5.15.2008 | Everything’s going to be OK … eventually

McCain: Keeping hope alive

As our nation's problems continue to mount, it seems Reagan's "morning in America" has reached full noon.

After a speech today that paints a rosy picture of America's future over the next four years, Senator McCain seems to have joined Barack Obama as pretender to the title of the candidate of hope and optimism for the future (Obama has expressed admiration for Reagan's tone in the past).

So now both leading candidates for the presidential nomination are competing to become the focal point of America's optimistic spirit. Obama has "hope"; McCain foresees strong economic growth and troops out of Iraq in four years — or, as one satirical image put it, whatever your heart desires.

It's interesting to note that McCain made his promises in terms of a four-year window, not eight, perhaps a choice that, consciously or otherwise, gives deference to his age (if Obama can be criticized for being too young, then it's only fair to bring up the opposite about McCain).

But McCain was not alone in his optimism today. His sentiment seemed to be echoed by President Bush, who — in Israel marking the nation's 60th anniversary — predicted that in the next 60 years there will be "free and independent societies” across the region. “Iran and Syria will be peaceful nations, where today’s oppression is a distant memory.” Al Qaeda, Hezbollah, and Hamas “will be defeated.”

White House spokesman Gordon D. Johndroe defended the comments as being realistic, pointing out that "If you don’t set out a goal for what the region should look like, then what’s the point in anyone sitting down to talk at all?"

We all hope flowers will bloom across the Middle East, but they have to be cultivated first.

McCain had a similar response to a reporter who called his speech a "magic carpet ride," saying "I don’t think it has anything to do with fantasy; I think it has everything to do with setting goals and achieving."

Well yes, have lofty goals. But to predict that they will be reached is getting a little bit ahead of ourselves, isn't it? (Along with Hillary Clinton's "Yes we will," that may be a running theme these days.)

If nothing else, we would hope for a detailed explanation of how to get there. We all hope flowers will bloom across the Middle East, but they have to be cultivated first.

4.08.2008 | Surge. Pause. Repeat.

I was going to write a blog about General Petraeus' testimony before Congress today, but Arianna Huffington did it for me:

Surge, Pause... Surge, Pause... We can't pull out! It's all starting to sound a bit sexual, isn't it? But the American people are the ones getting screwed.

Not that this is news, as The New York Post could have told you back in February. Apparently, some people just don't understand war isn't won on a schedule.

4.02.2008 | A turn of phrase

Perhaps a sign of the times in which we live, a phrase made popular four years ago seems to be making a comeback. Or "turning a corner," if you will.



Made popular in modern times by President Bush's attempts to describe progress in Iraq, especially on the campaign trail in 2004 (and afterward), the phrase made a surprise appearance more recently when Senator Clinton used it to describe her campaign's fortunes after her (arguably) pyrrhic victories in Texas and Ohio. But since then, I've seen the phrase pop up in a quote from a midwesterner in this BBC article about the world's opinion of America, which told me something must be up.

Maybe it's just me, but I remember more definite turns of phrases, like "light at the end of the tunnel," or "turning things around" (as long as we're going to turn something). But since it's been used to describe American progress in Iraq, however incremental it might be, it can't help but carry a connotation that there's a much longer and involved process afoot. And there are no shortage of problems in America today that might need such an approach for solving them.

And then there are the Yoko Ono lyrics to the song of the same name:

I turned a corner,
It didn't seem that was wrong,
I was just having a laugh.
But suddenly my friends are gone
And I didn't know that life would be so long.

I guess more than a question of how many corners we'll have to turn, it's what's around the corner (or what isn't) when we get there that counts.

2.26.2008 | In their own words

Tonight's debate between Senators Clinton and Obama dived deep into substance, and that's a good thing (18 pages' worth of goodness, if you care to read it, over at NYTimes). But I couldn't help but notice one aspect of Hillary's style that confirmed for me the criticism that she represents the old guard of politics:

MR. RUSSERT: I want to ask both of you this question, then. If we — if this scenario plays out and the Americans get out in total and al Qaeda resurges and Iraq goes to hell, do you hold the right, in your mind as American president, to re-invade, to go back into Iraq to stabilize it?

SEN. CLINTON: You know, Tim, you ask a lot of hypotheticals. And I believe that what's —

MR. RUSSERT: But this is reality.

SEN. CLINTON: No — well, it isn't reality. You're — you're — you're making lots of different hypothetical assessments.

Contrast that with the last time I remember hearing a response like that from someone in power when a journalist asked a pretty reasonable question about the consequences of our actions:

JIM LEHRER: Let's cut to the crunch on this question. If in fact this team does not find any weapons of mass destruction, do you believe that would do serious harm to the credibility of the president and this administration and particularly on the… in the long run and when history looks back on this?

DONALD RUMSFELD: I mean, the intelligence that our country had— has— was over a sustained period of time, it was validated by other intelligence services. I have to believe it was reasonably correct— obviously not perfect. No intelligence is ever perfect. And that as the reports come out, they will find evidence of the kinds of programs that Secretary Powell presented to the United Nations. That's my… yes, I mean that's what I believe.

JIM LEHRER: But if they don't? Is that a problem?

DONALD RUMSFELD: I don't do hypotheticals.

JIM LEHRER: You don't do politics; you don't do hypotheticals.

DONALD RUMSFELD: I don't. I don't. Why? I can't speculate.

One of the necessary qualities of leadership is looking ahead to the possibility that plan A may not work as you thought it would. I don't know about you, but when someone running for president today, knowing what we know now, refuses to engage in hypotheticals, I'm a little bit worried.

