Radical Avenue

I suppose we had a false start in this millennium. In its relatively brief history, the United States has shown a tendency to take two steps forward, then one step back. We’ve stepped out in the wrong direction a lot lately.

It’s no coincidence that presidential candidates offering a clear change find themselves on the upswing in recent polls. Huckabee, Obama and McCain all differ from Bush stylistically, and seem ready to lead us in a totally new direction. Here are some disappointing trends that our country would do well to reverse.

Torture
If we engage in waterboarding to get information, what will stop our enemies from using even more gruesome tactics against Americans? Our country made the right decision to sign the Geneva Conventions. We should go back to following them.

The US should immediately discontinue the use of torture under all circumstances. Torture yields questionable intelligence, diminishes our moral standing in the world and unnecessarily endangers our soldiers.

Boot Camps
Young recruits attend real boot camps to prepare themselves for military combat in a foreign country. Chances are, juvenile delinquents already know about hand to hand fighting. These kids need job skills training and assistance in handling real world problems without resorting to violence.

Over the past few years, we’ve seen youngsters die at boot camp style facilities after getting beaten by guards. Vagrant teens don’t deserve the death penalty. We should abandon this flawed strategy.
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Good news. These citizens deserve recognition for providing the kind of exceptional leadership our world needs in troubling times.

Barack Obama used a positive campaign message to overtake Hillary Clinton in the polls for the Democratic presidential nomination. Obama may have hit his stride at just the right time. He’s winning accolades for an inspirational stump speech and has shown a sense of humor in unscripted moments on the campaign trail.

Obama seems less polarizing than Clinton and more capable of reaching out to independents and moderate Republicans. Of course Obama was also right about Iraq from the beginning. Senator Obama and his followers want a clean break from the extreme partisanship of the past two decades.

Ron Paul called out the neo-cons in the Republican Party this year. He’s done the GOP an enormous favor by openly discussing the failures of the Bush foreign policy. Congressman Paul recognizes that the current Republican course is unsustainable and not in keeping with conservative principals.

Over the past few months, Mr. Paul has demonstrated an ability to raise astonishing amounts of campaign cash without much effort. This indicates that he has a loyal following. We’ll hear a lot more from Ron Paul in 2008.
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Republicans vying for public office next year will have a difficult time explaining where they want to take the country. The course plotted by George Bush is clearly unsustainable, but Bush remains popular in many Republican circles. Worse yet, most elected Republicans have left their conservative credentials behind during a decade long borrow and spend feeding frenzy. Republicans call themselves conservative, but they haven’t governed that way.

Empire building is incompatible with smaller government.
Apparently the Bush crowd thought we’d be able to leave Iraq within a year of the initial invasion. They fantasized about Ahmed Chalabi taking over and turning Iraq into a powerful American ally. Things didn’t work out that way. Those of us living in the real world know that when we invade a foreign country, we usually stick around to help that country rebuild. Experience also tells us that nation building is extraordinarily expensive. It’s difficult to reduce the size of government when you’re spending a trillion dollars on the other side of the planet.

Borrowing to expand government is unsustainable.
When the Republicans had control of Congress they went on a massive spending spree. They passed a generous farm subsidy bill. They greatly expanded Medicare. And they brought us the Alaskan bridge to nowhere. At least Democrats pay for their favorite programs. Republicans pass their debts on to future generations.
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Who would have guessed that the governor’s mansion in Little Rock, Arkansas would become a proving ground for presidential candidates? Recently Governor Mike Huckabee became the front runner among the Republican presidential candidates in Iowa. A victory in the Iowa caucuses is a long ways from winning the Republican nomination, but at least now it seems within the realm of possibilities for Huckabee.

Although Huckabee may not appreciate the comparison, he’s not unlike his predecessor from Arkansas, Bill Clinton. Like Clinton, Huckabee comes across as a guy who is comfortable in his own skin. Huckabee’s personality really shines in comparison to the abrasive Rudy Giuliani and the prickly Mitt Romney.

Some voters put a lot of stock in personality. Every president since Nixon has been aided to some extent by a jovial public image. Voters want to have a personal fondness for the candidate they choose. You could picture yourself inviting Huckabee over for a barbecue.
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Experience is overrated. Politicians who like to crow about their experience tend to believe that they have all the answers. We live in a rapidly changing world. Relying on cold war solutions to deal with new challenges is leading us down a dead end street. Our country should spend more time supporting burgeoning democracies and less time picking fights with poor countries.

Dick Cheney had plenty of experience when he became Vice President. He had previously served our country in Congress, as White House Chief of Staff and as the Secretary of Defense. All of this experience seems to have left him with a shoot first, ask questions later mentality.

