AM I A CHUMP FOR TRUMP?

I am  now officially a Trumpian.  No one is more surprised than I.  I am a self described moderate.  While I grew up aspiring to be Nick Charles, the quintessential New Yorker, five years in the Big Apple left me with Neal Simon's prescient political incorrectness, "New York isn't Mecca.  It only smells like it."  No one ever retired to the North.  I hate reality TV.  Sporty cap or hat, yes...comb over, never.

So how did this loud, boorish, ridiculously coiffed snake oil salesman win me over?  Well he didn't.  Newt Ginrich did.  Now, Newt and I are kindred spirits.  Newt, though born in Gettysburg PA , went to high school and college in Georgia and has become an accomplished southern gentleman.  Newt is probably the most scholarly Speaker of the House ever, an academic with decades of real world experience.  Newt was a history professor before becoming in 1994 the first Republican Speaker of the House in 40 years.  Despite of his dislike for President Clinton, he pushed through the Contract with America, a legislative agenda that was a win-win for both sides of the aisle.  Since leaving the Congress, he has published several historical tomes, both fiction and non-fiction.

I Just saw Newt Ginrich on Fox News   He stopped just short of endorsing Trump, but said three interesting things.  One.  Trump had his first Time Magazine cover in 1989.  Only Hillary has been on the world stage longer.  Two.  His larger than life personality is exactly what is needed to off set the Islamic crazies and KGB trained Vladmir Putin.

But most interesting was "He knows what he doesn't know and he knows how to hire the best people."  Newt told the story about how Trump took over the Wollman Skating Rink in Central Park after the City of New York flailed around for six years trying to upgrade the rink.  Trump said, "I don't know anything about ice rinks, but you know who does?  Canadians!"  So he hired the Number One rink firm in Canada and had the Wollman rink up and running in six months.  

DUCK AND COVER

Every Saturday at noon, Memphis tests its early warning system. These days Memphians call the Saturday siren a tornado warning. During my youth, it had a different meaning. I grew up during the Cold War when every aspect of our lives was colored by the specter of nuclear annihilation. The siren would be the last thing I heard before I was vaporized by a Soviet missile. 

That fear was reinforced everywhere I went as a child. At school teachers shamelessly taught us to “Duck & Cover” to survive a nuclear attack. At home the nightly news warned us that missiles in Cuba could reach us in a few minutes. At my neighborhood movie theatre giant ants, lizards, and octopi created by nuclear radiation were the featured films. At the Mid-South Fair, the most popular exhibit was a do-it-yourself fallout shelter for the home. In 1964 three major films dealt with a nuclear apocalypse, Dr Strangelove, Fail Safe, and Seven days in May. 

 However, another event in 1964 managed to distract me and my contemporaries, the Beatles’ tour of the US. By high school I was anti-war and a believer in peace, love, and rock & roll. I once told my boss that I thought there were causes worth dying for, but none worth killing for. He said, “Wait until you’re a father.” Well, I am a father and a grandfather now and I find myself trying to justify the killing of innocents while fighting “The War on Terror”. We are now faced with the very real possibility that mad men who run Iran may soon have a nuclear weapon. It comes down to this, will you kill their women and children to protect our women and children? Yeah, now you know how Harry Truman felt.

THE SUBJECT WAS ROSES

This blog has been on hiatus these past 29 months primarily because of inertia.  There hasn’t been sufficient force generated by governmental intrusion into my life to overcome the inertia of my generally contented life.  However, as we approach November, I feel compelled to dust off the keyboard and once again add my opinion to the millions of others expressing outrage from all over the political spectrum.  

Nancy Pelosi

Strangely, the subject was roses.  (OK, it’s an obscure theatrical reference, but that’s how I write) For the few of you who have been ignoring the news this past week, former Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, decided to hold a theatrical performance, disguised as an official Congressional hearing, with just one witness, a Georgetown School of Law student named Sandra Fluke was the sole witness.  Ms Fluke dramatically testified that she was going broke purchasing contraceptives while studying law, estimating that she would spend $3000 while pursuing her jurisprudence degree.  The whole charade was designed to distract the American public from the real issue that our government is trying to force our religious institutions into adopting the governments set of moral principles.  In a rather clumsy attempt to demonstrate the absurdity of the display, the conservative radio pundit, Rush Limbaugh, opined that a person seeking free birth control was a either a “slut” or a :prostitute”.  

