched positions numerous times, sometimes almost daily. And he has somehow gotten away with it. We don't know what he believes about politics and policy. Who knows, maybe he doesn't even know; perhaps all he knows is that he desperately wants to be President!
Starting out as the moderate Republican governor of Massachusetts, where he put in place the first universal health care plan in the country, Romney morphed into the 'severely conservative' candidate who stood to the Right of such conservatives as Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry, on issues such as immigration. Romney has said whatever needed to said and gladly shook the hands that needed to be shook (Donald Trump, Liberty University, etc.) in order to win the nomination of the increasingly fundamentalist, laissez-faire (aka Randian) Republican Party.
His final act in order to secure his conservative base was to select Paul Ryan as his VP choice, the young, wonkish but likeable paladin of Congressional conservatives.
Then, as predicted by his aides back in the summer, Romney made his 'etch-a-sketch' move, entered the political chrysalis and emerged at the Republican convention as a beautiful, transformed 'moderate' Republican. No more hard-core conservative ideology, now we saw the softer, warmer, compassionate Mitt--family man, devoted Mormon, competent businessman, philantropist extraordinare. The Republicans on display were of the same stripe--Condoleeza Rice, Chris Christie, Ann Romney. Absent in body, mind, and soul were the two most recent Republican Presidents: George W. Bush and Dick Cheney!
This should have been enough to warn the Obama team that Romney was going to show his moderate face during the debates, but for some reason, the President was caught offguard, at least during the first debate, and was unable to counter the stream of middle-of-the-road rhetoric and argumentation coming from Romney's mouth. Obama took his famous 'long nap' during the first debate, and consequently let Romney back into the race, and so we are where we are, with the race close to tied on the day before the election.
But this election has very little to do with Mitt Romney. Really. I know that must sound rather strange, but I think it can be shown to be true. Romney (and in a way, Obama as well) represents an approach to governance and political control that has certain goals and purposes well in mind, that are broader and bigger than any individual person or President. That is what I would like to sketch out below, as I see it, because it's important for us who are citizens--and actually determine who controls our political process--to know the lay of the land.
If the Right could have won with a cipher such as Herman Cain, they would gladly have taken him. Indeed, it's a little known fact that Cain was the creature of the Koch Brothers, who had financed his rise to notoriety (which has now degenerated into guest appearances on Jon Stewart's The Daily Show, where he comes across as the buffoon that he always was). Someone like Cain would have been the preferable and more malleable candidate for the Republican Powers That Be, but he had a few, ahem, 'skeletons' in his closet, so he faded fast in the end. And Mitt Romney had the staying power to endure repeated electoral rejection and keep on getting back on his feet to fight again. You sincerely have to admire this about the man.
But really, this election is not about Mitt Romney who for the longest time in the Republican primaries couldn't rise above 30% of even the Republican Party. Rather this election has to do first of all with the Rightwing Noise Machine (RNM), which has been at work for the entirety of Obama's presidency (and for years before that, truth be told).
FOX News, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Andrew Breitbart, Anne Coulter, Michele Bachmann, the Birthers, the Koch brothers, etc. have all been busy little bees for over four years now seeking to mold and shape the mindset of a certain subset of the American population--probably something like 20% (more if they could get it). And to what end? To believe that their new President was not only NOT a legally legitimate President, but that he was not even an American or a Christian. Furthermore, as the Right's new documentary film maker Dinesh D'Souza tried to show in the last few months, their President was actually trying to 'destroy' America...by turning it into a socialist paradise akin to the Soviet Union.
Over the last few years, I've seen intelligent friends of mine come to hate Barack Obama, not because of what he was actually doing, but because of the delusional rantings and ravings of the above-mentioned RNM. It is this visceral, irrational revulsion which has formed the base of Mitt Romney's support. They came around to supporting Mitt Romney, not because of who Romney is, but because they loathe, and have nothing but contempt for, Barack Obama.
