Fight or Flight

“Why won’t he Fight!”
- Jefferson Davis in fit of frustration at Gen. Johnson’s repeated retreats through Georgia in the face of Sherman’s march towards Atlanta.

“I propose to fight it out along this line if it takes all summer.”
-Gen. U.S. Grant – May 11, 1864.

"I used to take his money when we played poker. Now he's trying to take mine.”
- Illinois state Sen. Bill Brady (R), quoted by the National Journal on how he misses the "old" Barack Obama.

General Grant and Jefferson Davis were very different people. However, Grant the sloppy soldier, from a working class background, and Davis, the patrician politician both understood to win you had to fight. Retreat and compromise might gain a short term advantage, but in the end you lose. If you are going to win anything, you have to fight for it.

This week, Davis’ frustration was the frustration of liberal/progressive Democrats who voted for Barack Obama as they watched yet another compromise on the Senate health reform proposal.

I will be honest, I share their frustrations.

I understand what Obama inherited. He had two wars that the previous administration left languishing, and an economic collapse that threatened the world economy. I do remember his speech in Grant Park on election night, in which he warned us all that the changes that needed to be made may not all be accomplished in his first year, his first term, or even in his administration.

However a year later, in his biggest battle, he seems willing to retreat when faced with any opposition, and we are left, like Jefferson Davis, stomp our feet and tear our hair and yell “Why won’t he fight?”

Gen. Robert E. Lee once said the hardest thing about being General, was you loved your army but to lead it, you had to be willing to lose it. The Obama White House is afraid to sustain the damage that a losing political fight would inflict. But that also means they can’t reap the rewards of winning a major battle.

Let’s think about what would happen if they pushed their chips “all in” like they have done in Afghanistan. What would be different if Rahm Emanuel told Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to “fight along this line all summer”?

In the best case scenario, Obama would rally support for the Medicare buy-in plan and force Lieberman to back down and the President would look like a powerful savvy leader. The public would have an alternative to the insurance industry when they are required by the Government to buy into health plan. The Democrats would be in a strong position going into both the 2010 and 2012 elections.

On the other hand if Lieberman didn’t back down and he used a filibuster to kill health care reform, the White House and the Democrats would have a very strong story to tell in the 2010 mid-terms. Every Democrat would be able to run on a platform that in the last session, the Republicans and Lieberman sided with big industry against the little guy to protect the profits of the richest industry in America.

Democrats would be able to expand this theme into a national campaign against the “do-nothing congress,” much like Harry Truman did. The Republicans would constantly have to explain why they feel leaving vast amounts of Americans uninsured and without health care is the right thing to do. Democrats could expand their majority to 60 “D” votes. Then they could enact true health reforms without having to cater to the Joe Liebermans of the Senate.

But sadly this chance has passed us by.

With compromise after compromise the feeling grows that Democrats killed health care reform by slicing off huge chunks until nothing was left, all in an attempt to attract Lieberman’s vote. We can’t run against Republicans for killing health care reform because we did it for them.

The narrative now – regardless of whether or not it is true – is that any health reform plan that passes congress is inadequate and forces citizens to buy expensive, unfair policies. The Democrats in the Senate, the story will go, gave the insurance industry a big financial gift at the expense of the little guy.

Now we have nothing to show we helped the average voter any more than the Republicans did when they were in power. What will we say in 2010? “Vote for us because on the things that mattered most – from health care to finance reform, and Wall Street bail-outs we sided with big industry against the average voter”? Or “Vote for us because every time entrenched interests oppose us we give in and fold our cards”?

No wonder Illinois State Senator Bill Brady loved playing poker with Obama. I begin to wonder if every time Brady bluffed, Obama folded. When Obama folded in those late night Springfield poker games he would lose a pot. Now when he folds in the bigger poker game in DC he loses a “full House.”

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?

Edward M. Kennedy - 1932-2009

“My babies were rocked to political lullabies.”
- Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy

“We know the future will outlast all of us, but I believe that all of us will live on in the future we make. I have lived in a blessed time.”
- Edward M. Kennedy, (D-Mass) December 2008, while receiving an honorary degree from Harvard.

“For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die.”
- Edward M. Kennedy, 1980 Democratic Convention, August 1980 ending his campaign for the Presidency.

“Those of us who loved him and take him to his rest today pray that what he was to us and what he wished for others will someday come to pass for all the world”
- Edward M. Kennedy, June 1968, Eulogy for Robert F. Kennedy

“He was the survivor. He was not a shining star that burned brightly and faded away. He had a long, steady glow. When you survey the impact on the Kennedys on American life and politics and policy, he will end up by far being the most significant.”
- Norman Ornstein, American Enterprise Institute

Is it 1968 or 2009?

“Sticking it out seems to be a 10-year project and I am not sure we have the political capital and financial capital to do that. Yet withdrawing, that seems awfully high as well. So we have the wolf by the ear.”
- Lt Col. Douglas A. Ollivant, USA, Ret. – A former NSA staffer for both President Bush and President Obama, quoted in the New York Times, August 23, 2009 about the war in Afghanistan.

An earlier generation saw every diplomatic exchange as a potential Munich, so this one sees everything as a potential Viet Nam.

This Sunday, August 23, 2009, The New York Times ran a piece exploring the parallels between President Obama and President Johnson. After saying such a comparison was fatally flawed the writer made that comparison anyway. The similarities are obvious - a progressive President who has an ambitious domestic agenda, but also inherits someone else’s war. That war could overwhelm his agenda and hijack his presidency.

Yes it could happen.

It is just a likely that it won’t.

Before I go any further, let me say that this is not a discussion on whether or not the war in Afghanistan is good or bad, one of necessity or choice. It is a discussion of the threat it poses to Obama’s Presidency.

