Post #158
Subject: Where Have All the Leaders Gone?, Pt. II
The below is an excerpt from Where Have All the Leaders Gone? by Lee Iacocca with Catherine Whitney My responses and additions – in [brackets]….
* * *
The Test of a Leader
I've never been Commander in Chief, but I've been a CEO. I understand a few things about leadership at the top. I've figured out nine points -- not ten (I don't want people accusing me of thinking I'm Moses). I call them the "Nine Cs of Leadership." They're not fancy or complicated. Just clear, obvious qualities that every true leader should have. We should look at how the current administration stacks up. Like it or not, this crew is going to be around until January 2009. Maybe we can learn something before we go to the polls in 2008. Then let's be sure we use the leadership test to screen the candidates who say they want to run the country. It's up to us to choose wisely.
[[T]his crew is going to be around until January 2009.” – and that is the fault of Congress. Never before has a President so routinely ignored and violated the Constitution and built a case for his own Impeachment.]
So, here's my C list:
A leader has to show CURIOSITY. He has to listen to people outside of the "Yes, sir" crowd in his inner circle. He has to read voraciously, because the world is a big, complicated place. George W. Bush brags about never reading a newspaper. "I just scan the headlines," he says. Am I hearing this right? He's the President of the United States and he never reads a newspaper? Thomas Jefferson once said, "Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate for a moment to prefer the latter." Bush disagrees. As long as he gets his daily hour in the gym, with Fox News piped through the sound system, he's ready to go.
If a leader never steps outside his comfort zone to hear different ideas, he grows stale. If he doesn't put his beliefs to the test, how does he know he's right? The inability to listen is a form of arrogance. It means either you think you already know it all, or you just don't care. Before the 2006 election, George Bush made a big point of saying he didn't listen to the polls. Yeah, that's what they all say when the polls stink. But maybe he should have listened, because 70 percent of the people were saying he was on the wrong track. It took a "thumping" on election day to wake him up, but even then you got the feeling he wasn't listening so much as he was calculating how to do a better job of convincing everyone he was right.
[Um, Barack Obama thinks he knows it all – his ‘bitter’ comments show just how out-of-touch he really is – and doesn’t care to learn what he doesn’t know. Ask the Kentucky voters how often Obama campaigned there.]
A leader has to be CREATIVE, go out on a limb, be willing to try something different. You know, think outside the box. George Bush prides himself on never changing, even as the world around him is spinning out of control. God forbid someone should accuse him of flip-flopping. There's a disturbingly messianic fervor to his certainty. Senator Joe Biden recalled a conversation he had with Bush a few months after our troops marched into Baghdad. Joe was in the Oval Office outlining his concerns to the President – the explosive mix of Shiite and Sunni, the disbanded Iraqi army, the problems securing the oil fields. "The President was serene," Joe recalled. "He told me he was sure that we were on the right course and that all would be well. 'Mr. President,' I finally said, 'how can you be so sure when you don't yet know all the facts?'" Bush then reached over and put a steadying hand on Joe's shoulder. "My instincts," he said. "My instincts." Joe was flabbergasted. He told Bush, "Mr. President, your instincts aren't good enough." Joe Biden sure didn't think the matter was settled. And, as we all know now, it wasn't.
Leadership is all about managing change – whether you're leading a company or leading a country. Things change, and you get creative. You adapt. Maybe Bush was absent the day they covered that at Harvard Business School.
[Ha Ha – ya mean “Stay the course” isn’t good enough!?! :p]
A leader has to COMMUNICATE. I'm not talking about running off at the mouth or spouting sound bites. I'm talking about facing reality and telling the truth. Nobody in the current administration seems to know how to talk straight anymore. Instead, they spend most of their time trying to convince us that things are not really as bad as they seem. I don't know if it's denial or dishonesty, but it can start to drive you crazy after a while.
[John W. McCain has promised to “straight-talk” the American people about the sacrifices needed to continue “his” war. Will that “talk” happen BEFORE or AFTER the November election?]
Communication has to start with telling the truth, even when it's painful. The war in Iraq has been, among other things, a grand failure of communication. Bush is like the boy who didn't cry wolf when the wolf was at the door. After years of being told that all is well, even as the casualties and chaos mount, we've stopped listening to him.
A leader has to be a person of CHARACTER. That means knowing the difference between right and wrong and having the guts to do the right thing. Abraham Lincoln once said, "If you want to test a man's character, give him power." George Bush has a lot of power. What does it say about his character? Bush has shown a willingness to take bold action on the world stage because he has the power, but he shows little regard for the grievous consequences. He has sent our troops (not to mention hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi citizens) to their deaths… for what? To build our oil reserves? To avenge his daddy because Saddam Hussein once tried to have him killed? To show his daddy he's tougher? The motivations behind the war in Iraq are questionable, and the execution of the war has been a disaster. A man of character does not ask a single soldier to die for a failed policy.]
[How is that cheap oil working out for ya? :p “[L]ttle regard for the grievous consequences” – has George W. Bush thought out bombing Iran? Or McCain?]
A leader must have COURAGE. I'm talking about balls. (That even goes for female leaders.) Swagger isn't courage. Tough talk isn't courage. George Bush comes from a blue-blooded Connecticut family, but he likes to talk like a cowboy. You know, My gun is bigger than your gun. Courage in the twenty-first century doesn't mean posturing and bravado. Courage is a commitment to sit down at the negotiating table and talk.