Of course, not everyone in the Republican Party sees things this way....in fact, I feel certain that the folks in influential positions--the Karl Roves, the Koch Brothers, Rupert Murdock/Roger Ailes, (dare I say Grover Norquist?)--see things quite differently, and know that Barack Obama is basically a pragmatic neo-liberal in the mold of Bill Clinton. They know that he's not a radical at all, but rather a cautious, careful reformer of national affairs, who has done a fairly decent job of bringing the nation out of its economic crisis and back into moderate growth and recovery. They know this because they are NOT delusional, paranoid with fear, or ignorant. But they also know that Barack Obama stands in the way of what they want to accomplish.
So here is the historical point. Conservatives have, for nearly a century now, had as their primary ideological goal one basic thing. And it is this: the rollback of the last century of American political and socioeconomic reform, embodied in the New Nationalism (Theodore Roosevelt), the New Freedom (Woodrow Wilson), the New Deal (Franklin Roosevelt), the Fair Deal (Harry Truman), the Great Society (JFK and LBJ), and oddly enough, even a few reforms instituted by the last great Republican moderate, Richard Nixon, especially a strong federal agency for environmental regulation, the EPA.
Add to all of this, the progressive initiatives of Obamacare, the Clean Energy initiatives, and the Dodd Frank Banking regulations of the Obama administration, and you have a century of socioeconomic reform that the conservatives (who now completely control the Republican Party) want to destroy and replace. When one speaks of American Liberalism, this is what it is in substance and structure. And this is what Conservatism wants to abolish and eliminate, to the maximum extent possible. This election is about two general political worldviews--Progressivism and Conservatism--locked in perpetual struggle for dominance.
So there you have it. This is the agenda of the new conservative Republican Party (since the advent of the Reagan administration): to control the levers of national political power so as to be able to uproot and eliminate the socio-political, liberal fruits of the 20th Century in America, as described in the previous paragraph. To return if at all possible, as it were, to the glorious days of the late 19th century, when the titans of industry and finance ruled the roost, and when the little people (workers, farmers, women, blacks, Latinos, and other non-white minorities) were kept in their place. When there was very few in the middle, between the mighty and little. The perfect utopia of Ayn Rand, the most recent patron saint of this movement (and the preferred political philosopher of Paul Ryan).
Hard to believe, isn't it, but how else can you read their true agenda? There is a truly reactionary vision here that is normally kept quite hidden by the Right, but that is occasionally glimpsed. (They prefer to place their emphasis on demonizing the enemy, not revealing their own intentions.) One place you could see it quite clearly, actually, was in the teaching of Glenn Beck, with his theories of the evils of early 20th Century Progressivism, Ã la Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson (and all that followed in the subsequent decades). To Beck, this was America's Original Sin, which had to be rejected and replaced, if America was to be righteous again, as it was at its founding and for the first century of its existence. Beck was becoming a primary evangelist of the conservative movement, because of his mesmerizing ability to preach the Truth. (If I was watching him occasionally, just for the sheer fun of it, he must have had a huge audience on the Right, who believed his 'sermons'.)
But Glenn Beck must have gone too far, because he was uncermoniously taken off the air by Roger Ailes at FOX News. You see, Ailes wants the true purposes of FOX kept sub rosa, please. He will NOT pay you to divulge the conservative secrets. It wasn't that Beck went looney-tunes on them, it's just that he became too EXPLICIT about it all, and that is forbidden. What Beck was teaching is actually what the conservative movement believes in theory and about our American history. All you had to do was know what Beck was saying and compare it what the candidates were saying in the Republican debates, and you basically had a MATCH! Poor Glenn Beck....crucified for simply telling the truth.
