Category Archives: History

What is marriage? (Hint: It’s not what Ron Paul thinks it is)

One of the more foolish things said in that debate last night was said by Ron Paul and I responded thusly:

Paul: “Get the government out” of marriage? What? What? What does he think marriage is? A secret agreement between 2 people? It’s a CONTRACT!

(Are you proud of me that I went with the more traditional “What? What?” rather than resorting to “WTF?” I am.)

To elaborate — and I fear I must elaborate, because for whatever reason this seems counterintuitive to a lot of folks — it is instructive to think for a few minutes about why we have marriage. Yeah, I get what Ron Paul thinks — that it’s some sort of private and/or religious thing. And yes, for us Catholics, it is indeed a sacrament.

But we had marriage long before there were Catholics. We had it before the Hebrews discovered monotheism. We had something like it, anyway, if it involved no more than jumping over a stick, or living together openly in the eyes of the whole community (thereby inviting its censure or assent). Because when humans are gathered into tribes or clans or whatever, it’s an important institution. It has to do with the fact that human offspring are so difficult to raise from the time they are born — no clinging to the mother from birth while she goes about her business the way apes do.

It is in society’s interest to have the male responsible be bound in some way to the female he impregnated. Yep, we’re still struggling to accomplish that today. (And much of the social dysfunction we struggle with today arises from our failure to get it right, as a society. Which only underlines the stakes in continuing to try to get it right.) But bottom line, that is the legitimate motivation of the full society in having such an institution. It gives the whole village somebody to yell at when there are all these kids underfoot: “Hey, you! Can’t you control your kids?” The village was wise to come up with this practice, to protect itself. And then, gradually, to develop the idea that it’s wisest to keep males and females apart, or turn hoses on them or something, until you have arrived at this society-protecting contract. (Something we’ve sort of forgotten in the past generation, but some in the more culturally conservative halls of academia are rediscovering it.)

So we started the institution, and developed all sorts of rules and regulations and codicils and rituals around it, such as the rehearsal dinner, and bridezillas. In a time when there was no notion of separation of religion and civil authority, it was perfectly natural that religious rituals and practices would become intertwined with the civil expectations and obligations. We should not, as a result of that, make the mistake of thinking it is “merely” a religious arrangement.

Of course, as well as “What does he think marriage is?” I could ask “What does he think government is?” Well, it’s nothing if it’s not simply the arrangements we come up with among ourselves for living together in a crowded society. I realize that libertarians think it’s some THING “out there” that’s menacing them, but it’s just us. Particularly in this country, the one with the longest-running experiment in self-government, it’s just us.

Anyway, to recap: We have marriage because long, long ago, it was noticed that if you left a man and a woman alone together, there was a tendency to have all these kids running around in short order. Primitive societies realized they needed to mitigate the potential ill effects of that explosive situation, and invented marriage. Put another way, we don’t have marriage for the couple, or for their priest or whatever. We have it for the kids, and the village they have to grow up in.

Talk about a contrast between substance and triviality…

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At one moment yesterday on Twitter, about half the Tweets in my feed were about this Weiner guy (or should I say, “this weiner guy” — either way, it makes sense). Something about his wife being pregnant.

It’s not just Twitter. He (or rather, the debate among Democrats over what to do about him) LED The Wall Street Journal‘s “What’s News” column this morning. Normally, that briefing column exhibits a very fine sense of what is significant and what is not. But not today.

Yes, I get why other people think it’s important. It has to do with the never-ending war between the parties in Washington, and who’s up and who’s down, and which party is being embarrassed and which party is taking advantage of the other party’s embarrassment, yadda-yadda. NONE of which, I’m here to tell you, is actually important. I wouldn’t give two cents to have either party in the majority at any time, because as was said by Simon and Garfunkel, either way you look at it, you lose.

So take away that veneer of “importance” laid on by the daily partisan talking points, and all you have is a sex scandal, which is of no greater importance than a similar scandal involving one of those people on “Jersey Shore.”

A Twitter exchange I had a couple of days ago helps illustrate the difference between the dominant view and my own. Todd Kincannon — local attorney and Republican — retweeted this:

How many “objective” journos were more desperate to prove Palin was wrong about P. Revere than proving Weiner was wrong about his P?

I reacted by saying, “Who cares about either? Not I…” I mean, those are TWO “news stories” I was doing my best to know nothing about — and failing, of course. (Oh, and having learned more than I wanted about the Palin thing, I’ll just say that you’ve REALLY got to be a Palin fan to think anyone had to lift a finger to “prove” her wrong; any schoolchild should have known without checking.)

Todd responded: “I would be in your camp if Weiner (a) wasn’t married and (b) hadn’t lied.” To which I said, “He has NOTHING to do with me — nothing. I am NOT a NY voter. And I HOPE Palin never becomes relevant again, either…”

Of course, I can downplay and belittle this garbage all I want, and it’s not going to stop other people from making a big deal about it on a slow national news week.

But what I CAN do is take some pleasure in small things. Such as the above-pictured page in The Wall Street Journal yesterday. I thought the ironic contrast impressive. Here you have a story about this self-involved Weiner loser, whom everyone just goes on and on about and can’t get enough of… right next to a story about a man who lived an extraordinary life of service and accomplishment — but about whom no one is buzzing on Twitter (OK, no one I saw, anyway).

