Breaking Jesse's Silence: Why the ultimate independent voter has finally broken in favor of Kerry

by David L. Englin
The Gadflyer, Oct. 29, 2004

If weekend reports out of Minnesota are accurate, Jesse "The Former Governor" Ventura supports Senator John Kerry for president, but he won't say why. Ventura may be playing silent now, but it was obvious when he addressed a Georgetown University conference a few weeks ago that, if forced to choose, he would choose Kerry.

Jesse Ventura is no Democrat. When the topic turned to politics during the question and answer session at the policy conference on military transformation, Ventura had choice words for both parties. A true believer in the third party movement – and perhaps its most charismatic spokesperson – Ventura reminded his audience that the Constitution makes no mention of the two-party system. He lambasted Democrats and Republicans for engineering the exclusion of Ralph Nader from the 2000 presidential debates, and for the hard time the two parties in Minnesota gave him as governor. Sarcastically quipping, "I come from pro-wrestling, and they call us fixed!" he mocked the infamous 32-page agreement between the campaigns governing this year's debates, which were then a couple of weeks away.

But after proclaiming that, for the first time ever, he planned not to vote, he gave a stirring indictment of President George W. Bush and had little negative to say about Senator John Kerry.

Ventura, a former Navy SEAL, was unsparing in his criticism of Bush's foreign policy, lamenting the loss of American moral authority around the world. Invoking his Hungarian heritage and recalling the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956, he said, "My stomach is turning right now. I remember when Russians would show up at the Olympics and get booed. Now we're the ones getting booed."

On the National Guard – one of the subjects of the conference – Ventura was just as passionate. He called the Bush administration's heavy reliance on the Guard in Iraq and Afghanistan "the most flagrant misuse" of these nominally part-time forces. The former commander-in-chief of the Minnesota National Guard lamented federalized Minnesota units being sent overseas into frontline combat with only the equipment provided by the people of Minnesota. "In Minnesota, we don't equip them as frontline units," he said.

Then Ventura got personal, proclaiming, "If the National Guard as it is today would have been in effect in the late 1960s, our current commander-in-chief wouldn't have volunteered for that duty, since he was trying to avoid being sent overseas. He's sending them to do something he wasn't willing to do, and that's just wrong."

Ventura went on to criticize Bush's attempt to write discrimination into the Constitution with the proposed amendment to outlaw same-sex marriage. Ventura demanded to know how the marriage of a man to another man would have any impact whatsoever on his own marriage to his wife. He told a moving story about a friend and fellow professional wrestler who was gay and was not allowed to visit his partner in the hospital during an emergency because he wasn't "family." "That's just cruel, and a government shouldn't commit acts of cruelty against its citizens," said Ventura.

Given Ventura's indictment of Bush, one might think he would naturally support Bush's opponent. However, Ventura was clear that he felt like he had "somebody to vote against, but not nobody to vote for." Ventura was not antagonistic toward Kerry, just uninspired. Maybe he just didn't think much of Kerry's chances, since, in a moment of levity, he hinted at his own "stealth campaign" for president in 2008. He claimed he has a way to get on the ballot in all 50 states and that, "like a good Navy SEAL," he would do it "so quietly that nobody will notice until it's too late." With a devilish glint, Ventura even called out former Clinton advisor John Podesta, one of the conference hosts, and warned Podesta that even "Hillary" couldn't beat him if he decided to run.

Maybe Ventura has come to the conclusion that voting against somebody can be as important and valid a reason to get off the fence as voting for somebody. Or maybe he has finally seen in Kerry somebody he can vote for. After all, Kerry is liberal on social issues like gay rights and abortion, and it is Kerry, and not Bush, who proposes reinstating "pay as you go" rules to enforce fiscal discipline in Congress, even at the cost of his own pet programs. These should appeal to Ventura, the self-described "social liberal and fiscal conservative." Also, unlike Bush, Kerry has called for increasing the size of the active-duty military, which fits nicely with Ventura's criticism of Bush's management of the military reserves.

