Who Watches The Watchdogs?
What does Media Matters for America have against Harper’s Magazine? Apparently nothing. That would seem the problem considering that the so-called “non-profit progressive research and information center” missed the magazine’s Q&A with military experts discussing the possibility of an “American coup d’etat.”
Coup D’Etat Column Leaves Discussion Wanting
WASHINGTON, D.C. — What does Media Matters for America have against Harper’s Magazine?
Apparently nothing.
That would seem the problem considering that the so-called “non-profit progressive research and information center” missed the magazine’s Q&A with military experts discussing the possibility of an “American coup d’etat.”
But when an award-winning former newspaper editor who worked in two presidential administrations published an opinion piece explaining that it’s not “unrealistic” for the U.S. military to stage a coup “to resolve the Obama problem,” Media Matters released its hounds.
It’s not like Media Matters didn’t have enough resolve to perform a little background research into the discussion.
The Harper’s feature “Military thinkers discuss the unthinkable” came out in April 2006 — smack-dab in the middle of second leg of President George W. Bush’s administration.
John L. Perry’s column ran online at conservative website Newsmax on Sept. 29, 2009 — not even a year since a certain young U.S. senator from Illinois became President Barack Obama.
Leaving aside the partisan ideological rhetoric, so who is correct? Is it possible that the U.S. military would overthrow the current executive branch so easily?
We’ll probably never know now that Newsmax withdrew the coup column from its website on account of its readers’ responses.
In distancing itself from Perry, Newsmax made a bigger blunder when its spokesperson said he “has no official relationship with Newsmax other than as an unpaid blogger.”
Talking Points Memo (TPM) noted that Perry was indeed a former senior editor working for the site from late 1999 until October 2001 who has contributed a regular column “nearly every single week” since November 1999, a year after the site’s founding.
However, both Media Matters and TPM failed to point out Perry’s other credentials. According to his Newsmax biography, he served:
· President Lyndon B. Johnson “as deputy under secretary of commerce and was a White House speech writer and race-relations trouble-shooter for President Johnson;”
· President Jimmy Carter “as executive assistant to the under secretary of Housing and Urban Development and was interim director of public information for the Federal Emergency Management Agency.”
Perry’s biography on Newmax’s website also stated that he served an academic fellow at the now-defunct Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions in Santa Barbara, Calif. This think tank, according to Wikipedia, “attained some controversy with its conference of student radical leaders in 1967, and with a suggested new United States Constitution proposed by Fellow Rexford G. Tugwell.”
Perry’s biography also stated, “The Associated Press Managing Editors Association named him one of the 12 best newsroom managers among the AP’s member newspapers.”
But rather than test Perry’s perspective by the strength of his journalism chops, TPM (the Polk Award-winning “web-based political journalism organization”) and Media Matters took the political route by claiming that Newsmax is merely a propaganda wing of the Republican National Committee.
Which it probably is.
One could even chalk up Perry’s diatribe to a right-wing version of Gore Vidal’s recent ramblings to The Times UK when he said, “We’ll have a dictatorship soon in the U.S.”
Of Obama, Vidal told The Times, “I was hopeful. He was the most intelligent person we’ve had in that position for a long time. But he’s inexperienced. He has a total inability to understand military matters. He’s acting as if Afghanistan is the magic talisman: solve that and you solve terrorism.”
And this is same “man of letters” who switched allegiances from Sen. Hillary Clinton to Obama in the Democratic primary last summer.
Still, this discussion is in want: Would a military coup d’etat — non-violent or otherwise — ever taking place on Washington?
All evidence suggests, if we are to apply the experts’ analysis from Harper’s magazine, that Obama sits safe and sound just as Bush did three years ago.
Asked if a coup were possible, Edward N. Luttwak, senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said,
“I’ve done it for other countries. But it just wouldn’t work here.You could go down the list and take over these headquarters, that headquarters, the White House, the Defense Department, the television, the radio, and so on. You could arrest all the leaders, detain or kill off their families. And you would have accomplished nothing.”
He continued, “You would sit in the office of the Secretary of Defense, and the first place where you wouldn’t be obeyed would be inside your office. If they did follow orders inside the office, then people in the rest of the Pentagon wouldn’t. If everybody in the Pentagon followed orders, people out in the military bases wouldn’t. If they did, as well, American citizens would still not accept your legitimacy.”
Luttwak literally wrote on the subject, “Coup D’Etat: A Practical Handbook.” He explained to Harper’s that even if a force controlled the media, that doesn’t mean it could rule because the missing ingredient is acceptance. He gave Saddam Hussein as an example of a unpopular leader with a minimum group of security that accepted his rule; however, the United States is different than Iraq, he said.
As long as public option favors the president, the military chiefs and veterans have seats at the political table by which to negotiate and seek benefits, and no strings of cataclysmic events happen on American soil, a military (or non-military) coup d’etat is impossible, And right now, the president is popular, the military gets what it wants, though the veterans not as much, and as bad as the war in Afghanistan, healthcare reform, the financial crisis, and unemployment levels are, it’s all being managed.
Plus, if the anti-war group CodePink has anything to say about it, they would probably be happy with the U.S. military hanging out in Afghanistan for the time being. After a recent trip to the war-torn region, CodePink members now want U.S. and NATO troops to remain there to support the native women from the Taliban.
“So many people are saying that, ‘If the U.S. troops left, the country would collapse. We’d go into civil war.’ A palpable sense of fear that is making us start to reconsider that,” Code Pink co-founder Medea Benjamin told the Christian Science Monitor last week.
As a point of order, consider the last time the U.S. military was in “open revolt” against the civilian leaders that the military culture is bound to obey. It happened during the Clinton Administration, according to Andrew J. Bacevich, a professor of international relations at Boston University, the author of “The New American Militarism,” and an officer in the U.S. Army from 1969 to 1992.
The issue? Gays in the military, which enflamed the top brass to the lowest potato peeler.
“Now, Clinton’s actions were ill-advised, to put it mildly. But what we got was something like rebellion. Two Marines published an op-ed in the Washington Post, warning the Joint Chiefs that if they failed to stop this policy from being implemented, they were likely to lose the loyalty of junior officers. I mean, holy smokes,” Bacevich said.
You can bet your bottom dollar that if Congress ever tries to defund and demobilize the standing U.S. military as an government institution “— i.e., if the military were suddenly, radically cut back — it could lead if not to a coup then to very severe civil-military tension,” said Richard H. Kohn, the chair of the curriculum in Peace, War, and Defense at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and editor of the book “The United States Military Under the Constitution of the United States, 1789-1989.”
In other words, take away the military’s political seat, then its members will feel threatened and rely on the support of its constituencies located around its military bases in all 50 states as well as its wide-spread popularity among average civilians.
Last Hardcopy Issue Of Iconoclast — Publication Expanding Services On Web
The Lone Star Iconoclast is reverting solely to its online edition, effective after this edition is published, says W. Leon Smith, publisher. The publication is also abandoning Crawford as its hometown.