John Alison, who died at age 98:

Was deputy commander of the Flying Tigers (actually, the successor unit to the Flying Tigers), defending China from the Japanese
Innovated night fighter operations. Actually, that doesn’t describe it. He flew up at night and shot down two Japanese bombers, when no one knew you could to that.
Led glider-borne commandos behind the lines in Burma.
Played a key role in the Lend Lease program helping Britain and the Russians hold back Hitler.
Was there when the German army reached the outskirts of Moscow.
Advised Eisenhower on the use of gliders for D-Day.

As I once wrote in an editorial, that was the generation that Did Things. Him especially. And I’ll bet most of you never heard of him before his death. Meanwhile, we just can’t shut up about a guy who supposedly took pictures of his privates and sent them to women. Or something. Like I said, I’m trying to ignore it.

This is what we have come to.

Doug Nye, and the things we remember…

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A few days ago, I saw on Facebook where a mutual friend had visited Doug Nye, and he wasn’t doing well. And I thought, “I need to check on him,” and now he’s gone. My mom called me last night to say it was announced at the USC baseball game…

It’s funny the things you remember about people. Doug was a great guy to talk to about all sorts of things, and not just westerns. To many people he will be remembered as the Father of the Chicken Curse, in terms of having popularized the concept. There are complex permutations on the Curse beyond what Bill Starr wrote about this morning that I could get into, but that’s not what I remember best about Doug.

Here’s what I remember best, and most fondly: Doug and I had a number of conversations sharing our childhood memories of watching “Spaceship C-8,” a kiddie show on WBTW out of Florence, hosted by the late “Captain Ashby” Ward, who was also the news anchor. I really didn’t have all that many specific memories about the show (Doug, being older, remembered more), despite having spent many an hour watching it during the summers I spent with my grandparents in Bennettsville. (Doug watched it from another end of the coverage area — I want to say Sumter.) But I enjoyed talking about it with Doug on multiple occasions.

It was about way more than one kid’s show; it was about remembering an era, a time before media saturation. A time when WBTW was the only station you could reliably get clearly in B’ville with a home antenna (WIS also came in, depending on the weather). Then, in the late 60s, along came cable to small town America, LONG before it came to cities. That way, you could get all three networks, plus some duplicates from different cities. There was less demand in cities, because they could already get three or four channels.

Consequently, we spent an awful lot of time doing stuff other than watching TV, or engaging any other mass medium. A time that in many ways was about as close as Huck Finn’s fictional existence as it was to what kids experience today.

Odd, I suppose, that the thing I would remember best from knowing the longtime TV writer was talking about days that were practically pre-TV. But that’s what I remember. It won’t really mean anything to you, I suppose, but I’m confident it would make Doug smile.

I remember that, and the fact that, as I said, Doug was a great guy to talk to about anything. Always a ready grin (that’s why I know he’d smile at my trivial remembrance), the kind of naturally affable guy who you took a moment to chat with rather than just rushing past in the course of getting through a day’s deadlines. He stood out among newspapermen that way. Not that newspapermen were so awful; I just mean Doug stood out. Which is why so many will remember him fondly.

Longing for the virtues of a democratic republic

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You hear people of various political stripes saying apocalyptic things about how the country is going down the tubes, or WILL go down the tubes, if this or that faction is or is not elected, and so forth.

I started my adult life with a sort of fatalistic attitude that caused such warning to sound far, far too late. In college, I took so many history electives that shortly before I graduated I realized to my surprise that I was within reach of a double major (the other major being journalism). There was no plan; I had just had a lot of room in my schedule because I had tested out of a number of courses others were required to take — foreign language, and math — and took things that interested me. And that tended to included history courses concentrating on the early decades of the United States. (I also took a few courses in Spanish and Latin American history and political science, but that has little bearing on my point today — aside from instilling in me a deep appreciation that for all our country’s flaws today, it was built on a far better foundation that those others.)

I was particularly impressed by the wisdom of those who chose to establish a republic, and resisted the fatal temptation to fall into the madness of pure democracy. And then, as I read on, I watched it seem to fall apart. There was the election of Andrew Jackson for starters, and then… well, we have simply come to accept, even demand, “leaders” who govern with all ten fingers in the wind, like the master of an old sailing vessel seeking to squeeze maximum advantage of whatever winds prevailed.

To question pure democracy today is to seem unAmerican. When, in truth, this experiment started in a different place altogether. (Oh, and before some of you start in about how it started with blacks and women and the propertyless having no say, you know that’s not what I’m talking about. We’re talking about parallel phenomena, not factors that are dependent on one another. It’s not about upper-class white male leaders with their hair tied into queues. It’s about thoughtful, restrained leadership of vision, regardless of the demographics of those providing it. Frankly, I think Barack Obama has it in him to provide the kind of leadership that the Founders envisioned, unlike anyone who has thus far gotten much press on the GOP side. He has the ability to rise above the popular passions of the moment and see beyond them — which is one reason why so many of the most passionate today despise him so.)

Anyway, that introduction was longer than I intended. I just wanted to call your attention to a David Brooks column from a couple of weeks back — one which I missed, but which was called to my attention today by Kelly Payne via Facebook (she brought it up in a context I didn’t quite follow, but I was glad to see it nonetheless). An excerpt:

… As Kristol points out in the essay, the meaning of the phrase “public spiritedness” has flipped since the 18th century. Now we think a public-spirited person is somebody with passionate opinions about public matters, one who signs petitions and becomes an activist for a cause.