Ventura is a powerful voice because he appeals to disaffected, independent-minded voters. These days he sports a dyed, beaded beard that he says he wears to make the point that every American has "the freedom to look how you want." For all of his eccentricities, he exudes a kind of basic honesty that abhors hypocrisy and challenges Americans to be who we claim to be as a people, which is a large part of his appeal. If it's true that undecided voters break for the challenger, then Ventura's support for Kerry – whether silent or not – bodes well.

See and hear Giuliani for yourself

Contributor jpoulos at MetaFilter has the complete Giuliani quote and a 340K wmv file of the interview excerpt, if you want to see and hear Giuliani for yourself.

"The president was cautious the president was prudent the president did what a commander in chief should do. No matter how you try to blame it on the president the actual responsibility for it really would be for the troops that were there. Did they search carefully enough? Didn't they search carefully enough?" (340K wmv file)

Welcome, Atrios and MetaFilter readers

Thanks to the kind mentions on Atrios and MetaFilter this morning, hundreds of their readers are checking out the site. While you're here, be sure to read my latest TomPaine.com article, "Military Misconceptions: If Democrats want to lead today's military, they must drop the stereotypes about who serves." Also spend a few minutes on our U.N. Modernization Project, where a panel of contributors is trying to produce concrete ideas to update the U.N. Charter to prevent future Darfurs and Rwandas. If you're interested in military issues, take a look at a new organization called Civic Soldier Forum. It's the brainchild of a group of politically progressive active-duty soldiers, who hope to bridge the gap between military and civilian progressives and to amplify the voices of progressive service members.

Finally, if you find anything here at all interesting, then I hope you will take a moment to subscribe to my email list to get a friendly note when I have new articles published. (It's guaranteed spam-free, and you can unsubscribe at any time.)

Giuliani blames the troops and says it's not the president's fault

(Click here for a special welcome to Atrios and MetaFilter readers.)

Rudy Giuliani just said on the Today Show that the troops are to blame, and not the president, for the fact that 380 tons of explosives are missing from the munitions dump at Al Qa Qaa, Iraq. Bush and Cheney are playing defense on the campaign trail by accusing Kerry of denigrating the troops over the matter, even though Kerry and Edwards have been assiduously avoiding blaming anyone but the Bush administration.

Responding to Today Show host Matt Lauer, Giuliani said, "It's not the fault of the president, it's the fault of the troops who were there. Did they search thoroughly enough?" I may not have the quote exactly verbatim (he said it moments ago, so there's no transcript available yet), but it's darn close, and he most definitely said that it's the fault of the troops and not the president. Unbelievable.

(UPDATE: Thanks to Atrios for catching the precise quote: "The actual responsibility for it really would be for the troops that were there. Did they search carefully enough? Didn't they search carefully enough?")

Perpetuating the misconception...

In his blog The Daily Outrage at the online version of The Nation, Ari Berman asks several important questions about the draft. Most of his post is right on target, noting the Bush administration's over-reliance on the Guard and Reserve, the Guard and Reserve's impending crisis with recruiting and retention, and the need to and challenges of increasing the size of the force. However, I submit that this bullet is colored by exactly the kind of misconceptions I try to dispel with my latest TomPaine.com article:

** "The biggest predictor of whether you're in the military today is the unemployment rate in your home county," Duke University political scientist Peter Feaver told the National Journal. The average soldier dying in Iraq comes from a family earning roughly $10,000 less than the national median household average ($43,718), while minorities represent 32 percent of combat and 40 percent of non-combat casualties. Only four members of Congress have children serving in active duty. Short of a draft, how can you ensure that minorities and the working poor aren't carrying an undue share of America's military burden?

Berman cites Peter Feaver to support his assertion that "minorities and the working poor" bear the burden of military service, but the complete Feaver excerpt from the article actually contradicts Berman's point:

"There is a class effect, but not the one that people think," argued Peter Feaver, a professor of political science at Duke University. The most privileged don't bother to enlist, but the most disadvantaged don't qualify, so "it's the middle classes that are mostly represented in the military," Feaver said. "Obviously, folks who go into the military today are facing economic pressures. The biggest predictor of whether you're in the military today is the unemployment rate in your home county."