There are several critical differences between Obama in Afghanistan and LBJ in Viet Nam.

First, in Viet Nam there was no real compelling US geo-political interest to fight there. One of the main drivers to stay was the fear of being accused of repeating the mistakes of Munich. “If we back down to the commies like Chamberlin backed down to Hitler, the Russians will take over everything! We must show strength!”

Even greater was LBJ’s fear of being accused of having “lost” Viet Nam the same way Harry Truman was accused of having “lost” China. So pride and fear, rather than compelling need, cost young men their lives. In the end we lost the war, South Viet Nam fell, and we now have a new trading partner for, and manufacturing base of, American goods.

That is not the case in Afghanistan.

There is a compelling geo-political argument for America to be involved. It is called Pakistan. Were the Taliban to take over Afghanistan, they would continue to destabilize Pakistan. As it has the bomb, destabilization of Pakistan, has broader implications than the destabilization of say Laos or Cambodia. It is not far-fetched to say that the only thing standing between the Taliban and Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal is the US military.

So Obama does have a compelling case for intervention that LBJ did not.
The reach of Viet Nam into American society was deeper because of the draft and the size of the military commitment. Eventually it was this reach that helped destabilize American society. The way America tore at itself apart was what drove LBJ from office.

Today America is not tearing itself apart in the same way. There are no riots or protests in the streets. War is not dividing Americans. Shouting against Obama is driven by a small minority with little broad base of support.

This brings us to the third and most crucial difference between Obama’s political situation and LBJ’s. In 1968, the Republicans were able to present themselves as a viable alternative to Johnson and the Democrats. Today Obama is not faced with an opposition that is capable of presenting a viable alternative to anything. It is hard to imagine North East Liberals and California Progressives flooding into the arms of the current Republican party in the same way Southern and Blue Collar Democrats did between 1968 and 1980. Progressive Democrats will look at the party of Michelle Bachman and vote the party of Michelle Obama no matter their feelings are about Afghanistan.

His greater risk is not Afghanistan but Iraq.

The people elected Obama to end the war in Iraq. His early opposition to the war was the difference Democratic primary voters saw between Obama, Clinton and Edwards. It was also the difference that Independents and conservative Democrats saw between Obama and McCain. Failure to end American involvement in Iraq by the end of his first term presents a greater danger to him politically than staying in Afghanistan.

His whole entrance into the presidential scene was his opposition to the war in Iraq. Failure to end the war in Iraq could be his exit – but only if people see the Republicans as a capable alternative.

Bill Clinton would know, wouldn't he.

"What you can't do, or you can, but you shouldn't do -- is start saying things like we want to set up death panels to pull the plug on grandma."
- President Obama in a Town Hall meeting in Grand Junction Colorado.

“I don't care how low they drive support for this with misinformation. The minute the president signs this bill, his approval will go up. Within a year, when the good things begin to happen, and the bad things they're saying will happen don't happen, approval will explode."
- Former President Bill Clinton on Obama and Health Care reform

If anyone knows how this works it’s Bill Clinton. No House Republican voted for Clinton’s 1993 economic package. In the Senate, Republicans hacked away and what was left survived only because Al Gore cast the tie breaking vote to pass it. Despite all of the Republican doomsayers, the Clinton package kicked off eight years of prosperity and created the surplus that Bush would later squander.

Now it is Obama’s turn with health care.

Rather than making an honest effort to work out policy differences and create a stronger bill, Republicans are more focused on winning points with their base. Their goal seems to be to defeat the reform not because it is bad, but because a Democrat has proposed it.

In his book “The Waxman Report: How Congress Really Works,” Henry Waxman (D-CA) states again and again, the best legislation has input and support from both parties. Despite his reputation as a hard knuckle partisan fighter, he attributes every major success he has had to working with Republicans, even when he was in the minority.

But here we are about to institute the biggest social reform since the 1965 Civil Rights Acts, without any Republican support. Obama has tried to reach out to members of the other Party, but they have responded by stirring up rage in the darker corner s of society with exaggerations like “Death Panels.”

There are two reasons for their reaction that have little to do with Obama. First, the Republican response is a natural end of the Gingrich revolution. Second there are no leaders on the Republican side to negotiate with.

When the party of Hugh Scott became the party of Newt Gingrich, partisan loyalty took over and kicked the art governing to the side. Gingrich and his successors did everything to make sure their members toed the party line. They recruited candidates not for their skills, but for their loyalty and ability to follow orders.

Now, without anyone in the White House to direct them, Republicans seem unable to come up with any ideas of their own. They were unable to come up with an alternative health care proposal –even after they said they would – and they proposed a four page budget alternative to Obama’s stimulus proposal that lacked any numbers. So with no original ideas all they have is scare tactics. It is a sad sight to see the party of Lincoln and the Cooper Union speech become the party of Sarah Palin and Death Panels.

The second reason Obama has not had any luck with a bi-partisan approach is the party leadership has been compromised by the Bush administration. There is no one left to negotiate with. In normal years, John McCain, as the Presidential candidate who lost, would be the spokesperson for the loyal opposition. His Vice Presidential candidate would a natural workhorse carrying the water for the party and taking over – while preparing for a run in four years.

But this is not a normal year by any means.

Sarah Palin has finished the implosion that started when she asked “What do you mean?” when asked about the Bush doctrine. No one, except the most red meat conservative listens to her anymore. McCain also is too damaged to negotiate. By picking Palin as his VP choice he ruined any credibility he had for sound judgment. In addition when he suspended his campaign to deal with the economic crisis the only thing he succeeded in doing was showing how weak and ineffectual he actually is. The other Republican leaders are also off the scene or are too compromised. Bush has tactfully retired to his ranch and said little or nothing. Cheney is busy fighting to salvage his legacy. Everyone else is too out of touch with the current generation of Republicans to matter.

