Category Archives: The Nation

Fred Thompson’s values mantra, and more!

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Thompson_047

This morning, when I said something about going to Doc’s Barbecue today to see what Fred Thompson had to say, a colleague tried to save me the trouble by telling me ahead of time: "I’m for good things, and against bad things."

Sure enough, it was just about that broad and elemental. Ol’ Fred trotted out everything but Mom and Apple Pie. Not a lot of specifics, mind you, but a whole lot of empathizin’ with the folks on stuff that may not be all that fancy or original, but dadgummit, just needs to be said again and again, with fierce conviction. And he’s just the fella to say it.

The video below features the following values mantra, plus another snippet or two that give you the flavor of the kind of skate-by-on-good-feelings-and-free-media campaign that ol’ Fred is apparently gonna run just as long as we’ll all let him. Nobody asking hard questions, such as exactly how these statements separate him from the rest of the GOP pack.

But before the nit-picking begins, enjoy Fred Thompson at what I suspect is going to be his campaignin’ best. I’m glad I was there for it, even though I had to park my pickup — my actual pickup that is my actual primary means of transportation, not a lease — far enough away that I should have just walked over…

And here’s the Mantra in text so you can listen to it again, and follow along:

talkin’ about the value of being pro-life
talkin’ about the value of standing strong for the second amendment
talkin’ about the rule of law
talkin’ about the value and the rightness of lower taxes
talkin’ about a market economy; talking about the ingenuity and the inventiveness of the American people and the value of competitiveness and how we would fare well in the international marketplace. We do more things better than anybody in the world, and it works for us.

We’re talking about first principles, things this country was founded upon
the idea that there’s some things in this changing world that don’t change.
Certain things,
certain things such as human nature
and the wisdom of the Ages that led us to the declaration of independence
and led us to the Constitution of the United States,
and they are not outmoded documents to be cast aside

The Declaration reminds us that our basic rights come from God
and not from government.
The constitution of the United States tells us that government ought to be set up with divided power,
not too much power any way
not just at the federal level,
between the federal and the state level;
it’s called Federalism,
and it’s the idea that not every answer comes from Washington, D.C.

It’s all based on the concept of that universal principle and desire on which we were founded,
and that is,
Free People.
Free Markets.
and the appreciation of the things that made us great,
and the understanding that a government powerful enough to give everything to yuh,
is powerful enough to take anything from yuh.

Thank yuh. Thank yuh very much. Now go get yerself some barbecue whilst we turn up the Johnny Cash on the loudspeakers…

Maybe Fred’ll wave as he goes by

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Fred Thompson’s coming by the newspaper today — quite literally, in that he’ll pass right by us to go to Doc’s Barbecue:

Fredheadergeneric
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: CONTACT: Jeff Sadosky 
September 7, 2007    

***MEDIA ADVISORY***
Thompson To Tour South Carolina

McLEAN, VA – Friends of Fred Thompson Committee announces campaign schedule and logistics for South Carolina events for September 10th, 2007. 

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 10th
GREENVILLE, SC
WHAT:   Town Hall with Fred Thompson
WHEN:   9:30 am, please preset all equipment by 9:00 am
WHERE: Greenville Marriott
             1 Parkway East
             Greenville, SC 29615

NOTE:    TV Quality Lighting and Sound, Press Riser, Mult Box Available, 35ft throw

COLUMBIA, SC
WHAT:   Meet Fred Thompson
WHEN:   1:30 PM, please preset all equipment by 1:00 PM
WHERE: Doc’s Barbeque & Southern Buffet
             1601 Shop Road, Columbia, SC 29201
NOTE:    TV Quality Lighting, Press Riser, Outdoor Amplified Sound, Mult Box Available, 35ft throw

ALL TIMES LOCAL AND SUBJECT TO CHANGE

Doc’s is really, really close to our offices. I was guessing Friday, when this release arrived, that it was within 200 yards. Mike allowed as how it was closer, maybe a 5 iron — which was OK until he added "150 yards," which opened him to all kinds of scorn, enabling me to say, "That’s a 7 iron for me," and other such zingers.

Now mind you, it’s not like we’ve invited Fred to come by and say "Hey." We would have, but Mike (he of the short game) said he doesn’t know of a contact for Fred here in S.C. (Perhaps we’ll hear from one as a result of this post; I find a blog is a wonderful form of passive information gathering.)

Not that he has to be invited. He invited himself back in 2000, when he was here to tell us we should have endorsed — ahem! — John McCain. (And he was right.)

But this time, he’s going to go right past us. Now mind you, Doc’s has an excellent reputation. My parents go there regularly. But there’s "good barbecue" and there’s good barbecue, and if Fred thinks he’s going to find Memphis-style there — the sort that he and I are accustomed to as the standard — he’s in for a shock.

Anyway, there’s something interestingly symbolic about his going to the people (the ones his campaign autodialed over the weekend) rather than coming to kiss our rings. It’s indicative of the state of things on this belated honeymoon that Fred will enjoy for, oh, the next week or two. He doesn’t have to show up for debates or answer newspaper editors’ questions. He can coast on free media that concentrates on him and him alone — and what better than an event staged at a barbecue stand, where he can go "mmm-MMM" (think "Andy Griffith eating a Ritz cracker") and say it’s the best barbecue ever, and be believed.

But at some point, this will be over, and the hard part will start.

Thank goodness for New Mexico

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At least we don’t have terrible problems like New Mexico. It seems that on Thursday, their (former) state treasurer pleaded guilty to a crime! Goodness!

