1 September 2011 –

What are we to think of the gaffe du jour coming from President Obama’s White House? The facts are straightforward:

1) President Obama wants to give a speech in the well of the House of Representatives to a combined session of Congress on a jobs initiative/program/strategy for the nation; but, he keeps his intentions for both the jobs program and the venue and date of the speech until the last minute.

2) He picks the date and the time of the speech to coincide with Congress’s first day back from summer recess, but also, it is the exact date and time of the long-scheduled Republican presidential debate.

3) The President’s staff leaks the particulars of the request to the press before the Speaker of the House—the official who would host the event and, therefore, have the authority to accept or reject the request—has a chance to respond officially.

4) Now in the public eye again, the Speaker of the House delivers a written response to the President claiming that logistical, procedural, and security concerns—most probably arising from the 7^th being the first day after the summer recess that the House is back in session—would make it difficult for him to accommodate the 7 September request. As an alternative, the Speaker offers the 8^th as an alternative—unfortunately,heh, heh, the night the NFL kicks off it 2011-1012 season on television.

5) Hacks and pundits from both sides of the political battlefield begin their expected recriminatory volleys.

My comment on each fact:

1) This is not the first time President Obama has held policy strategizing and public announcements close to the vest and then released his intentions at self-immolating times. Remember when he announced just a few months ago that he would recommend that negotiations for a final peace and the recognition of a Palestinian state start from the pre-1967 war borders of Israel? Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, in rapid response, eviscerated the President on live television from the White House meeting room and then chopped him up again to the roars of a supportive U.S. Congress during a speech in the House well. Not a smart move. You would think that someone on his enormous staff would have advised the President heartily to coordinate a bit more with friends in and out of government before making such a significant statement at such a vulnerable time.

2) It is understandable that 7 September is a good date for such a major speech. The first day back from recess is a good time to introduce to Congress a program the President wants to emphasize for the next session. The President could acquire momentum in the fight for control of the national agenda by speaking before Congress in a nationally televised speech. But, why was there nobody on his enormous staff that warned of the vulnerable situation the President would put himself in by asking for something the Speaker of The House would never agree to? The key to the President’s incredible gaffe is putting himself in a situation where somebody else—somebody on the opposite side of the political battlefield—has the power to crush the President’s initiative even before it gets started? There is no way the President could not look shallow, foolish, and politically inept by asking for that date to give the speech. Of course the Speaker would not give permission to use the House as the venue on a date that competes with the Republic presidential aspirants’ debates—long-time tradition of granting such permission notwithstanding. I am sure that if previous presidents had picked such politically foolish timing to address Congress, this would not have been the first time permission would have been denied. What an ill-conceived initiative and request! Just as bad for the nation, what hubris flows from his desk and from his staff that they think that they could actually get the date approved!

3) How much effort would it take to line up the enormous White House staff on the South Lawn and horse whip them all? Did they not see that by leaking the particulars of the President’s request before the Speaker had a chance to formally respond, they were only increasing the control the Speaker had over the outcome of the situation and opening the White House up to the guffaws and ridicule of all the President’s enemies? What is worse, it shows again to independents that the President’s decision-making skills may be severely limited. My experience on senior military and political staffs taught me a valuable lesson. The purpose of a staff is to protect the President from his enemies and, if necessary, to protect the President from himself. In this case, the President’s staff doomed the initiative before it could even begin and only magnified the nation’s shoddy view of their boss. Off with their heads!

4) I don’t know exactly what Speaker Boehner was thinking when he crafted the written response to the President’s request. I do feel, however, that his response was as gentle and as professional a response as was possible under the circumstances. It would indeed have been difficult to get the members of Congress all together the evening of the first day back from recess. Therefore, all the reasons the Speaker alluded to in his return letter were legitimate. Most important, it was a far gentler way to tell the President no than to castigate him for trying to upstage the Republican presidential debates by announcing to the nation a jobs initiative that even Democratic members of Congress know nothing about. An incredible opportunity to reveal the President’s foolishness was handed to the Speaker. He used it deftly and professionally. None of the foolishness stuck to the Speaker. Another bad moment for the President: I don’t think the President’s remarks are going to reduce the NFL’s ratings either. In fact, speaking on the 8^th, as the White House has agreed to do, puts the President into another vulnerable situation that he cannot control. First, he has shown himself to be less important than the Republican aspirants’ debates. Second, he will have shown himself to be less important than a football game. He has done this to himself. His staff has enabled him. I am hard-pressed to disagree with what he has shown himself to be.