If you're a politician, courage means taking a position even when you know it will cost you votes. Bush can't even make a public appearance unless the audience has been handpicked and sanitized. He did a series of so-called town hall meetings last year, in auditoriums packed with his most devoted fans. The questions were all softballs.
[Does Obama have the ‘testicular fortitude’ to do the right thing and ask – beg – Hillary Clinton to be his Vice-President?]
To be a leader you've got to have CONVICTION – a fire in your belly. You've got to have passion. You've got to really want to get something done. How do you measure fire in the belly? Bush has set the all-time record for number of vacation days taken by a U.S. President – four hundred and counting. He'd rather clear brush on his ranch than immerse himself in the business of governing. He even told an interviewer that the high point of his presidency so far was catching a seven-and-a-half-pound perch in his hand-stocked lake.
[Bush has a fire the belly to get elected – it is governing that he hates.]
It's no better on Capitol Hill. Congress was in session only ninety-seven days in 2006. That's eleven days less than the record set in 1948, when President Harry Truman coined the term “do-nothing Congress.” Most people would expect to be fired if they worked so little and had nothing to show for it. But Congress managed to find the time to vote itself a raise. Now, that's not leadership.
A leader should have CHARISMA. I'm not talking about being flashy. Charisma is the quality that makes people want to follow you. It's the ability to inspire. People follow a leader because they trust him. That's my definition of charisma. Maybe George Bush is a great guy to hang out with at a barbecue or a ball game. But put him at a global summit where the future of our planet is at stake, and he doesn't look very presidential. Those frat-boy pranks and the kidding around he enjoys so much don't go over that well with world leaders. Just ask German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who received an unwelcome shoulder massage from our President at a G-8 Summit. When he came up behind her and started squeezing, I thought she was going to go right through the roof.
[Insert your favorite drunken-frat-boy-as-President joke here! :p]
A leader has to be COMPETENT. That seems obvious, doesn't it? You've got to know what you're doing. More important than that, you've got to surround yourself with people who know what they're doing. Bush brags about being our first MBA President. Does that make him competent? Well, let's see. Thanks to our first MBA President, we've got the largest deficit in history, Social Security is on life support, and we've run up a half-a-trillion-dollar price tag (so far) in Iraq. And that's just for starters. A leader has to be a problem solver, and the biggest problems we face as a nation seem to be on the back burner.
[That is why Bush and his pals are so secretive – they want to hide their IMCOMPETENCE.]
You can't be a leader if you don't have COMMON SENSE. I call this Charlie Beacham's rule. When I was a young guy just starting out in the car business, one of my first jobs was as Ford's zone manager in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. My boss was a guy named Charlie Beacham, who was the East Coast regional manager. Charlie was a big Southerner, with a warm drawl, a huge smile, and a core of steel. Charlie used to tell me, "Remember, Lee, the only thing you've got going for you as a human being is your ability to reason and your common sense. If you don't know a dip of horseshit from a dip of vanilla ice cream, you'll never make it." George Bush doesn't have common sense. He just has a lot of sound bites. You know – Mr. “they'll-welcome-us-as-liberators-no-child-left-behind-heck-of-a-job-Brownie-mission-accomplished” Bush.
Former President Bill Clinton once said, "I grew up in an alcoholic home. I spent half my childhood trying to get into the reality-based world – and I like it here."
I think our current President should visit the real world once in a while.
The Biggest C is Crisis
Leaders are made, not born. Leadership is forged in times of crisis. It's easy to sit there with your feet up on the desk and talk theory. Or send someone else's kids off to war when you've never seen a battlefield yourself. It's another thing to lead when your world comes tumbling down.
On September 11, 2001, we needed a strong leader more than any other time in our history. We needed a steady hand to guide us out of the ashes. Where was George Bush? He was reading a story about a pet goat to kids in Florida when he heard about the attacks. He kept sitting there for twenty minutes with a baffled look on his face. It's all on tape. You can see it for yourself. Then, instead of taking the quickest route back to Washington and immediately going on the air to reassure the panicked people of this country, he decided it wasn't safe to return to the White House. He basically went into hiding for the day – and he told Vice President Dick Cheney to stay put in his bunker. We were all frozen in front of our TVs, scared out of our wits, waiting for our leaders to tell us that we were going to be okay, and there was nobody home. It took Bush a couple of days to get his bearings and devise the right photo op at Ground Zero.
That was George Bush's moment of truth, and he was paralyzed. And what did he do when he'd regained his composure? He led us down the road to Iraq – a road his own father had considered disastrous when he was President. But Bush didn't listen to Daddy. He listened to a higher father. He prides himself on being faith based, not reality based. If that doesn't scare the crap out of you, I don't know what will.
A Hell of a Mess
So here's where we stand. We're immersed in a bloody war with no plan for winning and no plan for leaving. We're running the biggest deficit in the history of the country. We're losing the manufacturing edge to Asia, while our once-great companies are getting slaughtered by health care costs. Gas prices are skyrocketing, and nobody in power has a coherent energy policy. Our schools are in trouble. Our borders are like sieves. The middle class is being squeezed every which way. These are times that cry out for leadership.
