I Plead Not Guilty

President Bush and his minion are doing everything in their power to involve others in their ill conceived decision to attack Iraq. I don’t blame them; who would want to claim parenthood of that poor orphan? Unfortunately, they’ve been partially successful in sharing the responsibility in this public paternity play.

Those opposed to the war, especially Democratic politicians, have done a poor job in keeping the finger of public opinion pointed squarely at the president, his closest advisors (Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Feith, Rice, Bolton, et al) leading neoconservatives in the private sector (Pearle, Podhoritz, the Kristols, etc.) and on leaders in the Evangelical Christian movement who have willingly sold their poor flocks on the terrible notion that doing bad was a good thing in this war.

Opponents of the war are spending their energy trying to determine whether the pre war intelligence on Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction capabilities and programs was manufactured or manipulated by the administration in order to support the strike on Iraq. That’s a great question deserving close examination and an honest answer. But it permits the president and his merry band of clackers to fire the bovine waste into the fan and cover his critics with the result.

The Democrats and the rest of us opposed to the war have permitted ourselves to be herded by the administration onto its team of co-conspirators in the effort to topple the Baathist regime in Iraq. It’s really quite silly to blame Bill Clinton, Tony Blair, Jacques Chirac, John Kerry, the Republicans and most of the Democrats in Congress, and poor little old Wild Bill for believing that Saddam had WMDs, the stated reason for the invasion. While most of the silly people in this list rail against inclusion on it, I ask why should this label us as co-conspirators with the president in the run up to the invasion?

That the CIA and the other world’s intelligence agencies believed Saddam had a stockpile of chemical and biological weapons and that he was seeking nuclear capacity and that those in Congress who supported the overthrow of the Iraqi regime had virtually the same information as the administration is a very handy debating tool of the president, but in reality it is merely a red herring to draw our attention away from the culpability of the small cabal of insiders that the public is finally zeroing in on which has brought death to more than 2,000 of our fighting men and women, killed 20,000 Iraqi civilian, and that is now approaching the quarter of a trillion dollars in wasted treasure.

The real question was and remains how much of a threat did Saddam’s Iraq pose to the United States? In retrospect, it is clear that the various inspection efforts by international bodies coupled with the degradation caused by American and allied activities in the no fly zones established in the wake of 1991 Gulf War were working very well in keeping the Iraqi government in check and in a weakened state. The real question should not be whether Saddam had WMDs but did he pose a threat to the U.S. sufficient for us to wage a preventive war against his government?

That last question is the one that must be examined and seems not to be on the radar screens of most opponents of the conflict and Congressional Committees looking it. Did the administration overstate the threat against us and our allies? If we allow ourselves to be drawn into the argument that virtually everyone thought he had WMDs and thus war was justified, we, along with George Bush and his inner circle, are doomed to be culpable for the resulting fiasco. The real question that must be answered by the Senate Intelligence Committee is whether the Administration manipulated intelligence to show an immediate threat against us, our forces, or our allies.

As long as the president can get away with saying the Congress was looking at the same information available to he when they voted to support the war, he has them where he wants them. The standard the opponents should be seeking is whether there was an imminent threat to our country or its allies.

Buying into the bovine waste that we are exporting Western style democracy as a fall back to failure to find WMDs or – most importantly – a direct and imminent threat to us or our friends is fatal to the real evil in this case – preventive rather preemptive war. It is in this that the conspirators – the president, his advisors on military and security matters, and his in the war supporters in and out of government, especially Evangelical Christian leaders - have done their greatest damage.

Even assuming that Saddam had his WMDs and that the war could be justified in religious terms, the failure to find these weapons and the threat to us these weapons represented clearly means that, in violation of international law, we executed a preventive attack on an innocent nation. No matter how reprehensible the leader and his administration was we attacked a nation that posed no real threat. If that is true – and I believe it is – we should be moving out as quickly as possible.

Evangelical Christians have been misled and they should be reassessing their position. They are supporting what has turned out to be an immoral and illegal attack on a nation that could do us no substantial harm. That the invaded nation was led by an immoral regime is no excuse for sending our men and women into harms way and to strain our armed forces to the point of danger to our country. And that says nothing abut the material cost that could have been used for any number of more worthy purposes.

Our goal should be to get out of Iraq as quickly as possible and to get on with hunting down the jihadists who are pledging to kill us.

Blog on!

Wild Bill

Remission

My compulsion to blog (Brennan's Syndrome - Blogus Bovinus Wastus) has gone into remission. Enough whacks at George Bush, sufficient blasts at those who would return our schools to the Dark Ages, proper dosages of deploring the Democrat response to Republican hubris, and more than enough heartburn over the calamitous cancer of Iraq have sent the blog syndrome into temporary quiescence.

The syndrome returns with a vengeance from time to time, and I’ll alert my loyal readers when the symptoms become acute once more. For now, I’m working on other projects that demand my time.

I have no ideas how many readers I have, but more than four hundred individuals have taken the time to explore the site, and my counter registers almost three thousand hits since this electronic rag began publication. I appreciate the interest and even the occasional complaint.

It’s almost certain that no medicine on earth will be able to keep the disease at bay through the ’06 election cycle, so until then, “Goodnight and good luck!” Now that’s original!

Wild Bill

Poor George

President Bush is down at the polls and at the mouth. Iraq, the hurricanes, Social Security and Harriet Miers have taken their toll; George has lost his Texas swagger and now bears the look of a deer in the headlights.

While he didn’t cause the hurricanes, saying that no one could have anticipated that the levees would fail in New Orleans when in fact the problem had been anticipated and studied for years certainly compounded his problems. But that was just an error.

But his greatest difficulty is with logic. From years of constantly rising in politics, he came to understand that his utterances didn’t have to make sense for him to be elected and to govern. Over the years he found that he could make the most outrageous assertions and that he wouldn’t be called on them by his base and others who supported him and that what was reported in the media and said by the opposition never slowed his quest for the top job.

He and his surrogates could spout bald faced falsities and it made little difference in his standing with the American public. Assertions that: Saddam’s Iraq had weapons of mass destruction; al Qaeda and Iraq were acting in concert; we won’t need more troops to occupy Iraq; the Iraq War is going well; we’re fighting the jihadists in Iraq so that we don’t have to face them here - yet we’ve foiled X number of plots against our cities; that private accounts would save Social Security; that Harriet Miers is the most qualified person in the country for a seat on the Supreme Court; and that Brownie is doing a heck of a job in the recovery from Rita just don’t play any longer.

How could George Bush say things that made no more sense prior to our attack on Iraq and not be penalized? But now that the sun is low in the sky on his presidency how is it that he is called for every wrong phrase? My guess is that it’s like a courtship. A fellow can croon his way into a willing heart at the beginning of a romance, but after several years of a rocky marriage, those explanations of how he came by those lipstick stains on his collar just no longer pan out.

Too many half truths and tall tales have done George in. He’s lost the trust of the people and is perceived by all but the most foolish of his true believing base to be a man whose word is not to be trusted. Can you imagine having to serve another thousand days under such a dark cloud?

Blog on!

Wild Bill

Let George Do It!

Poor George - Iraq, Katrina, Rita, Harriet - when it rains it pours; he can’t seem to do anything right.

Iraq just won’t go away. Every couple of weeks George feels it essential to find some military unit he hasn’t spoken to about the war (finding that squad gets harder and harder) and proclaim that we’ll stay the course. The next day Democrats and even some Republicans beat him about the head and shoulders and polls are taken showing him still lower after each effort.

Katrina and Rita appear to be developing into multi-year drags and now we find out that Floridians still haven’t recovered from the hurricanes that roared through the Sunshine State last year.

Harriet, poor Harriet, she’s served George faithfully for a decade and when he decides that he’ll recommend her for an iddy biddy government job, his most loyal supporters jump on him like he’s a jackass. Why just days ago they were proclaiming that George should be able to name anybody he wants to that little sinecure. But when he does: GOTCHA!

While the Democrats are totally befuddled when it comes to any subject, at least they can count on George to stop them from self immolating. Where would they be without him?

Most of the Dems voted to support his adventure in Iraq, but he’s been a complete failure in pinning that tail on their donkey.

At least Harry Reid’s got it right about Harriet; he keeps saying nice things about her while George’s conservative base goes ballistic. It looks like the Dems are enjoying damning Harriet with faint praise which seems to set George’s buddies off again. By the time the Judiciary Committee Republicans get through beating up on Harriet, the minority members will simply join with a three or four on the other side and send her back to the White House on a platter with an apple in her mouth. “Gee whiz, if she ain’t good enough for the Republicans, who are we to support her?”

Gosh, wouldn’t it be great to be clearing brush on the ranch? How’d he ever let those boys talk him into running again? Lame duck? Golly, he can’t even waddle on one leg.

Blog on!

Wild Bill

The Evil Empire Strikes

Alright already, who’s ever heard of a baseball season ending in a tie and having the winner determined by an NFL type tiebreaker? Nobody, of course, and that includes the media, Boston Red Sox players and everyone in New England. Clearly, Red Sox Nation was shafted by Major League Baseball and its dominant franchise, the New York Yankees. America should have been treated to a game between the aged muscle-bound denizens of the Bronx and those wonderfully innocent home grown New Englanders from Fenway Park. But what kind of conspiracy would that have created?

While it will surely turn out well in the end, the clear intent of the secret rule was to assure that the Evil Empire would have every advantage in the post season. The juiced up Bronx Bombers need every edge that a $200 million dollar pumped up payroll can provide, and MLB has provided it in the form of rule obviously adopted to frustrate honest New Englanders at home and wherever the Diaspora has taken them.

