I am leaving the cause. I am leaving the two main parties behind.
I RECEIVED THIS TODAY FROM A FRIEND.
Barack Asks for PrayerI heard Barack give parting words to his supporters at an arena in Wisconsin as he departed to fly to his nextdestination. His words were remarkable but sadly the media did not relay his request along withtheir other newsflashes. I believe it is because he was (only) requesting prayer from those supporters who were waving him onto his bus. Media does not understand the power of fervent prayer and intercession.And his many non-believers may not perceive how important their prayers are on his behalf. So I pass his prayer request on to you: the believers within African Americans For Barack Obama who are not too secular to bombard heaven. Please pass his prayer request on to the other Obama groups too. Barack asked them this, 'Please cover me with your prayers...cover me, Michelle, and my family with your prayers'. Then he stretched out his arms before the group, 'A blanket of prayer to cover us all, that is what I am asking of you. Pray for me'. - A Prayer for Barack -'Father, in the Name of Jesus, we lift up your son Barack Obama on our prayers and praises. We thank you for a time such as this and for sending a man such as Barack to fulfill your work in our land. We blanket Barack, Michelle, and his family in our prayers, our love, our warm thoughts, our positive energy, and our spiritual forces. We stand resolute in prayer against any and all negative forces or spirit's of darkness, ignorance, and hatred that would seek to destroy Your handiwork. O Lord, Barack is Your Handiwork. And we praise, worship, and honor you for the great things you are doing and will do through his hands.Amen.'
Barack,
That day when you told the much vaunted generalissmo of the surge, Gen Petraeus, to his face that you would be a President and nothing lesser was to me a defining moment in our recent history as a nation and more critically, in our body polity. The nation has all but been submerged, hoodwinked and ambushed into surrendering the Grundnorm and most symbolic aspiration of its people by a coterie of military apologists who continue to carry on in an unending war psychosis. It is the lesser mind that puts Commander in Chief above the President.
As a rule and constitutional right, the pinnacle of our American democracy is represented in what is known as the Executive Presidency. The President embodies not just a title but the role of the executive governance of the country and, as we oft proudly declare today, the free world. The powers of the President and the Presidency as enshrined in the constitution are vast and straddle the entire spectrum of the lives of its citizenry. What is not however as openly stated, though it is a given, is that the President of the United States of America is a civilian and not a military president. In the many years of America as a nation state since General Washington, every candidate of a military background that aspires to be the President of the greatest democracy must first discard the military garb and don the civilian clothes in a manner of speaking.
Why then has it become a four-yearly political cycle routine to slap the nation with the continuous drone of the term ‘commander in chief’ in a manner that puts it ahead of the term President? To many unsuspecting Americans, the term President has been subliminally and subterraneously subordinated to the more militaristic Commander in Chief through the campaigns of these self-serving military pretenders- in- chief. In many ways we are now held captive as a nation that measures its President mostly in the functional eyes of a Commander in Chief, not Economist-in-Chief or Diplomat in Chief, etc.
Looking through history, in putting an emphatic stamp on the superiority of the President as the vanguard of its democracy and the entire gamut of its affairs including the defense of its borders and national interests not minding the fact that a civilian occupies the office, it was necessary for America to include the adjunct phrase, ‘Commander-in-Chief’, to leave no doubt that this civilian holder of the President’s office is also the head of the nation’s military.
That is why your earlier cited encounter with the newly sworn in Commander of the Southern Command shows a keen grasp of your duties come January 20th light years ahead of your opponent for the presidential office as well as his cohorts. Not only did it put into better focus the full duties of the President ahead of his/her military duties, it also shows that your actions in the Oval office will reflect the correct paradigm of governance as President vis-à-vis its military leader. In your words, you still have to think of the economy, jobs, health, education, as well as security, in your portfolio of duties. Not one duty is necessarily alone, by itself and certainly not weightier than others all the time.
I have neglected my day job in order to write these posts, and I doubt anyone reads them. Nonetheless, here are two critical isssues which might yet change the outcome of this election:
1. "He Still Won't Admit He Was Wrong on the Surge!"
I have yet to hear Senator Obama throw the left-cross this deserves. If he wants to win the foreign policy debate once and for all, this may be the way to do it.
It's impossible to explain to an audience all the absurd components of Senator McCain's argument that because Senator Obama would not endorse authorizing George W. Bush to send 30,000 more troops to Iraq, he must therfore (by inference) have also opposed the clear and hold force strategy, which had already been tried and proven successful in the fall of 2006, prior even to the invention of the term "Surge". It would be even more difficult to explain the actual origins of this strategy in 2005, and the fact that our military commanders had wanted to adopt this approach long before public pressure to change our tactics in Iraq forced the Bush administration to approve it.