"Facing economic pressures" and suggesting that most new recruits come from "working poor" families are not the same thing, and Feaver is clear that the middle class is the most affected. Moreover, the very same article also contradicts Berman on minorities:

It is wrong to say that minorities are disproportionately bearing the burden. Whites are indeed slightly under-represented in today's active-duty military as a whole: They make up 64.2 percent of the force, compared with 69.1 percent of the U.S. population. (The reserve components are somewhat whiter.) But whites are slightly over-represented among the dead, at 70.9 percent.

As I said, the rest of Berman's post is on target, and his heart is in the right place. His larger point about considering who bears the burden of military service is important, but this particular aspect of his analysis merely perpetuates the liberal misconception about today's military.

Truth in Spending

The Washington Post reports today that the Bush administration plans to request another $70 billion in supplemental funding to pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The war on terrorism and the war in Iraq will dominate the defense landscape for the foreseeable future, so we need to stop using so-called emergency supplementals to pay for them and we need to include the costs in the regular federal budget. Wherever you stand on the war, this is a simple matter of "truth in spending." How can we have an honest discussion about federal budget priorities if we willfully ignore tens of billions of dollars of spending until after the budget has already passed?

Eminem's "Mosh" for democracy

I'm not usually much of an Eminem fan. He has one or two songs I think are quite powerful ("Lose Yourself") but I find him disturbingly earnest in his misogyny and homophobia. That said, his latest production, "Mosh," is a moving and powerful invective against the Bush administration that is well worth your time. Here's a description from Salon:

In five minutes, Eminem manages a furious indictment of the administration that will likely resonate among many troops in Iraq as well as disaffected kids here at home. In one scene, a smiling soldier returns home from Baghdad, only to be handed a notice announcing that he has to go back....

Then we see a woman walking home in the rain, carrying groceries and an envelope. Inside is an eviction notice. As she reads it, we hear Eminem saying, "Maybe this is God just saying we're responsible for this monster, this coward that we have empowered." The woman looks at her TV, where Bush is speaking over a banner that says "Tax Cuts." She looks at her terrified children, then back at the screen, which says, "Breaking News…Terror Alert."

It all ends amazingly earnestly, with Eminem leading a black-clad army to the voting booth. Once again, Bush proves he really does have wonder working powers -- by behaving even more callously and irresponsibly than the most outrageous rapper, he's turned music's foremost enfant terrible into a role model of civic engagement.

Click here to watch the video. (You'll have to register, but it's free.)

Better late than never

Reuters reports that the Europeans Union plans to pay more than half the cost (about $100 million) of the African Union's planned yearlong peacekeeping mission to Darfur to end the genocide there.

Three U.S. Air Force C-130s and 120 American Airmen from the 86th Airlift Wing at Ramstein AB, Germany, landed in Rwanda Saturday to help the A.U. deploy more than 3,000 troops to Darfur. According to Reuters, A.U. commissioner for peace and security Said Djinnit said today that Nigerian troops will be deployed Thursday and Rwandan troops will be deployed Saturday.

Two thoughts on this:

First, I wonder if the United States still would be in a position to provide this kind of support if we dramatically drew down our forward based forces in Europe, as some have proposed. These three C-130s came from an American air base in Germany, and a KC-135 from RAF Mildenhall, an American base in Britain, provided their aerial refueling support.

Second, on a personal note, as a Jew and an Airman, it gives me great pride to see America's Air Force for the second time in just over five years playing a key role in the fight against genocide. (America's Air Force, with an assist from U.S. Navy air forces, stopped the genocide of Kosovar Albanians in 1999.)

Military Misconceptions: If Democrats want to lead today's military, they must drop the stereotypes about who serves.

by David L. Englin
TomPaine.com, Oct. 22, 2004

As Rep. John Conyers and filmmaker Michael Moore reminded me recently, many on the left still think the military is where poor, uneducated minorities go for lack of other options.  During the recent, tragically brief flurry of discussion about the bill offered by Conyers and Rep. Charles Rangel, D-NY, to reinstate the draft, Conyers proclaimed that today’s military amounts to “an indirect draft of minorities and the poor.”  In Fahrenheit 9/11 , Michael Moore presented viewers with a pair of Marine Corps recruiters zealously targeting African-American high school students in an economically struggling community. These are but two manifestations of a liberal zeitgeist about military service that is out of touch with the reality of today’s force.