So with no adult supervision, Michelle Malkin, Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh call the shots. These people have no vested interest in governance. They can stir up town hall meetings by pandering to the dark fears of a small segment of society because they have no responsibly beyond bringing in the ratings for their sponsors. Without Rove and Bush telling them what to say, they are now out of control. The media infrastructure that Rove, Gingrich created to shill the conservative message is like the monster who broke out of the laboratory and is running wild through the village.

So if Clinton is right, and Health Care reform passes, and none of the dire predictions come true, and good things actually start to happen, the Republicans are in a bind. Their legislators, programmed for blind obedience and partisanship won’t be able to admit they were wrong. And after getting it wrong on virtually every major issue in the last 17 years from Iraq, the economy, social issues, and deregulation, the Party will loose its remaining credibility. Like the boy who cried wolf the Republicans will not be believed by voters.

The only way to save themselves is to come up with new ideas. But after the lobotomy of the Gingrich and Rove years, the party simply doesn’t have the ability to do that. This failure will lock them into minority status for the next generation. In the mean time, America looses out on all the good things that can happen when both parties function and can work together to solve our nation’s problems.

Birthers, Truthers and Walter Cronkite

“Watch Birther Meltdown on MSNBC!”
Headline on the Huffington Post

In North Carolina, when the Feds moved to arrest a suspected terrorist, they knew his wife was in the house and they had to get her out of harm’s way before they could move in. To do this they sent an agent wearing a blood stained t-shirt to the door to tell her that her son had been in car accident and she needed to come to the hospital. Instead they took her to the police station where they told her her son was fine but they had just arrested her husband on terrorist charges.

Afterwards, the News and Observer ran an article taking the agents to task for their tactics. It turned out a few years earlier the woman had lost a son in a car accident. The FBI knew this and it is why used this particular story to get her out of the house.

The reader reaction on the newspaper’s website was extraordinary. Instead of outrage at the FBI’s heartless tactics, the paper was excoriated for stirring things up. Reader after reader cited the News and Observer’s role a few years ago in the Duke Lacrosse case – where a number of players had been falsely accused of assaulting an African American woman.

The readers all asked the same question.

“During the Duke Lacrosse case the paper had repeatedly maligned innocent people in a witch hunt.” “The paper,” they went on to say, “reported as truth facts that simple, basic legwork could have (and eventually) disprove the victim’s story. So why should we believe the newspaper now?” These comments were much more visceral and far beyond the usual media bashing such stories usually stir up.

While people were busy bashing the News and Observer, the New York Times ran a story from their Standards Editor explaining why the “paper of record” had to publish no less than 8 corrections to their front page obituary of Walter Cronkite. The obituary was written by a television critic who was a good reporter, but who had a history making errors in her copy. This seemed to me like an airline saying “Other than the fact he crashes a lot, he is a really good pilot.”

Despite this reporter’s well known problem with accuracy the three editors in charge of her story assumed that another editor had fact checked the copy.Hence 8 mistakes and 8 corrections in the obituary of the “most trusted man in America.”

Against this backdrop it is no surprise that the “Birther" movement seems to be gaining more traction. This group firmly believes despite all evidence that President Obama was born in Kenya and is not qualified to be President.

They are not alone in fringe groups gaining ground.

The “Truthers” believe the Government staged 9/11 to justify the war in Iraq, even going so far as to plant explosives in the Twin Towers to cause them to fall. Now weird conspiracy theories have been around for a long time – I have had discussions with people who believe the moon landing was staged. But this is the first time in a long time that these theories, such as the “Birthers or the “Truthers” have gained such traction.

People simply do not trust the structures that run the country and give them information. The Right has long since distrusted the media. But there was a sea change after Dan Rather used forged documents to try and prove that Bush had evaded National Guard service. The Right saw Rather’s use of these documents of proof what they had been saying about the media for years.

At the same time the Left lost faith in the news media are information came to light on how Judith Miller and others shilled the Government’s story line on the need to go to war in Iraq, essentially becoming Dick Cheney’s steno pool. The media had for the left gone from “All the President’s Men” to “All the President’s Flacks.”

In this atmosphere people turn to each other for information. They will believe their neighbor or the people in their carpool long before they will believe a reporter. After all they have watched they have spent years watching local TV reporters ask the parents of car crash victims “tell me how you feel” and the national media lie repeatedly for partisan and financial reasons.

So when a neighbor gives them information they are prepared to believe it. After all why would their friend lie to them about whether or not Obama s Kenyan, or the Government blew up the World Trade Center to start the Iraq war? People’s source of information will continue to spiral inward and they will isolate in their own echo ideological echo chambers. They won’t believe or even listen to anything that breaks their insular world view.

This is why the "Birthers" and “Truthers” have a foothold and a following despite all the evidence that contradicts their views. It also makes it harder to rally people behind things that really matter in this country like Health Care Reform and fixing the economy.

The New Faces of the Grand Old Party - John Ensign and Mark Sanford

This was a whole lot more than a simple affair, this was a love story, a forbidden one, a tragic one, but a love story at the end of the day.
- Gov Mark Sanford

If they didn’t have bad luck they wouldn’t have any luck at all.
- Old saying

First John Ensign, then Mark Sanford. The Republicans have had a bad run of luck. What is the long term effect on the Republican Party of Sen. John Ensign’s (R-NV) affair with Cynthia Hampton and Gov. Mark Sanford’s (R-SC) trip to South America?