Now, I am upset with Rush because of the incredible stupidity 

Rush Limbaugh

he manifested.  Nancy Pelosi’s pathetic puppet show should not have made it onto any reputable news report.  Rush gave the brazen publicity grab a national platform.  He then doubled down on his mistake by giving the left a side show to allow President Obama to delay for another couple of weeks a further examination of his assault on individual liberty and his mismanagement of the national economy.  The liberal left has managed to pick up the scalps of several conservative media types in recent years.  Just ask Don Imus, Lou Dobbs, & Glen Beck.  While many believe Rush is too big an elephant to bring down with these pop gun tactics,  I wouldn’t rule it out all together.  The attempt follows a well worn path.  Throw gasoline on smoldering fire  by calling in the most strident elements of the media and the call for a boycott of the transgressor’s advertisers.   Astonishingly, eight of Rush’s advertisers, all of whom were aware of his status as the man who the left most loves to hate, have now decided to pull their advertising.  The one that offends me is one I was introduced to on Rush’s show, ProFlowers. 

 I used to work for a florist and I like to give flowers.  ProFlowers gives me a convenient way to send flowers on-line.  However, the liberal executives at the giant on-line florist, ProFlowers, have done a disservice to their shareholders and their customers by involving themselves in this boycott.  First, it is likely to hurt their bottom line.  As a retired management consultant I see this as a stupid business decision.  I would think that the demographic that Rush attracts is much more likely to purchase ProFlowers products than the far left liberal activists who fomented this boycott.  If you doubt me, check and see how many Georgetown Law coeds bought flowers for some last year.  Now we have established that ProFlowers supports the government’s right to force religious institutions to provide, either directly or indirectly, free contraceptives to American school girls.  

However, most Proflowers customers do not know yet that the most of the flowers they sell come from countries in Central and South America and Africa where worker rights aren't always respected.  In Colombia and Ecuador, which are the main countries that supply the U.S. flower market, over half of female workers have been sexually harassed or assaulted on the job, and the International Labor Organization (ILO) estimates that 20 percent of the 60,000 Ecuadorian flower workers are children.   This bit of dirty laundry might have gone unnoticed had Proflowers not decided to decided to don shining armor, mount their white horse and gallop off to play the role of the defender of women’s rights.   I always used to tell companies focus on what your business is.  So I ask, Proflowers is your business subverting political discourse?   In the meantime I will buy my wife flowers for our anniversary next month from a florist that sells fresh flowers, not stale political rhetoric.

OBAMA WIN'S NOBEL PEACE PRIZE

Martin Luther King Jr, Nelson Mandela,
Mother Teresa, Barack Obama…
One of these things is not like the others,
One of these things just doesn't belong…

WE'RE BACK

We have purposefully avoided posting these past two months. Like many Americans we have been hopeful that our new President would be successful. Our daughter, flush with the idealism of youth, had chastised us for not giving President Obama the opportunity to prove his ability to lead our nation out of the mess we are in. We have sat on our hands, counted to ten after each evening news report, and occupied ourselves with other pursuits.

After the events of the past two weeks, we are now ready to starting posting here again. President Obama just completed his first visit abroad as President of the United States of America, a position synonymous, with the title, “Most Powerful Person In The World”. We have lots to say about this, but will break it up in several posts for those of you with limited attention spans, time, or tolerance for our point of view.

Michelle Obama & French First Lady, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy

The trip started well enough, with a visit to London to for a meeting of the “G-20”, Group of Twenty, the leaders of the 20 wealthiest nations in the world. These countries create 90 percent of the planet’s gross domestic product and are quite literally, the only countries in the world that should have a say. But we will address that in another post.

Tthe main stream media would have you believe that this meeting was a rousing success for Obama. Indeed the crowds in London seemed to love the President and First Lady. Crowds in France were equally charmed by the Obamas. But the discussions of Mrs Obama’s mastery of wardrobe (we don’t see it, but we will leave that discussion to fans of People Magazine) and mismanagement of protocol (For those of you think that Mrs. Obama is Jackie Kennedy reincarnated, Jackie O’ would have never bungled the gift giving the way Michelle has) have been smokescreen for a failed mission. The fact is the United States did not not accomplish it’s main objective, an agreement that other wealthy nations would infuse some of their capital into the global economy. Then there was the embarrassing deference shown to other leaders, most notably bowing to Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud (Don’t event pretend it was something other than a bow. We have watched four different videos and viewed five different photos. It was a bow.) What was done was the US agreed to give up its fiscal sovereignty by agreeing to allow the newly formed Financial Ability Stability Board to regulate and oversee all financial institutions, instruments and markets, including tough new rules on pay and bonuses at a global level. Simply put the Chinese, a communist nation, will have a say in how much American workers should earn. Whatever else was accomplished, we are still not over this one.

Now every treaty proposed by the President must be ratified by two thirds of the US Senate, 67 members. We have faith that this one will never pass that flawed body. Next overtures to the Muslim World.

WHERE ARE THE ECONOMIC EXPERTS

We always thought we had a pretty good education. We are well grounded in the sciences, have read all the classics, know our history, ancient and modern, well versed in world geography and other cultures, able to read three languages, and better acquainted than most in the arts. However, we admit to having only a superficial knowledge of economics. We were smart enough to hire a good accountant, but even he is knowledgeable in the nuts and bolts of our tax system.

