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Words fail me. But the electorate didn’t.

It’s it for now. Thanks,

–MUDGE

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The last debate.

Three weeks to go.

Got me to reminisce about my early exposure to politics.

The first presidential debate I ever watched was the first modern presidential debate: Nixon v. Kennedy, 1960.

I was a kid, growing up in a very political household. My dad had been a precinct captain, and was soon to become Democratic township committeeman of our (before he took over) rock-ribbed Republican suburb.

My mother was the brains of the outfit, who had helped my dad go door to door to elect a Democratic congressman whose name was always gold in their house, even 40 years later, Barratt O’Hara.

The first television we had was purchased not to watch Uncle Miltie and the antics of Lucy and Desi, but rather was acquired to watch the conventions of 1952.

In late 1959, my parents began an impossibly quixotic quest: from our family room they created a national campaign to nominate Chester Bowles of Connecticut for president. Where this cockamamie idea came from I have no idea to this day. A very distinguished progressive politician. Before that, a phenomenally successful advertising executive. Once and future ambassador to India and Under Secretary of State.

Way too qualified for the presidency.

Yr (justifiably) humble svt spent many a weekend that year and through mid-1960 stuffing, addressing and stamping envelopes.

It was a simpler time. Stuffing envelopes in support of a national presidential campaign by hand, indeed.

My parents were crushed when they arrived in Los Angeles for the Democratic convention only to find the fix was in, and Jack Kennedy the landslide nominee.

They left, and took a much needed vacation to San Francisco. But, staying with my grandmother, my siblings and I watched that convention, and the Republican one.

So, aged 12, I accompanied my parents to the nearby Unitarian church, where several large screen TVs were set up for the local Democratic party faithful to watch the proceedings. Of course, this being 1960, the large screen TVs were maybe 25-inch.

But it made an impression.

Nixon: tricky,  in need of a shave for his five-o’clock shadow, not trustworthy.

Kennedy: youthful, dynamic, eloquent.

There was no doubt in my young mind who would win the election.

Fast forward 48 years. (O. M. G.)

Watched the debates (all four of them, start to finish) on MUDGElet No. 3′s 50-inch high definition TV, currently harbored (as is he) in our humble abode.

Can’t hide anything from high definition.

Tonight’s final McCain-Obama debate was the best one of their three, I think. McCain finally seemed to be prepared. Askew, but prepared. Way too focused on plumbers for some reason. Maybe it was something he ate.

And Obama seemed, as always, to have command of the facts and was typically imperturbable in the face of the odd grimaces and all too expected character attacks. Does anyone even slightly to the left of Attila the Hun really care about Bill Ayers?

McCain: Ancient, snarling, reptilian.

Obama: Knowledgeable, calm, reassuring.

As more than one observer has noted tonight, it seems inconceivable that one would willingly invite the former into your living room for the next four years. Jarring. Discordant. Discomforting.

Whereas Senator Obama … well, we’ve been listening to and watching him for many, many months now.

Cool under fire. Thoughtful. Capable.

The choice we citizens face November 4 — now, actually for the many states that are allowing early voting — has never seemed so strikingly clear.

The ugly past v. the handsome future.

And their looks have absolutely nothing to do with that comparison.

It’s it for now. Thanks.

–MUDGE

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Sometimes good things happen to good people.

Paul Krugman of Princeton University and the NYTimes, frequently quoted in this space, was awarded the 2008 Nobel Prize in Economics today.

This is worthy recognition to an outstanding thinker, who not only thinks the deep thoughts of his “dismal science,” but articulately delivers complex concepts with clarity.

Well done, Nobel committee, and Paul Krugman!

—————–

Last post, I spoke in glowing terms of one of my favorite progressive blogs, First Door on the Left.

Len did it again today (recognizing Paul Krugman, by the way) by posting the complete transcript of Barack Obama’s fleshed out economic rescue plan delivered in Ohio today.

A Rescue Plan for the Middle Class

Posted by Len on Monday at 1:19 pm in Democrats, Election 2008, Politics

I know these are difficult times. I know folks are worried. But I also know this – we can steer ourselves out of this crisis. Because we are the United States of America. We are the country that has faced down war and depression; great challenges and great threats. And at each and every moment, we have risen to meet these challenges – not as Democrats, not as Republicans, but as Americans.

We still have the most talented, most productive workers of any country on Earth. We’re still home to innovation and technology, colleges and universities that are the envy of the world. Some of the biggest ideas in history have come from our small businesses and our research facilities. It won’t be easy, but there’s no reason we can’t make this century another American century.

But it will take a new direction. It will take new leadership in Washington. It will take a real change in the policies and politics of the last eight years. And that’s why I’m running for President of the United States of America.

My opponent has made his choice. Last week, Senator McCain’s campaign announced that they were going to “turn the page” on the discussion about our economy so they can spend the final weeks of this election attacking me instead. His campaign actually said, and I quote, “if we keep talking about the economy, we’re going to lose.” Well Senator McCain may be worried about losing an election, but I’m worried about Americans who are losing their jobs, and their homes, and their life savings. They can’t afford four more years of the economic theory that says we should give more and more to millionaires and billionaires and hope that prosperity trickles down to everyone else. We’ve seen where that’s led us and we’re not going back. It’s time to turn the page.

Over the course of this campaign, I’ve laid out a set of policies that will grow our middle-class and strengthen our economy in the long-term. I’ll reform our tax code so that 95% of workers and their families get a tax cut, and eliminate income taxes for seniors making under $50,000. I’ll bring down the cost of health care for families and businesses by investing in preventative care, new technology, and giving every American the chance to get the same kind of health insurance that members of Congress give themselves. We’ll ensure every child can compete in the global economy by recruiting an army of new teachers and making college affordable for anyone who wants to go. We’ll create five million new, high-wage jobs by investing in the renewable sources of energy that will eliminate the oil we currently import from the Middle East in ten years, and we’ll create two million jobs by rebuilding our crumbling roads, schools, and bridges.

First Door on the Left » A Rescue Plan for the Middle Class

Click the link above, and read the entire speech. And, if you care to, Len has posted the video.

Details and substance in a statesman’s package. It’s not that much of a stretch: noble.

The contrast with the shrill, desperate bleating from the Republican opposition couldn’t be more stark.

Obama calmly talks numbers, carefully researched and thoughtfully delivered.