{BC-NM Treasurer Convicted, 1st Ld-Writethru,0417}
{By BARRY MASSEY}=
{Associated Press Writer}=
   SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) – Former New Mexico Treasurer Michael Montoya pleaded guilty Thursday to a state racketeering charge for his role in a kickback scheme, a case that grew out of his testimony in a federal prosecution of another former state treasurer.
   Montoya had faced 16 state criminal charges, including soliciting or receiving illegal kickbacks and receiving or demanding bribes. Under a plea agreement, he pleaded guilty to the one count of racketeering and all other charges were dismissed. There was no agreement on sentencing.
   The prosecution was criticized by defense lawyers, who said the state rarely brings charges against witnesses for criminal activities they testified about while cooperating in a federal case.
   Montoya was a key witness for federal prosecutors in the case against Robert Vigil, who served as deputy treasurer under Montoya and succeeded him in the top job. Vigil is serving a three-year federal prison sentence for his conviction last year on a charge of attempted extortion.
   State prosecutors said Montoya demanded kickbacks from investment advisers in exchange for steering state business to them. Similar allegations were made against Vigil by federal prosecutors. Only Montoya was charged by the state because its case was filed while a federal retrial for Vigil was pending.
   Montoya, who will be sentenced Nov. 1, could receive up to nine years in prison and a fine of up to $10,000.
   Montoya, a Democrat, served as treasurer from 1995 to 2002. Vigil then held the job until he resigned in 2005.
   In November 2005, Montoya pleaded guilty to a federal felony relating to the kickback scheme. He has not yet been sentenced.
   With his plea in the state case, Montoya agreed to testify for the state in its prosecution of other defendants facing state charges stemming from the corruption in the treasurer’s office. Trials for a former treasurer’s office employee, an Albuquerque businessman and a California-based investment are set for later this year.

Have we lost the war? Dems say yes, most say no

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Here’s a crucial split in the electorate: Zogby says that while most Americans say the war in Iraq is not a lost cause, two out of three Democrats take the Harry Reid view:

A majority of Americans – 54% – believe the United States has not
lost the war in Iraq, but there is dramatic disagreement on the question between
Democrats and Republicans, a new UPI/Zogby Interactive poll shows. While two in
three Democrats (66%) said the war effort has already failed, just 9% of
Republicans say the same.

There’s a certain absurdity in focusing on whether Americans think the war is lost, as opposed to whether it is, which is a different thing entirely.

Unfortunately for the soldiers with their lives on the line, whether their struggles are for naught or not depends upon the political environment back home. So, as wrong as it may seem, a professional soldier can be kicking insurgent butt while winning hearts and minds among those Iraqis who want a decent country to live in, but if enough Americans back home are convinced it’s useless, the battle is lost. Why? Because the despair-mongers back home will say — regardless of reality on the ground — come home.

Weird, ain’t it? But so is life in our increasingly democratic republic.

Waitin’ at the train station, singin’ the ‘Airport Blues’

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By BRAD WARTHEN
Editorial Page Editor
“NEWS IS whatever happens to, or interests, an editor,” a wise colleague named Jerry Ratts once said. Actually, he said it more than “once,” which is why I remember.
    I would insert a corollary: “… or to the editor’s wife….”
    For the past year, my wife has traveled a lot back and forth between here and Pennsylvania. So have I, for that matter. She and our youngest have been up there so that our daughter can study ballet with extreme intensity. My wife has worked up there as a pre-school teacher to help pay for keeping two households, not to mention all the travel.
    She’s spent a lot of time in airports — enough that when she comes home this week, it will be by train.
    A trip back up there in May was the last straw. She recounted her ordeal in an exclusive interview with this correspondent:
    She had to fly out of there early Mother’s Day afternoon, and given the airlines’ rule about early arrival, there was no chance to celebrate the day over lunch. She intended to have a nice dinner with my youngest up in the Keystone State, but that was not to be, either. She wouldn’t get home until after 1 a.m. Monday.
    Miraculously, she left Charleston on time. But she had to make two connections to get to Harrisburg. Things seemed fine when she arrived at the gate for the first connection. They still seemed fine — the sign at the gate still brightly proclaimed that her flight would be on time — when she and other passengers noticed that the flight after theirs was boarding, and they weren’t.
    Somebody had the temerity to ask, and was told, “Oh, we canceled yours.” No apology, and apparently no intention of making an announcement.
    It was either on that leg of the trip or the next (“Can’t remember… so exhausting…”) that she found herself wandering about a terminal after having received no helpful advice at the gate. She learned by chance that another passenger was going to Allentown, with a promised 75-mile bus ride to Harrisburg. She went back to the apathetic agent at the gate to ask about that, and was told yeah, we could get you there that way if that’s what you want.
    The alternative was a flight to Harrisburg at noon the next day, so yeah, she’d like a bus ride. She reached her bed about four hours before time to get up and go herd 4-year-olds all day.
    “So I’m not flying any more,” she said with that dangerous emphasis that I know not to contradict. “They don’t care how much they inconvenience you, or how much they lie to you. I’m just not doing it any more.”
    Of course not, dear. Especially since, between her experiences and my own, this was the third trip in a row that could have been completed more quickly by driving. That haul up interstates 77 and 81, passing through six states, is a stroll in the park compared to these aeronautic nightmares.
    I’ve been on the verge of writing this column a number of times in recent months, but have held back, remembering what Jerry Ratts (the Sage of Wichita, quoted above) said about editors and their sense of perspective.
    Besides, I wasn’t sure it was right for the opinion pages. It had happened to us several times, and the Sage was also known to say: “That’s twice. Once more and it’s a trend, and we can send it to Lifestyles.”
    Then I saw Thursday’s Wall Street Journal, which had a bona fide news story about how many passengers had become fed up with air travel and were taking Amtrak: “Airplanes are getting stuck in lots of traffic jams this summer, but Amtrak is on a roll.”
    Then I realized USA Today — the paper whose only “home town” is the nation’s airports — had been all over it: “By virtually every measure, this is shaping up as the worst year ever for air travel. (That is, if you’re a passenger. Some of the airlines are actually making profits for a change.)”
    Good thing my wife swore off air travel in May, because things have only gotten worse since:
“There’s really something different this summer,” said a frustrated traveler who blogs on the subject (at TakingtheKids.com), which is almost as authoritative as being an editor. “Not only can’t you count on the airlines giving you anything to eat, but you can’t count on a three-hour flight actually being a three-hour flight. It’s a whole new paradigm.” (Journalists find it soothing to describe their personal frustrations with words like “paradigm.”)
    And if you’re the old-fashioned sort who wants facts rather than anecdotes, USA Today supplies this: “In June, 462 aircraft sat for at least three hours awaiting takeoff after leaving the gate, more than tripling the 137 such delays during May. DOT says it’s the highest monthly number since at least 2000.”
    Why has all this happened? Disgruntled scribes differ on that. There’s an air traffic control system that isn’t using the latest technology. There’s the increased number of short-hop flights, taking up more gate time and creating more chances to get tangled up. There’s the cutbacks in airline personnel, who are getting cranky and increasingly unlikely to give you the time of day, much less fluff your pillow.
    But who cares about the why when the answer to when is, “Not any time soon, so sit down and shut up or we’ll call security”?
    In any case, it’s clear that my better half swore off air travel just in time. So I won’t mind a bit hauling myself out of bed at midnight to drive my pickup down to the railway station and wait for my woman to come home. I’ll take along a notepad and a harmonica, ’cause if that don’t get me halfway to a country song, I ain’t got one in me:

Well, I went down to the station;
I was feelin’ kinda sore…
Yeah, I went down to the station, mama;
I was feelin’ mighty sore…
Mah woman, she done tol’ me,
She ain’t gonna fly no more… (Honka wonka waw-waw-wahn)…

    For guitar chords and more, go to http://blogs.thestate.com/bradwarthensblog/.

McCain TV interview

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There’s some deluded software out there (and I’m probably the guy who deluded it) that thinks I’m going to give money to the McCain campaign (which I can’t because it would violate a list of rules I have to sign every year to keep my job), so it keeps sending me messages that go out to donors and those the software’s creators hope will become donors.

So I get messages like this one:

Dear Brad,

Senator McCain appeared on WIS-TV’s Newswatch with David
Stanton last week. Just in case you missed it, here’s your chance to catch the
interview in its entirety, watch part one here
and part two
here.

And, as always, thanks for your hard work to keep building our
strong team here in South Carolina! Please encourage your friends and neighbors
to join our team at http://southcarolina.johnmccain.com!

… which I am happy to receive, and just as happy to share with you.

‘ED in ’08’ calls out the NEA

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This is weirdly close to the recent related post, so the people who like to accuse will claim that I’m paying extra-special attention to this because ED in ’08 advertises on my blog, but since Cindi passed it on to me, I’ll show just how much I care for such folks’ opinions by passing it on to you (wait — did I say that out loud? how do I let them know because of the unfreezing process, I have no inner monologue?):

   WASHINGTON, Aug. 22 //PRNewswire-USNewswire// — Today Marc Lampkin, Strong American Schools’ ED in ’08 executive director, posted a blog entry on the Huffington Post criticizing a recent release from the National Education Association that responded to the recent Democratic debate and the candidates’ positions on performance pay for teachers.
   "Instead of celebrating the dawn of a true education debate, some groups want to end it. For example, the National Education Association released a press statement that seems to imply all the candidates answered the question the exact same way — they were against it.
   "Now that’s just mystifying to me. Anyone who watched Sunday’s debate should have seen a difference of opinion among the candidates. Yes, two candidates came out firmly against it. But when Stephanopoulos said ‘no one on the stage is for merit pay for teachers,’ one candidate jumped in to say that he definitely is for it. A second then asked for more time to clarify that he is for performance pay under certain circumstances. And a third offered his own version of performance pay-providing competitive salaries to compete with fields like engineering for top college students.
   "That’s exactly the kind of education debate we should be having — and the kind Americans deserve! Maybe the NEA just wasn’t watching closely. Maybe they simply missed the point. With American schools needing to hire 2 million new teachers over the next decade, we should all be discussing how to attract America’s best and brightest to teach our students-presidential candidates included. Let’s not squelch that important debate just as it’s getting started."

Cindi sent me that because I was thinking about writing in my Sunday column about all these groups that are making their presence felt in S.C., from AARP to ONE, and Mike and I had been expressing thoughts about how the limitations, and even deleterious effects, of such blogs (Mike’s quote: "a question of Astroturf replacing grass roots") and Cindi stuck up for them, saying they were, too, having a good effect, and she sent me the above release as her way of saying, See? So there.

I will say that in this case, this particular rep of the Bill Gates-funded group is doing a good thing. Readers of our pages will know that we favor merit pay, so how dare the NEA try to squelch debate, via the time-honored dishonest tactic of convincing everyone it’s already squelched. This does no service to the kids in public schools, it certainly doesn’t help the Democratic candidates with us swing voters, and, believe it or not, it does the NEA no good either — at least, it does them no good when their fannies are exposed like this.

Here’s hoping the NEA takes out advertising on my blog, too, so I can demonstrate my independence by kicking them some more over merit pay… (wait! did I say that out loud, too…?)

Obama’s right about Pakistan. But who would follow?

