Can We Discuss a Lack of Experience Now?

Can We Discuss a Lack of Experience Now?

It was raised during the campaign but was largely ignored and deemed unimportant at the time.  What is it?  Experience.  Now during the primary campaign the then Senator Obama was criticized by two opponents that are now members of his administration.  Senator Clinton released the now famous 3 A.M phone call add.  And the then Senator Biden said during one of the debates that the young Senator from Illinois wasn’t qualified. 

Now granted most of the question about Obama’s experience was in relation to foreign affairs but let us combine for a moment his inexperience as a leader and the question of his associations during his early career.  There was Reverend Wright who denounced America and American values in his sermons with Barack Obama’s tacit consent.  There was Bill Ayers of the weather underground.  A domestic terrorist who believed as recently as 2001 that he hadn’t done enough to destroy U.S. Government property. 

So lets think about what has happened recently with these two things in mind.  He has chosen four people for Cabinet level positions who have either failed to pay their taxes at all, have paid them late, or have had questions raised about who has gotten various government contracts. 

Now individually none of these errors is a big deal, but taken together they show at best a complete ineptitude on the part of his staff.  How do three people who haven’t paid their taxes get through vetting?  How does a Governor who is corrupt get through vetting so he can be nominated for Commerce Secretary?

At worst this shows that he is arrogant on a level not seen in years.  If it isn’t arrogant to think that he can nominate criminals for Cabinet positions I don’t know what arrogant is anymore.

Moral Victory?

Moral Victory?..

The 177 Republican members of the House of Representatives voted yesterday to reject the stimulus package proposed by President Obama and the Democrats.  The bill passed the House anyway so one has to look at the the Republican effort to vote it down as a failure.  But was it really?

In athletic competitions you can have a moral victory.  If a team is out matched  but manages to keep a contest close and looses by a smaller than expected margin, they call it a moral victory.  Is this what happened with John Boehner and the Republicans?

On one level I think yes.  Especially when some of the more outlandish portions of the bill are not present in the Senate version currently being debated on Capitol Hill.  Some one on the Democratic side of the isle finally asked how re-sodding the National Mall was going to stimulate the economy, because there are members of the Democratic caucus that are lined up to vote against the bill.  (Granted they are ”blue-dog Democrats” but to a certain extent that is irrelevant.) 

On another level, there are times when moral victories don’t mean anything.  I do take solace in knowing that the issues that many Republicans have with the House version of the President’s stimulus package were voiced but I do not like the fact that those issues were, if not ignored, at least not given any real weight by the Democratic leadership in the House. 

Now the President promised a new tone and doesn’t want to just ram through legislation (even though he can).  But I send along this warning.  He can’t just listen to Republican objections over policy breakfasts and meetings in the West Wing or on the Hill.  He and the Democratic Leadership in both houses of Congress, have to acknowledge the differing views in a more meaningful way.  Those concerns have to be taken into account when proposing such a massive piece of legislation like the stimulus.

It’s Been a Week

It’s Been a Week…

It’s been a week since President Obama took the oath of office and officially became the 44th President of the United States.  In the immediate aftermath of the speech there has been a number of people doing analysis of the speech including myself.  I came across another analysis last night that I would recomend to you.

Professor Jeffery Sikkenga is a Political Science professor at Ashland University in Ashland, Ohio.  He does an analysis of the speech both visually and content wise.  It is a 25 minutes to listen to but I do recommend it to you.  You can find it as a podcast that you need not subscribe to but I find them to be entertaining and enlightening when I listen to them. 

I had this professor when I was in school and he always did an excellent job of keeping his own beliefs hidden during his lectures.  So the analysis isn’t negative in any sense of the word and is honest.  I do commend you to it.

More Than One Winner

More Than One Winner…

At some point during the day last Friday, the President had a meeting with the Congressional Leadership, including the Minority Leader in the House, Rep. John Boehner (Rep., OH) and the Minority Leader in the Senate, Sen. Mitch McConnell (Rep., KY), to discuss the $800 billion stimulus package.  The new President has argued for the last two months that the American people badly need this package and he wants bi-partisan support for the bill.

Now, on Election Day last November, the Democratic party won another 25 seats in the house and enough seats in the Senate to solidify an already present majority.  In other words the Democrats have enough votes in both Houses to pass any bill they want to pass.  So it begs the question as to why the President wants the Republicans to be on board with the package?  It has been said by some that it is to provide some cover if the package fails to stimulate the economy they way he hopes it will. 

There may be some merit to this argument but what is troubling is part of the argument President Obama made to try to convince the Republicans to get on board.  He didn’t try to argue the merits of the package as he saw them.  At least that is not the part of the argument that was released. 

“I won,” is not the argument that to make to members of Congress.  As a member of Congress they won last November too.  They have voters they are responsible to as well.  And while many of them are from states that voted for the President some are from states that voted for Senator McCain. 

President Obama needs to make his case for the various elements of the stimulus package and let the chips fall where they may.

The Devil’s in the Details

The Devil’s in the Details…

The new President has made his decision and by order of the Executive, the detention center at Gitmo will be closed by 2010.  I think the decision was the wrong one, but there is nothing that can be done about it at this point.  Unless the President has his mind changed by one of his advisors the camp will be closed.  Therefore, the question needs to be answered.  What are we going to do with the prisoners being held there?