Until recently, I had been associated with the U.S. military for my entire life, from my birth and childhood on U.S. military bases overseas, to my cadet years at the U.S. Air Force Academy, and through eight years of service as a commissioned officer.  But thanks to my own liberalism, marrying a liberal activist, and the Air Force sending me to an elite liberal graduate school, I spent my time in uniform straddling two worlds: the military officer corps and liberal intelligentsia.  Now that our nation is suddenly embroiled in an election-year showdown over which candidate might reinstate the draft, I am more concerned than ever that many of my fellow liberals cling to Vietnam-era misconceptions about the makeup of the military.  Liberal concerns about the draft and military demographics stem mostly from a laudable sense of justice about who pays the price when America goes to war.  While that moral impulse is correct, Democrats need to get a better handle on the facts if we expect to bring a credible promise of hope to military men and women suffering under the Bush administration’s mismanagement.

 Despite the widely held—and voiced—misconceptions about the military, the most recent Department of Defense population study paints an ethnic picture of new recruits and officers that looks fairly similar to the civilian population.  In the enlisted force (versus the officer corps) African Americans make up 16 percent of new recruits, compared to 14 percent of civilians of comparable age (between 18 and 24 years old.)  Hispanics make up 11 percent of new recruits, compared to 16 percent of comparable civilians.  “Other” minority categories make up 6 percent of new recruits, compared to 5 percent of comparable civilians.

Commissioned officers are required to have college degrees.  Many on the left might be surprised to learn that, at 8 percent, the proportion of African-American commissioned officers is exactly the same as the proportion of African Americans in the civilian workforce aged 21 to 49 with college degrees.  Hispanics make up 4 percent of commissioned officers, compared to 5 percent of comparable civilians. “Other” minority categories make up 5 percent of commissioned officers, compared to 8 percent of comparable civilians.

Looking beyond officers and new enlistees to the total enlisted population, 10 percent are Hispanic, compared to 14 percent of the civilian workforce aged 18 to 44, but 22 percent are African American, compared to 13 percent of comparable civilians.  This last figure might be the source of lingering misconceptions.  While the number of African Americans who join the military is about the same as the number of African Americans in the comparable civilian population, more African Americans stay in the military longer.  It could be that this is due to fewer good employment options in the civilian world.  However, studies have shown that the military is better racially integrated than any other segment of American society.  Therefore, it is just as likely that African Americans stay in the military because it is a rare slice of America where merit matters more than race and where Americans of all ethnic backgrounds are treated fairly.

If we are concerned about who bears the scars of war, we also need to look at who serves in risky combat specialties.  Even with a higher proportion of African Americans in the enlisted ranks, it turns out that only about 12 percent of African American enlistees serve in direct combat specialties, compared to about 18 percent of white and Hispanic enlistees.  Conversely, only about 12 percent of white enlistees serve in less-risky functional support and administrative specialties, compared to about 27 percent of African-American and 18 percent of Hispanic enlistees.

The military does not track the family incomes of new enlistees, so it is difficult to know whether the people joining the military are indeed poor.  However, the military does keep detailed statistics on the levels of education new recruits achieved before joining the service, and we know that a person with less education is more likely to be poor.  The National Center for Children in Poverty found that 81 percent of children whose parents have no high school diploma live in low-income families, and that as education increases, the likelihood of poverty decreases.  Far from being the dregs of America’s schools, new enlistees actually come into the service much better educated than their civilian compatriots.  Among new active-duty enlistees, 92 percent had a high school diploma or equivalent before enlisting, compared to 79 percent of comparable civilians.  In the Reserve, the figure is 87 percent.  Among officers, 95 percent had at least a bachelor’s degree before being commissioned, and more than a quarter of all officers have advanced degrees (although the majority of advanced degrees were earned while in uniform.)  Additionally, before enlisting, new recruits on average scored higher on standardized tests and read at a higher grade level than their civilian counterparts.  Obviously, new recruits are not uneducated compared to their peers, and given the link between education and income, it is clear that the vast majority of them are not poor.