But when you look around, you've got to ask: "Where have all the leaders gone?" Where are the curious, creative communicators? Where are the people of character, courage, conviction, competence, and common sense? I may be a sucker for alliteration, but I think you get the point.
Name me a leader who has a better idea for homeland security than making us take off our shoes in airports and throw away our shampoo? We've spent billions of dollars building a huge new bureaucracy, and all we know how to do is react to things that have already happened.
Name me one leader who emerged from the crisis of Hurricane Katrina. Congress has yet to spend a single day evaluating the response to the hurricane, or demanding accountability for the decisions that were made in the crucial hours after the storm. Everyone's hunkering down, fingers crossed, hoping it doesn't happen again. Now, that's just crazy. Storms happen. Deal with it. Make a plan. Figure out what you're going to do the next time.
[I had an e-pal say that Bush was the worst President in history – he then listed Bush’s shortcomings, from the foolishness of borrow-and-spend to a blind rush to war. “Yes,” I replied. “But no President before has let American citizens starve to death in a major American city while he strummed the guitar at a political fundraiser.” Bush’s response to Hurricane Katrina – or the lack thereof – says it all.]
Name me an industry leader who is thinking creatively about how we can restore our competitive edge in manufacturing. Who would have believed that there could ever be a time when "the Big Three" referred to Japanese car companies? How did this happen –and more important, what are we going to do about it?
Name me a government leader who can articulate a plan for paying down the debt, or solving the energy crisis, or managing the health care problem. The silence is deafening. But these are the crises that are eating away at our country and milking the middle class dry.
I have news for the gang in Congress. We didn't elect you to sit on your asses and do nothing and remain silent while our democracy is being hijacked and our greatness is being replaced with mediocrity. What is everybody so afraid of? That some bobblehead on Fox News will call them a name? Give me a break. Why don't you guys show some spine for a change?
Had Enough?
Hey, I'm not trying to be the voice of gloom and doom here. I'm trying to light a fire. I'm speaking out because I have hope. I believe in America. In my lifetime I've had the privilege of living through some of America's greatest moments. I've also experienced some of our worst crises -- the Great Depression, World War II, the Korean War, the Kennedy assassination, the Vietnam War, the 1970s oil crisis, and the struggles of recent years culminating with 9/11. If I've learned one thing, it's this: You don't get anywhere by standing on the sidelines waiting for somebody else to take action. Whether it's building a better car or building a better future for our children, we all have a role to play. That's the challenge I'm raising in this book. It's a call to action for people who, like me, believe in America. It's not too late, but it's getting pretty close. So let's shake off the horseshit and go to work. Let's tell 'em all we've had enough.
[I hear ya! But there are no leaders running in 2008. I’ll just join the majority of American and not vote. * sigh *]
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Friday, May 23, 2008
Post #157
Subject: Why Hillary should stay in the race.
This is Bill O’Reilly’s “Talking Points” Memo that he reads at the beginning of each show – this is from this past Wednesday, and was actually read by Laura Ingraham.
"The Democratic Party should be worried because with each successive primary we can see the growing divide in their electorate. Obama wins liberal Oregon by 18 points but gets creamed by Hillary in conservative Kentucky. Obama lost big in states like Kentucky, West Virginia and Pennsylvania because to the working class he came off as aloof and out of touch. More middle American voters see him as just another bicoastal liberal like those who lost five of the last seven elections. But even if Hillary is the stronger candidate to go up against McCain, the MoveOn.Org types with the most influence in the Democratic Party don't care. They'd rather take their chances on the more left wing of the two candidates. Democrats really seem to be incapable of learning from history. In 1972 the Democrats nominated George McGovern, the most liberal candidate, only to have him go on to lose in the second biggest landslide ever. Party officials installed superdelegates to avoid similar disasters in the future. So if superdelegates were actually living up to their stated duties, this race might already be over and Hillary would be the nominee. That would be change we could believe in."
Thank Goodness Hillary Clinton has exposed Obama’s fatal flaw, giving him months to shake that “aloof” image – actually, she didn’t do anything, he exposed himself. This contest is for the heart-and-soul of the Democratic Party – the far-left of Obama and the center-left of Clinton. And the country is center-left.
‘The math’ shows that Obama cannot secure the nomination with pledged delegates. The popular vote is still very much in doubt. Who is prepared for the Democratic Party to make Clinton “the Al Gore of ’08” and steal this election? The answers go on and on – including those far-left commentators who want to oppress the vote by declaring that the results of Oregan were a “wake-up call” to all Democrats that this race is over. * sigh *
Subject: Why Hillary should stay in the race.
This is Bill O’Reilly’s “Talking Points” Memo that he reads at the beginning of each show – this is from this past Wednesday, and was actually read by Laura Ingraham.