The first and most obvious is that ends both men’s careers. Both men were talked of as possible candidates for the Presidency in 2012 and potential leaders of the party’s rebirth. Both men could have taken the blank sheet of voters’ perceptions and written any story they wanted to, but both wrote stories of adultery and betrayal.

Sen. Ensign took the wife of a family friend as a lover. The Senator made sure that his mistress, her husband, and son, were taken care of financially with jobs and promotions. Ensign’s main defense when he was caught was yes I had an affair, but what was really bad was her husband tried to blackmail me. This is truly an odd play for sympathy.

Sanford’s now legendary trip to Argentina, broke trust on so many levels. He lied to his wife, his staff and used state money to go and consummate his love. South Carolina Politics – always a blood sport on its calmest days – has turned into a shark feed.

It will be hard for Republicans to run as the party of family values with Ensign and Sanford are fresh in the voter’s minds. Every time a Republican says “family values”, someone will use Sanford and Ensign to remind voters that the Republican’s family values plank is "watch what we say not what we do.”

Whereas most people don’t know Ensign or Sanford, this does reinforce a negative perception of the Republicans. After all Sanford’s original excuse for leaving the state, was he was hiking the Appalachian Trail to blow off the stress of rejecting stimulus money designed to extend unemployment benefits and improve education. Beating on the helpless is what makes you Republican Presidential timbre.

To be sure the Democrats have their share of the fallen. The John Edward’s sex scandal continues to dribble out. But Edwards was a spent force by the time his scandal broke. It did nothing more than explain why he had dropped out of the 2008 race at such a peculiar time.

The real leader and face of the Democratic Party is President Obama. Now the Republicans have to find someone who can run against a very popular family man who obviously loves his wife and would never jet down to South America on Father’s day.

Who do the Republicans have left?

Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R-Minn) steered clear of the Coleman/Franken mess. He made it clear Tuesday that he will certify Al Franken as Senator, after the Minnesota Supreme Court unanimously ruled against Norm Coleman. Pawlenty, a front runner for John McCain’s VP pick made it clear he would not sacrifice his future for Coleman. Pawlenty is a young, effective, conservative Governor, who despite his conservative credentials can be marketed as a moderate.

There is also John Thune (R-SD). Thune comes from South Dakota, a Republican state with a long history of being progressive and libertarian. It would be easy to position Thune, as a more moderate Republican. He is also a giant killer having defeated Tom Daschle. Mitch McConnell just appointed Thune to take Ensign’s place in the Republican Senate leadership. This will definitely give the heft he needs to run nationally.

Then there is Gov Huntsman (R-Utah). Obama and his operatives are happy with themselves that they got a strong rival out of the way.

Not so fast. Ambassadors can resign.

There is nothing that keeps Huntsman from coming back from China in 2010 or 2011 to run for the White House. President Obama would be faced with Republican with right wing credentials but who could be marketed as a centrist, and could run on his success both as a Governor and Ambassador.

Bush 41 used his experience in China as a way to solidify his stature as a player on the world stage. Huntsman can do the same. He can claim personal knowledge of the Chinese regime (our largest debt-holder) and make his economic and diplomatic experience key foundations for his candidacy. Finally by being in China, Huntsman avoids being tarred by any future Republican scandals.

Out of chaos comes opportunity.

Scandal has helped clear the field for a new generation of Republicans, much as fire cleans out old trees in a forest. This clearing creates opportunities for Huntsman, Thune and Pawlenty. It creates an opportunity for the Republicans to move into the future if they can seize it

End of the Cultural Wars?

The cultural climate is far different today, besides. Now,roughly 75 percent of Americans support an end to Don’t Ask, and gay issues are no longer a third rail in American politics. – Frank Rich New York Times 06/28/2009

The cultural wars are over, or at least quiet. We know this is true because the New York Times tells us so. (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/28/weekinreview/28tanenhaus.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=The%20Sounds%20of%20Silence&st=cse).

Also in today’s Times, Frank Rich writes about the Stonewall riots and how far gay rights have come. (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/28/opinion/28rich.html?scp=2&sq=Frank%20Rich&st=cse).

Rich writes:

"Gay civil rights history is moving faster in the country, including on the once-theoretical front of same-sex marriage, than it is in Washington. If the country needs any Defense of Marriage Act at this point, it would be to defend heterosexual marriage from the right-wing “family values” trinity of Sanford, Ensign and Vitter."

But President Obama’s administration filed a brief supporting the continuance of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). This has angered activists all over the country as candidate Obama campaigned on a platform to repeal DOMA. Once again a portion of the population has been told to wait until the time is right while they are actively discriminated against.

Whereas the Justice Department has a brief to defend laws from constitutional challenges the Obama administration laid out arguments supporting DOMA that were a roadmap of all the arguments that can be used to support DOMA in a supreme court challenge.

In part the brief argued that DOMA prevented states that did not support marriage equality from being burdened with its costs. Precedents of states not recognizing marriages from another state include an instance where someone had married their niece, the marriage of a 16 year old girl from Indiana, and the marriage of first cousins from Arizona.

The Justice Department also argued that DOMA applied equally to all married couples. In short the Justice Department says the same sex marriages of heterosexual couples also wouldn’t be recognized. (There are two excellent analysis of the Administration’s position on Findlaw.com, Defense of Marriage Act Defended by Obama DOJ http://blogs.findlaw.com/law_and_life/2009/06/defense-of-marriage-act-defended-by-obama-doj.html; and The Obama Administration Defends the Defense of Marriage Act http://writ.news.findlaw.com/dorf/20090617.html).

Yes, there are advances. Five states have enacted marriage equality laws. New York would do so if its Senate had not descended into utter chaos. Since November nationwide support of marriage equality has grown.

