It’s so easy to see when it’s happening to us and so hard when we’re doing it to somebody else.
When Hugo Chavez calls George Bush the devil or tells us what to do, Americans are offended and tell Hugo where to go. (That rhymes nicely.) The same goes for the Chinese, Iranians or whatever other bunch of gangsters knows better than we how to run our affairs.
But we’re oh so hurt when Iraqis, Saudis, Palestinians, Israelis, Koreans, Frenchmen, or Germans tell us we shouldn’t be telling them what to do or how to do it.
Why is it so clear one way and not the other?
Blog on!
Wild Bill
Friday, December 29, 2006
Wednesday, December 27, 2006
Gerald Ford
Any of you who read this blog with regularity know that Gerald Ford was one of my favorite presidents. One of my close friends and long time colleague, Gordon Vander Till was a close personal associate of the late president, and I asked him to share some of his memories of the man with you and me. Here's Gordon's short take on Mr. Ford:
It was my great pleasure and privilege to serve Mr. Ford as his first full time special assistant in the Grand Rapids office. When he asked me to become his presence in the district, neither of us really knew fully what a position description would look like. I spent two weeks in the Washington office learning their protocols, meeting congressional liaison persons in various department and agencies of the federal government, and learning the personal predilections of the staff located in H-230 of the U.S. Capitol.
On my last day of this accelerated indoctrination, March 19, 1969, Mr. Ford and I had a brief sitdown and review. One of the most enduring admonitions I recall was his explicit direction that there was no political test in his office. "When someone comes in to seek help," he stated, "remember that I was elected to serve ALL the people of the congressional district." He told me that I had his permission to sign his name on correspondence if I felt it was necessary, and he gave me his telephone credit card (at&t) with a dime in the slot -- "call if you need something," was his final direction.
After press notices were sent to local media in the 5th congressional district of Michigan, the office phone rang "off the hook" as we used to say. Local service clubs were anxious to hear about what was transpiring -- and after some initiatory dealings with media, people started showing up on our doorstep. The next five years of my life was spent trying to help constituents resolve their problems with government, especially the federal government.
Along the way I also managed to oversee two re-election campaigns, find time to speak at commencements, and help people resolve "barking dog" complaints. When Ford was dedicating a new section of expressway in the northern end of his district, one of the media types asked him for speculation on the future of Spiro T. Agnew. . . and then asked if Mr. Ford would be interested in becoming vice-president. Ford gave a hearty laugh and said, "We still have a vice president." We left the ceremony and two weeks later Ford was named by Nixon to succeed Agnew.
Sorta like me, you know, son of a trucker to assistant to a President of the U.S. Along the road of life, one never knows the little surprises that may arise.
Gordon
It was my great pleasure and privilege to serve Mr. Ford as his first full time special assistant in the Grand Rapids office. When he asked me to become his presence in the district, neither of us really knew fully what a position description would look like. I spent two weeks in the Washington office learning their protocols, meeting congressional liaison persons in various department and agencies of the federal government, and learning the personal predilections of the staff located in H-230 of the U.S. Capitol.
On my last day of this accelerated indoctrination, March 19, 1969, Mr. Ford and I had a brief sitdown and review. One of the most enduring admonitions I recall was his explicit direction that there was no political test in his office. "When someone comes in to seek help," he stated, "remember that I was elected to serve ALL the people of the congressional district." He told me that I had his permission to sign his name on correspondence if I felt it was necessary, and he gave me his telephone credit card (at&t) with a dime in the slot -- "call if you need something," was his final direction.
After press notices were sent to local media in the 5th congressional district of Michigan, the office phone rang "off the hook" as we used to say. Local service clubs were anxious to hear about what was transpiring -- and after some initiatory dealings with media, people started showing up on our doorstep. The next five years of my life was spent trying to help constituents resolve their problems with government, especially the federal government.
Along the way I also managed to oversee two re-election campaigns, find time to speak at commencements, and help people resolve "barking dog" complaints. When Ford was dedicating a new section of expressway in the northern end of his district, one of the media types asked him for speculation on the future of Spiro T. Agnew. . . and then asked if Mr. Ford would be interested in becoming vice-president. Ford gave a hearty laugh and said, "We still have a vice president." We left the ceremony and two weeks later Ford was named by Nixon to succeed Agnew.
Sorta like me, you know, son of a trucker to assistant to a President of the U.S. Along the road of life, one never knows the little surprises that may arise.
Gordon
Tuesday, December 19, 2006
Coming Through!
I’m pulling on the cardigan and getting Andy Rooney angry again, and, as you well know, that’s mad as hell. Today I’m angry with the press – like I’m usually not. Today it’s different because a major news story in two papers that I checked (The Washington Post and the Boston Globe) reported the facts in one of their news stories and offered no editorial balancing. How bad is that?
It seems that the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, a non-profit organization that appears to have no axe to grind – right - says that if you buy a small car and you get hit by a big car you’re more likely to be pushing up daisies than if you’d switched sides. Now the people at the Institute didn’t act surprised; in fact, they seemed to understand the laws of physics.
It’s kind of like Wild Bill deciding to play running back for the New York Giants breaking through a hole on the right side and meeting Brian Urlacher, linebacker for the Chicago Bears, coming full speed the other way. Despite wearing the same protective gear, guess who the memorial service will be for?
But don’t the morons buying those mini-movers have a number of motives beyond wanting to have their relatives hit the lottery of a huge insurance settlement after they’ve gone? Could it be that these folks have been told that they shouldn’t be burning up too many hydrocarbons, so they’re trying to save the planet? Couldn’t they also know that putting the feedbag on their magnum SUV is expensive to the point of hurt and that it burns up an ever scarcer natural resource? Some of them may have actually though through the process to the point that they think the manufacturing of these vehicles uses less steel and that they’re are cheaper to build and sell. And there must be other selfish and do good reasons for their stupid decision to drive these rolling coffins.
In the continuing debate on personal safety, selfishness, hubris, and screw the losers in life’s economic lottery on the EIB Broadcasting Network , el Rushbo repeatedly declaims to his brilliant ditto heads that they should run out and buy the biggest heaviest monster they can fit into their mega-garages. Rush knows that Global Warming is nothing but a figment of Al Gore’s overactive imagination and that revving up the Sherman Tank in the back yard is the best way to show your independence and your true blue American patriotism.
It’s all well and good that the Institute should describe the facts that the little guy in a collision is likely to get the worst of it. But don’t you think the papers have at least a little obligation to point out some of the reasons why – beyond the price of gas – people should be conserving natural resources and thinking about the environment?
In a related story, it is reported today that the Navy is going to retire the USS John F. Kennedy next year. This mega-ship, many football fields long and twenty-three stories high is one of the last ships to burn oil. Wouldn’t it be prudent for a rich ditto head to put training wheels on `Big John’ - as the sailors call it – and drive it down the freeway? Nobody on that bad boy is going to get smushed in a head banger with a Toyota.
Blog on!
Wild Bill
It seems that the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, a non-profit organization that appears to have no axe to grind – right - says that if you buy a small car and you get hit by a big car you’re more likely to be pushing up daisies than if you’d switched sides. Now the people at the Institute didn’t act surprised; in fact, they seemed to understand the laws of physics.
It’s kind of like Wild Bill deciding to play running back for the New York Giants breaking through a hole on the right side and meeting Brian Urlacher, linebacker for the Chicago Bears, coming full speed the other way. Despite wearing the same protective gear, guess who the memorial service will be for?
But don’t the morons buying those mini-movers have a number of motives beyond wanting to have their relatives hit the lottery of a huge insurance settlement after they’ve gone? Could it be that these folks have been told that they shouldn’t be burning up too many hydrocarbons, so they’re trying to save the planet? Couldn’t they also know that putting the feedbag on their magnum SUV is expensive to the point of hurt and that it burns up an ever scarcer natural resource? Some of them may have actually though through the process to the point that they think the manufacturing of these vehicles uses less steel and that they’re are cheaper to build and sell. And there must be other selfish and do good reasons for their stupid decision to drive these rolling coffins.
In the continuing debate on personal safety, selfishness, hubris, and screw the losers in life’s economic lottery on the EIB Broadcasting Network , el Rushbo repeatedly declaims to his brilliant ditto heads that they should run out and buy the biggest heaviest monster they can fit into their mega-garages. Rush knows that Global Warming is nothing but a figment of Al Gore’s overactive imagination and that revving up the Sherman Tank in the back yard is the best way to show your independence and your true blue American patriotism.
It’s all well and good that the Institute should describe the facts that the little guy in a collision is likely to get the worst of it. But don’t you think the papers have at least a little obligation to point out some of the reasons why – beyond the price of gas – people should be conserving natural resources and thinking about the environment?
In a related story, it is reported today that the Navy is going to retire the USS John F. Kennedy next year. This mega-ship, many football fields long and twenty-three stories high is one of the last ships to burn oil. Wouldn’t it be prudent for a rich ditto head to put training wheels on `Big John’ - as the sailors call it – and drive it down the freeway? Nobody on that bad boy is going to get smushed in a head banger with a Toyota.
Blog on!
Wild Bill
Saturday, December 16, 2006
The Only Thing We Have To Fear
Given the U.S.’s difficult position in Iraq, the rest of the Muslim world and the lowly opinion in which the rest of the world holds America, can there be reason for optimism? While conservative talk show hosts and many of their left wing counterparts see the world – and especially the United States - as going to hell in a hand basket, I don’t share that view and am actually quite optimistic about our future.
The end of the Cold War left the United States as the world’s only super power. The Soviet Union, a social, economic and political bankrupt, threw in the towel and became conservative, inward looking, and well liquored old Russia. George H.W. Bush (Bush 41) became the first president of the modern era, and the elites that defined our world view basked in the glory of the last side standing.
Two groups took most credit for this great and largely unexpected turn of events, the neoconservatives and the evangelical Christians. Having read many books on the subject – none better than Andrew Bacevich’s, The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced By War – it appears that the rise in the political standing of these groups as a result of their apparent success in the Cold War and in providing the foreign policy theories for Bush 41’s successors gave them the right to call the opening moves in the twenty-first century.
We are fortunate that the first great foray into the new millennium was a relatively modest one. How the president proposes to get us out of the quagmire that he created will be difficult, costly and cannot yet be fully fathomed. This decision to invade was probably the worst foreign policy blunder in American history, but, while tragic, it is probably not going to be as costly in blood and bullion as Korea and Vietnam.
Bush 43 will be the poster boy for future presidents who are feeling their oats, and it will be a bold chief executive who takes this nation into an optional war in the next thirty years. Our nose bloodied and our hubris exposed, we are looking forward to a new role in the world.
We may wind up being the leaders of a completely new civilization. We seem to be drifting away from Europe and forming a new and vital grouping of states, including perhaps all of North America. Certainly, Europe seems to be looking east as it incorporates the states formerly part of the Soviet orbit. The Europeans seem revitalized as result of their great union and seem inclined to thumb their collective noses at us. Oh, we’re still friends, but they resent us as an overbearing partner and have convenient memories of our contributions to their riches and safety over the last sixty years.
But Europe appears unable to solve an ancient riddle that has vexed our species since we walked out of Africa. Should people be assimilated and have upward mobility based on merit or on their traditional place in society. The present owners of the land are not reproducing themselves sufficiently to assure continuity of the society, yet they are unable to successfully deal with those flowing in to fill the longer rungs on the social and economic ladders.
China’s model, while appearing successful on the surface, is fraught with peril for them. The gangsters in charge have opened the economic valves to the creativity of the population but intend to hold onto the levers of political power. Think about that in futuristic terms. The Indians, however dynamic, are still struggling with problems of caste and an over burdensome system of regulation.
Meanwhile the North American Free Trade Agreement appears to have brought Canada, the U.S. and Mexico into a new and powerful amalgam whose workings seem quite different from our old world parents and major competitors. Our internal arguments are creating dynamism qualitatively different from what Don Rumsfeld termed, `Old Europe.’ Even as we struggle with the problems of race and assimilation of newcomers, it is clear that that those committed to equality and upward mobility based on merit maintain the upper hand. Many new groups - regardless of origin, race, religion, gender, or ethnicity (including many from the Islamic world) – have succeeded as individuals and their groups often exceed the wealth and income of the White majority.
These advances have not been made without social difficulties. No matter, America, for all its problems, faces the age old battle of mobility with political and economic power in the hands of those committed to solving it based on equal opportunity, social justice, and ultimately on merit. That is why despite all of our problems, people are willing to give up everything to move here and prosper intellectually, economically, spiritually, and politically.
As these changes take place domestically, China, Russia, Japan, India, and the Islamic civilizations are setting limits on our power, and we seem to be settling in to a slightly more conservative place on the planet. We’re still the biggest kid around, but we’ve been brought up short with a bloody nose in Iraq. Our days of stealing lunch money and picking on the little kids in the cafeteria line of the world’s resources seem to be behind us, at least for a few decades. This is good; our internal creativity far exceeds that of our competitors.
A lot of neoconservatives and evangelicals find this discombobulating, but is it really that bad that we don’t run the whole world? I don’t find it so, and it’s going to be a lot cheaper than the Cold War and the world reach we’re still trying to project. It isn’t like we’re surrendering; we’re just adjusting to a world in which we remain the biggest and strongest nation in the world but one which the rest of the residents have us checked – but not check mated.
Our thoughts of empire have been inspired by Rome and England. Maybe we should rethink our definition to that of Florence. We are the city on the hill. Our residents can create wealth, power, and civilization without conquering everyone in our way just as the Florentines did in the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.
We’ve still got the world’s most dynamic economic system. Rugged individualism will provide us with ideas and organizations second to none. Our major competitors such as India, Japan, Russia, China, and Europe have leagues to go in deregulating business and industry to the point of our best.
Our richest and most successful citizens while compensated too greatly are showing signs of emulating Renaissance princes and merchant kings by creating such programs as the MacArthur awards to encourage creativity in all fields, and look at what’s happening to the great wealth of such stars as Bill Gates and Warren Buffet as it is being harnessed to cure the world’s ills. Dozens of fortunes have been converted to foundations and trusts designed to make America better. Things are not all bleak, and despite the conscious efforts of many of our leaders to frighten us, we will prevail against ignorance, disease, and poverty.
And look at what the little folks are doing to keep the mighty on the straight and narrow. Tens of thousands of bloggers daily point out that the emperors are without fig leaves. And they can’t be shushed or shot – not all of them anyway.
No, the world’s not all bad and America is far better than many pessimists think; there are many more positive than negative signs. As we move toward 2007, I see the glass as well over half full, and I hope you do too.
Happy Holidays! Peace, prosperity, good health, and happiness in the New Year!
Blog on!
Wild Bill
The end of the Cold War left the United States as the world’s only super power. The Soviet Union, a social, economic and political bankrupt, threw in the towel and became conservative, inward looking, and well liquored old Russia. George H.W. Bush (Bush 41) became the first president of the modern era, and the elites that defined our world view basked in the glory of the last side standing.
Two groups took most credit for this great and largely unexpected turn of events, the neoconservatives and the evangelical Christians. Having read many books on the subject – none better than Andrew Bacevich’s, The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced By War – it appears that the rise in the political standing of these groups as a result of their apparent success in the Cold War and in providing the foreign policy theories for Bush 41’s successors gave them the right to call the opening moves in the twenty-first century.
We are fortunate that the first great foray into the new millennium was a relatively modest one. How the president proposes to get us out of the quagmire that he created will be difficult, costly and cannot yet be fully fathomed. This decision to invade was probably the worst foreign policy blunder in American history, but, while tragic, it is probably not going to be as costly in blood and bullion as Korea and Vietnam.
Bush 43 will be the poster boy for future presidents who are feeling their oats, and it will be a bold chief executive who takes this nation into an optional war in the next thirty years. Our nose bloodied and our hubris exposed, we are looking forward to a new role in the world.
We may wind up being the leaders of a completely new civilization. We seem to be drifting away from Europe and forming a new and vital grouping of states, including perhaps all of North America. Certainly, Europe seems to be looking east as it incorporates the states formerly part of the Soviet orbit. The Europeans seem revitalized as result of their great union and seem inclined to thumb their collective noses at us. Oh, we’re still friends, but they resent us as an overbearing partner and have convenient memories of our contributions to their riches and safety over the last sixty years.
But Europe appears unable to solve an ancient riddle that has vexed our species since we walked out of Africa. Should people be assimilated and have upward mobility based on merit or on their traditional place in society. The present owners of the land are not reproducing themselves sufficiently to assure continuity of the society, yet they are unable to successfully deal with those flowing in to fill the longer rungs on the social and economic ladders.
China’s model, while appearing successful on the surface, is fraught with peril for them. The gangsters in charge have opened the economic valves to the creativity of the population but intend to hold onto the levers of political power. Think about that in futuristic terms. The Indians, however dynamic, are still struggling with problems of caste and an over burdensome system of regulation.
Meanwhile the North American Free Trade Agreement appears to have brought Canada, the U.S. and Mexico into a new and powerful amalgam whose workings seem quite different from our old world parents and major competitors. Our internal arguments are creating dynamism qualitatively different from what Don Rumsfeld termed, `Old Europe.’ Even as we struggle with the problems of race and assimilation of newcomers, it is clear that that those committed to equality and upward mobility based on merit maintain the upper hand. Many new groups - regardless of origin, race, religion, gender, or ethnicity (including many from the Islamic world) – have succeeded as individuals and their groups often exceed the wealth and income of the White majority.
These advances have not been made without social difficulties. No matter, America, for all its problems, faces the age old battle of mobility with political and economic power in the hands of those committed to solving it based on equal opportunity, social justice, and ultimately on merit. That is why despite all of our problems, people are willing to give up everything to move here and prosper intellectually, economically, spiritually, and politically.
As these changes take place domestically, China, Russia, Japan, India, and the Islamic civilizations are setting limits on our power, and we seem to be settling in to a slightly more conservative place on the planet. We’re still the biggest kid around, but we’ve been brought up short with a bloody nose in Iraq. Our days of stealing lunch money and picking on the little kids in the cafeteria line of the world’s resources seem to be behind us, at least for a few decades. This is good; our internal creativity far exceeds that of our competitors.
A lot of neoconservatives and evangelicals find this discombobulating, but is it really that bad that we don’t run the whole world? I don’t find it so, and it’s going to be a lot cheaper than the Cold War and the world reach we’re still trying to project. It isn’t like we’re surrendering; we’re just adjusting to a world in which we remain the biggest and strongest nation in the world but one which the rest of the residents have us checked – but not check mated.