While Wild Bill is confident that the Beantown locals will prevail, he finds it terribly sad that the owners of such small town franchises as Minnesota, Milwaukee and Kansas City would allow themselves to be intimidated and gulled by The Boss in picking on their fellow regional team and allowing the money boys from Wall Street to determine off the field which franchise would get all the breaks. That’s a sad commentary on Red States and honest conservatives everywhere.

While I have no doubts that my loyal readers from New York are clear eyed when it comes to the issues of Iraq, budget and trade deficits and such, it is demoralizingly sad to see their hubris when it comes to the Yankees. While the supporters of these juiced up monsters from the Bronx are able to be objective when it comes to politics and world affairs, it is awful to see their blind spots when it comes to the far more important issue of baseball and the place of their overpaid, over-muscled, slow thinking representatives from the Bronx.

It’s very sad, and I’m tempted to call for baseball to break up the Yankees but that might lead a player addicted to steroids being shipped to the Back Bay. I’ll just settle for saying it’s unfair and that it’s disappointing.

The paranoid among the Red Sox Nation are certainly reading much into the fact that the opening day pitcher for the Chicago White Sox – a team with its own post season scandal riddled past, Jose Contreras, might have been planted by The Boss to assure a less than stellar start to the BOSOX post season. Wild Bill will just say, “Noted.”

Fair Play Forever! Blog on!

Wild Bill

Meet Me in the Middle

E. J. Dionne, Jr., one of my favorite liberal columnists, describes the plight of his lefty Democrats as being unable to attract enough moderate votes to gain control of either the White House or either House on the Hill. On first blush, as a committed moderate this argument makes a lot of sense since I’m very upset by the actions of conservative Republicans in all branches of government.

Dionne cites an electorate with 45% of the voters describing themselves as moderates, 21% liberals, and 34 % conservatives, and he lays out a path a path for liberals to capture the votes of us centrists. To those of us in the middle disillusioned with the performance of President Bush who promised to be a uniter but has done so much to offend both liberals and moderates Dionne’s recipe looks attractive, but I’m afraid it will not pass the taste test.

Both liberals and conservatives treat us as a passive lot who must be won over to the side of truth – theirs, naturally. But that’s what got us into this sorry state. In the sixties we went along with Lyndon Johnson’s war and guns and butter economy, and beginning with Reagan we’ve bought into a national muscularity in foreign affairs that culminated with the shock and awe beginning of our pratfall in Iraq and the sorry attempt to destroy Social Security.

Do you want to know who was really responsible for Vietnam and Iraq? It wasn’t the aggressive Democrats of the sixties for the former nor was it the neocons of the new millennium in Iraq; it was us moderates who gently sidled up to Lyndon and Dubya. We are responsible because we just went along, as usual.

The moderates must lead the country out of the wilderness. Impossible you say. If that’s the case we’re doomed to lurch from left to right, forever tossed on the waves of bunk that are bashing the ship of state from left to right and back again. America was a land of moderation for much of its history, but the sensible center was not up to the political, economic and political turmoil of the last century. A president of the left center had to rise and save the nation in the thirties and one from the right moved center stage to move us back on course and govern through the Cold War.

These two aberrations, left and right, addicted us to government from the edges that led us too far, first one way then the other. The moderates have seen no other way but to pick one side or the other to move us back. My view is that we’re wrong in choosing the way we have; we’ve followed and not led. We must break the cycle of choosing between the left and the right and make them move to us. You don’t see the difference? Bear with me

The liberal Democrats are debating whether to remain true to their core beliefs or to move slightly to the center to attract more of us. Obviously, the conservatives are doing the opposite but secure in the knowledge that they have to entice fewer of us to their 34% base to maintain control of the levers of power.

The problem is that we sheep are simply waiting to be divided and led to slaughter. As I’ve written before in my essay on the gang of fourteen million, we must lead from the center and demand that the extremes bow to us rather than the other way around. Naturally, this isn’t going to be done by creating a third party or by recruiting our own candidates. It has to be done by individual voters rejecting the extremes and saying so loudly and clearly to those running the parties.

Right now we should be angry with the Republicans. Even if we’re members of that august group – which I was until the build up to the Iraq War – we must punish them for their adventurism in both foreign and domestic affairs. At the same time, we should make it abundantly clear that we are not buying into the liberal claptrap and that we will punish the Democrats for moves away from center, too.

Above all, we must be prepared to punish our own cherished congressional representatives of either party who bring home the bacon but who are ideologues in all things non-constituent oriented. Just because they fight for the local military base or for the multi-billion dollar bridge project, if we see that that their larger presence is taking us down the wrong road as a nation, we must vote against them. If they perceive that before the next election and move toward the center, we can forgive and vote for them – ONE LAST TIME.

Above all, if we’re lucky enough to be represented by a moderates such as members of `The Gang of Fourteen’ in the Senate or Blue Dog Democrats in the House, we must do our best to praise and publicize them to our neighbors. They’re rare but out there and they must be cherished and recognized.

Would this strategy work? Compared to what we’re used to it couldn’t hurt to try.

With the Red Sox and Yankees gearing up for a showdown in Fenway, I’m shifting my brain into gear for something really important for the next several days. Blogs are out until the middle of next week.

So Blog on without me!

Wild Bill

Lessons Learned

Before all the commissions and committees blow forth the final fog about how the governments performed or failed to perform in Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and before we are so locked in on the scent trails pointed to by the Congress and its hired hands might it be possible for us draw a few preliminary lessons of our own?

It is quite clear that we haven’t done nearly so much in disaster planning and preparedness as most of us had assumed and inferred from official pronouncements and media interpretations. Judging from the actions of local, state and federal leaders and agencies, we weren’t nearly as prepared for a category 4 or 5 hurricane strike on the Gulf Coast as we should have been, let alone two such events in less than a month. That, of course, says nothing about preparedness for a terrorist attack on a major population center

It is clear that the City of New Orleans, other local entities, the States of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and the federal government were far from ready for an event for which they’d been given as much notice as would ever be possible. The Hurricane Center in Miami clearly sounded the alarm in a timely and crystal clear manner. The potential physical damage of Hurricane Katrina was known to officials in all of the jurisdictions. None of the three levels of governments appear to have been nearly properly prepared or acted as well as we or they would have liked.

With the coming of Hurricane Rita on the heels of Katrina, however, it appears that the impacted governments drew many lessons from the earlier hurricane and did their level best to deal with the situation. Many things went right and quite a few did not. Clearly all three levels of government performed with far more energy, as we fully expected they would after the disaster that unfolded to the east of them.

The citizens took the warnings and the orders to evacuate far more seriously for Rita. That led to many new and unanticipated problems such as turning the highways out of Houston into endless parking lots. But with the newly exposed problems, I’m certain that all levels of government will respond even better in the next great storm. Obviously, everyone will work to find ways to stagger the exodus of refugees from the next hurricane. Governments can learn and have shown it in the month since Katrina.

Before we go too far in condemning President Bush, the governors, mayors, county judges, and their administrations for their failures in these two storms, we should note that many public officials performed competently, effectively, even admirably and obviously charitably. Then we should draw a deep breath and indicate much as the early colonist observed watching a condemned man ascend the gallows, “There but for the Grace of God, goes John Bradford.” I used to work on disasters for federal agencies and know full well how lucky I am not to have been in the chain of command in responding to Katrina.

From all that I can see, we’ve learned much and will deal with future natural disasters far better than we did with Katrina and Rita. But what about events caused by man – attacks by enemy states and terrorists? Those are very scary thoughts.

First, it’s unlikely that we’ll have any better intelligence than that provided by the Hurricane Center. Looking back on lessons of the Cold War, an attack by a prospective enemy state is likely to offer only a few hours or days warning and that is probably going to be general rather than target specific. Who will be advised to evacuate? Who will help the refugees? Who would obey the logical order of evacuation that we will surely learn from Rita? You know who, nobody!

In the case of terrorism, there will almost certainly be no warning. Obviously if the government becomes aware of an impending attack it will move heaven and earth to stop it, but there is unlikely to be time to advise residents of the target area to evacuate in an orderly fashion. Clearly if there is a terrorist attack using weapons of mass destruction, all the logic in the world regarding planned evacuation will be out the window. If Houston highways were snarled, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.

To me, Secretary Chertoff’s program to plan for catastrophic events at the federal level is right on target. State and local officials must deal with smaller events – even up to the horror that was 9/11, and the federal government must use its resources to prevent such catastrophes and to respond to them in case its intelligence and intercession fails.

Katrina and Rita must be reminders that we must do more to develop intelligence on both natural and man induced calamities. In the case of hurricanes, it looks as though we have an excellent system in place. We must spend more money on earthquake identification and prediction and on the tsunamis that can result from those quakes under the sea. We’re doing research on bodies in space and that must continue.

But the most important lesson to be learned from the disasters of August and September 2005 is already receding from view. Pork is the enemy of public safety in these perilous times. Already defenders of one president, governor or another are proclaiming that they spent more on the Corps of Engineers (or the Bureau of reclamation, etc.) than their predecessor or successor. This is where the bunkum hits the fan. The legislators and their friends in the executive have classically played games with budget figures and they show every sign of continuing.