And yet…

An enormously popular President, a Democrat, uses flawed and somewhat bigoted arguments to defend a law supported by no more than 25% of voters. The same President has made no effort to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” another unpopular act of discrimination.

The reasons and excuses are many. Obama’s administration is staffed with veterans of the Clinton administration who saw the first year of Clinton’s first term consumed by “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.” This, in their eyes, weakened Clinton for the fight over Health Care reform. They are determined to not to make the same mistake twice.

Frank Rich argues that with popular support for repeal of DOMA and Don’t Ask Don’t Tell the political climate has changed. As far as poll numbers goes he is right. But unfortunately the cultural wars are not over. Out in the countryside the fighting may have subsided but not in the DC-NYC urban centers where it continues in full force. Obama knows that if he makes any move to repeal Don’t Ask, or DOMA that the forces that govern most of the media – Fox News, Rush, Glenn Beck et al will go wild and dominate the airwaves. They will set the dialog and the liberal media like MSNBC will fight back. Any discussions for other initiatives like Health Care reform will be drowned out. This reform legislation will simply stall out and disappear.

Sad but true. Sorry New York Times, just because there was no uproar over the nomination of Jim Leach to head the NIH doesn’t mean the cultural wars are in truce. Sorry Frank Rich, President Obama’s fear of repealing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell and DOMA indicate that Gay issues are still the Third Rail of national politics.
For now, on Gay Pride Day, and Forty Years after Stonewall, a large portion of Americans can be actively discriminated against and that discrimination is set in law.

The marchers in Sunday’s parade will not be able to enjoy the rights, responsibilities and protections of a legal marriage. They will not be allowed to put their hearts and bravery in service of their country. They can be mocked by stereotypes in the media in a way that is not permissible with any other group.
At some point President Obama will have to shuck off his pragmatic nature and take a stronger stand for people’s rights regardless of who they love or bed. He cannot always seek the safe center road.

President Obama tells gay activists to wait, that there are things that he wants to accomplish first and that in the end they will be happy with what he has done. But Obama must not forget what Martin Luther King once said: "A genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus but a molder of consensus."

Teheran 2009 – Iran 1979 or Tiananmen Square 1989?

“It has given me back my voice. The amazing thing is that I didn’t know I had one, but now they can never force me to shut up again. Our Government has spilled our blood, that will never change, and we will never stop.”
- Hossein – an Iranian engineer quoted Sunday, in the online edition of the London times.

Watching protestors take to the streets in Tehran this week, I wondered if what we were witnessing was going to be Iran 1979 or Tiananmen Square 1989?

On Friday, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Kahamenei warned protestors that any future violence would be their responsibility. This signaled that the regime was ready to crack down. Mir Hossein Mousavi was a trusted confidant and member of the inner circle that staged the 1979 Iranian revolution. Would he defy his fellow leaders and break 30 years of friendship to support the protestors, or would he back down?

On Saturday Iran had its answer. Mousavi said he was prepared for martyrdom. Hundreds of thousands took to the streets and were met with violent suppression. At least 10 protestors were killed, hundreds were wounded and more were arrested. Today the BBC reports that Tehran is quiet but in shock. Mousavi issued a statement late today calling for the protests to continue to but asking for restraint on both sides.

The Mullahs are responding with old world tactics to a new world situation. In 1989 the Chinese were able to suppress the Democracy movement in Tiananmen Square because the protesters were geographically concentrated and communication with the rest of the country was cut off. It was easy for the Chinese government to control the situation, roll the tanks in, arrest, kill and disperse the protestors.

Iran is different than China was in 1989.

The current protests in Iran are nationwide. The Iranian Government has tried in vain to kill communication between the protestors. In the bad old days, all a dictator had to do was cut off communication via landline telephones and make statements on state run TV and radio to define the reality for the country.
No more.

Today Iranian protestors are heavily using new, hard to control methods of communications like Facebook, Twitter and SMS messages on cell phones to organize massive anti-government protests all over the country. Each person is their own reporter, using their camera phones to send images of the crackdown all around the world. The Iranian government won’t be able to deny their suppression, like China has done with the 1989 protests.

In this way Iran 2009 is similar to Iran 1979. The Shah was no more able to stop supporters of the Islamic revolution from passing cassettes of Ayatollah Kohmeni’s sermons from hand to hand, than the current Iranian government can stop tweets from phone to phone.

Jon Leyne a correspondent for the BBC writes there are other parallels to the 1979 Revolution.
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/8109101.stm). He sees striking similarities in not only size of the demonstrations, but also in the wide range of socio-economic classes in the streets.

Leyne writes:

“The demonstrators are very much the same mixture of educated, well-to-do north Tehraners and lower-middle class.
They are often more religious people who do not have a lot more in common with each other than a dislike of the way the government tells them how to live their lives, and a feeling that there is serious corruption and inefficiency at the top.

The big difference is that in 1979, the tough, heavily-bearded ultra-religious characters you used to see marching in the demonstrations are now on the other side.”

In 1979 when the street protests started few people thought the Shah would be gone in less than 10 weeks. Right now few people think the Iranian regime will fall. At this point the protestors are simply demanding a re-run of the presidential election while still supporting the fundamental structure of the government.

But the Mullahs are swimming against the tide of history. Unless their crackdown is accompanied by some real change, at some point the choked down rage the people feel will explode again. In 1997 Mohammad Khatami was elected president on a reformist platform. Ayatollah Ali Kahamenei and his allies stifled those reforms. The bitterness of that suppression is part of what is fueling today’s anger. If the government succeeds in putting down this challenge, that bitterness and anger will grow even stronger. It will tick in people’s hearts like a time-bomb ready to explode.

