The New Dan Quayle

“Sarah Palin is the next Ronald Reagan”
- Richard A. Viguerie - September 9, 2008 – Pioneer of political direct mail and a pillar of the modern conservative movement

This time last year, conservatives everywhere were busy anointing Sarah Palin the second coming of “The Gipper” and savior of the conservative movement. Right after the election Phyllis Schlafly gushed “Sarah Palin is certainly a rising star – she was a breath of fresh air, and [brings] a lot of excitement to the conservative movement. I think she is a genuine conservative.”

But, Reagan positioned himself as an optimist. He hid his hard-line conservative past in gauzy proclamations of better days ahead for everyone. Whether it was his “There you go again” line off of Jimmy Carter in 1980 or the “Morning in America” strategy in 1984, Reagan tried to wrap everyone together in an avuncular embrace.

A better analogy would be Palin is more like Richard Nixon. Unlike Reagan, Nixon ran by appealing to people’s fears. The “Silent Majority” in 1968 was not just a veiled appeal based on race. It was also an appeal to voters who felt their world had been turned upside-down by elites who laughed at them and made no attempt to understand them.

You only have to take a look at the itinerary of Sarah Palin’s book tour to confirm these are the people Palin is speaking to. Her schedule includes Fort Wayne, Indiana; Washington, Pennsylvania; and Birmingham, Alabama. The largest city in her tour is Dallas, Texas – hardly a place where she will run into an unfriendly crowd.

She also has the same dark paranoia that Nixon has. To listen to her blame all of McCain’s advisors for her failures is not much different than Nixon’s obsession with Kennedy aides that he was sure were conspiring to bring him down. Nixon’s view of Daniel Schorr is not much different than Palin’s view of Katie Couric. Each was sure they were set up by unsympathetic reporters determined to do them in.

The difference between Nixon and Palin, however, is that Nixon was able to wrap his paranoia up and hide it from general view. He was able to impress people with tour-de-force monologues on the state of world affairs that even his enemies conceded were insightful and brilliant.

Where Nixon was able to draw deeply on his knowledge of international affairs, Palin can only talk in bumper sticker slogans while pointing out Russia and Alaska are next door to each other. With little to discuss Palin can only talk about herself.

Nixon started working on his comeback as early as 1966. He carefully stage-managed every detail of his public life. He knew one mistake would brand him a loser and would destroy his credibility. Palin is very careless about her public image, whether it is backing out of an event at the Reagan Library or trying to charge for an appearance at an Iowa political meeting, Palin continues to reinforce the image that she is incompetent and not ready to handle the national spotlight, let alone the nation’s interests.

In a CNN Poll taken on October 28, 2009 over 70% surveyed in the Oct0ber 28, 2009 CNN poll said she was not qualified to be President. (http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2009/10/28/cnn-poll-7-in-10-say-palin-not-qualified-to-be-president/). Even worse for her, only 58% of Republicans and 28% of Independent voters feel she is qualified to be President.

In this way she is more like Dan Quayle than she is any other modern American politician. At this point after his introductory speech at the Republican Convention of 1988 Dan Quayle was perceived as more qualified. (http://www.brendan-nyhan.com/blog/2009/10/sarah-palin-polls-like-dan-quayle.html). 40% of voters felt Quayle was qualified to be President. This is a terrible number for a sitting Vice President. But when you look at Sarah Palin’s numbers on the same question (28%) they are catastrophic.

When you consider the high disapproval rating she has with Democrats it is difficult to see how she can be a viable candidate for the Presidency. Quayle, despite all his hard work was never able to overcome the perception that he was a lightweight. He withdrew from the 1996 Presidential race soon after he entered. Palin is headed to the same fate.

As Vice Admiral James Stockdale discovered, national reputations, once set, are hard to change. Few people remember his Congressional Medal of Honor. But 16 years later what most people remember about him, is his question in the 1992 Vice Presidential debate “Who am I? Why am I here?”

These are two questions Sarah Palin has not even begun to coherently answer.