McCain and the redneckette shout what most voters are accurately recognizing as Faux News/talk radio inaccuracies, and more telling, irrelevancies.

“The only thing to fear is fear itself.” And McCain/redneckette are fearmongers of the classic, Republican stripe.

Citizens: On Nov. 4, cast your decisive vote against fear.

Sen. Obama: Now, make some room for a recent Nobel prize winner on your advisory team.

It’s it for now. Thanks.

–MUDGE

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As some observers have noted after the two conventions, there were lots of distractions, lots of words, but not much in the way of substance.

Especially regarding this nation’s number one concern.

Iraq, you ask?

That’s so 2007.

No, it’s the economy — rather, the very dangerous state of the economy.

Our Republican friends, plutocrats, or plutocrat wannabe’s, don’t believe we have a problem. McCain is and has always been insulated from the real world by, first, years as a Naval officer, where the pay might not be royal but subsidized expenses are low; then years as a prisoner of war, where the cost of living takes on an entirely ugly but non-financial meaning; then many more years as a Senator, married to wealth, a combination as isolated from the real world as it gets. He relies on his good buddy and close advisor on topics economic, former colleague Phil Gramm of Texas, who believes we’re all whiners.

The Democrats talked a spectacularly good ball game, but had little substantive to offer us.

Even so, based on their track record, one has to believe that the Democrats are more likely to get it than the Republicans, who have spent the last eight years aiding and abetting the liars and thieves on Wall Street and beyond.

Meanwhile, the news, and its import, is grim and becoming even more so.

The Power of De

Op-Ed Columnist | By PAUL KRUGMAN | Published: September 7, 2008

Save the home lenders, save the world? If only it were that simple.

The just-announced federal takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the giant mortgage lenders, was certainly the right thing to do — and it was done fairly well, too. The plan will sustain institutions that play a crucial role in the economy, while holding down taxpayer costs by more or less cleaning out the stockholders.

But Sunday’s action needs to be seen in a larger context — that of the attempt by the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department to contain the fallout from the ongoing financial crisis. And that’s a fight the feds seem to be losing.

We’ve come a long way from the days when Alan Greenspan declared a national housing bubble “most unlikely.” There was indeed a bubble, and since it popped two years ago home prices have fallen faster than they did during the Great Depression.

You got that, friends? Home prices have fallen faster in the past two years than they did during the Depression!

Except of course for the plutocrat class, who are apparently insulated from such plebeian concerns.

This great bail out leaves the CEOs of Fannie and Freddy licking their wounds with millions in severance and outlandish pay over the past several years while they directed their organizations into insolvency, and is symptomatic of tough, ugly times ahead.

Op-Ed Columnist – The Power of De – Op-Ed – NYTimes.com

So strategic thinkers, like Paul Krugman, see parallels with Japan, a country that just spent over a decade in an economic funk, that our own current problems threaten to renew for them.

It’s time for some substantive strategic thinking on rescuing the nation from this economic crisis from our presidential candidates.

If I dare to repeat myself, it’s going to take a liberal quantity of BOLD.

Senator McCain’s version of bold is his typically impulsive and reckless choice for vice presidential candidate, a political and religious wingnut. Palin makes Tricky Dick Cheney look like an accomplished statesman. After all his hidden agenda is only oil. And oil money.

Senator Obama, the ball is in your court.

Give your country something to chew on: a real plan to pull this country away from the abyss.

If you make sense, if you give people the substantive means, not just hopeful words, to see light at the end of this gloomy tunnel, then you win.

If you won’t, then I’m very afraid that you will be handing the election to those who vote on superficialities, not issues.

And I’m very afraid that those superficialities will beat you.

It’s ugly, I know, but true.

It’s it for now. Thanks,

–MUDGE

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MUDGE’s Musings

In case current events in the nation of Georgia haven’t made the fact crystal clear, yr (justifiably) humble svt is unhappy to inform you that the U.S. military hasn’t exactly covered itself in glory over the past nearly 20 years since the end of the Cold War.

And the diplomatic corps has similarly shown itself to be overstressed and undermanned.

Nicholas Kristof made the point this past weekend: the U.S. has more musicians in its military bands than it has diplomats!

And what Kristof’s story omits, due to rapidly breaking events, is the failure of both U.S. diplomacy and U.S. military strength during the Russian invasion of Georgia this past week.

Military strength? Well, we can’t simultaneously put sufficient boots on the ground to meet our objectives in Iraq and Afghanistan, much less come to the aid of a strategically critical ally, Georgia.

Diplomacy? A strong diplomatic corps might have foreseen (yes, hindsight is always 20:20) that Georgia was simultaneously taking U.S. and NATO support as more than words, while underestimating Vladimir Putin’s urge for regained empire, and warned Mikheil Saakashvili away from his adventuristic invasion of South Ossettia.

Or a diplomatic arm with some heft might have been able to forestall, or at least mitigate, Russia’s response. Putin may now be emboldened to exercise his brand of “diplomacy” over other, West-leaning, former states of the old Soviet empire, and the U.S. will be hard pressed to protect them, diplomatically or militarily, if it even figures out that this would be a useful strategy.

But George III is a happy warrior, as befits a civilian who took giant steps to avoid substantive military service, and diplomacy apparently doesn’t mean much to him, or it appears, to Congress.

Make Diplomacy, Not War

Op-Ed Columnist | By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF | Published: August 9, 2008

Iraq and Afghanistan are the messes getting attention today, but they are only symptoms of a much broader cancer in American foreign policy.

A few glimpses of this larger affliction:

¶The United States has more musicians in its military bands than it has diplomats.

¶This year alone, the United States Army will add about 7,000 soldiers to its total; that’s more people than in the entire American Foreign Service.

¶More than 1,000 American diplomatic positions are vacant because the Foreign Service is so short-staffed, but a myopic Congress is refusing to finance even modest new hiring. Some 1,100 could be hired for the cost of a single C-17 military cargo plane.

In short, the United States is hugely overinvesting in military tools and underinvesting in diplomatic tools. The result is a lopsided foreign policy that antagonizes the rest of the world and is ineffective in tackling many modern problems.

After all, you can’t bomb global warming.

We increasingly ask our military to be diplomats on the ground, a totally misguided and criminal misuse of force. Women and men trained to kill should hone their expertise in warfare, and leave diplomacy to unarmed experts in the language and culture.

And we love to spend billions on hardware, at the expense of all else.

