What A Sorry Bunch.

What A Sorry Bunch.  Does it really matter if control of Congress is in Republican or Democrat hands?  Apparently not.  Once again, we are on the cusp of entering a federal fiscal year with no budget; while simultaneously exploding through our debt limit.  The pathetic performance of this Congress in its failure to pass appropriations bills is beyond parody; it is sad beyond tragedy.  I have been at the front of the line in criticizing this president for abusing executive privilege, but at least he was doing something (something stupid, but something none the less).  Any partisan Republican who wants to publicly criticize Obama and his spending habits needs to simply sit down and shut up.  Republicans must understand that if they fail to do their job, they lose the right to criticize those who fill the vacuum.  How laughable is it that in this recent Obama/Boehner/Pelosi/McConnell/Reid budget, the savings to pay for the spending explosion will come from…wait for it…2025.  Are you serious?  Only two years into a modest sequester, they can’t even live with those cuts; and we are to believe they will make promised cuts 10 years…TEN YEARS…down the road?

Once again, Republicans have absolutely no standing to complain about irresponsible government spending.  As fiscally sophomoric as he has been in his spending habits, Obama has been no more inept than the Republicans in WDC.  This bunch now comes forward with a 2-year budget that breaks the sequester promise and makes the “deal with the devil” of spending one domestic dollar for every military dollar.  If the Republicans ever expect, ever again in the foreseeable future, to have any credibility whatsoever regarding federal spending restraint, they will dispense with this sordid budget agreement and do the typical scotch tape job of maintaining the status quo into the next FY and kicking the debt limit can a few months down the road.  And then, perhaps they will begin to do the job for which they are paid, roll up their sleeves, forego their partisan grandstanding, and begin to pass the 13 appropriation bills necessary for the next federal fiscal year.  If Obama wants to play shutdown games, let him choose his poison with a rifle; not a scatter gun.

Obama has been the worst president in my lifetime.  His incompetence has been so blatant as to be laughable.  And yet, the Republicans can’t even get on the golf course to oppose him.  Even worse, they repeatedly carry his bag and tee up his balls.  Therein lies the only remarkable Republican achievement in recent years; teeing up something that apparently doesn’t even exist. 

Ryan and Blair: One is Right; the Other is Wrong.

Ryan and Blair: One is Right; the Other is Wrong.  Two men featured prominently in this week’s news are Paul Ryan and Tony Blair; Ryan for his upcoming run at House Speakership and Blair for his Iraq War apology.  Both stories are significant on their face, but represent much larger stories beneath the surface.

It has been fascinating to watch the mainstream media go on and on about the disarray in the Republican Party due to their lively debate about a new House Speaker.  All the while, there has been hardly a mention of the seismic split that exists between Debbie W/S, Hillary’s minions, and the rest of the Democratic Party.  While the Republicans engage in an open and transparent debate about who and what a House Speaker should be, the Democratic Party leadership is stifling any debate that might possibly impede a Hillary coronation as nominee.  You tell me…which process seems more democratic to you?  The Freedom caucus in the House had better wake up and smell the coffee; Paul Ryan can possibly be the best thing to happen to the Republican Party in a very long time.  His record demonstrates that he is a rock-solid fiscal conservative with innovative and courageous ideas and policy initiatives that can begin to get this nation back on its fiscal rails.  And because he does not toe the line on many very conservative social positions, he should be thrown overboard?  First off, his social conservative positions line up much better with most Americans than do those of the Freedom caucus.  Secondly, Ryan represents that rare mix of boldness with a healthy dose of pragmatism.  He understands that one can refuse to compromise on principle, while being willing to compromise on practice.  He sees and understands the political realities of the deep, partisan divisions in our nation and has the best chance of anyone standing to help bridge this divide.  And for our government to move back towards the position of proper function, that divide must be bridged.  The image, demeanor, and clear common sense of Paul Ryan as the face of the Republican Party would be a blessing from above for that Party and anyone who votes otherwise in the House needs to re-examine their understanding of political reality.