Spending money on the Corps does not mean they are spending money on projects required for public safety. Spending money on Homeland Security does not mean they are funding project essential to protecting us. The Defense budget has always been laden with pork, but these have almost always meant add ons to the budget not substitutions of Congressional views on defense policy for the leaders of the DOD. These redundancies have often been wasteful but not detrimental to our safety.

Homeland Security and Corps of Engineers pork, on the other hand, is not added onto the required funding. It is in lieu of projects needed for national security. Your Congressional representatives in both Houses are knowingly steering money into hometown boondoggles. This used to be a relatively harmless pastime designed to get them reelected and to assure that a little federal money fertilized the grass around city hall. That won’t do in this age.

Take your pick: global warming is creating more powerful hurricanes or we are entering a multi-decadal cycle of more frequent and powerful storms. From a homeland security perspective either option works as well as the other; giant storms are coming. More of our citizens live in danger zones, and we can’t afford to be penny wise on Corps projects and ignore the possibility of paying ten times as much to lock the barn door after Dobbin is gone.

We are living in an age of terror and the United States is the number one target. While we can’t ignore the possibility that a shopping mall in Lincoln, Nebraska will be the scene of a suicide bombing, we must know that New York, Washington, Chicago, the Port of New Orleans and other major metropolitan targets are what Osama bin Laden would like to take out. We can’t afford to have pork looted from the Homeland Security budget to satisfy the pipedreams and electability of craven politicians.

You’ve got to have some idea whether the project being pushed in your town really adds to the safety of all of us. If it doesn’t blow the whistle! The lives and safety of tens or hundreds of thousands of our fellow citizens is in the balance.

Don’t stand idly by in this; the security of the nation is at stake.

Blog on!

Wild Bill

Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics

The Bush administration is going to great lengths to assure that casualty counts from Iraq are accurate – and misleading.

American service men and women killed are reported in a straightforward fashion. Those killed by hostile action are identified and those killed in accidents are so reported and both are added together to provide the count used by the government and reported to the media.

Is there any other way counting could be done? Actually, yes!

Those Americans wounded in action are quiet properly listed but those injured in accidents are compiled separately and only the former are given regular reporting coverage by the Pentagon. Thousands of Americans badly injured – up to and including those permanently and totally disabled in the hostile environment that is Iraq are not classified as casualties unless they were wounded by enemy action.

During previous wars such as World War II and Korea the military provided many more of its own services. Proud units such as the famed transportation command `The Red Ball Express’ came under fire and suffered many casualties, including many from accidents that would not qualify under today’s counting methods. Today, in Iraq many jobs formerly performed by the army and other services such as kitchen duty and truck driving are performed by contractors. Drivers and support personnel killed, wounded or disabled by hostile action or accident are carefully kept off the casualty books.

All of these techniques and many other statistical feats show a far rosier picture in Iraq than if standard operating procedures used in reporting casualties in prior conflicts were used. Men and women are still being killed and injured; they just don’t count like their grand parents.

As long as you know!

Blog on!

Wild Bill

No Money Down - No Payments Due - Ever

Where have all the cloth coats gone? Since when did Republicans become the party of easy credit cards and ostentatious display? When did the GOP decide to live on debt and pass the bill on to their grandchildren? Well that’s only technically that they’re stiffing their grandchildren; really it’s more like leaving the bill for the children and grandchildren of the middle class. How on earth did these neo-robber barons conceive of – no, pull off – hijacking the party of trust busting TR and Honest Abe and turn it once again into the tool of the successors to J. P. Morgan, the Astors and the old time pre-reform Rockefellers?

For all of the profligacy, the Democrats seemed at least partly committed to being the party of Robin Hood. Growing older, I’ve come to realize that the handling charges in such entities as non-profit organizations are more than enough to assure home addresses in Georgetown, Beacon Hill, and Palo Alto, but their hearts, bless their hearts, seemed always to be in the right place. So it was as they soaked the rich to help the lot of those most in need.

Dang, how did these boys from Texas and Wyoming gull the middle class into thinking they were guiding their party down the garden path of fiscal responsibility while in actuality they were lining their pockets and charging the bills to the grandchildren of the rubes buying the McMansions and Humvies? Some damn trick, eh?

Now as The Used car Salesman in Chief, aka, Dubya peddles the snake oil guaranteed to cure the ills of the Gulf Coast at no cost, really at less than no cost since taxes will continue to go down for all taxpayers – especially those of the neo robber barons. Does this not sound surprisingly like the line put forth by Professor Henry Hill? But this isn’t The Music Man with a formulaic happy ending; this is real life.

We’re going to have to restore the Gulf Coast of this there can be no doubt. And, regardless of your views on Iraq, we’re going to have to continue to pour lives and treasure into that unhappy land. But, `read his lips’, we’re not going to have to pay for either one. For the Used Car Salesman in Chief, it’s all one big Washington’s Birthday Sale; drive your Hummer off the lot with no payments due until your grandchildren grow up and take over the payment book.

It’s galling to me that the party of Robert Taft and all those `pay as you go’ Republicans are more than happy to avoid reality and spend, spend, spend far faster than the democrats they label as the party of big spenders, all the while institute policies undermining the middle class and creating budget and trade deficits that really don’t mean anything. “Now who’re you gonna believe – me or your lyin’ eyes?”

The Administration’s got economists lined up from Capitol Hill to Wall Street guaranteeing that these deficit numbers don’t mean a thing. “Buy now, no payments due until 2018!”

I know there are Cloth Coat Republicans out there. They’ve sent people to Congress from Maine, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, even from Arizona and Nebraska, so when are they going to wake up around the rest of the country? It better damn well be soon. It better be, those same law makers getting ready to max out our national credit card just recently passed Bankruptcy Reform. Our grandchildren just won’t be able to roll that debt over and continue to make minimum monthly payments.

Blog on!

Wild Bill

The Gang of Fourteen Million

Some months back, the U.S. Senate was in grave danger of completely breaking down. The Republicans were threatening to use the `Nuclear Option’ to overcome the Democrats use of filibusters to prevent votes on President Bush’s judicial nominees. The Democrats, in turn, were threatening to shut down the federal government if the rule change on filibusters was imposed.

This increasingly dire situation festered for months and only diminished when `The Gang of Fourteen’ stepped in and boxed ears on both sides of the aisle. Seven Republicans and seven Democrats – just fourteen percent of the body - stepped forward and made it clear that despite the clamoring of crazy conservatives on one side and loopy liberals on the other they would propose centrist ground rules that would determine how the Senate would deal with judicial nominees. At least for the time being, the senators on the fringes and the leaders had no choice but to abide by the will of `The Gang.’

Rarely has the country been so polarized. Corruption of the redistricting process has led to a situation in which the vast majority of seats in the House of Representatives are no longer competitive. Sophisticated analytic tools have made `safe’ redistricting of the Congressional districts and has led to great polarization within the legislative body. Instead of having to answer to relatively balanced groupings of citizens, most members of congress are forced to move hard right or left to satisfy the narrowed political spectrum that they now represent.

The legislative changes have driven most moderates out of the Congress and sent the level of discourse in Washington to new lows. This process has tended to highlight the relatively recent phenomenon of Red and Blue states. With the level of comity working its way toward little or none, what are moderates to do?

`The Gang of Fourteen’ has shown us the way. Those of us committed to the center must assert ourselves and become `The Gang of Fourteen Million.’ Surely, those of us not frothing at the mouth at the diatribes of el Rushbo, Sean, and Bill O’Reilly or Michael Moore and Al Franken must realize that to continue to entrust our government to representatives of either group without checks on their behavior from outside the loony bin is a recipe for certain disaster.

The excesses of the liberals during the run up to the darkest days of Vietnam is a perfect example of the left gone wild, and the culmination of the conservative era that we live in today has led to the disastrous situation in Iraq and to the inept response to Katrina that stares us in the face today.

The hubris of Lyndon Johnson whose guns and butter madness led to a massive failure in the welfare state, the horror that was Vietnam, and to the long term run of inflation that wiped out the savings of millions of Americans.

Now, the `starve the beast’ mentality of the right together with an overarching hubris among our leaders has led us into the trap of Iraq and to our inability to respond effectively to disasters such as Hurricane Katrina.

When I was young, I supported the policies and people that brought us the Johnson failures. I switched to the ideas being espoused by Ronald Reagan and actually voted for George W. Bush in his race against Al Gore. I was wrong. And despite admitting to errors that could disqualify me from pontificating – you know that’ll never happen - I’m convinced there is an answer.

`The Gang of Fourteen Million’ must be formed, and it begins with each of us. The policies of the hard right and extreme left are not the answers. That the left arose to save America during The Great Depression and it was answered by the messianic Reagan era means only one thing to me. While the rise of extreme politics, government, and economic policies may be needed in time of crisis, during normal, relatively prosperous times, only moderate leaders should have their hands on the levers of power.

As we consigned the wild eyed liberals to a life of wandering in the desert, we should now be purchasing one way tickets to the Sahara for those pushing us toward the brink of extreme right wing radicalism.

It is time for divided government. I will be supporting Democrats in 2006 not because I love them or believe in them but to punish the incumbents for their massive failures. If neither or either but not both Houses of Congress fall to the Democrats, I’ll support the Democratic nominee for president in’08, again as punishment for the failure of this administration. But I will vote for the Republican if both houses are controlled by the Democrats. I will never again give my votes to a single party in control of the two active branches of government, except in times of crisis such as The Great Depression.