Our thoughts of empire have been inspired by Rome and England. Maybe we should rethink our definition to that of Florence. We are the city on the hill. Our residents can create wealth, power, and civilization without conquering everyone in our way just as the Florentines did in the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.
We’ve still got the world’s most dynamic economic system. Rugged individualism will provide us with ideas and organizations second to none. Our major competitors such as India, Japan, Russia, China, and Europe have leagues to go in deregulating business and industry to the point of our best.
Our richest and most successful citizens while compensated too greatly are showing signs of emulating Renaissance princes and merchant kings by creating such programs as the MacArthur awards to encourage creativity in all fields, and look at what’s happening to the great wealth of such stars as Bill Gates and Warren Buffet as it is being harnessed to cure the world’s ills. Dozens of fortunes have been converted to foundations and trusts designed to make America better. Things are not all bleak, and despite the conscious efforts of many of our leaders to frighten us, we will prevail against ignorance, disease, and poverty.
And look at what the little folks are doing to keep the mighty on the straight and narrow. Tens of thousands of bloggers daily point out that the emperors are without fig leaves. And they can’t be shushed or shot – not all of them anyway.
No, the world’s not all bad and America is far better than many pessimists think; there are many more positive than negative signs. As we move toward 2007, I see the glass as well over half full, and I hope you do too.
Happy Holidays! Peace, prosperity, good health, and happiness in the New Year!
Blog on!
Wild Bill
Wednesday, December 13, 2006
Snow Job
Baby its cold outside. Indeed a fierce blizzard is raging in Washington, and it’s unlikely to end before mid-January.
The White House press corps is spitting mad at Tony Snow for his dodging and pleas of nolo contendere on all questions involving Iraq. “I don’t know,” is the answer de jour by this hubris filled wind bag. Snow came to rescue Bush not to bury him, or so the mouth that roars nothing but ignorance once proclaimed.
The silver tongued hero of the neocons was to provide our ever eloquent president with an English translator. All that was lacking in Washington was a spokesperson who could translate Bushisms into the plain speak of the American people, and the administration would be on its way to winning the war on terror and transforming the Middle East into a land of milk and honey where the lion and the lamb could lie down together in peace and harmony.
But Washington is a land of snow jobs – everything from the Rumsfeldian snow flakes falling gently over the Pentagon to the howling blizzard of `I don’t knows’ roaring from the White House Press Room.
Only now are some – certainly not all – of the neoconservatives beginning to fathom that if things are going right and you’re riding a good horse even Wild Bill would make a great press secretary but if you’re in a tar pit aboard a swayback nag, even Winston Churchill couldn’t bullshit his way out.
Look around Tony; you’re in deep and dark stuff and that horse... And all that slick restating of `I don’t know’ is nothing but a tony snow job.
Blog on!
Wild Bill
The White House press corps is spitting mad at Tony Snow for his dodging and pleas of nolo contendere on all questions involving Iraq. “I don’t know,” is the answer de jour by this hubris filled wind bag. Snow came to rescue Bush not to bury him, or so the mouth that roars nothing but ignorance once proclaimed.
The silver tongued hero of the neocons was to provide our ever eloquent president with an English translator. All that was lacking in Washington was a spokesperson who could translate Bushisms into the plain speak of the American people, and the administration would be on its way to winning the war on terror and transforming the Middle East into a land of milk and honey where the lion and the lamb could lie down together in peace and harmony.
But Washington is a land of snow jobs – everything from the Rumsfeldian snow flakes falling gently over the Pentagon to the howling blizzard of `I don’t knows’ roaring from the White House Press Room.
Only now are some – certainly not all – of the neoconservatives beginning to fathom that if things are going right and you’re riding a good horse even Wild Bill would make a great press secretary but if you’re in a tar pit aboard a swayback nag, even Winston Churchill couldn’t bullshit his way out.
Look around Tony; you’re in deep and dark stuff and that horse... And all that slick restating of `I don’t know’ is nothing but a tony snow job.
Blog on!
Wild Bill
Tuesday, December 12, 2006
Everything's Great - I Quit
I feel particularly optimistic today, so I’m resigning from the Democratic Party. That may seem strange as I worked so hard to defeat the Republicans, but, truly, I’ve held myself out as a person beholden to no party and of the center.
Obviously, at this moment I’m likely to support the Democrat in the ’08 run for the roses, but, if they dive to the left or do anything really crazy in trying to clean up the mess created by Bush and his neoconservative Svengalis, no one should be surprised if there’s a change in my registration.
The Republicans are doing a great job of imploding without any more assistance from me, so I’ll just watch as the self destruction much like the war that caused it accelerates. My fear is that the Democrats will see this administration weakness as the voice of the people telling them to take a left turn; that will be my signal to attempt to bolster the morale of the cloth coat Republicans with whom I parted company when Bush showed he’d lost his way and was listening to the hard right neocons and the evangelicals.
By the way, I’m a big time Democrat who gets `Dear Bill’ emails from all the party big shots. I’m sure that I’m the only one in America who receives such personal notes, but I’m not going to write back and tell them of my likely defection, and, right now, I’m counting on them for some real oversight of these jackasses who’ve taken the country in such dangerous directions.
This is a very antsy time, and I certainly don’t have a clue as to how to get out of Iraq and set the ship of state on the right course. While I was desperate for us not to go into Iraq, I have no idea on how to get us out in a somewhat whole fashion.
But I feel good about the direction of America today. The old bulls of the Republican Party have drawn a line in the sand that stands for no more neocon adventurism. The most serious of our defense and foreign policy intellectuals are thinking of ways to end this fiasco without blowing up the planet, and virtually all serious thinkers are working to curb the mess without further wrecking our standing in the world.
There are only two important people – and they’re both real factors – George W. Bush and John McCain who are still looking for victory in Iraq. Even Joe Lieberman is in a run silent run deep mode.
All in all, I’m looking for a Christmas message from Bush that may include both `mission accomplished’ and a new direction that heads us toward the egress.
Happy holidays to all!
Blog on!
Wild Bill
Obviously, at this moment I’m likely to support the Democrat in the ’08 run for the roses, but, if they dive to the left or do anything really crazy in trying to clean up the mess created by Bush and his neoconservative Svengalis, no one should be surprised if there’s a change in my registration.
The Republicans are doing a great job of imploding without any more assistance from me, so I’ll just watch as the self destruction much like the war that caused it accelerates. My fear is that the Democrats will see this administration weakness as the voice of the people telling them to take a left turn; that will be my signal to attempt to bolster the morale of the cloth coat Republicans with whom I parted company when Bush showed he’d lost his way and was listening to the hard right neocons and the evangelicals.
By the way, I’m a big time Democrat who gets `Dear Bill’ emails from all the party big shots. I’m sure that I’m the only one in America who receives such personal notes, but I’m not going to write back and tell them of my likely defection, and, right now, I’m counting on them for some real oversight of these jackasses who’ve taken the country in such dangerous directions.
This is a very antsy time, and I certainly don’t have a clue as to how to get out of Iraq and set the ship of state on the right course. While I was desperate for us not to go into Iraq, I have no idea on how to get us out in a somewhat whole fashion.
But I feel good about the direction of America today. The old bulls of the Republican Party have drawn a line in the sand that stands for no more neocon adventurism. The most serious of our defense and foreign policy intellectuals are thinking of ways to end this fiasco without blowing up the planet, and virtually all serious thinkers are working to curb the mess without further wrecking our standing in the world.
There are only two important people – and they’re both real factors – George W. Bush and John McCain who are still looking for victory in Iraq. Even Joe Lieberman is in a run silent run deep mode.
All in all, I’m looking for a Christmas message from Bush that may include both `mission accomplished’ and a new direction that heads us toward the egress.
Happy holidays to all!
Blog on!
Wild Bill
Thursday, December 07, 2006
The Birds Are Singing
The birds are singing, ten of ‘em. Canaries play two roles, they sing and they croak.
As we carelessly drove the ponies down into the deep, deep mine, we paid no attention to the horrible conditions of the walls, ceiling, or air. As we found ourselves facing an endless seam of soft coal that was crumbling about us and as the timbers and bulkheads groaned and creaked, with no other alternatives, we called for the canaries.
Ten old birds to the rescue. “Get the hell out!” is their unanimous refrain.
These birds are scared to death. Sure, Lee Hamilton can work with anybody, and Jim Baker can fake it. Sandra Day O’Connor is a civilized person. Senators Robb and Simpson were never partisan crazies, and the same goes for all but two of the other members. Ed Meese is a real Republican and Leon Panetta is a fire breathing Democrat.
That Meese and Panetta can agree on 79 points and not withhold their approval of a single finding is both wonderful but really, really scary. The air in this mine is bad, really bad, toxic. If these two partisans join hands it’s not for their parties; it’s for America.
Already, the cries that this map to the mine mouth isn’t realistic are being heard from both sides – those that want to stay the course and those that want to cut and run. I admit – and the members do too – the commission has created a corridor of mirrors within the smoky air.
But it’s time to board the carts and whip the crap out of those ponies in the direction being pointed out by the canaries. There’s little time for face saving or for better ways. All aboard! The birds are beginning to cough.
The Congress better damn well start acting like an oversight committee and the partisan sniping better be held to a minimum. This America we’re talking about, not Republican or Democratic platform planks. Both parties better buy in and kick some executive butt.
The air’s bad, and it’s time to face the truth. We’re in way too deep. Our exit strategy is on the table. It ain’t what we’d like – none of us, but the walls are creaking. Get with it or get the hell out of the way; otherwise the next phase will really be like Vietnam.
Blog on!
Wild Bill
As we carelessly drove the ponies down into the deep, deep mine, we paid no attention to the horrible conditions of the walls, ceiling, or air. As we found ourselves facing an endless seam of soft coal that was crumbling about us and as the timbers and bulkheads groaned and creaked, with no other alternatives, we called for the canaries.
Ten old birds to the rescue. “Get the hell out!” is their unanimous refrain.
These birds are scared to death. Sure, Lee Hamilton can work with anybody, and Jim Baker can fake it. Sandra Day O’Connor is a civilized person. Senators Robb and Simpson were never partisan crazies, and the same goes for all but two of the other members. Ed Meese is a real Republican and Leon Panetta is a fire breathing Democrat.
That Meese and Panetta can agree on 79 points and not withhold their approval of a single finding is both wonderful but really, really scary. The air in this mine is bad, really bad, toxic. If these two partisans join hands it’s not for their parties; it’s for America.
Already, the cries that this map to the mine mouth isn’t realistic are being heard from both sides – those that want to stay the course and those that want to cut and run. I admit – and the members do too – the commission has created a corridor of mirrors within the smoky air.
But it’s time to board the carts and whip the crap out of those ponies in the direction being pointed out by the canaries. There’s little time for face saving or for better ways. All aboard! The birds are beginning to cough.
The Congress better damn well start acting like an oversight committee and the partisan sniping better be held to a minimum. This America we’re talking about, not Republican or Democratic platform planks. Both parties better buy in and kick some executive butt.
The air’s bad, and it’s time to face the truth. We’re in way too deep. Our exit strategy is on the table. It ain’t what we’d like – none of us, but the walls are creaking. Get with it or get the hell out of the way; otherwise the next phase will really be like Vietnam.
Blog on!
Wild Bill
Wednesday, December 06, 2006
Who Cares?
The media abounds with stories about George W. Bush’s place in history. His decision to attack Iraq has historical tongues wagging about whether he is the worst president in American history or perhaps just the worst since Richard Nixon. James Buchanan has been plucked from the dustbin of history, vacuumed off, and held out as the absolute bottom of the barrel – until maybe now. Other commentators have resurrected such presidential luminaries as Herbert Hoover and Andrew Johnson to parade their stuff in the contest for the bottom.
This must be very difficult on Mr. Bush and even more so on Laura and Barney. It can’t be nice to read bout yourself as bracketed with the most incompetent people ever to occupy the White House or to learn that your husband is a total moron – or worse. What does the loyal staff do when they pick up the papers in the morning and find front page comparisons with Bush’s forty-two predecessors – and find him wanting against all of them?
Were I on staff, my reaction would be very swift; let Barney use the Post and Times for whatever he has to do and tell Laura that the paper people skipped the White House this morning. But every day? That would be tough on even the most dedicated of lackeys and sycophants.
In thinking about the problem, I figured out the bottom line; it doesn’t matter. So you’re the worst in history; who cares? Do you really think that Jimmy Buchanan, or Herb Hoover, or Dick Nixon wake up each day on their clouds or – heaven forbid – spits and try to explain themselves to their neighbors? Are you kidding? They’re definitely cool – or hot – with their situations. Although there may be some thoughts of readjustment as they ponder George’s predicament.
And just who cares what so called `presidential experts’ care. They were wrong about Harry Truman and they could be wrong about forty-three, and while I don’t think they are, who cares what a loser like me thinks anyway?
I’ve known and met dozens of people with names like Lincoln, Buchanan, Grant, and I’ve bought vacuum cleaners called Hoover, and I’m sure many of you have too. It has never crossed my mind to ask the Lincoln if he was descended from Abraham. Do you think I’d open up with Buchanan with, “What the hell was that bozo great, great, great uncle of yours doing asleep at the switch when the country was going to hell?”
Would you get in a Lincoln automobile and ask the owner if his vehicle was manufactured by relatives of our late great president? Of course you wouldn’t.
What it really boils down to is that except for a few of the very top guys – maybe Washington, Lincoln and Roosevelt (the second guy) – nobody even knows who was president before Bill Clinton. Golly, our intrepid reporters have dig out obscure Ph. Ds just to get the list of the president’s anyway.
So George and Laura and Barney should relax. Look at it this way; has anyone ever been able to even read through the list of names of Egyptian pharos without falling asleep? And except for Rammer and Tut, whoever heard of even one other of them? And there were some very incompetent people on that list – and good ones too; had to be.
The same goes for the Kings of England or the list of the Popes. Their only use today is as substitutes for counting sheep by these same over educated characters who are saying George is the worst. Maybe George should be asking who these jerks are. Could they be the worst evaluators of presidents? Maybe Barney would like to pee on some of their books. Who knows? Who cares?
So be cool George and all you worry warts in the White House. After we get out the mess you’ve created, you can go off and join Jimmy Buchanan in a pinochle game and never be disturbed until some phony baloney Ph. D comes rummaging around to see who’s winning. Even then, who cares?
Blog on!
Wild Bill
This must be very difficult on Mr. Bush and even more so on Laura and Barney. It can’t be nice to read bout yourself as bracketed with the most incompetent people ever to occupy the White House or to learn that your husband is a total moron – or worse. What does the loyal staff do when they pick up the papers in the morning and find front page comparisons with Bush’s forty-two predecessors – and find him wanting against all of them?
Were I on staff, my reaction would be very swift; let Barney use the Post and Times for whatever he has to do and tell Laura that the paper people skipped the White House this morning. But every day? That would be tough on even the most dedicated of lackeys and sycophants.
In thinking about the problem, I figured out the bottom line; it doesn’t matter. So you’re the worst in history; who cares? Do you really think that Jimmy Buchanan, or Herb Hoover, or Dick Nixon wake up each day on their clouds or – heaven forbid – spits and try to explain themselves to their neighbors? Are you kidding? They’re definitely cool – or hot – with their situations. Although there may be some thoughts of readjustment as they ponder George’s predicament.
And just who cares what so called `presidential experts’ care. They were wrong about Harry Truman and they could be wrong about forty-three, and while I don’t think they are, who cares what a loser like me thinks anyway?
I’ve known and met dozens of people with names like Lincoln, Buchanan, Grant, and I’ve bought vacuum cleaners called Hoover, and I’m sure many of you have too. It has never crossed my mind to ask the Lincoln if he was descended from Abraham. Do you think I’d open up with Buchanan with, “What the hell was that bozo great, great, great uncle of yours doing asleep at the switch when the country was going to hell?”
Would you get in a Lincoln automobile and ask the owner if his vehicle was manufactured by relatives of our late great president? Of course you wouldn’t.
What it really boils down to is that except for a few of the very top guys – maybe Washington, Lincoln and Roosevelt (the second guy) – nobody even knows who was president before Bill Clinton. Golly, our intrepid reporters have dig out obscure Ph. Ds just to get the list of the president’s anyway.
So George and Laura and Barney should relax. Look at it this way; has anyone ever been able to even read through the list of names of Egyptian pharos without falling asleep? And except for Rammer and Tut, whoever heard of even one other of them? And there were some very incompetent people on that list – and good ones too; had to be.
The same goes for the Kings of England or the list of the Popes. Their only use today is as substitutes for counting sheep by these same over educated characters who are saying George is the worst. Maybe George should be asking who these jerks are. Could they be the worst evaluators of presidents? Maybe Barney would like to pee on some of their books. Who knows? Who cares?
So be cool George and all you worry warts in the White House. After we get out the mess you’ve created, you can go off and join Jimmy Buchanan in a pinochle game and never be disturbed until some phony baloney Ph. D comes rummaging around to see who’s winning. Even then, who cares?
Blog on!
Wild Bill
Tuesday, December 05, 2006
It's Morning in America
An article (A Virtual Chalkboard For Budding NFL Fans) in today’s Washington Post describes how millions of mostly young males in the U.S. are becoming expert in the Xs and Os of professional football. The number of people who can glance at a defensive set on their TV screens has expanded exponentially as a result of `Madden NFL’ a video game. This phenomenon is worthy of front page coverage by one of the nation’s leading papers.
In my Andy Rooney moments, I wonder if this is a good thing – a really good thing. Millions of kids are spending hundreds of millions of hours to be able to tell at a glance what only John Madden and Bill Belichek used to know. But there’s an obvious upside to this, instead of only dozens of people being able to break down tapes for NFL teams, there is a developing cadre of millions of potential candidates. On the other hand, since this is highly desirable work, the wage rates will soon plummet to minimum wage levels.
It’s a great world we live in. We’ve come a long way since Classical Civilization when the government provided circus for the masses. Today, the private sector in the form of Madden NFL and its thousands of counterparts and the NFL itself and its pro sports and college competitors deliver circus right into the homes of the consumers. Not only that but those who feel compelled to really attend the circus must compete to buy high priced tickets to many sold out venues in order to be part of the show.
There’s an even better side to this situation. Young people can be passionate about things and are willing to toil for long hours and pay big money to learn what used to be the province of an ascetic priesthood of coaches. Bill Belichek apprenticed at his father's knee and honed his skills for years just to get the chance to intern for nothing with other experts. Now his life’s learning and that of other equally qualified clergymen of the Church of the NFL is available to the masses. So instead of just dozens of boys wasting their time in hopes of coaching the Packers, millions can aspire to be fired losing in the great zero sum game. So while they exercise only their thumbs and their noggins and cannot ever hope to play and get hurt running up huge medical bills, they will all be qualified to coach the Cowboys.