However, by his tenacious and self-serving need to keep bringing this point up, Senator McCain has maneuvered himself into an uncomfortable position: in fact, the combination of events which have evolved in the last 6 months have made the argument that somehow Iraq is strategically more important than Afghanistan, not only weak, but dangeorusly wrong. The major threat to our security in the Middle East now is the precarious situation in Northwest Pakistan, as Senator Obama has been saying all along, but which is exponentially more dangerous now, due to the strengthening of Al Qaeda and the Taliban, and the transition to a new democratic government in Pakistan.
If you were Osama Bin Laden, the quickest means (and I would argue his only means) to preserve Al Qaeda and the movement it represents is to de-stabilize Pakistan, and either take over it's government entirely, or stage some sort of Coups d'etat which results in Bin Laden having control over some portion of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal. If that were to happen, or even if events in Pakistan were to begin moving in that direction, the amount of force on the ground under US authority would be critical to our ability to consider options able to deter such a catastrophically dangerous outcome.
We should already be re-positioning forces with that in mind, but we are incapable of doing so precisely because we are stuck in Iraq. Not only is a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq now essential to our security, the failure of the Bush administration to anticipate this chain of events is yet another example of it's gross negligence in foreign policy and of the Commander in Chief.
The risk scenarios we face here are so acute, some of them are better left unmentioned in the public debate. But the case for re-positioning our forces seems very strong (to me at least), and brings into sharp focus the error we committed by going into Iraq in the first place. But more to the point, we should have taken steps re-balance our forces by some means in the interim, long before now. If what John McCain refers to (incorrectly) as "the Surge" had been adopted a year or two earlier, when it was first proposed, we might well be in the draw-down phase already in Iraq, and far better prepared to prevent further deterioration of our position in Afghanistan. Here's the left-cross:
"Senator McCain still refuses to admit that our greatest national security risk in the Middle East may be found on the front-line of the war on terror, in Afghanistan, where it has been all along. By stretching our resources too thin, we are now at risk of being unable to consider the best possible options for dealing with Al Qaeda and the Taliban going forward. For the sake of preserving a talking point he believes makes him more electable, he's willing to ignore a perilous situation which is deteriorating as we speak."
Now more than ever.
2. "I'm going to buy up all those mortgages, that's my idea..."
It's difficult to challenge an idea as simpleminded and amateurish as this one without appearing simpleminded and amateurish as well. Of course the television news media has chipped in by polling voters to see whether they favor Senator McCain's "plan", and I gather that at least one such poll shows that voters do favor "it" (whatever "it" actually is). In fact, there is no simple solution to the economic problems we face, and particularly as it relates to the financial "industry" which appears to be as much the cause of the larger economic problems as it is a problem in and of itself. However, the near term risk for Senator Obama is that the McCain campaign may be able to leverage voter ignorance, and their thirst for any talking-point-sized solution to the financial mayhem many of us are experiencing, into a viable argument that McCain is better able to handle the financial emergency which is on everyone's mind at the moment.
I would argue that the current measures being taken by the Bush administration and the larger group of "finance ministers" from the G7, are demonstrating an underlying truth which would be impossible for any of them to admit: this melt-down is not a crisis of confidence in the US economy, it is a recognition by investors at large that the global financial industry, lead by the major firms on Wall Street, have constructed a rigged game, the rules of which limit the upside potential of all investors. On the downside, the rules are such that the operators of the game can speculate with the assets entrusted to them, and when their schemes go wrong, tacitly hold their governments hostage to the corrosive effects of near-term financial losses, and thereby effect bail-outs of many varieties in order to sustain the canard that the game itself is honest.
What should President Obama do about it? I believe he should consider an aggressive investigation into the individuals who perpetrated the sub-prime mortgage irregularities, and use whatever legal means available to expose their malfeasance, and recover assets they have acquried with the compensation they have extracted over the entire course of this loosely understood "racket" they have been operating. He should also draw upon expertise from those who are not part of the racket, but who understand how it works. Two good examples: David M. Walker, former Comptroller General of the GAO, and William Isaac, former head of the FDIC under Ronald Reagan.
Mr. Isaac published a plan for dealing with the bank insolvency problem in the Washington Post, prior to the original rejection of the bailout by the House. This essay describes a well reasoned, carefully thought out approach to managing the insolvency of a large number of financial institutions, modelled after the actions taken in the 80's during the Savings and Loan crisis. Here is the link:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/26/AR2008092602200.html
If he hasn't already, I believe Senator Obama should read this now, and perhaps get in touch with some of the many economists and financial experts who do not have a vested interest in the specific network of active financial companies who depend upon the status quo on Wall Street. What is sorely lacking in our current approach to this crisis is a lack of practical expertise and common sense, in favor of sweeping simplistic solutions enacted on the theory that any extraordinary moves by the government should solve the problems, and the more costly they are, the more effective the marketplace should believe them to be.
It may be that investors have become savvy enough to realize that stimulus packages and bailouts are synonyms for the same bankrupt methodology, namely, print more money. You don't need a degree in finance or economics to recognize that printing money to make up for real losses simply doesn't scale. If it did, no one would have to work at all!