The prisoners being held at Gitmo are bad people.  Some will say try them in civilian courts.  We cannot do that.  There are chain of evidence issues, that would prevent some of the most dambing evidence against them from being admitted in a civilian court.   So if they can’t be transfered to the civilian judicial system what do we do?

How about we just change where they are being held.  Instead of being held at Gitmo we move them to Camp Pendelton in San Diego?  There is a Marine base there, it sounds like a plan.  But aren’t the people we are holding dangerous by definition?  I can’t say that I would want a prison holding some of the most dangerous people in the world in my back yard.  And I certainly wouldn’t want my children to pass it on their way to school or the grocery store with their mother. 

O.K. so we can’t move the prison to the mainland United States, and we can’t transfer the prisoners to civilian authorities.  Should we just out right release them?  Again, by definition the people being held are dangerous.  And the ones that have already been released, the majority of them have gone back and started fighting against us again.  Does this make us safer?  Again I think the answer is no. 

But what if we make the country they go to responsible for making sure they don’t attack us?  How has that worked for Israel releasing Hezzbollah fighters back to Lebanon?  Not to well I don’t think.  In the end we are responsible for our own safety as a country and leaving our saftey from terrorists in the hands of other coutries isn’t particularly smart I don’t think.

The Devil is indeed in the details, and it seems to me that the new President is going to be finding out rather quickly that we campaign in poetry but govern in prose.  What is next Mr. President?  We need to see the details as to what is going to be done with these guys.  You acted quickly to order Gitmo’s closure.  How quickly will you act to find an alternative.

A Beginning…

A Beginning…

My fellow citizens, I have chosen to begin this adventure this week because it is a week of beginnings.  We have begun again a new administration with a new President.  Inauguration day is always like the first day of spring, or the first day of school.  Probably because it is the first day of the next four years of our Republic’s life, and accordingly the country celebrates this transfer of power.   I am not certain that the price tag for this inauguration is necessary and while I am certain that part of that price tag was a result of security concerns, surely we as a country could have been more frugal.

However, the price tag for the inauguration is a cosmetic concern and I tend to agree with what Thomas Jefferson said about his inauguration.  He believed that what happened in 1800 was even more remarkable than what happened in 1776.  What happened in 1800?  Power was transferred from one party to another peacefully.  It is now 209 years later and power being transferred from one party to another peacefully is still remarkable.  This citizen stands humbled by this act every time it occurs.  There are more substantial issues than what it cost to inaugurate the new President. 

I was not able to watch the inauguration Tuesday, I had to work and don’t have access to either a television or the internet while I am working.  I did have access to a radio but for whatever reason we didn’t have it on.  I have taken the time to read the speech and saw the embarrassing but relatively minor error caused by the Chief Justice in giving the oath since.   Allow me to deal with the oath first.  Yes, the Oath of Office is a Constitutionally mandated oath but let’s give the new President and the Chief Justice the benefit of the doubt.  We need to remember that this is the first time this Chief Justice has sworn in a President.  And he did get all the words right.  They were just in the wrong order.  Incidently, the correct version of the oath has since been given to the President and everything is fine.   You will allow me one last comment on the oath error.  The Vice-President, tried to make a joke at the Chief Justice’s expense, a bad joke at that and I hope everyone can agree that this was completely inappropriate.

Now we can move onto the issues with the actual speech.  The new President spent at least two paragraphs repudiating the last eight years of both foreign and domestic policy.  I understand that part of what people were voting for in November, when they voted for Barack Obama was a change of direction, but there are ways to say that we are going to change direction without embarrassing the former President. 

The rhetoric of the new President’s speech was soaring (again I remind you that I can only go by the text, and the rather poor impression of his speaking style that was echoing in my brain as I read it) even if the delivery was thought to be lacking by some.  But the real work begins once the speech ends.  I have my doubts about the success of what President Obama wants to do.  If it hasn’t worked before, why would we think it is going to work this time?

I would like to close this opening message with a bit about me.  I have been reluctant to start a blog.  There has been something about it that has seemed presumptuous.  I am not any one important on a national level. Who is going to care what I think about various issues?  I have commented many times to my wife that the worst thing about the internet is that any idiot with a computer and a modem can publish anything they want.  And the best thing about the internet is that any idiot with a computer and a modem can publish anything they want.  So here I am one more idiot with a computer and a modem hoping I can do something besides add to the noise that is out there.  The mass media in the Northeast and Washington D.C. tend to listen to one another talk on television and on the radio, and read the same news papers.  As a result, watching cable news shows on MSNBC and CNN or the nightly news on ABC, CBS, and NBC is like sitting in an Echo Chamber.  I don’t live in the Northeast or Washington, D.C.  Nor do I want to.  (I know this might come as a shock to some of you that do live in there)  I live Outside the Echo Chamber and I hope for this blog to a Voice of Loyal Opposition.  And like my Torrie brethren in the U.K. I hope that this Conservative can remain loyal to both his convictions and his country, if not necessarily to the ideas and policies that the new President sets forth.