This new Republican Party--controlled by the Rightwing Rich, traditional Big Business, the Christian fundamentalists and pro-life movement, the Fossil Fuel Industry, the Military-Industrial Complex (so prophetically described by President Eisenhower in his Farewell Address), and Big Finance/Wall Street--is now gunning for Barack Obama, the leader of American Liberalism. In their view, his election four years ago was a mistake, due to a chink in the conservative armor called the Great Recession, something they clearly didn't expect to happen. And his election must be reversed, before too much damage is done.
The titular figurehead at the moment of this reactionary Conservatism is Mitt Romney, but he is more the appropriate pot, the useful vessal, than the potter. Behind him stands all the people and forces he has so cravenly kowtowed to in order to fulfill his vast and longstanding ambition to be the US President. And if he wins, they will have their say. And if, for some reason, he doesn't do their will (perhaps because he is in his heart of hearts a real moderate), there will be hell to pay.
But I think he will listen to his bosses, and then enjoy his success, his family, and his church. He will have it made in the shade--until the next disaster hits (Iran?).
Jobs? Mitt Romney doesn't really care about jobs for you and me....never has and never will. It's not in his DNA. Profit--for him and his kind--is what has been his passion.
So our choice tomorrow seems to be: move ahead into the 21st Century with a cautiously progressive President, or continue our fall back--back, back, back--into a new Gilded Age under the increasingly reactionary Republicans. Perhaps you think I exaggerate. Indeed, I am overly generalizing here, to be sure, but only because it's important to 'see the forest for the trees'. Otherwise we wander aimlessly about, knowing neither where to go or what to do.
One perhaps would like some other choice than this, but there really isn't. People long to be 'independent', but no such place exists anymore. You simply have to take sides in this political struggle. Not to decide, out of fear or ignorance or indifference, is to decide. So pick your party, your political worldview, and vote.
A lot more hinges on our decision tomorrow than the skin color--or retirement accounts--of two impressive Presidential candidates.
 |
| Charles and David Koch |
They may or may not have found that person in Mitt Romney. We'll know after tomorrow.
Romney has turned out to be the perfect stealth candidate. He has flown under the political radar, his true ideology and political convictions undetected and unknown. He has given very few interviews to the press. He has kept his personal finances hidden in an almost unprecedented way. He has switched positions numerous times, sometimes almost daily. And he has somehow gotten away with it. We don't know what he believes about politics and policy. Who knows, maybe he doesn't even know; perhaps all he knows is that he desperately wants to be President!
Starting out as the moderate Republican governor of Massachusetts, where he put in place the first universal health care plan in the country, Romney morphed into the 'severely conservative' candidate who stood to the Right of such conservatives as Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry, on issues such as immigration. Romney has said whatever needed to said and gladly shook the hands that needed to be shook (Donald Trump, Liberty University, etc.) in order to win the nomination of the increasingly fundamentalist, laissez-faire (aka Randian) Republican Party.
His final act in order to secure his conservative base was to select Paul Ryan as his VP choice, the young, wonkish but likeable paladin of Congressional conservatives.
Then, as predicted by his aides back in the summer, Romney made his 'etch-a-sketch' move, entered the political chrysalis and emerged at the Republican convention as a beautiful, transformed 'moderate' Republican. No more hard-core conservative ideology, now we saw the softer, warmer, compassionate Mitt--family man, devoted Mormon, competent businessman, philantropist extraordinare. The Republicans on display were of the same stripe--Condoleeza Rice, Chris Christie, Ann Romney. Absent in body, mind, and soul were the two most recent Republican Presidents: George W. Bush and Dick Cheney!
This should have been enough to warn the Obama team that Romney was going to show his moderate face during the debates, but for some reason, the President was caught offguard, at least during the first debate, and was unable to counter the stream of middle-of-the-road rhetoric and argumentation coming from Romney's mouth. Obama took his famous 'long nap' during the first debate, and consequently let Romney back into the race, and so we are where we are, with the race close to tied on the day before the election.