Surely, out of 300 hundred million Americans there are fourteen million of us with a commitment to moderate government, and we must work to find one another and to proselytize from among thinking people who are disturbed by the situation in which we find ourselves. It’s not as if you or I must be the single founder; there are already fourteen of our kind in the Senate and literally millions who voted for them, most consciously. All we have to do during conversations – or rather shouting matches - in which our left and right wing brethren are foaming as others simply listen is to speak up and indicate that we don’t agree with extreme solutions or candidates and indicate how we intend to vote.

In many states, the shift of just a few percentage points would be enough to determine the winner of the presidency. Even in many `safe’ districts, just a few thousand votes could determine control of the House of representatives.

We can do it, and we better!

Whew! After this screed you must be tired. I am. I’m going on vacation for a week or so, and the blog and you will be the better for it.

Blog on!

Wild Bill

Heck

Heck, Ah don’t get it. Bubba gets away with anything with the lingo. Heck, he’s got a lot redder neck’n mine. Ah mean heck, Ah went to Yale – and Harvard too - and so’d ma Daddy and lots o’ other kin. Now Ah axe ya straight out, what the heck’s meanin’ o’ heck?

Ah mean Bubba says it depends on the meaning of `is.’ But me, no, the media just assumes that `heck’ means `heck’. Pardner, in freshman English at Yale, Ah learned all about irony and sarcasm and lots o’ other big words, but let me say `heck’ and they stick me with `heck’.

If you cain’t see that the mainstream media’s pickin’ on us good ol’ country folk and funnin’ us cause we’re bumpkins, you cain’t see nothin’.

Heck, Ah say somethin’ bout raisin’ a iddy biddy bit o’ `heck’ in Nahlins a long time ago, and the New York Times and the Washington Post are all over me as not bein’ sensitive. Heck, Bubba’s never stopped raisin’ heck and all they can say is, “Looky how smart that good ol’ boy is.”

A’right, let’s git raht to it. When Ah said “Brownie, you’re doin’ a heck of a job,” why’d the Times just jump at thinkin’ I meant`heck?’ Ah’ll tell ya why, cause they’re backin’ Hilary and give her all the breaks when it comes to the lingo. If she said `heck’, heck they’d be sayin’, how bout that red state sensitivity?

Why couldn’ Ah a' meant ya ain’t cuttin’ the mustard, Brownie? They don’ know fer sure. But no, how’d they know that wasn’t irony or sarcasm or some such b.s. meanin’? Ah’ll tell you why; they just got it in fer folks 'at say `heck’ an’ you know who you are.

You know’d Ah meant heck. Don’ you lissen to them pin heads from New York City an’ Washington. D’ya evr hear how funny they say nuculeer? Who you gonna believe us’n or them’n?

U Betcha!

Blog on!

Wild Bill

Denial is Dereliction

While Mark Twain’s warning that the women and children should be locked up and guarded when the legislature is in session is humorous and not without some merit, democracies need their legislatures.

Last week, even while the parties were fighting and feuding, it was a matter of life and death that the Congress perform effectively and it did. It passed two emergency appropriations that will permit the emergency response and rebuilding of New Orleans to proceed. The Congressional role was simple. The members saw it. The Congress succeeded.

While the role of the various levels of government in catastrophes is less clear today than in the happy summer days prior to Katrina, there was virtual unanimity on the view that the federal government had to open its wallet and cover the cost of cleanup and reconstruction. The President asked for the money and the Congress appropriated it. Without that approval, the calamity that faces the nation on the Gulf Coast could have unraveled our entire society.

Does anyone out there disagree to this point? Excellent, I’ll proceed.

Al Qaeda tried to behead the government of the United States. The mad scheme of Osama bin Laden to destroy major symbols of America – The World Trade Center, The Pentagon, and either the White House or the Capitol – failed at a certain level as the president and the Congress survived, and the government was able to respond to the attack.

In retrospect, however, part of that failure by al Qaeda was based on the heroic response of only a few individuals on the plane that went down in Pennsylvania, the great good fortune that Mr. Bush was not in The White House, and the Congress was not gathered in one place at the moment of proposed impact.

When New Orleans was drowned, the Congress had to perform. What if a quorum of one or both Houses, due to terrorist or enemy nation attack, was not available to legislate? Fortunately, that was not the case with Katrina and those of us not working on the rescue and cleanup can continue to enjoy ourselves as the government lives.

But there are people, very bad people, dedicated to undermining the ability of the United States government to perform its duties, and September 11 should have been the ultimate wake up call, but it wasn’t.

In the four years since the attacks by al Qaeda, the federal government has made great strides in physical security of the Capital. Four years of construction assures that those attempting to destroy the Capitol, The White House, the Pentagon, and most other strategic and symbolic points in the Washington area will have a much more difficult time with their diabolical plans. Presidential succession is clear, and it appears that the Executive Branch takes its responsibilities seriously in this vital area.

The Congress, however, has not kept pace. While the buildings and grounds of the Legislative Branch have been hardened and a successful beheading of the government is far less likely, certainty can never be assured. The levees protecting New Orleans would stand up against a Category 3 storm, but there was no guarantee beyond that level and Katrina proved it to be the case. When the disaster occurred, the Congress was called upon to act, and it did.

But again in the case of one or both Houses not being able to legislate, what would happen if Washington or another city was laid as low as New Orleans and there was no way to constitute a working Congress? We just don’t know. And Congress has been derelict in not facing this question that was raised many times in the aftermath of 9/11.

So we had two disasters – 9/11 and Katrina – four years apart and an intact responsive government was required after both, and, by the grace of God, we had it.

Could there not be a category 5 attack on the government and the country? Of course, and we’ve been under warning for four years. But the Congress has diddled and failed to protect us. Denial of the possibility amounts to dereliction of duty. SHAME!

Congress must act to redress this failure!

Blog on!

Wild Bill

Losers!

Americans hate losing and love winning! I’ve had experience with both. In 1980, I lost a round robbin ping pong match with my sons – as I recall I wasn’t wearing proper foot wear, and, recently, I was nosed out in a golf match with my buddy, Lewis, in which I was suffering greatly from an injury that I didn’t claim because of my strength of character.

I ran for public office three times in the town to which I retired and won each time. I won’t say I was scared even a little in those races, but I have stopped shaking now that decade has passed since that first race.

This morning, I read with interest Richard Holbrooke’s expansive op-ed piece in the Washington Post. Mr. Holbrooke tears apart – effectively, in my judgment – the failure of the Bush Administration in the War on Terror. (I’ve linked the article so you can decide.)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/08/AR2005090801857.html

But Mr. Holbrooke is a fortunate man this morning. He is not – as Wolf Blitzer of CNN would echo, “NOT” – the United States Secretary of State. Had John F. Kerry won the White House, Mr. Holbrooke would have been the leading candidate to occupy the biggest office in Foggy Bottom.

So, regardless of how effectively President Kerry and Secretary Holbrooke were managing the debacle in Iraq and the War on Terror in their still new administration, the Secretary would not be penning long thoughtful articles on how to deal with Osama bin Laden; he’d been back filling on the government response to Katrina much as the real incumbent in State is doing.

Messrs. K & H can take some solace in having been found wanting at the polls. They’re not in charge of anything this morning.

My shoes really were the problem and I was a sport not to talk about my injury. But losing isn’t all bad; just ask John and Richard this morning. Whew!

Blog on!

Wild Bill

Steady! Clear Eyes!

Bill’s crew is now being buffeted by spin machines bearing category 5 winds. From the left, we learn that a heartless president and his market based buddies simply don’t care about the poor, especially poor Blacks, and that they dithered as New Orleans went down for the third time.

From the right, we learn – I heard it myself on Rush Limbaugh and read several incoming screeds from right wing acquaintances – that it (I guess the whole disaster) is the fault of the liberals and the dependency they created on the welfare state. One Evangelical preacher claimed the whole thing was God’s retribution on New Orleans for being a place of sin and evil. The inference I drew was that the good folks who spent their money on the sin got away.

Whew! With spin gusts of this magnitude it is difficult to sort out what those of us rational liberals (as my buddy Frank Lewis labels us) ought to be seeing as the debris flies past.

For openers, no matter how much fog is pumped in from the right, the federal response was a day late and a dollar short. While George was cutting brush and ducking Cindy Sheehan and while Dick was fishing or ranching, their underlings in charge of emergency response were trying to figure out what to do when a storm that every man woman and child with cable TV knew was going to be a monster. Message to Dubya: you were in charge; your boys goofed; it was your watch; you better chop off some heads and pray that that will stanch your bleeding.

To the left: taking advantage of this will get you elected, but if you simply revert to form and don’t spend money on infrastructure – mega-billions - you’ll wind up where you’ve been for that last generation – in the electoral wilderness; another killer storm will come on your watch, guaranteed.

The human tragedy being played out before us is wrenching. But if we elect people to deal with that alone, we will repeat this scene again and again. Our heartland supplies the world through the Mississippi and in turn is resupplied from sources around the world via that great way.

We must spend the money to correct the bad policies of two generations to make the river viable and the ports along it, especially the facilities around New Orleans, must be part of this process.

We cannot ignore our national infrastructure. Our ports, bridges, and airports must be updated constantly.

Our emergency preparedness organizations cannot be used as places to dump political hacks.

We must do these things with a minimum of recrimination. For openers, let’s name the reconstructed levees in New Orleans for Ronald Reagan. This will serve two purposes: returning irony to government and establishing the end of such foolishness.

Blog on!

