The President As A Prize

There are a lot of things this President ought not to be doing.  Like encouraging banks to go back to sub-prime lending before we've gotten out of the current mess caused by it.  Or inviting gangsta rappers to the White House over the objections from the Police unions.  Or mocking Republicans for wanting even more border security.  Just because there has been more added, it doesn't mean it's enough and sarcastic mockery is not leading, it's campaigning.

Those are the topics I've decided to gloss over today.  What bothers me is his holding himself out as the prize for The Race to the Top Challenge for improvement of graduation rates in schools.

I'm all for inspiring youngsters to want an education and to stay in school.  It shouldn't require the President delivering the commencement address to be the incentive.  But it was.  He had to know the minute the winner was chosen it would be politicized and of course it was.  The winner, Booker T. Washington High School, in Memphis won. It is predominantly black in a sorely impoverished area and the students are thrilled that the President will be visiting.  And they should be.

It is also in Tennessee, a state that went Republican in 2008 and has eleven electoral votes.  In articles about the winner, the politics was the first thing mentioned.

Especially since the other two of the final three schools are in safe Democratic states.  California and Washington.  The school in Washington, Bridgeport, is small, mostly Hispanic and in the middle of nowhere.  The kids were thrilled to be among the final three and anticipation of the announcement was palpable.  The local news has been doing stories on it daily.  Tiny Bridgeport was on the map.

The body language of the kids, as pictured in this morning's Spokesman Review, shows far better than words how they felt about the results. Crushingly disappointed seems mild.  The consolation prize?  An as yet unnamed Cabinet member and the Governor.  They couldn't even tell the kids who the Cabinet member would be.  What are they going to do, draw names out of a hat?

Speaking of that, perhaps that might have been a better way to pick the winner from the final three.  No peeking as to the politics of the State or community!

Personally, I think the President would be better off not involving himself as a prize.  The disappointment is too great and it's no fault of the kids.  It's a good lesson for them?  A lesson in how to accept losing with grace.  Heck, their sports teams can teach highschoolers lessons like that.

But to lose out on a visit from the President?  What made the other kids so much better?  Well, what did?   Is it just that they made a better video? Put together a package of scholarships ft and have someone like the Secretary of Education award them  at each of the schools.

Let the President do what he does best.  Like deny Texas federal aid for the 2 million acres that burned while collecting campaign donations in El Paso.  Leave the kids  and their teachers out of the equation.  They deserve better.

Tilting At All The Wrong Windmills!

We are a most unique country.  It's inborn at this point, I think.  There is an innate decency that binds us.

Our government can get us into the most impossible situations under the most convoluted reasoning imaginable,  yet somehow we always manage to come out of it okay.

Let's go back one war.  The Iraq War.  Most people didn't buy into the weapons of mass destruction bit that led us to back off Afghanistan and bin Laden and concentrate on Iraq. Wrong windmill! We're still there, terrorists are still having their way with the people, but it's basically a civil war now.  Before we involved ourselves civil war in Iraq would have been impossible because Saddam Hussein would never have tolerated it.  So what good came from it?  Saddam is gone.  However the rest of it shakes out will be up to the people, but Saddam is gone.  And in a backhanded sort of way, we're lucky.  We found no  stockpile of weapons of mass destruction.  That's the really good news.

Then we returned to Afghanistan, knowing full well that bin Laden and his ilk were shuffling between Afghanistan and Pakistan.  We also know that al Qaeda and the Taliban are not one and the same though they play a dangerous game with one another.

Then bingo!  We find bin Laden in Pakistan.  Fortunately our combined national security teams had the necessary skill to verify his location and eliminate him.  No matter what I think of the President or how he's handled the aftermath,  I applaud him for making the right decision.  It truly did take courage and an act of faith in what those who serve us are made of.  Well placed faith I might add.

