Newtown and Elliott Rodgers

Does anyone remember the name of any of the twenty two children murdered at Newtown, Connecticut in December, 2012? For that matter, can you recall the name of the killer? I would wager a multitude of pounds or dollars that most readers would lose the bet. Likewise, in a year’s time, will you remember the name, Elliott Rodgers, and what he did last Friday night in Santa Barbara, California? He was the student who murdered six people in a shooting drive-by.

Richard Martinez, the father of one of those murdered, gave a grief-stricken statement to The Washington Post. He said:

"Today, I’m going to ask every person I can find to send a postcard to every politician they can think of with three words on it: ‘Not one more.’ People are looking for something to do. I’m asking people to stand up for something. Enough is enough. I don't care about your sympathy. I don't give a s--- that you feel sorry for me. Get to work and do something. I'll tell the president the same thing if he calls me.”

I have every sympathy with Mr. Martinez and the parents of all children who have been assassinated in the hundreds of school and drive-by shootings this century. As for Rodgers and the latest of this long, shameful line of atrocities, according to press reports he was mentally unstable and in therapy. How in heavens name did he get to own a gun? The weapon he used was not stolen or “borrowed” from his parents. Where did he buy it? How did he pass the checks?

Who is accountable? The gun lobby, led by the National Rifle Association, is in the frame. These people ought to be standing before America, hands raised in surrender. It is interest groups like the NRA who believe the right to gun ownership is more important than life itself. How does this square with the pro-life lobby? I wouldn’t be surprised to find that many of the latter are also members of the NRA.

The American public is also responsible. According to Gallup polls conducted both last year and a few weeks ago, a plurality of Americans are satisfied with the status quo on gun laws. Evidently, gun holders want to keep guns at home for their protection or for legitimate leisure purposes, such as hunting. Something’s missing here, such as an awareness of the danger of gun proliferation, of the folly of meeting violence with violence, or of the innocent lives placed at risk because of the desire to own a gun.

Here’s the rub: a change to the gun laws is evidently regarded as a vote loser. Thus Congress looks upon new gun control laws as the third rail of politics. Touch it and you die! Could the laws be changed to make them effective? Maybe something truly radical could be a vote winner. I suggest the following, although many Americans would regard my proposals as pie in the sky:

First, scrap the Second Amendment and replace it with a new Amendment which states that all gun ownership is illegal unless permitted by federal law. This removes all doubt and argument on concealed weapons and the type of permitted weapons, not to mention the right for individual states to legislate on the subject. The “live free or die” mentality needs to be challenged, as do the entrenched lobbies of power who would resist any change to gun law.

Second, Congress passes a new Gun Control Act which permits ownership and use of guns by members of the armed services, the secret service, the police and other such institutions. The Act will also permit professionals, such as veterinary surgeons, to carry appropriate weapons used in the course of their work. Hunters will be permitted to keep hunting rifles, provided they hold a licence and the weapons are held under lock and key. Marksmen will be allowed to own their guns, provided they are held at a gun club.

I suggest the Act requires all unlicensed guns to be given up. There will be a moratorium lasting several weeks during which time gun owners will return their guns to appropriate authorities for destruction. A compensation scheme would be created for people obeying the law, to be balanced by stringent penalties for those who don’t obey.

Without these steps, Mr. Martinez and parents like him will continue to be frustrated by the lily-livered politicians who, by their inaction, continue to support the useless American gun laws. If one of their own, Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, can be gunned down in the street without action being taken by legislators, what hope is there?

If you throw a pebble into a pond, not only do you disturb the surface where it lands. Ripples emanate everywhere. So it is with shootings. Not only is the victim’s life destroyed or damaged but those close to the victim have their lives altered for all time. I’m pleased I live where gun ownership is strictly controlled, where pebbles in ponds are not a regular aftermath of an arsenal and where any nutcase can tote a gun.

Karl Rove: A Case Study in Political Anarchy.

There’s an old saying in politics: “You campaign in poetry, you govern in prose.” It means that in seeking office, candidates can paint pictures of their highest aspirations, whereas governing is an entirely different matter. For the political poet practitioners, “going negative” is the last option. The trouble is that so-called political advisers and spin doctors take over the strategy of campaigns and too often and too quickly persuade their candidates that negativity equates to success. Karl Rove is one of these people. For him, negativity is the default position.

