I rarely find myself agreeing with Peggy Noonan on anything, but her “oops my mike is on” moment on TV the other day was spot on in it’s analysis of the current election. (Go to the popular video sites on the web and you can find it easily. The language is not suitable for repetition here, however.) I also seldom agree with George Will, who is perhaps the most arrogant of all columnists in my view, but again, he was spot on in his analysis of McCain’s running mate having “negligible experience”. Who knew that I would agree so much with the likes of those two?
I have been asked by many what I think of the Palin selection. What troubles me most is that McCain had reportedly only visited with her at length, in person, just one time… and this is one of the most crucial decisions he could make. I would never hire even an associate attorney for my firm that I had only met once, let alone a law partner! Unbelievable. -Ben Odom
I get so tired of charges from the GOP that Democrats are soft on defense. The budgets that are on record tell a very different story. The first year of Democratic control of the Congress, 2007, saw a budget of roughly $626 billion for military-related items; this was over 50% of non-mandatory, discretionary spending. ( FYI-The federal government spends roughly a third of the money available on medicare-medicaid, a fifth on social security, a fifth on defense, slightly less than a tenth on interest for the debt, and a fifth on every other government progam you can think of.) This is a dramatic increase from the relatively flat-line budgets of 1989-99, which included the “peace dividend” from the end of the Soviet Union.
The early 90’s decision to downsize the Army was also a result of the collapse of the Soviets. That decision, and the first recommended reduction in defense spending in years, were made by the administration of Bush the elder. Not by Clinton. During the Clinton years the defense budget was by general agreement roughly $250 billion a year. The GOP controlled Congress, filled with “budget hawks”, did not really have signifigantly larger numbers to offer at the time despite the rhetoric from many of their members.In fact, the actual appropraited dollars were almost a match to Clinton’s requested sums for security, which totaled approximately 2 trillion dollars over his Presidency. The military that responded so well after 9-11 was that military, as Bush had only been in office a short few months.
The curent pace of operations shows that we need more conventional forces. Barack Obama has called for an increase of 65,000 soldiers in the Army and an additional 27,000 Marines. Now that is true to the ideal of “speak softly but carry a big stick”!
I was pleased to hear that Joe Biden will be the nominee for Vice-President for our Party. He is a great guy, and I base that on several personal visits with him over a span of 30 years. I first met him in when I was in high school, and it was obvious then that the young Senator was a true leader. It is good to have someone on the ticket who has been to our state often and who has had folks from Oklahoma on his staff. Sometimes we forget that we are only a little over 1% of America, and not every candidate visits here. Joe’s debating skills will come in handy down the road.
Tomorrow is the run-off election…and I have nothing to vote for; don’t ever remember that being the case. Perhaps it is time to do away with run-off elections since we now truly are a two-party state. The old rationales for it’s existence are largely obsolete.
When it comes to defense and foreign policy we are used to tough talk from the GOP, and even tougher noise coming from right-wing talk radio. I believe that the recent Russian invasion of Georgia and the “piercing of the propaganda veil” at the Chinese Olympics are windows into the true nature of the leadership of those countries. They are not on the same page as the Western democracies at all. China does not value human rights, and Russia clearly has a chip on it’s shoulder. They are not our friends. But the President goes to the Olympics and adds his presence and the credibility of the office to the propaganda show, and the chance to make a point about human rights or Tibet is replaced in the media by photos of him hanging out with bikini clad women. Just imagine the noise from talk radio if that had been Clinton! I am so happy that as a taxpayer I got to help pay for that trip. At least FDR had the good sense not to give Hitler a photo op in 1936 at the Berlin games…
The deal with Russia is even worse. Numerous commentators have pointed out what steps we need to take for punishing the Russians for the recent attacks, failure to withdraw, or observe the ceasefires as promised in Georgia. All we really seem to have done is send Sec. Rice to scold them. That put the fear of God in them, I am sure. But what did we expect. After all, Bush said on June 16th, 2001 about Putin he had “looked the man in the eye. I find him to be very straightforward and trustworthy”. This being said about a former KGB operative may be the most naive thing ever said by a US President. Again, if Obama or Clinton had said this, they would have been roasted at the time, and the clip would have been recycled over and over and over again in the last few weeks. So much for the fairness of talk radio hosts who claim to not be partisan.