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By BRAD WARTHEN
EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR
BARACK OBAMA was right to threaten to invade Pakistan in order to hit al-Qaida, quite literally, where it lives. And as long as we’re on this tack, remind me again why it is that we’re not at war with Iran.
    OK, OK, I know the reasons: Our military is overextended; the American people lack the appetite; the nutball factor is only an inch deep in Iran, and once you get past Ahmadinejad and the more radical mullahs the Iranian people aren’t so bad, but they’d get crazy quick if we attacked, and so forth.
    I can also come up with reasons not to invade Pakistan, or even to talk about invading Pakistan. We’ve heard them often enough. Pakistan is (and say this in reverent tones) a sovereign country; Pervez Musharraf is our “friend”; we need him helping us in the War on Terror; he is already politically weak and this could do him in; he could be replaced by Islamists sufficiently radical that they would actively support Osama bin Laden and friends, rather than merely fail to look aggressively enough to find them; fighting our way into, and seeking a needle in, the towering, rocky haystacks of that region is easier said than done, and on and on.
    But when you get down to it, it all boils down to the reason I mentioned in passing in the first instance — Americans lack the appetite. So with a long line of people vying to be our new commander in chief, it’s helpful when one of them breaks out of the mold of what we might want to hear, and spells out a real challenge before us.
    Most of us believe that the baddest bad guys in this War on Terror have been hiding in, and more relevantly operating from, the remote reaches of western Pakistan ever since they slipped through our fingers in 2001.
    The diplomatic and strategic delicacy that the Bush administration (contrary to its image) has demonstrated with regard to the generalissimo in Pakistan has been something to behold. Now we see this guy we have done so much, by our self-restraint, to build up on the verge of collapse. We could end up with the crazy clerics anyway, or at least a surrender to, or sharing of power with, Benazir Bhutto.
    But even if all the conditions were right abroad — even if the mountains were leveled and a new regime in Islamabad sent our Army an engraved invitation along with Mapquest directions to bin Laden’s cave — we’d still have the problem of American political shyness.
    Same deal with Iran. In the past week a senior U.S. general announced that elite Iranian troops are in Iraq training Shiite militias in how to better kill Americans — and Sunnis, of course.
    So it is that the United States is asking the United Nations to declare the Revolutionary Guard Corps — less a military outfit than a sort of government-sanctioned Mafia family, with huge legit covers in pumping oil, operating ports and manufacturing pharmaceuticals — a terrorist organization.
    What is the response of the Revolutionary Guards to all this? Well, they’re not exactly gluing halos to their turbans. The head of the Guard Corps promised that “America will receive a heavier punch from the guards in the future.”
    General Yahya Rahim Safavi was quoted in an Iranian newspaper as adding, “We will never remain silent in the face of US pressure and we will use our leverage against them.”
    And the United States is engaged in debate with other “civilized” nations over what names we will call these thugs. The world’s strongest nation — its one “indispensable nation,” to quote President Clinton’s secretary of state — ought to be able to work up a more muscular response than that. If we hadn’t gained a recent reputation for shyness, all we’d really have to do with those muscles is flex them.
    The one thing I liked about George W. Bush was that he was able to convince the world’s bad guys (and a lot of our friends, too, but you can’t have everything) that he was crazy enough to cross borders to go after them, if they gave him half an excuse. This worked, as long as the American people were behind him.
    If only the next president were able to project similar willingness to act, and be credible about it. A saber rattled by such a leader can put a stop to much dangerous nonsense in the world.
    But does the will exist in the American electorate? Not now, it doesn’t. When Obama said his tough piece, the nation sort of patted its charismatic prodigy on his head and explained that he was green and untested, and was bound to spout silly things now and then. (Rudy Giuliani, to his credit, said Obama was right. Others tut-tutted over the “rookie mistake.”)
    While we’re thinking about who’s going to lead the United States, maybe we’d better think about whether America will follow a leader who says what ought to be said — whether it’s on Iraq, Pakistan or Iran, or energy policy. Will we follow a president who tells us we should increase the price of gasoline rather than moaning about how “high” it is? How about a president who says we’re going to have to pay more for less in Social Security benefits in the future?
    Winning in Iraq and chasing down bin Laden are not necessarily either/or alternatives. This nation is large enough, rich enough and militarily savvy enough to field a much larger, more versatile force. Can you say “draft”? Well, actually, no — within the context of American politics with a presidential election coming up, you can’t. Not without being hooted down.
    That crowd of candidates is vying to lead a crippled giant. And the giant, sitting there fecklessly munching junk food and watching “reality” TV, can only blame himself for his condition.

Ex-Surgeon General Carmona visits

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Dr. Richard Carmona, former U.S. Surgeon General, came by Tuesday to promote the worthy agenda of the Partnership to Fight Chronic Disease. That’s yet another of those groups — such as this one, and this one, and this one (not to mention the one that advertises at the top of this blog) — that has established a presence in South Carolina in order to try to get the presidential candidates to address their issues of concern. As with the others, the effort is avowedly nonpartisan, and just as avowedly disinclined to promote any one solution over others.

I urge you to read about the group and its aims at this address.

Anyway, I asked the former Surgeon General whether his recent headline-making appearance at a congressional hearing — at which he complained that the Bush Administration, as is its wont, pressured him to get in line politically, regardless of science — had any effect on his ability to be heard across the political spectrum. I didn’t see why it should have, logically speaking, but I had long ago realized that political partisans don’t feel compelled to speak logically. His response was encouraging:

  

As long as I had him, I figured I’d ask him what he thought about South Carolina’s recent failed efforts to raise our cigarette tax:

  
Finally, I asked the question that I had always wanted to ask, and which I would not have been allowed to ask if my more task-oriented colleagues had been present (but fortunately, they were not): What’s with the Navy uniform (which one could also word, How come a "general" is wearing an admiral’s uniform?)
  

That’s it! We’re going straight to SIX blades…

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So if I’m running one of the major political parties in this state (which is what might happen to me if I’m very, very bad in this life), as I read this, I’m thinking, That’s it! We’re having our primary today!

By KATHY BARKS HOFFMAN
Associated Press
Saturday, August 18, 2007
LANSING, Mich. – Michigan Democrats and Republicans are moving closer to holding a closed presidential primary, the first joint primary in 16 years, on Jan. 15, people familiar with the negotiations said Friday.
     If Michigan goes ahead as planned, its primary would leapfrog over the recently moved South Carolina Republican primary, as well as many others.
    On Friday, top-level Democrats in Michigan discussed whether to have a primary or a caucus, with opinion leaning toward holding the mid-January primary, according to those in on the negotiations who asked not to be identified because the matter is not yet resolved.
    They say a primary would make the state more relevant in choosing the presidential nominee, although backers of presidential candidate John Edwards prefer a caucus.
    A Jan. 15 primary would put Michigan ahead of the South Carolina Republican primary, which last week moved up to Jan. 19, and the Nevada Republican and Democratic caucuses, also scheduled for that date. It also could give New Hampshire more impetus to move up its primary to keep its first-in-the-nation status, and may encourage Iowa to hold its caucuses in 2007….

This reminds me of one of my all-time favorite stories in The Onion, which basically involved putting into writing a thought I had had every time I’d seen an ad for razors in the past 30 years (please pardon the deleted expletives):

F___ Everything, We’re Doing Five Blades
By James M. Kilts
CEO and President,
The Gillette Company
February 18, 2004 | Issue 40•07
James M. Kilts
Would someone tell me how this happened? We were the f___ing vanguard of shaving in this country. The Gillette Mach3 was the razor to own. Then the other guy came out with a three-blade razor. Were we scared? Hell, no. Because we hit back with a little thing called the Mach3Turbo. That’s three blades and an aloe strip. For moisture. But you know what happened next? Shut up, I’m telling you what happened — the bastards went to four blades. Now we’re standing around with our c___s in our hands, selling three blades and a strip. Moisture or no, suddenly we’re the chumps. Well, f___ it. We’re going to five blades….