CRAWFORD, Texas — The Lone Star Iconoclast is reverting solely to its online edition, effective after this edition is published, says W. Leon Smith, publisher. The publication is also abandoning Crawford as its hometown.
“We are looking for an official city to call the Iconoclast’s home,” said Smith, who explained that at least temporarily that city will be Clifton, Texas, which is a few miles from Crawford. Clifton has been the headquarters for production of the Iconoclast since day one in 2000 when the Iconoclast was founded. Crawford will be dropped on the cover.
After the boycotts against the newspaper that occurred in 2004, international attention turned toward the Iconoclast, expanding the subscriber list into more of a nationalwide appeal.
“We gained subscribers from New York, to California, to Florida, all over the U.S., and even internationally to other countries,” noted Smith, and we continued to publish our online edition.
“The problem we ran into was through the postal service. People afar weren’t getting their papers until sometimes a month or more after we mailed them, which made the news inside often quite old. Even people in Texas were receiving them late. With this type of publication, timeliness is everything. Our readers could access our newspaper online immediately after we uploaded, so that’s where the attention evolved,” he explained.
“The result has been that the print edition has declined in readership while the online traffic is still strong, depending on what we publish from week to week,” he said. “Therefore, to cut expenses we are now abandoning the actual hard copy, paper editions. We plan to still publish in a ‘hard copy’ layout utilizing flip pages that people can read in a similar fashion to the actual newsprint editions, which is where the attention of our readers has turned.”
“Actual print editions are important to most newspapers,” said Smith, who encourages the public to continue to support their local papers with subscriptions and advertising. “They perform extremely important functions for their communities that are often taken for granted,” he said. “The Iconoclast is a different type of publication whose national distribution puts it in a different category. It is more of a national entitywith little or no local support, which puts it on different footing. That’s why we are taking this innovative approach.”
Smith said that he is making access to the site free, to continue to encourage readership, with a non-hassle attitude.
“It’s beneficial to our readers to not have to put in a user name and password, or to have to pay a fee to read what we write,” he said. “I consider this a vast service for both our frequent and part-time readers,” he said.
“At the same time, we are offering great opportunities in advertising on the site, which will help us pay our bills. These costs include the funding of writers, investigators, interviewers, artists, and much more, so we are hoping that people will take advantage of this opportunity not only to get their message out in the form of an advertisement, but also to help us provide better content editorially. That’s the trade-off,” he added.
“Whether it works is up to the public.”
Smith said that The Iconoclast offers hard-edged commentary that many mainstream publications won’t touch. “We live in the real world and try to convey that attitude in the columns of The Iconoclast,” he said. “I am hoping that we can get the support from our readers through their businesses and promotional advertising to be able to carry on. Advertising on our website is cheap, so we need an abundance of advertising supporters to make this work. We need small businesses and little corporations, which is why the rates are so cheap.”
Smith noted that a current promotion is called the Lightning Bolt Package, which includes a banner ad along with a free half-page ad in the flip page edition for a 13-week run.
“This is something new in publications,” he said. “It’s a super deal for advertisers. We’ll see if it works and if it adds greatly to the traffic of the businesses that are interested in giving it a try. I don’t know where they would get a better deal. This is unheard of in publishing circles. It is our goal to bring customers or patrons to the advertiser while helping to fund our operation at the same time, so I invite those who read the Iconoclast to take advantage of this. It is definitely worth a try. Just call us at 254-675-3634 to sign up.”
Smith said that he encourages Iconoclast readers to spread the word among their friends to visit the site, take advantage of the free news and commentary, and perhaps try to market some of their goods through the inexpensive advertising provided by the Iconoclast.
Regarding the publication home, Smith said that he welcomes suggestions. “Too, I am open to setting up bureaus in various cities inside the United States and even abroad. It depends on what we can afford to do,” he said. “It all comes down to public support.”
Chemists Create Fuel Cell With Household Products
College chemists have said he has created a fuel cell that produce electricity from common household products.
SALT LAKE CITY, Utah – College chemists have said he has created a fuel cell that produce electricity from common household products.
Gerald Watt, a Brigham Young University professor of chemistry, reported that an over-the-counter weedkiller can excite electrons in an electrode from carbohydrates in sugar as its fuel.
For a perspective on the low cost of carbohydrate-based fuel cells, he noted that General Moters is developing a hydroden-based fuel cell using platinum as a catalyst.
Still, the BYU team is seeking ways to increase the power density since its initial experiments could only yield a 29-percent conversion rate, the report said.
The goal is to have a fuel cell that is “more commercially attractive,” noted team member Dean Wheeler.
The BYU discovery comes two years after Japanese scientists said that they had created a similar device using sunlight to convert glucose into hydrogen power.
Watt’s report is found in the August issue of the Journal of the Electrochemical Society.
Resistance To Mandatory Flu Vaccine Grows In Health Workers
Healthcare workers staged a protest outside New York’s capitol building last week. Their protest was against choosing between getting the seasonal and H1N1 flu shot or losing their jobs.
NEW YORK CITY, N.Y. – Healthcare workers staged a protest outside New York’s capitol building last week.
Their protest was against choosing between getting the seasonal and H1N1 flu shot or losing their jobs.
This choice was mandated from the New York state health officials.
“We are health care workers and we are not even given the credit or the respect to make the decision,” said Carole Blueweiss, a physical therapist of 15 years at New York hospital. “It’s outrageous and it feels criminal and anti-American.”
Blueweiss also told CBS News that she will give her son the seasonal flu vaccine but the H1N1 vaccine is not going in either of their bodies.
Other healthcare professionals say that those who don’t take the flu shots risk hurting their professions.
“That’s kind of intolerable that patients should come to a hospital and not know that the healthcare workers are vaccinated,” said Dr. Richard Daines, New York State Commissioner of Health.
New York is the only state to carry such a mandate in the United States.
Studies have shown that only 40 percent of New York’s 925,000 healthcare workers get vaccinations voluntarily.
A recent Harvard poll indicated that the general public is resistant to getting the H1N1 shot as well.
Only four in 10 adults said they would receive the shot, while six in 10 said they would to their children.
Scientist Warns Of Explosion Of Robot Population
An English scientist is warning that the population of robots is growing at such a rapid rate that it’s time to set international guidelines for their military, industrial, and commercial uses.
SHEFFIELD, England – An English scientist is warning that the population of robots is growing at such a rapid rate that it’s time to set international guidelines for their military, industrial, and commercial uses.
Professor Noel Sharkey of the University of Sheffield said last fall that there are almost six million robots used in the private business sector; and most of the funding for their creation has come from the military.
Before robots become more commercially available, the top robotics expert stressed that legislators ought to consider the possible psychological issues on humanity.
Sharkey said: “Research into service robots has demonstrated close bonding and attachment by children, who, in most cases, prefer a robot to a teddy bear. Short-term exposure can provide an enjoyable and entertaining experience that creates interest and curiosity.
“However, because of the physical safety that robot minders provide, children could be left without human contact for many hours a day or perhaps for several days, and the possible psychological impact of the varying degrees of social isolation on development is unknown.
Sharkey noted that with the price of robot manufacturing falling, robots will be more readily available for consumption; robots were 80-percent cheaper in 2006 than in 1990.
