Who is being disrespectful?

The right wing politicians and commentators keep saying that the media is not showing proper respect to Gov. Sarah Palin. The other day Gov. Palin was at the United Nations to meet with some foreign leaders. Her Republican handlers wouldn’t let reporters ask any the Governor any questions and didn’t even allow her to speak. What outrageous questions was she asked? Terrible things, like, “What did you learn from Prime Minister X? What do you think about the crisis in country Y”?

There are plenty of knowledgeable women who have a lot to say about current domestic and foreign affairs. A prime example is, of course, Sen. Hillary Clinton. I have the privilege to be married to another. But Gov. Palin’s handlers don’t allow even allow her to open her mouth, unless it is in a controlled setting where they can be sure no one will ask any difficult or probing questions. Who is really showing disrespect for Gov. Palin? The media who try to ask her the same questions that Sen. Biden is asked and answers every day? Or is it Sen. McCain’s staff, who don’t trust her to engage in the normal give and take of a political campaign? If Gov. Palin is ready to be a heartbeat away from the nation’s highest office, why are her handlers treating her like some vacuous beauty queen? What are they afraid of? Do supporters of, say, Sen. Clinton think this is the proper way for a woman candidate to be treated?

Of Women and Judgments

I congratulate my Republican friends on the addition of Sarah Palin to their Presidential ticket. True, it comes 24 years after the Democrats named a woman to their ticket, but let’s not be picky. I also agree with them that Gov. Palin should not be asked questions that solely pertain to her personal life or family. She should only be asked questions that would be just as appropriate if asked of a man. That said, here are a few of the questions that we have every right to ask of Gov. Palin.

1. Why do you keep saying you said “Thanks, but no thanks” on the bridge to nowhere? In fact you were for the bridge when you ran for governor. You later changed your mind when it had become clear the bridge wasn’t going to happen. But, most importantly, you kept the money earmarked for the bridge. Why does that make you a champion for governmental reform? What you really said was “Thanks for the earmark, but let us decide what to spend the money on.”

2. Why do you call yourself a champion for governmental reform when you hired a lobbying group to help your city get earmarks? And, why have you repeatedly and on the record praised Alaska’s congressional delegation for doing the best job of obtaining earmarks?

3. Why do you say you an expert on foreign policy just because your state borders Russia? I guess that means because my state borders Maryland, I am an expert on crabbing.

4. Why did you repeatedly try to censor the books in your town’s library. And, when that didn’t work, why did you try to fire the chief librarian? We know you support the second amendment, but how about the first?

5. Why do you repeatedly chant “drill, drill, drill”, when virtually every expert agrees (i) drilling offshore will have at best a miniscule effect on oil prices and (ii) even this limited effect won’t happen for at least seven years.

6. Why do you call yourself a fiscal conservative when it has been widely reported that during your six years as mayor, expenditures increased by 33% and taxes increased by 38%?

We should judge Gov. Palin by the same standards as we would a man – her achievements (or lack thereof), her beliefs, her treatment of others and her truthfulness.

An open letter to Sen. Barack Obama

The following is an open letter to Barack Obama. First, kudos on finally getting the nomination. That was a struggle, wasn’t it?

Now comes a very important decision, whom to pick for your running mate. You are in luck, for I have the perfect choice for you. No, it’s not Hillary. There are roughly 87 zillion reasons why she wouldn’t work well as your running mate, though you certainly want her to campaign for you. There is one obvious choice for your number two, Sen. Jim Webb of VA.

He is right for you in so many ways. First, choosing him puts Virginia in play for the Democrats for the first time in decades. It’s become sort of a purple state lately. Putting Webb on the ticket will push it over the brink. Second, Se. Webb is a former Republican and even served under Ronald Reagan. He'll set just the right tone for you - a military hawk who nevertheless thought the war in Iraq was a bad idea. That will give McCain and the right wing talk show hosts fits. How can Rush and O’Reilly say you don’t know anything about foreign policy when you have Webb on your team. In all candor, there are a lot of moderates who are with you on the domestic and social issues. Nevertheless, they aren’t yet convinced that you are the right person to handle a foreign policy crisis. Adding Webb can change all that.

Although I am a big fan of Sen. Webb, even I realize he has some flaws. He comes off as a bit intense and prickly, and he’s not the best campaigner. Well, you are probably the best campaigner since Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan, so you don’t need any help in that area. You will need to have a heart to heart with Sen. Webb about not going too far off the reservation. But choosing him will also show that you aren’t afraid to have strong personalities in your Administration. When he criticizes the Bush – McCain bunch for their foreign policy missteps, he’ll be taken seriously.