"The Democratic Party should be worried because with each successive primary we can see the growing divide in their electorate. Obama wins liberal Oregon by 18 points but gets creamed by Hillary in conservative Kentucky. Obama lost big in states like Kentucky, West Virginia and Pennsylvania because to the working class he came off as aloof and out of touch. More middle American voters see him as just another bicoastal liberal like those who lost five of the last seven elections. But even if Hillary is the stronger candidate to go up against McCain, the MoveOn.Org types with the most influence in the Democratic Party don't care. They'd rather take their chances on the more left wing of the two candidates. Democrats really seem to be incapable of learning from history. In 1972 the Democrats nominated George McGovern, the most liberal candidate, only to have him go on to lose in the second biggest landslide ever. Party officials installed superdelegates to avoid similar disasters in the future. So if superdelegates were actually living up to their stated duties, this race might already be over and Hillary would be the nominee. That would be change we could believe in."
Thank Goodness Hillary Clinton has exposed Obama’s fatal flaw, giving him months to shake that “aloof” image – actually, she didn’t do anything, he exposed himself. This contest is for the heart-and-soul of the Democratic Party – the far-left of Obama and the center-left of Clinton. And the country is center-left.
‘The math’ shows that Obama cannot secure the nomination with pledged delegates. The popular vote is still very much in doubt. Who is prepared for the Democratic Party to make Clinton “the Al Gore of ’08” and steal this election? The answers go on and on – including those far-left commentators who want to oppress the vote by declaring that the results of Oregan were a “wake-up call” to all Democrats that this race is over. * sigh *
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Post #156
Subject: Where Have All the Leaders Gone?
The below is an excerpt from Where Have All the Leaders Gone? by Lee Iacocca with Catherine Whitney My responses and additions – in [brackets]….
* * *
Had Enough?
Am I the only guy in this country who's fed up with what's happening? Where the hell is our outrage? We should be screaming bloody murder. We've got a gang of clueless bozos steering our ship of state right over a cliff, we've got corporate gangsters stealing us blind, and we can't even clean up after a hurricane much less build a hybrid car.
[I saw on the TV just the other day that two guys had made a car that got 100 miles-per-gallon by refiguring an already-made hybrid car. One guy said that he filled the tank and drove some 9000 miles for over a month without going back to the gas station. Why isn’t a car company all over this?]
But instead of getting mad, everyone sits around and nods their heads when the politicians say, "Stay the course."
Stay the course? You've got to be kidding. This is America, not the damned “Titanic.” I'll give you a sound bite: Throw the bums out!
You might think I'm getting senile, that I've gone off my rocker, and maybe I have. But someone has to speak up. I hardly recognize this country anymore. The President of the United States is given a free pass to ignore the Constitution, tap our phones, and lead us to war on a pack of lies.
[Yes, and who in our system of government is the last defense against an Imperial President? That’s right – the Supreme Court. And where have our “strict constructionists” been?]
Congress responds to record deficits by passing a huge tax cut for the wealthy (thanks, but I don't need it). The most famous business leaders are not the innovators but the guys in handcuffs. While we're fiddling in Iraq, the Middle East is burning and nobody seems to know what to do. And the press is waving pom-poms instead of asking hard questions. That's not the promise of America my parents and yours traveled across the ocean for. I've had enough. How about you?
I'll go a step further. You can't call yourself a patriot if you're not outraged. This is a fight I'm ready and willing to have.
My friends tell me to calm down. They say, "Lee, you're eighty-two years old. Leave the rage to the young people." I'd love to – as soon as I can pry them away from their iPods for five seconds and get them to pay attention. I'm going to speak up because it's my patriotic duty. I think people will listen to me. They say I have a reputation as a straight shooter. So I'll tell you how I see it, and it's not pretty, but at least it's real. I'm hoping to strike a nerve in those young folks who say they don't vote because they don't trust politicians to represent their interests. Hey, America, wake up. These guys work for us.
Who Are These Guys, Anyway?
Why are we in this mess? How did we end up with this crowd in Washington? Well, we voted for them – or at least some of us did. But I'll tell you what we didn't do. We didn't agree to suspend the Constitution. We didn't agree to stop asking questions or demanding answers. Some of us are sick and tired of people who call free speech treason. Where I come from that's a dictatorship, not a democracy.
And don't tell me it's all the fault of right-wing Republicans or liberal Democrats. That's an intellectually lazy argument, and it's part of the reason we're in this stew. We're not just a nation of factions. We're a people. We share common principles and ideals. And we rise and fall together.
Where are the voices of leaders who can inspire us to action and make us stand taller? What happened to the strong and resolute party of Lincoln? What happened to the courageous, populist party of FDR and Truman? There was a time in this country when the voices of great leaders lifted us up and made us want to do better. Where have all the leaders gone?
[I saw Chris Matthews on MSNBC’s coverage of Ted Kennedy’s illness today say that Kennedy endorsed Barack Obama for President because Obama reminded him of his brother, Bobby – as someone able to unite. Matthews cited the example of the diverse crowds that met Bobby’s funeral train. Are ya kidding me!?! Obama is a divider, NOT a uniter – ask the ‘bitter’ voters who have no place in Obama’s Democratic Party.]
[Where have all the leaders gone? Indeed.]
Subject: Where Have All the Leaders Gone?
The below is an excerpt from Where Have All the Leaders Gone? by Lee Iacocca with Catherine Whitney My responses and additions – in [brackets]….
* * *
Had Enough?
Am I the only guy in this country who's fed up with what's happening? Where the hell is our outrage? We should be screaming bloody murder. We've got a gang of clueless bozos steering our ship of state right over a cliff, we've got corporate gangsters stealing us blind, and we can't even clean up after a hurricane much less build a hybrid car.