So we are not surprised that no one in our Congress has a clue on how to turn this economy around. While we recognize that good people feel obligated to act in a crisis, we are frightened that so many people who are so ignorant of economic theory are so determined to throw so much money at the problem. We have heard of Keynesian economic theory, the belief that massive government spending and low interest rates will keep an economy reving like a well tuned engine. However, your attention is directed to our masthead. We are moderate. We are uncomfortable with actions that stray too far from the middle of the road.

Everything about our elected officials reaction to this financial crisis is too extreme. Too much money is being spent too fast by people with too little expertise and too few safeguards. We fear that the pendulum has swung too far in other direction. President Obama may have been swept into office by a public seeking a change, but we are pretty certain that the American electorate did not think that change would be greater government spending, fewer financial safeguards, and more corruption.

We return to that point on education. We would like to hear from a couple of experts on the subject, perhaps a Nobel Laureate or a well published University professor or anyone else that is not remotely connected to a politician. We spent a career advising companies on long range planning. We frequently were told by CEOs that they couldn’t afford to take the time to do all that planning and we always told those CEOs that they couldn’t afford not to do the planning. Those that didn’t heed our advice are no longer CEOs. Now we tell our Congressmen and Senators take the time to listen to the experts before you act.

OBAMA DOES GOOD

We like to cultivate the image that we are moderate and middle of the road. So it was inevitable that President Obama would do something that we admire. Twice this week President Obama has show a political pragmatism that heartens us. Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, had incensed middle and conservative America by earmarking tens of millions of dollars in the proposed stimulus plan for family planning. Fiscal conservatives failed to see the connection between birth control and financial stimulation and social conservatives saw it as a late Christmas bonus for abortion clinics. However, anxious to provide an olive branch to recalcitrant Republicans, President Obama made it clear that he would have the offending dollars removed from the stimulus package in exchange for bipartisan support.

In a second, brilliant, PR maneuver, President Obama gave his first exclusive television interview to Al Arabia, a network focused on the Arab world. The moderate network, based in Dubai and owned by a member of the Saudi royal family, reaches 23 million Muslims in the Persian Gulf. Telling Muslims, ”…Americans are not your enemy.”, Obama promised to do a better job at listening to the concerns of Arabs than had his predecessors. He reminded Al Arabiya viewers of his Muslim connections, “I have Muslim members of my family. I have lived in a Muslim country.”, associations he sought to minimize prior to his election. While most Americans may find the ingratiating tone of the interview somewhat embarrassing, it served to put critics of the US on notice that there is a new sheriff in town. Whether the interview will be taken as a gesture of good faith or a sign of weakness remains to be seen, but it caught everyone off guard, including us.

In the meantime, we may be from the Volunteer State, but we will adopt the attitude of our neighbors from the “Show Me” state.

IS IT LIVE OR IS IT MEMOREX?

Back during the Beijing Olympics much was made of the Chinese government’s digital enhancement of the opening ceremony’s fireworks and the dubbing of the voice of the angelic child that sang at the festivities. Pundits railed at the PRC’s obsession with controlling the images the world saw and heard. Now we learn that the Obama camp has taken a page from the Chinese and altered the broadcast that the world viewed on their television screens

The inaugural committee took great pains to make sure that the festivities would span the entire range of American culture, featuring artists from rapper Jay-C to cellist Yo Yo Ma. The latter played a piece specially composed by movie theme legend John Williams (Jaws) in a quartet including violinist Itzhak Perlman, pianist Gabriella Montero and clarinetist Anthony McGill, four of the most distinguished classical musicians of our day. The New York Times reports that only a handful of people sitting near the quartet heard the real performance. The remainder of the 1.8 million people in the crowd assembled on the Washington Mall and the 38 million Americans gathered around their TV sets were listening to a studio recording of the piece.

Obamabots quickly rationalized the dishonest performance as absolutely necessary because of the cold, even though the Marine Band and the Navy Band Sea Chanters were able to perform under the less than perfect temperatures. We don’t know if the decision to dupe the public was made by the musicians, the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies, or the Obama handlers. We do know that the 1.8 million people, who waited hours in the cold to witness this President who they so desperately want to believe in, deserve honesty, that the 38 million Americans watching deserve the truth, and 300 million US residents demand integrity in their President.

Now you may think that this is a minor, superficial thing. A generation addicted to the IPod may not be aware that artifical amplification is never used in classical music. We, however, think that this is just one more example of a man who has carefully presented a manufactured image to the electorate, a man who is obsessed with controlling everything the public sees and hears. We think it is fitting that this controversy centers on music written by the most famous movie composer of all time. The question is are we going to have a real President or just a man that plays one on TV?