5) Yup. A lot of electrons are flying over a lot of screens because of the President. Yup. It is an easy day to write about politics. Most are.

31 August 2011 –

The campaign for public office, particularly for federal offices, has long consumed the better efforts and the opportune moments of so many candidates, be they incumbents or aspirants. What is regrettable for the citizen is that these efforts and moments are supposed to be focused on governing, legislating, and executing. Combine the desire to obtain and to keep an office with the 24 hour news cycle and wider personal communication nets now extant, an elected official is not only always campaigning—long the norm—but far more visible doing do. We hired these guys and gals to do a job, but not to be in our faces 24 hours a day while doing it. Hey, we got lives to live here! Leave us alone, and do your jobs.

Speaking of doing one’s job…naïve as I am, I have always thought that one of the primary responsibilities of our elected officials is to create and pass a yearly budget for the funding and functioning of government. In fact, the President must submit a yearly budget to Congress so that Congress can bicker and harrumph and finally pass one of its own. It seems to me that the budget process is the lynchpin for the entire structure of functioning and accountable government. I guess I am wrong. It seems that the federal government doesn’t need a budget. It seems that Congress and the federal agencies Congress is supposed to fund can continue to govern, spend, and spend some more without the niceties of an agreed upon plan. It seems that fact that Congress and the President have not passed a budget THE ENTIRE TIME PRESIDENT OBAMA HAS BEEN IN OFFICE is the new modus operandi for the future of federal governing. Where have we been while this has become the norm? Doing our jobs and actually believing that our federal government has been doing its job.

I must admit that for the spendthrifts in the White House and Congress, such a method of husbanding tax and borrowed revenues does have an advantage. It unshackles them from being accountable to the comments, expectations, and coercion of those elected them. With no budget by which to keep an accountable score of success or failure, these so-called guardians of the public weal can now with alacrity throw tax revenues at whatever target may satiate their increasingly expansive appetites for power. Hey, why not? If there is no plan, anything I do is all right, right? Is this not liberty? Ain’t it great to govern this way? Not. Ignoring the basic responsibility to pass a budget creates an overwhelming power for those who use our taxes to buy votes and restructure the government any way they want to. Shame on you, Congress! Shame on you, Mr. President! You deliberately failed in your basic governing responsibilities and should be held accountable. If not passing a budget for three years is not an impeachable offense, I don’t know what is.

One of the consequences of not passing and adhering to a budget is the action of the Standard and Poor’s rating agency. I read S&P’s statement. In simple speak: The reason S&P downgraded the U.S. government’s credit rating was because the USG has shown that it cannot pass and live by a budget and that it shows no indication to do so in the future. By ignoring budgetary processes in the past, particularly in the last three years, and by showing that it will continue to ignore the processes in the future, the USG has created a huge debt with no—ABSOLUTELY NO—functional plan to reduce it. I agree with S&P. I certainly would be leery about lending money to a guy who lived like that, no matter how much IOU paper money he could create with a phone call to the treasury secretary.

The only “balanced approach” to the crushing credit and debt crisis is to balance a budget and pass it. Balanced budget. Fiscal accountability. The solution to the crisis has nothing to do with raising more revenue. That only pours more money into the hog trough to make the lawmakers fatter. The solution comes from spending less and being accountable for that which is spent. A budget is the method to do so. Get on it, guys and gals. You are failing the people and the Constitution. Do I have to translate that into hog speak so that you can understand it?

30 August 2011 –

Well, it has been too long since my last muse. I am at odds with myself about writing every day. I tell myself that I don’t want to become the geeky rat who relies on the artificial light from the computer screen as his sole energy source. Even the Houston’s searing summer sun is preferable to the constant glow of electrons running across a screen. On the other hand, many things simply cannot move past me without some comment. So, after nearly two months of absence, here I am. I am not asking for any welcome back feedback. In fact, you should be shooting hoops, exercising to a zumba tape, or working in the garden if you are not at work. If you are at work, be about it and read this some other time.

Anyway, We went to family weddings and reunions in early August. In late August, we went to Europe for a military attaché reunion hosted by the Serbian defense attaché to Beijing, China. He served in that position while I was there in my position as the U.S. air attaché to Beijing. About thirty of us, including wives, were in Belgrade for four days of events, food, and more food. Then, my wife and I drove to Prague, Vienna, Bratislava, and then Budapest. All travel was uneventful. Everything was beautiful.

A couple of thoughts on the trip are worth a muse.