Even better, among the millions of youngsters learning Madden NFL there are tens of thousands who otherwise might have gone bad, and these will have no time for mugging old farts like me or working part time to support illicit drug habits. And they’re not driving cars while they play – I hope – and therefore the roads are safer.
And they say there’s a decline in Western Civilization. Give me a break!
Blog on!
Wild Bill
In my Andy Rooney moments, I wonder if this is a good thing – a really good thing. Millions of kids are spending hundreds of millions of hours to be able to tell at a glance what only John Madden and Bill Belichek used to know. But there’s an obvious upside to this, instead of only dozens of people being able to break down tapes for NFL teams, there is a developing cadre of millions of potential candidates. On the other hand, since this is highly desirable work, the wage rates will soon plummet to minimum wage levels.
It’s a great world we live in. We’ve come a long way since Classical Civilization when the government provided circus for the masses. Today, the private sector in the form of Madden NFL and its thousands of counterparts and the NFL itself and its pro sports and college competitors deliver circus right into the homes of the consumers. Not only that but those who feel compelled to really attend the circus must compete to buy high priced tickets to many sold out venues in order to be part of the show.
There’s an even better side to this situation. Young people can be passionate about things and are willing to toil for long hours and pay big money to learn what used to be the province of an ascetic priesthood of coaches. Bill Belichek apprenticed at his father's knee and honed his skills for years just to get the chance to intern for nothing with other experts. Now his life’s learning and that of other equally qualified clergymen of the Church of the NFL is available to the masses. So instead of just dozens of boys wasting their time in hopes of coaching the Packers, millions can aspire to be fired losing in the great zero sum game. So while they exercise only their thumbs and their noggins and cannot ever hope to play and get hurt running up huge medical bills, they will all be qualified to coach the Cowboys.
Even better, among the millions of youngsters learning Madden NFL there are tens of thousands who otherwise might have gone bad, and these will have no time for mugging old farts like me or working part time to support illicit drug habits. And they’re not driving cars while they play – I hope – and therefore the roads are safer.
And they say there’s a decline in Western Civilization. Give me a break!
Blog on!
Wild Bill
Monday, December 04, 2006
It Never Happened
An examination of possible Republican directions as we move toward the 2008 election leads me to conclude that the Iraq War – as I understood it – was nothing but a figment of my overactive imagination. In checking my mirror for signs that I might have morphed into a cockroach but finding only the usual gray stubble, I wondered, could it have been that it was only a nightmare? But the morning paper still reports that our troops are being blown to bits, but it is equally clear that only George Bush, Dick Cheney, and Don Rumsfeld got the troops into harms way.
The neoconservatives were obviously betrayed by the big three. Rummy never followed the script of sending in enough troops or setting up a real national democracy. It’s obvious from a review of the Doug Feith conspiracy papers (on which the Cheney charges of treason against those of us opposed to the fiasco were based) stating that there was an al Qaeda operative in every Baathist office in Baghdad, so we should have had enough troops to arrest every government employee in the country. Never happened.
The real conservatives said all along that the Powell Doctrine of overwhelming force was not followed, so we can’t blame them. Never happened.
The evangelicals were merely supporting the president in pursuing a war of values. How can you doubt that there were a whole heck of a lot of evil people in Iraq and killing a million of them and letting God sort them out was very good thing, so we can’t blame the evangelicals; there really were lions eating the good folks. Never happened.
Obviously, no Republicans – other than Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld – are responsible for what happened, so now that our sinuses have been cleared by last month’s, why can’t we just move on?
Sure, almost all of the Republicans – and a lot of wimpy Democrats - voted to let Bush handle Saddam, but, like I said, they thought he’d do it right. And he didn’t, so how can we hold them responsible? Never happened.
Damn, they reduced my taxes by sixty bucks and up to a thou on the rest of you in the middle class. Why can’t you thank them? Real wages fell, but, hell, the economy’s growing and we should be cheering as the stars like the Waltons pocket their billions. In the Great Depression when we were all broke and out of work, didn’t we love it when the silver screen showed the winners? Why can’t we just cheer The Donald and make him our surrogate in the winner’s circle?
Looks to me like I’m a bad sport; instead of saying we’ve got punish those people who enabled all these fiascos, I should be looking beyond Bush and giving the Republicans the benefit of the doubt in 2008. They are not going to nominate a guy named Bush. Heck, Jeb may not run for eight years now. You know they’re the party of small government and reduced spending. If it hadn’t been for George Bush, you’d have seen. They’re the party of the little guy; golly, if you’re a small farmer worth only eight or ten million bucks and being subsidized by the Department of Agriculture, they’re all for you and your family. Can’t we just let bygones be bygones?
It was Bush – and Cheney and Rumsfeld – who did it. Don’t blame us; we’ve got some small government candidates we want you to consider in ’08, and we’ll build you a bridge to nowhere while we’re at it.
Maybe I was dreaming. Maybe all those people who six months ago were calling us cutters and runners and who have now turned on Bush really weren’t responsible for any of this mess. Right! Never happened.
Blog on!
Wild Bill
The neoconservatives were obviously betrayed by the big three. Rummy never followed the script of sending in enough troops or setting up a real national democracy. It’s obvious from a review of the Doug Feith conspiracy papers (on which the Cheney charges of treason against those of us opposed to the fiasco were based) stating that there was an al Qaeda operative in every Baathist office in Baghdad, so we should have had enough troops to arrest every government employee in the country. Never happened.
The real conservatives said all along that the Powell Doctrine of overwhelming force was not followed, so we can’t blame them. Never happened.
The evangelicals were merely supporting the president in pursuing a war of values. How can you doubt that there were a whole heck of a lot of evil people in Iraq and killing a million of them and letting God sort them out was very good thing, so we can’t blame the evangelicals; there really were lions eating the good folks. Never happened.
Obviously, no Republicans – other than Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld – are responsible for what happened, so now that our sinuses have been cleared by last month’s, why can’t we just move on?
Sure, almost all of the Republicans – and a lot of wimpy Democrats - voted to let Bush handle Saddam, but, like I said, they thought he’d do it right. And he didn’t, so how can we hold them responsible? Never happened.
Damn, they reduced my taxes by sixty bucks and up to a thou on the rest of you in the middle class. Why can’t you thank them? Real wages fell, but, hell, the economy’s growing and we should be cheering as the stars like the Waltons pocket their billions. In the Great Depression when we were all broke and out of work, didn’t we love it when the silver screen showed the winners? Why can’t we just cheer The Donald and make him our surrogate in the winner’s circle?
Looks to me like I’m a bad sport; instead of saying we’ve got punish those people who enabled all these fiascos, I should be looking beyond Bush and giving the Republicans the benefit of the doubt in 2008. They are not going to nominate a guy named Bush. Heck, Jeb may not run for eight years now. You know they’re the party of small government and reduced spending. If it hadn’t been for George Bush, you’d have seen. They’re the party of the little guy; golly, if you’re a small farmer worth only eight or ten million bucks and being subsidized by the Department of Agriculture, they’re all for you and your family. Can’t we just let bygones be bygones?
It was Bush – and Cheney and Rumsfeld – who did it. Don’t blame us; we’ve got some small government candidates we want you to consider in ’08, and we’ll build you a bridge to nowhere while we’re at it.
Maybe I was dreaming. Maybe all those people who six months ago were calling us cutters and runners and who have now turned on Bush really weren’t responsible for any of this mess. Right! Never happened.
Blog on!
Wild Bill
Sunday, December 03, 2006
Rest Easy
They say there is never any good news. This column from today’s Washington Post puts that canard to rest. This is one of the most touching stories I have ever read and couldn’t wait to share it.
The author, Marc Fisher, is a columnist for the Metro Section of the Post. This such an extraodinary piece that I can't believe that it wasn't placed in the Main news or Outlook sections.
I know I'm building this up but assure you that the subject is heroic and the presentation perfect.
Wild Bill
---------------------------------------------------------------------
By Marc Fisher
Sunday, December 3, 2006; Page C01
E very year for more than a decade, at the height of the season, Morrill Worcester would pack up a truckload of his Christmas wreaths and head down from Maine to Arlington National Cemetery. Without fanfare, he and a dozen or so volunteers would lay red-bowed wreaths on a few thousand headstones of fallen Americans.
There was no publicity. No crowds gathered. The gesture was one man's private duty, born of a trip to Washington he won as a 12-year-old paperboy. Of all the monuments and memorials he saw, it was the visit to Arlington that stuck with him -- the majesty and mystery, the sadness and the pride, the sight of all those neat rows of government-issue white headstones.
Years later, after he had started his Christmas products business, at the crunch point of one season Worcester asked some men who were building his new factory to find some wreaths and buy them for him.
They went a bit overboard: When Worcester heard that he was the proud owner of 4,000 wreaths that couldn't possibly be sold by Christmas, he called a friend who owned a trucking company, contacted his senator in Washington and, two weeks before Christmas 1992, was at Arlington, laying wreaths.
It seemed like the right thing to do. So he continued the ritual each year, honoring those who had died so that he and other Americans might live as they saw fit.
Then, a few months ago, the e-mails started. Maybe you got one: a heart-wrenching yet elegant image of Worcester's wreaths, each adorned with a simple red ribbon, resting in front of seemingly endless rows of identical gravestones on a snowy day at Arlington. Beneath the photo, a few lines of poetry:
"Rest easy, sleep well my brothers.
Know the line has held, your job is done.
Rest easy, sleep well . . . "
And then just a paragraph about Worcester's annual pilgrimage.
The e-mail became an Internet phenomenon, forwarded so many times that the professional skeptics who spend their time checking out urban legends at Snopes.com mounted an investigation. Sure enough, this was the real deal.
A week from today, Worcester will leave Columbia Falls, Maine, to lead the trailer full of wreaths down the coast. This time, it won't be just the trucker, Worcester and his wife, Karen. This time, there'll be an escort of a couple hundred Patriot Guard Riders, a national group of motorcyclists who take it upon themselves to display their respect for fallen service members.
This time, Worcester and friends won't barrel down the interstate; they're taking the slow road, Route 1, so that more motorcyclists -- perhaps thousands more -- might join the caravan.
This time, the wreath-laying won't be a private affair. Instead of the 10 or 12 volunteers who had been rounded up in past years by Wayne Hanson, a retired federal law enforcement officer who lives in Springfield, at least 500 people will be ready to help lay the wreaths Dec. 14 -- and maybe many more.
Morrill Worcester, who never served in the military, said of the wreath-laying project he started: "This is the least we can do." (By Gregory Rec -- Portland Press Herald)
Raw Fisher
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There will be a busload of school kids from Skowhegan, Maine, a Civil Air Patrol unit from up that way and all manner of Washington-area volunteers, too.
They're still calling, every day. "It's the e-mail that did this," says Hanson, 62, an Army veteran of the Vietnam War. He got involved with the wreaths in 1993, when Worcester sought help from the Maine State Society, a Falls Church-based group of transplants. "I had a man call from Iraq, a civilian contractor who got his company to give him R&R so he could come back and lay a wreath."
Every year, the superintendent of the cemetery assigns the wreath brigade to a different part of the grounds. Last year, the volunteers completed their circuit of the cemetery, and this Christmas, they start all over again.
Every year, Worcester makes certain to reserve a few wreaths for the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, the John and Robert Kennedy gravesites, the memorial to the USS Maine and the resting place of Sen. Edmund Muskie of Maine.
Even as his personal ritual morphs into something much larger, Worcester, 56, wants to ensure that its original purpose remains. "It's just my way to say thank you," he says. "I've got a lot to be thankful for." When he started Worcester Wreaths in 1971, he sold 500 wreaths. This year, that number will top 500,000, mostly to the Maine-based retailer L.L. Bean.
This time of year, the wreath company employs more than 600 people in Harrington, about 45 miles up the coast from Bar Harbor.
Worcester has always returned the checks that people send him. The wreath-laying is his personal statement: "This is the least we can do."
Everyone connected with the wreath project takes pains to note that it has nothing to do with politics, nothing to do with anyone's opinion about Iraq or terrorism.
"It's just a way to pay respect," Hanson says. "When I came home from Vietnam, well, it wasn't the best time to be in the military, or to be coming home. But this -- it brings tears to my eyes to see 5,000 wreaths laid out across those white government headstones. You can't think about anything but that ultimate sacrifice these people made to give us our freedom."
This year, the interest in Worcester's project has exploded to the point that he had to find some way to extend the tribute, so he has launched http://wreathsacrossamerica.org, a Web site that coordinates similar rituals at more than 200 military cemeteries around the country.
"The veterans are going to get their due," says Worcester, who never served in the military. "It's going to be quite something."
E-mail:marcfisher@washpost.com
Blog!
Wild Bill
The author, Marc Fisher, is a columnist for the Metro Section of the Post. This such an extraodinary piece that I can't believe that it wasn't placed in the Main news or Outlook sections.
I know I'm building this up but assure you that the subject is heroic and the presentation perfect.
Wild Bill
---------------------------------------------------------------------
By Marc Fisher
Sunday, December 3, 2006; Page C01
E very year for more than a decade, at the height of the season, Morrill Worcester would pack up a truckload of his Christmas wreaths and head down from Maine to Arlington National Cemetery. Without fanfare, he and a dozen or so volunteers would lay red-bowed wreaths on a few thousand headstones of fallen Americans.
There was no publicity. No crowds gathered. The gesture was one man's private duty, born of a trip to Washington he won as a 12-year-old paperboy. Of all the monuments and memorials he saw, it was the visit to Arlington that stuck with him -- the majesty and mystery, the sadness and the pride, the sight of all those neat rows of government-issue white headstones.
Years later, after he had started his Christmas products business, at the crunch point of one season Worcester asked some men who were building his new factory to find some wreaths and buy them for him.
They went a bit overboard: When Worcester heard that he was the proud owner of 4,000 wreaths that couldn't possibly be sold by Christmas, he called a friend who owned a trucking company, contacted his senator in Washington and, two weeks before Christmas 1992, was at Arlington, laying wreaths.
It seemed like the right thing to do. So he continued the ritual each year, honoring those who had died so that he and other Americans might live as they saw fit.
Then, a few months ago, the e-mails started. Maybe you got one: a heart-wrenching yet elegant image of Worcester's wreaths, each adorned with a simple red ribbon, resting in front of seemingly endless rows of identical gravestones on a snowy day at Arlington. Beneath the photo, a few lines of poetry:
"Rest easy, sleep well my brothers.
Know the line has held, your job is done.
Rest easy, sleep well . . . "
And then just a paragraph about Worcester's annual pilgrimage.
The e-mail became an Internet phenomenon, forwarded so many times that the professional skeptics who spend their time checking out urban legends at Snopes.com mounted an investigation. Sure enough, this was the real deal.
A week from today, Worcester will leave Columbia Falls, Maine, to lead the trailer full of wreaths down the coast. This time, it won't be just the trucker, Worcester and his wife, Karen. This time, there'll be an escort of a couple hundred Patriot Guard Riders, a national group of motorcyclists who take it upon themselves to display their respect for fallen service members.
This time, Worcester and friends won't barrel down the interstate; they're taking the slow road, Route 1, so that more motorcyclists -- perhaps thousands more -- might join the caravan.
This time, the wreath-laying won't be a private affair. Instead of the 10 or 12 volunteers who had been rounded up in past years by Wayne Hanson, a retired federal law enforcement officer who lives in Springfield, at least 500 people will be ready to help lay the wreaths Dec. 14 -- and maybe many more.
Morrill Worcester, who never served in the military, said of the wreath-laying project he started: "This is the least we can do." (By Gregory Rec -- Portland Press Herald)
Raw Fisher
Post Blog:
Get metro columnist Marc Fisher many times a day.
Live Online
Thursday, Nov. 16, 11:45 a.m. ET:Potomac Confidential
Thursday, Nov. 16, 11:45 a.m. ET:Potomac Confidential
Thursday, Nov. 9, Noon ET:Potomac Confidential
Transcript:Campaign 2006: Local Races
Transcript:Potomac Confidential
More Stories
Who's Blogging?
Read what bloggers are saying about this article.
Below The Beltway
Full List of Blogs (1 links) »
Most Blogged About Articles
On washingtonpost.com | On the web
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There will be a busload of school kids from Skowhegan, Maine, a Civil Air Patrol unit from up that way and all manner of Washington-area volunteers, too.
They're still calling, every day. "It's the e-mail that did this," says Hanson, 62, an Army veteran of the Vietnam War. He got involved with the wreaths in 1993, when Worcester sought help from the Maine State Society, a Falls Church-based group of transplants. "I had a man call from Iraq, a civilian contractor who got his company to give him R&R so he could come back and lay a wreath."
Every year, the superintendent of the cemetery assigns the wreath brigade to a different part of the grounds. Last year, the volunteers completed their circuit of the cemetery, and this Christmas, they start all over again.
Every year, Worcester makes certain to reserve a few wreaths for the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, the John and Robert Kennedy gravesites, the memorial to the USS Maine and the resting place of Sen. Edmund Muskie of Maine.
Even as his personal ritual morphs into something much larger, Worcester, 56, wants to ensure that its original purpose remains. "It's just my way to say thank you," he says. "I've got a lot to be thankful for." When he started Worcester Wreaths in 1971, he sold 500 wreaths. This year, that number will top 500,000, mostly to the Maine-based retailer L.L. Bean.
This time of year, the wreath company employs more than 600 people in Harrington, about 45 miles up the coast from Bar Harbor.
Worcester has always returned the checks that people send him. The wreath-laying is his personal statement: "This is the least we can do."
Everyone connected with the wreath project takes pains to note that it has nothing to do with politics, nothing to do with anyone's opinion about Iraq or terrorism.
"It's just a way to pay respect," Hanson says. "When I came home from Vietnam, well, it wasn't the best time to be in the military, or to be coming home. But this -- it brings tears to my eyes to see 5,000 wreaths laid out across those white government headstones. You can't think about anything but that ultimate sacrifice these people made to give us our freedom."
This year, the interest in Worcester's project has exploded to the point that he had to find some way to extend the tribute, so he has launched http://wreathsacrossamerica.org, a Web site that coordinates similar rituals at more than 200 military cemeteries around the country.
"The veterans are going to get their due," says Worcester, who never served in the military. "It's going to be quite something."
E-mail:marcfisher@washpost.com
Blog!
Wild Bill
Saturday, December 02, 2006
James Webb, U.S. Senator-elect
I supported the candidacy of James Webb for United States Senator from Virginia. I worked for his election, harder than some but not nearly as diligently as others. I’m happy that he won. But something happened this week that is very bothersome.