PRESIDENTIAL PARANOIA

We have not warmed to President Obama yet. Having spent much of our life in the San Francisco Bay area, we remember the cult followings of Reverend Sun Myung Moon and the People’s Temple Jim Jones. From the Iowa Democratic Primary campaign to Tuesday’s mega Woodstock that was the inauguration, we have been reluctant to jump on the Obama bandwagon. It’s not that we don’t long for a President than can renew our enthusiasm for the promise that is America. It’s just that we don’t really believe in love at first sight. After all we married the girl next door whom we had known since we were 14.

We have watched President Obama as closely as if he had just started dating our only daughter. After all, we just met him a little over year ago, for us a too brief courtship. Frankly we don’t know much more about him now than we did a year ago…nice looking chap, good education, well spoken, but questionable antecedents and associations and, above all, few accomplishments. Nonetheless, the wedding is over, the American people have made this unknown suitor our President. The fact that he is now part of the family does not mean he has proved himself yet. We are encouraged by the quickness and decisiveness of his actions. He has already issued executive orders to close Guantanamo and end torture, actions we applaud. However, we witnessed something yesterday, that gave us our first glimpse of the real man behind the hype.

During a swearing in ceremony of White House staffers, Vice President Joseph Biden, when asked to adminster the oath, joked about Chief Justice John Roberts’ well publicized gaff during the inaugural. President Obama grabbed his arm, whispered something into his ear, and stepped back, the familiar smile completely gone. We’ve seen puppies that soiled the carpet corrected less severely. Poor Joe Biden is in for a long stretch. Later that day Chief Justice Roberts would be summoned to the White House to readminster the Presidential oath in a fit of presidential paranoia unseen since the Nixon administration. What may be just a footnote in Presidential history (it’s been done twice before without much notice) has offered us a glimpse of Obama’s modus operandi.

• First, there was an orchestrated effort to control the media’s portrayal of the event. Only four members of the press were allowed to view the redo swearing in. No video was allowed, though audio of the event has surfaced. It is unclear if said audio was authorized.
• Second, a carefully worded press release deemed the redo not required, but undertaken, “…out of an abundance of caution…” Today, in his first press briefing, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, repeated the “abundance of caution” mantra several times. He might have said, “just in case” or “to be sure”, but he didn’t, signaling that future responses to the press will be carefully scripted by the Obama inner circle.
  

We hope that what looks like paranoia is, in fact, an abundance of caution, and that President Obama will continue to act forcefully and not be paralyzed by an obsession to control all around him. In the meantime, we would love to have that body language expert from the Bill O’Reilly show assess that arm grabbing move. Around here, if you grab your kid or wife like that, you’ll end up in family court.

SHOW ME

It’s not often that in political commentary one gets to invoke a show tune, but after listening to the endless yammering about the historical importance of the coming administration of President Elect Obama and all we can look forward to, we find ourselves wandering about the house humming a tune from My Fair Lady. No it isn’t “I Could Have Danced All Night”. It is “Show Me” For you kiddies that don’t remember the ethereal Audrey Hepburn or don't know Lerner and Lowe's musical legacy, at the end of the movie, the character Eliza Doolittle chastises her too verbose suitor for promising and never delivering.

Words, words, words, I’m so sick of words. Never do I want to hear another word. There isn’t one I haven’t heard. Here we are together in what ought to be a dream. Say one more word and I’ll scream.

Yes, Obama’s election is historic. Yes, the world he promises is utopian. Yes, even we want much of what he promises to deliver. But we are past the dreaminess of our youth. We have spent a lifetime of working hard, hoping to provide a secure future for our children and a worry free retirement for ourselves. We have listened to our own parents and studied hard and secured our academic credentials. We followed the advice of our mentors and worked diligently to have a successful career. We have listened to our political leaders and fulfilled our role as responsible citizens, supporting our government and serving our community. Now we want the life we were promised. So, President Obama, show me. Show me now .

PRESS ON A LEASH

We have been patient with President elect Obama. We, like all Americans, are cautiously optimism. After all President Bush has set our expectations extraordinarily low. As disgusted as we are with the 43rd President, we are angrier with the press. Yesterday's Presidential press conference, Bush's last, was an embarrassment all around.

Despite the "go easy on the guy" attitude reserved for the occasion, the press allowed President Bush to make some of the most outrageous claims ever spoken aloud by a chief executive. Among the outrageous claims were that he thought that the federal response to Katrina had been adequate, that the financial melt down was something he inherited and that he was able to stay “lighthearted” while, “…reading reports about soldiers losing their lives.” Yet not one reporter challenged him.

President elect Obama has had several press conferences already and it has become apparent that he and his staff are manipulating the press, picking and choosing the reporters that are allowed to ask questions. This is an frightening state of affairs. We have the super powers of Russia and China brazenly predicting the fall of the US. There has never been a time in our history when we needed more the press to aggressively challenge every thing our government does. We are on the brink of disaster.