Republican Buggywhip Makers

Amazon says Kindle owners buy 3.1 times as many books as they did before getting one.
- New York Times 10/25/2009

E-readers are catching on. Sony has had their version out for nearly a year. Barnes and Noble will issue their version of the Kindle in November. You can now download a Kindle book in over 100 countries. Universities are giving the Kindle 3 to incoming students.

Jeff Bezos was quoted in the same article saying “You are going to see very significant growth rates.” The CEO of McMillan publisher, John Sargent, was also quoted saying “Do you really believe people are going to be reading more because they can get it on a screen? I don’t see that scenario.”

Mr. Sargent is right. People aren’t going to be reading more because they can get it on a screen. But they will be buying more because they can get a book for $20 less, and have it fit in their coat pocket or briefcase. Try doing that with Dan Brown’s latest.

Mr. Sargent joins a long line of people who live in self deception, locked into their old ideas, unable to see the world changing around them. He is like auto executives who insisted that the public won’t go for small, safe, fuel efficient cars, and built F-150’s and mini-vans long after to the success of the Prius. Like the music industry that missed the boat on downloadable music, publishing and newspapers have missed the fact the rules of their business are changing. His industry is now in danger of following the path of so many other industries in the past that stagnated and died.

Why do companies stagnate?

Aimattech is a strategic planning and management consulting firm. They identified four reasons why companies stagnate. (http://www.aimattech.com/news1.htm#why). The first is the company has no vision, strategy or strategic business plans. The second is a weak or ineffective management, third is lack of information and control systems, and fourth is under capitalization.

Sounds like the Republicans doesn’t it?

As a Party they have no vision. They made a strategic decision to oppose everything that the Democrats propose. There are many pitfalls to this strategy. People will not follow a group that doesn’t appear to be going anywhere. It is not enough to say “No.” You have to say what you plan on doing instead. People will only follow leaders who relate to them and try and solve their problems.

Now the reason the Republicans have plunked their chips down on this strategy is not through any grand scheme. The real reason is summed up in point number two. The Republican Party has no real leadership. Mitch McConnell is the Senate Minority Leader and has never been a national figure. John Boehner is trapped in a personality that makes him come across as a disapproving school principal.

Neither leader is strong enough to buck the red-meat conservatives who give the party money, volunteers and a base and broaden its reach. This leaves the Republican Party under the guidance of radio and TV talk show hosts, who are in the business of entertainment, not electing people.

The problems created by this weak management are only heightened by the lack of information and control systems. The Republicans came to and held on to power by seeing trends that others missed. Whether it was the “Southern Strategy” of Nixon which lead to the “Reagan Democrats”, Republicans were masters at identifying social trends that worked for them.

Not anymore.

The Republicans have convinced themselves of the myth of Obama’s waning popularity. They honestly believe that Obama’s drop in the polls spells trouble for Democrats and bright days ahead for the GOP. However, even the most casual glance at the polling data show this to be false. Obama’s approval rating in October of 2009 is almost identical to his approval rating in November of 2008 – an approval rating that gave him a solid election victory. (http://www.pollster.com/polls/us/jobapproval-obama.php).

In addition, after a brief flirtation with Republicans, Independent voters are once again moving Obama’s way. Finally, the Republicans are blind to the demographic changes that are working against them. These changes, if not addressed, will solidify the Republican demographic as less educated white southern men over 60, in a time that the voting population is getting younger and more diverse.
Even if the Republicans wanted to address these issues they don’t have the internal discipline or control to manufacture and sell their message.

Finally they are undercapitalized. The Democratic National Congressional Committee has over twice the cash on hand for the 2010 election cycle as their Republican counterparts. People vote with their wallet. If party does not have a compelling idea or a broad reach, people won’t contribute. Money has always been a leading indicator if a candidate is going to succeed or fail – no matter what their poll numbers say.

Currently the Republicans show all four of these signs of stagnation and failure. As the party of into business they should recognize these trends. Maybe they will be like IBM or Apple and reinvent themselves and be successful again. Or maybe, just maybe, they will be Kodak and will continue to manufacture film long after everyone else has gone digital.