Wild Bill

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Starve the Beast - Continued

I have been blaming the conservative movement for starving the beast, for robbing Peter to pay Paul – but not really paying Paul at all, and I believe that I’m right in that assessment. But the major complaint must be reserved for those pandering – that’s the politicians who took the campaign contributions. By starving the beast, Wild Bill and all the rest of us had more money to spend, or to paraphrase our great leader, `Who knows how to better spend your money, you or bunch of bureaucrats in Washington?”

The conservatives have sung this siren song of cutting our taxes and getting the `deadbeats' back to work for so long that it is second nature for many to believe it. I’m not going to argue for carrying deadbeats – if I could really identify them other than by resorting to stereotypes – and that’s where they get us. Cutting taxes and spending in almost all areas are the culprits, and the vast majority of us are culpable with the panderers.

Your government – and mine, our presidents and congress have known that New Orleans faced the fate that befell it last week for well over a generation and they chose to put off the need to fundamentally address the issue, praying that the calamity would not occur on their watch. For once, I won’t lay even the lion’s share of the blame on George W. Bush. For a century, federal action, inaction, and policy initiatives in the Mississippi Valley, including the Missouri and Ohio extensions, have been directed in ways that made Katrina’s wrath inevitable.

But it is far more than that. It is in underfunding meat inspection, and border security, and national parks, and veterans care, and a thousand and one other programs not even associated with those `deadbeats’ that we postpone crises in many areas to a day of reckoning – none nearly so dramatic as Katrina, however.

The conservative mantra is that if you cut taxes and spending, the economy will grow and make us rich. Until Katrina made it obvious that that is not necessarily true, it was difficult to point to a real example that even Wild Bill could understand as a counter. But by not investing a reasonable amount in correcting what man has done to the Mississippi all that our so called leaders could do was pray that the inevitable would be postponed until they qualified for their pensions and Medals of Freedom. For more than a generation, the problems in the Mississippi had become obvious to more and more observers, and yet the conservative movement demanded cuts in taxes and spending. The economy will grow us out of our problems.

A reasonable investment in river management made under Saint Ronald Reagan and carried through under Bush 41, Clinton and Bush 43 might well have mitigated the disaster that we face, but now we must invest an unknown multiplier of those sums to correct a generation of neglect. Thousands of lives and untold billions of dollars in lost gross national product and federal tax receipts will result from Katrina.

But it was up to a single storm to make obvious that we were living on the cheap, and there are more shocks to come. Gasoline prices spiked. The produce of the heartland from Montana to Pennsylvania must be transported but there is no easy method besides the river. The products destined for up river from New Orleans lays stalled out to sea. Will the loss in federal revenue from all these transactions ever be made up?

`Pay me now or pay me later.’ We have starved the beast, and now we must pay. I plead guilty for my share in the debacle.

Hold your president, your senators and you representative in Congress accountable!

Blog on!

Wild Bill

Buck? What Buck?

Two generations ago, one man was forced to make vital decisions greater than any person in his position had ever faced. He decided that the atomic bomb would be dropped on Japan, and he decided that the U.S. would lead a coalition of armed forces to defend South Korea against an attack from its neighbor. He decided the latter as part of a drive to assert the power of The United Nations.

Harry Truman made those decisions and stood by them. Every day, those two decisions are dissected in a hundred coffee shops, a thousand college classrooms and in numberless bars. Boldly, on President Truman’s desk, a small plaque proclaimed, “The Buck Stops Here.” Every day he is damned to Hell and praised to high Heaven for those choices.

Today, newspapers all over the world are reporting on the great lengths that the White House of George W. Bush is going to churn out disinformation describing how the failure of government to respond to the calamity that faces us in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama is the primary responsibility of the three states and the many local governments most impacted by Hurricane Katrina and not that of the federal government. How low can we go? Pretty damned far down I’d say. “Can you hear me down there?”

Why do we have a federal emergency management function? To me it’s simple; in the first instance to bolster the state and local response to crises that are too large for them to effectively manage without additional resources from outside and in the second to stand in when a calamity completely overwhelms the states and local entities.

Katrina was known to be a dangerous storm many days before it struck the Gulf Coast; it killed eleven people in Florida. It was known to be developing into a killer storm several days before it struck. That it would strike the Gulf Coast at about its point of attack was clear. The states and local governments warned their citizens to evacuate. (We know now that evacuation of New Orleans was a physical impossibility.)

The states (Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama) and the localities most impacted mobilized and threw all of their resources into the breach – minus those National Guard troops and equipment in Iraq. The federal government was monitoring and preparing during this phase of the situation.

The storm struck. The rest is history. The states and locals were overwhelmed. The federal response was late and insufficient.

The states and locals are saying they were completely overwhelmed by the magnitude of the storm. It is self evident that they are correct in this assessment.

The White House is moving Heaven and Earth to shift blame from George W. Bush to the States and locals.

Buck? What Buck?

Blog on!

Wild Bill

Starve the Beast

For several decades, it has been the conservative mantra to “starve the beast.” Cutting taxes and entitlement programs are, according to the believers, the basis for America’s prosperity and power.

But for old feds who dealt with disasters of the past, it’s sad to see the sorry state of governmental response to Katrina. I will not slam the leaders of Homeland Security or FEMA; their day on the griddle will come soon enough.

My complaint today is with the conservative movement that consciously moved to “starve the beast.” It is very difficult to say this is how we used to do it when we never faced a calamity of anywhere near the magnitude of Katrina. But I’ll try.

The conservatives want to remove the feed bag from the old ox and let private charity deal with as much of the problem facing us as possible. I don’t find that an unworthy goal, but let’s look at recent situations. Based on a visit to the website of the Red Cross, it appears that about $558 million was donated to that institution for the Tsunami last year - a lot of money. The Salvation Army’s site indicates that Americans have already donated more than $32 million to aid the victims of Katrina as of this morning (Sunday, September 4, 2005.) This too is a great outpouring.

Let’s just assume that private donations from around the world to all of the charities committed to helping the victims of Katrina quadruple those for the tsunami and that Salvation Army collections for Katrina increase tenfold from those now in the coffers. With all wild speculation, we might assume that $5 billion in private charity will be collected and expended on this disaster. That would be an amazing outpouring of money and empathy.

But let’s step back and note that insurance losses are expected to exceed $25 billion, and that the total losses are likely to exceed $100 billion. The catastrophe makes all these payments pale in comparison with the need. The federal government passed an emergency appropriation of $10.5 billion yesterday. Based on my reading of some of the provisions, it will be some time before much of that aid buys food and blankets for individuals.

When FEMA was set up in the 1970s, it was able to tap the entitlement monies of the grant making federal agencies to deal with the disaster facing the nation. Thus, HUD, HHS (then HEW), Labor, and the rest were dunned and expected to come up with money – right now - from their unexpended and uncommitted grant program monies.

Today, the emaciated beast has almost no money in any of these pockets and FEMA and Homeland Security look like a bunch of incompetent braying jackasses.

Thank goodness, the emergency appropriation is but a down payment on the great loss. Unfortunately, the money must still trickle down to state and local governments and ultimately to individual victims through the elaborate grant making process. This will be short circuited to the greatest extent possible, but relief and recovery will take time – much time.

My points are that intentionally “starving the beast” has made response far slower than it would have been and, far more important, that private donations, however great, can never displace government as the principal mitigator of true calamities.

The starved beast of government is shown for all its shortcomings as it responds to Katrina. Citizens who see a role for government in the life of the nation must demand that irresponsible tax cuts CEASE! Government by pork – as in the recent highway bill – may get men and women reelected to Congress but ultimately undermines the government’s ability to perform in emergency situations.

The people must demand more of their government than tax cuts for the rich and no joint sacrifice in the face of war and disaster. Your president, your two senators, and your representative are dancing. Will you demand that they stand and deliver?

Blog on!

Wild Bill

The Party's Over

Today's blog posting is the most important of Wild Bill's career. It is not written by him but by the editors of the New York Times. As my pal El Rushbo proclaims daily, the Republicans are the party of ideas and the Democrats are bankrupt. Sadly for Rush, the bubble burst when the levees failed. Attached is today's lead editorial in The Times. It states the case perfectly. The excesses of the party of ideas are exposed nakedly before us. "Starve the beast" will no longer do. When you undermine government's ability to respond, you undermine the security of the nation.

I quoted a Republican yesterday: "Government's the enemy until you need a friend." Our emaciated friend wasn't up to the task and the society is suffering.

Government's ability to protect us must be restored. Be gone George! Crawl back into your hole Rush!

Here it is in a nutshell: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/03/opinion/03sat1.html

Blog on!

Wild Bill

Give Him an Extra Buck

In an early scene in Mel Brooks’ Young Frankenstein, the brilliant doctor demonstrates for adoring medical students his wizardry in pain suppression by describing his sure fire methods and then kicking his subject in the testicles. As they cart the writhing old man off on a gurney, Frankenstein, in a muttered aside, orders, “Give him and extra buck.”

America has not suffered pain for a long time. The Great Depression is but the subject of anecdotes of semi-senile seniors like Wild Bill. World War II has been made glamorous by those glorifying the `Greatest Generation’ and who have transformed the pain and fear of the times into glory. Vietnam is invoked but never analyzed.

But America is in pain today, and it is a phenomenon that we are ill equipped to face. Far away, our sons and daughters are facing deadly danger from an almost invisible enemy. Here at home, Louisiana and Mississippi are confronting a natural disaster greater than any in living memory, probably greater than any in our history as a nation.