This week Tony Blair apologized for his role in the Iraq War; becoming the most recent public figure to push George W. Bush further under the bus that has been repeatedly mangling him for the last decade.  Like many before him who have done the same thing for the same reason, this exposes Blair as a spineless coward.  One of the biggest travesties in history has been the saddling of George W. Bush as the sole perpetrator of the Iraq War.  To hear Blair and all those who preceded him in this lame apology business, W hijacked a plane and dropped a nuke on Iraq…in the dead of night…without anyone else knowing.  Where to begin with this bunch of jellyfish that bend their collective conscience to flow with the daily winds?  One of the biggest epiphanies that one realizes as they advance through their education is that horrible atrocities have been perpetrated by leaders on their people throughout history, most times with the knowledge and acquiescence of by-standing nations and their leaders.  On those occasions when the world mustered up the courage and will to defeat these monsters, history stands up and cheers for them.  That practice stopped with George W. Bush.  Saddam Hussein was committing genocide on his own people.  His administration used rape, murder, and chemical weaponry as tools to maintain control and power over Iraq.  He was clearly a menace to his people, a menace to his neighboring countries, and an ever-increasing menace to the world.  These facts are not in dispute.  The disputable part is two-fold: Did he have weapons of mass destruction and if so, should we engage in separating him from these weapons.  On a nearly unanimous basis, the free world and its respective intelligence agreed that Saddam had chemical weapons, was actively using them against his own people and neighbors, and was in the process of manufacturing and stockpiling more for the future.  The United Nations passed resolution after resolution to try and deal with this issue; all with no effect.  Meanwhile, the suffering of the Iraqi people at the hands of this despot marched on; all while the free world fiddled.  When Bush finally made the decision to physically remove Saddam from power, there were many who were reluctant.  This is as it should be.  War is a terrible choice whenever it is made and every single alternative must be pursued prior to its moment.  It is obvious from the United Nations and Congressional resolutions that that moment had come and the only person on this planet that could implement that realization was George W. Bush.  He did it.  He did it deliberately, openly, with the full backing of the United Nations and the U.S. Congress.  It was a quagmire.  Many innocent lives were lost, destroyed, or damaged in the conflict; as is the case with all wars.  Mistakes in execution were made; but those mistakes were ultimately corrected.  A military victory was finally realized and handed over to incoming President Obama.  He proceeded to cast aside all the precious blood and investment that had gone into the apparent outcome and frittered it away through his failure to stand up the new Iraqi government with an effective SOF agreement.  He could not wait to get out of Iraq and his haste and idealism resulted in a vacuum that we continue to deal with today.  Since that moment when U.S. troops, along with tens of allied nation’s troops, marched into Iraq and dethroned a monster, many of the people who were there cheering, jeering, or were standing silent have been finding their voices and have been increasingly bold in their condemnation of the war effort.  They find refuge and cover in a media that never liked Bush in the first place and eagerly jump on every opportunity to tarnish his legacy.  They count on short memories to cover over the fact that they were for the war before they were against the war.   They find comfort in the popular revisionism of history that swells the number of war critics while pasting over the realities that led to the invasion.  These spineless characters; these sunshine soldiers who go with the herd wherever it roams; these public figures with no sense of shame or personal acceptance of consequence; one by one they have ventured out and condemned George W. Bush as a reckless, cowboy President who defied all those wise people surrounding him and single-handedly led this nation into a painful and costly middle east conflict.  Hindsight is not an option for Presidents; it should not be accepted as an option for critics.  Hindsight is a tool for learning; for implementing changes that might improve our actions in future episodes.  George W. Bush, with the backing of Congress, the backing of the United Nations, and with the full and harsh realization of the bloody and precious costs involved, led this nation into the Iraq War.  He did so because a monstrous leader was terrorizing his own people and threatening to spread his madness to the free world.  Credit those who stood at that moment and said “Stop, this is a mistake”.  They might have been right or wrong, but at least they stood up when it counted.  For all those who did not stand up then…keep your damn mouths shut, suck it up, and understand that actions and inactions have consequences.  

Obama's Legacy: The Triumph of Dogma Over Competence.

Obama’s Legacy: The Triumph of Dogma Over Competence.  When I question people I know who once enthusiastically supported Barrack Obama, they seem to be reluctant soldiers; they no longer have the fire in the belly for hope and change.  Rather than acknowledge the monumental mistake of putting him in the White House, they tend to rationalize that government is inherently dysfunctional…or the Republicans have sabotaged his presidency…or the world itself is too complex for one person to deal with…or he is supported by people who give him bad advice.  It is this last one that I want to write about today.