In its original sense, it meant the opposite. As Kristol wrote, it meant “curbing one’s passions and moderating one’s opinions in order to achieve a large consensus that will ensure domestic tranquility.” Instead of self-expression, it meant self-restraint. It was best exemplified in the person of George Washington.

Over the years, the democratic values have swamped the republican ones. We’re now impatient with any institution that stands in the way of the popular will, regarding it as undemocratic and illegitimate. Politicians see it as their duty to serve voters in the way a business serves its customers. The customer is always right.

A few things have been lost in this transition. Because we take it as a matter of faith that the people are good, we are no longer alert to arrangements that may corrode the character of the nation. For example, many generations had a moral aversion to debt. They believed that to go into debt was to indulge your basest urges and to surrender your future independence. That aversion has clearly been overcome.

We no longer have a leadership class — of the sort that existed as late as the Truman and Eisenhower administrations — that believes that governing means finding an equilibrium between different economic interests and a balance between political factions. Instead, we have the politics of solipsism. The political culture encourages politicians and activists to imagine that the country’s problems would be solved if other people’s interests and values magically disappeared…

Brooks is concerning himself with rather prosaic, although nevertheless important, issues such as spending (“The democratic triumph has created a nation that runs up huge debt and is increasingly incapable of finding a balance between competing interests”). And doing so rather from the position that we do too much of it. But there are broader themes in what he’s saying, and those are what appealed to me.

How much do I actually NEED to know about the bin Laden raid?

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How much of what THEY know do WE need to know?

Here’s a consideration I hadn’t though much about before now, and should have (given all those spy novels, and military history books, and Tom Clancy thrillers I’ve read):

Has the U.S. Said Too Much About the Bin Laden Raid?

Military officials fret that constant stream of leaks may hinder future missions, put Navy SEALs at risk.

By Josh Voorhees | Posted Friday, May. 13, 2011, at 11:09 AM EDT

In the nearly two weeks since the U.S. operation that killed Osama Bin Laden, a near-constant stream of detailed information about the raid’s specifics has seeped out from White House officials, lawmakers, and pretty much anyone else with security clearance.

But that’s not how things were supposed to be, at least not according to Defense Secretary Robert Gates. “Frankly, a week ago Sunday, in the Situation Room, we all agreed that we would not release any operational details from the effort to take out Bin Laden,” Gates told Marines at a Wednesday town hall at Camp Lejeune. “That all fell apart on Monday—the next day.”…

The White House announced last week that it was done briefing reporters on the specifics of the mission, but that has done little to stop the ongoing flow of new details from being reported. The latest major leak came Thursday night, when CBS News gave a detailed play-by-play of what the Navy SEAL team’s helmet cameras captured during the raid….

There is the danger that the more we know about details of the raid, the greater potential for threatening our capability to do something like it in the future.

For instance, the lede story on The Washington Post‘s front page yesterday told us that a key element in preparing for the raid involved high-altitude drones flying WAY deeper into Pakistan than the Pakistanis suspected we were going. So that we could get higher-resolution photos than you get from satellites. And if you consider how high-resolution satellite photos can be, these images must have been pretty awesome. So… you have a revelation of greater technical capability than the world might have expected, and of a tactical deployment that no one knew about.

Of course, it’s a two-edged thing. Let enemies and potential enemies know what you can do, and it could intimidate them into deciding they don’t want the United States as their enemy after all. Or at least, it MIGHT work that way with some — say, your less fanatical foes. But let anyone know what measures you are capable of, and it empowers them to develop countermeasures. That’s a huge theme in military history — measures and countermeasures — and it never ends.

We may find all these details fascinating — I know I do. But how much of it do we really need to know?

Trotsky, and other Reds In Name Only

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The Old Man in Mexico with some American comrades.

Something about our finding and killing bin Laden in his home after all these years got me to thinking about Leon Trotsky.

Yeah, I know — not the same thing at all. We’re not the USSR, and President Obama isn’t Stalin. And people knew Trotsky was in Mexico, and he wasn’t killed by Spetznaz commandos (and I think it would kind of anachronistic if he had been).

But still, it made me think of him. The mind sometimes makes strange leaps.

Trotsky wasn’t far from my mind because a while back, I started reading a recent biography about his Mexico years. I had been attracted to it by a review in the WSJ, and asked for it and got it for my birthday or something last year. I had been really curious about the story of a top icon of the Russian Revolution living south of our border, and largely supported by American Trotskyists.

But after the first few chapters, and reading all about the soap opera with Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo and ALL the propaganda from Moscow and from Trotsky himself over the show trials and so forth, I got bogged down.

And the thing that wore me down the most, that frankly bored me to tears, was all the long-distance ideological arm-wrestling. You know how I have little patience with ideologues. There were all these titanic arguments going back and forth between the Trotskyites and the Stalinists about who was the REAL commie, each side working so hard to delegitimize the other (with the stakes being life or death for Trotsky), essentially accusing each other of being RINOs — Reds In Name Only.