And robots are already able to be controlled through wireless communication technology via a mobile phone or from a PC.
IFR Statistics has estimated that in the next two years, the robot population will almost double to 11.5 million.
U.S. Catholics Back Healthcare Finance Reform, Plus Abortion: Poll
U.S. Catholics support a “public option” in healthcare finance reform along with public funding for abortion, according to a new poll.
WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Catholics support a “public option” in healthcare finance reform along with public funding for abortion, according to a new poll.
The top priority among those 923 Catholic registered voters polled nationally was reducing costs associated with healthcare; in fact, it ranked just below fixing the U.S. economy, the results showed.
Half of the respondents, however, said that public and/or private insurance plans ought to cover abortion as seen fit by a woman and her doctor.
Of those polled, 84 percent said that they attend church regularly – either several times a week or throughout the year.
The poll was conducted online, Sept. 16 through 21, by Belden Russonello and Stewart for Catholics for Choice, a pro-choice organization based in Washington, D.C. founded in 1973.
The surveyed Catholic voters (68 percent) disapproved of the U.S. Catholic bishops urging that all Catholics should opposed the government plan should it carry abortion funding.
“This poll clearly demonstrates that the bishops do not represent Catholic voters. Catholics have compassion,” sid CFC president Jon O’Brien. They want everybody to have access to comprehensive healthcare — including abortion in many circumstances.”
O’Brien noted that the two most recent polls on abortion authorized by U.S. bishops asked other faith groups other than Catholics for their opinions.
“Catholic views on healthcare and abortion are mainstream American views,” said the pollsters, Belden Russonello and Stewart.
INFO
Catholics for Change
www.CatholicsforChoice.org
GOP Senator Bashes Talk Show Host, ‘Birther’ Movement
Sen. Lindsey Graham offered a striking rebuke of right-wing entertainer and movement last week. To FoxNews’ Bret Baier, the Republican senator from South Carolina said that Glenn Beck speaks for himself, not the Republican Party.
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Sen. Lindsey Graham offered a striking rebuke of right-wing entertainer and movement last week.
To FoxNews’ Bret Baier, the Republican senator from South Carolina said that Glenn Beck speaks for himself, not the Republican Party.
“I’m not saying he’s bad for America,” Graham said. “You’ve got the freedom to watch him if you choose. What I am saying [is] he doesn’t represent the Republican Party.”
Graham went on Baier’s show to answer for his comments about Beck at the Washington Ideas Forum.
“Only in America can you make that much money crying,” he said.
The Republican also denounced as “crazy” the so-called “birther” movement that maintains that President Barak Obama is no citizens of the United States.
Cocaine Vaccine Not Quite Up To Snuff: Scientists
A new vaccine aimed at warding off addiction to cocaine is not quite up to snuff, according to researchers at the medicine schools at Yale and Baylor universities.
WACO, Texas – A new vaccine aimed at warding off addiction to cocaine is not quite up to snuff, according to researchers at the medicine schools at Yale and Baylor universities.
A six-month trial revealed that just 38 percent of those vaccinated produced enough anti-cocaine antibodies to inactivate the cocaine in the blood stream.
The successful vaccination subjects sustained the antibodies for just two months.
As a result, repeated booster vaccinations would be required, the authors of the trial indicated in the October issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry.
The Yale/Baylor trial had been going on for five years; the lead researcher Thomas Kosten has been on the trail for such a vaccine for 15 years.
The United States has no approved pharmacological therapy for cocain abuse; the only treatment consists of 12-step programs.
There are almost two million regular cocaine users in the United States, the world’s number one market for the drug.
World Bank President: U.S. Economic Power ‘Declining’
The president of the World Bank said last week that the economic might of the United States is “declining.”
ISTANBUL, Turkey – The president of the World Bank said last week that the economic might of the United States is “declining.”
World Bank President Robert Zoellick was speaking in Istanbul prior to the meetings of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF).
And if there is any blame to be had for this deline, it lies on the shoulders of the financial crisis which started on American shores, Zoellick said.
As a result, Zoellick foresees a long-term rebalancing of the world economy.
“One of the legacies of this crisis may be a recognition of changed economic power relations,” he said.
Already, China gained a permanent seat on the IMF’s 24-seat policy-making committee.
China and Brazil have seen their economies growing in the last two years while the United States has been in recession.
Moreover, the U.S. Labor Department reported that unemployment was at a 26-year high at 9.8 percent.
However, officials like U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner repeat that the U.S. economy had “improved dramatically.”
Still, Geithner conceeds that “conditions for a sustained recovery, led by private demand, are not yet fully established.”
Nations Deny Plot To End Oil Trade In Dollars
Several nations that trade oil in U.S. dollars denied a report last week that they are secretly transitioning to a different currency system in nine years. In response to the allegation, Saudi Arabia’s central bank chief Muhammad al-Jasser said, “Absolutely incorrect.”
LONDON, England – Several nations that trade oil in U.S. dollars denied a report last week that they are secretly transitioning to a different currency system in nine years.
In response to the allegation, Saudi Arabia’s central bank chief Muhammad al-Jasser said, “Absolutely incorrect.”
“We did not discuss this at all,” replied Dmitry Pankin, Russia’s deputy finance minister.
“I don’t see a need for oil trade to be denominated differently,” added Karim Djoudi, Algeria’s finance minister.
The denials came after British journalist Robert Fisk reported in The Indpendent that among the nations also gearing up to replace the dollar are China, Japan, France, and Brazil.
The new currency system would be a basket of currencies including the Japanese yen and Chinese yuan, the euro, gold and a new, unified currency planned for nations in the Gulf Co-operation Council, including Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi, Kuwait and Qatar,” according to Fisk.
Fisk said that the U.S. officials in the know “are sure to fight” this transition from the dollar; however, the problems still unresolved in the U.S. banking sector should slow their response.
“Chinese financial sources believe President Barack Obama is too busy fixing the US economy to concentrate on the extraordinary implications of the transition from the dollar in nine years’ time. The current deadline for the currency transition is 2018,” wrote Fisk.
Fisk ended his report with noting that nations have not been successful in transfering off the dollar as a reserve currency in the past.
“Iran announced late last month that its foreign currency reserves would henceforth be held in euros rather than dollars. Bankers remember, of course, what happened to the last Middle East oil producer to sell its oil in euros rather than dollars. A few months after Saddam Hussein trumpeted his decision, the Americans and British invaded Iraq,” he said.
Sen. John Cornyn, Protector Of Rapists
Sen. John Cornyn of Texas has no excuse.
Cornyn voted against an amendment to the FY2010 Defense Appropriations Bill that would stop funding to defense contractors who block employees bringing to court their cases of sexual assault that happened on the job.
Specifically, the amendment punishes companies that bind alleged victims in a legal business negotiation known as “mandatory arbitration.”
And by voting so, it’s hard to see just who he would try to protect other than rapists lurking in the defense industry.
Even odder is his inconsistency.