There is no doubt in my mind that fully 85 percent of Obama’s policy initiatives, whether they are legislative or executive action, are ill-conceived and poor choices.  However, this country has survived lots of bad policy in its past and has somehow managed to get past it.  For this reason, I have been fairly optimistic that given time, this nation will heal the wounds opened and aggravated by this president; that we as a people will somehow swing the pendulum back to center from the fantastical, idealistic leftward position that Obama has wrought.  Every President, regardless of party and intelligence, sees a vision for this country and pursues that vision once elected; that is as it should be.  And to accomplish this legitimate quest, a President will select people for key positions of authority to help him or her implement that vision.  The unspoken, but unquestionably primary, obligation on a President is that they select people that are competent to do their jobs.  I have come to the point of view that Obama’s failure in this area will have a longer-lasting negative effect on our nation than will his poor policy decisions.

The overwhelming percentage of federal employees is not high-paid, patronage appointments.  They are dedicated, public servants who happen to work for our government.  Like any worker, they want to take pride in their jobs and some satisfaction that they serve by administering programs promulgated for the people and by the people.  Even though civil service, much like the teaching profession, can tend to breed mediocrity; most federal employees work very hard, strive to be efficient, and heed the call of delivering an hour’s work for an hour’s pay.  It is a tragedy that in our form of government, many of the leadership positions in federal departments and agencies are filled with political appointees.  These people have an inordinate amount of influence over exactly what and how their subordinates do their jobs.  Even though the Congress and the Courts are designed to be counter-balances to their overreach or idealism, the plain fact is that the typical reaction to their abuse of power is either tardy to point of irrelevance or reluctance to fight the battle in the first place.  In other words, these people who are selected by the President to oversee how our government is run and how to spend our tax dollars are basically unchallenged for the term of their President; pretty much having the run of the place.  In a perfect world, these political appointees, even though they share a philosophy with their President, will approach their duties in a thoughtful and deliberative fashion; relying on the career civil servants that are in place to serve them in their new positions.  A wise department or agency head will realize that the career employees that they will supervise are invaluable resources to use in effecting positive change.  If this is the case, even bad policy is limited in the long-term, detrimental effect it can have on our people.  Put another way, bad policy delivered efficiently can only hurt so much.  On the other hand, bad policy delivered inefficiently, in an arrogant and ham-handed manner, can result in lasting damage to our governmental model that might take generations to heal.  This is the Obama way.

Civil servants understand they are the foot soldiers of their agency or department heads.  They understand that their lot is to serve and implement; not to devise.  They commonly are faced with the challenge of administering programs or policies with which they might personally disagree; but also realize that they must do their job regardless.  Federal job descriptions are pretty complete and specific and readily point out that most government employees are paid to do, not paid to think.  The requirement that civil servants keep this tenet foremost in their mind when approaching their job performance is paramount in having a government that works efficiently and effectively.  But when politically-appointed leaders are either grossly incompetent to do their job or allow idealism to trump common sense, civil servants cannot help but be affected by it.  The result is two-fold.  First, a department or agency will devolve into anarchy due to the illogical and arbitrary operations dictated by their incompetent leaders.  Second, and most damaging, the army of federal employees that daily delivers the will of the people to the masses will become disillusioned to the point of being inefficient and ineffective.  Government will cease to work; departments and agencies will cease to function.  It is not unlike rot in a towering and ancient tree.  Once it begins, it is very hard to overcome.  I challenge you to look around yourself at people you encounter; especially those associated with government.  Do you see signs of rot?  Do you see disillusionment with the ways things are and the direction they are going?  Does any one of us, regardless of political leanings, think that this bureaucratically-bloated behemoth of a government that president Obama inherited has improved in any single area of function and operation?  Over the last nearly seven years, have we taken actions to tame the beast or have we consistently fed the beast?  Obama has routinely taken the path of least resistance in his presidency.  Rather than roll up his sleeves and tackle the hard work necessary to implement his vision and changes to our government, he has arrogantly trivialized and alienated those who hold differing opinions; choosing instead to layer this government with incompetent and unqualified leaders who seem to accept that thinking it to be a certain way is sufficient to make it a certain way.  Let us all hope and pray that the rot this Obama administration has instilled in our government can be overcome by our next President. 

My Lord, What A Freaking Mess.

My Lord, What A Freaking Mess.  I am a simple man, living a simple life, and pretty average in most respects.  I have readily acknowledged my lack of sophistry in matters of foreign policy and, like most people who venture opinion on the internet; I have occasionally disregarded that stance and assumed improperly the mantle of understanding and knowledge.  Once again, I submit that very few in or out of our government are gifted with both the intelligence and the opportunity to grasp the myriad complexities of today’s global onion.  Having said that, I can nonetheless render an opinion on the common sense quotient, hypocrisy level, and total and unabashed arrogance of those who pretend to know all there is to know about the geopolitical landscape and yet, based on anyone’s objective observations, are complete and total idiots.  I am talking about president Obama and his minions here.