For the price of one F-22, we could — for 25 years — operate American libraries in each Chinese province, pay for more Chinese-American exchanges, and hire more diplomats prepared to appear on Chinese television and explain in fluent Chinese what American policy is. And for the price of one M.R.E. lunch for one soldier, the State Department could make a few phone calls to push the Chinese leadership to respond to the Dalai Lama’s olive branch a few days ago, helping to eliminate a long-term irritant in U.S.-China relations.

Op-Ed Columnist – Make Diplomacy, Not War – Op-Ed – NYTimes.com

We have lost our way in the world, and one cannot be certain whether even a new administration will know what needs to be done to right the ship of state.

Barack Obama’s most glaring vulnerability is his lack of military, or global experience.

John McCain’s most frightening (from a pretty serious list) propensity is wild overstatements regarding the liberal use of military force.

100 more years in Iraq was not a misstatement, it was an unusually cogent (for this septuagenarian former POW) reflection of his world view: every problem in the world is a nail, and the U.S. military is a damned fine hammer.

This is wrong on every count (and I hope to have more on our current military failings perhaps as soon as tomorrow). The U.S. deserves so much better than its present Evangelical, neocon, mush-mouthed leader, and trading him for an adulterous, corrupt, overaged and showing signs of it every day, misspeaking leader would be a catastrophe on a truly global scale.

Give us a well spoken, analytical, reflective leader, who values diplomacy (and gave the world a brief preview during his “victory” tour a couple of weeks ago), and the nation might just have a chance to once again lead the planet in the important virtues:

Vigorous championship of human rights; leadership by example sustaining economic and political freedom for every one of its 6.5Billion inhabitants; and the resolution of inevitable conflict through substantive and skillful negotiation across a table, not at the business end of a laser guided bomb.

Rebuilding the Foreign Service would be a good start. Even at the expense of a few flugelhorns.

It’s it for now. Thanks,

–MUDGE

MUDGE’s Musings

Today (or, what’s left of it in the Western Hemisphere, this post having been delayed an hour at least thanks to a weird PC glitch), 13 August, is Left-Handers’ Day.

We have this information on the authority of www.anythingleft-handed.co.uk , an online commerce site that one might well believe has an incentive (indeed, if it is not responsible for the event altogether) to celebrate.

I’ve been a member of this organization (read: shop’s mailing list) for several months, but shortly after reading the announcement in email this morning, found a link to the above site in my hometown newspaper’s online instance, seemingly as news, not paid advertising.

As a publication that takes pride in its left-handedness in every way, what else could we do but create a suitable graphic representation of the day, with the help of MUDGElet No. 3, the only one of the three MUDGElets who, like his father, is left-handed.

By the way, the hirsute shaker in the portrayal above is yr (justifiably) humble svt. The decorated arm belongs to our artistic progeny, whose idea the piece was, should there have been any doubt.

One more item of note. The site’s Left-Hander of the Year 2008 is, wait for it, none other than the putative Democratic candidate for the presidency, one Barack Obama.

Top 10% of the population, indeed.

It’s it for now. Thanks,

–MUDGE

Note!: the link to Anything Left Handed used above is for the convenience of faithful reader and represents no commercial relationship whatsoever. Left-Handed Complement should be so fortunate as to ever collect remuneration of any kind for this endeavor, and in any event it’s against WordPress.com’s rules. I can link, so I link. It’s technology. It’s cool. It’s an artifact of Sequitur Service©. Deal with it.

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MUDGE’S Musings

Can anyone still doubt our national (perhaps global?) economic distress? Runs on the banks. A tank of gas edging toward Benjamin territory. Someone you know (or mayhaps many someones you know) out of work and/or looking. Or giving up looking. Starbucks (Starbucks!) closing 600 stores.

Let’s have a show of hands: How many of you (U.S.) readers believe that this Spring’s tax refund “stimulus” could have been an order of magnitude larger (that’s 10 times), and still not been enough?  Two orders (that’s times 100)?

It doesn’t go away, our concern with the dire state of the economy.

Paul Krugman, economics professor and columnist of the NYTimes has been consistent in identifying our present financial dismay, and he has some grim news — it’s not going to get better very quickly.

L-ish Economic Prospects

By PAUL KRUGMAN | Published: July 18, 2008

Home prices are in free fall. Unemployment is rising. Consumer confidence is plumbing depths not seen since 1980. When will it all end?

The answer is, probably not until 2010 or later. Barack Obama, take notice.

It’s true that some prognosticators still expect a “V-shaped” recovery in which the economy springs back rapidly from its slump. On this view, any day now it will be morning in America.

But if the experience of the last 20 years is any guide, the prospect for the economy isn’t V-shaped, it’s L-ish: rather than springing back, we’ll have a prolonged period of flat or at best slowly improving performance.

This is the real deal, folks, upper case ‘R’ Recession. And our next president is going to find it’s why he was elected, and is going to be under the gun to do the many substantive actions (as opposed to the laughably symbolic “stimulus” just handed down by George III — let them eat cake, indeed!) necessary to kick the economy back into gear.

Op-Ed Columnist – L-ish Economic Prospects – Op-Ed – NYTimes.com

American consumers propped up the economy (that was hemorrhaging manufacturing capacity and blue color (and trade union) jobs at a ferocious rate) for most of George III’s benighted presidency by using the ever increasing value of their home equity as an ATM.

Housing prices continue to plummet, and Prof. Krugman believes that they will continue to do so for no less than three more years. The colorful economic term for that ugly state of affairs, where one’s mortgage obligation is larger than the home’s new value, is “upside down.” It feels like that large red arrow plunging into tender flesh.

Many of us have stopped spending on anything more than the basics: food (how high is up?); shelter (oh my God, I owe more than it’s worth!); gasoline for our guzzlers. No wonder Starbucks has suddenly become a luxury to be done without, rather than a daily necessity for so many.

When voters find themselves (in record numbers, if trends can be believed) confronting their presidential and legislative choices in their polling places this November, their economic well being will more than likely drive those decisions, more than any other issue.

Paul Krugman believes that their logical decisions will result in the election of Barack Obama, who represents a change, no matter of what degree, from those failed and the fraudulent custodians of the national economy who need to be swept out of power (my characterization not his!).

One can only hope that he and his brain trust aren’t so focused on the short term (i.e., November 4) that they’re not ready to start immediately to set their new government on a path that leads directly toward economic recovery, stat.

Hiring on expert, articulate, wise men like Paul Krugman would be an excellent beginning.