Last year, Cornyn, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, introduced a resolution complaining about how the U.S. Supreme Court ruled (5-4) that the death penalty for child rapists is unconstitutional (Kennedy v. Louisiana).
“Child rapists are the worst of the worst. Their crimes rob children of their innocence, injuring them in ways from which they can never fully recover. If a jury determines that a child rapist deserves the death penalty, then that penalty is appropriate, given the unspeakably depraved nature of this crime,” Sen. Cornyn said in a statement.
But in the case of Dallasite Jamie Leigh Jones, she deserved to have KBR (formerly of Halliburton) roadblock her path to justice over a gang-rape she claims occurred when, as a 19-year-old, she worked for the company in Iraq?
If Cornyn had applied the same logic, he should have supported the Franken’s amendment by calling for it to be strengthened — kill the company in the event it is found to have blocked such claims to courts, right?
Instead, he seems to have played a twisted game of revenge by voting against a law introduced by the very man he was hell bent on blocking from becoming a U.S. senator — Al Franken.
Cornyn should truly be ashamed by his action (or non-action) for having a senator other than a Texan come to the aid of one of his own constituency, a fellow Texan who would face the humiliation of negotiations run by a business itself.
As Pam Zeller, Executive Director of the Sexual Violence Center, explained:
“In arbitration the intent is to arrive at an agreement. This agreement does not have to be equitable in order to be resolved. It is also not intended to resolve a criminal matter. Sexual harassment and sexual violence inherently have an imbalance of power. Submitting a victim of sexual harassment, or sexual assault, to a process of arbitration is a revictimization of the victim, and minimizes the seriousness of the crime of sexual assault.
“The proposed amendment by Senator Franken will protect victims of sexual harassment and sexual violence from being revictimized through the arbitration process,” she added.
Even more embarrassing are the 29 other senators that also voting against the amendment; not surprisingly all them are Republican.
Sen. Franken and the 10 Republican senators who voted in favor, including Texas’ own Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison ought to be proud of their decision.
Said Jones, “This amendment makes all the hard times that I have gone through, when going public with such a personal tragedy, worth every tear shed from telling and retelling my horrific experience. I know this amendment will save so many in the future.”
— Nathan Diebenow
Trans-Stupidity
As Uncle Hugh used to say, “Nothing is more confusing than the things you thought you knew.”
As Uncle Hugh used to say, “Nothing is more confusing than the things you thought you knew.”
Don’t take the death of the Trans-Texas Corridor too seriously; Texans are still, as a group, pretty stupid.
Yet we are surprisingly un-stupid about some things, according to this summer’s opinion poll by the University of Texas government department.
But first, the latest sort of news about the Spanish Trace dreams of Lying Tricky Ricky Perry, the governor Texas didn’t want.
While Cintra-Zachary, the Madrid-to-San Antonio extortion consortium, won’t get all of the $3.5 billion in Texan’s tax dollars to build the full I-35 toll roads across houses, farms and fields, they’re going to get enough.
The contract has been canceled, but no one is saying how much money is already allocated to the Perry providers, those who directly or indirectly plan to profit from the toll road scam, the latter being everyone from Walmart, big businesses which won’t have to pay taxes to build and maintain highways; to rest area builders and operators with all those captive travelers.
Out-of-pocket guesstimates are around $100 million to Cintas-Zachery for work thus far, including Texas 130 (the toll loop around Austin).
Or enough to give a full four-year college scholarship to every graduating senior in Texas next year.
Not that we’d want something like that.
Especially considering that the end of the Perry era is far from certain.
Certain being a small town in East Texas very near Uncertain.
The latest Rasmussen Reports show that Aggie Cheerleader Perry and Texas Cheerleader Hutchison are in a virtual tie among likely Republican voters.
Forty percent for the girl with the megaphone; 38 for the guy with the pom-poms.
Nineteen percent are undecided and the rest support Debra Medina.
The margin is 3.5 percent.
Exactly the same results among Republican voters polled in April who said they thought Tricky had a good idea about seceding from the Union.
And that Pickett’s Charge was a sound military maneuver.
Those are the Perry or Perish Republicans, numerically identical to the 39 percent who liked Tricky Ricky in the last gubernatorial free-for-idiots election.
They will vote for him even if he’s in a coma or the penitentiary.
Considering the margin, all Tricky has to do is convince a handful of Branch Davidians that Medina is an illegal alien, and he’s in.
But the UT poll mentioned earlier may be more telling than Rasmussen.
First, it covers much more ground and measures Texans, not just Texas Republicans with blood in their teeth about the governor’s race.
Only 86 percent of those polled are registered to vote. Thirteen percent were not, and two didn’t know.
Yes, two percent of us do not know whether they are registered to vote.
And drive down the interstate with their turn signal blinking.
The most important issue in America, Texans said, is the economy.
On a scale of the most important issues facing America, health care gets six percent and immigration only four, but gay marriage, education, the environment and abortion are considered important by a mere one percent each.
Fewer people are concerned about gay marriage and illegal immigration than know whether they are registered to vote.
Afghanistan-Pakistan and Iraq incidentally, got zero percent.
When it comes to the most important issues facing Texas, however, 18 percent considered illegal immigration most important and the economy was second. Again, health care got six percent. The morality issues remained below the non-cognitive registered voters.
Now for some surprises:
* “Intelligent” describes Barack Obama well. 70 percent!
* He provides strong leadership. 54 percent.
* Among registered voters, Perry leads Hutchison ten percentage points. No word on those who don’t know whether they are registered.
* 64 percent of Democrats are undecided in the governor’s race.
* Almost 82 percent consider poverty at least somewhat a problem in Texas.
* 54 percent want the legislature to set tuition rates again, rather than college administrators.
* 42 percent favor making college tuition affordable for all citizens and an additional 16 percent favor making it affordable to the most needy citizens.
* We seem about equally divided on bilingual education for non-English speakers.
* Only 32 percent oppose gay marriage or civil unions. 29 percent support same-sex marriage; 32 favor civil unions.
* Only 51 percent are native Texans.
* Only 36 percent know who Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst is.
* 90 percent claim some religious affiliation (24 percent are Catholic and 15 percent are Baptist; the rest are in single figures); 33 percent said they are “born again,” but only 18 percent say they attend regular services; 23 percent said they attend a few times a month. Ten percent said they are spiritual, but don’t go to church.
* Three percent don’t know whether they are religious. Presumably, they looked to see if it was listed on their voter registration cards.
And finally, those who consider themselves Democrats or Republicans are equally divided, with 26 percent claiming to be independent. Most of those, of course, tend to vote Republican, although their support is soft when third-party candidates are available. The more looney the candidate, the more available the independents.
So why do Texans vote with such rabid right lunacy?
It’s only a guess, mind you, but I’d say it has something to do with fear.
A majority said they aren’t particularly worried about things politically. We’re probably going to be all right.
To the rest. WE’RE DOOMED TO PERDITION AND ONLY A SUICIDE MISSION TO THE HEART OF THE SUN CAN SAVE US FROM TAX-AND-SPEND NEGRO ZOMBIE ILLEGAL ALIENS!