And I just couldn’t care about any of them. I mean, talk about pointless. Trotsky was as ruthless as they come, while Stalin was one of the great monsters of the century. And it was pathetic that leftists in this country would actually take up the cudgels to defend or make excuses for either of them. The arguments over doctrine — stupid, irrelevant points of doctrine argued heatedly among people who, ironically given what they believed in, were on the wrong side of history — were particularly tedious.

At some point, I need to get back to the book and see how the guy with the ice ax got in and did the deed. But I haven’t been able to make myself do so yet…

Great movie scene (which I missed when it first came out)

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When it came out in 2004, I had little urge to see the latest Hollywood interpretation of “The Alamo” — the one with Billy Bob Thornton portraying Davy Crockett. Partly because I was almost half a century past my coonskin-cap phase, partly because I had heard that the portrayal of Davy was somewhat… postmodern… which I didn’t really need even if I had put Davy-worship behind me, and partly because I just generally didn’t hear much good about it. On Netflix it only gets about two-and-a-half stars.

That was a mistake on my part. I caught some of it on TV recently, and have now ordered it from Netflix so I can see the first third or so, which I had missed.

The centerpiece is the portrayal of Crockett, which is really awesome. It’s deep, and appealing. And very human. This is the iconoclastic politician who (as confirmed by my favorite-ever historical plaque, on the courthouse square in Jackson, TN) told voters who had refused to re-elect him to Congress, “You can go to hell, but I am going to Texas!” This was one of the nation’s first larger-than-life celebrities.

I don’t know whether the real man was anything like this, but watching this movie I am persuaded by Thornton that he IS Davy Crockett. Even more so than Fess Parker, which means a lot coming from a child of the ’50s.

This scene, in which Davy muses on the price of living up to public expectations, encapsulates the performance well. Check it out. The interplay between Jim Bowie’s taunting cynicism and Davy’s sincere, patient self-awareness is pretty powerful. And in case this violates any copyright — come on, guys, I’m trying to get people to check out your movie!

Wish I could figure out how to embed this

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Check out this video, which unfortunately I don’t know how to embed:

If you don’t do anything else the rest of the day, do yourself a favour now and just watch/listen to this totally awesome video. Read the stuff first so you can tell what’s going on….. It’s awesome!

This song and its title was the answer to one question of Final Jeopardy — only one person got it right. Question was (paraphrased): “What 1980’s song do history teachers praise for its educational value?”

I never could understand all the references on Billy Joel’s song — fortunately, with this VIDEO, given the pictures, now I can “see” what my “ears” couldn’t. Apparently, it’s Joel’s homage to the 40-years of historical headlines since his birth (1949). WAY TOO COOL — wish I could have appreciated the depths of this song when it was released. Twenty years later, I’m in awe of what Joel was able to put into music and lyrics lasting only a few minutes.

Whether you are a Billy Joel fan or not, you probably remember his great song, ‘We Didn’t Start the Fire.’ Here it is, set to pictures… Very, very cool. Had to share this one. It’s a neat flashback through the past half century. I never did know the words. Turn up the volume, sit back and en joy a review of 50 years of history in less than 3 minutes! Thanks to Billy Joel and some guy from the University of Chicago with a lot of spare time and Google.

Top left gives you full screen….top right lets you pause. Bottom left shows the year. The older you are, the more pictures you will recognize. Anyone over age 65 should remember over 90% of what they see. But it’s great at any age.

I don’t know who wrote that copy — I got it in an email — but I’m afraid I’m a bit older than he or she is, because almost none of the references were mysterious to me. Although I could always use a brush-up on, say, Dien Bien Phu. After all, Billy Joel IS four years older than I am.

Interesting thing to watch. And yes, each image is clickable, and takes you to Wikipedia.

Geronimo, bin Laden, history and popular culture

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That headline sounds like the title of a college course that might be briefly popular among those trying to fulfill a requirement in history or sociology or the like, doesn’t it?

Just ran across this WashPost piece from six days ago, stepping away from emotion over the use of “Geronimo” as the name of the operation that killed Osama bin Laden, and noting the parallels between the U.S. military’s pursuits of the two men. I found it informative, so here it is. An excerpt:

The similarities are not in the men themselves but in the military campaigns that targeted them…

The 16-month campaign was the first of nearly a dozen strategic manhunts in U.S. military history in which forces were deployed abroad with the objective of killing or capturing one individual. Among those targeted were Pancho Villa, Che Guevara, Manuel Noriega and Saddam Hussein.

The original Geronimo campaign and the hunt for bin Laden share plenty of similarities. On May 3, 1886, more than a century before a $25 million reward was offered for information on bin Laden’s whereabouts, and almost 125 years to the day before the al-Qaeda leader’s death, the U.S. House of Representatives introduced a joint resolution “Authorizing the President to offer a reward of twenty-five thousand dollars for the killing or capture of Geronimo.”

In both operations, the United States deployed its most advanced technology. Whereas a vast array of satellite and airborne sensors was utilized in the search for bin Laden, Gen. Nelson Miles directed his commanders to erect heliograph stations on prominent mountain peaks, using sunlight and mirrors to transmit news of the hostiles. Neither system helped anyone actually catch sight of the man who was sought.

