That said, Mr. Santorum meets the qualifications to run for president of the United States.  He’s a native-born American over the age of 35.  His candidacy should succeed or fail based on the number of voters who think he’s best fit to serve in the Oval Office and only on that basis.

That, however, is not what happened in Iowa.  This morning, the Des Moines Register broke the news that rather than losing the Iowa caucuses by eight votes to former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, Mr. Santorum actually won them by at least 34 votes.

I have to write “at least” because the Iowa Republican Party claims the votes from eight precincts have been irretrievably lost.  Due to this, the official word on the caucuses is that it was a “tie” between Messrs. Santorum and Romney.  It wasn’t a tie on Caucus night; it was a “win” for Mr. Romney.  How is an eight-vote margin a “win” and a 34-vote (at least) margin a tie?  (Hint: It’s a “tie” when you’re trying to throw the election to Mr. Romney.)

A few days ago, pundits were saying that having won in Iowa and New Hampshire and heading into the South Carolina primary with a double-digit lead in the polls, Mr. Romney would be the first Republican to win the first three contests and had the GOP presidential nomination all but locked up.   How quickly things change.  Now the Iowa “victory” is in sincere doubt and Newt Gingrich is leading the South Carolina polls.  (We’ll see how that stands up after ABC airs an interview with Marianne Gingrich – wife number two – in which she details Mr. Gingrich’s infidelity.)

For anyone who’s confused about where all this is going, let me be clear: the Republican Party has long been the purveyor of crooked politics in this country and it’s gotten to the point where they’ve turned their nasty deeds on each other.

George W. Bush stole the 2000 election with the help of his brother Jeb, Katherine Harris and the Republican-appointed Supreme Court justices.  In 2004, the GOP pulled numerous dirty tricks around the country, particularly Ohio and likely stole a second national election.  I worked on that election in Marion County, Florida and saw plenty of them.

Rick Santorum made Iowa his focus.  He visited every county, moved his family there for several weeks before the caucuses and staked all his hopes on coming out strong and building momentum.  He has, however, no chance of winning a general election and Republican politicos know this, so they apparently have done everything they can to sabotage his campaign and get him out of the race.

Given the way the Iowa Republicans have treated Mr. Santorum, I wouldn’t blame any GOP candidate for passing the state by in 2016.  It’s also worth noting that Republicans – first on a federal level during the recent Bush II administration and then at the state level – have been trying to restrict the voting rights of poor people and people of color, key democratic constituencies, with the unsubstantiated excuse of “preventing voter fraud” (even though they can’t point to any cases of voter fraud).

I’ve said in this space that since 2004, I’ve been pessimistic about the survival of American democracy.  We have now reached a point where the Republicans are willing to purge even candidates who swear fealty to every NRA and Grover Norquist litmus-test pledge, no matter how stupid.  Now they disenfranchise Mr. Santorum’s Iowa supporters with the “eight lost precincts,” a ruse so flimsy it would make Lyndon Johnson blush.

I don’t agree with Republicans, but this kind of Republican infighting does not fill me with glee.  It scares me, because if these people get any more power than they already have, this nation will be a very ugly place.  John Donne was right, no one is an island and the loss of anyone’s civil rights, even (especially!) someone with whom I disagree, diminishes mine.

© Mark Floegel, 2012

As I watched the video of the last trucks crossing the Kuwait border, all I could see were the black hulls of the Greek ships sailing away, gray smoke still hanging in the ruined walls of Troy.

Not that Iraq is currently in ruins, but the Trojan war has been on my mind for the last decade, since George W. Bush, like Agamemnon before him, began gathering reluctant allies for a headstrong military adventure that brought grief to nearly everyone associated with it.

To appease the gods for sending a military force to make war on a society in a war in which non-combatants on only one side would be at risk, Agamemnon sacrificed his own daughter, Iphigenia.  (His wife would later kill him for having done that.)  Mr. Bush made no such sacrifice, nor did he ask the majority of his countrymen to make any sacrifice on behalf of the soldiers he commanded.