Or maybe the percentage of those who do not know whether we are religious or whether we are registered to vote is greater than this poll indicates.
INFO
UT Poll
http://www.laits.utexas.edu/txp_media/html/poll/files/200906-summary.pdf
The Killing Fields
As we gaze across our brown, dry fields this September (wishing for rain) we see here and there healthy, bright green plants popping up, with lovely, fern-like leaves. How can this be? Everything else has dried up. Even the broom weed is looking dull. The only green in a sea of brown is shaded Bermuda grass and a few hardy weeds.
As we gaze across our brown, dry fields this September (wishing for rain) we see here and there healthy, bright green plants popping up, with lovely, fern-like leaves. How can this be? Everything else has dried up. Even the broom weed is looking dull. The only green in a sea of brown is shaded Bermuda grass and a few hardy weeds.
So dotting the crispy landscape as far as the eye can see are bright green clumps of some lovely, hardy plant. Upon closer inspection, these are, of course, mesquite. (You knew that, didn’t you?) The mesquite we cut at ground level a month or so ago have sprouted angry new growth, intent upon survival. We knew, of course, this would happen, have been waiting for it to happen, yet another ingenious part of our diabolical, murderous plan to decimate every mesquite tree on this place. As the new shoots spring up, they’re easy to see and spray. Once sprayed, it’s simple to return for any overlooked. What we miss before winter we will surely catch next spring when mesquite will be the first green shoot on the horizon.
In spraying a mesquite patch, for every plant you spray on your right, you miss five on your left. You train your eye to differentiate (by subtle nuances of color and texture) between mesquite and anything else. There are only a few weeds at this point that sometimes fool me from a distance. After a long session of spraying mesquite, I can close my eyes and see their leaves — like after a day of picking pecans — when I close my eyes and see nuts).
As you go from one plant to the other, turning this way and that, it’s impossible to spray them all on the first (or second — or sometimes even third) run. Even adding blue dye to the herbicide, you miss so many when you’re dealing with acres and acres of expanse. As you kill these visible plants, others are busy popping up from seed or from the errant root. Who knows how many years mesquite seed is viable? I suspect the half life is at least a century. After all, wheat seeds found buried in an Egyptian pyramid sprouted after three thousand years when presented with moisture. Mesquite certainly must be hardier than wheat. So you spray what you can each time you go out — and hope to live another day to get after it again. (And you hope you have protected yourself sufficiently from the herbicide with clothing, eye protection, gloves, and a mask). I never want to stop once I’ve started, even with the temps close to or over 100 degrees. At that point, I’m probably not responding rationally anyway. Mesquite killing has become sort of an obsession with me. But like Zack always says, “You can’t catch all the mice today.”
The mesquite we had bulldozed (in two stages, three and four years ago) were supposed to stay gone. That’s why you pay the big bucks to the guys with the heavy equipment. But of course, the remnants of those ghost mesquites are now sending up shoots. I’m starting to believe there’s really no such thing as a dead mesquite. What you think is dead is only resting, biding its time for a comeback. It’s amazing how quickly this stuff grows, even with no rain. Anyone who has ever tried to pull up a three inch tall mesquite seedling knows why they’re so hardy. There’s a tap root many times longer than the plant is tall. Like an iceberg, the big stuff’s hidden under the surface.
We’ve sprayed some of these mesquite patches three and four times, over several seasons. We’ve tried various combinations of the recommended products. We’ve used twice the recommended amount. We’ve cut and sprayed, scored and sprayed, sprayed and removed when dead (or at least when we thought they were dead). We’ve sprayed in the intense heat of the summer when the plant is actively growing (recommended by many “experts”). We’ve also sprayed in the fall, as the sap returns to the root, hopefully taking the herbicide along with it. The latter was recommended by OTHER “experts.” (Like my father always said, “If you want ten different opinions, get 10 experts together.”) We were told when we bulldozed that if we pulled up the “knot” or the “heart” of the tree, just below the surface, the tree would not come back. But we’ve had new “scouts” sprout from the roots that broke off that knot and remained behind in the earth.
Our war on mesquite has been costly and time consuming, but also strangely satisfying. We seem to be making a dent in it. Seeing progress keeps me trying. Now mind you, we can’t tackle the entire ranch all at once. We work section by section as we can afford yet another bottle of Remedy, take time out here and there for the occasional major debilitating illness and recovery. AND we do all the other chores and jobs necessary to sustain reasonable life. (At this point, I figure I’m only a year or two behind on most things, maybe longer on some). As we work on these mesquite rich areas, other patches are reproducing and re-sprouting with abandon, like geometric progression. They’re growing faster than the national debt (not so funny a joke these days).
We understand that we will battle mesquite for the rest of our natural lives — and possibly will come back to haunt it after that — not that it will do us much good. Mesquite (along with fire ants and possibly kudzu) will most certainly inherit the earth.
(Gene Ellis, Ed.D is a Bosque County resident who returned to the family farm after years of living in New Orleans, New York, and Florida. She is an artist who holds a doctoral degree from New York University and is writing a book about the minor catastrophes of life.)
The French Love Us
I always try to embrace the difficult and the easy writing assignments with the same gusto. If I have a hard job, I stare at that job and make sure that I don’t blink first. Keeping this absurd mixed metaphor in mind, I went to France recently on an arduous research trip to find out everything I could about the French. Those of you who have been reading my columns for a while, know that this was not my first trip there. However, I vow to go back as many times as possible to bring my readers the facts about France. I spent three weeks studying the French on the beaches of the Riviera, in the lavender and sunflower fields of Provence, and outside the cafes of Paris solely for the purpose of gathering information.
I always try to embrace the difficult and the easy writing assignments with the same gusto. If I have a hard job, I stare at that job and make sure that I don’t blink first. Keeping this absurd mixed metaphor in mind, I went to France recently on an arduous research trip to find out everything I could about the French. Those of you who have been reading my columns for a while, know that this was not my first trip there. However, I vow to go back as many times as possible to bring my readers the facts about France. I spent three weeks studying the French on the beaches of the Riviera, in the lavender and sunflower fields of Provence, and outside the cafes of Paris solely for the purpose of gathering information.
We’ve all heard that the French are cold and snobby and aren’t nice to Americans. Supposedly, food is what they take most seriously in life, and they spend more time in museums than at work. I wanted to learn what were false stereotypes and what was the truth. Above all, I wanted to learn how they really feel about Americans these days. So, I conducted a survey. While doing my research, I tried to blend in with the French. In fact, on the beach, I went topless.
The Garver Survey, 2009
My first question was whether they felt that since Barack Obama became President, had relations between France and the United States gotten better or worse? About 96 percent replied that our relationship had gotten better. And only a small percentage of these people were trying to sell me something when they made this reply. The people I talked to seemed to love our President. In fact, 75 percent of those who filled out my survey feel that Obama is a better president than their own Sarkozy.
Eighty percent feel that someday France will have a woman President. Only 48 percent of those surveyed feel that someday France will elect a black President. My guess is that if this question had been asked in America a year ago, the results might have been similar — that more people felt that we would have a woman President before we elected a black one.
