Global Neighbourhoods

John McCain Runs to Win Iraqi War. American people won't follow

Fresh from his bucket-stepping tour of Iraq, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz), will stake his bid for the republican presidential nomination on escalating America's role in Iraq, Michael Shear reports this morning in the Washington Post.

To me, this is a news story that saddens, more than angers me. What McCain proposes is just not going to happen.  Americans do not want it, Iraqis do not want it and the world does not want it.

I would guess that this will be John McCain's final act in the political arena because it shows that he has wandered off in a different direction than the American people and I have to wonder if the health issues connected to advancing years may be playing a factor.

Through most years of his career, McCain has been a speaker of simple truths.  A staunch conservative, in the old-fashioned meaning of the word, he has always been the sort of Republican many moderate Democrats would have considered voting for. Now, there is not a chance.

This causes a problem for Republicans. It leaves Rudolph Giuliani as the front runner, with Newt Gingrich as the most viable alternative. Giuliani, a hero of the 9/11 tragedy, who cleaned the streets of Manhattan when he was mayor is mired in more than a few controversies, including backing someone with Mob connections to be Homeland Security secretary. Gingrich, who has spent recent years trying to move from the political right to its center is still remembered bitterly by Clinton Democrats as a divisive and mean-spirited force.

Giuliani and Gingrich also have a problem with the family values set.  Between them they've had more wives than your average Middle Eastern Sultan. Gingrich is noted for dumping his first wife while she was in the hospital with cancer and Giuliani married someone younger than a daughter of his first marriage.

Meanwhile, the top three Democratic contenders all look stronger and better financed than ever. For the first time, Democrats have raised more campaign financing than Republicans--about 50% more.






Technorati Tags: johnmacain

Coming home from Iraq.

Paula and I were at Dallas Fort Worth Airport early a couple of Sundays ago. While we sat, we suddenly heard a round of applause from people sitting and waiting for planes out of town. As we looked up we noticed people in sequence of each gate, coming to their feet, looking up and applauding with enthusiasm.

We looked up to realize there was a glass enclosed walkway overhead, and in a single column, khaki clad soldiers were walking along.  As they passed each cluster of seats, people would rise to their feet and applaud.  As the line got longer and longer, more and more people would spontaneously rise. The procession--and the applause--extended for some length of time and distance. People kept standing and clapping until the last soldier had passed.

I don't know if they could hear us, but you could see their faces, some beaming, some gesturing with thumbs up or clasping their hands overhead, a few weeping. We could not hear them at all.  Instead, throughout the airport were TV monitors set on CNN.  The newscaster was talking about car bombs killing over 60 people in Baghdad this morning.

I don't think most folks were aware of what was on TV. But the respect and admiration for these young volunteers was extremely moving.

I could not help but notice how young they all seemed to me. When I was their age, we had another unpopular war going on. But this was a very different experience. When soldiers came home from Vietnam, they were often greeted with jeers, not cheers.

Times have changed. The American people now understand the difference between the "masters of war" as Bob Dylan called those who wage them and the "dogs of war" as Frederick Forsythe called those who fight them.

It was a very moving moment.

Egyptian Blogger sentenced to 4 years

The BBC just announced that a 22-year-old  blogger,Abdel Kareem Soliman will spend four years in prison for using his blog to "insult"al-Azhar university and presdidential strongman Hosni Mubarak.  His trial lasted five minutes.

The presidency and the "Vision thing."

We are two years short of the 13th presidential election to be held in my lifetime.  I have never sensed an election that is anticipated with greater excitement and optimism than this one. In part, it's because most everyone in America feels we can do better than the current holder of the office.

This, I am certain will change, but I find myself actually like six announced and possible candidates for president.  Yes, they are from both major parties, although history says I'll almost certainly vote for a Democrat.

But actually, I've been thinking about a key moment in the administration f the previous Bush, the George HW Bush that George Bush ousted, the one who admitted he had a problem with "The Vision Thing."  n fact, both he and his son have demonstrated they ave less vision than Ray Charles had, not to mention that and they are vastly inferior as  musicians.

I think the Vision Thing is a bigger deal than people realize. Most all voters understand the big issues, Iraq, environment, health care and immigration.  We all pretty much know that what tey promise is not necessarily what we get.  George W. Bush for example claimed his view on the environment was pretty close to Al Gore's.  And that proved to be as accurate as the Weapons of Mass destruction that were amassed in Iraq.

But there is a sense, perhaps an excitement, that to country is about to be redirected.  There seems to be a penchant for candidates that have been outside the Washington swamp, who bring fresh outlooks. Personally, I believe the next president of the US will not be among the front runners. It is a while before we voters start surprising the pundits and pollsters but it is an American penchant that I greatly enjoy.

I think the person that emerges to the top will be the one who shows that he has indeed, "the vision thing." I think our country does its best when it aspires to something lofty.  One of the favorite presidents of my lifetime was Jack Kennedy.  He actually accomplished very little during his mere 1000 days in the White House. But he ad the vision thing. He shaped a decade by declaring in 1960 that by the end of the decade, one he never lived to see, man would walk on the moon." In 1960, it seemed to be an impossible task, but we somehow did it.