Popular political psychology has it that one of Mr. Bush, fils authentic motivations for the Iraq invasion was revenge on an enemy of his father’s (or perhaps to show himself stronger than his father).  Both roles are reflected in the character of Neoptolemus, Achilles’s son, whom avenges his father’s death before the walls of Troy, by killing King Priam as the city is sacked.  This “revenge” is the punitive act of a bully, putting the sword into an old man who can no longer defend himself.

As Achilles dishonored Hector’s body, dragging it through the dust of the Dardanian Plain, so the residents of Falluja desecrated the bodies of four Blackwater contractors in 2004, so American troops desecrated the bodies of living and dead Iraqis for “trophy photos,” so – bizarrely – did our military of our nation desecrate the bodies of our own troops by disposing of them in landfills.

“Troy falls at last after ten years of futile, indecisive, noble, mean, tricky, bitter, jealous and only occasionally heroic battle,” writes Barbara Tuchman.  As for the Greeks’ Trojan Horse ploy, she said it exemplifies, “policy pursued contrary to self-interest – in the face or urgent warning and a feasible alternative.  Occurring in this earliest chronicle of Western man, it suggests that such pursuit is an old and inherent human habit.”

(So, wait, am I comparing the US to the Greeks or the Trojans?  Both, actually.  It would seek a foolish consistency to only learn from one side and somehow we have maniacally managed to repeat the worst mistakes of each.)

A more recent and equally depressing analog in the history of arms is the nine-plus years the Soviets spent trying to bring a friendly government to Afghanistan.  That invasion/war/occupation began on a Christmas Eve in 1979 and ended with the trucks and tanks rolling over the border for the cameras on a winter day in 1989.  Like us, the Soviets didn’t try to portray their withdrawal as a victory march, but like us; there was a feeling of relief that comes from setting down a heavy load.  For Islamic militants, the Soviet withdrawal was seen as a tiny force, blessed by Allah driving our a superpower.  How will they see the US withdrawal from Iraq?

I don’t know how things went for the Soviet soldiers, but Western literature says those who fought at Troy brought their war home with them in ways eerily familiar.  Odysseus famously wandered for a decade, as did Aeneas of Troy and his followers.  Neoptolemus was killed by Agamemnon’s son Orestes (who also killed his mother Clytemnestra, who killed Agamemnon).  Our troops return to a devastated economy years of post-traumatic stress disorder.

I suppose it’s appropriate the end of this long, foolish war comes at the end of a year, the end of the 9/11 decade.  Here’s to hoping we can all feel as though we are putting a burden down and prepare to take up new and better burdens in the year ahead.

© Mark Floegel, 2011

“I used that for a long time,” he told me. “I’d say, ‘It’s OK for me to hate black people, because a black guy killed my dad,’ but really, I was racist. I was racist before the guy killed my dad and I was racist after. The only difference was that I had an excuse.”

For some reason, that conversation – which is two decades old itself – has been rolling around in my head since I saw the news of Osama bin Laden’s death Monday morning. When I read the news, I felt relieved. I did not feel glad. I did not run out into the street and dance.

Is it good Osama is dead? It’s clearly good he will no longer kill and given it’s extremely unlikely he was ever going to have a change of heart, his death is also expedient.

In 2003, the US invaded Iraq because, we were told, Iraq was allied with Osama bin Laden and had weapons of mass destruction. Neither claim was true. Tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians have since died. When George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld die, will Iraqis be justified if they dance in the street?

Among the secondary reasons for invading Iraq was that “Saddam killed his own people.” Then we killed some of Saddam’s own people. They’re all just as dead as each other.