It is our great misfortune that these two events are more than a little related. Thousands of members of the National Guard from the states most impacted by Hurricane Katrina who would ordinarily be part of the cleanup and solution are, instead, victims of the natural disaster. Not only are they unable to lend their muscle and expertise to mitigating the problems, their families are less able to cope the situation with their loved ones being in harms way on the other side of the globe.

The human catastrophe on the American Gulf Coast is of epic proportions with hundreds if not thousands dead and hundreds of thousands displaced. The closing of the Port of Southern Louisiana, the largest port in the U.S. and the fifth largest in the world was quickly felt around the country when gasoline prices jumped off the charts. All of these possibilities have been studied for years. THIS SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN A SURPISE TO THE ADMINISTRATION!

It appears that the oil producing facilities and port infrastructure in the Gulf region are not beyond repair and that the port will be ale to be saved and put back in operation – after heroic effort and the passage of much time. Sadly, the process will be slowed by the absence of those who make the system work and who find themselves disbursed to the four winds by the flooding and destruction.

America’s great heartland production is stuck waiting for the port to reopen, and the supplies necessary to run the states above the Delta sit offshore.

Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush presided over a government and country that has worked overtime to undue the structures put in place by administrations from the early nineteen thirties until the late seventies that gave government a great role in solving the calamities that had marred these earlier periods.

The politics of `me’ based on the philosophy of Ayn Rand where everyman is an island has come to reign. Government is just a boatload of bureaucrats looking to pick the pockets of honest folks and to bask in luxury while the genius of the market languishes.

In today’s Washington Post there were two columns that inspired this posting. E.J. Dionne, Jr. quotes former Maine Senator and Defense Secretary William Cohen who pithily put his finger on the problem. “Government is the enemy until you need a friend.” David Ignatius invokes the late Eric Sevareid view that civilization is only about seven meals away from anarchy. (Dionne’s column is linked at the end of this posting. I couldn’t attach Ignatius’s column but recommend that you read it on line. It is entitled: Time to Mend the Safety Net.)

For a generation, America has drifted away from Europe in its ideas of what a government should be doing. Our leaders have smiled knowingly that our course toward the selfishness of bigger houses and more wasteful engines was far superior to the cozy dwellings and motor bikes of “Old Europe.” We know that materialism is better than the semi-socialist schemes of Denmark and Holland.

But now we are facing joint calamities made worse by starving government budgets. Ignatius points out that it is not the `thousand points of light’ of Bush 41 that the man standing on the roof of the house surrounded by flood water is looking for to save him. It is the Coast Guard, the police, or the National Guard soldier at the helm of a rescue boat that he is seeking.

It is government – federal, state and local – that must put the Mississippi River and the lives of our dispirited citizens back together. The Red Cross and the Salvation Army can provide hot meals and shelter in the short term. But it is government – fueled by us all – that must restore lives and guide the restoration of the heartland. These governments have been emasculated and laughed at by a generation of me firsters, and it is not nearly well enough equipped to do the job as it should be.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/01/AR2005090102032.html

Blog on!

Wild Bill

Look for the Silver Lining

Tis an ill wind that blows no good and at least one person on the planet has found the gentle breezes of Katrina irresistible. President Bush is cutting short his vacation in Crawford to return to Washington so that he can direct the federal response to the hurricane’s damage.

The fact that the press will have to pull up stakes and leave Cindy Sheehan and her companions behind in the hot Texas sun had nothing to do with the presidential decision to vamoose.

While Cindy can pack up and track her elusive quarry to the nation’s capital, there her simple story will have to compete with many others for the attention of the media. The isolation of Crawford was perfect for Cindy and her anti-Iraq War friends.

The president, who undoubtedly feels the pain of his constituents along the Gulf Coast, almost surely issued a huge, “Whew!” when the opportunity arose to return to the White House. His performance this summer and in the coming months gives new meaning to the term `Washington Insider.’

Blog on!

Wild Bill

C'est La Vie

I’m done! I finished writing my novel about the internment of the ethnic Japanese during World War II. When I typed the last sentence I was overjoyed, because for more than two years several hours of almost every day was spent working on the beast.

My first novel, A Tattered Coat Upon A Stick, was a joy to compose as I was proving to myself that I could do it, that I was, at least in some sense, a novelist. I looked forward to creating another story to demonstrate that I wasn’t a one trick pony and, of course, to make tons of money and reap the glory that goes with being a successful novelist.

It quickly became obvious that agents and publishers are not quite as interested in superannuated novelists as they are first timers straight from campuses. Not one person in the industry would read even a single chapter, not a page, not a paragraph, not a line, a sentence, even a word. How could they not even consider one of the great books of the new century? Easy!

Undeterred - there is some question about the sanity of the author here – I began another story. This time too, the words flowed and the novel took shape. Au Revoir, L’Acadie emerged after more than two years of hard work, and I was satisfied.

In the meantime, new technology came along, and I self published the first novel. I was greatly heartened when it sold almost a thousand copies and I made a profit sufficient to throw a pizza party for my grandchildren.

Heartened by my great financial success, I prepared to forgive the literary agents and publishers and magnanimously offered them a second chance to discover the next Ernest Hemingway. Oh well, you can lead a horse to water…

Quite by chance, I learned of Publish America, a company that actually produces books by people like Wild Bill, not mid-listers but rather off the bottom of the chart performers. They accepted the document and the rest is history – not important history but a record of someone having faith in my work. This book sells at about the same pace as the first, so another pizza party was in order and was enjoyed by all.

Truly, I was on a roll. Royalties are pouring in and it appears that Pizza Hut will be hosting an annual event for the kiddies. I am a professional novelist. While my hourly rate of return is a little below the U.S. minimum wage - by a factor of at least twenty, still I’m paid. Is it possible that I could sue somebody for back wages? In thinking about it, the target would be me, so litigiousness should probably be stifled.

After these successes, I still felt that the literary establishment did not appreciate what was there right before their eyes and decided to write still another spellbinder. By this time, I had an M.O. I had my story – its’ about the internment of the Japanese

The book chronicles the war time experience of an army lawyer who is caught up in the internment. Most of the stories about this dark event have been told from the perspective of the victims. Their sad tales have inspired many books and will motivate writers far into the future, but I thought that someone should describe what happened to those charged with implementing Executive Order 9066 that they believed was immoral and illegal.

Things are looking up, the first agent contacted agreed to consider it - CONSIDER. While it may get little more attention than its predecessors, it has done better than them already.

The purpose of this posting is twofold. I can’t tell you how exhausting writing this third novel was. The relief felt when the last draft was finished was almost beyond description – a ridiculous admission from a professional writer. I never wanted to see the document again. While I knew that was silly, that’s how I felt. I never wanted to face another word processor.

I played a round of golf the following morning, never feeling freer of guilt for not having plugged away at the novel. The relief was amazing.

The second day without obligation, I hung around the house. The editor kept looking at me in a strange manner. "What are you doing in the kitchen? Get down in your hole where you belong!"

After a week something big dawned on me, I was bored and had nothing to do. What to do? A writer writes, so I descended into the pit and confronted the key board. The Blog! That’s it, the Blog. Instead of once a week as I’d been Doing as the book took shape, the Blog became a several times per week event again.

But it wasn’t enough. An old man has to putter; some of them garden. That was my favorite pastime for years, but now my little patch is but twenty by twenty, half of that a brick patio. I’m not handy; my lack of talent with tools is the stuff of family legends. I play golf once a week and have no desire to pick up the pace.

What to do? What could Wild Bill do to keep the synapses firing? Why, write a novel! Good God, no, not another three year commitment! But it’s all I know – all I can do. After ten Blog postings slamming George Bush, I tired of picking on him – at least on a daily basis. Besides, there is a great need to be met. If those pizza parties are to be the success I dream there must be an infusion of royalties. You can’t expect grandchildren to praise dear old dead Grampa if they can’t have coke with their slices, and they are getting restless having to order only plain cheese toppings.

So for the sake of the kiddies, I must get down to work. For the last couple of days, I’ve been tossing around some ideas. I’m dreaming again; maybe there could be ice cream after the pizza and coke.

More important, the editor wants me out of the kitchen.

Blog on!

Wild Bill

Light or Darkness

For a generation, American society has been under pressure from the right. Frankly, there was good reason for the movement toward values and conservatism, but it has gone too far and progressives and moderates must push back.

At least since the 1920s, America has been the symbol for modernity in the world. Rights for women, minorities, and children have been revolutionized, and we are a beacon through the world for moving toward humaneness and fairness. Our environmental movement throughout the period was among the most intelligent and forward looking in the world.

The wars of the twentieth century brought great change, much of it enlightened but, sadly, much of value was lost. Clearly needed changes in the rights of women naturally led to unintended results, and in the latter decades of the last century undesirable phenomena such as single motherhood arose.

The long clash between capitalism and communism that ended with the demise of the Soviet Union had within it the seeds of problems for America and its allies. In retrospect, Vietnam which our government – over five presidencies – believed to be an integral battle in the Cold War proved to be an unimportant way station in that conflict but one which created many of our present problems. While America did not prevail in Vietnam, in no way did that slow our victory in the greater clash.

From World War I until the turning point in public opinion against the conflict in Vietnam, the Democratic Party was the source of support for an aggressive and forward looking foreign policy. The Republicans beginning with Senator Henry Cabot Lodge’s pressure on President Wilson in the years following the Great War, through Martin, Barton and Fish leading up to World War II, and on into the early years of the Cold War was the party of isolation.