Anecdotally, most military men and women come from solidly middle-class backgrounds, but today’s military is by no means a direct representation of the American population.  Women account for just 17 percent of the military, and a disproportionately high number of new recruits come from the South, whereas a disproportionately low number come from the Northeast.  However, it is clear that the Vietnam-era image held by many liberals of a military that serves up poor, uneducated, ethnic minorities as cannon fodder bears no resemblance to today’s force.

As the Bush administration ambles down a foreign policy road that could eventually lead to the enormous appetite for troops that only a draft could provide, Democrats like Conyers and Rangel are right to want an honest national discussion about who pays the price when America goes to war.  The war in Iraq is stretching our military—especially the National Guard and Reserve—to the breaking point, and any long-term solution must include an increase in the size of the force.  The discussion ought to include a thoughtful examination of the draft, and it was a sad abdication of leadership for Republicans in Congress to ignore that for months, only to shut down the issue with great fanfare to score campaign points for the president.  If we want to save our overstretched forces and fill the void in leadership left by those on the right, Democrats will need to move beyond long-held misconceptions about the face of America’s military.

U.S. steps up with logistical support for African Union troops

As I argued Monday, the least the West could do is give the African Union the logistical support it needs to deploy African troops to Darfur to help end the genocide there. Therefore, I'm happy to pass along this from today's Washington Post:

President Bush ordered the Defense Department on Monday to send two C-130 military transport planes to the region later this month for two weeks to ferry about 1,000 Rwanda and Nigerian troops into Darfur. The State Department, meanwhile, has authorized two U.S. companies to spend $20.6 million on transportation, housing and communications for the African forces, according to U.S. and company officials.

Welcome, Military Times readers

Judging from my web traffic statistics, it looks like quite a few Military Times readers are checking out the site. Since many of you are either in the military, veterans, or military family members, I wanted to make sure you know about a new organization called Civic Soldier Forum. It's the brainchild of a group of politically progressive active-duty soldiers, who hope to bridge the gap between military and civilian progressives and to amplify the voices of progressive service members, veterans, DoD civilians, and military family members. They have some serious financial backing (you may have caught their ad in the latest Military Times editions) and are working closely with the Center for American Progress. CSF is a registered nonpartisan, nonprofit group, so it's entirely kosher for active-duty military to participate on their own time. Check them out here.

John Kerry Wins! (At least according to kids who watch Nickelodeon)

Nickelodeon just announced on live TV (the joys of being a stay-at-home parent!) that John Kerry won its Kids Pick The President campaign. The final tally was Kerry 57%, Bush 43%. Before you scoff too loudly, consider that, according to Nickelodeon, Kids Pick The President has predicted the winner of the last four presidential elections.

Results are a signal of hope for Democrats

by David L. Englin
Army Times, Navy Times, Marine Corps Times, Oct. 25, 2004; Air Force Times, Nov. 1, 2004

Old-school military professionals no doubt will lament the very idea that anyone would try to discern the partisan political attitudes of military men and women.

But long gone are the days when men like Gen. George C. Marshall were so devoutly neutral that they refused even to vote.

Both Republican and Democratic activists now target military support, and the Defense Department aggressively encourages troops to register and vote. So one can understand why Military Times would want to know where its readers stand politically.

However, the notion that the results of the Military Times 2004 Election Survey are “a disappointment to Democrats,” as reported, is flat-out wrong. Take these particular survey results with a grain of salt, no matter which candidate you support.

Polling organizations such as Gallup and Zogby use scientific methodology to make sure they survey random samples of people who accurately represent the populations they are trying to poll.

Military Times simply sent an e-mail notice to its online subscribers asking for volunteers.