The Declaration of Independence says we’re all created equal, so are our deaths equal? I suppose it depends on who kills and who is killed, whether it’s an “us” or a “them.” My friend, in his racism, saw African Americans as “them,” people he feared and hated. Maybe the man who killed his father felt the same way about white people and perhaps he had excuses, too. The same friend said in Vietnam, anyone killed by an American had the word “Commie” attached. “Why’d you kill him?” “He was a Commie.” He said a pig was shot in a village one day. “That was a Commie pig,” was the explanation.

This week Libyans are killing each other. A year ago, many Americans would have celebrated the death of any Libyan, since they were all “them” then. Now some Libyans are “us” and we try to keep them alive.

The book of Samuel records that a song popular among the women of Israel long ago went, “Saul has slain his thousands and David his ten thousands.” The song made Saul, who was king, jealous of David, who was the exciting new military commander, the Navy SEAL of his day.

“Bin Laden has slain his thousands and Bush has slain his ten thousands.” The math holds up, probably better than it did for Saul and David. Is it unfair of me to write that? Is one man a terrorist and one a patriot? By whose definition?

Is killing ever good? Is it ever worth a celebration? I can’t say it is.

© Mark Floegel, 2011

Tuesday’s ruling was fun. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that ATT cannot claim its communication with various government agencies are exempt from Freedom of Information laws based on a clause protecting “personal privacy.”

Although the court has ruled – unfortunately – that corporations are “persons,” Justice Roberts ruled they are not covered by the adjective “personal.” “Adjectives typically reflect the meaning of corresponding nouns, but not always,” he wrote. “The noun ‘crab’ refers variously to a crustacean and a type of apple, while the related adjective ‘crabbed’ can refer to handwriting that is ‘difficult to read.’ ‘Corny,’ has little to do with ‘corn.’”

Wednesday’s ruling was not fun. I agree with it nonetheless. The court ruledthe hate mongers at the Westboro Baptist Church have the right to spew venom publicly. Even hateful speech is covered by the First Amendment, or perhaps is especially covered by the First Amendment.

It helps to remember that not so long ago, the haters at Westboro Baptist would not have been sued for their speech nor perhaps would they have felt the need to seek attention with blatant homophobia. “God hates fags,” was a fairly prevalent idea not so many years ago. It’s still far too prevalent around the world and in this country. Let’s hope Westboro represents the death rattle of such notions, but at the same time bear in mind change is not always for good. The First Amendment protection extended to bigots at Westboro Baptist Wednesday may be needed by speakers of truth and common sense in the not-too-distant future.

Now, two cases unlikely to be heard by the Supreme Court or any other court. The first is a potential violation of Title 18, U.S.C., Section 241 – Conspiracy Against Rights. The alleged perpetrator is Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin.

In his phone(y) call with a man who is not David Koch, Gov. Walker said he’d considered planting “troublemakers” in the crowd of citizens protesting at the state capitol. I’m not an attorney, but the statute cited above clearly states that it’s “unlawful for two or more persons to conspire to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any person of any state, territory or district in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him/her by the Constitution or the laws of the United States, (or because of his/her having exercised the same).”

Problem is, any charges against the governor would have to be brought by the US attorney for Wisconsin and since the George W. Bush administration did such a thorough job of polluting US attorneys offices with politics, any attempt would draw cries of “Politics!” from Republicans. Ahh, Bush corruption, the gift that keeps on giving.

Speaking of polluting with politics, the other case that will never be heard is the one against Fox News Chairman Roger Ailes for suborning false statements to authorities. Various outlets reported last week that Judith Regan says Mr. Ailes encouraged her to lie to federal investigators about her affair with Bernard Kerik, who was then a nominee for Director of Homeland Security but is now a jailbird.

The New York Times quotes Law Professor Daniel Richman of Columbia University saying Mr. Ailes’s action probably constitute a federal crime but such things are rarely pursued.