It’s it for now. Thanks,

–MUDGE

As I begin to write, shortly after 8:00pmCDT, CNN is telling the world that Barack Obama has amassed sufficient delegates to clinch the Democratic party’s nomination for president of the United States.

As an interested observer of history, notwithstanding whatever personal feelings one might have or not about Obama the candidate, one cannot help but be quietly amazed at this turn of events, once so unlikely and tonight so inevitable.

I was born in 1948. Yeah, okay, old enough to be your grandfather, perhaps. But, take it from me, 1948 was not that long ago.

In 1948 racial segregation was a fact of life for most African Americans. That year, President Harry Truman signed an executive order ending racial segregation in the U.S. armed forces, although it took several more years to take effect throughout the military. Less than a year before I was born, Jackie Robinson became the first African American to play for a major league baseball team. Today, we take for granted our integrated military force, and our integrated sports teams, in fact both would be curiously empty otherwise.

Now, a majority of voters in this endless Democratic primary season that began 18 months ago after the mid-term election of 2006, have chosen an African American candidate to campaign for the U.S. presidency in November.

Senator Obama, who burst upon the national scene when he delivered a rousing address during the 2004 Democratic convention, and who thereafter proved that delivering astoundingly inspirational speeches is one of his consistent talents (positively bracing in this age of the Southwestern mumble-mouthed mis-spokenness that passes for presidential speech these days — you’ll find some of Obama’s best efforts slickly packaged here and unadorned but magnificent here) has out organized, out fund-raised, out campaigned and simply out-inspired every other Democratic candidate, including, ultimately, this season’s other ground-breaking candidate, Sen. Hillary Clinton.

As I’ve written previously, this nation is more than ready for a woman to take office as its president. There are any number of talented women in politics who have the capacity to fill that incredibly demanding position.

But. Not. This. Woman. Too much baggage, not the least of which is her “husband,” former President Bill Clinton.

At 8:37pmCDT, I pause to listen to Sen. Clinton’s speech in New York City, where she had a chance to concede gracefully. And, missed that opportunity.

There’s a school of thought out there that at this point she is holding out for the vice presidential position. There’s another school of thought that she simply is too ornery to bow out gracefully. There’s yet another school of thought that says that anything can happen during the chaos of your typical Democratic convention. All of these may be true.

None of this lessens the historical import of this day, where an African American man, born of an interracial marriage still illegal in many states of the Union at the time he was born, raised by his white single mother and her parents, has, according to the rules of his party, won sufficient delegates to secure the presidential nomination.

Assuming Sen. Clinton is persuaded, or persuades herself, that further blood in the water only provides hope to a reeling Republican party that deserves none, the McCain-Obama battle for the general election should be fun to watch.

And, historic every day.

It’s it for now. Thanks,

–MUDGE

Faithful reader (if s/he indeed is faithful) is probably disgusted with this nanocorner of the ‘Sphere© lately, as we’ve been rehashing good old stuff rather than creating good new stuff here.

As I reflect on my lethargic approach to blogging this past week, my analysis finds that it’s partly due to the demands of the bill paying occupation, and partly my failure to extricate from the zillions of new pages popping up every day in said ‘Sphere a nugget of insight upon which to build.

Didn’t really want to write about the Democrats’ Clinton/Obama soap opera. Although, I commend to your attention Eric Zorn of yr (justifiably) humble svt‘s hometown Chicago Tribune on why Sen. Clinton is the wrong running mate for Obama.

So that left me with — what? Reruns, and this during sweeps month, too!

Tonight though, finally, revelation. Christopher Dickey of Newsweek makes a thought connection regarding the cesspool that is our Iraq adventure that makes such great sense that one is tempted to slap oneself, saying “it’s so obvious — why didn’t I think of that?”

I didn’t. Dickey did. Read and learn.

Slaughterhouse Beirut

Lebanon’s chances for meaningful reconstruction are diminishing by the day. And despite Bush’s bravado, it’s going to be the same in Iraq.

Newsweek.com |Christopher Dickey | May 13, 2008 | Updated: May 13, 2008

If you want to know what Iraq will look like 25 years from now, look at Lebanon today. The similarities and differences—but mainly the similarities—raise a lot of painful memories and questions for
Americans.

This fact hit me once again when I was talking to Mike Sheehan, who is one of the more clear-eyed analysts of terrorism and the way we react to it. The subject came up of Beirut as it is now, a bloody mess, and as it was when Mike and I first focused on it a quarter-century ago, when it was even bloodier.

Back then President Ronald Reagan waded into the Levantine quagmire, quickly understood that he had made a big miscalculation, and withdrew. “Some counterterrorism experts argue the Reagan pullout from Lebanon was a mistake and emboldened future terrorists,” says Sheehan. “I never bought this analysis, then or now. I think it was one of the smartest things Reagan did during his tenure—to get out of the Lebanese civil war. To stay in any war to ‘make a statement’ has never made sense to me. You have to have well-defined interests and achievable goals when you put American soldiers in harm’s way; both seemed to be missing in Lebanon. Reagan recognized it and withdrew.”

Aha! Lebanon. Filled with religious factions, armed to the teeth. Filled with proxies of foreign nations with mischief on their minds eager to fill the ever present power vacuum (read: Syria and Iran). And the scene of U.S. intervention, that failed in a bloody and ultimately ignominious fashion.

A dysfunctional “state” for many, many years, and, as Dickey observes, not likely to improve.

And yet, whether the United States stays in Iraq or goes, “Lebanonization” is the most likely result: a foundering half-failed state where neighbors fight proxy battles through sectarian militias and through the many factions in a government that is unable to govern at all. There will be times of war when life seems to go on almost as normal, and times of peace when it seems not to. There will be spurts of investment, maybe even tourism. There will be festivals of democratic excitement. And then sudden storms of savage violence will sweep through the streets of the capital, only to subside, then erupt in smaller cities, and subside. And erupt again. And so it goes, to borrow the old refrain from Kurt Vonnegut’s novel “Slaughterhouse Five.” If the world pays any attention at all, the span will be brief. The fighting and the failures to govern will have gone on so long that nothing seems new in that news.

We failed to fix Lebanon; perhaps it is permanently unfixable. Did we learn from that experience, strategically, politically, militarily?