The one hopeful thing we see is this very medium, the medium that Obama rode into the White House, the medium that will be his undoing for it not a easily controlled. At this time Obomabots effectively drown out opposing views, but this will not last long. Such people have short attention spans. They will soon tire of their new idol and will be off to the next cover of People magazine and the grown ups will be here to deal with what they have wrought. And we will. We may be older, but we still believe in an America that can do anything and, for all of the inherent arrogance and xenophobia, we still believe that we are better than any other country. We will not let these people or the sycophant press prove us wrong.

BARACK, THE MAGIC NEGRO

Once again the Republican National Party proves it can’t negotiate the parking lot of the local mall without stepping in a cow pattie. RNC chair candidate, Chip Saltsman, has been sending around a "comedy" CD to fellow party officials featuring the song "Barack the Magic Negro”, set to the music of the 1960s song, “Puff, the Magic Dragon”. Living in one of the nation’s major African-American cities, we have been taught from birth that such mean spirited jokes are rude, hurtful, and, well, just bad manners. However, that’s not what we are concerned about. There will always be people who belittle people outside their group because there will always be ignorant people afraid that aren’t good enough unless someone else is beneath them.

What we are concerned about is the fact that political dissent in this country is being mistaken for racism. We did not support President Elect Obama and we still believe that he is ill suited for the most important job in the world. However, we are encouraged that he has surrounded himself with many people from the Clinton administration, an administration that brought us the most prosperous and peaceful period in our country’s history. Nonetheless, our nation faces the most difficult challenge in our since WWII. If we are to survive we need everyone to do their part and that includes the press. The media must keep a watchful eye on this administration and assure that it stays on the path of recovery.

Our journalists have been asleep at the wheel for the last several years, failing to blow the whistle on the faulty intelligence that lead us into a disastrous war, failing to condemn the loss of our liberties under the Patriot Act, failing to foresee the economic apocalypse that we now face, and failing to investigate the least qualified candidate for President in a 150 years. The sycophantic behavior of news people regarding Barack Obama is frightening. Someone has to risk being called a racist and be a critic, in the true since of the term, of our government, including the President Elect. The American people need their fourth estate to do its job, keep the three branches, all three branches, of government in check.

A ROSE BY ANOTHER NAME

We admit it. We hate our name, Billy DeWayne Wheeler. The name conjures up visions of trailer parks, long neck beers, and women with tattoos. OK, in deference to our mother, we do have a certain populist pride in the name, a lifetime of admonishing smirking teachers, government clerks, and CEO receptionists, “It’s not William. It’s Billy. It’s Southern.” Why do parents do this to their children? Is it the drug hangover from childbirth, revenge for the discomfort of pregnancy, or a parental statement that their child is special?

We are, after all, the most staunch defenders of parental rights, but when does the exercise of the first amendment cross over into child abuse? Here we have a the sad story of a New Jersey child who almost didn’t have a birthday cake because the local bakery refused to adorn his cake with the greeting “ Happy Birthday, Adolph Hitler”. That’s right little Adolph’s jerk of a father, whose own parents lovingly gave him the very proper Scottish name of Heath Campbell, decided to sentence his own child to a lifetime of abuse and derision, while creating a living, breathing hate crime. And as if dooming one child to 20 years of therapy wasn’t enough, white supremacist wannabe Campbell also named his two other children, JoyceLynn Aryan Nation and Honszlynn Hinler. (It‘s Himmler, you dufus) In a happy ending,frosted in delicious political satire, three year old Adolph’s mom got his cake at the same place she did the previous two years….Wal-Mart.

And to remind you that we are in the middle on almost all issues, here’s a piece on unique Africa-American children’s names. Our own children’s names? That would be Winston Wycliffe Wheeler (Wink) and Wellesley Windover Wheeler (Windy). Today, we have grown accustomed to our name and now tell people, “It’s Barack, not Barry, and it’s Billy, not William.”

IS THE MONROE DOCTRINE DEAD?

We realize it’s the holiday season and, like Auntie Mame, we need a little Christmas right now, but could we get our press to focus for just one moment on things that matter. We are like the man dying of thirst in the desert, as we channel surf through the news looking for reports of real news. While we can find plenty of reports on little Caylee Anthony, Madonna’s divorce settlement, and a shoe throwing Iraqi newsman, we have not been able to find anyone interested on the fact that the Monroe Doctrine has been abandoned by our President and President-Elect.

For those of your deprived of an elementary school education, the Monroe Doctrine is a nearly 200 year old US foreign policy position that the US will not allow any interference in this hemisphere by foreign powers from outside this hemisphere. For the past few months, Russia has been thumbing it’s nose at our lame duck President and his appeasement minded successor. A glimpse at our sidebar reveals a link to the very under reported story that Russia intends to send warships to visit Cuba, a mere 90 miles off our shores. We realize that the world is shrinking and that we can’t hide from the rest of the world, but just because we live in a zero lot line home, we don’t have to let the neighbors pee through our window (and, no, we didn’t forget the “r”).