After crushing the protests in Tiananmen Square, China began reforming its economic system. These reforms opened opportunities for the average Chinese and remade the country into an economic powerhouse. These changes would not have happened without the Democracy protests in Tiananmen Square. But because of these reforms the government survives and the Tiananmen protests are memory not a rally cry.

If they survive this challenge the Mullahs would do well to lean that lesson. If not they will be swept away by history, like the Shah, the Czar, the Soviets and a long list of dictators who met challenge with hard reaction instead of true reform.

In Defense of Marriage

“I believe that one day either the people or the courts will recognize gay marriage.”
- Gov Arnold Schwarzenegger – an opponent of Prop. 8 - commenting on Tuesday’s California Supreme Court’s ruling

This Tuesday, the California State Supreme Court ruled Proposition 8 was an amendment, and not a revision to the California State constitution, and upheld its provisions. Prop 8 is the voter approved initiative that defines a legal marriage as something that can only occur between a man and a woman. At the same time the Court recognized 18,000 same sex marriages that had taken place before Proposition 8 was passed.

The Supreme Court was not ruling on whether same sex marriage should be legal – they did that several years ago – but only if Prop 8 was a revision of the California State constitution or simply an amendment. If it were a revision, it would have required a higher standard for passage than a simple majority vote on a ballot initiative and it would be void. Over the years, the California Supreme Court has declared only two ballot initiatives revisions and not amendments to the constitution. So what happened Tuesday was not a surprise.

Members of the “straight marriage only” crowd are very happy. They feel they have defended a key institution from further corrosion. Speaking for myself, a heterosexual partner in a successful long-term marriage, my marriage has never been in danger because gay members of my family have married, my neighbors have married, or that five states allow same sex marriage. It would be a weak marriage indeed if that were the case.

The straight marriage only crowd, also says marriage was created by the deity for people to procreate and start a family – something that many same sex couples are unable to do. That defines marriage as an act that is unique because of sex. If you can have sex in a certain way, that can have a certain result, then you can be married. If not, then you can’t.

This view is, in itself a threat to the institution, because it ignores what marriage really is. The defining characteristics of marriage is a commitment through love two people make to each other, to bond and build a life together. Such a commitment, takes love, understanding, support, patience, and so much more. To say that two people of the same gender cannot achieve this bond is absurd.

The good news is Prop 8 seems to have been some sort of tipping point. When people nationwide saw the massive protests after Prop 8 passed, they saw their neighbors, coworkers, daughters, sons, sisters and brothers. They saw their best friends growing up, or people they had been to school with. They saw elderly couples who had been together for decades and decades, middle aged couples who were raising families, and couples who wanted the right to visit each other in the hospital.

These protests gave a human face to the issue for people who didn’t live near big gay communities. They didn’t see the freaks the far right had warned them about, who wanted to recruit their children and marry sheep (an argument against gay rights that you do hear). Instead they saw average people denied a right not because of anything they had done, but simply for being who they were. It was no accident that after those protests, support for marriage equality rose in California, to the point that in December of 2008, Prop 8 would have been soundly defeated.

Another error that the straight marriage only crowd makes, is confusing a sacrament with a civil act. A sacrament is a religious action conferred on the faithful – like communion, baptism, or Bar Mitzvah. The straight marriage only crowd says they are defending the sanctity of this sacrament. That may be so – if their churches are beginning to recognize same sex marriage. The rights and privileges of the sacrament of marriage are defined by each church according to its doctrine.

But marriage is also an act of civil law. Marriage in civil law confers rights and benefits that have nothing to do with partaking in the holy sacrament of marriage. One can have a legal marriage without the sacrament, but you can’t have a legal marriage without the civil act. Many couples go to the court house (or Vegas) to get married, and never step inside a church.

As “None” continues to become the fastest growing religious preference in America, the sacramental aspect of marriage becomes less relevant for people. If you believe that marriage is a sacrament that can only be conferred on a heterosexual couple, then join a church with that doctrine; just don’t make that doctrine the law of the land.

The Governor is right. It will only be a matter of time before marriage equality is California law. It is likely that there will be another ballot measure affirming marriage equality on the June 2010 primary ballot. If current trends hold that measure will pass. Then California will be able to stand with other states, and defend the right of two people, regardless of gender, to legally pledge their lives to each other in a commitment of love.

Nancy Pelosi and the War on Torture

“And Speaker Pelosi has, at times, objected to activities that were approved by the president. Those activities were changed as a result of her objection . . .
House Minority Leader John Boehner on CNN’s State of the Union 05/17/2009

J. Dennis Hastert, (R. Ill), Speaker of the House of Representatives; Richard K. Armey, (R. Tex.), Majority Leader; Tom DeLay, (R. Texas), Majority Whip; Richard A. Gephardt, (D. Mo), Minority Leader; Nancy Pelosi, (D. Ca) Minority Whip.
That was the leadership in the House of Representatives at the time of the now infamous CIA briefing on enhanced interrogation techniques.

To listen to the Republicans you would think that Nancy Pelosi was in the Speaker’s chair in 2002 and had a lot of clout. “If she knew about the torture and objected, she should have said something then!” they cry. Others have intimated that by not voicing any objections she was an accessory to the crime of torture.

Lost in all this discussion are one or two important points.

In the House of Representatives, the rule of the majority Party (in 2002 the Republicans) over the minority Party (in 2002 the Democrats), is nearly absolute. At the time of the briefings, Pelosi had been a Minority Whip for less than a year. As a Minority Whip she had very little standing outside the Democratic Congressional Caucus. Any objections she would have made to CIA torture techniques, would have been ignored.