In 2002, Vice President Cheney told America that there was no doubt that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. Actually, contrary to Cheney’s assertions, Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction in 2002. In early 2003, Cheney ridiculed weapons inspectors who failed to find any such weapons. So Iraq posed no threat to the United States when we invaded. Cheney’s “experience” hasn’t helped our country.

America needs a president who exercises good judgment in critical situations. Barack Obama made the correct judgment when he opposed the Iraq War from the beginning. Obama also has a smarter plan for dealing with Iran.
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How nice of Nancy Nord to rebuff efforts by Congress to more adequately fund the Consumer Product Safety Commission. You remember Nancy Nord right? She’s the person who testified that her agency has one person testing children’s toys for safety in America. Her tone indicated that she found the matter humorous. She certainly doesn’t give an indication that she understands that this is a matter of life and death for children in our country. Apparently Ms. Nord believes that Congress would be better off sending our tax dollars to Halliburton so that they can build more concrete road blocks in Baghdad.

This is hardly the first time a federal agency has shown a complete disregard for the safety of Americans. The Mine Safety and Health Administration allowed Bob Murray to keep pumping coal out of the Crandall Canyon mine in Utah in spite of numerous safety violations and repeated warnings from the United Mine Workers of America. Mr. Murray received permission to engage in retreat mining, a questionable practice which unnecessarily endangers coal miners. The Crandall Canyon mine collapsed and permanently buried six miners last August. It’s no coincidence that Bob Murray is a major Republican Party contributor. Bob Murray belongs in jail, but that will never happen as long as GW is in charge.

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Rudy Giuliani is a first rate fear monger. He sounds like a mob boss as he goes from one campaign stop to another warning us all about the dangers of another terrorist attack if we elect a Democratic president. He wants us to believe that only tough guy Republicans can protect us from all the dangerous “terrorists” around the world. The man has no class.

Rudy Giuliani likes to point out that Democrats don’t talk about the war on terror. Here are three words that Giuliani never mentions: Osama Bin Laden. Bin Laden declared war on the United States. Bin Laden ordered the 9-11 attacks. Bin Laden sent Arabs from Saudi Arabia to hijack those airplanes which crashed into the twin towers. There were no Iraqis or Iranians among the 9-11 hijackers. But just as George Bush used the 9-11 attacks to justify the War in Iraq, Giuliani wants to use the 9-11 attacks as an excuse to invade Iran. That’s where the “War on Terror” propaganda comes in. Bush and Giuliani don’t want to acknowledge these basic facts:
1) Neither Iraq nor Iran has ever attacked the United States,
2) Neither Iraq nor Iran has ever posed a threat to the United States,
3) Osama Bin Laden is a Saudi currently residing in Afghanistan or Pakistan. He has never lived in Iraq or Iran.

Rudy Giuliani, George Bush, war on terror, Iraq, Iran, Republicans, Democrats

I love to watch Ron Paul shake up the Republican presidential campaign. He understands how far the Republican Party has strayed from conservative principles. Nothing exemplifies this more than the War in Iraq. Empire building isn’t compatible with smaller government. You can’t cut the cost of government while spending a trillion dollars in a foreign country. And if you refuse to raise taxes to pay for a decade long hot war, it means you’re saddling future generations with mountains of debt.

Apparently Ron Paul is the only Republican presidential candidate to have read Page 1 of the Constitution recently. As he pointed out to Mitt Romney in a recent debate, in our country Congress has the power to declare War. The current president seems to believe that he alone has the authority to launch oversees invasions and Congress is nothing more than a nuisance. Fortunately Ron Paul doesn’t see it this way. He isn’t running for King of the United States.

Ron Paul, conservative principles, George Bush, national defense policy, War in Iraq, Iraq, Constitution, presidential debates, cost of War

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California knows catastrophes. Preparing for emergencies is a way of life. Every year California has fires, earthquakes, floods and mudslides. We usually have several of these disasters a year. Right now, fires are ravaging southern California. But you won’t see a Hurricane Katrina style government response here. In California we plan for disasters and respond accordingly.

Thankfully, Grover Norquist and his Americans for Tax reform cronies have almost no influence on California politics. Grover is the guy who believes that when it comes to public services, we need to “Starve the Beast”. By that he means that we should slash public revenue to such an extent that legislatures will be forced to shut down government programs altogether. This would allow private sector organizations to handle the services now provided by public employees. Does Blackwater ring a bell?