Small raiding forces … proved more decisive than large troop formations in both cases. In 1886, Lt. Charles Gatewood was able to approach the 40 Apache warriors still at large with a party of just five — himself, two Apache scouts, an interpreter and a mule-packer. He convinced Geronimo and the renegades to surrender on Sept. 4, with a deftness that would have been impossible with 5,000 soldiers. Similarly, the United States could never have deployed the thousands of troops necessary to block all escape routes out of Tora Bora — the deployment of 3,000 troops three months later to Afghanistan’s ShahikotValley in Operation Anaconda failed to prevent the escape of the targeted individuals from similar terrain — but a lightning strike by a few dozen commandos was successful.

Both campaigns also demonstrated the importance of human intelligence to manhunting. Gatewood was alerted to Geronimo’s location near Fronteras, Mexico, by a group of Mexican farmers tired of the threat of Apache raids, but he also needed the assistance of Apache scouts familiar with the terrain and with Geronimo’s warriors to close in on his quarry. So, too, according to administration officials, did the success in finding bin Laden depend upon the interrogation of his former confederates in al-Qaeda and upon the efforts of local agents in Pakistan to track the courier who led U.S. intelligence officers to the Abbottabad compound….

And so forth. By the way, on a related topic, here’s a piece written by a paratrooper on the history of U.S. soldier’s tradition of yelling that name when jumping out of perfectly good airplanes. Apparently, it all came from a 1939 movie starring “Chief Thundercloud,” a.k.a. Victor Daniels (not to mention the immortal Andy Devine!).

And talk about your coincidences… I had been clicking around through my Netflix instant queue one night recently and watched a few minutes of the ubersilly “Hot Shots Deux,” starring Charlie Sheen and Lloyd Bridges. (Hey, in small doses, I very much enjoy the whole “Airplane!” comedy genre — even when Leslie Nielsen is absent.) The scene below was part of what I saw. The very next morning, I first read of the controversy among some American Indians over the “Geronimo” operation… Seemed ironic. You know, what with Charlie Sheen being such a paragon of sensitivity and all.

Oh, and what do I think of it? The same thing I think about the Redskins, the Braves, et al. It’s a tribute, not a sign of disrespect. You really have to want to be insulted to take it that way. But as you know, I have little sensitivity toward — or, admittedly, understanding of — the complex resentments than can be felt by people to whom Identity Politics is important. And I hate arguing with people like that, because I’m willing to grant that in many cases such people DO actually feel hurt, with or without justification that makes sense to me. But it seemed like it would be a cop-out if, after bringing up the subject, I didn’t share my own opinion, for what little it’s worth, and however lightly I may hold it.

Brookgreen Gardens 1958

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Yes, that headline is mean to evoke “Louisiana 1927,” an awesome song.

I got the photo from our good friend Bud, who wrote:

Here’s a picture of me and my cousins and brother @ Brookgreen Gardens taken in 1958. I’m the one on the right with the sandals.

… and the dark socks. I suspect that Bud was always a fashion iconoclast. Good for him.

Bud sent that after we discovered that he and I both have a long history of connection to Surfside Beach. (I’m having trouble remembering which post that came up on, or I’d link to it.)

The Obama Doctrine, and the end of the Kent State Syndrome

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Back on the initial post about the death of bin Laden, I got into an argument with some of my liberal Democratic friends about the extent to which “credit” is due to President Obama for this development.

Don’t get me wrong — I thought the president performed superbly. I was in considerable suspense last night between the time we knew bin Laden was dead and the president’s speech, wondering how he would rise to the moment. I needn’t have worried. He met the test of this critical Leadership Moment very well indeed.

Also, he seems to have made the right calls along the way since this intel first came to light. That’s great, too.

Where I differed with my friends was in their assertion/implication that this success was due to Obama being president, as opposed to He Who Must Not Be Named Among Democrats. Which is inaccurate, and as offensive as if this had happened on Bush’s watch and the Republicans claimed it was all because we had a Republican in the White House.

ANY president in my memory (with the possible exception of Bill Clinton, who had a tendency to resist boots on the ground and go with cruise missiles, which would have been the wrong call in this case) would have made more or less the same calls on the way to yesterday’s mission, although few would have delivered the important speech last night as well. (Obama’s the best speaker to occupy the White House since JFK — some would say Ronald Reagan, but his delivery never appealed to me.)

That’s the thing — Obama, to his great credit, has generally been a responsible and pragmatic steward of national and collective security. As most people who actually get ELECTED president tend to be. The continuity that his tenure represents may frustrate some of his base, but I deeply appreciate it, and have from the start. (I first made this observation before he took office.)

But I hinted that I thought that maybe there was ONE way that they were right, although it was not for a reason they were suggesting…

Here is that one way: Obama has been far more aggressive toward going after the bad guys in Pakistan. Which I think is a good thing. I’ve always thought it was. In fact, I first wrote about that in August 2007. At the time, Obama was criticized by many — including Hillary Clinton — for this:

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obamaissued a pointed warning yesterday to Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, saying that as president he would be prepared to order U.S. troops into that country unilaterally if it failed to act on its own against Islamic extremists….

The muscular speech appeared aimed at inoculating him from criticism that he lacks the toughness to lead the country in a post-9/11 world, while attempting to show that an Obama presidency would herald an important shift in the United States’ approach to the world, particularly the Middle East and nearby Asian nations…

I applauded it.

And now we see that proposed doctrine translated into reality. Actually, we’ve seen it for some time. Pakistan has gotten pretty testy with us for our across-the-border strikes, which have been far more common under Obama than under his predecessor.