Jim Webb was invited to the White House for a reception for incoming members of congress. As a newly elected senator to be, Mr. Webb would be one of the stars of the show. Reports of the event indicate that Jim appeared to make a point of avoiding the host, the President of the United States.
During the course of the reception, it is reported that the president made a point of finding and engaging Mr. Webb and that Mr. Webb reacted in a manner that was reported to be unusual, if not confrontational. Mr. Webb is reported to have avoided having his picture taken with his host and in making smart remarks about that.
The president asked about Mr. Webb’s son who is serving in Iraq, and Webb is reported to have responded with something akin to, “That’s between my son and me.”
Naturally, a food fight of that nature was reported in the press, and I among many was shocked by Mr. Webb’s performance. George Will opined that the senator-elect’s performance was boorish, and I – again among many – agreed.
Many of Webb’s supporters rushed to his defense with such arguments as that it was about time someone shook the hypocrisy out of politics and told the emperor that his fig leaf had been dropped or that Webb’s campaign was based on straight talk and that anything else would have been phony.
Mr. Webb, in my view, was right on target during his campaign when he denounced the Iraq War. His views and mine were almost exactly the same on the most important issue – and as far as I can see on many others that were addressed in the election. Despite having been a long time Republican, Mr. Webb made himself available to the Democrats to run against George Allen, primarily because of his rejection of the invasion of Iraq and the new course of the larger war on terror being pursued by George Bush.
I was a registered Republican in 2000 and voted for Bush. Like Webb, I broke with Mr. Bush and the Republicans when the war on terror lost its focus by shifting away from Afghanistan, its Taliban rulers who were harboring al Qaeda, and the terrorists themselves who were planning and training in that country.
My disgust with the president and his congressional enablers was as palpable as that of Jim Webb, and I became an avowed critic of the president and his war. While having zero knowledge of Webb’s evolution, when I found out he was running and his policy positions, I was very pleased since I had trod virtually the same path.
My break with Bush and the Republicans was eased by my view that in the president I had voted for a `uniter not a divider’ but had been sorely disappointed to learn that I was just plain wrong in this. Mr. Bush had turned out to be the worst kind of partisan, and I was going to look for candidates who would restore some sense of civility to government. During the campaign I came to believe that Jim Webb was such a person. While he pulled no punches in his opposition to the war, his interaction with his opponent, Senator Allen, was always civil, far more honest, and almost devoid of the mud being thrown at him.
Many of the people defending Mr. Webb for his alleged faux pas are those from the liberal part of the coalition that elected him. Many of these same people were angered by the heat of the charges by Senator Allen, and they were the ones calling for civility.
Mr. Webb is obviously far more conservative than the left wing of the Democratic Party. He and many others recruited to be candidates by the Democrats were far more centrist than the hard core, and this was acknowledged by virtually everyone associated with the campaign.
I am a Democrat – now – and far more centrist than the vast majority of his Northern Virginia supporters. Almost every analysis that I have perused since the election leads me to conclude that Mr. Webb’s narrow victory was based on votes garnered from Democrat centrists, moderate Republicans, and independents.
I am convinced that Mr. Webb made gross mistake in attending the function at the White House with the intent of avoiding the host and in responding badly to a very civil question concerning the well being of his son. Obviously, it is acceptable to say things in the course of a campaign that are not appropriate in the home of a political opponent. If Mr. Webb cannot abide the person of George Bush, he should not have attended the reception. His absence would not have created nearly the stir as his performance.
I continue to support Senator elect Webb and wish him well. He is a man of significant intellect and is far more honest in thought than most people in public life. But if there are many more repeats of the performance at his first White House reception, the narrow victory that came with the building of a coalition built on civility as well as policy positions will quickly erode.
I am angrier with Webb’s overzealous supporters who have the gall to encourage such behavior than with the senator elect who should be given room to back down gracefully. Their partisanship is showing, and they ought to realize that the great victory by their candidate – and mine – was built on far more than bad manners and incivility.
There, I feel better. I hope we can move on.
Blog on!
Wild Bill
Jim Webb was invited to the White House for a reception for incoming members of congress. As a newly elected senator to be, Mr. Webb would be one of the stars of the show. Reports of the event indicate that Jim appeared to make a point of avoiding the host, the President of the United States.
During the course of the reception, it is reported that the president made a point of finding and engaging Mr. Webb and that Mr. Webb reacted in a manner that was reported to be unusual, if not confrontational. Mr. Webb is reported to have avoided having his picture taken with his host and in making smart remarks about that.
The president asked about Mr. Webb’s son who is serving in Iraq, and Webb is reported to have responded with something akin to, “That’s between my son and me.”
Naturally, a food fight of that nature was reported in the press, and I among many was shocked by Mr. Webb’s performance. George Will opined that the senator-elect’s performance was boorish, and I – again among many – agreed.
Many of Webb’s supporters rushed to his defense with such arguments as that it was about time someone shook the hypocrisy out of politics and told the emperor that his fig leaf had been dropped or that Webb’s campaign was based on straight talk and that anything else would have been phony.
Mr. Webb, in my view, was right on target during his campaign when he denounced the Iraq War. His views and mine were almost exactly the same on the most important issue – and as far as I can see on many others that were addressed in the election. Despite having been a long time Republican, Mr. Webb made himself available to the Democrats to run against George Allen, primarily because of his rejection of the invasion of Iraq and the new course of the larger war on terror being pursued by George Bush.
I was a registered Republican in 2000 and voted for Bush. Like Webb, I broke with Mr. Bush and the Republicans when the war on terror lost its focus by shifting away from Afghanistan, its Taliban rulers who were harboring al Qaeda, and the terrorists themselves who were planning and training in that country.
My disgust with the president and his congressional enablers was as palpable as that of Jim Webb, and I became an avowed critic of the president and his war. While having zero knowledge of Webb’s evolution, when I found out he was running and his policy positions, I was very pleased since I had trod virtually the same path.
My break with Bush and the Republicans was eased by my view that in the president I had voted for a `uniter not a divider’ but had been sorely disappointed to learn that I was just plain wrong in this. Mr. Bush had turned out to be the worst kind of partisan, and I was going to look for candidates who would restore some sense of civility to government. During the campaign I came to believe that Jim Webb was such a person. While he pulled no punches in his opposition to the war, his interaction with his opponent, Senator Allen, was always civil, far more honest, and almost devoid of the mud being thrown at him.
Many of the people defending Mr. Webb for his alleged faux pas are those from the liberal part of the coalition that elected him. Many of these same people were angered by the heat of the charges by Senator Allen, and they were the ones calling for civility.
Mr. Webb is obviously far more conservative than the left wing of the Democratic Party. He and many others recruited to be candidates by the Democrats were far more centrist than the hard core, and this was acknowledged by virtually everyone associated with the campaign.
I am a Democrat – now – and far more centrist than the vast majority of his Northern Virginia supporters. Almost every analysis that I have perused since the election leads me to conclude that Mr. Webb’s narrow victory was based on votes garnered from Democrat centrists, moderate Republicans, and independents.
I am convinced that Mr. Webb made gross mistake in attending the function at the White House with the intent of avoiding the host and in responding badly to a very civil question concerning the well being of his son. Obviously, it is acceptable to say things in the course of a campaign that are not appropriate in the home of a political opponent. If Mr. Webb cannot abide the person of George Bush, he should not have attended the reception. His absence would not have created nearly the stir as his performance.
I continue to support Senator elect Webb and wish him well. He is a man of significant intellect and is far more honest in thought than most people in public life. But if there are many more repeats of the performance at his first White House reception, the narrow victory that came with the building of a coalition built on civility as well as policy positions will quickly erode.
I am angrier with Webb’s overzealous supporters who have the gall to encourage such behavior than with the senator elect who should be given room to back down gracefully. Their partisanship is showing, and they ought to realize that the great victory by their candidate – and mine – was built on far more than bad manners and incivility.
There, I feel better. I hope we can move on.
Blog on!
Wild Bill
Wednesday, November 29, 2006
Seventeen!
Seventeen! That’s assuming that none of the angels is obese by U.S. Department of Health and Human Services standards and that the pin head has not been hammered into a wider platform than Bureau of Standards tolerances permit. Now that we’ve settled that age old conundrum, maybe we can address the pressing issue on our national agenda: is Iraq now in a civil war?
This morning, Tony Snow can be seen pouring over Webster in a hundred snapshots posted in dozens of newspapers as he rails, “Is not!” The Los Angeles Times, NBC, and a sizeable portion of the media scream back in unison, “Is too!”
Across the country, we’re being treated to a medieval fest to determine for all time just who is responsible for what happens in Iraq. The White House is leading the charge that Iraqis are in charge of their destiny and even Democrats are joining on the side of the president. Carl Levin of Michigan and dozens of others are screaming for air time with their versions of the `Iraqis are going to have to stop the sectarian violence or call a halt to their civil war.’ We gurus of the Middle Ages just haven’t heard enough of these arguments to establish with finality just what kind of a fray we’re in over there.
In today’s Washington Post, Bruce Hoffman of Georgetown University takes this question and dozens of related ones and boils them down into a renaissance style cut through the baloney opinion. We’re in the beginning stages of a national search for `who lost Iraq?’ As we prepare to bug back out of Baghdad, the fig leaf de jour that the president is holding to hide his imperial nakedness is that the elected Iraqi officials are going to have to wind up without a chair when the music stops.
I’m with Carl and the Dems in agreeing with the president. We’ve got to do what we’ve got to do to provide the kid with an escape route. The president’s latest truism is that al Qaeda is behind the sectarian violence (or civil war). I have no idea if that’s correct or not, but is this something the president should be really spouting? Al Qaeda is, according to the president, our mortal enemy and what would a normal person expect from such a source? Mass surrender maybe? The crazy thought that ran through theologically challenged brain was, “Isn’t this kind of like blaming the Nazis for the Battle of the Bulge?” It’s what they do. You have to wipe them out. Or rather, the Iraqis have to kill them all.
It appears that we’re assembling everyone who had anything to do with Iraq – Iraqis, Americans, neocons, Don Rumsfeld, the CIA, Dick Cheney and thousands of others - and organizing them in a huge circle in the Pentagon parking lot. When everyone is posed and pointing in both directions, then from the roof we’ll snap the group shot of who lost Iraq. It’s kind of like the old Miller light beer commercial in which great big former football players traded the shouted bards, “Less filling!” and “Tastes Great!”
But we careful medieval theologians will ponder this for years on end before we get to the `seventeen’ of this great question. Only then will we pronounce the final answer. (But I‘ll let you in on a secret; the answer to who lost Iraq is George Herbert Walker Bush.) President Bush 41 by failing to topple Saddam during the Gulf War laid down an irresistible challenge to George W. Bush. “You can’t top me, ever, twerp!” Daddy made him do it.
You read it here first.
Blog on!
Wild Bill
This morning, Tony Snow can be seen pouring over Webster in a hundred snapshots posted in dozens of newspapers as he rails, “Is not!” The Los Angeles Times, NBC, and a sizeable portion of the media scream back in unison, “Is too!”
Across the country, we’re being treated to a medieval fest to determine for all time just who is responsible for what happens in Iraq. The White House is leading the charge that Iraqis are in charge of their destiny and even Democrats are joining on the side of the president. Carl Levin of Michigan and dozens of others are screaming for air time with their versions of the `Iraqis are going to have to stop the sectarian violence or call a halt to their civil war.’ We gurus of the Middle Ages just haven’t heard enough of these arguments to establish with finality just what kind of a fray we’re in over there.
In today’s Washington Post, Bruce Hoffman of Georgetown University takes this question and dozens of related ones and boils them down into a renaissance style cut through the baloney opinion. We’re in the beginning stages of a national search for `who lost Iraq?’ As we prepare to bug back out of Baghdad, the fig leaf de jour that the president is holding to hide his imperial nakedness is that the elected Iraqi officials are going to have to wind up without a chair when the music stops.
I’m with Carl and the Dems in agreeing with the president. We’ve got to do what we’ve got to do to provide the kid with an escape route. The president’s latest truism is that al Qaeda is behind the sectarian violence (or civil war). I have no idea if that’s correct or not, but is this something the president should be really spouting? Al Qaeda is, according to the president, our mortal enemy and what would a normal person expect from such a source? Mass surrender maybe? The crazy thought that ran through theologically challenged brain was, “Isn’t this kind of like blaming the Nazis for the Battle of the Bulge?” It’s what they do. You have to wipe them out. Or rather, the Iraqis have to kill them all.
It appears that we’re assembling everyone who had anything to do with Iraq – Iraqis, Americans, neocons, Don Rumsfeld, the CIA, Dick Cheney and thousands of others - and organizing them in a huge circle in the Pentagon parking lot. When everyone is posed and pointing in both directions, then from the roof we’ll snap the group shot of who lost Iraq. It’s kind of like the old Miller light beer commercial in which great big former football players traded the shouted bards, “Less filling!” and “Tastes Great!”
But we careful medieval theologians will ponder this for years on end before we get to the `seventeen’ of this great question. Only then will we pronounce the final answer. (But I‘ll let you in on a secret; the answer to who lost Iraq is George Herbert Walker Bush.) President Bush 41 by failing to topple Saddam during the Gulf War laid down an irresistible challenge to George W. Bush. “You can’t top me, ever, twerp!” Daddy made him do it.
You read it here first.
Blog on!
Wild Bill
Friday, November 24, 2006
The Decider's Dubius Decision
Words uttered can never be recalled. If they could, Mel Gibson and Michael Richards would move heaven and earth to change recent events. Actually, we’ve all said things we regret, and, thankfully, with the passage of time and the understanding of those we’ve offended or hurt the impacts have faded. But Richards and Gibson are celebrities and their words went round the world, and they’ll never again be received by their publics in the way they were prior to the transgressions.
Decisions often have similar impact. We ordinary mortals can often move on after making some of our bad decisions and, even if they change our lives, some, even many, bad moves don’t destroy us. But really important decisions made by powerful people can be destructive on their institutions, nations and even the world and by extension destroy them. History and literature are filled with examples going back to the times when deeds and decisions were first recorded.
History seems to be making a comeback in the upper reaches of the government of the U.S. Don Rumsfeld’s last bit public advice was for folks to read history. Leading American generals are now reading the history of Vietnam to seek guidance for our forces in Iraq, and even George Bush may be getting in on the act. The president is famous (or notorious) for not being a reader, but in recent days there have been hints that he’s read – or been briefed – on important events in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War. Recently, he addressed similarities between the Tet Offensive and our present situation in Iraq.
It is very good that we look to history for lessons that might apply in our circumstances any time we are involved with great ventures, but it’s usually better to do the reading before the deciding. I’m a great fan of history – but not a scholar by any means – and have a healthy respect for what happened in the past as a guide for proposed action. That’s not to say I’m in any way an historicist who sees inevitability in the march of time. In my eighth decade, the world’s experience with Karl Marx’s historicist view of the inevitability of history has lowered the absolutes in this department.
But when big deciders do their thing, the rest of the world better watch out. Hitler, another historicist, decided on war and some sixty million people died. He stuck with his decisions, but in the long run he didn’t have enough resources to win. On the other side of the ocean, Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt made the strategic decisions that ultimately did the Nazis in.
On March 5, 2006, a posting on this blog “The Die is Cast” described one of the most fateful decisions ever made and examined not only the impact of the determination but also the immediate impact of it on the decision maker. Again, I’m an amateur historian so I’m not going spend hours on my references, but as Tricky Dick Nixon used to plead, “Trust me.”
The Die is Cast is a case study of an extraordinary decision, in this case General Dwight Eisenhower’s decision to go forward with the D-Day invasion on June 6, 1944. In short, the invasion was predicated on two major elements: surprise (as to place and time) and on the tides in Normandy. You may recall that a major storm system was battering the coast of France during the days leading up to the narrow window of time when the tides would be appropriate for the landings. If the invasion were to be called off until the next favorable tides some weeks later, the element of surprise might well be lost, and a whole host of logistical problems, including loading up all the men and equipment, that had successfully accomplished might not go nearly as well a second time.
The invasion, perhaps even the war and the future of civilization, hung in the balance. One man alone, Dwight Eisenhower, was charged with the responsibility for the go or no go decision. The story is old, subordinate commanders awaited Ike’s word, Tens of thousands of soldiers, sailors and airmen from the U.S., Great Britain, Canada and other allied nations were fully armed and ready onboard the ships of the greatest armada in human history. Eisenhower was the single most powerful man on the planet that day. Everything depended on his decision.
We all know Ike made the decision, the invasion succeeded, the third front was opened and Hitler’s armies were doomed. But it could have turned out differently had the storm had not abated. But the great and fateful decision was made and the entire venture was no longer in Ike’s hands. Even he could not recall the effort. Once made, on imperfect information like most important decisions, there was no way to undo it. Nine thousand Americans died on the beaches and, had it been a bad one, many more would have succumbed. Yet the switch pulled, Ike was now little more than a powerless observer. But, as I said and as we all know, we won!
So George Bush, that poor student of history, was faced with the decision to send allied forces into Iraq in March of 2003. In the weeks and months leading to the invasion, tens of thousands of troops, many ships, and hundreds of planes made ready to sweep through Iraq and into Baghdad. George Bush always the most powerful man on the planet during his presidency had much of his might focused on one small part of the planet. He alone would make the go/no go decision.
Eisenhower had thought deeply on his responsibility and had even prepared a note to his president and the peoples of the allied nations assuming full responsibility for the failure of the invasion. He knew his role and responsibility and the pros and cons of his decision. He knew that had it been a bad decision that thousands of soldiers and sailors would have died in vain and as would perhaps even more millions of people on the European continent who were waiting for the third front. It was almost certain that had the invasion failed the war would have ended later and with many more deaths. It might have ended with a settlement rather than unconditionally. Ike knew all that as he mulled his choices.
It appears that George Bush did not think long and hard on the consequences of anything but a happy outcome of his great decision. All of the long term implications and possibilities seem not to have been taken into account. The history and sociology of the society about to be invaded appears in retrospect to have been ignored. The most powerful man in the world was about to unleash the most potent force ever assembled. But in his personal hubris, all of the voices being raised in protest of the attack were about to be ignored.
The decision was made; the invasion took place; and Saddam’s government was easily toppled. George Bush’s decision was heralded, “Mission accomplished.”
Not so fast! In the blink of an eye, we became the occupiers of a broken country. George Bush went from being the most powerful man in Iraq to a captive of the situation. His presidency was doomed, and the self proclaimed `decider’ was caught in his own web.