The current Minority Leader, John Boehner (R.OH), knows this. He currently operates under rules that are just as draconian for the minority Party as they were in 2002. He has no options to stop anything he doesn’t like. In 2002, Pelosi was even more junior in party leadership than he is. He is fully aware that even if she were told what was going on and she did object, that it wouldn’t have made any difference.

I am struck that people like Hastert, Armey and DeLay have not come rushing forward to back the CIA assertions that they told the Congressional Leadership what they were up to. After all, if the CIA briefed a junior member of the minority party’s leadership on the enhanced interrogation techniques being used, they would have briefed the full House Leadership, as well.

Hastert, Armey and DeLay are not ones to miss an opportunity to jump on Democrats with both feet. Their silence validates Speaker Pelosi’s story. If the CIA told her what they were doing, they would have told them as well. If that happened Hastert, Armey and DeLay, would be crowing that fact from the roof tops.

Also lost in the fray, is a more important point. It is not important when a minor member of the minority leadership knew about torture. It is more important to know who authorized that torture and why. The Republicans have done a great job of shifting the question of Cheney’s involvement and the poor legal reasoning supporting it, to what then Minority Whip Pelosi was told about water boarding.

Focusing on Speaker Pelosi is pure misdirection. We need to get back to the real issue here. Did Cheney push torture as a means to establish a connection between Iraq and 9/11? What was actually done? Who signed off on it?

The Republicans cannot on one hand say that torture is ok, and that it is not a crime, and on the other hand accuse Pelosi of complicity because she didn’t stand up to it. If they want to investigate what Pelosi knew and why she was silent, then they should investigate Hastert, Delay and Armey as well as Pelosi and Gephardt.

Finally, why does Obama want to move forward and leave all the questions about torture in the past? I think it is because powerful Democrats were involved. If everyone who was involved in allowing torture to move forward was investigated, if everyone who knew and didn’t say anything was exposed, most of the current power structure in Washington would be compromised.

For example, current Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood was a Republican member of the same subcommittee as Pelosi in 2002-2003 and would have been briefed at the same time on the same things. So was Ellen Tauscher, who is now nominated for Undersecretary of State for Arms Control.

In the Senate former Senator Bob Graham has talked about the briefings he did and did not receive as a member of the Senate Intelligence committee. Others on his committee who would have been briefed were Diane Feinstein, (D. Ca); Carl Levin, (D. Mich); John D. Rockefeller IV, (D. W.Va); Richard Durbin, (D. Ill); and Evan Bayh, (D. Ind). Compromise this group and the Democrats in the Senate are decimated.

Lost on the Democrats is the fact that this is not just about catching the Republicans doing wrong, this is about the US Government morally failing in a spectacular manner.

We are on a slippery slope here. Our government has set aside a group of people that it is ok to abuse. It is OK to dehumanize them, demonize them and turn them into “others.” Right now it is easy to draw a circle around these “others.” After all, when you say “terror suspect” what group comes to mind? Certainly not unemployed, white ex-military like Timothy McVeigh.

At some point that circle will widen and include new “others” for “good reasons of national security.” How soon will it be before we start picking up Hispanics in border states and torture them for information about the drug cartel wars in Northern Mexico?

Is this scenario farfetched?

Look how even mainstream media like CNN and Lou Dobbs are quick to paint all Hispanics as illegal immigrants. It is a short step from this, to assume they will know something about the drug cartels, and short step from that, to torture them for the information.

The best way to take care of a hard task is to do it and get it done. We will not be able to put the issues of torture behind us until we investigate them and hold all the major players accountable. If we don’t take the painful steps now to lance and drain this infection on the body politic, it will continue to spread and poison us all.

Who are the Republicans?

"Well, if I had to choose in terms of being a Republican, I'd go with Rush Limbaugh, I think. I think my take on it was Colin had already left the party. I didn't know he was still a Republican."
- Former Vice-President Dick Cheney on Face the Nation

So what is a Republican?

Watching the Republicans try and answer this question is like watching a group of people setting off for a snipe hunt. Off they go, intent on catching something that they have never seen, don’t know doesn’t exist.

In the past the Republicans had three strong pillars of doctrine. Those doctrines were, a strong national defense, fiscal responsibility, and personal freedom. Each doctrine was implemented by one or two core strategies. The strategies supporting defense were standup to the Russians and grow the military. The strategy for fiscal responsibility was cut taxes and rein in spending to eliminate the deficit. Personal freedom would be achieved by keeping government regulation on business at a minimum and keeping government from interfering in our personal lives.

If you believed in one or two these doctrines and supported their strategies – you were a Republican. Thus a Margaret Chase Smith could serve in the Senate at the same time as Richard Nixon. Ron Paul and Dick Cheney could also be in the party together. Ronald Reagan and Nelson Rockefeller could be Governors at the same time.

Since 1980 the Republican Party has systematically abandoned the strategies supporting each one of their doctrines. The result is the party has lost all trust and credibility with voters. They view Republicans with the same tired cynicism as family members of the drunk who pledges reform and temperance just before starting the next bender.

Whether it is high deficits and economic ruin that a supposedly fiscally conservative party created; the disaster of Katrina from the party of small government; or the hard line social conservatism from the party of personal freedom; or how support for a strong national defense has turned into support for torture, Republicans have totally compromised their beliefs.

As a result, the base of the party is shrinking. Now the average Republican is a white, southern, male, over 60 and less likely to have finished college. (This is also the same demographic as talk radio listeners). Mike Huckabee said that if the Republicans weren’t careful they would become a party of older white men, sipping their drinks and smoking cigars in their country club, wondering what happened. If things did not change, Gov Huckabee said, the Party would become as relevant as the Whigs. Gov. Huckabee was right except that they would be less likely to be smoking a cigar and having a drink than nursing a beer and a cigarette in a the bar across the street.