I Am Not A Crook

“I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Ms. Lewisnky”
- Bill Clinton

So when does a scandal matter? John Ensign received a little extra attention from the New York Times, chronicling his successful efforts to place his mistress’ husband in a lobbying firm that had business before the Senate. He violated a number of Federal laws to do so. Still Mr. Ensign remains in the Senate.

Then there is the case of John Edwards. Edwards violated no laws and is a pariah, sitting alone at his estate in the ashes of his public life.

So why do some scandals matter and others don’t? Why does Watergate still reverberate through the national political life, and Iran Contra is just a trivia question for old lefties and political junkies? Why does Whitewater not hinder the Clintons, but hinders the Republicans?

For a scandal to matter it needs to contain several elements. First the person involved must be shown to have clearly violated the law or some deep social precept held by their constituents. The White House tapes proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that Nixon was personally committing crimes. He also violated the trust of his base. Nixon drew on hardworking people who felt others were using their position of privilege to work them over and get special treatment. They also had a very conservative Civics class textbook view of how the government worked.

Nixon’s obvious use of his position to work over his enemies and escape responsibility violated their sense of fair play. His actions betrayed all he had told them about himself and his world view. He had in their eyes gone over to the other side.

That is also the difference between John Edwards and John Ensign. Edwards violated everyone’s sense of decency, while at the same time coming across as a heartless user. Whereas Ensign promised and delivered jobs as part of his cover-up, those actions fell within the low expectations voters have for their leaders.

The turning point for Edwards was not that he fathered a child, but his open planning of his wedding to his mistress after the death of his wife. He violated everyone’s sense of decency and honor. He did this after presenting himself as compassionate fighter for the everyman. Voters felt conned, which makes them madder than feeling ripped off. Furthermore, Democrats cannot forgive his risking a McCain presidency by running with such a large skeleton in his closet.

For a scandal to stick, it also has to be easily understood. No one really understood all the ins and outs of Whitewater, but they understood clearly what was at stake in Watergate. Whitewater became a grab-bag of all the things the Republicans wanted to use to get Clinton. Republicans never established a clear definition of the scandal or what was at stake. Instead Whitewater hurt the Republicans by establishing their narrative as obsessed, partisan and self-centered. Voters didn’t understand Whitewater, but they understood the rabid partisanship that brought the country to a standstill while the Republicans impeached a President for an issue most felt was a family matter

Watergate was about a President operating outside the law. The Democrats framed the scandal that way and everything Nixon did to defend himself played into that narrative. He was doomed the moment he started to cover-up. Had he gone on TV, like Reagan did when it looked like he would be impeached for Iran-Contra, and accepted responsibility, Watergate would have been a footnote in history along with Iran-Contra.

The voters need to have the political will to hold the politician accountable. On a national scale, once Reagan accepted responsibility for Iran-Contra, people were too exhausted by Watergate to try and hold Reagan to any further account. America considered the matter closed. Nixon never accepted responsibility for Watergate. He left it on the table for Ford to deal with. In trying to close it, Ford kept the issue open for votes with his pardon of Nixon

Louisiana voters are forgiving of the shortcomings of their elected officials. Voters sent Edwin Edwards to the Governor’s office 4 times - once while he was under Federal indictment. Edwards once said the only way he would lose re-election was if he were found in bed with a live boy or dead girl. Vitter was caught with neither and seems a lock to return the Senate.

Voters in Massachusetts were equally forgiving of Rep. Barney Frank. They overlooked his transgressions with a male prostitute who operated out of Frank’s Washington house. Both Vitter’s and Frank’s actions were scandals that were easy to understand, but both accepted responsibility and neither violated voter’s precepts of acceptable social norms. New Orleans is known as a good time town, and Massachusetts is more tolerant of gay activity than Idaho is over wide stances.

The lesson is then, to survive scandal, keep it complex, don’t step outside of voters expectations of your corruption and own up to it the moment you are caught.