Yes indeed, read that history but on the front end, damn it!
Blog on!
Wild Bill
Decisions often have similar impact. We ordinary mortals can often move on after making some of our bad decisions and, even if they change our lives, some, even many, bad moves don’t destroy us. But really important decisions made by powerful people can be destructive on their institutions, nations and even the world and by extension destroy them. History and literature are filled with examples going back to the times when deeds and decisions were first recorded.
History seems to be making a comeback in the upper reaches of the government of the U.S. Don Rumsfeld’s last bit public advice was for folks to read history. Leading American generals are now reading the history of Vietnam to seek guidance for our forces in Iraq, and even George Bush may be getting in on the act. The president is famous (or notorious) for not being a reader, but in recent days there have been hints that he’s read – or been briefed – on important events in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War. Recently, he addressed similarities between the Tet Offensive and our present situation in Iraq.
It is very good that we look to history for lessons that might apply in our circumstances any time we are involved with great ventures, but it’s usually better to do the reading before the deciding. I’m a great fan of history – but not a scholar by any means – and have a healthy respect for what happened in the past as a guide for proposed action. That’s not to say I’m in any way an historicist who sees inevitability in the march of time. In my eighth decade, the world’s experience with Karl Marx’s historicist view of the inevitability of history has lowered the absolutes in this department.
But when big deciders do their thing, the rest of the world better watch out. Hitler, another historicist, decided on war and some sixty million people died. He stuck with his decisions, but in the long run he didn’t have enough resources to win. On the other side of the ocean, Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt made the strategic decisions that ultimately did the Nazis in.
On March 5, 2006, a posting on this blog “The Die is Cast” described one of the most fateful decisions ever made and examined not only the impact of the determination but also the immediate impact of it on the decision maker. Again, I’m an amateur historian so I’m not going spend hours on my references, but as Tricky Dick Nixon used to plead, “Trust me.”
The Die is Cast is a case study of an extraordinary decision, in this case General Dwight Eisenhower’s decision to go forward with the D-Day invasion on June 6, 1944. In short, the invasion was predicated on two major elements: surprise (as to place and time) and on the tides in Normandy. You may recall that a major storm system was battering the coast of France during the days leading up to the narrow window of time when the tides would be appropriate for the landings. If the invasion were to be called off until the next favorable tides some weeks later, the element of surprise might well be lost, and a whole host of logistical problems, including loading up all the men and equipment, that had successfully accomplished might not go nearly as well a second time.
The invasion, perhaps even the war and the future of civilization, hung in the balance. One man alone, Dwight Eisenhower, was charged with the responsibility for the go or no go decision. The story is old, subordinate commanders awaited Ike’s word, Tens of thousands of soldiers, sailors and airmen from the U.S., Great Britain, Canada and other allied nations were fully armed and ready onboard the ships of the greatest armada in human history. Eisenhower was the single most powerful man on the planet that day. Everything depended on his decision.
We all know Ike made the decision, the invasion succeeded, the third front was opened and Hitler’s armies were doomed. But it could have turned out differently had the storm had not abated. But the great and fateful decision was made and the entire venture was no longer in Ike’s hands. Even he could not recall the effort. Once made, on imperfect information like most important decisions, there was no way to undo it. Nine thousand Americans died on the beaches and, had it been a bad one, many more would have succumbed. Yet the switch pulled, Ike was now little more than a powerless observer. But, as I said and as we all know, we won!
So George Bush, that poor student of history, was faced with the decision to send allied forces into Iraq in March of 2003. In the weeks and months leading to the invasion, tens of thousands of troops, many ships, and hundreds of planes made ready to sweep through Iraq and into Baghdad. George Bush always the most powerful man on the planet during his presidency had much of his might focused on one small part of the planet. He alone would make the go/no go decision.
Eisenhower had thought deeply on his responsibility and had even prepared a note to his president and the peoples of the allied nations assuming full responsibility for the failure of the invasion. He knew his role and responsibility and the pros and cons of his decision. He knew that had it been a bad decision that thousands of soldiers and sailors would have died in vain and as would perhaps even more millions of people on the European continent who were waiting for the third front. It was almost certain that had the invasion failed the war would have ended later and with many more deaths. It might have ended with a settlement rather than unconditionally. Ike knew all that as he mulled his choices.
It appears that George Bush did not think long and hard on the consequences of anything but a happy outcome of his great decision. All of the long term implications and possibilities seem not to have been taken into account. The history and sociology of the society about to be invaded appears in retrospect to have been ignored. The most powerful man in the world was about to unleash the most potent force ever assembled. But in his personal hubris, all of the voices being raised in protest of the attack were about to be ignored.
The decision was made; the invasion took place; and Saddam’s government was easily toppled. George Bush’s decision was heralded, “Mission accomplished.”
Not so fast! In the blink of an eye, we became the occupiers of a broken country. George Bush went from being the most powerful man in Iraq to a captive of the situation. His presidency was doomed, and the self proclaimed `decider’ was caught in his own web.
Yes indeed, read that history but on the front end, damn it!
Blog on!
Wild Bill
Monday, November 20, 2006
Murphy's War, ISBN: 1-4241-3781-0
Happy day, my latest novel, Murphy’s War, ISBN: 1-4241-3781-0, is available for order from the online bookstore of Publish America. Visit www.publishamerica.com and click on the bookstore icon and type in my name, William Brennan or the title and you’ll see the new baby ready for your adoption.
The book is also listed on Amazon and the image of the cover can be expanded and viewed there. Unfortunately, it is not yet available for sale there, and the prices of those dealers promising early delivery are very high. The initial sales price offered by Publish America is below that which will be charged on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and in bookstores; it is really good to go. It may be a few weeks before Publish America can gear up to print and deliver but, guaranteed, it will be worth the short wait.
Murphy’s War is a completely fresh view of the internment of Japanese people living in the Western States during the early months of World War II. The story is unique in that it describes the horrible program from the point of view of government bureaucrats charged with implementing the effort rather than that of the victims. It is a character driven story that examines the life of Thomas Murphy who while coming of age becomes embroiled in this most controversial of programs.
Murphy, a Massachusetts native, is inspired by campaign appearances by Franklin Roosevelt to become one of the president’s `Whiz Kids’. Despite the remoteness of his goal, Murphy becomes a lawyer and obtains a reserve commission in the Judge Advocate General Corps of the Army.
In 1941, Tom is assigned to the Office of the Provost Marshall General – the military police – in Washington, DC and prepares to settle into the routine life of a young army attorney. But immediately he becomes involved in an interagency task force charged with identifying German, Italian and Japanese ethnics suspected of having ties with potential national enemies of the U.S. The task force is developing plans to intern these people should hostilities break out.
Soon after Pearl Harbor, the trap of the interment program is sprung on the task force, and the Provost Marshall General becomes one of the most rabid advocates of removing all ethnic Japanese from the West Coast. Both Tom and Sid Frank, his associate, are appalled. Frank argues so forcefully that he is transferred to the Pacific. Murphy, while suspected of treachery by his superiors, is thought to have been cowed into compliance with the office’s position.
Murphy visits one of the collecting camps in California and is shocked by the conditions. He makes his concerns known and a descending spiral in relations with his superiors begins. He is counseled and once more sent to west where he visits one of the most famous camps, Manzanar. While there, he innocently violates an order to not interact with the Japanese and is horrified by the internment. He is confronted by important army supporters of the program on the West Coast and threatened with court martial for his transgression.
Surprisingly, the reaction back in Washington is quite the opposite and Murphy is courted rather than punished, and he is ordered to give a presentation to key War Department officials on his observations on the West Coast. He protests that he will be unable to make his report on Western military preparations without describing his views on the internment. Every effort is made to browbeat him into making the report, but they come to believe that he is not trustworthy, and Murphy, too, is summarily exiled to the Pacific.
Justice Department officials who served on the task force with Murphy intervene on his behalf. En route, his orders are changed and he is ordered to Hawaii where he is assigned to the Territory’s military district. Delos Emmons, the Commanding General, is one of the true unsung heroes of the internment who has been fighting the notion that all ethnic Japanese should be removed from Hawaii and interned with their mainland counterparts.
In the months following the decisive naval Battle of Midway in June 1942 it becomes increasingly clear that Japanese forces will never be able to mount an attack on the U.S. West Coast and whatever weak intellectual underpinnings for the internment existed after the attack on Pearl Harbor become completely unreasonable and the program is obviously no longer tenable.
Forces opposed to the program ascend within the government and hard line supporters of the program are reassigned. Murphy follows his commanders from Hawaii to California where they assist in dismantling the program. Tom visits Manzanar again. He finds a completely different climate and rides back in a train to San Francisco with a man with whom he interacted during his initial visit. Tom is shocked into awareness that even though the Japanese are being allowed to return home their problems are far from over.
Murphy is sent to Washington to participate in a conference about the end of the program. On the way, he takes home leave and the dilemmas in his personal life are shakily resolved. During the conference, President Roosevelt dies and his role in the internment is considered. The war is winding down, and Murphy’s role in the main plot is resolved.
The secondary plot of his personal life runs in parallel with the primary story. As the book closes, Tom’s future, like most soon to be veterans, is bright, but in the end the reality is that he is a far less dashing figure than he perceived himself to be when the adventure began four years earlier. While changed by his experiences in this sad chapter in American history, Murphy can be seen to be influenced to act morally by the positive echoes of American Transcendentalism that are quietly evident throughout the novel and which have trickled into mainstream Irish American thought over the previous century.
Murphy’s War examines the actions of many of the historic characters involved in this sad episode and praise and blame are apportioned. The casual racial and ethnic prejudices in wartime America are clearly shown, and, for the first time, the reader can see how this travesty came about and how a small group of mean spirited but adroit people acting under cover of national hysteria can precipitate reprehensible actions that would be otherwise unthinkable.
I hope the story sounds intriguing. It was fun to research and is an easy read.
I haven’t advertised anything on this site until today. But today’s the day!
Read Murphy’s War. You’ll be glad you did, so will Wild Bill.
Blog on!
Wild Bill
The book is also listed on Amazon and the image of the cover can be expanded and viewed there. Unfortunately, it is not yet available for sale there, and the prices of those dealers promising early delivery are very high. The initial sales price offered by Publish America is below that which will be charged on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and in bookstores; it is really good to go. It may be a few weeks before Publish America can gear up to print and deliver but, guaranteed, it will be worth the short wait.
Murphy’s War is a completely fresh view of the internment of Japanese people living in the Western States during the early months of World War II. The story is unique in that it describes the horrible program from the point of view of government bureaucrats charged with implementing the effort rather than that of the victims. It is a character driven story that examines the life of Thomas Murphy who while coming of age becomes embroiled in this most controversial of programs.
Murphy, a Massachusetts native, is inspired by campaign appearances by Franklin Roosevelt to become one of the president’s `Whiz Kids’. Despite the remoteness of his goal, Murphy becomes a lawyer and obtains a reserve commission in the Judge Advocate General Corps of the Army.
In 1941, Tom is assigned to the Office of the Provost Marshall General – the military police – in Washington, DC and prepares to settle into the routine life of a young army attorney. But immediately he becomes involved in an interagency task force charged with identifying German, Italian and Japanese ethnics suspected of having ties with potential national enemies of the U.S. The task force is developing plans to intern these people should hostilities break out.
Soon after Pearl Harbor, the trap of the interment program is sprung on the task force, and the Provost Marshall General becomes one of the most rabid advocates of removing all ethnic Japanese from the West Coast. Both Tom and Sid Frank, his associate, are appalled. Frank argues so forcefully that he is transferred to the Pacific. Murphy, while suspected of treachery by his superiors, is thought to have been cowed into compliance with the office’s position.
Murphy visits one of the collecting camps in California and is shocked by the conditions. He makes his concerns known and a descending spiral in relations with his superiors begins. He is counseled and once more sent to west where he visits one of the most famous camps, Manzanar. While there, he innocently violates an order to not interact with the Japanese and is horrified by the internment. He is confronted by important army supporters of the program on the West Coast and threatened with court martial for his transgression.
Surprisingly, the reaction back in Washington is quite the opposite and Murphy is courted rather than punished, and he is ordered to give a presentation to key War Department officials on his observations on the West Coast. He protests that he will be unable to make his report on Western military preparations without describing his views on the internment. Every effort is made to browbeat him into making the report, but they come to believe that he is not trustworthy, and Murphy, too, is summarily exiled to the Pacific.
Justice Department officials who served on the task force with Murphy intervene on his behalf. En route, his orders are changed and he is ordered to Hawaii where he is assigned to the Territory’s military district. Delos Emmons, the Commanding General, is one of the true unsung heroes of the internment who has been fighting the notion that all ethnic Japanese should be removed from Hawaii and interned with their mainland counterparts.
In the months following the decisive naval Battle of Midway in June 1942 it becomes increasingly clear that Japanese forces will never be able to mount an attack on the U.S. West Coast and whatever weak intellectual underpinnings for the internment existed after the attack on Pearl Harbor become completely unreasonable and the program is obviously no longer tenable.
Forces opposed to the program ascend within the government and hard line supporters of the program are reassigned. Murphy follows his commanders from Hawaii to California where they assist in dismantling the program. Tom visits Manzanar again. He finds a completely different climate and rides back in a train to San Francisco with a man with whom he interacted during his initial visit. Tom is shocked into awareness that even though the Japanese are being allowed to return home their problems are far from over.
Murphy is sent to Washington to participate in a conference about the end of the program. On the way, he takes home leave and the dilemmas in his personal life are shakily resolved. During the conference, President Roosevelt dies and his role in the internment is considered. The war is winding down, and Murphy’s role in the main plot is resolved.
The secondary plot of his personal life runs in parallel with the primary story. As the book closes, Tom’s future, like most soon to be veterans, is bright, but in the end the reality is that he is a far less dashing figure than he perceived himself to be when the adventure began four years earlier. While changed by his experiences in this sad chapter in American history, Murphy can be seen to be influenced to act morally by the positive echoes of American Transcendentalism that are quietly evident throughout the novel and which have trickled into mainstream Irish American thought over the previous century.
Murphy’s War examines the actions of many of the historic characters involved in this sad episode and praise and blame are apportioned. The casual racial and ethnic prejudices in wartime America are clearly shown, and, for the first time, the reader can see how this travesty came about and how a small group of mean spirited but adroit people acting under cover of national hysteria can precipitate reprehensible actions that would be otherwise unthinkable.
I hope the story sounds intriguing. It was fun to research and is an easy read.
I haven’t advertised anything on this site until today. But today’s the day!
Read Murphy’s War. You’ll be glad you did, so will Wild Bill.
Blog on!
Wild Bill
Thursday, November 16, 2006
It's in the Genes
This is a great day for Wild Bill and his 800 readers. It seems that scientists are close to unraveling the DNA code of the Neanderthals and soon will be able to prove (or not) that some humans are indeed descended from these prehistoric humanoids.
For years, friends (is that the correct term?) have been comparing my stands on many issues to these long gone beings. Thankfully, from now on my answer will be that I’m simply a creature of my genes.
On the other hand, I’ve tossed the term Neanderthal around as a pejorative at some of the obviously low life creatures who cannot grasp the wisdom of the postings on this site. And there are some – more than you pure Homo sapiens will ever know - who persist in attempting to bludgeon the obvious truths of these objective essays. Now I understand; they really are Neanderthals, and I forgive them with unconditional love.
We live in wonderful times.
Blog on!
Wild Bill
For years, friends (is that the correct term?) have been comparing my stands on many issues to these long gone beings. Thankfully, from now on my answer will be that I’m simply a creature of my genes.
On the other hand, I’ve tossed the term Neanderthal around as a pejorative at some of the obviously low life creatures who cannot grasp the wisdom of the postings on this site. And there are some – more than you pure Homo sapiens will ever know - who persist in attempting to bludgeon the obvious truths of these objective essays. Now I understand; they really are Neanderthals, and I forgive them with unconditional love.
We live in wonderful times.
Blog on!
Wild Bill
Tuesday, November 14, 2006
Consistency is the Hobgoblin...
I’ve been pondering the personal dilemma dropped on me by that eminent wag, Steve Brennan of Ohio: how could I ever support the Democratic nominee for the president in 2008 after beating to death the argument that divided government is vitally important to the nation?
When this ethereal rag began its assault on the Republicans, my former party, all three elective power points – the presidency and both houses of congress – were firmly in the hands of the G.O.P. It was my constant thesis that the executive was grabbing power – excessively and well beyond both the norm and the constitutional limits – from the legislative and judicial branches.
In my last posting, I made light of the problem of divided government but in retrospect it is clearly more than the joke I made of it even though I’m still smarting from the entry wound where the dull blade of failed consistency entered my thorax.
A better answer to the wise guy would have included the word `balance’ as a major element. As blogging is a relatively new enterprise and since I’ve been at it only for a couple of years, my library of postings – forever recorded on the left of this page – goes back only to August 2004, but my friends and I have been debating the issue of division of power since at least the 1974 the constitutional crisis created by the behavior of President Nixon and his operatives in the Watergate scandal. Of course, the question has been one open to consideration and complaint since George Washington rode home to Mount Vernon.
The issue of divided government came up in the seventies when Nixon, as in the present situation, was perceived to have his party members in the Republican controlled congress under his thumb. The abuses of that period were so serious and notorious that Republicans in the congress turned on Nixon – as did even judges who had been appointed by Republican presidents – leading of course to the resignation of the president and criminal conviction of many of his closest associates.
The issue of presidential power enhancement was front and center at that time and among my earliest postings (August 2004) were discussions of the roles of my friends and me in the efforts to better coordinate the delivery of grants to state and local governments. There was also a posting on the minor role I played in the aftermath of Mr. Nixon’s resignation.
The bottom line is that while guilty of overzealous preaching on the benefits of and the need for divided government, my pleadings for such division cannot be made in a vacuum. We voters must balance the obvious benefits of divided government with the nature of the times, the likely tendencies toward abuse of power by one branch over the others, as well as the weight of the merits of the programs and the perceived talent, and character of the candidates. Even while admitting bias toward divided government this should not bind us to voting for a party or candidates whom we believe to be inferior in talent, character, or objectives.
For four years, I’ve been appalled by the preventive Iraq War and all of the abuses of power from the executive. (Surely a recitation of my many laments on these matters is not required here.) I have condemned the president and all of his advisors for leading us into this catastrophic blunder and decried the performance of the Republican congress that enabled the fiasco by failing miserably in its constitutional oversight responsibility.