On the day the last Marine combat unit pulled out of Lebanon in 1984, a television interviewer asked then-Secretary of State George Shultz if that meant a victory for the bad guys. He could not but equivocate: “This is a kind of warfare, really, that is something different for us … We have to improve our intelligence capability, and we have to think through how, within the concept of the rule of law, which we hold so dear, we can take a more aggressive posture toward what is a worldwide and very undesirable trend.” That was 24 years ago, and we’re still thinking it through.

Finally! Now it’s possible to understand Iraq.

Religious factions and militias, armed to the teeth, bent on senseless slaughter. Units on the ground that are proxies for mischief making states and anti-Western cells.

And the scene of U.S. intervention that, despite egregious losses of blood and treasure, shows no signs whatsoever that what ails Iraq will ever be permanently fixable.

[Please click the link below for the complete article -- but then please come on back!]

Dickey: Why Iraq Will End Up Like Lebanon | Newsweek International | Newsweek.com

To all those who say: “you can’t just up and leave!” I can now respond: your great hero Ronald Reagan up and left Lebanon all those years ago.

Lebanon didn’t get better when we arrived; it certainly has gotten worse since we left.

Okay: what have we learned tonight?

1. Iraq is an ugly example of a political entity, artificially created by a European power with arbitrary borders disdainful of hundreds of years of tribal and religious sectionalism, whose creation thus contained the seeds of its own destruction, now playing on a CNN broadcast near you. Doubt this? Take a close look at Lebanon. Some dysfunctional states are unfixable.
2. And, keep an eye out for what’s going on in Africa, filled with nations like Rwanda, Sudan and Zimbabwe, artificially created by a European power with arbitrary borders disdainful of hundreds of years of tribal and religious sectionalism, whose creation thus contained the seeds of its own destruction, now playing on a CNN broadcast near you. Let’s try not to intervene militarily too enthusiastically there, please.
3. Come November, let’s send old 100-year war McCain slinking back to his comfortable Senate seat where his pointlessly dangerous testosterone can be contained.
4. Let’s get our boots out of Iraq’s pointlessly dangerous dust and safely home, soonest.

It’s it for now. Thanks,

–MUDGE

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Let’s be geopolitically strategic today.

Our writers here make the point that, while we (manifestly!) weren’t paying attention, that superpower status we earned by being the last country standing after World War II, and defended so expensively during the ensuing Cold War, has quietly left the building.

From a new addition to our blogroll, Tom Engelhardt’s  TomDispatch.com, comes this bracing wake-up call.

Tomgram: Michael Klare, America Out of Gas

TomDispatch.com | posted May 08, 2008 11:01 am

These days, the price of oil seems ever on the rise. A barrel of crude broke another barrier Wednesday — $123 — on international markets, and the talk is now of the sort of “superspike” in pricing (only yesterday unimaginable) that might break the $200 a barrel ceiling “within two years.” And that would be without a full-scale American air assault on Iran, after which all bets would be off.

Considering that, in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks, oil was still in the $20 a barrel price range, this is no small measure of what the Bush administration years have really accomplished. Today, it’s hard even to remember not 9/11, but 11/9 — November 9, 1989 — the day that the Berlin Wall fell, signaling that, soon enough, after its seventy-odd year life, that Reaganesque Evil Empire, the Soviet Union, was heading for the door. In 1991, it disappeared from the face of the Earth without a whimper. Until almost the last moment, top officials in Washington assumed it would go on forever; and, when it was gone, most of them couldn’t, at first, believe it. Soon enough, however, the event was hailed as the greatest of American triumphs — “victory” not just in the Cold War, but at a level never before seen. Finally, for the first time in history, there was but a single superpower on the planet….

Almost seven and a half years later, as Michael Klare so vividly indicates below, an observer might be pardoned for wondering whether there hadn’t been two super losers in the Cold War. Had the Soviet Union, the weaker of the two great powers of the second half of the last century, simply imploded first, while the U.S., enwreathed in a cloud of self-congratulation, was almost unbeknownst to itself also slowly making its way toward an exit? And, as a final irony, Klare — author of the not-to-be-missed new book Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet — points out, energy has refloated Russia, even as it’s sinking us. Tom

Portrait of an Oil-Addicted Former Superpower

How Rising Oil Prices Are Obliterating America’s Superpower Status
By Michael T. Klare

Nineteen years ago, the fall of the Berlin Wall effectively eliminated the Soviet Union as the world’s other superpower. Yes, the USSR as a political entity stumbled on for another two years, but it was clearly an ex-superpower from the moment it lost control over its satellites in Eastern Europe.

Less than a month ago, the United States similarly lost its claim to superpower status when a barrel crude oil roared past $110 on the international market, gasoline prices crossed the $3.50 threshold at American pumps, and diesel fuel topped $4.00. As was true of the USSR following the dismantling of the Berlin Wall, the USA will no doubt continue to stumble on like the superpower it once was; but as the nation’s economy continues to be eviscerated to pay for its daily oil fix, it, too, will be seen by increasing numbers of savvy observers as an ex-superpower-in-the-making.

As I read this, a colorful image popped into mind. From a crime novel of John D. MacDonald’s pre-Travis McGee days, he wrote a scene of a hired killer going after a middle-aged politician, with a very thin, very sharp implement the style and shape of a knitting needle. The assassin “stumbles,” brushes against his target, deftly plunges the slender needle into the hapless victim’s heart, withdraws it and quickly melts away. Meanwhile the 55-ish politician, used to the various aches and pains that are part and parcel of encroaching age, pays limited attention to the brief twinge he feels in his chest (what’s another twinge?), and keeps walking for a short time, bleeding internally. Essentially already dead.

While the U.S. walked in the sunshine, basking in its status of the globe’s only superpower, history brushed against us. According to Michael Klare, we are about to discover that our vaunted status has disappeared.

The Klare piece is quite colorful in its descriptions of exactly what rabbit hole we’ve thrown ourselves down, including allowing Iraq to charge our military market rates for fuel (which our high-tech military is using at the rate of 27 gallons per soldier per day!) while charging its citizens one-third of that. Not exactly superpower behavior.

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Tomgram: Michael Klare, America Out of Gas

It’s going to require some clear, out of the box reflection to confront the outcome of our new status in the world.

We no longer can depend on our usual, brute force, finesse-free approach to geopolitics to achieve our aims.

Many cogent military writers have noted that World War II, on which our superpower stature was founded, was won not through excellent strategy (the professional officer corps of the Germans was far more competent) or courageous soldiering (the Samurai spirit of the Japanese soldier was unmatched), although there were adequate amounts of both.