On Sunday, convinced that our most prominent individual enemy was “hiding” practically in the open in a Pakistan suburb, Obama sent in the troops and got him — and didn’t bother telling the Pakistanis until it was too late for them to interfere.

For THIS he deserves great praise. But folks, that’s not the sort of things that folks in his Democratic base praise him for (aside from some nodding that he was right to say Iraq was the “wrong war” — just before they demand we get out of what Obama terms the “right war” immediately).

This was not Obama being sensitive, or multilateral, or peaceful, or diplomatic, or anything of the kind. This was Obama being a cowboy, and going after the guy in the black hat no matter where he was. This was out-Bushing Bush, to those who engage in such simplistic caricatures.

This is not a surprise to anyone who has watched Obama carefully, or even halfway carefully. But it should be a HUGE shock to the portions of his base who are still fighting the Vietnam War, the ones who backed him because they thought he was an “antiwar” candidate.

I’m reminded of Kent State. First, don’t get me wrong — the killing of those students was a horrific tragedy, that was in no way justifiable. I, too, feel chills when I hear Neil Young’s song. Shooting unarmed civilians is never excusable. I felt the full outrage of my generation when that happened. But I’ve always thought the tragedy was deepened by the fact that the protest that led to the shootings was to an extent wrong-headed.

Folks in the antiwar movement were SO angry that Nixon had pursued the enemy into Cambodia. This, to them, was a war crime of extreme proportions.

Me, I always thought it was sensible and pragmatic. You don’t let people shoot at you and then “hide” by crossing a political barrier, not unless you like having your own people killed with impunity.

Yeah, I realize there are important differences in the two situations (the most obvious being that the Cambodian incursion was on a much larger scale). But I think it’s very interesting that some of my most antiwar friends here — antiwar in the anti-Vietnam sense — are even more congratulatory toward our president than I am, when he, too “violated sovereignty” to kill Osama bin Laden. What if Nixon had sent troops to a mansion outside Phnom Penh to kill Ho Chi Minh? The antiwar movement would have freaked out — more than usual. Again, not quite the same — but you get the idea.

One of my antiwar friends recently was arguing with me that the antiwar movement has, indeed, faded away. I had said it had not. But the more I think about this, the more I think Phillip was right. I try to imagine how the antiwar left would have reacted to such a move as this 40 years ago. And yes, we have changed. Then, college students rioted in outrage. Today, they gather outside the White House and party down with American flags. Both reactions seem to me inappropriate, but I’m hard to please.

One thing does please me, however: I do approve of President Obama’s performance on this (as I do, increasingly, on many things).

Sec. Clinton helps point way to what’s next

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Of course, at such an emotion-packed historic moment as this, one encounters a lot of foolishness, from the behavior of those drunken college kids outside the White House last night to people who will actually say (and this I find stunning), OK, we got him, let’s leave Afghanistan…

I thought Hillary Clinton’s remarks this morning addressed that rather nicely:

Here at the State Department, we have worked to forge a worldwide anti-terror network. We have drawn together the effort and energy of friends, partners, and allies on every continent. Our partnerships, including our close cooperation with Pakistan, have helped put unprecedented pressure on al-Qaida and its leadership. Continued cooperation will be just as important in the days ahead, because even as we mark this milestone, we should not forget that the battle to stop al-Qaida and its syndicate of terror will not end with the death of bin Ladin. Indeed, we must take this opportunity to renew our resolve and redouble our efforts.

In Afghanistan, we will continue taking the fight to al-Qaida and their Taliban allies, while working to support the Afghan people as they build a stronger government and begin to take responsibility for their own security. We are implementing the strategy for transition approved by NATO at the summit in Lisbon, and we supporting an Afghan-led political process that seeks to isolate al-Qaida and end the insurgency. Our message to the Taliban remains the same, but today it may have even greater resonance: You cannot wait us out. You cannot defeat us. But you can make the choice to abandon al-Qaida and participate in a peaceful political process….

Indeed, to the extent that the death of bin Laden sends a useful message to the world — to our friends and enemies — is that we will NOT give up. It’s about continuity and persistence. And it’s a powerful message. This is a time for following up the advantage provided by demoralization among the Taliban and al Qaeda at this moment, a moment created by the death of that movement’s chief symbol. Secretary Clinton explains it well.

Osama bin Laden is dead. So what happens now?

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I originally wrote this BEFORE the president’s announcement. As you can see, I’ve now updated it with the video…

Waiting for President Obama to make the announcement that Osama bin Laden is dead.

And wondering what happens now. I’ve wondered that for 10 years: If bin Laden is dead, what does it change? Does the struggle end? Of course not. He’s now a martyr. But it’s still a huge moment.

And what will the president tell us it means, as he sees it? This is so un-Obama — Under my leadership, we have killed our enemy — what will he say? And what will he tell us to expect next? What will he say HE intends to do?

What does this mean NOW, against the context of the turmoil, the rise of democracy, sweeping through the region?

If I were the president, I’m not sure what I would say. So I’m preparing to watch, and listen.

I expect you are, too.

If you’d like to react, here’s a place to do it…

National media discover we’re (gasp!) still fighting the Civil War — where have they been?

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The dim, hazy past? Think again...