I think Senator Obama should consider the possibility that the original rejection of the bailout by the House might have been the right response all along, because it reflected the strongly held belief by many (if not most) voters, that the people who gamed the system and lost, should be allowed to lose, even if that meant near-term hardships for the economy. Here's the best I have to offer if the subject of Senator McCain's "plan" comes up in the next debate:
"If we could solve our economic problems simply by printing more money, the voters of this country wouldn't need either of us. It took a long time and a long list of mistakes on both sides of the aisle to create this problem, and I'm not going to further exacerbate the problem of market uncertainty by offering up a set of steps I'm in no position to implement. As Lincoln said during his 1864 presidential campaign:"You don't change horses in the middle of the stream."Although I may not agree with the policies which got us into this predicament, we only have one President at a time, and we can only hope President Bush and Secretary Paulson are successful at getting us across the stream we're in at the moment. When and if I am elected, I will immediately confer with the President as to specific steps we might take to ensure a smooth transition."
"If we could solve our economic problems simply by printing more money, the voters of this country wouldn't need either of us. It took a long time and a long list of mistakes on both sides of the aisle to create this problem, and I'm not going to further exacerbate the problem of market uncertainty by offering up a set of steps I'm in no position to implement. As Lincoln said during his 1864 presidential campaign:
"You don't change horses in the middle of the stream."
Although I may not agree with the policies which got us into this predicament, we only have one President at a time, and we can only hope President Bush and Secretary Paulson are successful at getting us across the stream we're in at the moment. When and if I am elected, I will immediately confer with the President as to specific steps we might take to ensure a smooth transition."
As for the intermediate and long term, I say we should take our losses, and go forward determined to end our addiction to unsecured borrowing (private and public), and apply the rational and properly considered regulatory controls necessary to insure the legitimacy of our financial markets.
My Friends,
my dream is to see Sen. Obama in the White House, as Commander in Chief...you too ?
Let's support the Change !
Simone
By Peter S. Canellos, Boston Globe Staff
WASHINGTON - John McCain last night tried hard to make the first presidential debate a test of Barack Obama's fitness for office. McCain succeeded in his framing of the test - but Obama passed it.
In an encounter that seems destined to be remembered more for its substance than any quips or gaffes, the two candidates defended their positions stoutly, outlined clear contrasts for the voters, and showed a command of the issues that was greater than in most past presidential debates.
McCain persuasively cast himself as a government reformer committed to cutting spend ing; but Obama forcefully argued that cutting spending alone would not revitalize the economy.
McCain explained clearly why he believed "victory" in Iraq would be jeopardized by setting a timetable for withdrawal; but Obama argued strongly that a disproportionate focus on Iraq was jeopardizing success in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
"It was substantive, it was detailed, and, I could say, no clear winner," concluded Wayne Lesperance, political scientist at New England College. "McCain, I thought, was strong on the economic questions. And Obama more than held his own on foreign policy. It was kind of a reversal of the conventional wisdom."
But with the majority of the debate focused on foreign policy - where McCain's superiority was assumed, and Obama's vulnerability was greatest - the lack of a clear winner benefits Obama more than McCain.
Voters concerned that Obama might be too dovish to defend the country heard him promise to increase troops in Afghanistan and redouble efforts to "capture or kill" Osama bin Laden.
Voters concerned that Obama lacked a strategic knowledge of the world heard him discourse comfortably and intelligently on the complex challenges facing the United States in Russia, China, Iran, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. Good judgment, he suggested, was as important as experience.
"We took our eye off Afghanistan. We took our eye off the folks who perpetrated 9/11. They are still sending out videotapes. And Senator McCain, nobody's talking about defeat in Iraq, but you know, I have to say we are having enormous problems in Afghanistan because of that decision."
McCain tried repeatedly to portray Obama as a neophyte, prefacing many answers with variants of the statement, "What Senator Obama doesn't seem to understand," and later insisting that Obama "showed a little bit of naiveté."
But Obama didn't seem either uncomprehending or naive, and McCain seemed so frustrated at times that he almost lost his cool.
After Obama followed a McCain jab about Obama's failure to hold a hearing of his Senate subcommittee with a return punch that McCain had once claimed the United States could "muddle through" in Afghanistan, the Arizona senator clenched his teeth, flared his eyes, and seemed on the verge of losing composure.
Finally, he came out and said what he couldn't demonstrate.
"I honestly don't believe that Senator Obama has the knowledge or experience and has made the wrong judgments in a number of areas," McCain insisted.
But the claim wasn't backed up by what viewers had seen for the past hour.
Earlier, when McCain was at his most vulnerable, he himself didn't give an inch.
McCain insisted that reining in government spending and preserving lower tax rates would be the best cure for the economy. Obama argued equally forcefully that what is needed is a change of philosophy, and that McCain had been a willing traveler on the Bush Adminstration's failed economic policies.