So now we have Pakistan.  They are no ally.  We are tilting here because of their nuclear arsenal more than anything else.  Perhaps we worry too much.  It's hard to believe they are completely innocent in the harboring of bin Laden especially when they out our CIA station chief to punish us for our covert action.  Great way to handle disagreement!  They cannot be trusted and to turn a blind eye for some imagined expediency could prove disastrous. As far as their nukes are concerned,  India will never let Pakistan misuse them any more than Israel will let Iran finish developing them.

The Arab Spring has been interesting to watch.  In some respects we're right smack in the middle of it and in others we're poking rather tentatively.  It may be a good time to re-evaluate what our foreign policy and aid criteria should be.  Spring.  Time for new beginnings.  We sorely need one, both domestically and internationally.  I'm speaking to both parties here.  It's past time to get your acts together!

We've been lucky so far.  We've deposed a couple of monsters and haven't hampered the removal of a few more who are on the block.  We can't keep tilting though.  One these days we're going to have to hit one of those windmills by design rather than by fluke.  If, and it's a big if, we want to regain our role as world leader we're going to have to quit "dreaming the impossible dream"  and recognize what our capabilities, responsibilities to others and best interests are and understand other nations have the right to make the same decisions for themselves.  Then act accordingly even if it's seems an affront to that inherent decency.  Meaning well doesn't necessarily make things right.

Obama/Osama ~ A Cautionary Note

Fortunately the week and the Obama/Osama news cycle is nearly over.  It's time before it gets any worse and we look more and more the villain than the hero.

I've a few observations as the week has passed.  One, the President could use a dose of humility.  He was but a small tooth on the gear that made the operation work.  Yes, he gave the order but he really had no choice.  Too many other teeth on those gears knew exactly what was coming down and who the target was for him to have not done so.  At that it took him 16 days of agonizing to come to a conclusion that was obvious from the beginning.  You have bin Laden in your sites, you take him.

He is not releasing the proof positive photos, we don't spike the ball.  He has done nothing but spike it ever since.  Yes.  We are all glad a monster is dead, but never in history which I can recall has there been the sense of celebration as with this one. Not for Saddam nor his sons.  Not even by their own people. Proof positive, photos, followed by a huge sigh of relief.  Then they were gone.  No games.  And no celebrations.   What's next?  Thumbs up or thumbs down at an arena filled with humans versus monsters?  I have an uneasy feeling the lines between us are becoming blurred.

If this one single act gives the President all the foreign policy legitimacy he needs to be a world leader, we're in deep trouble.  The flow of information has been a disaster from the get go.  The enemy isn't questioning whether Osama is really dead because they want him to be alive, but because the information coming forth proves nothing.  Not even who was shot or how many people were present.  Whether women were used as shields or inadvertently got into the line of fire.  Was he armed.  Were guns present?  Was the order to kill or capture or kill? Was it the Seal's fire that actually killed him or a compatriot trying to save him from capture?

Frankly, it's embarrassing.  The whole fiasco.  It's like the old Abbott and Costello Who's on first routine!

I could care less about the demonstrators who burn our flag with regularity.  Should a general break a nail it would be our fault and the flag would be burned.  I do care about how the civilized  world views us.

Do they view our tactics as justified or blatant disregard for international law?  Do they view our handling of the aftermath as handled by professionals under a well informed leader acting with resolve or by a bloated bureaucracy stumbling over one another with varying accounts like the Keystone Cops?

This has not been our national security team's nor our President's finest hour.  It's a shame because the successful removal of an archenemy such as bin Laden deserves better.

Of Men And Monsters

Americans seemed surprised with themselves for having mixed feelings over the death of Osama bin Laden.  I think it's more the manner of how he was killed than the fact that he was.  Even the President seemed uneasy for having ordered then witnessed a very messy execution.  Well, folks, welcome to war.  It's a scenario our soldiers witness on a daily basis in combat.  It's not pretty, is it!