Those who filled out my questionnaire are not all that optimistic about the economy. Only 12 percent feel that it will recover by the end of 2010, and a gloomy 32 percent don’t feel that it will recover in our lifetime. Seems to me if my wife and I make just one more trip to France, their economy should be just fine.
Since it was France, I couldn’t resist asking a couple of questions about sex. Not surprisingly, those questioned felt that French women and men are sexier than Americans. However, I should point out that this was before I got my haircut.
Of all the things that France is known for, including their history, their architecture, their art, a surprising 20 percent said that the French thing they were most proud of was… the cheese. The cheese! Forget Notre Dame, Impressionism, and the French Revolution. Just pass the Brie.
In at least one way, the French aren’t all that different from us. We’ve all heard about the New Yorker who’s never been to the top of the Empire State building. Well, about a third of those surveyed have never been to the top of the Eiffel Tower. And in this country known for its culture and museums, 36 percent say they “almost never” go to a museum. They’re probably too busy eating cheese.
I realized that it was an imposition for me to interrupt people’s busy day and ask them to fill out a questionnaire. So my final question was whether they thought a journalist who stopped them to ask some questions was the most annoying man they had encountered all day or the most handsome and distinguished one. Ninety-one percent replied that the guy with the clipboard who stopped them to get their opinions was the most distinguished man they had seen all day. Who says the French aren’t nice to Americans?
(Lloyd Garver has written for many television shows, ranging from “Sesame Street” to “Family Ties” to “Home Improvement” to “Frasier.” He has also read many books, some of them in hardcover. He can be reached at lloydgarver@gmail.com. Check out his website at lloydgarver.com and his podcasts on iTunes.)
Dave Did It His Way
So, David Letterman has an active libido. What’s all the fuss about? I have no idea of the dynamic between the man and his longtime girlfriend, now wife. But whatever he did with amenable women within his own organization appears to have been private.
So, David Letterman has an active libido.
What’s all the fuss about?
I have no idea of the dynamic between the man and his longtime girlfriend, now wife. But whatever he did with amenable women within his own organization appears to have been private.
As to Dave’s decision to publicly denounce the lump of human feces who tried to blackmail him, I say, “Way to go!”
It wasn’t a paramour who objected to Dave’s behavior; in fact, not one woman has ever come forward to call foul. The guy who perpetrated a felony against Letterman as a way out of serious debt — using his girlfriend’s affair with the late night star as an excuse — is the only person complaining.
Now, a scurrilous defense attorney is suggesting that numerous female employees were victimized by Dave, women who have yet to come forth with sordid tales of sexual harassment and abuse.
It’s curious how, in all these years, not one woman has leveled a complaint or filed charges against this man.
It’s the nature of the beast that many individuals would willingly and adoringly jump at the chance to engage in a round or two of patty-cake with a celebrity; only someone who exists in a vacuum would be incapable of comprehending how certain folks might throw themselves at a rich, popular, and powerful person.
I sincerely doubt that Dave would need to coerce some congenial younger underling into hopping into the sack; an absence of grievances or accusations suggests that he’s a guy who knows the meaning of “No.”
Recent revelations go a long way in explaining why he waited so long to get married again.
As for his relationship with his wife, hopefully things will work out for the best. As Dave recently said in front of a nationwide audience regarding that part of his life, “I’ve got my work cut out for me.”
The rest of the media, eager to assassinate anybody’s character for the least of trivialities, can’t do enough to vilify this entertainer for doing exactly what entertainers do. For instance, promiscuity was expected of Frank Sinatra, so nobody flinched a muscle at his “romances.” Conversely, Dean Martin was often accused of dalliances with young women, yet those who knew him well would be quick to point out that he was ever the loyal husband — being flirtatious was part of his public image, as was the ever-present Martini in his hand.
From virtually every media outlet, national as well as local, talking heads who could never in five lifetimes come close to matching David Letterman’s popularity are slamming the man as though he were an elected official who betrayed a public trust.
What the guy did was exercise his ego… while single. Hell, both Clint Eastwood and John Wayne engaged almost every one of their female co-stars in hanky panky, and nobody ever blinked an eye of concern.
If I were in Letterman’s place, I might partake of such engagements, too. Even Don Rickles has often explained how he held off on marriage until he was 40-ish because, as a performer (and a friend of Sinatra’s), there were plenty of amiable young women hanging around.
As with the irate reaction of a thin-skinned and not ready for media scrutiny Sarah Palin several months ago regarding a joke he made (okay, it was in bad taste, but “Bible Spice” had sometime earlier kicked the door wide open concerning its subject matter), this latest revealment seems only to have served as a boost to Dave’s ratings — in each instance I increased my viewing of his show. From all appearances, it has neither negatively impacted nor diminished his fan base.
To the defense attorney who is throwing around unfounded charges of sexual harassment while trying to garner sympathy in the court of public opinion for his client, we’re all well aware that is no defense for felonious behavior. Whatever transpired between David and any woman has no bearing upon your client’s greedy downward plunge into extortion.
To those star wannabes in the media who have assailed David Letterman over this issue, how about looking in a mirror before judging someone else. There are evils far worse in the world upon which to spend precious airtime and wordplay. This is yet another instance wherein you’re exposing your own smallness.
Whatever behavior the man engaged in with whomever, it was the business of those involved, and, as consenting adults, strictly of a private, personal nature.
Oh, yeah, by the way, despite your obvious jealousy over David Letterman’s success, all indications are he did nothing illegal.
(Erstwhile Philosopher and former Educator Jerry Tenuto is a veteran who survived, somewhat emotionally intact, seven years in the U.S. Army. Despite a penchant for late-night revelry, he managed to earn BS and MA Degrees in Communications from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. On advice from a therapist, he continues to bang out his weekly “Out Of The Blue” feature in The Lone Star Iconoclast — providing much-needed catharsis. Jerry is also licensed to perform marriage ceremonies in 45 states.)
Need Honesty In Government? — Get Honesty Bond
Americans are frustrated with the seeming impossibility of electing candidates who follow through with promises in place of honesty. The sad fact is today accepted as true.
SANTA BARBARA, Calif. — “Hi, I’m from the government – I’m here to help you.”
“Of course I will respect you in the morning.”
Sex will probably never change. But we can no longer accept dishonesty in politics.
Americans are frustrated with the seeming impossibility of electing candidates who follow through with promises in place of honesty.
The sad fact is today accepted as true.
It is true today and was true in the early 90s when the idea occurred to me to promote what I called the Liberty Pledge. The idea was to inject accountability into the electoral system by allowing candidates to sign a pledge to their potential constituents assuring voters they would keep their campaign promises.
I was then helping working on a campaign for Dolores Bender White, Republican candidate for 20th State Senate in California. Dolores’s introduction to politics had come two years before. She lost, but learned a lot; Dolores was a quick study. She was determined to win, filing for the same race in the wake of the resignation in November, 1991, of long time State Senator Alan Robbins. Robbins had agreed to plead guilty to charges of racketeering.