On the first evening, we met in the Serbian Army Headquarters and had a small reception and dinner. The brittleness of the separation exploded as does the morning frost when the late summer sunrise bursts over the Rocky Mountains. We were friends again and still. Friends from different countries and cultures who shared—yeah, still share—a common bond of military professionalism and righteous principles. Before dessert, I stood and toasted the group. I first told them that my wife and I were commenting over dinner on how comfortable and normal we feel with them as our friends, far more normal than living in our new home in Houston, Texas. That got a laugh because the rest of the world knows that Texas is a “special” part of the U.S.

I then held my water glass high and repeated a toast I have used only twice before: “May our enemies always fear us. May our wives always kiss us. And, may our flags always fly on the same side of the battlefield”. They roared their approval. We were together again.

I wish I could create such camaraderie, trust, and commitment one to another in other venues in life. Winning battles and wars, succeeding when others predict failure, being the last ones standing on the smoldering battlefield, all are the results of a group so close. We as a culture and nation know how to build such groups. It is a sublime privilege to have been counted among such a team while I served in uniform. Nothing short of belief in God and love for one’s family is as sacred a commitment.

Alas, such magnificent teams are so often frittered away on the battlefield for pitiable politics and selfish, ill-thought-out strategies and goals. It is no surprise that an officer’s loyalty often ends up for the team and not necessarily for the political masters whose bidding it performs. Nonetheless, it is part of being an officer to stay loyal to one’s nation, to display adherence to the principles of professional officership, and to not succumb to the cult of the warrior—as tempting as it might be. Maybe it is easier to espouse loyalty to country and to principle over loyalty to the team as the vitality of youth wanes. Still, the words of Frederick Forsyth’s character in his 1974 book, The Dogs of War, waft through my mind; “Vie la Mort! Vive la Guerre! Vive le sacré Mercenaire!”

I had a marvelous exchange with a general officer from Africa about Islam, jihad, and terrorism. He and his wife are Moslem and were observing Ramadan during the reunion. It happened to be the hottest summer on record for much of Central Europe, so it was difficult for them to participate in our daytime activities and still fast from food and water. However, our nighttime cruise on the Danube and dinners gave us good opportunities to spend time together and to discuss things.

A kind and gentle man, he asked me bluntly what Americans thought of his country. I answered bluntly that most Americans couldn’t find his country on a map, let alone have an opinion of it. I tempered my first comment by adding that most Americans can’t name all the states of their country on a map either. I further said that if Americans know anything about his country, it is that the country has oil. Only one out of thousand would know that there is great tension between the more affluent animists and Christians in the oil producing areas and the poorer Moslems in the drier parts of the country. As well, the country’s population of nearly 155 million gives it conditions and problems that cannot be as easily solved or mitigated as they can in smaller countries. I then said that the ongoing strife between Moslems and others, particularly the ongoing suicide attacks by Moslems against government and other institutions, does not help the Moslem image in the U.S. Islam is not well received as a minority in a western culture that has already adjusted to secular and religious separation in government and has a concept of tolerance quite different than what is defined in Islam (my ability to capsulize all that into a few sentences surprised me).

My friend listened attentively and then asked me what I personally thought of the conflict between Islam and the West. I thought for a moment and again responded bluntly: What I think of Islam and its violence within itself and toward the west isn’t really pertinent to resolving or mitigating problems. What matters is what he thinks about the violence and the yawning gaps between western culture and that of Islam. I explained that I am an outsider to Islam. I always will be an outsider. Therefore, anything I say or demand isn’t going to resolve or improve anything on the inside of Islam. Violence in Islam, among its sects, and that toward western nations such as the United States, is a problem for Islam, even more than it is for the rest of the world. If the issues and conditions that cause the violence are not addressed adequately within Islam, then there will always be strife with the west and with other outside parties. These latter parties will feel compelled to protect themselves, often aggressively, when threatened. All will lose, but given the current power structure in the world, the biggest loser will be Islam.

My friend quickly countered that Islam is a religion of peace. I also accepted that ideal. I said that I have read chapter 36 of the Koran, the heart of the Koran, where it extolls peace. However, if whatever the Koran or its Hadith commentary says about peace cannot be sufficiently displayed by those who are accepted as adherents, then the holy words have little legitimacy in the outside world. Again, it is not the outside world that has to fix the problem of violence. It is the Umma, or the Moslem community itself. Educated, urbane, and good men like my friend. If not, the Islamic community will continue to suffer more from the paradox of internal peace and violence than will others. My friend had no answer. I doubt if there is one until there is more bloodshed.