The bottom line? When it comes to recent events, the Bush Republicans are following the old motto of “talk like Rambo, act like Bambi”.
Last night I spoke to a large group at the Cowboy Hall of Fame on behalf of Obama. Gary Jones spoke on behalf of McCain…well not really, as he only mentioned his name once and didn’t spend his time on the Presidential race, but encouraged the crowd to look at qualifications and background of the people in each race. Fine enough. He discouraged straight party voting. Again understandable, but unusual coming from a Party Chair.
So my question for him this morning on the radio was “what Democrats will you be voting for this year?”…asked about three times, never got an answer. So I guess the point of his comments to the Concerned Minority Citizens forum really was do as I say, not do what I will do this fall. So his comments were just words, empty rhetoric.
For me, I hope the whole electorate votes straight Democratic to send the strongest possible message to that incompetent Bush, Karl Rove , et al that we didn’t appreciate the country being driven into the ditch the last eight years!
The topic for Thursday is Bush and Putin, and why isn’t right-wing radio all over W for his past comments in light of recent Russian aggression?
This is the first in my series of talking point offerings I will post every Thursday. Hopefully they will be of use to those who hear leaders from the other side make often unchallenged statements in the local media, and then have to hear those same comments parroted by folks at coffee shops, etc. Today I want to talk about gas prices and energy.
When the price goes up, we hear from GOP leaders that it is all about ” India and China driving up demand”. Yes, they are adding cars in those countries, but not at a rate of 40 percent more within a couple of months! That is a long-term issue, and cannot and does not account for the level of increase we have seen at the pump. It also ignores new finds and new technologies that will affect supply and demand. The supply of oil, let alone energy , is not frozen at what is discovered and available in 2008!
The other straw-man argument is that “there hasn’t been a new refinery built in years”-true but misleading. The existing facilities have been expanded, modernized, and made more efficent. The big companies often said if only they had more profit they could invest more in further upgrades. The highest recorded profits in the history of modern business ought to be enough for them to do that, you would think!
“If only those crazy liberals would let us drill in (fill in name of beautiful beach or environmentally sensitive area here) we would be fine and could reduce the price of gas!” Here is the unpleasant truth. New production takes awhile. New sources are not going to have much of an effect on the price at the pump for years, and that is assuming that middle-eastern countries don’t simply decide to reduce output at exact same level we increase it, keeping suppy constant for oil. Drilling isn’t the long term solution. Speculators, who expert financial analyists say are a primary reason for the irrational rise in price over the last few months, would love for us to not look at other solutions.
This brings us to what is the real long-term solution to high energy prices. Renewable sources like wind energy (and here you would think our Oklahoma U.S. Senators would be all over that instead of blocking incentives), clean coal, next-generation biofuels, new car technology-all of these would in the long run reduce prices at the same time world-wide demand goes up for energy. Just remember that business is about making a profit. It isn’t about protecting the environment, or your job, or even in the case of multi-national corporations, protecting our national interest. Good leaders are needed to make the right choices on these matters! Putting the GOP in charge of all this has been the worst case of the fox watching the hen house in history.
After digging down real low, John McCain’s mudslinging is starting to hit him back in his tail end. You might recall that John McCain had an ad trying to say that Obama was as clueless as Paris Hilton and Brittany Spears.
There wasn’t really any substance to it, but it certainly gave some left wing blogs some fodder to point out his Hippocratic statements.. It seams there are plenty of Youtube videos out there where he pledges a clean campaign.
Looks like Obama hits back but with “actual facts”. We can only hope the voters are paying attention.