To its credit, Military Times admits that this unscientific method produced a survey group that doesn’t necessarily represent the U.S. military as a whole. More important, it admits that its method undersampled groups that traditionally support Democrats, skewing the results in favor of President Bush.

However, Military Times overlooked another factor that would have a similar effect. Military public affairs staffs are constantly trying to overcome the perception among those in the ranks that the Military Times newspapers are official, command-driven publications. Therefore, when Marine Corps Times asks a Marine about his vote, a natural “command influence” effect likely skews results further toward any sitting commander in chief.

Even with a survey methodology that unduly benefits Bush, the results are more hopeful than disappointing for Democrats. Despite oversampling Republicans, the survey shows just 54 percent of active-duty respondents consider themselves Republican — welcome news to the active-duty officers who recently launched a group called the Civic Soldier Forum (www.soldierforum.org) to amplify the voices of politically progressive troops.

Moreover, Democrats have not suggested that military voters will flock to Sen. John Kerry over Bush. (Certainly, they think that military voters ought to support Kerry, but that’s different.) Democrats have argued simply that, among military voters, Kerry will do better than past Democrats — and that is exactly what the survey shows.

Among active-duty troops responding to the initial survey, 17 percent said they support Kerry, while 12 percent said they supported Vice President Al Gore in 2000. Among National Guard and reserve troops, 18 percent said they support Kerry, while 16 percent said they supported Gore.

Kerry did better than the previous Democrat in both cases.

Moreover, the follow-up survey after the first presidential debate showed Kerry gaining six more points. The broad-brush conclusion that military voters support Bush over Kerry is almost certainly correct. But Kerry is clearly doing much better among military voters than Gore did, which could easily swing an election that was decided last time by just 537 votes in Florida.

Passions are high on both sides of the political aisle, and it will be interesting to see where military voters come down. Fortunately for Democrats both in and out of uniform, even this flawed survey shows signs of hope for Kerry.

Income versus wealth

The Pew Hispanic Center today released a study showing that the gap in wealth between White households and African American and Latino households appears to be growing, and it is far greater than the gap in income:

According to the study, the median net worth of Hispanic households in 2002 was $7,932. This was only nine percent of $88,651, the median wealth of non-Hispanic White households at the same time. The net worth of Non-Hispanic Blacks was only $5,988. Thus, the wealth of Latino and Black households is less than one-tenth the wealth of White households even though Census data show their income is two-thirds again as high.

The New America Foundation first turned me on to the differences between income and wealth and the corresponding policy challenges a few years ago, and their Asset Building Program is doing some of the most interesting work on the subject. If you believe that every child ought to have an equal shot at the American dream, you ought to check out their work.

Planned deployment of African Union troops to Darfur delayed

The African Union was to begin deploying 4,000 troops to Darfur over the weekend as part of a force of 4,500 troops to be in place by the end of November to protect refugee camps and aid workers. However, the battalion of Rwandan troops who were to be the lead element of this expanded force (there are already 150 ceasefire monitors and 300 soldiers protecting them in country) has been delayed a week because of logistical problems.

This is where the West needs to lend a hand. As Kofi Annan noted yesterday, thanks to the war in Iraq, "The international community has been reluctant to send another force to Sudan, another Islamic country.... There is this sense among the [Security Council] that it is best to send in African troops." The African Union is making a good-faith effort to assert itself as an African force to solve African problems. The wealthy nations of the world ought to encourage that approach, if not for the moral imperative of stopping genocide in Sudan, then at least for the sake of their own long-term security interests. Chaos, poverty, and ethnic strife give adherents of extremist terrorist ideologies an open door through which to recruit new people to their cause. Ameliorating such conditions is an act of self defense. If we're not willing to use Western forces in Darfur, we ought to at least give the A.U. enough logistical support to use African troops.

Military who served in Iraq less supportive of Bush

The National Annenberg Election Survey today released the results of their poll of military men and women and their families. According to the NAES news release, "The survey did not ask the voting preference of the respondents because a 1948 statute prohibits polling members of the armed services about whom they intend to vote for." However, they were able to ask a variety of other questions to assess opinions of Bush and Kerry.