[I saw on the TV just the other day that two guys had made a car that got 100 miles-per-gallon by refiguring an already-made hybrid car. One guy said that he filled the tank and drove some 9000 miles for over a month without going back to the gas station. Why isn’t a car company all over this?]
But instead of getting mad, everyone sits around and nods their heads when the politicians say, "Stay the course."
Stay the course? You've got to be kidding. This is America, not the damned “Titanic.” I'll give you a sound bite: Throw the bums out!
You might think I'm getting senile, that I've gone off my rocker, and maybe I have. But someone has to speak up. I hardly recognize this country anymore. The President of the United States is given a free pass to ignore the Constitution, tap our phones, and lead us to war on a pack of lies.
[Yes, and who in our system of government is the last defense against an Imperial President? That’s right – the Supreme Court. And where have our “strict constructionists” been?]
Congress responds to record deficits by passing a huge tax cut for the wealthy (thanks, but I don't need it). The most famous business leaders are not the innovators but the guys in handcuffs. While we're fiddling in Iraq, the Middle East is burning and nobody seems to know what to do. And the press is waving pom-poms instead of asking hard questions. That's not the promise of America my parents and yours traveled across the ocean for. I've had enough. How about you?
I'll go a step further. You can't call yourself a patriot if you're not outraged. This is a fight I'm ready and willing to have.
My friends tell me to calm down. They say, "Lee, you're eighty-two years old. Leave the rage to the young people." I'd love to – as soon as I can pry them away from their iPods for five seconds and get them to pay attention. I'm going to speak up because it's my patriotic duty. I think people will listen to me. They say I have a reputation as a straight shooter. So I'll tell you how I see it, and it's not pretty, but at least it's real. I'm hoping to strike a nerve in those young folks who say they don't vote because they don't trust politicians to represent their interests. Hey, America, wake up. These guys work for us.
Who Are These Guys, Anyway?
Why are we in this mess? How did we end up with this crowd in Washington? Well, we voted for them – or at least some of us did. But I'll tell you what we didn't do. We didn't agree to suspend the Constitution. We didn't agree to stop asking questions or demanding answers. Some of us are sick and tired of people who call free speech treason. Where I come from that's a dictatorship, not a democracy.
And don't tell me it's all the fault of right-wing Republicans or liberal Democrats. That's an intellectually lazy argument, and it's part of the reason we're in this stew. We're not just a nation of factions. We're a people. We share common principles and ideals. And we rise and fall together.
Where are the voices of leaders who can inspire us to action and make us stand taller? What happened to the strong and resolute party of Lincoln? What happened to the courageous, populist party of FDR and Truman? There was a time in this country when the voices of great leaders lifted us up and made us want to do better. Where have all the leaders gone?
[I saw Chris Matthews on MSNBC’s coverage of Ted Kennedy’s illness today say that Kennedy endorsed Barack Obama for President because Obama reminded him of his brother, Bobby – as someone able to unite. Matthews cited the example of the diverse crowds that met Bobby’s funeral train. Are ya kidding me!?! Obama is a divider, NOT a uniter – ask the ‘bitter’ voters who have no place in Obama’s Democratic Party.]
[Where have all the leaders gone? Indeed.]
Friday, May 16, 2008
Post #155
Subject: An open letter to Dan Abrams
I want the Democratic nomination contest to continue. I like to see Chelsea Clinton on the campaign trail NOT answering questions that are none of your business! :p
Seriously, Dan, I’m not sure if you have any say-so over the other TV shows at MSNBC, but you need to speak to a couple of your colleagues – their favoritism is hanging out! :p
No, I’m not talking about their ‘pro-Obama’ stance – which is annoying. During coverage of Hillary Clinton’s win in ‘bitter’ West Virginia, they showed Obama flapping in Missouri. Why are the voters of West Virginia less important than the voters in Missouri who have already voted? Is that a good message for the Obama campaign?
Rather, I’m talking about their ‘anti-Clinton’ stance.
The other night, Chris Matthews began his show with “The mystery of Hillary Clinton. What‘s she thinking? What‘s she doing? What‘s she planning? What does she want?” Good Lord. Ya’d think she was pure Evil. Where are the same questions about John Edwards?
And, Dan, did you see Keith Olbermann’s ambush interview of Clinton? His elaborate build-up to the question about Scaife left no reasonable answer available. In fact, I had to turn to Faux News and Bill O’Reilly for a fair and balanced interview of Clinton. Faux News! [rolleyes]
How can two guys who are so good on war be so, uh, so undemocratic concerning the Democratic Party? Let all the ‘bitter’ votes count. Their constant whining that it’s over, that West Virginia doesn’t matter, their snide comments, their rude jokes – all reflect badly on themselves and Obama.
At the end of the day, ‘the math’ shows that Obama cannot secure the nomination with pledged delegates and that the popular vote is still very much in doubt. Is Chris Matthews prepared for the Democratic Party to make Clinton “the Al Gore of ’08” and steal this election?