I’m no fan of Dick Cheney, but I think it was a masterstroke for GWB to choose him as his running mate. In the 2000 campaign, Bush’s biggest negative was that he was perceived as a lightweight (correctly, as we now know). Choosing Cheney, a longtime DC insider and perceived hero of the first Gulf War largely fixed all that. That decision was one of the few good ones that GWB made. Don’t be afraid to follow his example this one time.

I hope you’ll accept this recommendation in the spirit with which it is given. Best of luck to you.

Retrospective Mudslinging

[The following is a response to an op-ed article that appeared on page A9 of the Harrisburg Partiot-News on Monday, June 2, 2008. The article is reprinted below, with credit to the Patriot-News and pennlive.com.]

I read Robert F. Weil’s article on the Carter administration in the June 2, 2007 edition of the Patriot-News. My initial reaction was one of bewilderment. Had I just been transported back to 1981? Why would someone write an article castigating an administration that ended over 27 years ago? More importantly, why would the Patriot-News devote valuable space on its editorial pages to such an article? It took some time for me to puzzle out why Mr. Weil wrote the article. I still can’t figure out why the P-N printed it.

The Carter Administration came in with lots of promise, but even Democrats will admit that it stumbled badly in some areas. But that is such old news!! What exactly is the point of rehashing old failures in the 1970s? Mr. Weil’s motivation seems to be that if he throws mud on an underachieving past Democratic President, that will take away some of the glare from the current one.

Yes, the budget deficits were unacceptably high under Carter. But the fact is that most of our national debt was run up on the watch of two alleged conservatives, Ronald Reagan and the current Administration. Carter was a piker by comparison. And, despite what Mr. Weil says, the only major step towards peace in the Middle East happened as a direct result of the efforts of the Carter Administration. Sadat and Begin themselves said that the Camp David Accords would never have happened without the repeated direct intervention and supervision of Jimmy Carter. If these Accords were so meaningless, why is there still peace between Egypt and Israel almost 30 year later, and why have three subsequent Republican administrations achieved nothing of consequence there since?

No amount of retrospective mudslinging by Mr. Weil should divert our attention from the monumental failures of the past seven years. We were taken to war under false pretenses despite ample evidence that there was no justification for invading Iraq. Even Bush the Elder’s advisors expressed apprehensions both before and after the fact. The Administration estimated that the war would cost about $50 billion with slight loss of life. Instead, thus far the current estimates of the total cost range in the trillions and we have tens of thousands of killed and injured American men and women. On the domestic side, this President preached fiscal responsibility while outdoing even Reagan in adding to the national debt. That leaves out other offenses such as torturing prisoners and suppressing scientific evidence of global warming

Mr. Weil and his friend in the White House had better start building houses and running for the Nobel Peace Prize now. They’ve got an incredible legacy of shame to divert attention from. I guess I understand why George W. Bush’s apologists believe they need to start covering up his legacy now. But I don’t understand why the Patriot-News decided to give them such a prominent forum.

AS I SEE IT ROBERT F. WEIL

Here's what actually occurred under Carter

Monday, June 02, 2008

Hardly a month passes without former President Jimmy Carter labeling the current administra tion a failure, or acting as a political free agent that contradicts U.S. policy. This calls for a closer look at the Georgia peanut farmer's tenure as our 39th president.

When elected in 1976, Carter blasted Gerald Ford's administration for failing to control inflation and stem unemployment. But by the time Carter was voted out of office by weary Americans, things were very much worse indeed. Inflation had nearly tripled from 4.8 percent in 1977 to more than 13 percent in 1980. Interest rates had soared to peacetime highs of 20 percent, nearly quadruple the 5.4 percent he inherited. All this came at a bad time for the eight million, or 7.7 percent, of Americans out of work.

While pledging on the campaign trail to eliminate deficits, which he trumpeted as a "national disgrace," he took a federal budget deficit of $30 billion in 1977 and doubled that to $60 billion in 1980, the largest deficit in relation to Gross Domestic Product of any prior president.

His economic policies were so out of joint they prompted economist Arthur Okun, a former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors, to create the infamous "Misery Index." Tying inflation to unemployment, as well as other leading economic indicators, Carter achieved a score of just over 16, the highest of any president in this nation's history (compared with President Bush's average of just under 8).

Carter blamed his own policy failures on "national malaise," a phrase Ronald Reagan deftly used to make Carter just one of seven presidents to fail a re-election bid.