Nullification and Health Care

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
- The 10th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States America

Congressional Republicans seem to have conceded the field to the Democrats and Obama. The best they could do for their official response to Obama’s Healthcare address was to rudely heckle from the gallery and send an obscure member of Congress who, as a heart surgeon, was sued three time for malpractice. Their proposals in the Senate Finance Committee are being voted down along party lines. Furthermore, Senate Republicans have overplayed their hand. They wrung a number of concessions from Democrats, yet they still won’t support any health care bill. Now the Democrats have concluded they can go it alone, and Senate Republicans will be left on the sidelines.

Republicans elsewhere are not throwing the towel.

On Sept. 11, 2009, in a response to a phone question at the Republican Governors Conference, Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R-Minn) said in that he may invoke the 10th Amendment to block implementation of any health reform signed by Obama. “Depending on what the Federal Government comes out with here, asserting the 10th Amendment may be a viable option. The Governor finished with "I think we can hopefully see a resurgence in claims and maybe even bring up lawsuits if need be." (http://www.startribune.com/politics/state/59009217.html).

On Sept. 13 2009 on ABC news, Gov. Pawlenty backed off of his remarks. On George Stephanoplis, Pawlenty said “…I think the courts have addressed these Tenth Amendment issues, but more in the political sense, in the common sense arena, we need to have a clear understanding of what the federal government does well and what should be reserved to the states.” (http://blogs.abcnews.com/george/2009/09/pawlenty-backs-off-nullification.html).

What makes the Pawlenty story an interesting one, is he is a mainstream politician bringing up an argument that had, up to this point, been limited to the right wing fringe. He did this while being seen the best hope the Republicans have for taking the White House either in 2012 or 2016.

The 10th Amendment is becoming a favorite among conservative activists as a way to circumvent health care reform, and anything else they are afraid of from the Obama Presidency. A quick look at the list of states that have some sort of 10th Amendment sovereignty legislation is sobering. (http://www.tenthamendmentcenter.com/2009/02/23/state-sovereignty-resolutions/). 10th Amendment resolutions have been passed and await Governor Signatures in South Dakota, Alaska, Idaho, and Oklahoma and dozens more are proposed.

But this is a constitutional dead end.

The 10th Amendment was designed to prevent the Federal Government from swallowing up a State, force it out of the Union, or interfere with how it operated within the Union. It was not designed to define the specific powers allocated to either the State or Federal government. (http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data/constitution/amendment10/01.html#t8).

In 1819 Chief Justice John Marshall ruled in McColluch v Maryland that framers had not used the work “expressly” to qualify the powers granted to the Federal Government, ''whether the particular power which may become the subject of contest has been delegated to the one government, or prohibited to the other, to depend upon a fair construction of the whole instrument.'' (http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?navby=case&court=us&vol=17&invol=316#372).

In short what Marshall said 190 years ago was that as the 10th amendment did not place specific limits to the rights of either the State or the Federal government. What was delegated to each depended upon the proposed law, its fairness, and how it fit in the overall constitution.

But even if the 10th Amendment were interpreted the way Gov Pawlenty (and John C. Calhoun) wanted he would still be wrong when it comes to health care reform. Article 1 Section 8.2 of the Constitution clearly states that [Congress has the power …] to regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes,

Unless the 10th Amendment group can figure out a way that health care is not a classic case of interstate commerce they have no leg (so to speak) to stand on. To carry Pawlenty’s 10th Amendment argument to its logical conclusion, each state would have to have its own health care system and insurance that was valid only in its own borders.

Over the life of the country opponents of progress have invoked the 10th Amendment at every turn. Whether it was as the basis of nullification in the 1830’s, the New Deal in the 1930’s, Anti-lynching laws in the 1940’s or Civil Rights in the 1960’s, the 10th Amendment has been invoked to stop progress, even though attempts to use the 10th Amendment has been pushed aside by the courts time and time again.

The 10th Amendment does prevent Obama from driving Nebraska from the Union to settle a score with Sen. Chuck Grassley, or to eliminate his “Nay” vote, but it doesn’t at all prevent him from regulating health care.