Rather, the overwhelming industrial might that put thousands of ships in the water (at one point, one “Liberty ship” oceangoing cargo craft was launched each day!) and aircraft in the air and tanks (not great tanks, but good enough) on the ground, and was simultaneously able to furnish petroleum and materiel to our allies Britain and the Soviet Union in war-winning quantities, was what won the war for the U.S.

That’s not military or diplomatic finesse. That’s brute force. And today’s hollowed out industrial engine couldn’t duplicate such an effort.

We’re in hock up to our eyebrows, dependent on smiling sheikhs for our ability to commute to work, possessing a bunch of fair weather friends who may disappear when the holey state of our umbrella is discerned.

Seems like some new thinking may be required of this country’s leaders.

One of the current three candidates for president seems to be capable of eschewing business as usual (Barack Obama’s refusal to jump on the let them eat cake pandering of McCain’s and Clinton’s gas tax holiday proposal is a promising signal).

Rather makes irrelevant the color of his skin, doesn’t it?

It’s it for now. Thanks,

–MUDGE

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Three days after first published, this column by Thomas Friedman is still among the NYTimes’ most emailed stories. I’ve had it on my shelf since then, thought its time might have passed, but the fact that it’s still in such strong circulation made it the perfect candidate for yr (justifiably) humble svt‘s post no. 400 at this nanocorner of the ‘Sphere©.

In all the noise of an endless political season, Friedman discerns a message that obviously resonates with his audience.

Who Will Tell the People?

Op-Ed Columnist | By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN | Published: May 4, 2008

Traveling the country these past five months while writing a book, I’ve had my own opportunity to take the pulse, far from the campaign crowds. My own totally unscientific polling has left me feeling that if there is one overwhelming hunger in our country today it’s this: People want to do nation-building. They really do. But they want to do nation-building in America.

They are not only tired of nation-building in Iraq and in Afghanistan, with so little to show for it. They sense something deeper — that we’re just not that strong anymore. We’re borrowing money to shore up our banks from city-states called Dubai and Singapore. Our generals regularly tell us that Iran is subverting our efforts in Iraq, but they do nothing about it because we have no leverage — as long as our forces are pinned down in Baghdad and our economy is pinned to Middle East oil.

In this age of 24 hour media coverage that blows every hiccup of a celebrity or a candidate into breathtaking NEWS!; in this age of “spin;” in this age of fiddling while Rome burns ["reality" television my a--!]; Friedman says that the American people are, at long last, ready for Reality.

We need a president who is tough enough to tell the truth to the American people.

[Please click the link below for the complete article -- but then please come on back!]

Who Will Tell the People? – New York Times

Friedman sees value in the aspirational messages of Barack Obama.

… the notion that the idealism he has inspired in so many young people doesn’t matter is dead wrong.

Electing leaders who will lead the country out of its unseemly decline should be the criteria for November. The true patriot is the one who sees what’s wrong with her or his country, knows, perhaps from personal experience, what greatness is possible, and inspires all of its citizens to bend to the task of making things right.

Measured to that scale, is there any doubt about who should be the next president?

It’s it for now. Thanks,

–MUDGE

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Is anyone listening, really listening hard, to what the eccentric Rev. Jeremiah Wright has been saying?

I admit to superficially following the headlines on this one. He’s made some outrageous claims from the pulpit, regarding the origins of AIDS and 9/11, and his one-time parishioner, Barack Obama, has been attempting to distance himself from the outrage for the past several months.

But Wright outdid himself Sunday speaking to the NAACP in Detroit, referencing an entire generation of soft-headed academic studies that purport to explain away African Americans’ failures to succeed educationally.

Poisonous “Authenticity”

Jeremiah Wright draws on a long line of Afrocentric charlatans.

Heather Mac Donald | 29 April 2008

The list of Afrocentric “educators” whom Reverend Jeremiah Wright has invoked in his media escapades since this Sunday is a disturbing reminder that academia’s follies can enter the public world in harmful ways. Now the pressing question is whether they have entered presidential candidate Barack Obama’s worldview as well.

Some in Wright’s crew of charlatans have already had their moments in the spotlight; others are less well known. They form part of the tragic academic project of justifying self-defeating underclass behavior as “authentically black.” That their ideas have ended up in the pulpit of Chicago’s Trinity United Church of Christ and in Detroit’s Cobo Hall, where Wright spoke at the NAACP’s Freedom Fund dinner on Sunday, reminds us that bad ideas must be fought at their origins—and at every moment thereafter.

It is truly frightening to believe that a segment of our culture accepts as true the wrong-headed absurdities Wright trotted out Sunday.

Approving of self-destructive behavior in school is just one part of the vast academic project to justify black underclass dysfunction. The academy has also singled out crime as authentically black, another poisonous idea that Wright appears to have embraced. In his NAACP speech, he mocked the tendency of “those of us who never got caught” to treat “those of us who are incarcerated” with disrespect. In other words, we all commit crime, but only some of us get nabbed for it.

Do sensible people of any race really buy into this?

[Please click the link below for the complete article -- but then please come on back!]

Poisonous “Authenticity” by Heather Mac Donald, City Journal 29 April 2008

And of course the real question, the dead serious question: Senator Obama, is this what you believe? Should you win the White House, is it your goal to accept such academic claptrap as the basis for your administration’s education and law enforcement policies?

It’s no longer enough to “denounce” such dangerous nonsense in generalities any longer. You, Senator, yourself, are Exhibit One in contradiction to everything Wright believes about our culture.

Stand up and say so.

It’s it for now. Thanks,

–MUDGE

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Stop me if you’ve heard this one.

A funny thing happened on the way to Barack Obama’s coronation as the Democratic presidential candidate.

That’s if you consider Hillary Clinton funny.

She just keeps winning large elections in important states, the latest, Pennsylvania, the other day. It’s Hillaryus, to borrow an oft-coined a phrase.

Gail Collins in today’s NYTimes has the correctly humorous perspective:

Hillary’s Smackdown

By GAIL COLLINS | Published: April 24, 2008

The clamor for Hillary Clinton to drop out of the presidential race has reached new levels of intensity since the Pennsylvania primary. Of all the things Hillary has done, Obama supporters find her tendency to win large elections in swing states as by far the most irritating. If she beats him in Indiana, they’ll be surrounding her house with torches.

“Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton is back!” cried Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter to the cheering crowd at the victory bash on Tuesday.

The smoothly oiled money-raising high-momentum phenomenon that has been the Obama campaign for the past several months keeps running into reality. Her name is Hillary.

Despite organizational dysfunction, in spite of difficulties raising funds, in spite of the prospective First Gentleman, Senator Clinton seems to be more electable in the large population states than her charismatic opponent.

How absolutely galling for Senator Obama and his idealistic supporters!

[Please click the link below for the complete article -- but then please come on back!]

Hillary’s Smackdown – New York Times

Technically, Obama has more delegates pledged, but this stubborn issue of electability is likely to keep the pot boiling until the convention. Ms. Clinton has every right to keep jabbing away, and it’s probably an excellent character revealing exercise for those who’ve been starry-eyed when viewing the junior Senator from Illinois.

It is this observer’s prediction that the superdelegates will realize their collective dreams to become, for the first time in more than –what?– 75 years, the sovereign-makers in their (politically correctly smokeless) smoke-filled rooms in Denver this summer.

All this while elderly (and showing it in some unexpected ways) Senator McCain can sit on the sidelines basking in the glow of a once insurmountable Democratic lead brought down to earth. And both of his potential foes are providing him his general election ammunition, free of charge.

But, it’s okay. If the Democratic Party finds a way to lose a historically can’t-lose election to a morally bankrupt Republican party that has chewed up our nation’s present and endangered the globe’s future, then that should be the wake up call that those of us of the liberal persuasion need to finally make the changes that need to be made.

As the Federalists and Whigs could tell us if they were still with us, political parties can look around and suddenly find themselves obsolete. This may be that time for the Democrats, if friendly fire causes the party to lose this can’t lose election.

In the meantime, Barry, if I may be so bold as to call you Barry, please remember a hoary (political) adage, originally uttered by Friedrich Nietzsche:

That which doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.

Here’s some no-charge (and worth every penny) advice for all three candidates.

Probably the most critical personal requirement any potential leader of the free world (as opposed to this era’s two pernicious attributes: to raise $zillions by promising everything to every Daddy Warbucks; and look marvelous on television):

Show us some grace under fire.

Rise above the mud-wrestling. Be a visionary leader. Win this election on merit, rather than simply being the least worst choice.

Right about now, yr (justifiably) humble svt can’t see who would exactly be that least worse choice, much less the most meritorious one. And that’s a most unexpected place to be on April 24th in this confounding election season.

It’s it for now. Thanks,

–MUDGE

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He could have spoken anywhere; that’s what the communications age is all about. Perhaps he should have spoken in Pennsylvania; after all, its April 22nd primary represents the next towering challenge to his candidacy.

But, he spoke in New York City, because that’s where beats the economic heart of the country (and not too long ago, the planet). And his speech was about our economic distress, the Wall Street half of the equation, where “pain trickled up.”

An interesting site, new to Left-Handed Complement, “The Reality-Based Community” has been added to our blogroll with alacrity. There, yr (justifiably) humble svt found some incisive analysis, and, usefully, a transcript of this powerful statement.

Obama on the economy

March 27, 2008 | Posted by Mark Kleiman

Public images, once established, are hard to change, and it isn’t going to be easy for Barack Obama to escape the “pretty words, no substance” label that his opponents and some journalists have tried to pin on him. But if anything could do it, today’s Cooper Union speech ought to.

Those familiar mainly with the Obama of the stump speeches, the election-night speeches, and the Ebeneezer Baptist Church address on MLK Day — the Obama of the “Yes We Can” music video — will find the Cooper Union lecture a significant change of pace. No soaring images, not much poetry, few applause lines, lots of analysis and substantive proposals, only one Obama-esque turn of phrase in describing the current crisis in mortgage-backed paper:

“What was bad for Main Street was bad for Wall Street. Pain trickled up.”

The speech itself: workmanlike, serious, substantive.

For those who like pictures to go along with the words, here’s the video. For all the words in print form, click the link below.

[Please click the link below for the complete article -- but then please come on back!]

The Reality-Based Community: Obama on the economy

Obama began his talk with a brief history lesson, going back to the Founding Fathers.

It’s this sense of history that drew him, I’m certain, to Cooper Union, the scene of a very influential speech by a then little-known presidential candidate named Lincoln, in 1859.

Consider Barack Obama.

A speaker unafraid to share substantive ideas, rather than the usual politician’s sloganeering, in adult language.

Boldly framing his context to the designers of this country, most relevantly Alexander Hamilton, one of history’s great polymaths and a great economic actor too little appreciated today.

And choosing to speak in a locale subtly redolent of presidential history, a reflection of our greatest president, who was in that place 149 years ago magnificently eloquent in his own time of American crisis.

And, Michael Bloomberg introduced him.

What a ticket that would be!

It’s it for now. Thanks,

–MUDGE

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Can’t help it! It’s like a tennis match, this run-up to the Democratic convention.

Ooh, she hit a good one!

Swack! He got her good on that one!

Etc.

And, the happiest tennis fan in the stadium is John McCain, who sees the Democrats doing the heavy lifting for he and the until recently hapless Republican party. They’ve gotta be figuring that Clinton and Obama are dealing each other unrecoverable blows; they’ll be too exhausted to put up a defense against him come the general election, and McCain and the Republicans must be taking notes on what stroke aimed where is the most effective.

End of the tennis allusion; never my game, actually. (I was left-handed before left-handed tennis was glamorous.) But, you see its appropriateness.

He’s winning; she and her staff are working at fever pitch to stop him. Kind of ugly out there.

And the professional commentariat notices (as, of course, do we modestly talented amateurs):

Hillary or Nobody?

By MAUREEN DOWD | Published: March 26, 2008

While the cool cat’s away, the Hillary mice will play.

As Barack Obama was floating in the pool with his daughters the last few days in St. Thomas, some Clinton disciples were floating the idea of St. Hillary as his vice president.

She can’t win without him, said one Hillary adviser, and he can’t win without her.

They’re stuck with each other.

It’s one of my favorite movie formulas, driving the dynamics in such classics as “A Few Good Men,” “The Big Easy” and “Guys and Dolls”: Charming, glib guy spars and quarrels with no-nonsense, driven girl, until they team up in the last reel. He spices up her life, and she stiffens his spine. And soon they hear the pitter-patter of little superdelegate feet, who are thrilled not to be pulled in two directions anymore.