My small role (I am taking full credit for 0.000001 percent of the responsibility for the Democratic victory in last week’s election – especially in the Virginia senate race, and I have friends who deserve far more.) in kicking the bums out gave me great pleasure and a feeling of successful activism.
It is the duty of voters to elect those who they believe will best further the interests of the United States and its republican form of government. To find myself turning away from a qualified Democrat presidential nominee only because the congress is in the hands of Democrats would be worse than irresponsible; it would be foolish. In 2008, it would be silly for me to vote for a neoconservative who was an aggressive enabler of President Bush’s efforts to remake the Middle East in our own likeness.
It is the role of the government of the United States to preserve protect and defend the people, the interests and the territory of the U.S. from all enemies foreign and domestic. That includes the belief that the government should act in the enlightened self interest of the nation by entering into alliances for collective security.
I remain in the camp of foreign policy realists and believe that the Iraq War represents the worst side of our government. Our government is duty bound to represent the interests of our people and nation and not high sounding ideals that lead us into traps such as Iraq.
Obviously, much of the rhetoric that got us into this mess was simply baloney. The grave mistake of preemption was made for more realistic reasons than those expressed. Clearly, if it were for purely altruistic purposes, we would already be fighting in places like Darfur.
The present administration and its many enablers in Congress have not yet been punished sufficiently for leading us into this horrible situation and for diverting our attention away from those who attacked our homeland. Should one of these enablers be nominated, I wouldn’t hesitate for a moment to vote for the Democratic nominee, the lesser problem – at this time – of division of government not withstanding. In fact, at this moment, my opening is that I’m going to have to be dissuaded from voting for the Democratic nominee.
So there, Ohio smart guy!
Blog on!
Wild Bill
When this ethereal rag began its assault on the Republicans, my former party, all three elective power points – the presidency and both houses of congress – were firmly in the hands of the G.O.P. It was my constant thesis that the executive was grabbing power – excessively and well beyond both the norm and the constitutional limits – from the legislative and judicial branches.
In my last posting, I made light of the problem of divided government but in retrospect it is clearly more than the joke I made of it even though I’m still smarting from the entry wound where the dull blade of failed consistency entered my thorax.
A better answer to the wise guy would have included the word `balance’ as a major element. As blogging is a relatively new enterprise and since I’ve been at it only for a couple of years, my library of postings – forever recorded on the left of this page – goes back only to August 2004, but my friends and I have been debating the issue of division of power since at least the 1974 the constitutional crisis created by the behavior of President Nixon and his operatives in the Watergate scandal. Of course, the question has been one open to consideration and complaint since George Washington rode home to Mount Vernon.
The issue of divided government came up in the seventies when Nixon, as in the present situation, was perceived to have his party members in the Republican controlled congress under his thumb. The abuses of that period were so serious and notorious that Republicans in the congress turned on Nixon – as did even judges who had been appointed by Republican presidents – leading of course to the resignation of the president and criminal conviction of many of his closest associates.
The issue of presidential power enhancement was front and center at that time and among my earliest postings (August 2004) were discussions of the roles of my friends and me in the efforts to better coordinate the delivery of grants to state and local governments. There was also a posting on the minor role I played in the aftermath of Mr. Nixon’s resignation.
The bottom line is that while guilty of overzealous preaching on the benefits of and the need for divided government, my pleadings for such division cannot be made in a vacuum. We voters must balance the obvious benefits of divided government with the nature of the times, the likely tendencies toward abuse of power by one branch over the others, as well as the weight of the merits of the programs and the perceived talent, and character of the candidates. Even while admitting bias toward divided government this should not bind us to voting for a party or candidates whom we believe to be inferior in talent, character, or objectives.
For four years, I’ve been appalled by the preventive Iraq War and all of the abuses of power from the executive. (Surely a recitation of my many laments on these matters is not required here.) I have condemned the president and all of his advisors for leading us into this catastrophic blunder and decried the performance of the Republican congress that enabled the fiasco by failing miserably in its constitutional oversight responsibility.
My small role (I am taking full credit for 0.000001 percent of the responsibility for the Democratic victory in last week’s election – especially in the Virginia senate race, and I have friends who deserve far more.) in kicking the bums out gave me great pleasure and a feeling of successful activism.
It is the duty of voters to elect those who they believe will best further the interests of the United States and its republican form of government. To find myself turning away from a qualified Democrat presidential nominee only because the congress is in the hands of Democrats would be worse than irresponsible; it would be foolish. In 2008, it would be silly for me to vote for a neoconservative who was an aggressive enabler of President Bush’s efforts to remake the Middle East in our own likeness.
It is the role of the government of the United States to preserve protect and defend the people, the interests and the territory of the U.S. from all enemies foreign and domestic. That includes the belief that the government should act in the enlightened self interest of the nation by entering into alliances for collective security.
I remain in the camp of foreign policy realists and believe that the Iraq War represents the worst side of our government. Our government is duty bound to represent the interests of our people and nation and not high sounding ideals that lead us into traps such as Iraq.
Obviously, much of the rhetoric that got us into this mess was simply baloney. The grave mistake of preemption was made for more realistic reasons than those expressed. Clearly, if it were for purely altruistic purposes, we would already be fighting in places like Darfur.
The present administration and its many enablers in Congress have not yet been punished sufficiently for leading us into this horrible situation and for diverting our attention away from those who attacked our homeland. Should one of these enablers be nominated, I wouldn’t hesitate for a moment to vote for the Democratic nominee, the lesser problem – at this time – of division of government not withstanding. In fact, at this moment, my opening is that I’m going to have to be dissuaded from voting for the Democratic nominee.
So there, Ohio smart guy!
Blog on!
Wild Bill
Sunday, November 12, 2006
I Have No Choice
My dear departed mother always bragged about her grandchildren, so cute and so smart. Unfortunately, they believed the old girl and continue to rely on her assessments, never realizing that the she was just the first practitioner in the school of unwarranted self esteem and simply was the earliest of the modern grandmothers, now ubiquitous.
One of those beautiful children – now on the shady side of forty - has the audacity to demand top billing in this blog posting. Steve Brennan of Dublin, Ohio, informed me that it was his terribly sad duty to let me know that I, Wild Bill, will be unable to support the Democratic nominee for president in 2008. It broke the poor lad’s heart to advise me that my own logic and tens of thousands of my own words will make it impossible for me to share in the joy of Hillary, Al or whatever other champion the Democrats choose when the results of the election of 2008 are made known.
Steve, a solid supporter of conservative causes but a convert to Wild Bill’s impeccable logic that only divided government can save the republic, was near tears when pointing out that by my own reckoning that since both Houses of Congress are now solidly in the hands of Democrats, I have no choice but to support Bill Frist, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity or whatever other defender of Intelligent Design is anointed by the GOP to extend its lease on the White House. The choking voice and the sad demeanor made it clear that he could feel my pain.
What’s a wild man to do when faced with mathematically certain logic that he must become a supporter of a Constitutional amendment to prevent flag burning or be charged with being as big a hypocrite as the brilliant lad’s own conservative champions?
I'll begin by explaining to the poor boy that until undivided control of government is a reality there is no mandate for the wild man to fight for division. Obviously, should Hillary, Al or another Democrat take the oath of office on January 20, 2009, at that very instant Wild Bill will begin his paroxysms in favor of divided government. Lincoln Chafee will be called from retirement to run for the Senate from Rhode Island; I’ll demand the retirement of Robert Byrd of West Virginia (provided the present governor is still in office); and the dynamic qualities of Dennis Hastert will be aired far and wide from this blog.
Ma was right, they are so very smart, and I have no choice but to be true to myself as pointed out so solicitously and tragically by my brilliant children.
Stay tuned!
Blog on!
Wild Bill
One of those beautiful children – now on the shady side of forty - has the audacity to demand top billing in this blog posting. Steve Brennan of Dublin, Ohio, informed me that it was his terribly sad duty to let me know that I, Wild Bill, will be unable to support the Democratic nominee for president in 2008. It broke the poor lad’s heart to advise me that my own logic and tens of thousands of my own words will make it impossible for me to share in the joy of Hillary, Al or whatever other champion the Democrats choose when the results of the election of 2008 are made known.
Steve, a solid supporter of conservative causes but a convert to Wild Bill’s impeccable logic that only divided government can save the republic, was near tears when pointing out that by my own reckoning that since both Houses of Congress are now solidly in the hands of Democrats, I have no choice but to support Bill Frist, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity or whatever other defender of Intelligent Design is anointed by the GOP to extend its lease on the White House. The choking voice and the sad demeanor made it clear that he could feel my pain.
What’s a wild man to do when faced with mathematically certain logic that he must become a supporter of a Constitutional amendment to prevent flag burning or be charged with being as big a hypocrite as the brilliant lad’s own conservative champions?
I'll begin by explaining to the poor boy that until undivided control of government is a reality there is no mandate for the wild man to fight for division. Obviously, should Hillary, Al or another Democrat take the oath of office on January 20, 2009, at that very instant Wild Bill will begin his paroxysms in favor of divided government. Lincoln Chafee will be called from retirement to run for the Senate from Rhode Island; I’ll demand the retirement of Robert Byrd of West Virginia (provided the present governor is still in office); and the dynamic qualities of Dennis Hastert will be aired far and wide from this blog.
Ma was right, they are so very smart, and I have no choice but to be true to myself as pointed out so solicitously and tragically by my brilliant children.
Stay tuned!
Blog on!
Wild Bill
Friday, November 10, 2006
You Know What's Bothering Me?
I’m having an Andy Rooney moment. You know what I hate: people who compare the occupation of Iraq with those of postwar Germany and Japan.
Smart people, including the incoming Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, the out going guy (what was his name?), and Shotgun Dick Cheney love pulling the wool over the eyes of yahoos like you and me. When we slobs complain that the Iraq War appears endless, they pat us on the head like the morons they think we are and say, “Sonny, it really hasn’t been that long. Why World War II’s been over for more than sixty years and we still have troops stationed in both countries. Case closed you bird brains. How stupid can you be? Leave the thinking to us smart guys you jack asses.”
Who the hell are you kidding, smart boys? We quit occupying Germany and Japan eons ago. Our troops were stationed in Germany to prevent the onslaught of Moscow Pact troops into Western Europe and in Japan to defend against China, the Soviet Union and North Korea.
If you readers of this electronic rag buy into that Germany and Japan line of malarkey from our smart folk betters, please go back to getting your views from the funny papers. These guys and gals in the Bush administration have been gulling us endlessly with this phony baloney.
An even bigger line of bull is that we’re occupying Iraq. We‘re occupying the Green Zone in Baghdad and other enclaves around the country that make up maybe one percent of the countryside; Iraq’s out of control and to really be an army of occupation they’d have send in tens of thousands of additional troops.
Our poor troopers are hanging on by their finger nails. Every time they leave the occupied zones they become targets for not only terrorists but insurgents of all stripes who want us out so they can get on with killing each other.
Let’s hope this Baker/Hamilton crowd can deliver a fig leaf to Dubya so he can get our poor lads and lassies to hell out of harm’s way before we destroy the army, marines national guard and the reserves. Otherwise we’ll be sending fresh targets for the militias for another five years.
On Tuesday, we the people sent a message that we want this fiasco ended. We’ve got two years of holding our collective breathe before we find out if these new pols and Democrat holdovers really got the word. If they've got wax buildup, we’re gonna have to saddle up again and drive them out, too.
Now that’s what’s bugging me an’ Andy.
Blog on!
Wild Bill
Smart people, including the incoming Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, the out going guy (what was his name?), and Shotgun Dick Cheney love pulling the wool over the eyes of yahoos like you and me. When we slobs complain that the Iraq War appears endless, they pat us on the head like the morons they think we are and say, “Sonny, it really hasn’t been that long. Why World War II’s been over for more than sixty years and we still have troops stationed in both countries. Case closed you bird brains. How stupid can you be? Leave the thinking to us smart guys you jack asses.”
Who the hell are you kidding, smart boys? We quit occupying Germany and Japan eons ago. Our troops were stationed in Germany to prevent the onslaught of Moscow Pact troops into Western Europe and in Japan to defend against China, the Soviet Union and North Korea.
If you readers of this electronic rag buy into that Germany and Japan line of malarkey from our smart folk betters, please go back to getting your views from the funny papers. These guys and gals in the Bush administration have been gulling us endlessly with this phony baloney.
An even bigger line of bull is that we’re occupying Iraq. We‘re occupying the Green Zone in Baghdad and other enclaves around the country that make up maybe one percent of the countryside; Iraq’s out of control and to really be an army of occupation they’d have send in tens of thousands of additional troops.
Our poor troopers are hanging on by their finger nails. Every time they leave the occupied zones they become targets for not only terrorists but insurgents of all stripes who want us out so they can get on with killing each other.
Let’s hope this Baker/Hamilton crowd can deliver a fig leaf to Dubya so he can get our poor lads and lassies to hell out of harm’s way before we destroy the army, marines national guard and the reserves. Otherwise we’ll be sending fresh targets for the militias for another five years.
On Tuesday, we the people sent a message that we want this fiasco ended. We’ve got two years of holding our collective breathe before we find out if these new pols and Democrat holdovers really got the word. If they've got wax buildup, we’re gonna have to saddle up again and drive them out, too.
Now that’s what’s bugging me an’ Andy.
Blog on!
Wild Bill
Thursday, November 09, 2006
Alert
In the first chance at bi-partisan cooperation, President Bush threw sand in the faces of the Democrats by attempting to get John Bolton confirmed a U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. Mr. Bolton has been serving as U.N. Ambassador under a recess appointment made after a Republican controlled Senate could not muster sufficient support for him. Bolton is one of the most contentious people in the administration, a person for whom even Republican senators have only lukewarm feelings.
Bolton is a neoconservative and was and remains a champion of the invasion of Iraq. He was accused of being a terrible manager who bullied and harassed his staff to the point of being a public spectacle. Mr. Bolton is a partisan Republican, and his nomination flies in the face of the president’s conciliatory words to the incoming leaders of both Democratically controlled chambers of congress.
This eleventh hour nomination which is likely to fail does not bode well for true cooperation between branches of government and makes the President’s opening to the incoming leaders appear false and hollow. Given the timing of the announcement – two days after the election and on the day of Mr. Bush’s lunch with incoming Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi - this nomination looks like a gauntlet being thrown down before the Democrats by the President.
Clearly, this is a bad omen for the next two years. The President has not heard the voices of the people and that is extremely regrettable. The Republicans in the Senate better throw this nomination out the window.
Blog on!
Wild Bill
Bolton is a neoconservative and was and remains a champion of the invasion of Iraq. He was accused of being a terrible manager who bullied and harassed his staff to the point of being a public spectacle. Mr. Bolton is a partisan Republican, and his nomination flies in the face of the president’s conciliatory words to the incoming leaders of both Democratically controlled chambers of congress.
This eleventh hour nomination which is likely to fail does not bode well for true cooperation between branches of government and makes the President’s opening to the incoming leaders appear false and hollow. Given the timing of the announcement – two days after the election and on the day of Mr. Bush’s lunch with incoming Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi - this nomination looks like a gauntlet being thrown down before the Democrats by the President.
Clearly, this is a bad omen for the next two years. The President has not heard the voices of the people and that is extremely regrettable. The Republicans in the Senate better throw this nomination out the window.
Blog on!
Wild Bill
The Day After The Day After
The sweetest day is the day after the day after the election – if you win. We know! There’s no doubt. We’re not tired. This morning, I wrapped the Washington Post election section about me and wallowed in its excesses. It felt good, really good.
Yesterday was the day for our leaders to make nice. Today, the sniggering about sending the losers to the basement of the Capitol to hold their unattended press conferences crept into winners’ thoughts; woe is them poor survivors. The perks of the majority will be ripped from their hands and, like precious jewels, fondled by the other side – our side, the winning side.
The finger pointing among the losers makes my heart dance. They all have their candidates for defenestration; unfortunately for all of them, it’s another part of the coalition and the blame circles the room like an endless NASCAR race and is terribly sad to watch. My crocodile tears runneth over.
One truly alarming note, they’re all blaming the others for incompetence rather than for the unsoundness of their policies, especially Iraq which did them in. They are blind to the reality of that war, unable to understand that it was the unprovoked attack based on ideas articulated by the neocons that brought them to this low state. Instead they blame Don Rumsfeld for their failure; Don as a perfect scapegoat – a mantle he well deserves - will only help for a few short weeks.
Soon the president and the Dems will have to get down to the business of closing down the calamity in Iraq in some reasonable and face saving way and time. My fear is that the Republicans, egged on by the neocons, will continue to believe that we can impose our national will whenever and wherever we like. If that’s the case, their sentence will be exile for life from Washington, with no possibility of parole.
But all of that’s in the future. My happy time extends at least through next Monday when a couple of my like minded buddies and I will bask again in the brilliant light of victory and toast Nancy, Harry and Jim and our great win one last time.
Imagine, this poor man’s Tom Paine is going to have to stop electronic pamphleteering and attempt to write objectively. Wow! I’ll think about that tomorrow.
But for now, what a day! What a country!
Blog on!
Wild Bill
Yesterday was the day for our leaders to make nice. Today, the sniggering about sending the losers to the basement of the Capitol to hold their unattended press conferences crept into winners’ thoughts; woe is them poor survivors. The perks of the majority will be ripped from their hands and, like precious jewels, fondled by the other side – our side, the winning side.
The finger pointing among the losers makes my heart dance. They all have their candidates for defenestration; unfortunately for all of them, it’s another part of the coalition and the blame circles the room like an endless NASCAR race and is terribly sad to watch. My crocodile tears runneth over.
One truly alarming note, they’re all blaming the others for incompetence rather than for the unsoundness of their policies, especially Iraq which did them in. They are blind to the reality of that war, unable to understand that it was the unprovoked attack based on ideas articulated by the neocons that brought them to this low state. Instead they blame Don Rumsfeld for their failure; Don as a perfect scapegoat – a mantle he well deserves - will only help for a few short weeks.
Soon the president and the Dems will have to get down to the business of closing down the calamity in Iraq in some reasonable and face saving way and time. My fear is that the Republicans, egged on by the neocons, will continue to believe that we can impose our national will whenever and wherever we like. If that’s the case, their sentence will be exile for life from Washington, with no possibility of parole.
But all of that’s in the future. My happy time extends at least through next Monday when a couple of my like minded buddies and I will bask again in the brilliant light of victory and toast Nancy, Harry and Jim and our great win one last time.
Imagine, this poor man’s Tom Paine is going to have to stop electronic pamphleteering and attempt to write objectively. Wow! I’ll think about that tomorrow.
But for now, what a day! What a country!
Blog on!