Why is that? Some dude who’s lost his job and his house gets caught stealing a can of beans from the Food King gets arrested and thrown in jail. Roger Ailes commits a crime (allegedly) so one of his crony crooks can run a huge branch of the federal government and it’s the kind of thing “rarely pursued.”

Here’s why: money, influence and corruption. Tuesday’s Supreme Court case was fun; Wednesday’s was important, but it’s going to take more than grammar lessons and the First Amendment to bring justice to this country.

© Mark Floegel, 2011

The president and first lady are making a habit – a very public habit – of reserving one night a week for a date. Marriage maintenance is important for couples who’ve been together a while, especially if they have kids and the day job demands plenty of attention and energy.

So, it’s great to see the first couple going out to eat or catching a Broadway play. (Some of the Obamas’ opponents have sniped that the Broadway excursion cost the taxpayers money. They’re right. It did. What did those many long weekends in Crawford cost? Why didn’t those same people mention that?)

So I think it’s great the example-setters-in-chief are seen holding hands and making time for each other. On these warm, early-summer nights, it’s nice for Adrienne and I to take an evening stroll along the lakeside, maybe stop for a creamee. (That’s Vermont vernacular for soft-serve ice cream.)

I mentioned the Obamas’ example on one of these strolls, but I didn’t get the reaction I was hoping for. “Obama date night?” Adrienne said. “You think this is Obama date night? This is not Obama date night. This is….this is Joe Biden date night.”

Ouch.

Hey, I don’t have access to Gulfstream jets or a ranch in Texas. We all do what we can with the budget at hand. (Thus, creamees.) Still, no one wants to feel like a second-class citizen.

Gay and lesbian Americans feel like second-class citizens because, well, because they are. Lesbians and gays approach first-class citizenship here in Vermont and a handful of other states, but as far as the federal government goes, fugheddaboutit.

When Mr. Obama was running for president, he criticized the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DoMA), which defines marriage as occurring between a man and a woman. On the other hand, he’s said he thinks marriage should be between a man and a woman. (What’s the difference between saying you believe it and criticizing the law that says it? Ask law professor Barack Obama. Maybe it depends on how you define the word “was.”)

Two weeks ago today the Obama Justice Department filed a brief in federal court supporting DoMA. Perhaps there’s some room to give Mr. Obama benefit of the doubt here. Like it or not, DoMA is federal law. The executive branch does have a duty to defend legitimately passed laws, no matter how wrong-headed they may be.

The language of the brief, however, compared same-sex marriage to incest. Incest, really? Really. This is the kind of language one might expect from Rick Santorum, not Barack Obama. How does that happen? Of course, Mr. Obama didn’t write the brief himself, nor did Attorney General Eric Holder. But people who work for them did and, yes, it all does flow from the top.

Speaking of Joe Biden date nights, the vice president is hosting a Democratic fundraiser in Washington tonight in which the party will be attempting to squeeze funds from the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered (LGBT) community. Talk about bad timing.

Vermont Senate President Pro Tem Peter Shumlin was to be honored at the dinner for his role in passing our same-sex marriage bill. After the 11 June Justice Department brief, he wrote the Dems to say he’s not coming. “By defending DOMA and making reference to horribly inaccurate and deeply hurtful stereotypes about gay and lesbian Americans,” he wrote, “the Administration has chosen discriminate against a minority group that we all have a responsibility to be more courageous in defending.”

Sen. Shumlin is not alone in passing on the dinner and Mr. Biden may well be close to alone tonight as he dines with the crickets. Unfortunately, rights for gay and lesbian Americans is not the only area where the Obama administration too closely resembles the Bush administration. There are civil liberties, global warming, government secrecy, global warming, bank regulation and global warming.

Hey, Mr. Obama! This is not about winning or losing the chess game with the Republicans and triangulating and blah, blah, blah. These issues are important to the lives of Americans today and more important tomorrow. Last November’s was a “change” election, remember? Straighten up. Fly right.