McCain would have none of it.
"It's well known that I have not been elected Miss Congeniality in the United States Senate, nor with the administration," he shot back, in one of his strongest responses of the night. "I have opposed the president on spending, on climate change, on torture of prisoners, on Guantanamo Bay, on the way the Iraq war was conducted. I have a long record, and the American people know me well."
They do. They know Obama less well. But last night, they probably came away feeling they knew him a little better - and liked what they saw.
Both candidates came off well. But Obama had more to gain, and he did.
Answers to this question from Blue Star Families for Obama members:
Name: Vivian Greentree
Location: Norfolk, VA
Service Member's branch: Navy
Relationship to Service Member: Veteran and Spouse
Why I want Barack Obama to be my commander in chief: As a military spouse, I attended the military roundtable event with Michelle Obama at ODU in Norfolk and was very much impressed by both her willingness to listen to military spouses as well as her choosing to spend time with the families of those who serve. A belief in public service and that we are all in this together is what drew me to public service in the Navy myself and I see that in the Obama campaign. Honor, courage, commitment…the ideals that military personnel abide by are also needed in the White House. And I see those values reflected in how Obama wants to govern. Frankly, he inspires me.
Name: Maura Satchell
Location: Smyrna, TN
Service Member's branch: Marines, Army
Relationship to Service Member: Mother
Why I want Barack Obama to be my commander in chief: My two sons have served in Iraq, my brother was a career diplomat, and my dad served under Eisenhower in WWII. I recognize and can certainly appreciate the need for a strong military, but as Commander-in-Chief, Barack Obama recognizes and will implement all the tools in Foreign Policy - military, yes - but also diplomatic, political, and economic in order to lead America in the coming years, and will restore America's moral authority once again.
Name: Kathleen Slocum
Location: WNY
Service Member's branch: Army National Guard
Why I want Barack Obama to be my commander in chief: He has the vision and clarity of thought to anticipate and see the changes that need to be made to protect our troops and our country.
Answers to this question from Blue Star Families Members:
Name: Stephanie Marushia
Location: Virginia Beach, VA
Service Member's branch: Army, Air Force
Relationship to Service Member: Cousins currently serving (my husband and I are Veterans and my brother served in Iraq & Afghanistan but got out of the Army a year ago)
Why I want Barack Obama to be my commander in chief: If you compare the voting records of both candidates it's obvious who has and will care for our troops and veterans - Barack Obama. He has done more than pay lip service to supporting our troops; he has made the public more aware of important issues like PTSD, TBI, homeless veterans, and the need for adequate time between deployments.
Name: Blue Star Mom
Location: Chino Hills, CA
Service Member's branch: US Army Ranger
Relationship to Service Member: Parent
Why I want Barack Obama to be my commander in chief: My son has already done 8 tours with a 9th pending. It’s all about trust! I TRUST only Barack Obama and a new Obama administration to ensure that he and all our service personnel don’t spend one more day than they have to in Iraq and that they spend 0 days in Iran!
Name: Cherrise Russel
Location: Texarkana, TX
Service Member's branch: US Army
Relationship to Service Member: Spouse
Why I want Barack Obama to be my commander in chief: Barack Obama is always calm under pressure. I think that is the most important characteristic a CIC should possess. I would sleep much better knowing that decisions were being made by someone like him. Especially when those decisions concern the military.
McCain has run several ads saying Obama has too many followers. Obama's a celebrity with millions willing to follow him anywhere, no questions asked. He implies Obama is leading a cult of some kind, portraying himself as a messiah. Does McCain really think Obamas followers are that dumb? Does he think they are following him because he is young or because he represents a new kind of politics McCain just doesn't get?
Isn't the real question, McCain's real challenge: how to declare yourself a leader when no one is following you? McCain suggests that his opponent has too many followers to be a leader. It's an interesting challenge, but where's the beef McCain. Why should anyone follow a cranky old man in a RV who opposes equality for women, blacks, hispanics and gays? Why should we follow someone who makes a half-million a year and yet still lives in a house paid for by his wife, travels in planes and limos paid for by his wife? Why should we follow a man who flies around the country in his wife's plane for free, because the campaign finance reform bill McCain wrote exempts planes belonging to candidates wives?
McCain voted against rasing the minimum wage for 12 years, but never voted against a pay raise for himself - eight to be exact during the same twelve years. McCain voted against equal pay for equal work, the Equal Rights Amendment, children's health care. How is McCain, who has lived out of someone else's pocket his entire life, going to speak honestly about personal responsibility? If you think about it, McCain is a phony all the way through!