Finally, we had a tour of a Serbian aeronautical museum near the international airport in Belgrade. There were all sorts of aircraft dating back to before World War One. There was even the MiG-21 fighter that our host had flown for some of his career in the Yugoslav and then the Serbian Air Force. It was quite a display of the 20^th century aeronautic history of central Europe.

Also displayed in the museum was a piece of the tail and the cockpit canopy of an F-16 (from the 555^th Fighter Squadron in Aviano AB, Italy) that was shot down over Serbia during the conflict over Kosovo in 1999. As well, there were pieces of the cockpit and engines of an F-117 that was shot down during the same conflict. The canopy rail still displayed the name of the American pilot who was flying the aircraft. What a feeling to see such remnants of a stupid war.

Only twelve years ago, the US started a war to force Serbia to allow Kosovo, a southern province whose population is overwhelmingly Moslem, to break off and eventually become an independent nation. The war was brazen aggression by the United States that resulted in both good and bad. Good that it probably hastened the downfall of Slobovan Milosovice and the roundup of the warlords who butchered so many Moslems and Croats in Bosnia and elsewhere during the wars of the 1990s. Serbia is now on the verge of entering the European Union. Bad in that it forced a process that probably was going to happen anyway and left a bitter taste in the mouth of the people that the U.S. needs as staunch allies in the Balkans: the Serbs. For what? The creation and recognition of a Moslem country that doesn’t like the United States anyway. I wonder if helping people who don’t like you to begin with is another foolish errand. Winning the hearts and minds of the people is not an easy thing to do. It is rarely successful, especially from the outside.

It is good to be home.

1 July –

Yesterday, I read that five of the counties around the seat of our federal government are in the top twenty counties for highest average wages in the U.S. The list was published by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis reported Monday by Business Journals.com. The list ranked 330 counties or cities with at least 100,000 jobs. The results are proof positive that our government control of activities in the U.S. and of our money is out of control!

Manhattan was the first ranked city or county with an average yearly income of $109,028. Arlington County, VA, right outside of D.C., was second with $102,373 yearly income. Third was Washington, D.C. itself with $98,246. Ranked tenth was Fairfax County, across teh river from D.C., with $87,540. Ranked 11^th was Alexandria County, VA—again right outside of D.C., with $84,960. Thirteenth was Montgomery County, MD, another bedroom suburb for the gaping maw that is our government money pit, with $78,643.

What this tells me is that the government is not only spending an increasingly higher amount of our income every year, it is doing so on the generous salaries of government workers, contractors who increasingly provide what used to be exclusive government services, and all the businesses in the region that take advantage of the spiraling wages and benefits accrued to government workers to charge more for everything from food and gasoline to real estate. I wonder why government workers, falsely considered to be working for less than the public sector, should be paid so much—especially when I don’t know of any other business, no matter how large or influential, that averages such largesse in wages around its headquarters. I am reminded of countries like the Democratic Republic of the Congo and other developing country mired in corruption where the best paying jobs are government ones. I guess it is human nature. Why should someone exercise entrepreneurial risk taking when absolutely top jobs are available from the taxes we send to Washington?

Could it be that government is doing too much? Too much that requires highly technical and professional skills to run programs that local governments or local community service organizations should be organizing, monitoring and adjusting to fit local needs and budgets? Could it be that the federal government, the largest employer in the United States, has long since abandoned the role of protector of our borders and our freedoms and selfishly donned the mantle of arbiter of our freedoms and dispenser of our daily bread?

My question, therefore, is simple: Why should we listen to President Obama when he castigates politicians from across the aisle for not exercising leadership in handling this budget and debt ceiling crisis? He has yet to propose any plan that would reduce the bloat of government and reduce our debt. Instead, he criticizes the top 20% of income earners in the U.S.—who, by the way, pay over 80% of the federal taxes collected every year—by calling them the corporate jet crowd and other cheap shots. What does he want, 80% of the people either working for the federal government or paying no federal taxes and the other 20% paying for everything, including the interest on a spiraling federal debt? Bread and circuses. Bread and circuses.

Political insiders are quick to criticize nonpoliticians who run for president by saying they have no experience. In the environment in the nation’s capital and in state capitals throughout the nation, I suppose that is a valid criticism. After all, it takes years of learning how to accrue patronage power in order to quickly assume the reins of the tax and spend carriage. President Obama went from scholarship funded liberal schools to patronage funded political organizer to patronage funded state government to patronage funded Senate office to the final position of ultimate patron: el Presidente. He knows how to spend to get votes. Our money; his patronage.