But, (as has been described by many writers and thinkers – and most especially for me by Andrew Bacevich’s The New American Militarism) political and social forces that had not been clearly recognized before Vietnam began to be asserted. The left wing of the Democratic Party no longer held and, in fact, revolted against the war and led the peace movement in the country. Excesses, proudly proclaimed by one side and exploited and highlighted by those reacting against them led to a major resurge of the conservatives and the values oriented segments in American society.

The vast majority of people in the middle of the political spectrum gradually shifted from progressive supporters of policies long espoused by Democrats to the policies and values of Republicans. Most observers point to Ronald Reagan as the principal beacon in this movement, but I think signs of it were clear in the election of Richard Nixon in 1968.

With this great reaction against Vietnam, powerful forces in the most conservative wing of the Republican Party led the way in this values oriented society. Most prominent in domestic politics were the Evangelical Christians. In looking outward, the Neoconservatives, over time, came to assert themselves most effectively.

The success of these elements in American society today is obvious and overwhelming. They have cleansed American government of liberalism and stand today in charge of both the Executive and Legislative Branches. While loath to admit it, they also control the Supreme Court and most other federal courts.

They are in a position to direct the federal government’s role in foreign and domestic spheres, and indeed are now fighting for power they never dreamed possible when the movement took shape just one generation ago. They have reduced taxes and changed the ratio of redistribution of wealth in the country from rich to poor to the opposite. They are fighting to insert religion into science. They are revolutionizing public education by calling for the teaching nonscientific beliefs in science curricula. They are undermining American leadership in the natural sciences and in medical science and treatment.

They are leading American foreign policy in the bellicose assertion of power across the globe and have led us into the War in Iraq in which all of the premises for the conflict were later found to be false. In the face of obvious error, they have redefined that war as one of values rather than immediate defense of the country and its allies. Now almost two thousand American deaths, tens of thousand wounded and injured, and almost three hundred billion dollars in treasure later, they say we must fight on despite having no better goals than the day we invaded.

It is time for the middle to shift to the Democrats. Libertarians and enlightened business leaders have to recognize that Evangelical policies are worse for their values than those of the left. Moderates must see that continuing down the trail of ignorance in science and technology will cause us to fall behind our competitors.

While the Neocons have disappeared into the woodwork as the debacle in Iraq becomes obvious to the American Public, every day we see further emboldenment of the leaders of the hard right in domestic affairs. Only wild and crazy statements by the most radical, such as calling for foreign assassinations are criticized – and then not by the President.

So it is up to the middle to tilt leftward, despite knowing that this too will ultimately lead to a shift too far. We must take the country back now!

Blog on!

Wild Bill

You Don't Speak For Me, Cindy Sheehan

Cindy Sheehan doesn’t speak for me! That’s the sum and substance of the far right’s diatribe against Ms. Sheehan. They want to go on with the charade in Iraq while the real war on terror languishes.

I completely agree with the far right in this case. Ms. Sheehan does not speak for them. She speaks for the millions of Americans fed up with all the lies, the punting, all the dodging, and all of the lives and treasure pored down the rat hole of Iraq, for what reason? That’s what Ms. Sheehan wants to know – from the president.

The more the Administration howls about the error of Cindy’s ways, the sharper her basic question about why her son died comes into focus. Just why did Casey Sheehan and the almost two thousand dead fight and die? Was it for the weapons of mass destruction that were never found? Was it for the threats posed by the alliance between Saddam and al Qaeda has never been established? Was it to bring democracy to the Iraqis now at the negotiating table trying desperately to sort out who gets what territory and what share of the oil revenue?

All Cindy wants is for the Bubble Boy to explain why he sent Casey to his death in Iraq. She’s not questioning why we’re in Afghanistan. She isn’t asking why we haven’t pursued the al Qaeda and the Taliban with enough resources that others have said have been diverted to Iraq.

Cindy Sheehan simply wants to know why we sent her boy to die in Iraq.

Sadly she has brought in some extraneous matter. She wants us out of Iraq now, and she wants to impeach the president. She’s just a wounded and despairing Mom, and she’s wrong to mix apples and oranges. And the president has seized upon her mistakes, red herrings, to distract his base to hound her unmercifully.

Let’s just forget what Cindy has said about things she’s no more qualified than the rest of us to comment upon. Let’s just answer her basic question. What high and mighty principles were we invoking when we sent Casey Sheehan to his death?

Bubble Boy goes down all of those false trails and holes. He doesn’t agree with Casey Sheehan’s Mom. He says that Iraq is part of the war against terror. I completely agree with him. By toppling a regime and destroying the infrastructure of a country that had no WMDs and no alliance with al Qaeda, the U.S. certainly has made Iraq the central battlefield against terror. And we're not making a whole hell of a lot of progress on that field.

We’re now getting close to losing as many lives in Iraq as were lost on 9/11. We’ve lost almost as many lives in a battle field that once had no relation to the horror visited upon us by al Qaeda.

Cindy doesn’t speak for the far right. BUT SHE SPEAKS FOR WILD BILL AND A WHOLE LOT OF OTHER FOLKS IN THIS COUNTRY. WHY WAS CASEY SHEEHAN SENT TO FIGHT AND DIE IN IRAQ?

BACK TO YOU, BUBBLE BOY!

Blog on!

Wild Bill

Bubble Boy

It is a given that the president of the United States requires physical and psychological protection. It is a job that entails great personal danger from enemies of the United States and from the mentally deranged within. Sadly, that need for protection can often translate into something that hurts as much as it protects the incumbent.

Franklin Roosevelt recognized this deficiency in the office and sent personal emissaries to determine what was really going on the country and the world. Eleanor was impelled by her own impulses to see the country and to feel the pulse of the unfortunate. She dug deeply and brought back to her husband as close to the truth as could be uncovered. And she made sure that he understood it.

Harry Hopkins, the most clear thinking loyalist in FDR’s inner circle, was dispatched to London, Moscow and wherever else trouble was brewing to bring back an independent analysis, however uncomfortable, on the condition of the United States in the larger world to Roosevelt.

Gerry Ford, that accidental resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, would not be dissuaded by courtiers and party loyalists from pardoning his predecessor. Any chance he had of winning the presidency by election was lost by that act. Yet a generation later, most would agree that his brave prescient act was the beginning of the healing process demanded by the excesses of Watergate.

The elder Bush, a decent man, stumbled badly when he was shocked by the technological advance of a simple barcode reader in a supermarket that all of the rest of his countrymen knew to be both ubiquitous and prosaic. This tiny faux pas demonstrated to the common man that the president was out of touch with their lives. A president more in touch with the voters was installed in the Executive Mansion.

Today on TV, I learned that Lance Armstrong, the great bicycle racing champion, would be visiting with Bush the younger at his ranch in Crawford, Texas and would go bike riding with him. The show’s anchor, half in jest, wondered aloud if Armstrong knew the protocol of the presidency and that he would be expected to stay a decent interval behind Mr. Bush. This is a president aware of his perquisites but not of how they are viewed by the people.

So it is that the president refused to meet with Cindy Sheehan. He said that it was his responsibility to maintain his lifestyle of normalcy in the Western White House. His inability to rise to the occasion of a visit with a grieving mother has caused him grievous damage. This man who does not like bad news indeed who seeks to have it screened from him is completely out of touch with the people and the nation.

This man says that we must stay the course in Iraq because failure to do so would break faith with those who have died. Break what faith? Those who perished were sent to that God forsaken land to overthrow a government that had weapons of mass destruction and that was consorting with al Qaeda, the sworn enemy of the United States. Those who died were sent on a mission that in retrospect makes no sense. Both reasons were in error – at best. Now our government has redefined the mission as one to bring democracy to the Iraqi people, a people who it is alleged would welcome our troops as liberators.

Democracy is the farthest thing from the minds of those negotiating a constitution in Iraq. It is power, territory and oil revenue that keeps them at the table.

Our troops are not defending the memory of those who died. They are in harms way to avoid bringing the truth to a man who does not want to see it. If we must stay, it is for naked reasons of defending our interests in Iraq - assuring that the oil continues to flow. The madness of the neocons in furthering an imperial dream that gets dimmer by the moment means that future casualties will happen to maintain a strategic presence in a country and region that abhors our presence.

This is George Bush’s war. He sent the troops into battle for reasons that do not hold up in the rear view mirror. We must get out. Sadly, we just can’t do it immediately. All of the deaths past and future began with a false premise. “Freedom” – baloney! We’re stuck and it’s this administration’s fault.

The boy in the bubble can’t even see what he has wrought.

Blog on!

Wild Bill

Term Limits

As anyone who has ever even casually eyeballed this blog knows well, I’m not a fan of George W. Bush or most members of his administration. Be that as it may, I think we ought to seriously consider repealing Amendment XXII to the Constitution that, at least in some measure, weakens his ability to perform his duties effectively.

For the very short moment in which California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s star burned brightly there was talk of amending the Constitution to permit a person born outside the United States to become president. My feelings about Ahhnold are immaterial, but I think that in a land of 250 million native born Americans there is little need for this change.

With regard to sitting presidents, however, I think the twenty-second amendment has caused significant damage to the presidency itself and that we should revisit the issue. Hoary details on the two term limit are unnecessary. Washington set the precedent and all of his successors until Franklin Roosevelt abided by it. Or did they? Actually, they did not, and the threat of a run for a third term by an incumbent or former chief executive was a useful tool in balancing the power between the Executive and Legislative Branches.