While we appreciate the attention being given the current financial crisis, we still believe that the defense of our shores is a major function of the federal government. So would one of you guys who is lucky enough to have a job as our elected official, do something about the thugs in out backyard?

WHERE DO WE GO FOR UNBIASED REPORTING?

We find ourselves surprisingly repetitive in manners concerning the press in this country. We are possibly obsessed, overly focused, or justified, possibly all three, in bemoaning the lack of unbiased reporting by those employed as journalists True there are exceptions, CNN’s Wolf Blitzer and NBC’s Tom Brokaw, come quickly to mind. We are certain that other names would surface if we thought longer, much longer.

So with apologies for the required redundancy, we report that former Hillary Clinton campaign advisor, Hilary Rosen is now hosting CNN’s After Party. Rosen is the Washington Political Director for the Huffington Post and one of the Democratic Party’s most vociferous advocates. Now all three major cable “news” outlets have in their employ, political operatives of the most insidious type. By that we mean, likable. MSNBC’s Chris Matthews, Fox News’ Mike Huckabee, and Rosen are all charming, entertaining people and, even worse, they have experience in American politics that makes their point of view eminently credible. It isn’t their credentials than we question, it is their ethics.

We were stuck by something Secretary of Defense, Robert M. Gates said about his political affiliation. As a professional intelligence officer, he never registered his political affiliation, so he could serve any administration in a professional and unbiased manner. As an aspiring journalist we took a college course in journalistic ethics, but that was long ago. Funny we thought ethics would never go out of vogue. We are comforted that our Secretary of Defense shares our view and dismayed that the press does not. However, we feel confident the American people will recognize the former and reject the latter. Otherwise we are lost.

SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE

Years ago, a coworker visiting in my home saw a photo of me and my wife at my daughter’s baptism, he said to me, “I didn’t know you were Catholic. I thought you were an atheist.” I was raised to believe that it was inappropriate to discuss one‘s religion, finances, or sex life in public. I am not ashamed of my religion, finances, or sex life, but they are personal matters and to be shared only with my intimates. Like most social conventions, such a practice is rooted in pragmatism. A couple of recent events illustrate why our founding fathers sought to keep public life and religion separate.

California’s Proposition 8, the so-called “Defense of Marriage” proposal to amend that state‘s constitution, was passed by a slim majority of voters. Fueled by money from the Mormon Church and other churches, the supporters of Proposition 8 would have us believe that marriage is solely a religious institution. When I worked for the Department of Justice, I remember reading a legal definition of a marriage that said, in part, that marriage was a contract among three parties, the spouses and the state. As I recall, the standard ending to a marriage ceremony includes something like, …by the authority vested in me by the state…” not “by the Mormon Church” or any other church. It is clearly unAmerican to allow any church to force our citizens to follow their religious beliefs. So why are we trying to deny gay and lesbian people the rights conferred to straight citizens, the right to inherit property, the right to make medical decisions as next of kin, the right to Social Security and IRS benefits? Because the Bible says so? Find me two people that read and interpret the Bible the exactly the same way. Besides, I thought our laws were exempt from that religious test.

Lest we malign the Mormon Church too much, I have special disdain for the African American community on this one. On the same day when African Americans were celebrating the watershed moment of electing the first Black US President, …with the overwhelming support of gay and lesbian community, 70 percent of them were voting for the legal discrimination of this very vulnerable minority. I don’t want to hear that it’s not the same thing. I was at both Martin Luther King’s memorial service in Memphis in 1968 and Harvey Milk’s memorial service in San Francisco in 1978. While there are important differences in the two movements, it is the same fundamental principle. The hypocrisy is staggering, 70 percent of African American children are born out of wedlock, but they want to “Defend Marriage”. Please.

Even more tragic is the carnage going on in Mubai, India, and in Nigeria, all in the name of religion. I’m no religious expert, but I’m pretty certain that, “Thou Shall Not Kill” is pretty universal. When did hatred of others become the standard fare of our religious communities? Every church community I’ve been exposed to has demonstrated concern for our fellow man and peace fostered by an all powerful being. I’m not your typical sheltered boy from the Bible Belt. I spent ten years of my life working with refugees from every religious group on the planet. This hate, whether it is perpetrated by the pulling of the trigger of an automatic weapon or the pulling of the lever in a voting booth is not the exercise of religion, but it is what Thomas Jefferson was hoping to avoid by the doctrine of separation of church and state.

So the next time you act to persecute a minority, you remember on which side of the religious argument you fall, and on which side your maker sits.