Subject: An open letter to Dan Abrams
I want the Democratic nomination contest to continue. I like to see Chelsea Clinton on the campaign trail NOT answering questions that are none of your business! :p
Seriously, Dan, I’m not sure if you have any say-so over the other TV shows at MSNBC, but you need to speak to a couple of your colleagues – their favoritism is hanging out! :p
No, I’m not talking about their ‘pro-Obama’ stance – which is annoying. During coverage of Hillary Clinton’s win in ‘bitter’ West Virginia, they showed Obama flapping in Missouri. Why are the voters of West Virginia less important than the voters in Missouri who have already voted? Is that a good message for the Obama campaign?
Rather, I’m talking about their ‘anti-Clinton’ stance.
The other night, Chris Matthews began his show with “The mystery of Hillary Clinton. What‘s she thinking? What‘s she doing? What‘s she planning? What does she want?” Good Lord. Ya’d think she was pure Evil. Where are the same questions about John Edwards?
And, Dan, did you see Keith Olbermann’s ambush interview of Clinton? His elaborate build-up to the question about Scaife left no reasonable answer available. In fact, I had to turn to Faux News and Bill O’Reilly for a fair and balanced interview of Clinton. Faux News! [rolleyes]
How can two guys who are so good on war be so, uh, so undemocratic concerning the Democratic Party? Let all the ‘bitter’ votes count. Their constant whining that it’s over, that West Virginia doesn’t matter, their snide comments, their rude jokes – all reflect badly on themselves and Obama.
At the end of the day, ‘the math’ shows that Obama cannot secure the nomination with pledged delegates and that the popular vote is still very much in doubt. Is Chris Matthews prepared for the Democratic Party to make Clinton “the Al Gore of ’08” and steal this election?
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Post #154
Subject: Legitimate questions of judgment, experience
My responses and additions – in [brackets]….
http://www.newsobserver.com/opinion/columns/story/1060220.html
… by Joseph C. Wilson IV….
In recent weeks Americans have been subjected to a litany of outrageous statements from Sen. Barack Obama's pastor of 20 years, Rev. Jeremiah Wright. While Obama was finally compelled to distance himself from his radical preacher, the relationship raises legitimate questions about Obama's judgment and naivete.
[Such as: Why did Obama nod “Amen” to racist garbage for 20 years while Oprah Winfrey left Wright’s church in the mid-90s? Why did Obama not denounce Wright earlier for his children’s sake?]
[For those of you who question why a pastor’s statements are important during a Presidential campaign – Chris Matthews, that is an elitist question. Obviously, there is no understanding of the role of religion among ‘the great unwashed.’ * sigh *]
Obama, after all, wants to be president of the United States, and in that quest has proposed unconditional summit meetings with some of our country's most determined enemies, including Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
[I saw on TV that Bill Bradley, former Presidential candidate, criticized Hillary Clinton’s “obliterate Iran” comment as being reckless telegraphing. What is anymore reckless telegraphing than unconditional summits?]
Obama's campaign has been built upon his supposed transcendent qualities and intuitive judgment. His foreign policy experience is limited to having lived in Indonesia between the ages of 6 and 10, and having traveled overseas briefly as a college student. He further claims that a speech he gave against the war in Iraq six years ago to extremely liberal supporters in a campaign for state senator in Illinois is sufficient proof of his superior judgment in national security matters and qualifies him to be president and commander-in-chief of U.S. Armed Forces at a time when we are fighting two extraordinarily difficult wars. As with his relationship with Wright, a closer examination is warranted.
In the U.S. Senate, to which he was elected in 2004, a year after the launching of Operation Iraqi Freedom, he has done little to act on his asserted anti-war position, and has said repeatedly that had he been in the Senate at the time of the vote on the authorization for the use of military force he doesn't know how he would have voted. As chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee on Europe, with jurisdiction over NATO, he has held not a single oversight meeting because, as he admitted, he was too busy running for president, even though NATO's presence in the Afghanistan war is critical to success in that venture.
Obama repeats the incorrect and politically irresponsible mantra that Sen. Hillary Clinton voted for the war and that therefore he is more qualified to be president. Unlike Obama, as the last acting U.S. ambassador to Iraq during the first Gulf War, I was deeply involved in that debate from the beginning.
President Bush and Secretary of State Colin Powell made it clear publicly and in their representations to Congress that the authorization was not to go to war but rather to give the president the leverage he needed to go to the United Nations to reinvigorate international will to contain and disarm Saddam Hussein, consistent with the resolutions passed at the time of the first Gulf War.
With passage of the resolution, the president did in fact achieve a U.N. consensus, and inspectors returned to Iraq. Hans Blix, the chief U.N. inspector, has said repeatedly that without American leadership there would have been no new inspection regime.
SADDAM WAS A SERIAL VIOLATOR OF HUMAN RIGHTS, had started two wars in the region in the previous decade, continued to threaten his neighbors, including Israel, which he once said he would destroy with weapons of mass destruction. We may not have fully understood how little remained of his WMD arsenal, but were we really willing in the aftermath of 9/11 to give him a free pass, as Obama's rewriting of history suggests he might have done?
The approach of tough diplomacy backed by the threat of military action was the correct one and it yielded exactly the desired results, a unanimously passed U.N. resolution and the capitulation of Saddam when he readmitted the inspectors.
The betrayal occurred not when the president was given the tools he needed to secure international support for inspections, but rather when Bush refused to allow the inspectors to complete their work and decided preemptively to invade, conquer and occupy Iraq.