On the surface, Rove appears to have an impressive track record. He has been a Republican Party political consultant and policy advisor. He was Senior Advisor and Deputy Chief of Staff during the George W. Bush administration until his resignation in August, 2007. He also headed the Office of Political Affairs, the Office of Public Liaison, and the White House Office of Strategic Initiatives. Since leaving the White House, Rove has worked as a political analyst and contributor for Fox News, Newsweek and The Wall Street Journal. Prior to his White House appointments, he was credited with the 1994 and 1998 Texas gubernatorial victories of George W. Bush. Bush himself credits Rove for the 2000 and 2004 successful presidential campaigns. In his 2004 victory speech, Bush referred to Rove as "the Architect".

I am not impressed by Rove’s record. Rove is a so-so political strategist but he is also a corrupt trickster and a venal and wholly unprincipled man who has no conception of democracy. He once orchestrated a whisper campaign that an Alabama judge who did admirable work with youngsters was a paedophile. His mentality is “win at all costs.”

Rove is no stranger to scandal, disguising the truth and outright lying to get a win. For example, in 2002 and 2003 Rove chaired meetings of the White House Iraq Group (WHIG), an internal White House working group charged with developing a strategy to publicize the White House's assertion that Saddam Hussein posed a threat to the United States. Rove was the brains of WHIG in educating the American public about the threat posed by Saddam and weapons of mass destruction. Rove's communications task force within WHIG wrote and coordinate speeches by senior Bush administration officials, emphasizing Iraq's purported nuclear threat. Putting it bluntly, Rove and his colleagues told lies to convince the American voters to support the Iraq war. Shades of UK prime-minister Blair and his spin doctor in-chief, Alastair Campbell and “the Dodgy Dossier.”

In August, 2003, retired diplomat Joseph C. Wilson claimed that Rove outed the identity of Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, as a Central Intelligence Agency employee, exposing Plame and other CIA operatives to great danger. The administration was retaliating against Wilson and his op-ed piece in The New York Times in which he criticized the Bush administration's citation of yellowcake, used to make enriched uranium for nuclear missiles, among the justifications for the War in Iraq. In Bush's 2003 State of the Union Address, the President lied about Iraq’s holdings of yellowcake.

Three years later, Richard Armitage, the deputy Secretary of State, was found to have been responsible for the leak outing Plame. An investigation led to felony charges being filed against Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the Vice-President’s chief of staff, for perjury and obstruction of justice. Libby was found guilty by a jury, fined and imprisoned. Rove was exonerated.

However, Scott McClellan, the White House press secretary during this period, claims in his book, What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception, that the statements he made in 2003 to the media about Rove's lack of involvement in the Valerie Plame affair were untrue, and that he had been encouraged to repeat such untruths. His book has been disputed by members of McClellan's staff.

In 2007, Rove was involved directly in yet another scandal, involving the dismissals of several United States Attorneys for political reasons. Investigations into White House staffers' e-mail communications discovered that Rove had exchanged e-mails using Republican National Committee e-mail servers and personal e-mail account. This was a violation of the Presidential Records Act. Soon after the discovery, Rove was forced to resign. He said, "There's always something that can keep you here, and as much as I'd like to be here, I've got to do this for the sake of my family". I would have preferred an admission from Rove that told the truth, i.e. that his fingers were caught in the cookie jar.

What has Karl Rove achieved politically? His election record is flawed. There’s a good case to argue that his candidate stole the presidency in 2000. Four years later, Bush was barely re-elected. For the record, only two incumbents going back to FDR lost their re-election bids, Jimmy Carter and daddy Bush.

Undoubtedly, Rove preferred to work behind the scenes to practice his black political arts. Occasionally he made himself available to the media. In October, 2006, two weeks before the Congressional mid-term elections, he got things badly wrong. In an interview with National Public Radio's Robert Siegel, Rove insisted that his insider polling data showed the Republicans would both the Senate and the House of Representatives.

In the election, the Democrats won both the Senate and the House. Rove hastily backtracked.  Ten out of twenty-eight House seats, he said, were sacrificed because of various scandals. Another six were lost because incumbents did not recognize and react quickly enough to the Democrat threat. Ironically, Rove argued that, without corruption and complacency, the Democrats would have only gained a dozen seats and Republicans could have kept narrow control of the House.

Soon after the election, the White House Bulletin cited rumors of Rove's impending departure from the White House staff: "'Karl represents the old style and he's got to go if the Democrats are going to believe Bush's talk of getting along.”

Rove’s truly dark period, the one that should have destroyed his reputation for all time, was when he advised President George W. Bush to promote Social Security privatization. Thank heavens – and Congress - it did not happen. At that time, Rove spoke about a “permanent conservative majority” and “world-historic realignment,” even though all he and his president’s failures managed to do was turn the Senate and the House Democratic in 2006 and pave the way for the country’s rejection of John McCain as it embraced Barack Obama.