On the international front, Carter fared no better. He negotiated with a ruling military junta in Haiti, despite human rights groups roundly condemning its atrocities. Today, Haiti remains an impoverished Caribbean nation with few civil rights. North Korea, known even then for its savage dictatorship, gained entry to the United Nations during Carter's administration, something it failed to accomplish during the Nixon and Ford administrations.

Even his supposed crowning achievement, the Camp David Accord of 1979, was initiated not by Carter, but rather by Egypt's forward-thinking statesman Anwar Sadat who, in 1977, suggested meetings in formal correspondence with Israeli Prime Minster Menachem Begin. Today, there remains no lasting truce in the Middle East despite Israel accepting the accord mandate that it hand back the Sinai Peninsula it had captured during the unprovoked Six Day War of 1967.

When Carter left office in 1981, the Soviets were making war in Afghanistan, Americans had been held hostage for 444 days in Iran, and national morale was at an all-time low. His botched hostage rescue attempt in 1980 was too hastily put into action to install proper air filters on the eight helicopters for the desert environment, allowing sand to suffocate their engines, crashing three and killing eight American servicemen. The effort lacked sufficient planning or air power to ever have succeeded, as determined by a congressional investigation that revealed "a surprising level of negligence."

Carter could learn something from former President George H.W. Bush, who never once spoke out during the Clinton administration despite Whitewater, FBI Filegate, Vince Fostergate, Monicagate, Pardongate, Troopergate, Hillary's ultra-secretive health care initiative, renting the Lincoln bedroom, Jennifer Flowers, giving up on Bin Laden, and numerous other missteps. CARTER WAS A tragically flawed politician who has become a liberal media darling due to his ongoing condemnation of the great American experiment. In a world where hating America and its wealth and freedom is heralded as a badge of honor, he supplies the very words vitriolic leaders of enemy nations use against us daily. Carter should stick to building houses through Habitat for Humanity, for it is there that he does this great nation, which he brought to its economic knees, the most benefit.

ROBERT F. WEIL writes from Derry Twp.

The Pander Bears

We’ve just had a litmus test that shows which of the Presidential candidates will pander endlessly for votes and which tells it like it is. Because of the ridiculously high price of gasoline these days, it’s become fashionable to call for a “gas tax holiday”. The federal and state gas taxes would be waived during the summer driving season to give the weary consumer and truck driver a break.

It’s hard to get economists on the left and right to agree on much these days. But that difficult feat has been achieved with the gas tax holiday. They all agree that waiving the gas tax is a terrible idea. There are innumerable reasons, but I’ll give you just a few. First, It probably won’t reduce the real price of gas that the consumer pays. There is tremendous demand worldwide for gas right now and limited supply. If you reduce taxes on gas, that will increase demand. With limited supplies, the price of gas is likely to go up. Second, most of our highway construction and maintenance is paid for by gas taxes. Our highway infrastructure is already in a state of crisis. Cutting gas taxes will make it even worse. If you like big potholes and failing bridges, just wait till we cut the gas tax. Third, cutting the gas tax will increase the demand for gas. We need to create alternatives to gasoline, like solar and wind power, not incent consumers and businesses to buy more gas. We’re fast running out of viable oil supplies and heating up our planet.

So, which of our Presidential candidates favors a gas tax holiday - Hillary Clinton and even alleged conservative John McCain. Economists as liberal as Robert Reich, a cabinet member in Hillary’s husband’s administration, agree that a gas tax holiday is one of the dumbest ideas in history. Hillary and John are showing us their true colors. They will say and do anything, no matter how demonstrably foolish, to pander to the swing voters. Only one candidate refuses to take the bait, Barack Obama. He realizes that we need a responsible energy policy that cuts incentives on oil companies and encourages energy conservation and the development of alternative energy. The question is, will the American people take the bait?

Backbone

[note: Originally written in November, 2007]

Politicians come and go, and political parties go in and out of power in Harrisburg. One thing stays constant – the Pennsylvania Legislature is firmly controlled by the gun lobby. The other day the House Judiciary refused to even let two very limited attempts at gun control come up for a vote in the full House.

What radical assaults would these two bills have taken on our precious right to bear arms? One would have limited a person to purchasing one gun a month. The other would have allowed cities like Philadelphia, Harrisburg and Lancaster to have somewhat tougher restrictions on gun ownership in those places than the state as a whole. Who needs to buy more than twelve guns a year? Drug dealers and hit men, that’s about all. How many hunters that you know are planning to bag a buck near the Liberty Bell or on Market Square?