MILITARY WE CAN AFFORD

We spent a good part of our career advising the US Navy and other military organizations on how better to manage their operations. We came away with the firm belief that we have the most dedicated, the most well trained, and the most well equipped military in the world. We also have one of the worst managed military in the world. In simple terms we pay way too much for our military. The Department of Defense gets around 43 percent of the national budget, $711B in 2008. We are so conditioned to accept these large numbers that to suggest that they are too high is considered anti-American and suicidal. Well, it is just the opposite. We are in a death spiral of spending that will soon accomplish what no other enemy has been able to do, bring our great country to defeat. Simply look at the numbers (remember, we love numbers) We spend nearly as much on our military as the whole rest of the world combined. That’s right, our military costs are an amazing 48 percent of the world total military expenditures. Now remember that includes our allies. All of Europe spends $289B, about 40 Percent of what we spend. More importantly our adversaries spend a fraction of what we do. China spends $122B, Russia spends $70B. However, any way you want to look at it, there is no rational reason for us to be spending the kind of money we do to sustain our military.

So how do we figure out what is the right amount to spend? Well, first let’s decide what it is we want to accomplish. Are we out to be Ming The Merciless and dominate the entire universe or do we simply want to protect our shores? In all seriousness, there is a legitimate debate. Recent administrations have perpetuated the belief that the only legitimate form of government is democracy and it is God’s choice that the United States install such a government in all non-believing countries. We are unsure that the former is true and certain that the latter is lunacy. There is, perhaps, some legitimacy in protecting democracy where it exists and where we have treaties and self interest. However, we feel that it should be a pay as you go proposition. We have always marveled that Germany and Japan should have been allowed to develop into global economic powers while we provided their security. Maybe it‘s because we lived in a Sicilian neighborhood in Brooklyn, but we believe you pay for security. How did we allow the rest of the world develop industries to rival our own while we paid for the military services? Along the way we had the opportunity to investigate how other governments run their military.

Once we decide on what it is we want to accomplish, then we can go about deciding how we accomplish it. Our military expenditures are focused five areas: weapons systems, non-weapons equipment, facilities, manpower, and logistics. There are substantial economies to be had in all areas. An exhaustive discussion is beyond the intent of these pages, but here are few items.

• We own too many military installations, here and overseas. The US military is one of the largest, if not the largest landlords in the world, with over 30,000,000 acres of land around the world. This does not include bases in the UK, Israel, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Afghanistan which were built with US tax dollars, but are technically belong to the host countries.
• We have too much non-weapons equipment. A good chunk of the military’s real estate is used to warehouse giant machine tools, huge trucks, personnel carriers, and other pieces of no-ordnance equipment.
• We have too many non-combatant military personnel. Because other countries rely on global social services to support their military, they do not need separate medical services, social services, housing services to support their military.
• We have too many of the wrong kind of weapons. Our nuclear arsenal is beyond what is needed to maintain a deterrent. Discussion is futile.
  

Ronald Regan oversaw an military expansion designed to destroy the world’s second greatest superpower, the Soviet Union. The design worked, perhaps too well. Will it bring down the world’s greatest superpower as well?

LEARNING FROM OUR ELDERS

One of the more stupid things that was said by Republican supporters during the recent Presidential campaign (and there were many stupid things said by both sides) was, “We don’t want European style democracy.” As much as we love the USA and wouldn’t want to live anywhere else, there are many things European we admire. We’ve always been fans of English furniture, German cars, French food, and Italian shoes, but we also think that the Europeans do a lot of things better than we do. However, since one of things they do better is reading, we are going to address this in a series of posts so not to strain the attention span of the average American reader.

First, and most frequently mentioned is universal health care. Frankly, we are weary of the debate. The facts are irrefutable. In Europe life expectancies are higher. Infant mortality is lower. Every citizen has access to health care. Every type of illness is less common…cancers, heart disease, stroke, diabetes. Finally costs are lower. Isn’t it simply a matter of putting a group of experts in a room and asking them to design a US health care system based on European best practices? There is really no reason why we can’t have a European type health care system implemented within a couple of years. That is, there isn’t any reason other than the lobbies of the AMA, pharmaceutical labs, medical equipment manufacturers, and insurance companies. In the end we will do it for the same reason the Europeans did it. We can no longer afford the way we’re doing it now.

Second is mass transit. Rail transportation in Europe is convenient, safe, clean, and fast, very fast. Eurostar trains transport passengers from London to Paris at speeds of 186 mph in just over two hours. Try getting through an airport, board a plane, and leave the ground in less than two hours here in the US, much less arrive at your destination. All major cities in Europe can conveniently be reached by train. Furthermore, once you arrive in the city central, you can transfer to the city’s light rail system/subway and be taken to a convenient distance, often walking distance of your destination. This one is a little harder to accomplish. We have to make a major infrastructure investment and a major cultural change.