The threat of a run was always on the table, and Teddy Roosevelt made a run for his old job in 1912 thus assuring transfer of power from the Republicans to the Democrats. Thus, even in failing to win the job he wielded a big stick. The threat of a run for another term has not been available to any president since Harry Truman left office. While I’ve been a regular critic of the presidency for its constant grasping for more power, second terms since that of Truman have almost always been unhappy for most of the occupants of the Oval Office.

While Eisenhower and Reagan were foreclosed from additional terms, they were quite popular when leaving office and had health permitted and there was some fire left in them they might well have been candidates for retaining the job. In each of these presidencies, the second term was not as successful as the first fours years. Their rivals and even power points within their own parties did not fear the power of lame duck presidents and both parties challenged them without anywhere near the fear of the retaliation available to an incumbent second term president prior to the amendment’s adoption. Thus, with the twenty-second amendment the long second term status of lame duck came into being prior to Inauguration Day instead of when the potential candidate announced that he would not run again.

Thus while Bush twists in the breeze from his failures in Iraq, with Social Security, and for failing in his management of the budget and the economy, he is further weakened by his inability to threaten friend and foe (including other countries) with the possibility that he might run and win another term and thus still wield the clout of the greatest power center in the world.

Lamenting the usual executive power grab of first (and third and fourth) terms and deploring the weakness of presidents under the present two term limitation, should we not at least consider the change? Franklin Roosevelt is beyond another run, so the Republicans need not fear him any more than the Democrats have to worry about the Gipper returning to take a another curtain call. Looking over the rest of the field, it’s likely that Ike would have passed on a run and that Clinton had pretty much worn out his welcome with enough voters that he would have stepped aside. Assuming that Bush 43 will have had his butt kicked enough times between now and election day 2008, he looks like a candidate for the job of permanent brush clearer in Crawford, TX.

Since we now have more than half a century of experience in evaluating the Amendment XXII, would it not be prudent to evaluate whether the country would be better off with or without an amendment adopted in the haste caused by the passing of a political giant, FDR.

I say let’s give repeal a hearing. Don’t worry, Bush can’t get elected dog catcher in Crawford, so think about whether it would be good for the country without worrying about him.

Blog on!

Wild Bill

Freedom from Fear

I admit it; I’m a news junky. Actually, I’m an editorial, op-ed, and letters to the editor addict. Each morning, I spend an hour or more on the opinions of pundits and ordinary people far and wide. While there are many columnists that I admire, my favorite part of the day is to read what moves the readers of America’s papers to send their views to the local rag.

While I usually agree with writers like Paul Krugman of the New York Times and Richard Cohen of the Washington Post and rail at Robert Novak, I understand that they and their fellow pundits are generally well informed and honest purveyors of whatever line of thought they happen to have seized on for the day. Naturally, there are as many strikeouts as home runs. Meeting a deadline two or three times a week over a forty year career means an occasional error.

Some days back, I jumped down Anne Applebaum’s throat for her comparisons of al Qaeda and the Irish Republican Army in a Washington Post opinion. I was right, of course, but one of my best friends – wrongly – thought my Celtic heritage got in the way of sound reasoning. In case she’s reading, my challenge to her is withdrawn.

Now I’m upset with a column in the Boston Globe. I check the opinions in that paper daily as I’m a native of its circulation area and spent nine years as a subscriber before moving back to Virginia three years ago.

As you all know, Boston is the Hub of the Universe and is home to some of the most brilliant Homo sapiens on the planet. It also swarms with historically literate people, and, while I’m a moderate, many of these historians – amateur and professional – are of the liberal persuasion. So, when I saw an op-ed piece in the Globe that not only had its facts wrong but that gave an erroneous slap at Franklin Roosevelt, I thought the good folks of Boston would inundate the Globe with thousands of letters brimming with righteous indignation. Never happened!

Peter S. Canellos, the Globe’s Washington Bureau Chief, in an otherwise inoffensive article, ends his column with an apples and oranges analysis of the words of FDR. He argues that the president’s pre-war promise of `Freedom from Fear’ was permanently undermined by the nuclear weapons that his own decisions brought into existence. There are two statements on the subject of fear made by Roosevelt that may be in Canellos’s mind, and neither of them works in this case. The first was his famous first inaugural statement that “All we have to fear is fear itself…” Those words referred directly to the economic woes of the nation and the insecurity infecting the people.

The second FDR reference that Mr. Canellos may have in mind is that of the famous Four Freedoms of why we were fighting the war. Freedom from Fear was indeed one of those freedoms. That one too had nothing to do with the atomic age that we were frantically trying to enter. Roosevelt never heard of an atomic bomb when he uttered the first words, and there was a strong possibility that an atomic bomb would not be practical when the Four Freedoms were expounded.

You may recall that Roosevelt sent us down the path to nuclear weapons at the suggestion of a group of scientists, headlined by Albert Einstein, who suspected that Nazi Germany was already making efforts to develop such a weapon. It was. Thus, with a stroke of the pen, the Manhattan Project came into being. Naturally, had the fears of those scientists become a reality and Germany or Japan (which had a rudimentary atomic program) developed the bomb before us and before the end of the war, our world would be considerably different than the one we live in.

It has been argued and I agree with the notion that nuclear weapons on both sides of the Cold War actually kept us at peace during that frigid period. But Canellos is correct; all of us now live in fear of nuclear weapons and there is no `Freedom from Fear.’ But the even greater truth is that nuclear weapons were an inevitable product of the science and technology extant at the middle of the twentieth century. There can be no doubt that there would be nations with the bomb today regardless of whether the United States President, Franklin Roosevelt, had acted irresponsibly in the face of the warning by fearful scientists and had not sought the weapon.

Mr. Canellos’s article falls apart on his final points, and he laments an innocence that could never have continued.

My real surprise and disappointment was that neither his editors nor the readers I cited in the opening so much as yawned in the face of the ridiculous notion that somehow FDR somehow goofed by establishing the Manhattan Project.

Attached is a link to the article so you can judge for yourselves.
http://www.boston.com/news/world/asia/articles/2005/08/09/60_years_after_hiroshima_america_still_lives_in_fear/

Don’t believe all that you read in the newspaper!

Blog on!

Wild Bill

The Valley of Death

Yesterday was the sixtieth anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. Whether that horror was necessary will be debated till the end of time. It matters not that the bomb killed 70,000 instantly and like number over the years since or that their destruction may have saved hundreds of thousands of Americans and Japanese from death. It opened an era that will never end, one in which death hangs over us all.

Stories on both sides of the issue bombard us, but the one that most disturbed me was the old saw from surviving crew members of the Enola Gay, the B-29 that dropped the weapon, that their action was essential to the ending of the war. It is appropriate for these men to have such an opinion and for the media to transmit it. What always gets warped in the telling is that these men have no better vantage than the rest of us for their opinion. That they dropped the bomb does give them insight into the terror of the weapon, but they cannot know better than a person born twenty years later that the good of the event outweighed the evil.

Only a very limited number of people in 1945 were privy to the situation and intelligence on which the action was based. President Truman and his closest military and civilian advisors made the decision, and they must bear the eternal historical heat. What the crew of the Enola Gay came to believe is relevant to them as human beings but says nothing about their ability to judge the decision.

As a veteran of the Korean War, (very much a non-combatant one) I happen to believe that President Truman made the right decision in pushing the U.N. to defend South Korea from invasion from the North. But my views are personal and made with only an amateur’s understanding of the history and world situation. Again, only Truman and his closest advisors’ views are those that count, and they will be judged by history – and by people like you and me.

So it is with most major decisions of life and death situations. Vietnam’s kaleidoscope of decisions must be born by Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon and Ford. Johnson made the most important decisions and he suffers for them in history – at least so far. What those who fought there think runs the gamut, and their opinions are personally vital but strategically and politically of little value.

Now the country is embroiled in another controversial war. The number of decision makers among whom we can apportion credit and blame is among the smallest of any conflict in our history. And they have taken to hiding behind the troops who are fighting, bleeding and dieing as justification for their decisions. Every day the media calls our attention to the opinions of individual soldiers or families of those who died in Iraq. Often they proclaim that we cannot do an about face in Iraq as it would mean that their dead comrades or the fallen loved ones will have died in vain.

What the media fails to point out is that these people are being used for the basest of reasons. Instead of standing up and saying it is their sworn duty to have made the decision to make war in Iraq based on the constitutional mandate to defend the nation from weapons of mass destruction and from an evil leader who was plotting our destruction, the president and his closest advisors hide behind those doing the heaving lifting and proclaim that the almost 2,000 lives and tens of thousands of wounded and broken are there to spread democracy to a nation that posed no threat to us in any real sense of that word.

Now we are told that if we do not stay the course, we will betray the dead soldiers. That’s just not true. Those sent to Iraq died for reasons that never panned out and it is likely that those who sent them knew that to be the case before they landed.

That poor disheartened soldiers believe (or believed) in their mission in Iraq is as irrelevant as the views of the crew of the Enola Gay with regard to dropping the atomic bomb on Hiroshima.

If we give weight to the false view that only those who fight can judge, we the people are condemning additional Americans and Iraqis to death. We should not be hiding behind those who have fought and died; we should be examining the facts and circumstances as best we can and holding our elected leaders responsible for their actions. It is President Bush who made the decision. It is the Congress that endorsed it.

What those poor men and women on the ground think is immaterial.

Some one had blunder’d.

Their’s not to make reply,
Their’s not to reason why,
Their’s but to do or die:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Blog on!

Wild Bill