Certainly not in South Carolina, where a week hardly passes without new Nullification legislation passing through the State House.

A friend brought my attention today to this CNN item, which cites various “ways we’re still fighting the Civil War.” The most pertinent passage:

Nullification, states’ rights and secession. Those terms might sound like they’re lifted from a Civil War history book, but they’re actually making a comeback on the national stage today.

Since the rise of the Tea Party and debate over the new health care law, more Republican lawmakers have brandished those terms. Republican lawmakers in at least 11 states invoked nullification to thwart the new health care law, according to a recent USA Today article.

Well, duh.

Other parts of the piece were less impressive. For instance this standard-issue 2011 take on what a dangerous thing religion is:

If you think the culture wars are heated now, check out mid-19th century America. The Civil War took place during a period of pervasive piety when both North and South demonized one another with self-righteous, biblical language, one historian says.

The war erupted not long after the “Second Great Awakening” sparked a national religious revival. Reform movements spread across the country. Thousands of Americans repented of their sins at frontier campfire meetings and readied themselves for the Second Coming.

They got war instead. Their moral certitude helped make it happen, says David Goldfield, author of “America Aflame,” a new book that examines evangelical Christianity’s impact on the war.

Goldfield says evangelical Christianity “poisoned the political process” because the American system of government depends on compromise and moderation, and evangelical religion abhors both because “how do you compromise with sin.”

Which sort of prompts one to ask, So… what are you saying? That owning other people isn’t a sin? Just curious.

Happy 225th Birthday, Columbia!

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Some events just lend themselves to a picture gallery, as I did with St. Paddy’s Day. Here’s what I saw at noon today, at the 1300 block of Main, as Columbia celebrated its 225th birthday.

And here are the descriptions — captions, cutlines, whatever — that Kathryn is clamoring for:

The cake — courtesy of Piggly Wiggly, I think the mayor said.
Invited to sign the big card, I wrote, “Hail the Great Compromise!” Which is why Columbia is here. No, that’s not what my handwriting usually looks like. The best space left was practically on the ground, and I was almost standing on my head writing it. Awkward. You’ll notice the penmanship around it isn’t so hot, either.
Kids from the school at my church, St. Peter’s Catholic. They led us in “Happy Birthday.”
Hanging out before the ceremony — Hizzoner the mayor, Sen. Darrell Jackson and Rep. James Smith.
You just can’t get those YPs to put the device down and pay attention. This is Sam Johnson, who works for the mayor.
It was very sunny, very warm — I could really feel it where I got sunburned Saturday. Good turnout. Look! There in the crowd is Jeffrey Day, formerly of The State. And… a bunch of other people.
WIS was double-teaming it.
Boyd Summers, of the Richland County Democratic Party, and Jim Manning, of the county council.
Adam Beam of The State was watching very intently (here’s his account of the founding of the city). That’s Mike Wukela of the mayor’s office next to him.

Here’s why “left” and “right” are all one to me

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Actually, what this is is ONE reason why the distinctions between left and right — which seem to mean so much (and of course, I would say far too much) to so many in this country — are of little concern, and NO appeal, to me:

The Few, the Proud, the Anti-Libya NFZ Republicans

Posted Monday, March 21, 2011 12:31 PM | By David Weigel

The Republicans who out-and-out oppose attacks on Libya without congressional authorization are few, and their names are not surprising anyone who follows debates over war funding. Here’s freshman Rep. Justin Amash, R-Mich, who was backed by Ron Paul last year.

It’s not enough for the President simply to explain military actions in Libya to the American people, after the fact, as though we are serfs. When there is no imminent threat to our country, he cannot launch strikes without authorization from the American people, through our elected Representatives in Congress. No United Nations resolution or congressional act permits the President to circumvent the Constitution.

I love that libertarian indignation in “as though we are serfs.” He means it, too. To people of certain ideological stripe, we are all right on the verge of serfdom, every minute.

Here’s the president’s letter ‘splaining things to Congress, by the way. The 119th such letter sent by a president.

Beyond the serf stuff, do some of those phrases sound exactly like the antiwar left to you? Yeah, to me, too. But there’s nothing surprising about it. I think I shared the story with you recently of one of my wife’s leftist professors who supported George Wallace because he’d never get us involved in a Vietnam.

Now, for you Paulistas: Do I not care about the Constitution? Of course I do. And before this nation actually goes to real WAR with an actual other NATION, the kind of debate that leads to the declaration of war is a good thing, and the Framers were wise to include the requirement — particularly given how weak and vulnerable this nation was in those days, and how ruinous a war with one of the great powers could have been.

But of course, that very generation, and the first president of the limited-national-gummint party, Thomas Jefferson, did not see such a declaration as necessary to deal with the Barbary Pirates. You know, the shores of Tripoli?

They DID think it meet for Congress to authorize the president to act — as Congress did before the Iraq invasion, and before the Gulf War.

If anything, the issue here is whether Obama should have paused long enough to wait for such a formal authorization in this case. Did he act too soon? Did he cave too quickly to Hillary telling him to “man up” and act? I don’t think so, given the circumstances — the dire situation on the ground in Libya, the fact that the Brits and the French (yes, the French!) were ready to go. But frankly, I didn’t think about it before just now. Should we have had a big national debate between the UN resolution and action (regardless of whether it then would have been too late)?