And everybody’s happy. Or are they?

Dowd sees a downright Machiavellian twist: beat up Obama, let McCain win, and…

Even some Clinton loyalists are wondering aloud if the win-at-all-costs strategy of Hillary and Bill — which continued Tuesday when Hillary tried to drag Rev. Wright back into the spotlight — is designed to rough up Obama so badly and leave the party so riven that Obama will lose in November to John McCain.

If McCain only served one term, Hillary would have one last shot. On Election Day in 2012, she’d be 65.

Plausible, in an “inside the beltway” sort of analysis. Ugly though.

[Please click the link below for the complete article -- but then please come on back!]

Hillary or Nobody? – New York Times

So, if this was just Maureen Dowd, one could chalk it up to “how am I going to fill the column inches today?” and move on.

Exhibit 2, from the day before:

The Long Defeat

By DAVID BROOKS | Published: March 25, 2008

Hillary Clinton may not realize it yet, but she’s just endured one of the worst weeks of her campaign.

It seems fairly clear from Brooks’ reading of the tea leaves, that Clinton can most likely not gain the nomination. Her chances now?

Last week, an important Clinton adviser told Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen (also of Politico) that Clinton had no more than a 10 percent chance of getting the nomination. Now, she’s probably down to a 5 percent chance.

Five percent.

Let’s take a look at what she’s going to put her party through for the sake of that 5 percent chance: The Democratic Party is probably going to have to endure another three months of daily sniping. For another three months, we’ll have the Carvilles likening the Obamaites to Judas and former generals accusing Clintonites of McCarthyism. For three months, we’ll have the daily round of résumé padding and sulfurous conference calls. We’ll have campaign aides blurting “blue dress” and only-because-he’s-black references as they let slip their private contempt.

And here’s the cruelest quote of all:

When you step back and think about it, she is amazing. She possesses the audacity of hopelessness.

Brooks thinks she should do the right thing, wait for the right moment (but a soon moment), and withdraw.

[Please click the link below for the complete article -- but then please come on back!]

The Long Defeat – New York Times

Now to Exhibit 3:

Obama has not only out-campaigned her, she’s also done an excellent job of stabbing herself in the eyeball.

This from one of our favorite writers at Slate, Emily Yoffe, posting in Slate’s “The XX Factor” blog:

Experience?

By Emily Yoffe | Published Thursday, March 27, 2008 1:05 PM

One of Hillary Clinton’s rationales for staying in the race when she was getting battered in a string of defeats was that she was so much more experienced than Barack Obama, that over time his inexperience would cause him to stumble. That would leave Clinton, having been so gruelingly tested over so many years, ultimately victorious. But isn’t it ironic that now a central Clinton claim on the presidency—her experience—is making her look foolish.

One “exaggeration” after another, all that experience. “First Lady” is a very polite title; but it’s not “Vice President” for heaven’s sake!

[Please click the link below for the complete article -- but then please come on back!]

The XX Factor : Experience?

So, let’s put these “mis-remembered” incidents into context. As the video that outed Mrs. Clinton this week shows, there are people who were there, and remember what was happening in Bosnia with, let’s just say, more certain accuracy.

Exhibit 4:

Imagined Snipers, Real Challenges

By ROGER COHEN | Published: March 27, 2008

Here’s some news for Hillary Clinton: the Bosnian war was over in 1996.

Those of us, like myself, who first went to Bosnia at the start of the war in 1992 and then, in 1994 and 1995, endured President Bill Clinton’s circumlocutions as we sat in an encircled Sarajevo watching pregnant women getting blown away by shelling from Serbian gunners, know that…

So, yes, the war was well and truly over when Hillary Clinton arrived in the northeastern Bosnian town of Tuzla on March 25, 1996. It was over, although she recently recalled “landing under sniper fire.” It was over when “we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base.”

So what’s this all about, these lies about experience? Seems straightforward to me: it’s SOP today to distort, or lie outright on one’s résumé. For a journalist to make up quotes if the real ones are too inconvenient to acquire. For autobiographers to totally invent a colorful past. CEO’s invent college credentials. It’s a trend, folks, an ugly trend, and if it’s unseemly for our journalists, our autobiographers, our television stars, it’s absolutely outrageous for this nation’s leaders. Cohen says,

Clinton made up Bosnian sniper fire in an attempt to show that she’s tougher than Barack Obama; that she’s a hardened, seasoned, putative commander in chief ready to respond to crisis when the “red phone” of her fear-mongering ad rings.

John McCain’s own recent “misspeaking” about Iran, placing (Sunni) Al Qaeda in (Shiite) Iran, also smacked of muscle-flexing: he wanted to signal toughness to the mullahs in Tehran, where Obama has suggested he’d seek dialogue.

Cohen’s point: this country needs reflection, not reflexive reaction. This country needs intellect; we’ve had quite enough macho cowboy “shoot first and ask questions later” to last us forever.

The obvious contrast to shrill Hillary, and past his prime McCain? Erudite, reflective, Barack Obama, the anti-cowboy.

[Please click the link below for the complete article -- but then please come on back!]

Imagined Snipers, Real Challenges – New York Times

Yr (justifiably) humble svt has only written at length regarding Hillary Clinton’s candidacy once before, about six weeks ago before the recent unpleasantness that has put a grin on the face of John McCain and the Republicans, who thought they might never smile again.

Here’s some of what I said then:

mm284: A vote against Hillary is NOT a vote against women in high office

… Thus, I have absolutely no trouble with the concept of a woman ascending to the office of President of the United States of America. Long overdue.

But.

I’ve had trouble from Day 1 with the actuality of the particular woman who seeks that office this year.

And it’s not about her gender whatsoever.

Maureen Dowd in today’s NYTimes finally expressed out loud what many of us of the progressive persuasion have not expressed out loud, although perhaps it has been manifested in polling places for the past six weeks. Because, after all, it doesn’t seem very progressive, or very feminist, to be against a woman running for president.

It’s about this woman….

So, wife, daughter, mothers, bosses, please understand how sincere I am.

This country is more than ready for a strong competent leader.

If that strong competent leader is of a progressive frame of mind, so much the better.

If that progressive strong competent leader happens to be a black man, or Hispanic, or a self-made billionaire mayor, or a woman, well, it’s about time.

But this woman?

Sorry, can’t do it.

Even less now, than then.

It’s it for now. Thanks,

–MUDGE

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