Tag Archives: president

What Annoys Jeff This Week?

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Penn State. The Board of Trustees made a chump move in firing Joe Paterno. Instead of standing by their historic coach, they gave in to the easy solution of throwing him under the bus instead of putting the blame where it belonged: on the vile bastard that committed the crime. This was a situation that called for nuance, not an “off with their heads” bloodletting as soon as a scapegoat appeared in the crosshairs. In the media age, apparently even higher education doesn’t have the attention span to manage nuance. Maybe the guy doesn’t deserve a total pass, but after a storied career spanning half a century he deserves a hell of a lot better than this.

The Republican Party. I’ve watched half a dozen debates now and can say honestly that I have no motivation to support any of the bozos my party has put forward as presidential candidates. Looks like it’s going to be another election where I hold my nose and check the box for a candidate that smells the least like shit. A couple of lunatics, a smattering of religious zealots, most who have said they want to freeze my pay or fire me, and one or two reasonable guys who come with so much baggage they’ll never make it through the primaries anyway. Geepers, what’s not to like?

Shame…

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Last night, a member of the United States Congress stood in front of a campaign fundraiser in New York City and told the crowd that “The country is ripe for a true revolution.” Worse yet, he had the unmitigated gall to use this call to revolt as nothing more than an applause line. I suggest you study your history, Mr. Paul. Revolutions are brutal affairs. Look to our own Civil War and War for Independence as your examples. Look to France’s Reign of Terror as a guide if the fields of Antietam, Shiloh, Lexington, and Bunker Hill aren’t bloody enough for you.

Words, Congressman Paul, are important. How we use them is important. The meaning we convey, whether intentionally provoking or simply aimed at garnering easy applause, is important. And by God, sir, when you as use your status as a duly elected member of Congress to call for revolution against the government of the United States, you’ve saved us all the trouble of deciding and branded yourself a traitor.

We had our revolution, Congressman, and with it we secured the right to replace our government through legal means. As a twice failed candidate for president, you’ve not garnered the support of enough of your own party to even be the nominee, let alone convince half the electorate at large that your ideas are right. No sir, we don’t need a revolution. What we do need is to get back to the spirit and intent of the revolution we fought to win our independence. I’ve been a capital “R” Republican for most of my adult life, but I’ve been a lowercase “r” republican for much longer. The founders gave us all the tools we need cure what ails this nation. We must fix the foundation, but you want to tear down the whole house and then set the rubble alight. You may couch your rhetoric in populism, but a call to revolution, intentional or otherwise, is a supreme act of cowardice from a man who’s run out of legitimate ideas. Shame! Shame!

Registered…

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Since moving back to Maryland, I re-registered with the Republican Party. In Tennessee it was the Bible-thumping social conservatives that chased me out of the party. In Maryland, it’s the tax-it-till-it’s-dead liberals that chased me back in. For pretty much as long as I can remember, presidential politics has been an exercise in holding my nose and voting for the one who smelled least worst. Up until now, I’ve been avoiding the coverage as much as possible, but as the Republican candidates gather to debate tonight, I think it’s time to tune in and see if there’s anyone I can stomach supporting. This is America, the greatest democracy in history… Please let 2012 be the year we have something other than a socialist, a religious zealot, a village idiot, and protectionist to choose between.

Most Powerful…

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There was a time when I thought being president would have to be the coolest job in the world. You live in a big, fancy house surrounded by armed guards to keep out the riffraff. You have your own jumbo jet and helicopter. You’re followed around by a guy whose only missing in life is to be ready to help you destroy the world at a moment’s notice. You’re President of the United States, dude. Come on, the only way you could be more impressive is to have a nice fancy uniform (I’m told the chicks dig that). As POTUS, it’s got to feel like you’re in the catbird’s seat and riding high with the last job you’re ever going to worry about having.

At some point, though, you’re going to realize being Commander-in-Chief doesn’t bring quite as much power and authority as you were promised as a kid. As president, you’d think it would be easy enough to hop on live TV and give the country a little pep talk. Except that your sworn enemies have already scheduled the night you really want. And your second choice date has been co-opted by the National Football League for the season’s opening game. Let’s face it, no matter how awesome your title, you don’t want to be the guy who makes the networks cut away from football, right?

So there you have it. You’re the most powerful man in the world and you just got played by the television schedule. That’s got to be a special kind of frustrating, I’d think.