© Mark Floegel, 2009

Most of us fall between 1) and 2). I was closer to 2) for eight years and acted accordingly. Finally, those actions – combined with actions by millions of my fellow citizens – have brought me closer to 1). Millions of others who were 1)s for eight years are now 2)s. Some of those people have guns and have turned to tragic acts of terrorism in recent weeks.

In Iran, the country has been heading one way for the last 30 years, although the momentum picked up significantly in the last four years. People finally drifted much close to 2) than 1) and acted accordingly, they came out and – apparently – voted for a change in direction. Change did not take place and the result of that failure to change is leaking out of Iran, despite the regime’s best efforts to slap a lid on communication technology.

I’ve been reading and viewing what I can and a few things are becoming clear:

1 – Politics is politics. It doesn’t matter if a political leader wears a cowboy hat or a black turban. Iran might be ultimately ruled by ayatollahs, but it calls itself the Islamic Republic of Iran and it does hold elections. Last time out, the moderates boycotted the elections, thinking their candidates could not get a fair shake. They wound up with Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, who seems to be a Persian version of George W. Bush.

No, really. By writing that, I mean no disrespect to Mr. Bush. The similarities I see are that both Mr. Bush and Mr. Ahmedinejad presented themselves to voters as regular guys, outsiders to politics as usual, not part of the ruling elite. (Mr. Ahmedinejad did not need to massage his life history as Mr. Bush did to accomplish this.) Both men in office pursued an aggressive, unilateral foreign policy, curtailed domestic civil rights and played the politics of fear and jingoism.

2 – Perception is reality. If politics is politics, then perception is reality, the same in Tehran as in Washington. The perception, both in and out of Iran, is that Mr. Ahmedinejad stole the election from Mir Hossein Mousavi. Unlike Bush-Gore 2000, this one doesn’t look like it came down to a mere 500 votes in a province inhabited by senior citizens.

More to the point, Iran is a theocracy. Ayatollahs are in charge, regardless of who is president or prime minister. Still more to the point, Iran is an Islamic theocracy and the brand of Islam practiced in Iran doesn’t allow much wiggle room on issues like lying, cheating and stealing elections.

If the general public thinks the ayatollahs are sanctioning a fraudulent election, then the regime loses ALL legitimacy. We Americans expect our politicians to lie and cheat – to a certain extent – and still trust them to act on our behalf. The ayatollahs claim to speak for God and when people like that are perceived to be lying and cheating, then even those inclined to support Mr. Ahmedinejad will begin to lose faith.

3 – The past isn’t dead. It isn’t even past. Seventy percent of the people in Iran are under 30, which means they have no personal memory of the shah. All they know about him is what they’ve been told. Whether their parents are religious or secular, chances are they have nothing good to say about the shah. One thing the parents have said about the shah is: “He was an illegitimate ruler. He fixed the elections and ignored the voice of the people.” I’m sure the people marching in the streets in Iranian cities today are starting to think, “If this government is fixing elections, then they’re no better than the shah.”

I think the ayatollahs know this. They know that if they are seen as cheats and liars, the political situation is Iran will change swiftly, and not in their favor. The soldiers and the officers of the Iranian army will see that, too. This is why the Guardian Council is recounting some ballots.

Although the success of Mr. Mousavi’s supporters depends on keeping pressure on the streets, it’s ultimately about an idea. Right now the general idea in Iran is: 2) I think my government is not acting in my best interest. People are acting accordingly.

Change may not come to Iran this week or this year, but unless the ayatollahs can get people closer to 1) than 2), then change will come to Iran and soon.

© Mark Floegel, 2009

I like to keep up with the news, but I’m suffering from sensory overload: a huge economic crisis, what is on the verge of being labeled a global swine flu pandemic (or as the American Pork Producers Council implores, “the H1N1 virus”), a global war on terror (or as the Obama administration corrects, “overseas contingency operations”), an outbreak of euphemisms, the end of the American auto industry as we’ve known it, musical chairs in the US Senate, nuclear Pakistan becoming unstable, nuclear North Korea becoming more unstable, none-too-stable Iran lusting for nuclear capacity.