Dolores filed for the special election that followed early in 1992. This time she faced a different incumbent. David Roberti, the god-father of gun control in California had, on paper, moved into the district. Roberti’s war chest was huge and not surprisingly, the barnacle-encrusted incumbent won handily.
The recall campaign qualified in April of 1994, just months before the regular primary.
It had been my pleasure to write nasty, but funny, attacks to amuse, delight, and motivate conservatives and libertarians. They outraged liberals. Dolores ran the successful recall campaign against Roberti, the first in California in 80 years. Dolores was incredibly hardworking and persistent. Others have claimed credit, but unjustly.
The idea for the pledge came about because of my experiences in the same district. I had run against Robbins myself as a Libertarian in 1982 in a four way race.
You could not be involved in politics there at all and not know how dishonest office holders really were. I was reading the pot holder with Robbin’s name on it when it occurred to me that things could be different if politicians had to keep their promises. The pot holder was rather ragged, sort of like American political honor.
“What if they had to resign if they failed to keep their promises?” I thought.
Never one to let grass grow under my feet I wrote up the Pledge, made some literature, had a banner made and took them with me to the next Republican Convention. I intended to take up the project in earnest immediately thereafter. The death of my sister Anne of a heart attack in Japan intervened.
At the convention I shared the idea with an old friend of mine named John Fund. He asked me for a piece of the literature. I was delighted to share.
The story would end there except for events that took place years later.
By 2000 many things had changed. I had discovered that John Fund was honesty challenged, like so many politicians He had lied to me about his relationship with my daughter. She and I had gone through a period of alienation that had ended when I discovered she was telling me the truth about Fund and her relationship with him. Many revelations, large and small, had been forthcoming. One minor, amusing, point had come when she told me Fund had used my idea as the basis of what later became the Contract with America.
Initially, I did not mind. However, when it became clear that it was a contract on America this changed. Newt’s version contained no enforceability. It was just aPR campaign to take the House in 1994, rhetoric never intended to enact change. Newt is at it again today. This time spinning himself as an exemplar of good Christian values while married to yet another much younger woman, having dumped the wife who made his success possible.
Decoupling the accountability from the potential for profit became a trademark for the NeoCons as they converting the rhetoric of Libertarianism into the newest justification for corporate profit. It was a sad end to what we believed would be a real revolution.
I discovered in 1997 Fund’s reputation for stealing ideas. I was not particularly surprised; many young policy thinkers had been urged not to send him their unpublished work. The boy friend of another one of my daughters, then working at Reason Foundation, shared this insight with me.
Accountability and how to enact it acquired ever more importance for me over the next years.
I was busy as the full-time caretaker for my eldest son who had suffered two major brain injuries, the result of first a motorcycle accident and then a suicide attempt in which he shot himself through the brain. I considered many approaches for redressing this frightening trend in politics. One afternoon I unearthed the original artwork for the Liberty Pledge.
Recycling time.
Holding politicians accountable had even more appeal to me than it did in 1993. Thus was born the Honesty Bond.
The Bond is intended to provide voters with a way to enforce fulfillment of the promises flowing so lavishly from the lips of candidates before they are transformed into elected officials. The Bond provides a means for removing lairs from office. If applied vigorously Honesty Bonds could turn the tide of dishonesty in American politics.
Politicians will not like the idea, a sign it would work.
This is really for their own good. Some candidates are honest people who’ll be relieved there is a means to defend their honesty. Others will appreciate the opportunity to win support over candidates who refuse to be accountable for their promises. These will be nudged into honesty, then forced to deliver.
Motives matter not. A tool will have been placed directly in the hands of voters who desperately need a way to call government to account.
An Honesty Bond is a bond taken out to ensure a candidate for office complies with the promises made while running for election. It remains in force the entire time the elected official is in office. It is a bond like those maintained routinely by professionals such as accountants, brokers, insurance agents, and house cleaners. The candidate pays for the bond themselves, accounting transparently for the source of the funds. The money is produced and the bond guaranteed at the demand of the constituents.
Installation is up to us.
The amount paid out to create the bond would be enough to remove the honesty-challenged elected official from office.
I feel very good about recycling this idea and denturing it with the teeth I intended it to have in 1994. I hope you agree and start putting teeth in your own local group. Insist your candidates become bonded. Do not vote for any candidate unwilling to stand behind their word, putting their money where their mouth is. This way they will respect us the day after they are elected.
Get Honesty. Bond them today.
Links:
http://honestybondusa.info
http://www.nytimes.com/1991/11/20/us/state-senator-from-california-facing-racketeering-charges.html
http://www.apj.us/sc20010904connolly.html
http://pillsburyjustice.info
Economically Speaking: Is America Burning?
So many here in Texas believe they are so much better off than in other states. Maybe this was true a while ago; however, the economic chaos that other states have seen is hitting Texans very hard. Texas is NOT immune. The ailing economy has become a national plague.
So many here in Texas believe they are so much better off than in other states. Maybe this was true a while ago; however, the economic chaos that other states have seen is hitting Texans very hard. Texas is NOT immune. The ailing economy has become a national plague.
There is no light at the end of this depressive economy. Not since The Great Depression have so many Americans been in such financial turmoil.
While the U.S. economy has been on a downturn for several decades, the Bush administration propelled us into this mess and the Obama administration is not doing very much to resolve it.
The primary objective should be to provide jobs to all Americans. To do that requires incentives for businesses to hire and for the government to develop federal jobs to rebuild our ailing infrastructures.
Obama promised jobs, but has not yet delivered.
Little has changed in government and on Wall Street. What is changing drastically is increased job loss, long-term unemployment and many more home foreclosures.
To make matters worse here in Texas, Gov. Rick Perry has done little to help the growing number of long-term unemployed. He could have accepted more federal stimulus and/or diverted some of our state tax dollars towards providing businesses incentives to hire more Texans. Perry likes to blast Washington for all our Texas ills, but the truth is that Perry has NOT provided much help either for hardworking and hardly working Texans.
How will people pay their rent and mortgages? How will they hang-on to their health care plans? Will they keep their jobs? How long can the government provide unemployment benefits to the already staggering millions of jobless who grow in number daily? This is a big mess that is increasing steadily.
Americans will be hurting financially for many more years to come. The level of our economic demise and return to financial health will be determined by the actions of federal, state and local governments.
Right now, it doesn’t look too good.
(Peter Stern of Driftwood, Texas, a former director of information services, university professor and public school administrator, is a Disabled Vietnam Veteran and holds three post-graduate degrees.)
Vice Presidency Slips Through John Connally’s Fingers
Rather than go to prison, Vice President Spiro Agnew resigned on Oct. 10, 1973, and gave Richard Nixon a second chance to replace him with a former governor of Texas.
Rather than go to prison, Vice President Spiro Agnew resigned on Oct. 10, 1973, and gave Richard Nixon a second chance to replace him with a former governor of Texas.
John Bowden Connally, Jr. rose from the humblest circumstances to become Lyndon Johnson’s right-hand man. He managed every major campaign of his mentor starting with LBJ’s unsuccessful race for the U.S. Senate in 1941 to his landslide election as president in 1964.