That’s private enterprise for you (or at least, a reasonable satirical facsimile of private enterprise)! If we had somebody like that guy running the parties in S.C., we wouldn’t be getting pushed around like a bunch of chumps by those other states.

That infuriating John McCain, or, How do you pitch to a hero?

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Mccain1

By BRAD WARTHEN
EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR
HOW ARE YOU supposed to do your job with professional detachment when every time you see one of the main guys running for president, every time you read about him, every time he opens his mouth or takes an action in public, you think, “Hero”?
    How are you supposed to keep your rep when you keep thinking, I admire this guy? Of all things, admire! It’s embarrassing.
    On top of that, how do you do it when so many of the smart, hip, unfettered, scalpel-minded professionals around you snort when the hero’s name is mentioned, and use terms like “has-been” and “loser” and “that poor old guy”?
    It’s not easy. Maybe it’s not even possible. It wasn’t possible on Monday, when John McCain visited our editorial board.
    I presided as usual, asking most of the questions and so forth. But I never quite hit my stride. I was uneasy; I stumbled in bringing forth the simplest questions. It was weird. I’d pitched to this guy a number of times before with no trouble, even in post-season play. And here he was stepping up to bat in my ball park, where the rubber on the mound has molded itself to my cleats, and I can’t put a simple fastball over the plate, much less a curve.
    I kept remembering our last formal meeting with him, in 2000, on the day that we would decide whomMccain3
to endorse in a GOP primary that would either slingshot him onward toward victory, or enable George W. Bush to stop his insurgency cold. I wasn’t out of sorts like this. I had stated my case — my strong belief that we should endorse Sen. McCain — several days before in a 4,000-word memo to my then-publisher, a committed Bush man. I was fully prepared to make it again to the full board once the candidate left the room. And I was ready to lose like a pro if it came to that. Which it did.
    But now, 9/11 has happened. The nation is at war, and bitterly divided, even over whether we’re “at war.” And I keep thinking — as I sit a couple of feet from the candidate, aiming my digital camera with my left hand, scribbling the occasional haphazard note with my right, glancing from time to time at the audio recorder on the table to note how many minutes into the interview he said such-and-such, so busy recording the event that I don’t really have time to be there — this is the guy who should have been president for the past seven years.
    The odd thing is, a lot of people who now dismiss the McCain candidacy also believe he should have been president — that we’d be less divided at home, more admired abroad, more successful at war. But they talk like the poor old guy missed his chance. It’s like candidates have “sell by” dates stamped on them like bacon, and his was several years back. Too bad for him, they say. But I think, too bad for the nation — if they’re right.
    The best thing for me, as a professional critic, as a jaded observer, would be for those people to be right. I have no trouble assessing the relative merits of the other candidates in either major party. I even like some of them. Life could be good, professionally speaking, if that old “hero” guy really did just fade away.
    But he doesn’t. There he is, sitting there, being all honest and straightforward and fair-minded and brave and admirable. Dang.
    Go ahead, get mad at him. He’s let the moment get away from him. You can’t take a man seriously as a leader when he’s blown all that money only to lose ground, when he can’t stop his hired rats from diving overboard. Focus on his mottled scars. Murmur about how even the best of men slow down with age.
    But then you think about how this guy aged early. You look at his awkwardness as he holds his coffee cup, and you think about how the North Vietnamese strung him up by his broken arms, and all he had to do to end it was agree to go home. But he wouldn’t.
    That was then, of course, but it’s just as bad now. Think about how you asked him several months ago why he thought he had to do something about immigration now, when the only people who cared passionately about the issue and would vote on the basis of that one thing were the ones who would hate him forever for being sensible about it. He had no excuse; he just thought it was the right thing to do.
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    You think of all the Democrats and “moderates” who egged him on when he was Bush’s No. 1 critic (which he still is, if you actually listen), but who now dismiss him as the president’s “lapdog” because he (gasp!) — supports the surge and actually, if you can stand it, thinks it’s working! These political goldfish forget that their favorite maverick criticized Bush for not sending enough troops, so of course he supports a “surge” when the president knuckles under and implements one.
    Oh, but don’t speak of such people dismissively. This ridiculously admirable guy at the end of the table, who long ago forgave both his communist torturers and the protesters at home who would have spit on him given the chance, won’t have it. When I speak less than flatteringly of the impatience of Americans on Iraq, he corrects me, and relates a list of perfectly good reasons for them to be fed up.
    So when it’s over, you try to produce a McCain column for Wednesday, but you can’t. Wednesday, Sam Brownback steps to the same plate, and your arm is fine. You interrogate the guy, assess him, reach a conclusion, and slap a column on the Thursday page. Three up, three down. You’ve got your stuff back.
    But Sunday’s deadline draws nearer, and it’s gone again. Desperate, you think: How about a bulleted list of what he said Monday? There’s plenty of it. Naw, that’s a news story, not an opinion column.
    And you know, you just know, that the one thing you can’t write is the truth, which is that you just admire the hell out of this infuriating old guy. The fans won’t stand for it. You can hear the beer bottles clattering around you on the mound already.
    But it’s no use. You just can’t get the ball across today.

For actual information regarding the McCain interview, and more, go to http://blogs.
thestate.com/bradwarthensblog/.

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John McCain videos

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Here are clips from portions of the editorial board’s meeting with John McCain on Monday. These, as usual on this blog, were shot by me with my little Canon digital still camera that also shoots short video clips.  You can find some higher-quality video from the meeting, shot by Andy Haworth of thestate.com, by following this link.

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"The Surge is Winning:"
McCain on Iraq

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"They didn’t believe us:"
Why the immigration bill failed

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Why we don’t need a draft:
McCain on the military

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"Look at the Region:"
The War on Terror, beyond Iraq

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"I’m prepared:"
Why he can, and should, win in 2008

  

‘Burn, Baby, Burn’: Team Swamp Fox destroys opium worth millions

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Just received the latest dispatch from our man on the Kandahar front. Here’s the PDF file of the full report. Here are some excerpts:

Southern Afghanistan 16 AUG 2007
Dear Family and Friends:
Well, three months, 25% of the deployment has passed and Team Swamp Fox is doing very well and making measurable progress mentoring the Afghan National Police (ANP). Since we began combat operations in our AO we have only had one day off. There is a great deal of work to be done and much terrain to be covered. There has been so much that has happened since my last update I am finding it very difficult to begin.