But maybe I'm wrong. Can anyone out there on the Internets think of a time where it would be a good thing to avoid hypothetical questions?

Scratch that. I think I found one …

11.24.2007 | Thanksgiving at war

As much as we have to be thankful for as Thanksgiving draws to a close, it's important to remember those who aren't here to be thankful with us. And while I admire the sentiment expressed in this cartoon — those serving abroad in our place certainly deserve our thanks — let us hope as well that the soldiers themselves will be equally able to thank us for the support they deserve — before, during and after the war; at home and abroad.

11.16.2007 | GOP Congressmen demand withdrawal

Democrats' report: Inconvenient truths?

— not from Iraq, but of a report issued by the Democratic members of the Congressional Joint Economic Committee seeking to estimate the "hidden costs" of the Iraq war.

The call comes from Senator Sam Brownback and Representative Jim Saxton, the ranking Republican members of the Joint Economic Committee, who claim that the report is "defective" and riddled with "factual errors," though the specific examples they gave have been corrected in the online version of the report.

It's all well and good to demand accuracy, but calling for the report's withdrawal?

While telling us to stand strong in the face of hardship in Iraq and asking our soldiers to continue to shoulder the necessary sacrifices, it seems to me these Republicans have found an enemy more formidable than the terrorists in Afghanistan or the insurgents in Iraq — a differing point of view.

Go ahead and call the report "defective," go ahead and tell us where the Democrats erred — even better, issue your own report in response. That's the beauty of open academic debate. But to tell the opposing side to take back what they said is the intellectual equivalent of cut and run.

Read the report for yourself (PDF, 400KB) and decide whether it makes a rhetorical leap too far.

But as for the Democrats, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is opposing any talk of a timetable — for charging Bush administration officials with contempt of Congress.

8.13.2007 | A trip down memory lane

How many of you remember what you were doing in 1994? For these two Republican political figures, it was saying things that could be used against them later. Consider these:

If we'd gone to Baghdad we would have been all alone … There would have been a U.S. occupation of Iraq … Once you got to Iraq and took it over, took down Saddam Hussein's government, then what are you going to put in its place? … It's a quagmire if you go that far and try to take over Iraq.

— Vice President Dick Cheney explaining why the first President Bush decided not to go on to Baghdad in 1991

That one made it into a YouTube video that went from 100 to over 200 thousand views in the same day. Now this second quote is a bit more interesting because it involves a current presidential candidate. At the time, mayor Rudy Giuliani was talking about getting tough on crime in New York. But now, some are afraid the same philosophy could apply to terrorism and the debate over civil liberties. If you Google freedom and Giuliani, here's what you'll find:

What we don't see is that freedom is not a concept in which people can do anything they want, be anything they can be. Freedom is about authority. Freedom is about the willingness of every single human being to cede to lawful authority a great deal of discretion about what you do.

For this latter quote, one creative Digger rephrased that sentiment as "Freedom is slavery," a reference to part of the slogan of the English Socialist Party in George Orwell's 1984. But we don't know if that's a fair interpretation unless we get an answer from Giuliani himself how he feels today. And in Cheney's case, certainly there must have been some kind of evolution in his philosophy that caused him to take a different tack on the Iraq war today.

Hopefully some journalist out there reading this now has an idea of what question he needs to ask when he next sits down for an interview with either of these politicians — assuming he can get a straight answer.

8.11.2007 | iPod to iPhone: The War on Terror

In an example of how print doesn't always translate well online, one alternative weekly columnist's look at the “War on Terror™” lacked a direct link with the sidebar that did a better job (in my view) of putting into perspective how long we've been at war: the distance of time between the release of two seminal Apple products. Even the online version of the sidebar lacked the graphics of Apple technology that — especially for an Apple fanboy like me — gave a sense of progression to the story. Compare what you see online with this photo from the print version below:

7.14.2007 | Between the lines

Do I have this right?

From an Associated Press article:

At the Pentagon, meanwhile, Marine Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters that the number of battle-ready Iraqi battalions able to fight on their own has dropped to a half-dozen from 10 in recent months despite heightened American training efforts ...

Pace, however, also said the readiness of the Iraqi fighting units was not an issue to be ‘overly concerned’ about because the problem is partly attributable to the fact that the Iraq units are out operating in the field.

Appearing at a news conference with Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Pace said that ‘as units operate in the field, they have casualties, they consume vehicles and equipment.’

Is the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff telling us not to worry about the fact that two fewer battalions in Iraq are ready for battle because they're getting blown up?

12.03.2005 | Iraqification

Senior Daily Show Correspondent Rob Corddry presents a hilarious analysis of the situation in Iraq, citing President Bush's oft-repeated quote, "As the Iraqi army stands up, America will stand down" -- the goal being to train Iraq's army to defend itself (much as we tried with Vietnamization in another era). The picture to the left, according to Corddry's report, is the system the Defense Department has come up with to track the progress of freedom in Iraq, with the western provinces "still a little kidnappy." Definitely a clip worth checking out. The most priceless quote comes at the end, in response to Jon Stewart's question about how we will know when we've won the war:

"This war will be won when we leave Iraq not as a failed nation-state eviscerated by a quarter-century of a tyrant's rule, but as a military and economic superpower, ruled by islamists with an enormous grudge against the United States."

Corddry explains earlier that we "botched" the end of World War II by pulling out as early as we did, leaving Germany and Japan "without a military-industrial complex to drain its resources," allowing them to become economic powerhouses. Apparently we won't let that become the case in Iraq. To watch the clip in full, click this link and then click on Corddry's piece, called "De-Weakening Iraq."

Update (5/16/07): New video link