In the meantime, Connally had stepped out of Johnson’s shadow by challenging Gov. Price Daniel in the 1962 Democratic primary. Starting out at four percent in the preference polls, he made short work of the scandal-plagued incumbent, who finished a poor third in the first round, and won a hard-fought runoff against Don Yarborough.
The next November, the 46-year-old governor was thrust onto the national stage by the tragedy in Dealey Plaza. Connally recovered from the serious gunshot wounds he suffered that terrible day, but for better or worse his life would never be the same.
After winning reelection with over 70-percent of the vote in 1964 and again in 1966, the popular politician decided he had done all he could do as Texas’ chief executive. He returned to private life with a prominent law firm in Houston.
The 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago was a turning point for Connally. Personal loyalty to Johnson and a hawkish position on the Vietnam War caused him to resent bitterly the president being hounded from office by his own party. He left the Windy City a deeply disenchanted Democrat.
When the new Republican president offered him a position on his foreign policy advisory board in 1969, Connally took it without reservation. The Texan felt he had more in common politically with Nixon — both were, in his words, “conservatives with a belief in active government” — than most members of his own party.
Nixon was so impressed with Connally, “awed” was how a close advisor described it, that in 1971 he invited him to join his cabinet as Secretary of Treasury. Again the Democrat accepted with a second thought.
After George McGovern, the “peace candidate,” captured his party’s presidential nomination in July 1972, Connally took the dramatic step of organizing “Democrats for Nixon.” Liz Carpenter, Lady Bird Johnson’s former press secretary, reacted to the news with the famous quip, “I’m just glad that we did not have to count on them at the Alamo.”
What few knew at the time was that Nixon had tried to talk Connally into being his running mate in the ’72 campaign. He wanted to dump Agnew, an asset that had turned into excess bag, and was convinced the unhappy Democrat would help carry Texas and key southern states for the GOP ticket.
But Connally could not be tempted, not even when Nixon promised more power than any Vice President in history. He belittled the mostly ceremonial post as “useless” much like fellow Texan John Nance Garner’s comparison to “a pitcher of warm spit.”
Richard Nixon did not need Connally at his side to swamp McGovern at the polls that fall. Nor, for that matter, did he need a dirty tricks unit called “the plumbers” to break into the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee.
In his autobiography published in 1993, the year of his death, Connally expressed his firm opinion that Nixon had no prior knowledge of the bungled burglary. “I do not defend or excuse what happened in the Watergate scandal, but I believed, then and now, that he had no part in the break-in.” Going a giant step farther, he added, “I believe the long reach of history will treat him favorably as a president.”
In May 1973, four months after Lyndon Johnson passed away, Connally switched parties. He may have seen Agnew’s disgraced departure coming or simply thought the time had come to make it official.
Either way, when the Vice President resigned that August as part of plea bargain with prosecutors, Connally was a Republican and apparently willing to fill the vacancy. The prohibitive favorite in the press, he sat back and waited for the telephone to ring.
It took ten days for Nixon to make up his mind. The announcement that a Michigan congressman named Gerald Ford would be the next Vice President caught just about everybody by surprise.
In private Nixon bluntly informed Ford that Connally had been his first choice. But in the end he faced the fact that the congressional confirmation required by the Constitution would be too tough a battle in the midst of the Watergate mess. Nixon did, however, make it clear that the Texan would have his support for a White House bid in 1976.
Connally’s name came up two more times in connection with the Vice Presidency — in August 1974, when Ford had to choose his own successor, and in August 1976, when the incumbent candidate selected a running mate in place of outgoing VP Nelson Rockefeller. On both occasions, John Connally’s late conversion to the Republican Party and the white-hot anger of Democrats over his defection kept him out in the cold.
(“Revolution & Republic: Texas 1832-1846” — “Best of This Week in Texas History” collection available for $10.95 plus $3.25 postage and handling from Bartee Haile, P.O. Box 152, Friendswood, TX 77549 or order online at www.twith.com.)
Don’t Go Postal
While defending his government-funded health insurance option a week ago – a controversial idea that, at this writing, he appears to be willing to ditch – he said private insurers shouldn’t worry about competing with the government.
He said it is the U.S. Postal Service, not FedEx and UPS, that is struggling.
To be sure, our quasi-government postal operation is on track to lose $7 billion this year.
Why? In the Internet era, fewer people are mailing things. They’re mailing even less during a deep recession.
But here are the real challenges our post office faces: regulations, mandates and bureaucratic inertia that make it incapable of adjusting to market conditions.
Postmaster General John Potter is trying to correct that. He said Congress needs to allow the post office to “think outside the mailbox” – to consider new activities that could generate new revenue.
The Italian post office allows customers to do their banking. Post offices in other countries allow customers to purchase insurance. The Australian postal system allows customers to renew their driver’s licenses.
Heck, we’re already waiting in long lines. Why not wait for two or three things at once?
Besides, our postal system has 36,000 locations across America – it generates massive foot traffic. Surely, it could generate new dough by offering new services and products that consumers want.
But, since quasi-government organizations move at a snail’s pace, if at all, that may take a while.
If you want an example of someone who really did think outside the mailbox, visit the FedEx Web site.
Fred Smith, the company’s founder, had a vision to do something the post office wasn’t able to do: deliver small packages fast.
In 1971, he invested money he inherited – along with venture capital he was able to raise – to buy a used-aircraft company in Little Rock, Ark.
He began using the aircraft to provide overnight delivery services for envelopes and small packages shipped within the United States.
He ran into all kinds of challenges and obstacles. He and his team obviously were successful at resolving them. They pushed advances in computer technology to drive efficiency. Their creativity and innovation ultimately changed the world.
Needless to say, FedEx has become so innovative and efficient, we take for granted that the package we drop off today will arrive virtually anywhere in America by noon tomorrow.
In fact, so reliable is FedEx, our postal system signed a contract with the company to deliver its own express packages all over America – something the post office could never do on its own.
Which brings us back to Obama’s telling comment comparing public and private organizations.
It is true that our health care system needs some reforming and our government has an important role in nudging the reform along.
But do we really want “reforms” that will lead to a post office-style bureaucracy and the constant meddling of big-talking politicians?
In the era of Google and innovation and massive new efficiencies, do we really want a government-directed system that, by its very nature, will quell innovation and efficiency?
Or do we want reform that will move us more toward the energetic FedEx model?
Most agree that lawmakers must address the big challenges — there are creative ways to deal with portability, pre-existing conditions, the uninsured, etc. — but they must establish new guidelines without taking away more of our freedom.
Unleashing private-sector creativity and innovation is the only way we can drive the improvements our health care system so badly needs.
Is there anyone on the planet who thinks the government can manage one-seventh of the U.S. economy better than the private sector?
If you do, let me ask you this: If you needed to ship a precious personal item halfway across the world, whom would you entrust it to?
The post office or FedEx?
The health care debate isn’t much more complicated than that.
©2009 Tom Purcell. Tom Purcell, a humor columnist for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, is nationally syndicated exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate. For more info contact Cari Dawson Bartley at 800-696-7561 or e-mail . Visit Tom on the web at or e-mail him at .