But this election has very little to do with Mitt Romney. Really. I know that must sound rather strange, but I think it can be shown to be true. Romney (and in a way, Obama as well) represents an approach to governance and political control that has certain goals and purposes well in mind, that are broader and bigger than any individual person or President. That is what I would like to sketch out below, as I see it, because it's important for us who are citizens--and actually determine who controls our political process--to know the lay of the land.
If the Right could have won with a cipher such as Herman Cain, they would gladly have taken him. Indeed, it's a little known fact that Cain was the creature of the Koch Brothers, who had financed his rise to notoriety (which has now degenerated into guest appearances on Jon Stewart's The Daily Show, where he comes across as the buffoon that he always was). Someone like Cain would have been the preferable and more malleable candidate for the Republican Powers That Be, but he had a few, ahem, 'skeletons' in his closet, so he faded fast in the end. And Mitt Romney had the staying power to endure repeated electoral rejection and keep on getting back on his feet to fight again. You sincerely have to admire this about the man.
But really, this election is not about Mitt Romney who for the longest time in the Republican primaries couldn't rise above 30% of even the Republican Party. Rather this election has to do first of all with the Rightwing Noise Machine (RNM), which has been at work for the entirety of Obama's presidency (and for years before that, truth be told).
FOX News, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Andrew Breitbart, Anne Coulter, Michele Bachmann, the Birthers, the Koch brothers, etc. have all been busy little bees for over four years now seeking to mold and shape the mindset of a certain subset of the American population--probably something like 20% (more if they could get it). And to what end? To believe that their new President was not only NOT a legally legitimate President, but that he was not even an American or a Christian. Furthermore, as the Right's new documentary film maker Dinesh D'Souza tried to show in the last few months, their President was actually trying to 'destroy' America...by turning it into a socialist paradise akin to the Soviet Union.
Over the last few years, I've seen intelligent friends of mine come to hate Barack Obama, not because of what he was actually doing, but because of the delusional rantings and ravings of the above-mentioned RNM. It is this visceral, irrational revulsion which has formed the base of Mitt Romney's support. They came around to supporting Mitt Romney, not because of who Romney is, but because they loathe, and have nothing but contempt for, Barack Obama.
Of course, not everyone in the Republican Party sees things this way....in fact, I feel certain that the folks in influential positions--the Karl Roves, the Koch Brothers, Rupert Murdock/Roger Ailes, (dare I say Grover Norquist?)--see things quite differently, and know that Barack Obama is basically a pragmatic neo-liberal in the mold of Bill Clinton. They know that he's not a radical at all, but rather a cautious, careful reformer of national affairs, who has done a fairly decent job of bringing the nation out of its economic crisis and back into moderate growth and recovery. They know this because they are NOT delusional, paranoid with fear, or ignorant. But they also know that Barack Obama stands in the way of what they want to accomplish.
So here is the historical point. Conservatives have, for nearly a century now, had as their primary ideological goal one basic thing. And it is this: the rollback of the last century of American political and socioeconomic reform, embodied in the New Nationalism (Theodore Roosevelt), the New Freedom (Woodrow Wilson), the New Deal (Franklin Roosevelt), the Fair Deal (Harry Truman), the Great Society (JFK and LBJ), and oddly enough, even a few reforms instituted by the last great Republican moderate, Richard Nixon, especially a strong federal agency for environmental regulation, the EPA.
Add to all of this, the progressive initiatives of Obamacare, the Clean Energy initiatives, and the Dodd Frank Banking regulations of the Obama administration, and you have a century of socioeconomic reform that the conservatives (who now completely control the Republican Party) want to destroy and replace. When one speaks of American Liberalism, this is what it is in substance and structure. And this is what Conservatism wants to abolish and eliminate, to the maximum extent possible. This election is about two general political worldviews--Progressivism and Conservatism--locked in perpetual struggle for dominance.