As expected, there are lots of positive indicators for Bush among this population. However, this scientific poll shows weaker (but still high) support for Bush among military voters than the unscientific Military Times voter survey. This disparity clearly supports my criticism of the Military Times' methodology, which you can read more about in an op-ed to be published in Military Times newspapers (Army Times, Air Force Times, etc.) on Monday.

There are several points of interest in the NAES poll, which I'll have more to say about in the coming days. For now, here's one quick observation:

Support for Bush ("handling of his job", "favorable", "unfavorable") and the belief that it was worth going to war in Iraq are markedly lower among military people who served in Iraq than the general military population. Conversely, Kerry's "favorable" is highest and is "unfavorable" is lowest among military people who served in Iraq than the general military population.

Nice try, Cheneys...

If you think calling people gay when they're openly gay is an attack, then you're a homophobe. The righteous indignation coming from Dick and Lynne Cheney about John Kerry and John Edwards complimenting the Cheneys' loving acceptance of their daughter's sexuality would be more convincing if they hadn't themselves invoked Mary Cheney's sexuality on the stump and if Mary Cheney wasn't the Director of Vice Presidential Operations for the Bush/Cheney campaign. The Cheney's indignation rings that much more hollow when you consider that the policy of the Bush administration is to defile the Constitution with anti-gay descrimination.

Kerry wins again

I thought last night's debate was about a tie, but polls seem to be putting Kerry slightly ahead:

CNN / USA Today / Gallup: Kerry 52 - Bush 39
ABC News: Kerry 42 - Bush 41
CBS News: Kerry 39 - Bush 25

Several commentators have noted that Bush shifted his approach with each debate the way Gore did in 2000, while Kerry has been solid and consistent, therefore coming across overall as more in control and more presidential.

I also found this to be an interesting example of how Bush is out of touch with working people:

SCHIEFFER: Mr. President, what do you say to someone in this country who has lost his job to someone overseas who's being paid a fraction of what that job paid here in the United States?

BUSH: I say, here's some help, here's some trade adjustment assistance money for you to go a community college in your neighborhood, a community college which is providing the skills necessary to fill the jobs of the 21st century. And that's what I would say to that person.

Bush's approach (help workers retrain into new jobs) is reasonable in theory, and is actually the same approach Bill Clinton advocated. However, the problem is that many of these workers have already retrained into new jobs once or more, and they -- especially those who are middle aged -- are wondering how many times they will have to retrain so they can continue to support their families. Moreover, the corollary to the "education = job" formula has generally been "more education = better job," but that no longer seems to apply for a great many workers. The question now, of course, is whether they'll vote on it.

Kristof keeps attention on Darfur

New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof keeps the attention on the genocide in Sudan with this column.

It's progress that the world has denounced the genocide without waiting the customary 10 years before wringing its hands in regret.

But there are many other steps the United States and others could take: a no-flight zone, an arms embargo, an asset freeze on businesses owned by Sudan's ruling party, and greater teamwork with African and Islamic countries to exert more pressure on Sudan.

President George W. Bush is already in the forefront of the world leaders who have addressed the slaughter in Darfur, and he has done far more than President Bill Clinton did during the Rwandan genocide. But there is so much more the United States can still do.

Mr. President, you pride yourself on your willingness to stand up to evil - so why do you remain so passive in the face of such evil?

The real point is that Kerry is doing better than Gore did among military voters

In this op-ed in today's Washington Post, Peter Feaver raises several important questions about the military and politics, but his failure to note the difference between a scientific poll and a voluntary email survey is shocking. He acknowledges that the Military Times "survey method is tilted in Bush's favor," but he claims this "cannot account for a spread of 55 points." Really? Does that mean we should seriously believe comparable media web surveys that showed numbers north of 70 percent believing Kerry won Friday's debate? Of course not.

Moreover, both Feaver and the Military Times in its own reporting overlook another factor skewing the results. As a former Air Force public affairs officer, I can testify -- and internal research supports this -- that military public affairs staffs are constantly trying to overcome the perception among military audiences that the Military Times newspapers are official, command-driven publications. Therefore, when Air Force Times asks an Airman about his or her vote, a natural “command influence” effect skews results further in favor any sitting Commander-in-Chief.