Wild Bill
Monday, November 06, 2006
Tomorrow, it's just a day away
Tomorrow, tomorrow, it’s only a day away!
There’s no more time for convincing. It's time to act and only those who vote can have a say. If you don’t like the Iraq War, if you’re in favor of stem cell research, if you think Intelligent Design is a hoax, if you believe in equitable Social Security reform, vote for the Democrats tomorrow.
I must say that I’ve busted my gut to get to this day. I’ve made almost 300 postings on this blog, the vast majority building to tomorrow’s Election Day, and I’ve made more than a hundred cold calls for Jim Webb for U.S. Senate and for the three Democrat congressional candidates from Northern Virginia.
But I also admit that all this work was against the present incumbents rather than for a positive agenda to take the place of the failed programs I’ve fought so hard. My argument is that those in office must be held accountable for those things they instituted that voters believe to be wrong; I hope you join me in that belief.
I voted for George Bush in 2000 and I suppose for many of the other candidates that I’m working against now for enabling the president to carry out so many things I believe to be bad for the country. I thought that George Bush was exactly the right man to lead us in the aftermath of 9/11, and only when he diverted his attention from the War on Terror and took his eye off of Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda and turned our great power on Iraq instead of following through on those who’d attacked us did I change my mind.
The president screams for the Democrats to state their plan. Frankly, I don’t know if they have one. But I don’t think the president has a viable plan either, and I think that he and his Republican enablers must be driven from office. If the Democrat House and, hopefully, Democrat Senate do not act to rein in the president’s grab for power or if the Democrat presidential candidate cannot articulate a plan for getting us out of Iraq, I’ll be rethinking my position on them come 2008.
Until then, I want only to whip from the halls of Congress these incompetent fools who failed their Constitutional duty to oversee the Executive.
After a rest, I’ll be back in support of Democrats seeking to win the White House on ’08.
I’m tired of the work, but I done my damnedest and still have enough energy to get to the polls tomorrow.
It’s tomorrow, just a day away. Do it! VOTE!!!
Blog on!
Wild Bill
There’s no more time for convincing. It's time to act and only those who vote can have a say. If you don’t like the Iraq War, if you’re in favor of stem cell research, if you think Intelligent Design is a hoax, if you believe in equitable Social Security reform, vote for the Democrats tomorrow.
I must say that I’ve busted my gut to get to this day. I’ve made almost 300 postings on this blog, the vast majority building to tomorrow’s Election Day, and I’ve made more than a hundred cold calls for Jim Webb for U.S. Senate and for the three Democrat congressional candidates from Northern Virginia.
But I also admit that all this work was against the present incumbents rather than for a positive agenda to take the place of the failed programs I’ve fought so hard. My argument is that those in office must be held accountable for those things they instituted that voters believe to be wrong; I hope you join me in that belief.
I voted for George Bush in 2000 and I suppose for many of the other candidates that I’m working against now for enabling the president to carry out so many things I believe to be bad for the country. I thought that George Bush was exactly the right man to lead us in the aftermath of 9/11, and only when he diverted his attention from the War on Terror and took his eye off of Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda and turned our great power on Iraq instead of following through on those who’d attacked us did I change my mind.
The president screams for the Democrats to state their plan. Frankly, I don’t know if they have one. But I don’t think the president has a viable plan either, and I think that he and his Republican enablers must be driven from office. If the Democrat House and, hopefully, Democrat Senate do not act to rein in the president’s grab for power or if the Democrat presidential candidate cannot articulate a plan for getting us out of Iraq, I’ll be rethinking my position on them come 2008.
Until then, I want only to whip from the halls of Congress these incompetent fools who failed their Constitutional duty to oversee the Executive.
After a rest, I’ll be back in support of Democrats seeking to win the White House on ’08.
I’m tired of the work, but I done my damnedest and still have enough energy to get to the polls tomorrow.
It’s tomorrow, just a day away. Do it! VOTE!!!
Blog on!
Wild Bill
Saturday, November 04, 2006
Pelosi is Coming
…
Listen my children and you shall hear,
Of the last minute ride of Bush in fear,
To every Bible Belt village and farm---
A cry of defiance with lots of fear,
A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,
“Pelosi is coming! Pelosi is coming!”
Thus was the last minute ride of Bush in fear.
Of course you knew that Wild Bill could never resist this opportunity, and he sends his apologies to Hank Longfellow.
Three days to go.
You heard the joke that Bush wants Rumsfeld to stay on for the remaining two years of his term? He said that whopper even as he was mixing the hemlock for Don’s lunch next Wednesday. Funny guy that George.
Vote! George is beating the bushes for Christians in fear of stem cells, Chuck Darwin, and same sex couples.
Blog on!
Wild Bill
Listen my children and you shall hear,
Of the last minute ride of Bush in fear,
To every Bible Belt village and farm---
A cry of defiance with lots of fear,
A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,
“Pelosi is coming! Pelosi is coming!”
Thus was the last minute ride of Bush in fear.
Of course you knew that Wild Bill could never resist this opportunity, and he sends his apologies to Hank Longfellow.
Three days to go.
You heard the joke that Bush wants Rumsfeld to stay on for the remaining two years of his term? He said that whopper even as he was mixing the hemlock for Don’s lunch next Wednesday. Funny guy that George.
Vote! George is beating the bushes for Christians in fear of stem cells, Chuck Darwin, and same sex couples.
Blog on!
Wild Bill
Thursday, November 02, 2006
Five Days and Counting Down
Just a handful of days remain until the counting commences. This is a fateful election. If both houses of Congress remain in Republican hands, the American people will have spoken; Attacking and occupying Iraq will have been judged the right things to do and to have been handled competently enough.
If there’s no change, Katrina will have been considered to have been handled properly. The President will have been given a green light to revisit his vision on Social Security reform. Stem cell research will not be approved during the next two years. And, according to the president, there’s no reason why Intelligent Design will not have equal access with evolution to the minds of America’s public school students.
If those of us who believe that America’s foreign policy needs a course correction and that the state of our standing in the eyes of the rest of the world is terrible do not prevail to the extent that at least one house is awarded to the Democrats then the present course will have been approved.
Your vote counts. Vote! Ask your neighbors and coworkers to vote. Ask your friends to go to the polls. If you live in a blue state, call a friend in a red state and ask them to vote. This is the most important by-year election since World War II.
Vote and work for change or accept the status quo.
Vote!
Blog on!
Wild Bill
If there’s no change, Katrina will have been considered to have been handled properly. The President will have been given a green light to revisit his vision on Social Security reform. Stem cell research will not be approved during the next two years. And, according to the president, there’s no reason why Intelligent Design will not have equal access with evolution to the minds of America’s public school students.
If those of us who believe that America’s foreign policy needs a course correction and that the state of our standing in the eyes of the rest of the world is terrible do not prevail to the extent that at least one house is awarded to the Democrats then the present course will have been approved.
Your vote counts. Vote! Ask your neighbors and coworkers to vote. Ask your friends to go to the polls. If you live in a blue state, call a friend in a red state and ask them to vote. This is the most important by-year election since World War II.
Vote and work for change or accept the status quo.
Vote!
Blog on!
Wild Bill
Monday, October 30, 2006
They done him wrong
It was the deep thinkers who did George in. Obviously, heavy ponderers have been telling men of action what’s wrong since the newcomers moved into the cave next door and ruined the neighborhood. Plato had a fascist solution and Marx a commie one. None of these catchall means to enlightenment and progress was too terrible until doers decided that the thinkers were right and moved to implement programs for mutual betterment.
Most utopian solutions aren’t very dangerous and go away without having harmed too many folks in the process. The small ones such as Brook Farm and the Amana Community just withered away, but occasionally, as in the case of the Bolsheviks, the efforts to save the rest of us from ourselves can get downright frightening and vast nations and their neighbors can be devastated in the name of good, or at least their version of it.
So it was with our friends the neoconservatives. Like Marx, the neocons read history carefully and, like Karl, saw an inevitability in their reading of the past that would lead to a new nirvana. Much like one of their heroes, Ronald Reagan, they saw before them a city on a hill and the certain spread of democracy, capitalism, and globalism to the unwashed of the world. But aside from flag waving and sloganeering, their view of history wasn’t very important and certainly not harmful until their man in the White House – George - had a real problem.
Obviously, September 11, 2001, was one of the defining days in our history. The attacks on New York and Washington and the downed plane in Pennsylvania galvanized the American people like nothing since Pearl Harbor. Retribution was demanded, and George Bush was open to suggestion on how to act decisively.
The first steps for the U.S. were very simple: follow the trail to those who had conspired with the perpetrators of the attack, kill or capture them, topple governments that were aiding and abetting those who had attacked us, and call upon all of our contacts in the world to otherwise undermine this group of killers. Virtually all Americans were on board with these and any other reasonable actions.
But there were men and women about with bigger and better ideas on how to deal with this world wide conspiracy of Islamic fundamentalist killers and at the same time advance the interests of the United States by spreading the neocon world view. While the military and security forces of America went about their tasks of justice and retribution, the neocons saw an opportunity to spread democracy and prosperity to the heart of Islam from whence the attacks had sprung.
This is not to say that the neocon view of history is invalid but just because they might have been right in their analysis that doesn’t mean that by applying outside pressure the tipping point could be achieved and the inevitable creation of free, independent, and prosperous nations across the great swath of Islam would be the fruits of America’s labor.
While I won’t argue that things don’t look good for capitalism and democracy, it’s my view that by buying into this neocon dream, George Bush created a hornets’ nest of problems for us. Instead of encouraging the acceleration of history with carrots, he was happy to apply the birch switch and therein lay his doom as a successful president.
From all that I have read and the little I’ve seen, Mr. Bush has a messianic personality and it took little prodding for him to buy into this solution to many of the problems he faced. In retrospect, the invasion of Iraq is seen clearly as a blunder without peer in American history, but the confluence of so many needs and opportunities for so many sectors of society was almost irresistible to a person of Bush’s type and tens of millions of his followers.
It’s Bush’s war and Bush’s blunder, but he was tempted by so many interests: military efficiency, energy independence, Middle East pressures, the pleas of Iraqi expatriates, the need for national vengeance, and many more. But he needed a rationale for the attack on Iraq that answered a higher calling, especially after the WMD and the Iraq/al Qaeda conspiracy fell through, and the neocons with their offer of a chance to tip history in favor of the president’s messianic view provided it.
So, while George Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld will get the most of the ink when the histories of this failed presidency are written, the neocons will get very few column inches on their fateful role in this blunder. Too bad, they deserved far more.
One week to go. Turn out the enablers of this fiasco. Be sure to vote; the enablers will be out in force.
Blog on!
Wild Bill
Most utopian solutions aren’t very dangerous and go away without having harmed too many folks in the process. The small ones such as Brook Farm and the Amana Community just withered away, but occasionally, as in the case of the Bolsheviks, the efforts to save the rest of us from ourselves can get downright frightening and vast nations and their neighbors can be devastated in the name of good, or at least their version of it.
So it was with our friends the neoconservatives. Like Marx, the neocons read history carefully and, like Karl, saw an inevitability in their reading of the past that would lead to a new nirvana. Much like one of their heroes, Ronald Reagan, they saw before them a city on a hill and the certain spread of democracy, capitalism, and globalism to the unwashed of the world. But aside from flag waving and sloganeering, their view of history wasn’t very important and certainly not harmful until their man in the White House – George - had a real problem.
Obviously, September 11, 2001, was one of the defining days in our history. The attacks on New York and Washington and the downed plane in Pennsylvania galvanized the American people like nothing since Pearl Harbor. Retribution was demanded, and George Bush was open to suggestion on how to act decisively.
The first steps for the U.S. were very simple: follow the trail to those who had conspired with the perpetrators of the attack, kill or capture them, topple governments that were aiding and abetting those who had attacked us, and call upon all of our contacts in the world to otherwise undermine this group of killers. Virtually all Americans were on board with these and any other reasonable actions.
But there were men and women about with bigger and better ideas on how to deal with this world wide conspiracy of Islamic fundamentalist killers and at the same time advance the interests of the United States by spreading the neocon world view. While the military and security forces of America went about their tasks of justice and retribution, the neocons saw an opportunity to spread democracy and prosperity to the heart of Islam from whence the attacks had sprung.
This is not to say that the neocon view of history is invalid but just because they might have been right in their analysis that doesn’t mean that by applying outside pressure the tipping point could be achieved and the inevitable creation of free, independent, and prosperous nations across the great swath of Islam would be the fruits of America’s labor.
While I won’t argue that things don’t look good for capitalism and democracy, it’s my view that by buying into this neocon dream, George Bush created a hornets’ nest of problems for us. Instead of encouraging the acceleration of history with carrots, he was happy to apply the birch switch and therein lay his doom as a successful president.
From all that I have read and the little I’ve seen, Mr. Bush has a messianic personality and it took little prodding for him to buy into this solution to many of the problems he faced. In retrospect, the invasion of Iraq is seen clearly as a blunder without peer in American history, but the confluence of so many needs and opportunities for so many sectors of society was almost irresistible to a person of Bush’s type and tens of millions of his followers.
It’s Bush’s war and Bush’s blunder, but he was tempted by so many interests: military efficiency, energy independence, Middle East pressures, the pleas of Iraqi expatriates, the need for national vengeance, and many more. But he needed a rationale for the attack on Iraq that answered a higher calling, especially after the WMD and the Iraq/al Qaeda conspiracy fell through, and the neocons with their offer of a chance to tip history in favor of the president’s messianic view provided it.
So, while George Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld will get the most of the ink when the histories of this failed presidency are written, the neocons will get very few column inches on their fateful role in this blunder. Too bad, they deserved far more.
One week to go. Turn out the enablers of this fiasco. Be sure to vote; the enablers will be out in force.
Blog on!
Wild Bill
Tuesday, October 24, 2006
Words to Ponder
There are just fourteen days, a fortnight, two weeks, until judgment day. I’ll be running silent for a few days as I’ll be spending time in the land of liberals, capital of the Left Coast, the stomping ground of John Kerry and Ted Kennedy - as el Rushbo names it – with a smile.
This morning a word association game popped into mind:
WORDS - REPUBLICANS - DEMOCRATS
Iraq - Progress - Disaster
Schiavo - Life - Exploitation
Stem cells - Living Beings - Cure
Congress - Values - Losers
Katrina - Tragic - Incompetent
Estate - Death Tax - Fair
Rumsfeld - Incompetent - Bingo
Leaks - Levees - Woodward
Gays - Bash - Tolerance
Flag - Protect - Huh?
WMD - Fear - Lies
Stay the course - Flexible - Flip Flop
Enough already. It looked a lot funnier when it was laid out in my mind, but when the rubber hit the road - words in the columns - I'd struck out. But you get the picture. It's something you might try at your next party.
Had enough? Vote Democrat!
Get your friends to the polls: fourteen; 14; fortnight; two weeks, right around the corner.
VOTE!
Blog on!
Wild Bill
This morning a word association game popped into mind:
WORDS - REPUBLICANS - DEMOCRATS
Iraq - Progress - Disaster
Schiavo - Life - Exploitation
Stem cells - Living Beings - Cure
Congress - Values - Losers
Katrina - Tragic - Incompetent
Estate - Death Tax - Fair
Rumsfeld - Incompetent - Bingo
Leaks - Levees - Woodward
Gays - Bash - Tolerance
Flag - Protect - Huh?
WMD - Fear - Lies
Stay the course - Flexible - Flip Flop
Enough already. It looked a lot funnier when it was laid out in my mind, but when the rubber hit the road - words in the columns - I'd struck out. But you get the picture. It's something you might try at your next party.
Had enough? Vote Democrat!
Get your friends to the polls: fourteen; 14; fortnight; two weeks, right around the corner.
VOTE!
Blog on!
Wild Bill
Monday, October 23, 2006
Social Security Redux
The Bush administration has openly signaled that it intends to revisit Social Security when the new Congress convenes in January 2007; this is both welcome and frightening.
Given demographic trends, there can be no doubt that Social Security and Medicare are not completely sound for the long term. That the president is willing to tackle this thorny process again says something positive about his resiliency, if not his judgment.
Since the point at which benefits as defined in the Social Security program will be unable to be paid in full is a generation in the future, this is a difficult problem for sitting legislators to face. Sadly, the president’s rigidity in his unwillingness to consider options that much of the population favors makes negotiations between the parties extraordinarily difficult. For example, you may recall that during the last debate on the subject, Mr. Bush would not entertain any option involving greater contributions by the most affluent in the workforce.
Social Security shortfalls should be addressed as soon as possible since the costs of making the trust fund sound for still another generation only grow with each day the problem is put off. But it is clear that if there is going to be a reform package passed in the next two years, all options must be on the table and that both parties are going to have to put themselves on the line.
If the president is serious about this debate, he must have a Congress that represents a broader spectrum of the population. Entitlement reforms undertaken by the Republicans, the party that has wielded most power since the nineteen-seventies, have generally favored the affluent at the expense of the middle and lower economic classes. Mr. Bush’s proposals to reform Social Security last time around also favored higher income workers capable of making greater contributions to their individual SS accounts, this is another good reason to turn out the vote among lower and middle income segments of society and for electing Democrats.
There should be no doubt that the Republicans have a great capacity for turning out their base supporters. Sadly, many among that base will be voting against their own interests when they vote for the Social Security reform favored by the GOP.
It is absolutely essential that those with positive ideas on how Social Security should be reformed which are different from those of George W. Bush and his Wall Street cronies work hard to get out their voting block too. It is also essential to attempt to engage anyone in the Republican base damaged by the administration’s program for SS reform and to make an effort must to debate them on the points of their personal interests.
Had enough? Vote Democrat! Only two weeks to go: VOTE!
It’s definitely time for change!
Blog on!
Wild Bill
Given demographic trends, there can be no doubt that Social Security and Medicare are not completely sound for the long term. That the president is willing to tackle this thorny process again says something positive about his resiliency, if not his judgment.
Since the point at which benefits as defined in the Social Security program will be unable to be paid in full is a generation in the future, this is a difficult problem for sitting legislators to face. Sadly, the president’s rigidity in his unwillingness to consider options that much of the population favors makes negotiations between the parties extraordinarily difficult. For example, you may recall that during the last debate on the subject, Mr. Bush would not entertain any option involving greater contributions by the most affluent in the workforce.
Social Security shortfalls should be addressed as soon as possible since the costs of making the trust fund sound for still another generation only grow with each day the problem is put off. But it is clear that if there is going to be a reform package passed in the next two years, all options must be on the table and that both parties are going to have to put themselves on the line.