If there was any doubt about Rove’s disgraceful and unprincipled behaviour, just look at what he did last week. He alleged that Hillary Clinton spent thirty days in hospital after a fall and that “she’s wearing glasses that are only for people who have traumatic brain injury.” Later, Rove speculated that “Clinton endured a serious health episode for which she is going to have to be forthcoming if she runs for president.”

The truth is that Mrs Clinton spent three days in hospital after a fall and there is no evidence whatsoever that she suffered brain damage or any other permanent damage. Age and health are legitimate topics in a run for the White House but not if they are couched as lies.

Political campaigns in America have been dirty and corrupt almost from day one. Just look at Adams v Jefferson in 1800. The slogan, “vote early and vote often” was the mantra in many a campaign over the years. Surely, America should be better and above all this now. People like Karl Rove should not be allowed to spread their poison for political gain. It adds nothing to the debate and makes the political process all the poorer. The trouble is that there are no laws to stop Rove and his ilk from practising their dark arts and neither political party seems neither strong enough nor willing to remove men like Rove from their midst.

Barack Obama: A Reflection on an Impossible Presidency.

During the next six months, politicians the length and breadth of the United States will be fighting to retain or win seats in the United States Congress, the Capitols of fifty States and the Governors’ Mansions, not to mention the thousands of lesser political positions up for grabs in the November, 2014, mid-terms.

According to a recent Washington Post poll, the GOP has a 92% chance of regaining control of the US Senate. The Post made no comment about the majority in the House. Presumably, the Democrats have no chance of making any inroads there. There are two men who will look on all the contests with mixed emotions, from jealousy to relief. Their election days are done. Joe Biden has not written himself out of the 2016 presidential race but I suspect his prospects of running are nil. For certain, the President’s days at the polling booths are done.

The American mid-terms are an odd mix. Members of the House of Representatives appreciate that the public in their districts will vote as much on local issues as the success or otherwise of the leaders in DC. The President can be an effective weapon in the elections but I suspect his coat-tails will be short this time around. The GOP has done one heck of a job damaging Mr Obama’s image, treating him with prejudice, on any reasonable view. The President has had to grapple with the most hostile Congress in living memory and that’s saying something. Let’s not forget the rough ride meted out to both Harry Truman and Bill Clinton by Congress. Punishment was also delivered to Richard Nixon but his problems rested solely with Watergate and political opportunism, not just outright hatred.

In order to justify my comment that the President’s is being regarded unfairly, look at his extraordinary track record over the past five plus years. Let me first analyse what the President inherited. President George W. Bush embarked on The War on Terror, committing large numbers of troops and pricy equipment to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan. The fighting still continued when Bush left office. These wars were very expensive, to the detriment of the taxpayer and benefit of Halliburton, the corporation which was once headed by Vice President Cheney.

Despite the outlay needed to fight in the Middle-East, Bush pushed through reckless tax cuts which mostly benefited the rich and arguably almost bankrupted the country. The motor industry in Detroit collapsed. Ford was bust and needed rescuing. The investment banking sector was exposed as a great casino on the losing end. A government bail-out had to be brokered, at the taxpayer’s expense. In 2008 the America economy was as vulnerable as it had been since the start of World War II. At his inauguration, Obama received the most depressing inheritance imaginable, or perhaps it was the best; he could hardly have made things worse.

Since 2009, Obama’s track record in the face of a multitude of crises is admirable. What he has achieved reminds me of one of Bill Clinton sayings: “There is nothing wrong in America which cannot be corrected by what is right in America.” To begin with, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are ending, without disaster or a rout of American forces. Al Qaeda seems to have been crippled by America’s military and although I deplore the use of drones and the collateral damage that follows in their wake, it cannot be denied they have ‘excluded’ many Al Qaeda leaders. Osama bin Laden was found and executed. True, the peace is fragile and opportunities exist for groups like the Taliban and Muslim extremists to exploit their political ends but this is a continuing fact of global life.

On the debit side, America has appeared weak in relation to the Syrian crisis. The administration forgot the lessons of Bush senior and the building of coalitions with other nations. However, the President might respond by saying the American people have no stomach for and will not support another war in the Middle-East. Obama’s promise to close Guantanamo has not been kept, although methods of torture approved by the Bush administration hopefully have stopped.

President Obama has signed a record number of Executive Orders to side-step a Republican-governed House of Representatives. Most Orders have not been reversed by Congress. The Democratic majority in the Senate has pushed through a change to its rules so Republicans can no longer filibuster judicial appointments below Supreme Court level. It is true to say that much Obama-inspired legislation has been killed off in committee. Arguably, this is not unusual treatment for any administration.