What follows is a series of pictures from numerous missions over the past several weeks which illustrate the challenges the Government of Afghanistan (GoA) faces in eliminating Taliban and Al Qaeda without and the corruption within. I am encouraged each day by my fellow Swamp Fox teammates as well as my ANP counterparts. As you know from my previous emails the ANP is struggling to clean its house of those that would rape, steal and murder the population they are charged with protecting. One of the most encouraging signs developing here is the team of ANP “Regulators” that Team Swamp Fox is mentoring. This is only one of our many responsibilities working with the ANP.

The Regulators are established to receive additional specialized training to exemplify the high standards that should be present in the ANP and be the enforcement of those standards on other ANP throughout the Province at the direction of the Provincial Police Chief. We know that we, the US or ISAF, cannot bring about the necessary and sustainable change ourselves. It must come within the ANP itself. To see ANP officers correcting others and being proud of the uniform they wear and proud of their service to their country gives us all encouragement. Just as impressive to us has been the devotion that has developed in the Regulators for the members of Team Swamp Fox and us for them. When the Regulators finish their training, they will then train others and those will train others and those others and so on.

As you can see from these photos we have demanded a great deal from them and they have met the challenge with each mission and with each training day and as a result security is improving….

Burn baby burn… Millions worth of raw opium goes up in smoke. It took more than a day for it to completely burn. Had these drugs not been destroyed, they would most likely have been processed for sale in the UK and US and the proceeds of which would be used to support TB and Al Qaeda.

Stacks of counterfeit US $100 Dollar bills created in another nearby country unfriendly to US interests to be exchanged into Afghan currency and used to support the TB and Al Qaeda operations in Afghanistan….

Having ANP ANA and American and Romanian Soldiers descend upon your home early in the morning can be an unnerving experience no matter your age. With every action we take we accompany an Information Operation (I/O) campaign so that we communicate the “who,” “what” and “why” we are present. By performing the cordon and search with the I/O campaign we connect with the locals and communicate the importance of their help and we send a clear message to the enemy…

TalibanThe Face of the Enemy… – One of the suspected Taliban fighters charged with
possession of illegal weapons,  ammunition, rocket and bomb making material in his  compound….

One of the best parts of the job is the kids. The first thing is they remind me of my own children at home and how proud I am of them. When seeing and Kids
speaking with the children and knowing the environment they are growing up in
how could you want anything else that for them than to have a secure and peaceful place in which to grow and learn. The girl’s school, which of course did not exists when the Taliban were in charge, is doing a fantastic job and the courses in both the boys and girls schools look very familiar and remind me of the challenges I had with such subjects as chemistry, algebra, physics and
geometry. They are also being taught English and they are all too proud to share
their knowledge as they point and say “bird” or “boy.”…

We all are privileged to serve our Country in this way. As do all who are deployed away from home, we miss our families and friends and we hope with each days work that it in some way merits the loss of our time with our families … that our work is making a difference. Even more so for those who have given all their tomorrows for this cause, we commit ourselves every morning to making sure that we leave this place better than we found it so that this place, Afghanistan, will never again be a place that exports the terrorism we saw visited upon our Nation on September 11, 2001. We have not forgotten why we are
here.

He is my refuge and my fortress; My God, in Him I will trust. Psalm 91
Cheers, J

Beau_geste

Audio: Brownback’s proposal to end the fear of cancer

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Here’s an interesting e-mail from someone who was traveling with Sam Brownback yesterday, and sat in on the editorial board meeting, but had a minor question about the accuracy of the way I quoted the candidate in one instance.

I pass it on because I think the attention Sen. Brownback would like to focus on cancer is worthwhile, and I hope it can gain some traction beyond his candidacy — which I’m afraid is probably not long for this sin-stained world.

Anyway, here is the question:

From: LOUIS W NEIGER
Sent: Thursday, August 16, 2007 10:32 AM
To: StateEditor, Columbia
Subject: Please forward to Brad Warthen

Mr. Warthen,
Your article in 8-16-07 concerning Brownback and the editorial board was I believe mostly fair.  One point I may suggest that you did not correctly high light what Brownback said. he would "end cancer in 10 years"
My notes show, Brownback  was saying, allowing government to loosen terminal cancer patients restrictions on new treatments and drugs and to investigate what will work and this would "end cancer in 10 years."
Your statement sounded like he personally would end cancer.
What did your tape say?????????
Thanks
Sincerely
Louis Neiger,CLU
Newberry

Here is my initial response:

You  left out
a crucial word from the quote. My column quoted him as saying he wanted to
"end DEATHS to cancer in 10 years." As I recall, he said he wanted to change
cancer from a terminal to a chronic disease.
 
I’ll see if I
can find that bit on my recording, and post it on my blog for you. You might
also want to look at the
blog version of my column, as it has links to additional
material.
 
— Brad
Warthen

And, most importantly, here is actual audio of what he said. (By some bizarre coincidence, I did quote him accurately.) An excerpt, for those who have trouble playing the clip, which goes to the heart of the distinction that might have caused Mr. Neiger to think my quote was inaccurate:

This will not end people getting cancer. People will still get it. But you’re gonna be able to treat it as a — what I want to do is be able to treat it as a chronic disease, not as a terminal one.