I'm in no way taking for granted that there is still alot of work that needs to be done to get mr. obama into the Oval office and keep him there for the next eight years. But I thought i would share this article that puts my thoughts into context:
How Obama Became Acting President By FRANK RICH <http://topics.nytimes.com/top/opinion/editorialsandoped/oped/columnists/frankrich/index.html?inline=nyt-per> IT almost seems like a gag worthy of 'Borat': A smooth-talking rookie senator with an exotic name passes himself off as the incumbent American president to credulous foreigners. But to dismiss Barack Obama's magical mystery tour through old Europe and two war zones as a media-made fairy tale would be to underestimate the ingenious politics of the moment. History was on the march well before Mr. Obama boarded his plane, and his trip was perfectly timed to reap the whirlwind. He never would have been treated as a president-in-waiting by heads of state or network talking heads if all he offered were charisma, slick rhetoric and stunning visuals. What drew them instead was the raw power Mr. Obama has amassed: the power to start shaping events and the power to move markets, including TV ratings. (Even 'Access Hollywood' mustered <http://tvdecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/07/23/access-sees-an-obama-ratings-bump/> a 20 percent audience jump by hosting the Obama family.) Power begets more power, absolutely. The growing Obama clout derives not from national polls, where his lead is modest. Nor is it a gift from the press, which still gives free passes to its old bus mate John McCain. It was laughable to watch journalists stamp their feet last week to try to push Mr. Obama into saying he was 'wrong' about the surge. More than five years and 4,100 American fatalities <http://www.icasualties.org/> later, they're still not demanding that Mr. McCain admit he was wrong when he assured us that our adventure in Iraq would be fast, produce little American 'bloodletting' and 'be paid for by the Iraqis.' Never mind. This election remains about the present and the future, where Iraq's $10 billion a month drain on American pocketbooks and military readiness is just one moving part in a matrix of national crises stretching from the gas pump to Pakistan. That's the high-rol ling political casino where Mr. Obama amassed the chips he cashed in last week. The 'change' that he can at times wield like a glib marketing gimmick is increasingly becoming a substantive reality -- sometimes through Mr. Obama's instigation, sometimes by luck. Obama-branded change is snowballing, whether it's change you happen to believe in or not. Looking back now, we can see that the fortnight preceding the candidate's flight to Kuwait was like a sequence in an old movie where wind blows away calendar pages to announce an epochal plot turn. First, on July 7, the Iraqi prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki, dissed Bush dogma by raising the prospect <http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSL0353522920080707> of a withdrawal timetable for our troops. Then, on July 15, Mr. McCain suddenly noticed that more Americans are dying in Afghanistan than Iraq< /A> and called for more American forces to be sent there. It was a long-overdue recognition of the obvious that he <http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/07/01/terror/main4221986.shtml> could no longer avoid <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/07/15/is-obama-forcing-mccain-t_n_112890.html> : both Robert Gates <http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/05/world/asia/05gates.html> , the defense secretary, and Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had already called for <http://www.usatoday.com/news/military/2008-07-14-afghanistan_N.htm> more American troops <http://articles.latimes.com/2008/jun/25/world/fg-usafghan25> to battle the resurgent Taliban, echoing the policy proposed by Mr. Obama a year ago <http://blog.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2007/07/31/obama_to.html> . On July 17 we learned <http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jul/17/usa.iran> that President Bush, who h ad labeled direct talks <http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/16/us/politics/16obama.html> with Iran 'appeasement,' would send <http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/22/washington/22diplo.html> the No. 3 official in the State Department to multilateral nuclear talks with Iran. Lest anyone doubt that the White House had moved away from the rigid stand endorsed by Mr. McCain and toward Mr. Obama's, a former Rumsfeld apparatchik weighed in on The Wall Street Journal's op-ed page: 'Now Bush Is Appeasing Iran.' <http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121659929379969123.html> Within 24 hours, the White House did another U-turn, endorsing <http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2008/07/20080718.html> an Iraq withdrawal timetable as long as it was labeled <http://www.mcclatchydc.com/iraq/story/44720.html> a 'general time horizon.' In a flash, as Mr. Obama touched down in Kuwait, Mr. Maliki approvingly cited the Democratic candidate by name while laying out a troop-withdrawal calendar <http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/07/19/maliki-backs-obamas-troop-withdrawal-plan/> of his own that, like Mr. Obama's, would wind down in 2010. On Tuesday, the British prime minister, Gordon Brown, announced a major drawdown of his nation's troops by early 2009. But it's not merely the foreign policy consensus that is shifting Obama-ward. The Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens has now joined another high-profile McCain supporter, Arnold Schwarzenegger, in knocking the McCain nostrum <http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2008/04/17/pickens-supports-mccain-but-not-his-energy-policy/> that America can drill its way out of its energy crisis. Mr. Pickens, who financed the Swift-boat campaign smearing John Kerry in 2 004, was thought to be <http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=A4416D05-3048-5C12-009DB0481F25202A> a sugar daddy for similar assaults against the Democrats this year. Instead, he is underwriting nonpartisan ads promoting wind power <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/21/AR2008072102563.html> and speaks <http://www.nationaljournal.com/njonline/no_20080718_4628.php> of how he would welcome Al Gore as energy czar if there's an Obama administration. The Obama stampede is forcing Mr. McCain to surrender on other domestic fronts. After the Democrat ran ads in 14 states berating chief executives who are 'making more in 10 minutes' than many workers do in a year, a newly populist Mr. McCain began railing against 'corporate greed' -- much as he also followed Mr. Obama's example and belatedly endorsed <http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/11/us/politics/11mccain.html> a homeowners' bailout he had at first opposed. Given that Mr. McCain has already used a refitted, hand-me-down Obama campaign slogan <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/06/04/mccain-rips-off-obamas-sl_n_105266.html> ('A Leader You Can Believe In'), it can't be long before he takes up fist bumps. They've become the rage among young (nonterrorist) American businessmen, according to USA Today <http://www.usatoday.com/money/workplace/2008-07-21-fist-bump-handshake_N.htm> . 'We have one president at a time,' Mr. Obama is careful to say <http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/20/us/politics/20OBAMA.html> . True, but the sitting president, a lame duck despised by voters and shunned by his own party's candidates, now has all the gravitas of Mr. Cellophane in 'Chicago.' The opening for a successor arrived prematurely, and the vacuum had been waiting to be filled. What was most s triking about the Obama speech in Berlin was not anything he said so much as the alternative reality it fostered: many American children have never before seen huge crowds turn out abroad <http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2008/07/24/world/0724-OBAMAGERMANY_index.html> to wave American flags instead of burn them. Mr. McCain could also have stepped into the leadership gap left by Mr. Bush's de facto abdication. His inability to even make a stab at doing so is troubling. While drama-queen commentators on television last week were busy building up false suspense about the Obama trip -- will he make a world-class gaffe? will he have too large an audience in Germany? -- few focused on the alarms that Mr. McCain's behavior at home raise about his fitness to be president. Once again the candidate was making factual errors about the only subject he cares about, imagining <http://thinkprogress.org/2008/07/21/mccain-warns-o f-hard-struggle-on-the-iraq-pakistan-border/> an Iraq-Pakistan border and garbling <http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/07/mccains_mixedup_timeline.php> the chronology of the Anbar Awakening. Once again he displayed a tantrum-prone temperament ill-suited to a high-pressure 21st-century presidency. His grim-faced crusade to brand his opponent as a traitor who wants <http://blog.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008/07/24/mccain_wont_back_down_on_obama.html> to 'lose a war' isn't even a competent impersonation of Joe McCarthy. Mr. McCain comes off instead like the ineffectual Mr. Wilson, the retired neighbor perpetually busting a gasket at the antics of pesky little Dennis the Menace. The week's most revealing incident occurred on Wednesday when the new, supposedly improved McCain campaign management finalized its grand plan to counter Mr. Obama's Berlin speech with a 'Mission Accomplished'-like helicopter landing on an oil rig off Louisiana's coast. The announcement was posted <http://www.politico.com/blogs/jonathanmartin/0708/McCain_to_counterprogram_Obama_in_Germany_with_visit_to_Gulf_Coast_oil_rig.html> on politico.com <http://politico.com/> even as any American with a television could see that Hurricane Dolly was imminent. Needless to say, this bit of theater was almost immediately 'postponed' but not before raising the question of whether a McCain administration would be just as hapless in anticipating the next Katrina as the Bush-Brownie storm watch. When not plotting such stunts, the McCain campaign whines about its lack of press attention like a lover jilted for a younger guy. The McCain camp should be careful what it wishes for. As its relentless goading of Mr. Obama to visit Iraq only ratcheted up anticipation for the Democrat's triumphant trip, so its ins istent demand for joint town-hall meetings with Mr. Obama and for more televised chronicling of Mr. McCain's wanderings could be self-inflicted disasters in the making. Mr. McCain may be most comfortable at town-hall meetings before largely friendly crowds, but his performance under pressure at this year's G.O.P. primary debates was erratic. His sound-bite-deep knowledge of the country's No. 1 issue, the economy, is a Gerald Ford train wreck waiting to happen in any matchup with Mr. Obama that requires focused, time-limited answers rather than rambling. During Mr. McCain's last two tours of the Middle East -- conducted without the invasive scrutiny of network anchors -- the only news he generated was his confusion <http://blog.