This could easily be a series of essays on its own. Virtually nothing is uniquely American as the cult of private ownership of an automobile. Only New Yorkers actually have the opportunity to mature unencumbered by the forced reliance on private transportation. There is no other aspect of the American way of life in which we are so uniformly inculcated. An adult without a drivers license in the US is more of a minority than a black Lesbian with a Hispanic surname. In all seriousness, we have been codependent with the oil companies, the auto industry, and the insurance companies in an unholy addiction to the automobile. Try this exercise, add up your car note, your insurance premium, the cost of gas, the cost of parking, and your annual maintenance costs. When I talked to my dad about buying my first car, he told me, “Son, I started to work as a welder when I was 14 years old. I was making so much money I didn’t know how to spend it all. Then I bought my first car and I’ve been broke every since.” It’s time for America to grow up and get a real transportation system.

Next: Managing our military.

BY THE NUMBERS

We love numbers. We remember a science fiction film where Pi, the constant used to calculate the circumference of a circle or the volume of a sphere, was used to create a universal language with which to communicate with extraterrestrials. Well, we want to use numbers to communicate with just the American electorate. Your elected representatives have just committed to giving $700B (that’s shorthand for $700,000,000,000.00) to the people who have made a living loaning you money. Think about that. Your elected representatives, the people you have chosen to look after your interests, have just given $700B of your money to people to loan to you WITH interest. Now that doesn’t make much sense to us. How about we loan $700B to these incompetent, greedy, lazy leeches on the American people, AND they pay us interest?

Here’s the good news, most of us won’t have to pay the $700B. According to the National Taxpayers Union 25 percent of the American population pays 86.27 percent of what our government spends. (We were going to round up, but when dealing with numbers this large, a fraction of a point is a whole lot of money) That means 75 percent of us will only have to pay for $175B. What’s that you say? $175B is still a big number? Well, let’s see if we can make you feel better. Fifty percent of the American households will only have to pay for 2.99 percent (No, we don’t want to round up to three percent) Fifty percent of the American households will only have to pay for 2.99 percent of the tab or $20.93B. That’s only $214.77 per family. That doesn’t sound too bad, does it? Americans are generous people. We are always willing to help a starving child in Africa or a Harvard MBA who just had his Christmas bonus cut from $100K to $50K.

Now what is your individual liability? Well, like we just said if your household income is $32,000 or less, you only pay $214.77 of the cost of the bailout. What? You and your wife no longer work at MacDonald’s since you got out of high school? Well, if you make more it’s not too bad. If you and your better half make $65,000 or more your share will be $24,787.12. Don’t worry. It seems worse than it is. Little Johnny can probably get a student loan. Now, suppose you worked your way through college and you and your spouse are living the American dream…paying a mortgage, two car notes, and private school tuition (you went to public school and you wish your kids could too, but the schools were safe then) OK, if you make $110,000 or more your share of the biggest sucker bet in history is a whopping $50,848.40. That’s right, nearly half of your income has been given to a group of losers, in fact the biggest losers in history. We’re right there with you. We have an income of about $150,000 a year, pay a mortgage on a $250,000 home, own three cars (we have a daughter in college), and help our mothers with their rent. Our share of the debt will be $82,545.10, 55 percent of our income. We, too, were panicked until we remembered that we can pass this bill to our children, and their children, and their children…Isn’t American a great country? Isn’t it???

HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF

During our Presidential campaign Vice President Elect, Joe Biden, infamously said, “…It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama …”. Well, it didn’t even take six hours before Russian President Dmitry Medvedev threw down the gauntlet. On Tuesday, while 53 percent of the American electorate was celebrating over the election of the US first non-white President, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev announced the deployment of conventionally armed ballistic missiles on the borders of Lithuania and Poland, in response to US missile defense plans. On Saturday Obama spoke with the Russian President after which the Kremlin issued a statement which said, in part, that Obama and Medvedev "…expressed the determination to create constructive and positive interaction for the good of global stability and development…" Obama foreign policy adviser Denis McDonough said Saturday that Obama also had "a good conversation" with Polish President Lech Kaczynski on Friday about the U.S.-Polish alliance but that Obama had made no commitment on the missile shield plan.

During an 18 minute press conference Friday, most of the media exhibited the typical American myopia, focusing on the US economy and what type puppy the Obamas would bring to the White House. When pressed about foreign affairs Obama sidestepped the issue, citing political protocol and reminded us all the George W. Bush was still President. Well, people, we are old enough to remember John F. Kennedy’s disastrous first dealings with the Soviet Union and we want to know more about that conversation between Medvedev and Obama. It is chilling that the exact same issue is on the table now as was in 1962. Is our press corps so young or ignorant of history or both that they don’t recall why they call it “The Cuban Missile Crisis”? While 53 percent of voters may cast a ballot based on the belief that Obama is a 21st century version of JFK, we don’t think they knew that they were betting their lives on it.