Hurricane season is just one month away. WooHoo!

In the summer of 2002, I posted a commentary in which I speculated that if I could have accurately predicted 2002’s news (airplanes flying into skyscrapers, shoe bombs) twenty years earlier, I would have been treated for mental illness. By 1989, my mental illness would have been worse that it was in 1982.

It turned out that the bad president, the one who started the unnecessary war, was tapping the phones of American citizens and was ordering people to be tortured. If fact, we used the same torture that we executed Japanese war criminals for using in the 1940s. The new president – who by the way is the first black president – doesn’t seem inclined to do anything about that, but at least he says we won’t torture anymore. And the bad president destroyed the economy and the rednecks are building a wall all along the Mexican border….

Click. The little window on my padded cell snaps shut and the orderly walks away, shaking her head.

In that 2002 post, I noted the publication of a new book, “Dow 36,000: The New Strategy for Profiting from the Coming Rise in the Stock Market,” by James Glassman and Kevin Hackett. Where are you today, guys? Living in an improvised hut built of remaindered copies, I’d guess.

In a September 2006 post, I predicted the demise of the American auto industry. I’d just attended a three-day meeting on global warming, during which the auto industry had been assessed with cold-blooded objectivity.

As I drove away from that meeting (in an American car, no less), I couldn’t ignore the lump in my stomach. The automakers were dying of a thousand self-inflicted cuts, but I was witness to the death of one of the central myths of the American century. Every one of the negative predictions made during that meeting has come to pass. (To be fair, a few of the wishes have come true, too. “If only we could oust John Dingell as chair of the Energy and Commerce Committee…”)

Another one of those spurious memes relating to the Chinese is that the Chinese character for “crisis” combines the words “danger” and “opportunity” and while it’s poor linguistics, there might be a good idea there.

The opportunity in this convergence of crises is that it offers us a chance to wipe the slate cleaner than we have for half a century. It gives us the opportunity for new beginnings. Maybe the message we’re getting is that incremental solutions won’t work. (I’m looking at you, Tim Geithner.)

For the next several years, times will be hard and things will be weird. So be it. It would be really stupid, I mean like “American auto executive stupid,” for us to try to “solve” our problems by getting back to where we were just before the walls fell in. That’s not a solution; that’s the “rewind” button.

Let’s not wait for more crises to accrue before we listen. Let’s start wiping the slate, start new and do a better job this time.

© Mark Floegel, 2009

In those books, the bad guys – the wizards and witches that had been drawn to the Dark Side – make their case thusly: This isn’t about good and evil, it’s about power and the difference between those who are strong enough to claim it and those who are not.

OK, maybe that’s wrong. Maybe thinking about Harry Potter isn’t the weird thing. The weird thing is how many educated politicians and journalists are criticizing – not the fact that the United States of America made routine torture a policy – but that we have revealed that the policy existed and have promised not to do it again.

“Now we’ve given the terrorists a handbook of what we do and they’ll train their people to resist it,” is one of the common complaints heard on tee vee. Um, no we haven’t given them a handbook, because we just said we weren’t going to do it anymore. Were you not listening?

Besides, it’s not like we invented waterboarding. It’s been around since the Inquisition at least, that’s what? Half a millenium? As the declassified memos make clear, the whole torture handbook was cribbed from techniques used by the Chinese and North Korean communists during the Korean War 50 years before we started using them. Osama has an Internet connection too.

If the Bush people had used the Internet to greater effect, they’d have learned that waterboarding, stress positions, long bouts of sleep deprivation, extreme temperatures and all the other stuff doesn’t produce actionable intelligence from prisoners. That was the lesson of Korea. What it does produce are mentally broken individuals who will say whatever they’re told to say, which is why so many American servicemen were made to denounce their homeland. Just ask John McCain.