Right now employees of “the beast” are saving lives in Southern California. Thousands of firefighters from around the region have poured into the area to battle the intense firestorm. Public employees at the California Office of Emergency Services are coordinating their efforts. And publicly employed National Guard troops are protecting citizens displaced by the fires. If the American Idiots for Tax Reform had their way, this would all be managed by private groups. Can you imagine the local fire captain pulling up to your place to say I’ll need 50 grand before I even consider saving your house from that fire headed in your direction? Most of us would consider that extortion, not reform.

catastrophes, natural disasters, fires, California fires, emergencies, emergency preparedness, California politics, Grover Norquist, Americans for Tax Reform, leadership, revenue, deficit spending

MSNBC’s Chris Matthews is one of my favorite political analysts on TV. Last week on The Chris Matthews Show he took issue with the notion that President Bush is dumb. Mr. Matthews noted several politically astute maneuvers by Mr. Bush over the past month. I also suspect that Mr. Matthews feels uncomfortable with people using this terminology to describe our commander in chief. Point taken.

George W. Bush is a good salesman, but his inability to learn from his mistakes and intellectual laziness makes him a poor leader. Everyone makes mistakes. Strong leaders learn from them and adapt. But the first step in learning from a mistake is to admit that you’ve made one. Mr. Bush refuses to even entertain the notion that he has ever erred in any way. This arrogance blinds him from his own shortcomings. If it were up to Bush, Alberto Gonzales would remain as Attorney General through 2008 and Donald Rumsfeld would still be the Secretary of Defense. The president has to be dragged kicking and screaming into a change of course. When faced with evidence that he has made bad choices, he digs in his heels and says history will prove him right. His petulance belies emotional immaturity.

Mr. Bush calls himself the “decider”. He brings his advisers into a room, hears all sides, and then makes a decision based on what his gut tells him is right. He doesn’t spend a lot of time on the details, especially when it comes to domestic issues. He’s not a policy wonk. This is a dangerous management style, especially when the decider surrounds himself with people who only tell him what he wants to hear. Effective leaders seek out contrary opinions, take fair criticism to heart and, if necessary, educate themselves on the details of complex problems. Even the best advisers don’t have all the answers.

The Bush-Cheney crew believes that acknowledging mistakes is a sign of weakness. They’ve got it all wrong. Learning from one’s mistakes is a sign of open-mindedness and strength. And in a rapidly changing world the ability to adapt is crucial.

Hillary Clinton loves to talk about how her “experience” makes her more qualified to be president than the other Democratic candidates. What “experience” is she referring to? Is she talking about telling her husband what to do as first lady? Other than that, her life in public service consists of two terms in the US Senate. Barack Obama has more experience as an elected official than Hillary.

Hillary Clinton is a phony. Everything she says is poll driven and contrived. When asked about her 2002 decision to give George W. Bush carte blanche in Iraq, she says if she had known then what she knows now, she would have never voted in favor of the resolution. But as a member of the Senate Armed Services committee, she had every opportunity to determine that Iraq posed no immediate threat to the United States prior to our invasion. And if she didn’t realize that George W. Bush and Dick Cheney were determined to send our troops into Iraq come hell or high water, then she is an extraordinarily poor judge of character. She voted in favor of the resolution for purely political reasons.

“If I had known then what I know now…” Give me a break. That’s like a drunk saying “Had I known that I would crash my car into a telephone pole last night, I would have never driven home from the bar.” America needs forthright leadership in Washington for a change, not more chicanery.

Hillary, Hillary Clinton, experience, democrats, Iraq resolution, democratic primary

One good thing about the retail politicking presidential candidates have to go through in Iowa and New Hampshire is that it requires them to address tough questions that no paid journalist would ever have the temerity to ask. The answers can be quite revealing. When Mitt Romney was forced to explain why none of his five sons were serving their country in Iraq, he responded “Well, the good news is that we have a volunteer army and that’s the way we’re going to keep it.”

Good news indeed. If we had a draft, the blue blooded children of the elite might end up on the front lines next to poor kids from the hood. Romney knows that Iraq is hell right now. Of course he doesn’t want his kids getting their heads blown off by roadside bombs in the middle of a desert wasteland. Millions of American parents feel the same way. Unfortunately Romney will never come clean and admit that the war was a disastrous mistake. That’s because he puts party loyalty and his own ambitions above candor and the need for accountability in public life.

John McCain may also be misguided when it comes to Iraq, but at least you can respect his point of view. He has earned the right to talk about sending American troops into battle. He’s been there and done that. McCain is still a public servant and hasn’t joined the permanent ruling class, unlike so many of his colleagues.

Perhaps the lower caste types should henceforth use a more deferential tone when addressing Lord Romney and his princes. After all, one day he’ll pass the royal scepter off to the next handsome leader in his line of succession.

Hopefully once the elections are over the Romney clan can go back to nobly serving their country in the private sector. But I doubt that you’ll ever see any of them flipping burgers at McDonalds.

Romney, Mitt Romney, Presidential Candidates, Romney sons