Perhaps the vision thing for the next resident would be that by the end of the next decade, the effects of global warming will be reversed.  It is a loft goal, but no more so that a moon walked seemed to be nearly 50 years ago.

We don't need a president with a checklist agenda.  We need one with the vision and leadership abilities to climb above the agenda and look at a bigger picture.  I am optimistic that this next election just might produce one.

Barack Obama and The "A-Word"

Lynette Clemenson has an interesting column on the implied racism of Sen. Joe Biden's comments on Barack Obama. He described his rival for the Democratic presidential nomination as "the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and nice-looking guy."

Biden has been around a long time and I am certain that he did not mean to say something that has such an embarrassingly racist innuendo's attached. The word that made it so bad is the adjective "first," which implies that Biden feels other blacks do not have those other attributes.

Now, it happens that I have not yet decided who I'll be voting for in the Democratic primary.  The incident has moved Biden a peg down for certain, but has not eliminated him. I have watched Biden for a very long time, and the statement is not sufficient for me to eliminate him from my list of possibles.

But it is Barack who currently fascinates me.  I am reading his first book "Dreams from my Father," and, as a writer talking about another writer, "articulate" is among the first words that come to mind.

I wish I were half as articulate as he is. I chose this book over his current  best seller, because he wrote it before he knew he would be running for president and I felt it could tell me more about who he is, rather than what he might do as president. n fact, the book shows the type of transparency that makes me love so many blogger posts. But it does more.  I have read most of the great American black writers of the past century, and none gives me a better perspective of what it must feel like to be intelligent, passionate and black in America today. He has the passion of James Baldwin, but none of the anger.  He has the eloquence of Richard Wright, but his experience is much more recent.

Barack Obama is as articulate as Hell.  But he is not the first, nor will he be the last black to be articulate.

His book shows me that he is the sort of person that has never been president and I like the sort of person he is. This is not enough to get my vote.  It is enough to seriously consider someone.

But I'm considering him because he is a candidate who happens to be black as opposed to a black candidate. I liked and respected Jesse Jackson, and earlier Shirley Chisholm, but they were black candidates. There is a difference.

When I lived in San Francisco, my Supervisor was Harvey Milk, until he was assassinated. I voted for him and supported him.  The fact that he was gay had nothing to do with it. It was that he represented us well.  He was replaced by candidates who were gay candidates and since I am not gay, they made me feel disenfranchised. Back in Massachusetts, my old district--an overly Catholic district has been represented for more than two decades by Barney Frank a gay Jew. No one seems to care.

Last week, I expressed disappointment in Hillary Clinton for serious reasons.  She has no vision on Iraq and her position is that George should tidy up the mess before he leaves the White House in her hands. She has also pissed on the Fair Campaigns Financing laws, which implies she plans to take as many big bucks from special interests as she can get.

Three times in the last week I've been accused of not supporting her because she's a woman. This from people who should know me better than that.

It seems to me that we should pick our presidents by neither their hue, nor their sexual plumbing, but by who they are and what we think they'll do. In fact, the more I talk to people, many of them disagreeing with me on political issues, the more I believe that the American people are wiser than the politicos and journalists think we are.

I do not think as many people will vote for Hillary Clinton or against her because she's a woman.  I think Obama faces more doubt about his experience than he does about his race and I do not think John Edwards will suffer much because he's from a border state and happens to be a class action lawyer.

I could be wrong, but I hope not. I am very hopeful that for the first time in a very long time, the candidates for this extremely important job, will appeal to the best nature of the American people.  Technorati Tags: barakobama, obama, johnedwards, hillaryclinton

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Hillary on Iraq: 'Let George do it.'

I keep trying to keep out of politics, but the upcoming presidential campaign keeps drawing me in. So from time-to-time I'm going to jump in and say something. If you don't want to read what I have to say on the subject, please skip anything you see here under the category of "politics."


According to the AP, Hillary Clinton says she thinks President Bush should pull all troops out of Iraq before the next president takes office. She argues it would be irresponsible for him to leave the mess for the next president to clean up.

I find what she has to say surprisingly lame.  If a candidate for president wants to talk about Iraq and irresponsibility, there are far better topics than suggesting Bush tidy up the mess as a courtesy to how successor. And in fact, most Americans, on either side of the aisle, seem to understand that the US has stepped into a lobster trap of a situation.

A lobster trap is something that is very easy to get into and nearly impossible to navigate out of.

I for one, hope this roblem is solved soon.  Extremely soon. But for Hillary to say, "Let George do it," makes me doubt that she has a clue what she will do if she inherits the situation. As the NY Times says in their finest editorial language: "We are not impressed."


Technorati Tags: hillaryclinton

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Passing the torch of leadership

[Note the post that used to be in this space has been taken down because some felt her privacy had been invaded. It saddened me to remove it but her friendship is important to me.]