Sam Brownback of Kansas: The Beatific Conservative

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By BRAD WARTHEN
EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR
TO SAM BROWNBACK of Kansas, a “kinder, gentler” America is more than just a line from a speech by Peggy Noonan. It’s about who he is, what he believes. It’s about the kind of America he would like to lead.
    The bumper-sticker take on Mr. Brownback is that he’s the Christian Conservative in the GOP presidential field — or one of them, anyway. But in his case, we’re talking actual Christianity, as in the Beatitudes.
    Or maybe we’re talking Micah 6:8 — as president, he says he would act justly, love mercy and walk humbly.
    That’s what drew Columbia businessman Hal Stevenson, a board member and former chairman of the Palmetto Family Council, to the Brownback camp. He was disillusioned by “some of the so-called ‘Christian Right… I was looking for someone who exhibits, and walks the walk that they talk, and that’s a rare thing in politics.”
    When Sen. Brownback met with our editorial board Wednesday, I was impressed as well. I was struck by how interesting things can be when you get off the path beaten by national TV news and the covers of slick magazines. You find a guy who brings “Christian” and “conservative” together in ways that belie our common political vocabulary.
    Sure, he’s adamantly pro-life. But for him, that means being “whole life” as well — “Life’s sacred in the womb, but I think it’s also sacred in Darfur.” He’s just as concerned about genocide or starvation or slave traffic in Africa or North Korea as about abortion clinics in Peoria. Did he get there, as a Catholic convert, via the late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin’s “consistent ethic of life?” No — he explains that initially, he was more influenced by “the great theologian Bono.”
    This sort of atypical association plays out again and again. His plan for Iraq is the same as Joe Biden’s, quite literally. (You know Joe Biden — the Democrat who has campaigned in South Carolina the longest and hardest, the one who’s arguably the best-qualified candidate in that field, but you don’t hear about him much on TV? Yeah, that Joe Biden….) Their bill would partition the country more along the lines of the old Ottoman Empire.
    I have some doubts about that plan, but let’s suppose it worked, and we achieved some sort of stasis in Iraq. What about the next crisis, and the next one after that? What about Sudan, Iran, North Korea? What is America’s proper stance toward the world?
    “I think we’ve got to walk around the world wiser and more humble,” he said. It’s an answer you might expect from Jimmy Carter, or a flower-bedecked pacifist at an antiwar vigil. Sure, the true conservative position, from Pat Buchanan to George Will, has been one of aversion to international hubris. But Sam Brownback carries it off without a tinge of either fascism or pomposity, and that sets him apart.
    “Africa’s moving. Latin America is moving,” he said. “That’s where I’m talking about walking wiser and humbler. The first step in Latin America is going to be to go there and just listen.” Why is it, we should ask ourselves, “that a Chavez can come forward with his old, bad ideas, and win elections?”
“People in Latin America are saying, my quality of life has not improved.” And as a result, they’re willing to go with a dictator. “I think we need to go there and say, what is it we can do to help these economies grow…. It’s our big problem with Mexico and immigration.”
    Back to Africa: “This is a place where America’s goodness can really make a big difference to a lot of people in the world, and it would be in our long-term vital and strategic interest.”
    Asked about domestic issues, he cites “rebuilding the family” as his top concern. That may sound like standard, right-off-the-shelf Christian Right talk. But he comes to it more via Daniel Patrick Moynihan than James Dobson. He said he’s had it with beating his head against the brick hearts of Hollywood producers, and draws an analogy to smoking: Sure, people knew there was a connection between cigarettes and their nagging coughs, but Big Tobacco had room to dissemble until a direct, scientific line was drawn between their product and lung cancer.
    Just as the government now puts out unemployment statistics, he would have it gather and release data on out-of-wedlock childbirth, marriages ending in divorce, and the empirically demonstrable connections between ubiquitous pornography and a variety of social pathologies. He’d put the data out there, and let society decide from there how to react. But first, you need the data.
    His second domestic issue is energy (push electric cars) and his third is health care (he would “end deaths to cancer in 10 years”). He’s a conservative, but by no means one who wants government to butt out of our lives.
    “Humility, as a nation or as individuals, is an effective thing,” Mr. Stevenson said in explaining his support for Sen. Brownback. “It’s the right thing, and it’s also a Christian principle.”
    But that doesn’t mean you don’t take action. The Kansan summed up his attitude on many issues, foreign and domestic, in describing his reaction to Darfur: “Well you look at that, and you know that’s something that ought to be addressed… I mean, you’re the most powerful nation in the world… you can’t learn about these things and then say, well, I guess I’m just not going to do anything about it.”
    Well, some could. But it reflects to Sam Brownback’s credit that he says he could not.

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Tomorrow’s column: Sam Brownback

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My column tomorrow is from our first editorial board meeting with Sam Brownback of Kansas. The headline: "Sam Brownback of Kansas: The Beatific Conservative."

It should be available on the blog shortly after midnight.

For those who can’t wait, here’s a clip from the interview upon which the column is based:

  

McCain videos, and much better than the ones I shoot

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We’ve initiated something new for The State‘s editorial board. We’ve been tiptoeing up to it for a year or so, with my relatively unobtrusive gathering of video snippets from our meetings with newsmakers. But on Monday, when the board met with John McCain, Andy Haworth of thestate.com shot the whole thing on a real video camera — he’s got a tripod and everything — which is a far step beyond the low-res, no more than 180-second clips I’m able to grab with my little digital still camera.

I haven’t gotten around to posting anything yet from that meeting — too much to digest during the busy days that have ensued — but Andy’s put up some of his gleanings on thestate.com. You can find links to them here.

While I’ve been running around having lunch with a representative of the Edwards campaign, dropping by a Giuliani town-hall confab, posting video from that, meeting with Sam Brownback and writing a column for tomorrow about that, I have managed to get one key question answered regarding the McCain meeting Monday: Andy was curious about the Starbucks cup that played such a prominent role, looking almost like a Hollywood-style product placement. What sort of drink was it, and why did it have "Buzz" written on the side of it?

I had not noticed the "Buzz," but it was obviously a reference to Buzz Jacobs. So when I couldn’t reachBj_boling
him, I asked B.J. Boling (that’s him at left, listening to the senator’s speech to the Columbia Rotary Club) to find out for me what sort of drink it was. After a reader recently unjustly accused me of being a latte-drinker, seemingly attaching importance to such a choice, I was concerned about what the senator’s choice might reveal that was heretofore unknown. As a longtime McCain admirer, I worried about the "Buzz" — in my experience, they don’t write customers’ names on cups unless they ordered something fancy, if not something downright effete.

I asked him late Monday, and had still not heard back Tuesday morning, which had me doubly worried: What were they hiding? Please, please, tell me it wasn’t a caramel frapuccino!