I got to thinking about the term, 'he's the personification of evil'.   That interests me.  First, what is evil?  I think it's a state, not a trait nor an emotion.  When it consumes all that is human in a being than it's personified and the person ceases to be human even while retaining human form.  The exclusion of humanity forfeits all the rights that come with being one.  That includes the niceties of laws and trials and humane extraction of information and painless executions.

There are many such monsters among us.  There always have been.  Hitler.  Any number of middle eastern rulers scrambling for their existence. Any number of Sub-Saharan African rulers. Kim il Jong. Enough others to make my blood run cold. They exist because they surround themselves with  others who have succumbed to evil.  They survive because the good and decent people of the world fear them.  We do not know how to deal with those who have lost all sense of decency and compassion and ignore the differences between right and wrong.  They are above the law because no law applies to them.   They are no longer human.

When I agonize over my feelings about the death penalty, I think of these things.  It isn't easy to willingly kill another human being.  It goes against the grain of who we are.  And that is just the point.  We are human beings with feelings and fears and misgivings and hope and happiness and joy and laughter.

The personification of evil exploits this.  Evil has offended our sensibilities, not the other way around.

We should not agonize over destroying evil.  It does no good to try and equate it to our way of thinking because they are not one and the same.

In looking at history you see it's unlikely we will ever be free from evil.  In Osama bin Laden's case, however, at least one monster has met with a stake through his heart. There is no need to grieve.  There is no need to apologize for having mixed feelings; it's those feelings that differentiate us from him.

Obama Could Be Handling bin Laden Better

The moment for high fives and congratulations over the slaying of Osama bin Laden lasted about as long as it took the news to get out.  It is now a mess of misinformation, information denied and campaign photo ops.

I'd like to make a point or two, considering I've been away from political commenting for a couple of weeks and the cold/flu that still plagues me tests my patience.  That being said, I congratulate the President for having finally made a decision and the right one.  Had he let bin Laden slither away on his watch he'd have been toast.  He may still be by the way the aftermath is going.

Obama is doing little to dispel his reputation for being less than transparent with the public.  Of all Presidents to decide not to release a photograph showing bin Laden dead this should not be the one.  The one who wouldn't produce his own birth certificate, for heavens sake.  Nor his university transcripts.  People doubt his truthfulness on a lot of matters because of these basically inconsequential bouts of stubbornness.  Just release them.  If they show he's less of scholar than we've been lead to believe, who will be surprised?

The other side of the equation is arrogance.  He assures us there is enough evidence that proves bin Laden is dead without showing a photo.  Why spike the ball?  Because people doubt you actually scored in the first place.  Your word isn't good enough.  I'm sorry.  It just isn't.  To a whole lot of the world.  And the frenzy has already begun.

You don't want to stir Muslim sensitivities?  You invaded a private compound without informing the host country, wounded several including your target's wife, killed him under ever questionable circumstances and whisked away the body.  I think that may have already riled the sensitivities of those Muslims who care!

Not that I think what was done was wrong.  It seems to me the manner of the undertaking and the end result, in a time of war against the brain child of this man, was the only logical solution.

But quit playing with the dirty pictures.  Some members of Congress have seen them.  Select members of of the 9/11 families will be allowed to view them.  We should all be allowed to view them should we so desire.  They cannot be any more gruesome than those already out "there" that have been photo shopped!  If you're worried about a photo inflaming sensitivities, how are you going to explain away the fake ones?

Quit playing games, for that's what's being done.  "I've got pictures but you can't see them. "  I've got pictures, shhhh, I'll show them to you if you promise not to tell!

The 9/11 families are seeking closure.  I've got news for you sir.  We are all seeking closure because 9/11 altered all  our lives forever.  Not only those who lost loved ones that day but think of our military families who've lost loved ones over the 10 years we've spent hunting this ******* down!

You, Mr. President, are only a small part of the 9/11 equation. The entire world owns  a share of it from foreign nationals who died that day to the countries who allied with us in the hunt.
Put the pictures out there.  You may find a dead bin Laden generates far fewer hurt sensitivities than a cartoon of Muhammad .