So there you have it. This is the agenda of the new conservative Republican Party (since the advent of the Reagan administration): to control the levers of national political power so as to be able to uproot and eliminate the socio-political, liberal fruits of the 20th Century in America, as described in the previous paragraph. To return if at all possible, as it were, to the glorious days of the late 19th century, when the titans of industry and finance ruled the roost, and when the little people (workers, farmers, women, blacks, Latinos, and other non-white minorities) were kept in their place. When there was very few in the middle, between the mighty and little. The perfect utopia of Ayn Rand, the most recent patron saint of this movement (and the preferred political philosopher of Paul Ryan).
Hard to believe, isn't it, but how else can you read their true agenda? There is a truly reactionary vision here that is normally kept quite hidden by the Right, but that is occasionally glimpsed. (They prefer to place their emphasis on demonizing the enemy, not revealing their own intentions.) One place you could see it quite clearly, actually, was in the teaching of Glenn Beck, with his theories of the evils of early 20th Century Progressivism, Ã la Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson (and all that followed in the subsequent decades). To Beck, this was America's Original Sin, which had to be rejected and replaced, if America was to be righteous again, as it was at its founding and for the first century of its existence. Beck was becoming a primary evangelist of the conservative movement, because of his mesmerizing ability to preach the Truth. (If I was watching him occasionally, just for the sheer fun of it, he must have had a huge audience on the Right, who believed his 'sermons'.)
But Glenn Beck must have gone too far, because he was uncermoniously taken off the air by Roger Ailes at FOX News. You see, Ailes wants the true purposes of FOX kept sub rosa, please. He will NOT pay you to divulge the conservative secrets. It wasn't that Beck went looney-tunes on them, it's just that he became too EXPLICIT about it all, and that is forbidden. What Beck was teaching is actually what the conservative movement believes in theory and about our American history. All you had to do was know what Beck was saying and compare it what the candidates were saying in the Republican debates, and you basically had a MATCH! Poor Glenn Beck....crucified for simply telling the truth.
This new Republican Party--controlled by the Rightwing Rich, traditional Big Business, the Christian fundamentalists and pro-life movement, the Fossil Fuel Industry, the Military-Industrial Complex (so prophetically described by President Eisenhower in his Farewell Address), and Big Finance/Wall Street--is now gunning for Barack Obama, the leader of American Liberalism. In their view, his election four years ago was a mistake, due to a chink in the conservative armor called the Great Recession, something they clearly didn't expect to happen. And his election must be reversed, before too much damage is done.
The titular figurehead at the moment of this reactionary Conservatism is Mitt Romney, but he is more the appropriate pot, the useful vessal, than the potter. Behind him stands all the people and forces he has so cravenly kowtowed to in order to fulfill his vast and longstanding ambition to be the US President. And if he wins, they will have their say. And if, for some reason, he doesn't do their will (perhaps because he is in his heart of hearts a real moderate), there will be hell to pay.
But I think he will listen to his bosses, and then enjoy his success, his family, and his church. He will have it made in the shade--until the next disaster hits (Iran?).
Jobs? Mitt Romney doesn't really care about jobs for you and me....never has and never will. It's not in his DNA. Profit--for him and his kind--is what has been his passion.
So our choice tomorrow seems to be: move ahead into the 21st Century with a cautiously progressive President, or continue our fall back--back, back, back--into a new Gilded Age under the increasingly reactionary Republicans. Perhaps you think I exaggerate. Indeed, I am overly generalizing here, to be sure, but only because it's important to 'see the forest for the trees'. Otherwise we wander aimlessly about, knowing neither where to go or what to do.
One perhaps would like some other choice than this, but there really isn't. People long to be 'independent', but no such place exists anymore. You simply have to take sides in this political struggle. Not to decide, out of fear or ignorance or indifference, is to decide. So pick your party, your political worldview, and vote.
A lot more hinges on our decision tomorrow than the skin color--or retirement accounts--of two impressive Presidential candidates.
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