B.J.’s response:

I left a message for you on your cell phone last night [which I had not yet played]. It was
regular coffee from Starbucks in the Vista.

… and the world resumed its accustomed shape.

Rudy speaking in Columbia on immigration, health care

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Rudy Giuliani was playing to a very small crowd — the seats immediately behind him were (as often the case with such events) stacked with some of his best-known local supporters, such as Rusty DePass and Gayle Averyt, hardly "faces in the crowd" in this town — but he was in fine form as he addressed his "town-hall" meeting at the Columbia Metropolitan Convention Center.

On both immigration and health care, he managed to slip in the idea that America is one heck of a great place (which it is). On immigration, that’s why all those bothersome illegals want to come here. On health care, the fact that folks who have a choice come to this country for health care rather than vice versa is in his book (but not in mine) evidence that we do, too have the best system among advanced countries.

Anyway, enjoy my rough videos from this afternoon’s session. (By the way, with regard to what I said about it being a "small crowd" — note that in the second clip, many of the seats in the not-so-well-lit sections were empty. I should add that at least a couple of those that were not empty were taken up by those lazy freeloaders in the working press.)

  

My week in the ‘phony’ Spin Cycle

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By BRAD WARTHEN
EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR
HAD  YOU asked me on Monday what I would be writing about for Sunday, a second column dealing — even peripherally — with presidential wannabe John Edwards would have been the last thing I would have guessed.
    Yet here I am. What choice do I have? I’ve spent so much time this past week dealing with the reaction from the first one that I haven’t had time to develop anything on another topic.
    It was just a midweek column, not worthy of a Sunday slot, a back-burner thing I had promised to address several months earlier on my blog, after readers challenged me for calling the man a “phony” without explaining the series of experiences that had led to that impression — which is all it was.
    (And in case you didn’t read that column and are wondering what those experiences were, I have neither the space nor inclination to repeat them here. They took up a whole column the first time. You can find it on my blog. The address is below.)
    But without ever intending or wanting to, I got caught up in the Spin Cycle of national politics. My musings had become, for that brief moment, Topic A — or at least B or C or D — and believe me: You don’t even want to be Topic Z in that alphabet.
    Subsequent events didn’t follow each other in any way that made sense, so I’ll just throw them out in no particular order:

  • The Drudge Report picked up my column Tuesday morning, which launched the craziness as much as any one thing.
  • The New York Post called asking to reprint it, which it did the following day under the headline, “POOR LITTLE PHONY: JOHN EDWARDS’ FAKE EMPATHY.”
  • Pmgift
    Dennis Miller of “Saturday Night Live” fame interviewed me on his radio show Thursday.
  • I got mocked by the “Wonkette”: “Brad Warthen of the South Carolina’s The State has a controversial opinion about John Edwards! His controversial opinion, which he, Brad Warthen, thought of himself, and which he is going to share… with you now, is as follows: John Edwards is a phony! A big fat phony!”
  • After two more radio shows called — one from Charlotte (for Thursday), another from Canada (for today), I called Andy Gobeil so that S.C. ETV wouldn’t miss out, and he had me on his show Friday morning.
  • My column was the lead political story on the Fox News network Tuesday night. Or rather, the response the Edwards campaign felt compelled to produce — and I do feel sorry for them for that — was the lead story. The story posted online began: “John Edwards’ campaign scoffed Tuesday at a new effort to depict the Democratic presidential candidate as phony after an influential columnist for a newspaper in Edwards’ birth state wrote that his personal experiences only reinforce his image of Edwards as plastic.”
  • My blog had its third-biggest day ever Tuesday with 5,825 page views, and its fourth-biggest on Wednesday. The biggest ever had been in June, when state Treasurer Thomas Ravenel was indicted. That made sense. This did not.
  • ABC News National Senior Correspondent Jake Tapper wrote on his blog about my “rather nasty op-ed” in these terms: “I personally find the evidence rather thin for such a scathing verbal attack.” Hey, if I had meant to mount a “scathing verbal attack,” I would have come up with some thicker stuff.
  • Someone named Pamela Leavey, writing on “The Democratic Daily,” said I was “Spewing Right-Wing Talking Points About John Edwards,” and thereby providing “a classic example of what’s wrong with our media.”

Obama_detail
    I guess I had been spewing “Left-Wing Talking Points” when I said nice things about Barack Obama the week before. Of course, Ms. Leavey wouldn’t know about that, because she had probably never heard of me before Tuesday. That was true of most of the people commenting.
    And yet, they seemed to think they knew an awful lot about me. Their confidence in passing judgment was far greater than my own. All I had done was describe impressions I had formed from actual experiences in my life. I didn’t consider them any better than anyone else’s experiences. When Zeke Stokes wrote in saying that when he worked on the Edwards campaign earlier this year he had formed a very different impression, I urged readers to take what he said every bit as seriously as what I had said.
    But folks out in the blogosphere or in the 24/7 political spin cycle don’t have time for reflections upon personal experience. They have a convenient short-hand vocabulary for passing judgment instantly upon anything and everything, and all of it is based in childishly simplistic, partisan labels: “He’s one of them! I don’t like them!” or “He’s one of us! Everything he says is true!”
    Among the more than 1,500 unread e-mails awaiting me Tuesday morning were quite a few from across the country praising or damning me for having expressed my opinion. Many were as shallow as Ms. Leavey’s “reflections.”
    But here and there were messages from someone who got the point, which was this: We all form subjective impressions, often unconsciously. In my column I tried to determine exactly when and where I had picked up the bits that formed my overall impression of this one guy among many running for president. I thought that such an airing would be mildly interesting to readers, who often wonder what sorts of gut “biases” inform what we write in the paper, and where they come from.
    A few readers appreciated that, saying that there had been something about Edwards that had nagged at them, and my column had helped them define it: “You hit something in me that I had not been able to figure out,” wrote Glenice Pearson. “Thanks for explaining what was wrong with him,” wrote Nancy Padgett. “I couldn’t figure out why I couldn’t enthuse even though he is a SC boy.”
    In turn, I appreciate those few readers who got it. The rest of it I could have done without.