The Republican’s best strategy would be to welcome a wider variety of moderate voters. Instead, they proudly push away the very voters they will need to win. For example Former VP Cheney – a man with as many deferments as Gen. Colin Powel had stars – and Rush Limbaugh have tried to run Powel out of the party.
Party leaders have done little to stand up to Rush and Cheney.

Watching Republican after Republican, grovel before Rush, hurts them because it makes them look weak. Americans wonder, if Republicans can’t stand up to a radio bully, who has never held public office or served his country, whose approval ratings are less than Bush ’43 how can they stand up to the Russian, Korean or Iranian bullies?

The party seems firmly in the grip of the extremists. Faced with worldwide economic collapse the Republicans argued that Herbert Hoover was right and that FDR had little to do with ending the great Depression. They rushed to support another round of tax cuts–even in the face of data that proves that dollars spent by the government have an economic impact five times greater than a tax cut dollar.

“Tea Party” protestors condemned Obama as a high tax “socialist” on the same day those same protestors began to benefit from the largest middle class tax cut in a generation. Many of them, I am sure stopped on their way home to cash their extra $250 Social Security payment – funded by the same socialist stimulus package.

Americans are not stupid. They recognize hypocrisy when they see it. They respond to leadership that they see as authentic and in their best interests. To succeed Republicans need to step back and quietly lead by example. Rather than listening tours with softball questions, Republicans are going to have to demonstrate by their actions, that they have the ability, plan and policy to govern.

They will have to show that they care enough to put Nation before Party. To regain the voter’s trust someone will have to stand up to Rush, and Cheney and the crazy wing of the party. Until that happens all the listening tours in all pizza parlors in the Washington area won’t change the perception that Republicans as the party of economic disaster, torture and intolerance.

Justice Souter and the Republican Brand

“Do you really believe that we lost 18-to-34-year-olds by 19 percent, or we lost Hispanic voters, because we are not conservative enough? No. This is a ridiculous line of thought. The truth is we lost young people because our Republican brand is tainted."
-- Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) April 29, 2009 in the New York Times.

These trends, the increase of Hispanics both as part of the population and their increasing tendency to register as Democrats and the commitment of young people to the Democratic Party philosophy have been in place for a long time. The Republicans studiously ignored these trends. The Democrats built on them.

McCain thought Palin would peel off women voters from Obama. That didn’t happen. Women saw Palin’s selection as the raw pandering that it was. Not having learned, the Republican picked Michael Steele to lead them, even though he was manifestly unqualified for the job.

After a turbulent few months some Republican power brokers are giving an open assessment of Steele. Former Iowa Republican Congressman Jim Nussle was honest when asked whether Steele could lead the party. In the April 29, edition of the Des Moines Register, Nussel said “I don't think we've found that [a leader] yet in Michael or anybody else yet for the party, so we're going to have to struggle through that for a while."

Maybe, just maybe they are beginning to understand their predicament.

The Republicans have launched another effort to rebrand themselves. The “National Council for a New America” launched its efforts with a letter to Republican supporters that did not mention such hot button issues as abortion and gay marriage. The group is described by Republican Whip Eric Cantor as a forum for “all inclusive debate and wide-open policy discussion.” Sen. McCain describes it as “Not a contract with America but a conversation with America.”

As Politico.Com pointed out, (http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0409/21957.html), the Council’s advisory board members are part of the party’s new establishment, and include Gov. Jindal, Gov. Barbour and Mitt Romney. The group’s goal is to attract like-minded Democrats to the Republican Party with fresh and new ideas. Their first event is a listening tour that starts in a pizza parlor.

But just as the Republican’s efforts to begin to rebrand themselves and change how voters view them, Supreme Court Justice David Souter announces his retirement. Nothing kicks red meat Conservatives (and Liberals) into high gear harder and faster than a Supreme Court vacancy.

Justice Souter has been described as a “Judge’s Judge” writing clear, meticulously researched opinions, with an eye on how his decisions will actually be implemented. But, for years Justice Souter has been the bête noir of the hard Republican right. Even though Bush 41 marketed him as conservative pro-lifer, he turned out to be a reasonable moderate. Conservative felt betrayed.

How the Republicans handle their opposition to Obama’s pick will do much to define voter’s view of the party. Some on the right have already started to read from their standard ideological cue cards. The Judicial Confirmation Network issued a statement that said in part: “The current Supreme Court is a liberal, judicial activist court. If Obama holds to his campaign promise to appoint a Justice who rules based on her own ‘deepest values’ and what's in her own ‘heart’ – instead of what is in the Constitution and laws — he will be the first American President who has made lawlessness an explicit standard for Supreme Court Justices.”

Such shrill negativity will simply reinforce the voter’s view of the Republicans as the party of “no” and mindless, reflexive partisanship. If however, Republicans support a qualified moderate choice, they will go a long way to changing people’s perceptions of them. The Democrats showed voters they valued competency over ideology when they voted for Justice Roberts and Justice Alito. While they conceded that they disagreed with their views no one questioned their abilities. It is hard to see the Republican making a similar concession for an equally competent centrist or liberal nominee.

The battle to replace Justice Souter gives the Republicans a high profile opportunity to change people’s views of the Party. If the opposition to President Obama’s nominee becomes shrill and partisan, it will take more than position papers and listening tours in pizza parlors to woo voters back. The negative opinion of young first time voter’s of the Republican Party – voters whose views on social issues are more tolerant than those of the Republican right - will harden. It will reinforce the perception other voters that the Republican Party is the party of an out of touch elite.

If that happens, the Republicans will lose these voters for a generation and will spend a long time out of power and wandering in the wilderness.