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008/03/18/a_mccain_gaffe_in_jordan.html> of Sunni with Shia and his embarrassing stroll <http://select.nytimes.com/2007/04/08/opinion/08rich.html> throu gh a 'safe' Baghdad market with helicopter cover. He should thank his stars that few TV viewers saw that he was even less at home when walking through a chaotic <http://www.blog.newsweek.com/blogs/stumper/archive/2008/07/24/with-mccain-scenes-from-a-bethlehem-grocery-store.aspx> Pennsylvania supermarket last week. He inveighed against the price of milk while reading from a note card and felt the pain of a shopper planted by the local Republican Party. The election remains Mr. Obama's to lose, and he could lose it, whether through unexpected events, his own vanity or a vice-presidential misfire. But what we've learned this month is that America, our allies and most likely the next Congress are moving toward Mr. Obama's post-Iraq vision of the future, whether he reaches the White House or not. That's some small comfort as we contemplate the strange alternative offered by the Republicans: a candidate so oblivious to our nation's big chall enges ahead that he is doubling down in his campaign against both Mr. Maliki and Mr. Obama to be elected commander in chief of the surge. <http://up.nytimes.com/?d=0/9/&t=&s=1&ui=26537562&r=http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/27/opinion/27rich.html?ref%3dopinion&u=www.nytimes.com/2008/07/27/opinion/27rich.html?ref%3dopinion%26pagewanted%3dprint> <http://www.nytimes.com/adx/bin/clientside/6f3180f8Q2FaQ5CQ51s7L9s__Q51Q2BjcQ5CJJQ2BjQ5Cr9rJ>
This op-ed piece is so great that I decided it needed to be posted here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/27/opinion/27rich.html
IT almost seems like a gag worthy of “Borat”: A smooth-talking rookie senator with an exotic name passes himself off as the incumbent American president to credulous foreigners. But to dismiss Barack Obama’s magical mystery tour through old Europe and two war zones as a media-made fairy tale would be to underestimate the ingenious politics of the moment. History was on the march well before Mr. Obama boarded his plane, and his trip was perfectly timed to reap the whirlwind.
He never would have been treated as a president-in-waiting by heads of state or network talking heads if all he offered were charisma, slick rhetoric and stunning visuals. What drew them instead was the raw power Mr. Obama has amassed: the power to start shaping events and the power to move markets, including TV ratings. (Even “Access Hollywood” mustered a 20 percent audience jump by hosting the Obama family.) Power begets more power, absolutely.
ABRAMS: So, what's the problem?WATKINS: The problem is this--speeches like that are reserved for the commander-in-chief of the United States. The commander-in-chief speaks with the American people. Barack Obama is not just a citizen of the world or citizen of the United States, he is the presumptive Democratic nominee.They know he's running for the presidency and what you do when you give a speech like that and you're not the commander-in-chief of all the American people, is that you undermine the institution of the president.
WATKINS: The problem is this--speeches like that are reserved for the commander-in-chief of the United States. The commander-in-chief speaks with the American people. Barack Obama is not just a citizen of the world or citizen of the United States, he is the presumptive Democratic nominee.
They know he's running for the presidency and what you do when you give a speech like that and you're not the commander-in-chief of all the American people, is that you undermine the institution of the president.
Our Commander in Chief doesn't call it "retreating" anymore, the Brave New Word is "dis-established" the Outpost", i.e., when it was overrun by Afghan Taliban insurgents, the NATO and American Troops were ordered to "dis-establish" the Base by their Leaders.
Also, we're not on a Timetable, goodness, No! That would be silly! No, America's Troops now have a "TIME HORIZON" in Iraq, folks! Sounds like somebody in little Bush's camp has been reading some Science Fiction at night, and running phrases past Focus Groups to see what sounded "Commander-in-Chiefy", as Pres. Bush might put it. I guess "Time Horizon" sounded the most "Commander-in-Chiefy"!
"TIME HORIZON", the Sci Fi Classic tale of an American President in the 21st Century who caused a terrible ..... and ..... and .... oh my.... !
.... well, what kind of terrible surprises will be sprung on a wary America, by an increasingly out-of-touch Bush regime? Right now, Bush is in the final months of his "Lame Duck" but still "Imperial" Presidency. Just who in his circle of advisors will be the One to decide what 'tricks" to pull on us? Dick Cheney? Condi Rice? Sec. Gates? George W. Bush himself?? Daddy Bush?
Whatever their decisions, they hold the "TIME HORIZON" of the entire WORLD in their hands. I sure hope they don't make the same kind of wrong-headed decisions they made during the rest of his Presidency!
Or we might end up with a "LOST HORIZON".
Printed with Permission of Col Charles F. Kriete
THE ARMY
When civilians hear the word "commander" they mostly think of someone giving an order to subordinates. And, of course, commanders do give orders. But "command" as a concept has far greater meanings and implications than ordering folks around. It is in fact the basis of the claim that military service is a profession. The military's real purpose is "to control the violence of war in a way that permits the outcome to be some useful social outcome" (Morris Janowitz)
The key sentence in the army regulation which defines command says, "The commander is responsible for everything his unit does or fails to do". This statement forms the basis not only for the operation of units, both in combat and peacetime, but also the ways those units are organized, and how they relate to one another and the enemy. It is that legal structure which creates a purposeful organization out of an uncontrollable, destructive mob.