I come from a family of hunters and I own a rifle and shotgun myself. I am committed to allowing law abiding citizens the right to use firearms for legitimate purposes. No reasonable person wants to separate the deer hunter from his 30-06. But we have an epidemic of gun violence in our cities, mostly by handguns and automatic weapons. Ours is the only western democracy that has no meaningful restrictions on gun ownership. As a direct consequence, we have many more homicides by firearm than similar countries, particularly more policemen killed by guns. Sure, we need to enforce the laws we already have. But our policemen and sheriffs are telling us that we also have to stem the flood of guns going into the hands of bad actors.

Why doesn’t it make sense that a prospective gun owner should have to go through a process to that for a prospective car owner? Too many hunters have bought into the NRA tripe that if we allow any restrictions on gun ownership, next week they’ll be coming for your shotgun. It’s the same garbage that the tobacco lobby got away with for decades. How many more dead cops will it take before our Legislature grows enough backbone to take some action?

Are we who we say we are?

The other night I went with my Dad to a men's group we are both members of. The guys there are generally well meaning and I enjoy going, mostly to do something with my Dad than for any other reason.

The speaker was a guy from a nearby chapter, and the title for his talk was something like "Are we who we say we are?" The first part was a diatribe about how wrong gay marriage was, why we need prayer in the schools, and that gays are the way they are my choice, not due to biological or psychological makeup. It was probably copied from Rush or Sean Hannity or another right wingnut. Then, it got a little more interesting. He read something about how he is glad that he is older, because it has freed him to make choices that are right for him, like having an extra dessert and in general not worrying as much about what other people think of him.

I guess he really doesn't appreciate the incredible hypocrisy of the two parts of his talk. I think it is great that he has gotten to the point in his life where he can do what feels right for him, rather than what society or others think. But I guess for him that freedom doesn't extend to others for whom their inclination, biology, etc. has led them to a different choice. If someone has decided to hell with diets, I'm going to have an extra dessert; well that's fine. But if someone else decides that the right choice for her is to enter into a lifelong committed relationship with another woman; well no, we can't have that.

Currently, the right wing in this country has two sets of beliefs, and they are inherently inconsistent. (The left wingers are just as inconsistent, but that is the subject of another rant.) The first is that our faith has to be a part of every aspect of our lives. But not any faith, just our particular brand of literalist Christianity, because, after all, God is a Republican and we were founded as a Christian nation. The other set of beliefs can be lumped together as essentially libertarian. Reduce our taxes, get the government out of our lives. You can see where this is going. The government must be kept out of our lives, except of course the government must be allowed into the bedroom as the policeman. Otherwise, a woman might make the wrong choice about what to do with her body. Worse, two women might decide to sleep together.

Our speaker cited that famous passage from an Epistle of Paul about how wrong it is for woman to lie with woman, and man with man, etc. According to him, that is the final word, and there is no room for deviation. There are so many responses to that and so little space in the blogosphere. First of all, that was Paul speaking, not Jesus. There is no record of Jesus speaking about homosexuality. Second, many credible Biblical scholars think this was really a swipe against the awful goings on in the court of the Roman Emperor Caligula in Paul's time, rather than against homosexuality in general. Third, if Paul's statement is the ultimate, final statement on the gay lifestyle, what about other equally unequivocal statements in the Bible? Does
"Thou shalt not kill." mean war is never justified, or you may never kill to defend your family? Fourth, and for me as a committed Christian, most importantly, is the simple question: "What would Jesus do?" Jesus's impulse when dealing with a sinner or downtrodden was to first offer assistance and then forgiveness. Remember how he dealt with the woman was accused of adultery? “He that is without sin among you, let him cast the first stone at her.” That doesn't mean that there is no sin. To me it means that it is up to us to live our lives the best that we can, and it is not for us to judge others. But what do I know? God hasn't spoken to me personally and told me who to vote for.

The idea that the USA was founded as "a Christian nation" is a curious one too. Anyone who researches our founding fathers in an objective way will learn that many of them (including Washington and Jefferson) weren't even Christians in the way that we think of the term today. They were really deists, which means they believed in God as a creative force, but didn't believe that God interferes in human life or the laws of the universe. They would have to conceal this belief in order to run for high office today as a Republican or a Democrat. They could have established Christianity (or some strain of it) as the state religion of the infant U.S. But the founding fathers had had a bad experience with a state sponsored religion, The Church of England. Concerning religion they put two core principles into the Constitution: (1) The state should not interfere with the practice of religion. (2) The state should not sponsor any particular religion. It was an excellent idea 221 years ago. It remains one today.


Are we who we say we are? Mostly we are, when it suits our purposes. But when it comes to supporting the rights of somebody who looks different from us or has different tastes than us, that's another matter.