What do y’all think?

40 Years of Living Dangerously: 1st impressions of Qaddafi

Good luck with that, Mayor Steve

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When you make yourself available, you never know who's gonna show up. Like, check out the geek with the bow tie. You know HE'S trouble.../2010 photo by Bob Ford

Just read this in Steve Benjamin’s monthly newsletter:

Mondays with the Mayor

Ensuring the City of Columbia is open and accountable to all of the people has been a priority of mine from day one because, for me, government transparency is about living up to that most fundamental commitment: the people deserve the truth.

From moving council to evening meetings, working to limit executive session, and streaming every city council meeting live online; we are working live up to that responsibility and today I am pleased to announce a new initiative to further that cause: “Mondays with the Mayor.”

Kicking off on March 7th, “Mondays with the Mayor” is a monthly open session where citizens can schedule a 5 minute meeting here at City Hall to discuss the issues they care about with me personally.

WHAT: Mondays with the Mayor

WHEN: Monday, March 7, 2011
5:00pm to 7:00pm

WHERE: City Hall
1737 Main Street

To schedule a meeting, please call 803.545.3073 or email[email protected] on Friday, March 4th between 9:00am and 11:00am. The message should include your name, address, phone number, and issue to be discussed.

I believe that, by working together as One Columbia, we can raise the standard for citizen driven good government not just in South Carolina, but across the nation.

I believe we can make a difference.

First, hats off to the mayor for his commitment to openness and transparency. He’s acted quickly on several front to demonstrated that commitment, and praise is due to the council for its part in implementing such steps.

As for this one-at-a-time levee he plans — I hope it is everything a true lower-case-d democrat could wish for. But I also cringe a bit.

Admittedly, this may be partly because I just watched “Taxi Driver” all the way through last night for the first time, and that scene in which Travis Bickle has presidential candidate Charles Palantine in his cab. The candidate oozes transparently bogus mutterings about how he loves to hear the wisdom of cabbies like Travis, to which Travis responds with a skin-crawling diatribe on how the city is nothing but filth, and the next president should “flush” it all away — making the candidate very eager to get the heck outta that cab.

I’m sure it won’t be like that. And I’m sure it will be far better managed than the time that Andy Jackson threw open the doors of the White House for an inaugural backwoods kegger.

But… if you’ve spent as many hundreds of ours of your life in public meetings as I have, you know that there are certain people, who are not representative of the people overall, who love to show up and monopolize such affairs. Perhaps the 5-minute limit will take care of that.

But still… Again, I’m proud of the mayor for this fine gesture of openness. Lord knows we need more of that in South Carolina. And at the same time, I’m glad it’s him and not me spending two hours a month in the political equivalent of speed-dating.

Some thoughts on Robert Gates’ recent remarks

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I like that headline. Sort of 19th century-sounding in its plainness. Anyway, moving on…

Back on the previous post, Phillip said:

This is somewhat indirectly related to issues raised by #1, but I couldn’t help wondering what you made of Sec’y Gates’ remarkable speech at West Point last week:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/26/world/26gates.html

And I responded in a comment that seems worth a separate post, to wit…

Phillip, I had several thoughts about Gates’ remark (which, for those who missed it, was “In my opinion, any future defense secretary who advises the president to again send a big American land army into Asia or into the Middle East or Africa should ‘have his head examined,’ as General MacArthur so delicately put it.”):

First, my facetious reaction — Asia? Africa? Middle East? So that leaves what? Europe? Australia? South America? Antarctica? Quite a sweeping set of eliminations. Next thing you know, we won’t be able to go war anywhere, and he’ll be out of a job. Golly, I wonder if the world will cooperate with us on that, and make sure, out of sympathy to our preferences, that the next crisis demanding a deployment of U.S. ground troops happens in, say, Sydney. MayBE, but it seems unlikely.
I like Robert Gates (here’s a column I did about him in 2006), have liked him ever since he became CIA director in the 80s (and especially liked him when he delivered us from the disaster of Rumsfeld), so he has my sympathy. And I fully understand why someone who’s had the challenges he’s had as SecDef.
From a pragmatic standpoint, what he says makes all the sense in the world. That’s why the option we’re looking at in Libya is a no-fly zone — you know, the mode we were in in Iraq for 12 years during the “cease-fire” in that war against Saddam that started in 1990 and ended in 2003. It’s manageable, we can do it easily enough (we and the Brits are the only ones with the demonstrated ability to provide this service to the people of Libya and the world). Air superiority is something we know how to assert, and use.
Ground forces are a huge commitment — a commitment that the United States in the 21st century appears politically unwilling to make. If you’re a pragmatist like Gates — and he is, the consummate professional — you consider that when you’re considering whether the goals are achievable. We’ve demonstrated back here on the home front that we’re unable to commit FULLY to a nation-building enterprise the way we did in 1945. It takes such a single-minded dedication on every level — military, economic, diplomatic — and that takes sustained commitment. One is tempted to say that there’s something particular about Americans today that prevents such a consensus — our 50-50, bitter political division, for instance — but really, this is the norm in U.S. history. The anomaly was 1945. It took two world wars for us to bring us to the point that we could make that kind of commitment.

So there you go. I had another bullet in mind, but was interrupted (blast that person from Porlock!), and it hasn’t come back to me yet. Please share your own thoughts…

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