[So, Clinton voted for ‘a big stick’ – which worked. The problem was when George W. Bush swung that ‘stick’ by himself – un-Constitutionally. * sigh *]
That decision and power was his alone -- not the Congress' and certainly not Hillary Clinton's. Obama is wrong to turn Bush's war into Clinton's responsibility. And Obama is dangerously naive in failing to understand the need in international crises to blend tough diplomacy with the other foreign policy tools at our disposal to achieve a strong national security posture.
Judgment and leadership in foreign policy are not intuitive. They are learned through experience. Obama's long and close relationship with the anti-American hate-monger Wright, his inattention to his responsibilities in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and his careless approach to Iraq all suggest that he would benefit from more experience. We should ask whether we want those lessons to be learned in the White House.
[I, for one, hate to see my Party taken over by the wet-behind-the-ears far-left. Kids…. * sigh *]
[Look, this contest is for the heart-and-soul of the Democratic Party – the far-left of Obama and the center-left of Clinton. And the country is center-left. Why do you think the right hates the ‘Clinton brand’ so much?]
[And Obama’s far-left, well -- Why are the voters of West Virginia less important than, say, the voters in North Carolina? Is that a good message for the Obama campaign?]
(Joseph C. Wilson IV is a former diplomat and U.S. ambassador. He was senior director for African Affairs in the Clinton administration. In 2003 he wrote a New York Times opinion piece, "What I didn't find in Africa," challenging the Bush administration's use of intelligence to justify the war in Iraq.)
Subject: Legitimate questions of judgment, experience
My responses and additions – in [brackets]….
http://www.newsobserver.com/opinion/columns/story/1060220.html
… by Joseph C. Wilson IV….
In recent weeks Americans have been subjected to a litany of outrageous statements from Sen. Barack Obama's pastor of 20 years, Rev. Jeremiah Wright. While Obama was finally compelled to distance himself from his radical preacher, the relationship raises legitimate questions about Obama's judgment and naivete.
[Such as: Why did Obama nod “Amen” to racist garbage for 20 years while Oprah Winfrey left Wright’s church in the mid-90s? Why did Obama not denounce Wright earlier for his children’s sake?]
[For those of you who question why a pastor’s statements are important during a Presidential campaign – Chris Matthews, that is an elitist question. Obviously, there is no understanding of the role of religion among ‘the great unwashed.’ * sigh *]
Obama, after all, wants to be president of the United States, and in that quest has proposed unconditional summit meetings with some of our country's most determined enemies, including Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
[I saw on TV that Bill Bradley, former Presidential candidate, criticized Hillary Clinton’s “obliterate Iran” comment as being reckless telegraphing. What is anymore reckless telegraphing than unconditional summits?]
Obama's campaign has been built upon his supposed transcendent qualities and intuitive judgment. His foreign policy experience is limited to having lived in Indonesia between the ages of 6 and 10, and having traveled overseas briefly as a college student. He further claims that a speech he gave against the war in Iraq six years ago to extremely liberal supporters in a campaign for state senator in Illinois is sufficient proof of his superior judgment in national security matters and qualifies him to be president and commander-in-chief of U.S. Armed Forces at a time when we are fighting two extraordinarily difficult wars. As with his relationship with Wright, a closer examination is warranted.
In the U.S. Senate, to which he was elected in 2004, a year after the launching of Operation Iraqi Freedom, he has done little to act on his asserted anti-war position, and has said repeatedly that had he been in the Senate at the time of the vote on the authorization for the use of military force he doesn't know how he would have voted. As chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee on Europe, with jurisdiction over NATO, he has held not a single oversight meeting because, as he admitted, he was too busy running for president, even though NATO's presence in the Afghanistan war is critical to success in that venture.
Obama repeats the incorrect and politically irresponsible mantra that Sen. Hillary Clinton voted for the war and that therefore he is more qualified to be president. Unlike Obama, as the last acting U.S. ambassador to Iraq during the first Gulf War, I was deeply involved in that debate from the beginning.
President Bush and Secretary of State Colin Powell made it clear publicly and in their representations to Congress that the authorization was not to go to war but rather to give the president the leverage he needed to go to the United Nations to reinvigorate international will to contain and disarm Saddam Hussein, consistent with the resolutions passed at the time of the first Gulf War.
With passage of the resolution, the president did in fact achieve a U.N. consensus, and inspectors returned to Iraq. Hans Blix, the chief U.N. inspector, has said repeatedly that without American leadership there would have been no new inspection regime.
SADDAM WAS A SERIAL VIOLATOR OF HUMAN RIGHTS, had started two wars in the region in the previous decade, continued to threaten his neighbors, including Israel, which he once said he would destroy with weapons of mass destruction. We may not have fully understood how little remained of his WMD arsenal, but were we really willing in the aftermath of 9/11 to give him a free pass, as Obama's rewriting of history suggests he might have done?
The approach of tough diplomacy backed by the threat of military action was the correct one and it yielded exactly the desired results, a unanimously passed U.N. resolution and the capitulation of Saddam when he readmitted the inspectors.
The betrayal occurred not when the president was given the tools he needed to secure international support for inspections, but rather when Bush refused to allow the inspectors to complete their work and decided preemptively to invade, conquer and occupy Iraq.