The command system works as it was designed to work only when all the elements of the chain, from Theater Army to squad, speak honestly with each other - without concern for the effect that their words will have on both superiors and subordinates. Human nature being what it is, this is a seldom fully-realized ideal. Courage, and confidence in your commander are needed on both sides when the news you bring is bad news. The army succeeds ONLY to the degree that speech up and down the command is truthful and complete. The corollary of the orders given is that the commander giving them takes responsibility for the outcome of their execution.
A classic case of the breakdown of this reponsibility is Abu Ghraib, Iraq. The torture of prisoners there was leaked to the public by pictures taken by folks at the lowest levels of command. The Major General appointed to investigate this ugly situation made a thoroughly honest report. It confirmed that the provisions of the Geneva Convention (actually, they are laws binding the behavior of the armies of all signatory nations, the USA being one of them) were violated repeatedly, on direction from superiors. The ultimate response of the highest levels of command was to blame the lowest ranking personnel, prosecute them in military courts, and then dismiss the whole matter in hope that it would be quickly forgotten.
When the trial of one of the offenders began, a subpoena was issued to Maj Gen Geoffrey Miller (who was in charge of the interrogation of the prisoners) by the legal counsel of one of the Warrant Officers conducting the investigations who was the defendant at the trial. This General Officer took the Fifth Amendment (against self-incrimination) rather than testify, on the grounds that if he told the truth in his testimony he would be incriminating himself. There is no record that he ever did or said anything to acknowledge any of his responsibility for their behavior. This Major General had also supervised the interrogation of inmates at our prison in Guantanamo.
Maj Gen Miller's refusal to take any responsibility for the outcome of his instructions he may have given at Abu Ghraib is just one of the instances in which the Army doctrine of command responsibility has been flouted in our invasion of Iraq. What is at stake here is not the relatively trivial problem of actions which violate both the letter and the spirit of the Army Regulation governing the performance of the command function. Not one senior officer connected with our invasion has stood up to take responsibility for any of the reprehensible activities so far disclosed. And those who planned and executed that invasion, failing to anticipate what chaos would develop there after the Iraqi army was disbanded, have been completely silent. None has stood up to take responsibility for the plans they prepared and the orders given to execute their provisions. They have been completely silent.
Those of us who love the Army, and respect the command structure, and who have given it our best efforts in Vietnam and elsewhere, are ashamed at what its commanders have now done and refuse to take responsibility for, in and after our invasion of Iraq. That invasion, condemned by Pope John Paul II in an encyclical issued before that invasion took place, was based on lies and false intelligence. "We, the People", now need to hold them accountable for their lack of honor.
Charles F. KrieteCh(COL) USA, RetiredDistinguished Fellow, US Army War College
Could Hillary be Bush III “pinned down by sniper fire” joke from Leno.
I was highly offended by the joke Hillary made last night on Leno about being pinned down by sniper fire as the reason she was late for the show. This reminds me of Bush brushing off the fact there were no weapons of mass destruction and how he lies to congress and the people, and the way his Administration jokes about lying to the public.
Hillary is running for president, leader of the free world and commander in chief. I don’t want my commander in chief joking about lying about something as serious as her foreign policy experience. She would be in charge of the military, she insulted the military by making what they go through seem like something that can be joked about. She repeated this story three times and tried to discredit those who spoke out truthfully about the trip. She didnt just lie she was adamant about it, just like Bush.
The fact is that Hillary’s resume is fabricated, meanwhile she downplays Obama’s real experience. The Clintons are dishonest, remember that Chelsea basically corroborated her mother’s story. Hillary’s public appeal for already pledged delegates to consider changing sides has the potential to be political suicide and an open call for people to betray their country and conscience, and candidate.
This is serious, and a real insight to what a Clinton presidency might be like, more lies and double talk. Just Like Bush, we cannot afford to have another Bush three.
Link of Chelsea Clinton: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEB2P8DNE08&NR=1
Greetings all....
We have some new information for our upcoming ideas to move forward the best candidate in the Presidential field... for Barack Obama..
for anyone who wants further details, please sign up on the 3am event under this "Cnncerned Citizen, Iraq War Veteran..." and leave us a message with your contact information.
We currently have a few folks signed on, and this will be a tremendous opportunity to help make a decisive act in PA given the new information we have.
So, come on over and sign up for the event... This can be the biggest event to date!!
Is it possible....? Could it be that the Clinton Camp has started a Democrat Party implosion by the swiftboat tactics they have reintroduced into the running for the White House?
John Kerry a non-war hero?
Barack Obama a non-white, even anti-white man?
As we imagine the scene unfolding, can anyone else picture the possibility now of John McCain simply stepping over the rubble that the Clintons have created and on into the Oval Office for the next for years?
Will the Clinton legacy go from just a case of poor judgment on behalf of the former President to the couple who will go down in history having handed the nation back to the Republican Party and a candidate for the highest office in the land that may just keep us right where we are...? ...marking the continuing of the end?