On the domestic front, much has been achieved by this underrated president. His policies have rescued both the economy and the car industry. A bank crisis was averted, although there is still no legislation in place to curb some of the outrageous behaviour of investment banks. This is a global problem but Mr Obama has not led a coalition of western governments towards a satisfactory global solution.

Life in America for many is hardly rosy. The poor in America remain poor. The percentage of American children living in poverty now is the same as it was in 1900. The American middle class have borne the brunt of the recession. The average after-tax middle class incomes have fallen in real terms since 2000 and America no longer occupies the world’s top spot for wages. Yet the wealthiest of Americans are outpacing their global peers, according to The New York Times.

On the credit side, the American government deficit has shrunk at a faster pace than at any time since the Second World War. The economy is improving at a pace. Unemployment is reducing. Mr Obama has presided over a revolution in gay rights. Universal health insurance is now a fact of American life, despite irrational opposition from legislators, the same people who enjoy the best health insurance the country has to offer. In all this, the President has withstood vitriolic and hateful confrontation with the dignity that makes him worthy of office.

I believe the Democrats will get a bloody nose in November but it will not be the fault of the President. He has had to play a difficult, if not impossible, hand for the past three years and has done so, often showing grace under fire. At times, I have wished he would behave like Lyndon Johnson and take his Congressional colleagues to task or network more with the legislators but this is just not his style. Hopefully, history will be much kinder to this President than his contemporaries.

Charles Krauthammer: A Rare Error?

 

 

In 1985, the Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, Charles Krauthammer, began writing a weekly column for The Washington Post. Meg Greenfield, then editorial page editor of The Post, called Krauthammer's column "independent and hard to peg politically. It's a very tough column. There's no 'trendy' in it. You never know what is going to happen next." 

I first heard the name Charles Krauthammer in the late nineties when I started to read The Post on line. At first, I didn’t like his stuff very much. He was too right wing for me. I shudder at CK’s appearances on Fox News! He was a neo-conservative, an expression popular in those days, which included the thinking of the newer version of members of the Republican Party. However, I was pulled up short when I remembered that President Franklin Roosevelt was a neo-conservative.

What really made me change my mind about CK was his criticism of President Bush and his War on Terror. In 2001, he categorically stated that told President George W. Bush was fighting the wrong wars. Iraq and Afghanistan were not the right targets. He scolded, saying the Bush administration should be looking closely at, if not fighting, Iran. How right CK was. Since then, I have taken seriously CK’s forthright opinions.

In an article published last month entitled “The Zealots Win Again,” CK posed the issue that “the debate over campaign contributions is never-ending for a simple reason: both sides of the argument have merit.” The context is the recent Supreme Court rulings, approving effectively no limit to the contributions individuals and corporates can make to political campaigns.

CK states “money is speech” without explaining why he believes this, nor does he seek to justify this opinion. Perhaps he has the Jeffersonian advantage of knowing a self-evident truth. CK argues that contributions to politicians and their causes is the most effective way to augment and amplify speech with which one agrees. But he also accepts that money is a corrupting influence and that “the nation’s jails are well stocked with mayors, legislators, judges and the occasional governor who have exchanged favors for cash.”

The nub of CK’s argument is transparency. Provided a donor’s political views are open and published, what does it matter how much money is donated? However, what if the donor wants free expression without transparency? CK does not address this position directly though he does express concern that donor lists are now used by political opponents to persecute donors with contrary views.  

If the “money is speech” argument has traction, you could counter-argue with George Orwell’s idea in Animal Farm: “All donors are equal but some are more equal than others.” CK sees no problem in the fact that the more money you donate, the more speech you might get. He also doesn’t address the potential problem of a good cause smothered by lack of promotional cash.

Let me consider CK’s position in a different way. While there is nothing in the Constitution nor The Bill of Rights that entrenches the “one person, one vote,” principle in American law, all states provide for this in their statutes. The intelligent and downright dumb have an equal right to vote, provided they are of age. How would CK feel if that rule was changed so that the amount of votes a person makes was adjusted by examinations which had been passed or failed? Votes might be allotted as follows:

High School drop-out:                          One vote.

High School graduate:                           Two votes.

Bachelor’s degree:                                Four votes.

Master’s degree:                                  Six votes.

Ph.D.                                                   Ten votes.

As a principle, this is no different to donors contributing vast sums of money to politicians in the probable expectation of some advantage if their chosen candidate wins. The more money donated, the more influence.

I have written before about my concern that America’s political campaigns are becoming more fit for a casino than a parliament. They now consist of vast expenditures, not political ideas. The gridlock that is Congress, whether federal or state, is unlikely to be broken if legislators can buy their seats so openly.