[So, Clinton voted for ‘a big stick’ – which worked. The problem was when George W. Bush swung that ‘stick’ by himself – un-Constitutionally. * sigh *]
That decision and power was his alone -- not the Congress' and certainly not Hillary Clinton's. Obama is wrong to turn Bush's war into Clinton's responsibility. And Obama is dangerously naive in failing to understand the need in international crises to blend tough diplomacy with the other foreign policy tools at our disposal to achieve a strong national security posture.
Judgment and leadership in foreign policy are not intuitive. They are learned through experience. Obama's long and close relationship with the anti-American hate-monger Wright, his inattention to his responsibilities in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and his careless approach to Iraq all suggest that he would benefit from more experience. We should ask whether we want those lessons to be learned in the White House.
[I, for one, hate to see my Party taken over by the wet-behind-the-ears far-left. Kids…. * sigh *]
[Look, this contest is for the heart-and-soul of the Democratic Party – the far-left of Obama and the center-left of Clinton. And the country is center-left. Why do you think the right hates the ‘Clinton brand’ so much?]
[And Obama’s far-left, well -- Why are the voters of West Virginia less important than, say, the voters in North Carolina? Is that a good message for the Obama campaign?]
(Joseph C. Wilson IV is a former diplomat and U.S. ambassador. He was senior director for African Affairs in the Clinton administration. In 2003 he wrote a New York Times opinion piece, "What I didn't find in Africa," challenging the Bush administration's use of intelligence to justify the war in Iraq.)
Friday, May 02, 2008
Post #153
Subject: Mission Accomplished
The White House said Wednesday that President George W. Bush has paid a price for the “Mission Accomplished” banner that was flown in triumph five years ago but later became a symbol of U.S. misjudgments and mistakes in the long and costly war in Iraq.
What price? Somebody named Bush die?
Yesterday was the fifth anniversary of Bush’s dramatic landing in a Navy jet on an aircraft carrier homebound from the war. The USS Abraham Lincoln had launched thousands of airstrikes on Iraq.
“Major combat operations in Iraq have ended,” Bush said at the time. “The battle of Iraq is one victory in a war on terror that began on Sept. 11, 2001, and still goes on.” The “Mission Accomplished” banner was prominently displayed above him – a move the White House came to regret as the display was mocked and became a source of controversy.
“President Bush is well aware that the banner should have been much more specific and said 'mission accomplished – for these sailors who are on this ship on their mission,'” White House press secretary Dana Perino said Wednesday. “And we have certainly paid a price for not being more specific on that banner. And I recognize that the media is going to play this up again tomorrow, as they do every single year.”
Oh, yeah, that price – that mean nasty media making fun. Whew – I thought “the price” was something big, like Laura getting a splinter in her “Victory Garden.” :p
She said what is important now is “how the president would describe the fight today. It’s been a very tough month in Iraq, but we are taking the fight to the enemy.”
Oh, man – he still doesn’t get it. The enemy we are fighting in Iraq is NOT our real enemy. Indeed, the Iraq War is a drain on and a diversion from the War on Terror and makig us less secure. The Iraq War itself is giving aid and comfort to our real enemy – we are losing the ability to respond militarily to other threats and have provided Al-Qaeda with a recruiting poster.
Bush, in a speech earlier this month, said “while this war is difficult, it is not endless.”
If that wasn’t so tragic, the irony would be overwhelming.
Subject: Mission Accomplished
The White House said Wednesday that President George W. Bush has paid a price for the “Mission Accomplished” banner that was flown in triumph five years ago but later became a symbol of U.S. misjudgments and mistakes in the long and costly war in Iraq.
What price? Somebody named Bush die?
Yesterday was the fifth anniversary of Bush’s dramatic landing in a Navy jet on an aircraft carrier homebound from the war. The USS Abraham Lincoln had launched thousands of airstrikes on Iraq.
“Major combat operations in Iraq have ended,” Bush said at the time. “The battle of Iraq is one victory in a war on terror that began on Sept. 11, 2001, and still goes on.” The “Mission Accomplished” banner was prominently displayed above him – a move the White House came to regret as the display was mocked and became a source of controversy.
“President Bush is well aware that the banner should have been much more specific and said 'mission accomplished – for these sailors who are on this ship on their mission,'” White House press secretary Dana Perino said Wednesday. “And we have certainly paid a price for not being more specific on that banner. And I recognize that the media is going to play this up again tomorrow, as they do every single year.”
Oh, yeah, that price – that mean nasty media making fun. Whew – I thought “the price” was something big, like Laura getting a splinter in her “Victory Garden.” :p
She said what is important now is “how the president would describe the fight today. It’s been a very tough month in Iraq, but we are taking the fight to the enemy.”
Oh, man – he still doesn’t get it. The enemy we are fighting in Iraq is NOT our real enemy. Indeed, the Iraq War is a drain on and a diversion from the War on Terror and makig us less secure. The Iraq War itself is giving aid and comfort to our real enemy – we are losing the ability to respond militarily to other threats and have provided Al-Qaeda with a recruiting poster.
Bush, in a speech earlier this month, said “while this war is difficult, it is not endless.”
If that wasn’t so tragic, the irony would be overwhelming.
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