As the timeline in the memos makes clear, untrue statements from prisoners may have been part of the Bush/Cheney plan. One of the early uses to which this torture was applied was to get prisoners to confess to a link between the 9-11 attacks and Iraq, thus justifying a pre-emptive war George W. Bush wanted to launch since before he took office. So, congratulations George and Dick, you dragged a once-great nation down to the level of 1950s communist propaganda for your own political purposes.

Dick Cheney, the Valdemort in this US/Potter analogy, is the chief spokesperson for the “power and those not afraid to use it” school. In recent interviews, he sneers at those who disagree as weak, unpatriotic and wanting to coddle terrorists. He misses the point and wants us miss it, too. People with a sense of morality are not weak coddlers; they refuse to debase themselves and their nation. People who stand for due process and inalienable human rights are patriots. The difference is not between strong and weak, it’s between good and evil. The difference is clear in the Harry Potter books and it’s equally clear in real life, unless as Upton Sinclair said, “It’s difficult to get a man to understand something if his salary depends on his not understanding it.”

Weird, you want weird? Last week the teabaggers were calling Barack Obama a tyrant and a dictator. This week, Fox News and the other sponsors of that protest are calling Mr. Obama weak because he repudiates torture. Inconsistency is the hallmark of political desperation.

The full extent of our history of torture is still unknown. It needs to be known. We cannot put this behind us until all is revealed. We know Khalid Sheik Mohammed was waterboarded 183 times. The first waterboarding must have given Mr. Mohammed a “handbook” of what was to come, but it didn’t stop his torturers from doing it another 182 times. The only explanation for such behavior I can imagine is emotional disturbance that ran all the way to the West Wing of the White House.

Yes, we need to know everything that was done in out name and then we need a national week of mourning and repentance.

© Mark Floegel, 2009

Still, the world is not two-dimensional and those who pretend it is do an injustice to reality. I’m willing to give Barack Obama some limited benefit of the doubt on America’s two wars because he inherited them from George W. Bush.

Now that he is president, Mr. Obama has the duty to direct US war policy in ways that are sane and in keeping with America’s constitutional values. As Richard Nixon said about Vietnam when he assumed the presidency, “This is Johnson’s war, but in six months, it will be mine.” It was, and he didn’t do a good job with it.

War is rarely noble. If any war approaches nobility, it was World War II and because of that, I think Americans have been confused about war since. Because we were clearly the “good guys” in that war, we tend to reflexively think of ourselves as “good guys” in all subsequent wars.

We have not been the good guys in Iraq. That war is a brutal, stupid mistake. Mr. Obama gets partial credit for promising to draw down our troops in Iraq and for promising to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay. He’ll get full credit when he makes good on those promises.

Afghanistan is another story. I don’t think our cause there is noble, I do think it’s necessary.

We face a handful of unpalatable choices in Afghanistan. We don’t want the Taliban to take over and make the country a haven for terrorists nor do we want the country to descend into the warlordism and opium production that preceded the Taliban’s first takeover. The Karzai government we’ve supported is hopelessly corrupt and incompetent (very much like the disastrous Diem regime in South Vietnam).

What’s the solution? I don’t know. I do know Donald Rumsfeld’s massive bombing campaign that opened the Afghan war was stupid and brutal, like the Iraq mistake. Somehow, we have to find a way to make Afghanistan stable, governed by people who are a threat to neither Afghan citizens nor other countries. I know getting there from here will be a long process and will entail the goodwill of many nations, both in the region and around the world.

The Afghans have had poor to terrible governments as long as history can record. It is understandable, given their plight, that the Afghan people have little or no hope for a decent society (or would even know what one looks like), so we have to have that hope for them. If we are to have a policy – a war policy, a foreign policy – that is worthy of the United States of America, then we need to have as our goal the stability of Afghan nation and the well being of the Afghan people. We need to help them stand until they can stand on their own.