Conventional Wisdom and Health Care Reform

“You lie!”
- Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC)

Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) joined a long line of South Carolina Congressmen behaving badly. Not since Rep. Preston Brooks beat Sen. Charles Sumner nearly to death on the Senate floor has a South Carolina Congressman gained so much notoriety by a single act. Rep. Wilson seems confident that no one in South Carolina can hurt their political career by insulting a black man. He may be wrong. A poll taken the day after Obama’s speech showed 62% of Wilson’s district disagreed with his action. His opponent raised $750,000 in forty-eight hours. Wilson raised less than half that in the same time frame.

But Wilson also inflicted significant damage to his party.

Nothing better crystallized the debate over health care than watching Wilson heckle Obama. On one hand you had Obama, who was clearly having a good night at the podium, laying out his vision of health care reform in clear, stirring terms. On the other you had someone behaving like a crazy at a town hall meeting in a church basement. The Democrats will use Wilson’s sound bite to paint all Republicans as screaming obstructionist, in the same way the Republicans turned all anti-war Democrats into Cyndi Sheehan.

Obama’s speech not only threw the Republicans off balance, it upset the carefully constructed myths of the pundits. On Sunday you could read Frank Rich in the New York Times as he argued Obama has not been involved enough in the debate over health care. If you put down the paper and watched Bob Shieffer on CBS, you could hear him say that Obama was over exposed and too involved. Listening to conventional wisdom try and decide what the conventional wisdom is, only highlights how superficial the reporting of the debate over health care has been.

The “wise ones” of the media are desperately trying to fit the current situation into a formula they can understand and predict. They have tried to follow time honored rubrics that go back to the 1930’s. In reality their beliefs and rules are really no better or worse than the priests of ancient Rome who read the entrails of slaughtered chickens. The same group of “wise ones” who a month ago told us health reform was dead, is now saying - without any shame in contradiction – that health care reform will be done by November and that the Republicans are in flight.

Conventional Wisdom is by definition short sighted and myopic. So what is the long view that the pundits are missing?

The best analogy for where we are in health care reform is Civil Rights legislation in the 1950’s. The 1957 Civil Rights act was the first Federal civil rights legislation passed since the end of Reconstruction, and was fairly limited in its scope, compared to what was proposed and passed eight years later. As proposed, it would have mandated a sweeping end of Jim Crow and segregation. As passed, it only guaranteed that violations of voting laws would be tried in Federal not State courts.

Liberals were incensed that Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson had given away so much and got so little in return. But Johnson and his opponents understood that once you passed the first piece of legislation – no matter how small - and the sky didn’t fall, it would be easier to pass subsequent more radical legislation. That is why the Southern Senators opposed this legislation so vehemently. They were afraid that if this passed and all the evil things that they predicted would happen if blacks were guaranteed their rights didn’t occur, the dam would burst and the flood of civil rights legislation would sweep their world and power away. It was that fear that brought Strom Thurmond to his feet for 27 hours in the longest filibuster ever by a single Senator.

The opponents of health care reform share the same fear.

They know that any successful reform now will bring greater reforms later. They have already seen this happen. Drug prescription reform set the stage for the current debate. It showed you could effectively reform part of the health system and the world would not end. Opponents fear not what Obama’s reforms will bring now, but what they will make possible in the future.

The demographics prove their point.

The main opponents of health reform are the older voters. Age not race or income is the main indicator of whether someone will support or oppose reforms. The “wise ones” tell us that this leaves Obama vulnerable because young people don’t vote. But in fact young people who do vote remain remarkably loyal to the party of the presidential candidate for whom they cast their first ballot. We see this today. The “twenty something’s” who cast their first vote for Reagan are now the core Republican base.

First-time voters in 2008 will be no different.

They will develop into the most loyal of Democratic voter cohorts. The younger Obama voters believe strongly in a public option and/or single payer health insurance plan. As this group grows and exerts more and more power, it will push for wider reforms. As a result America will in 10 or 15 years wind up with a public option or a single payer plan as part of the health system.

This would make Obama wrong on one point in his health care speeches. He will be the first President to get major health care reforms passed, but he won’t be the last.