Default and disfunction…

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Watching the nightly news or reading the newspaper headlines is something of a lesson in dysfunction. If the two major political parties that have run the country for the last 100 odd years can’t come to grips with the fact that the thought of the US Government defaulting on its debt should be unthinkable, perhaps it’s time to consider the value of having either of those parties around. The men who founded this republic literally risked their lives just by signing a document proclaiming themselves free from Great Britain. Today’s politicians, both Republican and Democrat, are so entrenched in ideology and in playing to their base that they seem willing to let the ship of state sink with all flags flying and their hands around each other’s throat. So much for heroics. So much for for their obligation to the republic they were elected to serve.

I’m not a mathematician, but the formula seems obvious. For the staggering debt this country labors under to come down, spending must decrease and revenue must increase. Yes, some social programs will go away and that will hurt some people. Yes, some taxes will go up and that will hurt some people also. It’s going to be painful for many of us to adjust to a world more austere than then one we think we’re entitled to. It was painful for our grandparents, too, when they went though the “economic adjustment” of the Great Depression, but they emerged from it and worse to be recognized as our greatest generation.

Where are our great leaders today? Where’s our FDR with his Hundred Days? Where’s this generation’s Reagan standing toe-to-toe with the Soviet Union? Where’s our Kennedy calling on men to reach the moon? Where’s our Nixon opening China? Maybe such men don’t even exist anymore. Today’s politicians aren’t fit to carry the water for those giants of the 20th century and shouldn’t be in the same history books with the leaders of our distant past like Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln.

This current crisis doesn’t have to end in catastrophe, but only if the men and women we’ve elected start behaving more like statesmen and less like common street thugs. How optimistic are you?

Plan? What plan?

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I’ve seen some jacked up things in my time with Uncle Sam, but nothing in that time even comes close to the inability of senior departmental officials to communicate even the most basic of information to the workforce. The same workforce they’ll be asking in a few hours to execute a currently unknown plan to shut down a very large portion of the department. Surely at this stage there’s a plan, right? I mean it’s been in a file somewhere collecting dust since the early 1980s and occasionally trotted out and updated once or twice a decade since then under circumstances very similar to these. All I’m suggesting is that hows and whats of standing down the department shouldn’t really be a surprise to you at this point.

One of the things they beat into our heads at Army school way back in 2003 was that leadership is mostly about taking care of people. That and not losing too many things. Losing things is considered bad form in a leader and is frowned upon. From what I’ve observed from the belly of the beast over the last four days, not one member of Official Washington has shown anything passing for a shred of leadership ability… or really displayed any redeeming social value whatsoever.

Could he give up an arm instead…

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I was perusing the New York Times mobile site this morning and ran across a story that actually made me feel sorry for a professional politician. It seems that because of some combination of national security concerns and the desire to avoid having email subpoenaed in the future, when he assumes office President-Elect Obama will have to give up his Blackberry. I guess I had never really thought of the president having time to send out missives from a potus@us.gov email address, but I think as president, my first executive order would be stay the hell away from my cellie.

The civilized world has embraced email as part and parcel of daily life. Surely a country that has tens of thousands of men and women who spend their working lives coming up with sophisticated cryptographic devices and ciphers can come up with a way to let the leader of the free world read his gmail and send a few text messages. Seriously, I get jumpy when I haven’t checked my email in an hour or two. Four years in an email free zone is just way too far beyond the pale. I say buck the system, Mr. President-Elect; make a Charlton Heston-esq stand for your inalienable right to wireless communication!

Schism…

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I always assumed that the next great rift in this country would split along socio-economic lines, but the more I take a long, careful look at the current situation, I believe I see another, potentially more disturbing fracture looming. Given the recent (though somewhat farcical) procedural votes that have taken place in the Congress, I can see a scenario that would have Congress cutting off funds for the war and a president who would in all likelihood ignore that particular legislative prerogative and carry on the war effort. With the executive and the Congress both in the hands of ideological extremists, it does set an interesting stage for what could be not just a Constitutional crisis, but a systemic meltdown in which the system of checks and balances would cease to function. I’ve studied enough history to know that schism between the executive and the legislative is often the furnace where civil wars are forged. While I don’t think our military is busy choosing sides just yet, late at night that is one of the thoughts keeps me awake just a little bit longer.

While I’m on this particular topic, I have to say that it is incumbent upon the Congress of the United States to fully fund the men and women in harms way. Cutting funding for the troops is not only short sighted policy, but also a political mistake. Imagine being a candidate and facing a row of cameras when the first question is going to be “Why didn’t you support our troops?” For good or ill, that’s how the question will be framed. Maybe with more style, but every time, that is going to be the substance of the question.