If the president is serious about this debate, he must have a Congress that represents a broader spectrum of the population. Entitlement reforms undertaken by the Republicans, the party that has wielded most power since the nineteen-seventies, have generally favored the affluent at the expense of the middle and lower economic classes. Mr. Bush’s proposals to reform Social Security last time around also favored higher income workers capable of making greater contributions to their individual SS accounts, this is another good reason to turn out the vote among lower and middle income segments of society and for electing Democrats.
There should be no doubt that the Republicans have a great capacity for turning out their base supporters. Sadly, many among that base will be voting against their own interests when they vote for the Social Security reform favored by the GOP.
It is absolutely essential that those with positive ideas on how Social Security should be reformed which are different from those of George W. Bush and his Wall Street cronies work hard to get out their voting block too. It is also essential to attempt to engage anyone in the Republican base damaged by the administration’s program for SS reform and to make an effort must to debate them on the points of their personal interests.
Had enough? Vote Democrat! Only two weeks to go: VOTE!
It’s definitely time for change!
Blog on!
Wild Bill
Saturday, October 21, 2006
White House Beautification
As you regulars know, Wild Bill is a resident of the Washington area so an occasional word or two about what’s happening in the capital should not be surprising.
I’m beginning to think that the Iraq War, tax cuts and budget deficits are having an effect on our fair city. In walking past the White House the other day, I noted a very unusual sight: maintenance of the beautiful and historic grounds just isn’t what it has been historically. Any of you who have been in the mansion and on the grounds knows that it has traditionally maintained to the highest possible standards.
As I strolled along the fence line of the gorgeous estate, I noted a hole that had been dug on the inside by an animal. Since it appeared freshly dug, I thought little of it and assumed that the damage would soon be repaired by the large crew always on duty. But as I continued along the perimeter, it became obvious that there was a significant infestation of the grounds by badgers or other digging animals, and I became truly concerned.
With less than half of the fence line walked, it was apparent that the holes and digging were happening at intervals of perhaps only ten feet. Some of the sites had been recently filled but it was obvious that there was a race on between the animals and the grounds crew. There could be no doubt; a creature was attempting to dig out and the crew was working overtime to repair the damage and prevent the escape.
I made up mind to write the White House Foundation and call for a stepped up program of eradication of the pest. But at almost that instance I came upon a docent just saying goodbye to her tour group as they looked upon the south front of the grounds. I stopped her and asked if she’d noted the damage to the grounds? “Oh, that’s just Barney trying to get out. He’s withdrawn his support for the president’s Iraq War and just wants out.”
I’m not going downtown again until after election; I’m afraid I’ll see a sign in the bedroom window indicating that Laura is looking beyond the fence.
If you come to Washington, please don’t be too critical of the level of care being given the White House. This will all be taken care of in the near future.
Blog on!
Wild Bill
I’m beginning to think that the Iraq War, tax cuts and budget deficits are having an effect on our fair city. In walking past the White House the other day, I noted a very unusual sight: maintenance of the beautiful and historic grounds just isn’t what it has been historically. Any of you who have been in the mansion and on the grounds knows that it has traditionally maintained to the highest possible standards.
As I strolled along the fence line of the gorgeous estate, I noted a hole that had been dug on the inside by an animal. Since it appeared freshly dug, I thought little of it and assumed that the damage would soon be repaired by the large crew always on duty. But as I continued along the perimeter, it became obvious that there was a significant infestation of the grounds by badgers or other digging animals, and I became truly concerned.
With less than half of the fence line walked, it was apparent that the holes and digging were happening at intervals of perhaps only ten feet. Some of the sites had been recently filled but it was obvious that there was a race on between the animals and the grounds crew. There could be no doubt; a creature was attempting to dig out and the crew was working overtime to repair the damage and prevent the escape.
I made up mind to write the White House Foundation and call for a stepped up program of eradication of the pest. But at almost that instance I came upon a docent just saying goodbye to her tour group as they looked upon the south front of the grounds. I stopped her and asked if she’d noted the damage to the grounds? “Oh, that’s just Barney trying to get out. He’s withdrawn his support for the president’s Iraq War and just wants out.”
I’m not going downtown again until after election; I’m afraid I’ll see a sign in the bedroom window indicating that Laura is looking beyond the fence.
If you come to Washington, please don’t be too critical of the level of care being given the White House. This will all be taken care of in the near future.
Blog on!
Wild Bill
Friday, October 20, 2006
Saving Face
As a youngster - long long ago - I learned that when China or Japan committed grave errors of policy requiring significant correction, they did everything in their power to save face while retreating from their errors. If one of these nations made a disastrous misstep and was forced to back down from the blunder before face could be saved, the Gods would be outraged. Neither of these great cultures and powers could be seen as having created a fiasco before they could withdraw from the field of diplomacy – or battle. There was no way that the error could be admitted; there had been no mistake; surely those observing the situation were wrong. My world history teachers snickered at this primitive requirement of the oriental mind. How backward could a mindset be?
Today, the great nation of the United States of America is caught in a trap of its own making. It attacked a smaller weaker nation for reasons that did not pan out. American citizens were told that that Iraq posed a mortal danger to them, that the national leader, Saddam Hussein, had an arsenal of weapons of mass destruction and was ready to use it against our personnel or facilities or those of our allies in the region, or, just as importantly, he would sell or transfer these weapons to our deadly enemies, al Qaeda or its surrogates, with which he had been working against the U.S.
If anything, the war went far better than expected and the government of Iraq was overthrown within a few short weeks, but the basis for the invasion, WMD and conspiracy with al Qaeda, was never proved. Great shuffling of reasons was undertaken and it was determined that we hadn’t just attacked to disarm Iraq but, more importantly, we would deposit upon them an almost carbon copy of Western democracy which would deliver Iraq into the family of free and prosperous nations. This was good since the citizens had been suffering under the painful yoke of Saddam and his henchmen and they yearned to be free and were prepared to welcome our troops as liberators.
I won’t go on with this baloney. We’re occupiers; they hate us and, while terrified of the possibilities, want us gone. We’ve tried many different strategies to set up a democratic regime to deliver peace and prosperity to Iraq but no matter how hard we’ve worked it simply hasn’t happened as anticipated.
The vast majority of the American people have wised up; the Republican leadership which enabled this fiasco is rising from its slumber, and even George Bush is acknowledging that the adventure is not going as planned or as it was recast a dozen or more times. Our Iraq adventure is the greatest foreign policy blunder in American history.
The Republican majority has quietly determined that it no longer has confidence in the president of the United States and his administration. Signals are everywhere. U.S. Senator John Warner, Chair of the Armed Services Committee, returned from Iraq with a message that the situation was not going as advertised and quickly had to be changed. The U.S. Army flat out stated that its pacification program for Baghdad was not successful, even Virginia Senator George Allen, one of Bush’s great sycophants, admitted that a change of tactics was needed.
It’s a mess and a failure.
We’re now in a great waltz to the exit. But we just can’t admit we were wrong and get the hell out. If we did that, our great rivals, China, Russia and the European Union and our enemies in the Axis of Evil, Iran and North Korea, might get the idea that we failed and were just rushing for the egress, weaklings dragging our tails. We couldn’t let that happen because we’d lose face.
But we have failed, and if you think that China, Russia, France, Germany, Iran and North Korea aren’t completely aware of our predicament, there’s a bridge over the East River from Brooklyn to Manhattan in which you need shares. We’re in the process of changing our strategy at warp speed. There is a commission preparing options for the administration to disentangle us from this fiasco. But the report won’t be available until well after the elections that are coming up in less than three weeks. The bottom line – take it to the bank – we’re going to begin disengaging from Iraq in a New York minute starting in early 2007.
All of this commission b.s., all of this waltzing, all of the options will be designed to get the neoconservatives and evangelicals who encouraged these incompetent fools who got us into this quagmire to get through the election with some semblance of their dignity – and a minimum of lost seats in Congress.
Hundreds of additional soldiers and thousands of innocent Iraqis will die or be maimed so that we can get out in a face saving manner. More billions of dollars will be squandered and our military forces will be weakened so that a small coterie of fools and a large number of their enablers can save face. And our real war on terrorists will continue to be operated at half speed while it happens.
How quaint that these backward oriental civilizations that I studied as an adolescent had such profound influence on modern America. Whatever, we must endure what we must to get out of this mess. We’ve got to save face!
Vote Democrat! The Republicans in Congress have walked in lock step with these fools who have taken us down the awful path; they must be punished for their folly.
Blog on!
Wild Bill
Today, the great nation of the United States of America is caught in a trap of its own making. It attacked a smaller weaker nation for reasons that did not pan out. American citizens were told that that Iraq posed a mortal danger to them, that the national leader, Saddam Hussein, had an arsenal of weapons of mass destruction and was ready to use it against our personnel or facilities or those of our allies in the region, or, just as importantly, he would sell or transfer these weapons to our deadly enemies, al Qaeda or its surrogates, with which he had been working against the U.S.
If anything, the war went far better than expected and the government of Iraq was overthrown within a few short weeks, but the basis for the invasion, WMD and conspiracy with al Qaeda, was never proved. Great shuffling of reasons was undertaken and it was determined that we hadn’t just attacked to disarm Iraq but, more importantly, we would deposit upon them an almost carbon copy of Western democracy which would deliver Iraq into the family of free and prosperous nations. This was good since the citizens had been suffering under the painful yoke of Saddam and his henchmen and they yearned to be free and were prepared to welcome our troops as liberators.
I won’t go on with this baloney. We’re occupiers; they hate us and, while terrified of the possibilities, want us gone. We’ve tried many different strategies to set up a democratic regime to deliver peace and prosperity to Iraq but no matter how hard we’ve worked it simply hasn’t happened as anticipated.
The vast majority of the American people have wised up; the Republican leadership which enabled this fiasco is rising from its slumber, and even George Bush is acknowledging that the adventure is not going as planned or as it was recast a dozen or more times. Our Iraq adventure is the greatest foreign policy blunder in American history.
The Republican majority has quietly determined that it no longer has confidence in the president of the United States and his administration. Signals are everywhere. U.S. Senator John Warner, Chair of the Armed Services Committee, returned from Iraq with a message that the situation was not going as advertised and quickly had to be changed. The U.S. Army flat out stated that its pacification program for Baghdad was not successful, even Virginia Senator George Allen, one of Bush’s great sycophants, admitted that a change of tactics was needed.
It’s a mess and a failure.
We’re now in a great waltz to the exit. But we just can’t admit we were wrong and get the hell out. If we did that, our great rivals, China, Russia and the European Union and our enemies in the Axis of Evil, Iran and North Korea, might get the idea that we failed and were just rushing for the egress, weaklings dragging our tails. We couldn’t let that happen because we’d lose face.
But we have failed, and if you think that China, Russia, France, Germany, Iran and North Korea aren’t completely aware of our predicament, there’s a bridge over the East River from Brooklyn to Manhattan in which you need shares. We’re in the process of changing our strategy at warp speed. There is a commission preparing options for the administration to disentangle us from this fiasco. But the report won’t be available until well after the elections that are coming up in less than three weeks. The bottom line – take it to the bank – we’re going to begin disengaging from Iraq in a New York minute starting in early 2007.
All of this commission b.s., all of this waltzing, all of the options will be designed to get the neoconservatives and evangelicals who encouraged these incompetent fools who got us into this quagmire to get through the election with some semblance of their dignity – and a minimum of lost seats in Congress.
Hundreds of additional soldiers and thousands of innocent Iraqis will die or be maimed so that we can get out in a face saving manner. More billions of dollars will be squandered and our military forces will be weakened so that a small coterie of fools and a large number of their enablers can save face. And our real war on terrorists will continue to be operated at half speed while it happens.
How quaint that these backward oriental civilizations that I studied as an adolescent had such profound influence on modern America. Whatever, we must endure what we must to get out of this mess. We’ve got to save face!
Vote Democrat! The Republicans in Congress have walked in lock step with these fools who have taken us down the awful path; they must be punished for their folly.
Blog on!
Wild Bill
Monday, October 16, 2006
State Of Denial
State of Denial, Bob Woodward’s new best selling book, will be the fodder of historians for generations. This is not due to its examination of sources but because everybody who has had anything to do with Iraq needs a confessor and Bob’s the man. As the fullness of the folly becomes part of the consciousness of the vast majority of the citizenry, those with even tangential connection to the massive blunder feel the need to thumb through the rolodex to `W’ and explain how they were the only ones who saw the freight train bearing down and tried to warn the president not to gun it through the crossing.
Sadly, bad people stood in the way of all these good folks. Naturally, we all know by now that the Darth Vader of this unhappy galaxy is Don Rumsfeld, but there are lots of other incompetents who stepped forward to assist the great man in bringing ruin to the presidency. Dick Cheney – who delivered Darth in a basket to the back doorstep of the White House, Scooter Libby, Gerry Bremer, George Tenet, and Condoleezza Rice get key speaking roles on the dark side.
But there are good folks who did their damnedest, too; Jay Garner, Richard Armitage, Andy Card, NATO Military Commander James Jones and many others net out positively, but they didn’t stand a chance when matched with Dick and Darth.
On the balance point, the tragic figure of Colin Powell who saw the train but still helped gun the truck through the flashing lights shares that side of the stage with lesser performers like Steve Hadley.
This is a book that will have no legs, most of the names and whisperings will be forgotten in short order when this sad chapter of history ends leaving only George, the ever in the shadows Dick, and the ever hovering Darth to share space in the history books as the villains.
While we won’t be talking about State of Denial ten minutes after the polls close in November 2008, what a tasty read it is. I loved it. Woodward, as other reviewers have noted, pounds away with endless delicious details. His writing style is plain and he never loses control over the long complex narrative, and only because I’m old was I able to put it down to get my beauty rest.
As Woodward drops the whispered bonbons that prove that what the bad guys said in public was more the anxious wishes of a single man in deep denial and the lamentations of a Greek chorus of his lackeys trying to support him.
But this is journalism – what, where, when, how and why. Woodward does very little editorializing for a man with sufficient facts to make solid judgments. He leaves it to Arthur Schlesinger to condemn the president for leading the nation in a preventive war. And he lets the other characters do the opining. As late as this summer he catches the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Peter Pace connecting the dots between 9/11 and our attack in Iraq.
Rumsfeld comes off as the arch villain. He emasculates the officer corps and hides behind his second to none debating style. The president and even Cheney come off as being unable to deal with the bureaucratic infighter nonpareil.
In the end, this is a sad book that does little other than to condemn the Bush administration for gross incompetence and not being square with America. It lets the president off by deflecting its laser onto Rumsfeld. To me this is a tragic error. The person responsible for this historic blunder is George W. Bush. In the book he comes across as uninquisitive and messianic as he does in most of the books pouring into the market. He operates on will power and it is not enough.
George Bush made the fatal error that sank his presidency when he took the advice of the head of his vice presidential search committee who could find no one better than himself to run with Bush. George Bush placed Dick Cheney on the ticket. Almost at that moment Bush came under the spell of a stronger intellect and personality. Cheney brought Rumsfeld along and the rest is tragic history.
Both opponents and supporters of Bush should read this book; there are cautions and opportunities for both. If the Democrats win the Congress next month and do not act responsibly, they may lose the prize on ’08.
Republicans can take heart from this mess and this book about it. Woodward can be read to see this not as a great policy blunder but rather a comedy of errors by the Keystone Kops. The kops will be gone on January 20, 2009, and with careful packaging, the GOP can claim to have done the right thing but with incompetent people. Both parties had better beware for the next two years and three weeks.
Read this book before it gets too old.
Blog on!
Wild Bill
Sadly, bad people stood in the way of all these good folks. Naturally, we all know by now that the Darth Vader of this unhappy galaxy is Don Rumsfeld, but there are lots of other incompetents who stepped forward to assist the great man in bringing ruin to the presidency. Dick Cheney – who delivered Darth in a basket to the back doorstep of the White House, Scooter Libby, Gerry Bremer, George Tenet, and Condoleezza Rice get key speaking roles on the dark side.
But there are good folks who did their damnedest, too; Jay Garner, Richard Armitage, Andy Card, NATO Military Commander James Jones and many others net out positively, but they didn’t stand a chance when matched with Dick and Darth.
On the balance point, the tragic figure of Colin Powell who saw the train but still helped gun the truck through the flashing lights shares that side of the stage with lesser performers like Steve Hadley.
This is a book that will have no legs, most of the names and whisperings will be forgotten in short order when this sad chapter of history ends leaving only George, the ever in the shadows Dick, and the ever hovering Darth to share space in the history books as the villains.
While we won’t be talking about State of Denial ten minutes after the polls close in November 2008, what a tasty read it is. I loved it. Woodward, as other reviewers have noted, pounds away with endless delicious details. His writing style is plain and he never loses control over the long complex narrative, and only because I’m old was I able to put it down to get my beauty rest.
As Woodward drops the whispered bonbons that prove that what the bad guys said in public was more the anxious wishes of a single man in deep denial and the lamentations of a Greek chorus of his lackeys trying to support him.
But this is journalism – what, where, when, how and why. Woodward does very little editorializing for a man with sufficient facts to make solid judgments. He leaves it to Arthur Schlesinger to condemn the president for leading the nation in a preventive war. And he lets the other characters do the opining. As late as this summer he catches the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Peter Pace connecting the dots between 9/11 and our attack in Iraq.
Rumsfeld comes off as the arch villain. He emasculates the officer corps and hides behind his second to none debating style. The president and even Cheney come off as being unable to deal with the bureaucratic infighter nonpareil.
In the end, this is a sad book that does little other than to condemn the Bush administration for gross incompetence and not being square with America. It lets the president off by deflecting its laser onto Rumsfeld. To me this is a tragic error. The person responsible for this historic blunder is George W. Bush. In the book he comes across as uninquisitive and messianic as he does in most of the books pouring into the market. He operates on will power and it is not enough.
George Bush made the fatal error that sank his presidency when he took the advice of the head of his vice presidential search committee who could find no one better than himself to run with Bush. George Bush placed Dick Cheney on the ticket. Almost at that moment Bush came under the spell of a stronger intellect and personality. Cheney brought Rumsfeld along and the rest is tragic history.
Both opponents and supporters of Bush should read this book; there are cautions and opportunities for both. If the Democrats win the Congress next month and do not act responsibly, they may lose the prize on ’08.
Republicans can take heart from this mess and this book about it. Woodward can be read to see this not as a great policy blunder but rather a comedy of errors by the Keystone Kops. The kops will be gone on January 20, 2009, and with careful packaging, the GOP can claim to have done the right thing but with incompetent people. Both parties had better beware for the next two years and three weeks.
Read this book before it gets too old.
Blog on!
Wild Bill
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