Nervous Democrats and Health Care Reform

“… you're missing the main dynamic in the scene, which is how the Democrats are throwing away the game. They've become so used to kowtowing to the Republicans, become so used to knuckling under that even when they have a filibuster proof majority they act as they've got someone's boot on their throat.”

- Comment from an OperaDem reader

My reader expresses the frustration of many of us on the Left. Why do we seem to be always looking for those two or three votes from Republican Senators, whose price seems to be some core portion of the program under discussion? We should be able to ram through whatever we want. In the fight over the stimulus package, direct spending was sacrificed for tax cuts – the price of three Republican votes.

We are seeing it again in the debate on health care reform. Almost from the beginning, Obama seemed cut the public option from his health care proposal in order to gaim the votes of Republicans like Charles Grassley, who responded by repeating the canard about
“Death panels.”


Can anyone imagine LBJ making such weak use of 60 votes? Johnson was able to push through the 1957 Civil Rights act against the opposition of Southern Democrats and some Republicans. Strom Thurmond mounted the longest one-man filibuster in Senate History. But Johnson was not afraid of a filibuster and got it through.

Modern Senate Democrats have a long history of being afraid to wield power. Harry Reid seems cut from the same cloth as Tom Daschle. Daschle couldn’t muster effective opposition to the Bush tax cuts or to the war – even though Bush was a minority President. Reid seems equally unable to gather and guide his troops, despite having a significantly more popular Democrat in the White House.

It appears that Democrats in the Senate are reluctant to look like they are behaving like Republicans. Not so in the House. Speaker Nancy Pelosi is willing to wield power like Tom DeLay. She punishes her enemies and rewards her friends. She is able to keep the Democrats in her chamber in line – even through the summer recess.

But there are factors involved in how the Democrats are behaving.

First there is a significant philosophical gulf between the Democrats in the House of Representatives and the Democrats in the Senate. The Senate is significantly more conservative. Members have to run state wide races and appeal to a wider range of voters. The Senate’s more liberal members tend to be to the Right of the House’s more Liberal members. Even a hard core liberal like Sen. Barbara Boxer is to the right of Rep. Barbara Lee

The Democrats in the House are more unified – both ideologically and through the rules of their chamber. It is no accident that House reported out their proposal sooner than the Senate. It is also no surprise that the proposal is more liberal and matches the desires of the voters. The House was designed to register the waves of public sentiment. But the Founders were terrified by the French Revolution and designed the Senate to put the brakes on public opinion. That is what is happening here.

We also have to remember Democrats don’t have 60 votes in the Senate, they have 58. Two of the 60 are Joe Liebermann and Bernie Sanders. Sanders may defect if the health care proposal is too conservative and Liebermann may defect if it is too liberal. This dynamic gives conservative Democrats more leverage. There is no proposal that will garner all Democratic votes. So Obama needs an insurance policy of a few Republican votes.

The Democrats also struggle with the fact they are a more diverse party than the Republicans. It is easier for the Republicans to march in lockstep simply because there is little diversity of opinion in the Party. The Republicans were able to ram a lot of their proposals through because there was, and is, little philosophical difference between members of each chamber and among themselves. There was not the same gulf between Tom DeLay and Bill Frist as there is between Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. Whereas the Republicans are a dull philosophical monotone, the Democrats are a cacophony of opinion. That cacophony makes it hard to sing in harmony.

Unfortunately Obama has been reluctant to get involved. In an effort to avoid the mistakes of Clinton and his health care reform, the President has been content to draw broad outlines and stay out of the nitty-gritty work of creating legislation. By doing that he has denied the reluctant Senate Democrats the needed cover his popularity. If he had pushed hard at the beginning for a public option in his health care reform, few would have been able to say no. But he has stayed on the sideline long enough that his popularity has dwindled. Even though his popularity is high, it is no longer high enough to provide backing for reluctant Democrats.

This leaves Health Care reform in the hands of 58 nervous Democrats. Let’s hope enough of them find the courage to do what is right for the country.

Duet of the Past

"I say in the clearest possible terms...all of this I have had to endure for something that I did not do. …[Victims' relatives ] continue to have my sincere sympathy for the unimaginable loss that they have suffered.”