General David Petraeus was in Washington yesterday, asking for more troops. We will soon have 68,000 troops in Afghanistan and Gen. Petraeus would like another 10,000 on top of that. Many of these troops have been rotating on and off combat duty for seven and a half years. Stateside lives are in tatters; many suffer from post-traumatic stress. All of us owe these men and women a huge debt and we should not scant on paying it. They have sacrificed greatly and deserve our support.

President Obama seems intent on extracting us from a foolish and unnecessary war. The other war, the unwelcome but necessary war, he seems determined to fight as wars should be fought, with sadness and determination.

© Mark Floegel, 2009

Capitol Hill buzzes each day with confirmation hearings on Barack Obama’s nominees for various cabinet positions. As it is with every new administration, reporters and pundits gush over how intelligent the new team is, calling them “superwonks” and “hot nerds.”

It’s all a matter of perspective, I suppose – and memory. Eight years ago this week, the same reporters and pundits were writing about how “adults will once again be in charge of foreign policy.” Doesn’t look that way from here. George Bush, going out the door, say there’s no such thing as “short-term history,” hoping that he will somehow be vindicated.

History may not be short- or long-term, but it does come in a variety of flavors. Republicans have done a good job of placing an undeserved halo around the head of Ronald Reagan. I doubt they’ll be motivated to exert themselves so strenuously on Mr. Bush’s behalf.

We were told Mr. Bush’s team was full of smart people. Eight years of their best thinking has left us in a deep pit in economics, environment and foreign policy, deep enough to serve as America’s grave. Mr. Obama’s cabinet secretaries will have to be smart enough to perform CPR in every department.

Like history, intelligence comes in a variety of flavors. There is no doubt Mr. Bush’s team exhibited several kinds of intelligence. Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, who more than any other two people set the tone for the Bush administration, were skilled at the bureaucratic infighting that is the hallmark of smarts in Washington. They are knowledgeable, shrewd and clever. They, and their cohorts, were able to deftly move the executive branch to give them exactly what they wanted: massive tax breaks for the already-rich, huge government contracts (often without competition) to their corporate friends, vaporization of civil rights and environmental protection and a military apparatus they used to bully the world.

Smart, however, does not equal good. The rarest and most valuable form of intelligence is wisdom and of that, Messrs. Cheney, Rumsfeld and Bush had none and from all evidence, they didn’t want any. Wisdom would have steered them away from selfishly enriching themselves with money and power.

Now the Obama team is lauded for its smarts. Again we see the gap between intelligence and wisdom. New Mexico’s Governor Bill Richardson, who was tagged to be Commerce secretary, resigned amid an investigation into some commerce involving his state that – even at this slight remove – seems clearly unwise, regardless of how smart it was (or wasn’t).

This week, Mr. Obama’s pick for Treasury secretary, Timothy Geithner, is being called out for incorrectly filing his taxes. His transgressions are being spun as “honest mistakes,” but as the Wall Street Journal and New York Times note, some of these errors were pointed out to him (and he corrected them), but he failed to correct similar errors in tax returns for other years. Whiz that he is, he even filled out many of those returns rather than hiring an accountant, leaving him bereft even of a political excuse.

The amount of money involved is not huge, tiny in fact, compared the least of sins committed the Bush team. But that’s not the point. Mr. Geithner should have filed an honest return and paid his taxes. Mr. Obama should have the wisdom to realize it’s way too soon to ask the public to overlook this or that ethical lapse among his people. There’s never an appropriate time for that in any administration.

The good news is that it’s early enough to learn from all this. Mr. Obama has been magnanimous about forgiving political sins, like those committed last year by Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT). Forgiveness is important, but repentance and atonement are equally important. Let us hope that from this moment forward, we are not too smart to be wise.

© 2009, Mark Floegel