It is impossible, and patently foolish, to project how historians will record today’s events in hindsight.  If nothing else, we have learned that all too often, history is written in such a fashion to reflect the agenda of the authors.  However, some things are so obvious as to be unavoidable and although they might be spun in a certain tilt, the obvious truth will out eventually.  For the record, let us consider some of Obama’s foreign policy misadventures.

·      Perhaps the linchpin in the entire Middle East mess is the failure of the Iraqi people to stand up a competent government in the wake of the Iraq war.  Sincere people can take opposing and legitimate positions on the wisdom of U.S. engagement in the Iraqi War, but there is not much left to the imagination about the conclusion of the episode.  After spending his brief time in the Senate rhetorically opposing the war and then voting to support it, once he began his presidential campaign in earnest, Obama made the Iraq War the centerpiece of all that he found wrong with the Bush foreign policy.  Once elected, it became obvious that his top priority (Obamacare notwithstanding) was to wash his hands of this particular war as soon as possible.  After the successful surge administered by the Bush administration (as opposed to the unsuccessful Afghanistan surge initiated by the Obama administration), Iraq had a stable and decent opportunity (Obama’s own words) to establish, over the long haul, a competent and decent government that might serve its people well and make it a prospective member of good standing in Middle East and the global society.  But in  his haste to end this relationship and under the pretense of sincere negotiating, the Obama administration deep-sixed the post-war Status of Forces agreement with the Iraqi government, packed up and headed home, and left Iraq to fend for itself.  Respected and experienced people on both sides of the political aisle warned that without a modicum of U.S. support, Iraq might well descend into chaos.  Ignoring this advice and once again relying on  his fairy tale and “smartest guy in the room” attitude, Obama got out of Iraq clean and quick.  The result has been a power vacuum filled by ISIL/ISIS and other selected entities pursuing their own agendas with no regard for the Iraqi people.  A reasonable argument can be made that the resulting Iraqi vortex was the spark that lit the present Middle East inferno.

·      Yesterday, White House spokesman Josh Earnest cited the Iraqi War as a major U.S. failure and compared it to the failed Soviet effort in Afghanistan.  The shamelessness of this administration knows no boundaries.  After orchestrating the downfall of the Gaddafi government in Libya, the Obama administration not only failed to help clean up the mess it created, it stranded American personnel in the middle of the chaos and carelessly cost them their lives.  This episode is precisely what the Obama administration accuses G. W. Bush of doing in Iraq and yet they simply assume that no one will see the parallels.  And…I suppose they are correct.  Perhaps if Hillary gets the Democratic presidential nod, this Libyan chapter will experience a bit more scrutiny.  Right or wrong, Obama was handed a military victory on a silver platter in Iraq and he pissed it away due to his arrogance and stupidity.  And then, in a show of astounding incompetence, he executed in Libya precisely that which he accused the Bush administration of doing.  The big difference is that Bush won the first half of the game and the second half failed because a new coach took over.  In the case of Libya, the game was a total and abject failure and the same coach presided over both halves.

·      The U.S. had two assets in the Middle East; the free and Democratic nation of Israel and the small group of west-leaning nations such as Saudi Arabia.  Not only has Obama destroyed our relationship with Israel, his glaring incompetence has frittered away any leverage or credibility we ever had with the small group of Middle Eastern countries that once stood with us.  And now, fearing the spread of the chaos they see in Iraq/Iran/Syria, they look eastward for someone to fill the power vacuum created by our pathetic president.   Who do you suppose stands ready to fill that void?

·      It is abjectly depressing to see the utter disregard displayed by Russia and Putin in their dealings with our government.  Openly ridiculing our president has become common practice for Soviet officials and it has reached the level of true embarrassment.  If Obama were teaching an Ivy League college course in foreign affairs or writing an op-ed for the Old Gray Lady, this situation might be somewhat amusing.  There is absolutely no amusement when Putin obviously reaches the conclusion that he has nothing whatsoever to fear from this president or this country, knows that the time is running out for the Obama administration, and is shoving his brutal and hegemonic foreign adventures into high gear.  What do you suppose North Korea and China are thinking?

I remain utterly dismayed at the damage this small man has wrought on our nation, both domestically and globally.  I can only pray that the cost in innocent lives can somehow be kept to a minimum and that Obama’s successor, whoever that might be, is sufficiently wise and capable to begin the long and costly process of healing this nation and all that has gone terribly wrong over the last six and one-half years.