- Statement from Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, the only man convicted of the bombing of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie Scotland in December of 1988, upon his arrival in Tripoli, Thursday August 20, after his release.

"There is not a day that goes by that I do not feel remorse for what happened that day in My Lai. I feel remorse for the Vietnamese who were killed, for their families, for the American soldiers involved and their families. I am very sorry."

- Former Lt. William L. Calley, Speaking to the Columbus Georgia Kiwanis Club, Wednesday August 18, 2009. These were his first public comments since his conviction for his role in the My Lai massacre in March 1968.

Within a day of each other two voices took us back to the terrors of the past.

Abdelbaset Ali Mohamed al-Megrahi, was the only person convicted for the bombing of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie Scotland. 259 people on board, and 11 people on the ground were killed. Mr. al-Megrahi , has steadfastly maintained his innocence. He arrived in Tripoli, to a hero’s welcome after being released by Scotland.

Two days earlier, former Lt. William L. Calley, spoke at a meeting of the local Kiwanis club in Columbus, Georgia where he lives. He spoke about My Lai, and to everyone’s surprise, he answered every question asked. In March of 1968, then Lt. Calley, lead US troops into the village of My Lai on a search and destroy mission. Even though they had not come under enemy fire, Calley’s troops opened up on the villagers, killing over 500 men, women and children. He was convicted in 1971 and sentenced to life in prison. President Nixon commuted his sentence, and he served 3 years under house arrest.

Time marches on. The Lockerbie bomber is ill and frail. The young Lt. Calley of memory has turned into an owlish looking man, in his late 60’s with thick glasses and haunted eyes. One man has accepted responsibility and the other hasn’t. It is clear from his remarks that Calley is burdened by his actions. It is clear from his remarks that al-Megrahi is not.

Most people have forgotten about both incidents. The human and spiritual sacrifice made by the killers and killed changed nothing. We lost in Viet Nam, the carnage in My Lai having made little difference one way or the other. Despite Pan Am 103 falling from the sky the mid-east remains a stalemate with thousand more having died. Both incidents are faded memories of people of certain generations.

But both incidents have similar lessons to teach us today.

Both eras are in danger of being wrapped up in a warm fuzzy afterglow. A movie about Woodstock is coming out, which may whitewash away the darker elements that people at that time were trying to break away from. Like the musical Grease, and the TV show Happy Days, gave us a dreamy view of the fifties without segregation, McCarthyism and the cold war, so the Woodstock movie may wash away Viet Nam, Detroit, Newark, My Lai, JFK, RFK and MLK.

We look at 1988 as the golden era of Pax Americana. It was also the era of “Greed is Good,” which is the direct ancestor of today’s economic meltdown. 21 years later innocents are still being murdered over the need of a Palestinian homeland.

By wrapping these eras up in warm and fuzzy memories, we lose the warnings that they held for us. My Lai warned us of Blackwater. In both cases a group of armed men were put in a high pressure situation, fighting combatants who were both deadly and hard to identify. In those situations it is easy to see everyone as your enemy and every enemy as a target and not a person.

We also miss the lesson of what happens when a people become angry and powerless. The same anger and powerless feelings that planted a bomb in Pan Am 103 was also at the controls of four different jets on 9/11/2001. Those feelings are at the wheel of every truck bomb, and in the heart of every person who wears a jacket of explosives in a crowded market. Until that anger is addressed and the feeling powerlessness is resolved, people will still bomb innocents.

The final sad lesson is how numb we become to these horrors. I don’t think we are numb because bigger more awful things have happened, but because of the large number of smaller atrocities of over a long period of time. We have become numb to the human carnage, the widows and widowers, the orphans, the wounded.

We click past or flip the page on the latest truck bomb or suicide bomber. The story is almost a boiler plate, only changing the city, country and number of victims. It has become “normal” and we don’t notice it any more.

So the bombers climb in their trucks, and young contractors, and depersonalize the people they are facing, and gun them down for no apparent reason. My Lai warned of Blackwater, and Pan Am warned us of 9/11.

What do Blackwater and 9/11 warn us of?