In any case, notable Democrats have not suggested that military voters will flock to Kerry over Bush. (Certainly, they think that military voters ought to support Kerry, but that is different.) Democrats have argued simply that, among military voters, Kerry will do better than past Democrats – and that is exactly what the survey shows. Among active-duty troops responding to the initial survey, 17 percent said they support Kerry, while 12 percent said they supported Gore in 2000. Among Guard and Reserve troops, 18 percent said they support Kerry, while 16 percent said they supported Gore. Kerry did better than the previous Democrat in both cases. Moreover, the follow-up survey after the first presidential debate showed Kerry gaining six more points. The broad-brush conclusion that military voters support Bush over Kerry is almost certainly correct. But Kerry is clearly doing much better among military voters than Gore did, which could easily swing an election that was decided last time by just 537 votes in Florida. (Detailed survey results are available here to subscribers.)

Tribute to Superman

When I was in 7th grade, my middle school drama class was cast as extras in "Superman IV: The Quest for Peace." We spent two days filming with Christopher Reeve in full costume, including a scene that didn't make it into the movie that had him swinging to a landing from a crane. He sat with us kids during lunch, and he was as warm and charming as a 12 year old would hope from Superman. It didn't turn out to be the best of the Superman movies, but it was certainly an experience I'll never forget.

I'm not usually one to get wistful at celebrity deaths (I think we have an unfortunate cultural habit of confusing the words "celebrity" and "hero") but this tribute to Reeve from Ilya Salkind, executive producer of "Superman: The Movie," echoes my own thoughts:

Some rare human beings transcend our greatest dreams of wanting to be strong and bring freedom, goodness, and justice to the world. Christopher Reeve was one of them. He made our dreams a reality. In a fantasy world, Superman is the best incarnation of our finest qualities. In the real world, Christopher Reeve was a true super man who will forever inspire us to strive to attain those qualities.

I also think this cartoon tribute by Matt Davies is worth your time.

Honor his legacy with a donation to the Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation, which funds the research of the world's most distinguished neuroscientists and supports organizations around the country that improve the quality of life of people living with disabilities.

Is William Kristol lying or clueless?

William Kristol opens this article with an outright lie. Referring to Kerry's April, 22, 1971 testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he writes, "The American people have never elected president someone who, while serving in the military, chose to testify (in uniform) against a war his country was then waging."

Kerry was discharged from the Navy on March 1, 1970. Yes, he was wearing the shirt from his combat fatigues, which was the de-facto "uniform" of many veterans involved with the anti-war movement. But he most certainly did not testify in uniform while serving in the military. My instinct is to suggest that Kristol might have a clue if he had spent a day in his life in uniform, but I suspect he knows he's lying.

Is the U.S. military turning people away who want to join?

During a heated discussion at a synagogue lunch last weekend about Bush's failures as a commander-in-chief, I made the point that Bush has stubbornly refused to increase the size of the active-duty force, instead pushing the Guard and Reserve to the brink to meet wartime personnel needs. My antagonist cloaked a reasonable point in this loaded question: Is the U.S. military turning people away who want to join because the end strength is capped by law? Of course, what she was really asking is, if we increase the end strength by 40,000, as Kerry proposes, will we actually be able to fill those positions? This Defense Department release gives some good insight into the answer to that question. Each service met its active-duty recruiting goals for this fiscal year, which means means there's no shortage of active-duty recruits. In fact, the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps actually exceeded their goals. More important to answering the question is this line from the release: "The Army, concerned by fewer enlistees enrolled in its delayed-entry program for fiscal 2005, has recently fielded more recruiters and made more aggressive use of bonuses in order to attract and sign up more recruits." Just like any employer trying to fill positions, the military can recruit more or less aggressively to fill its ranks. On top of that, Congress can authorize financial and other incentives to get the force up to the strength needed to meet wartime obligations.

A small chance to be the nation we claim to be...

Click here to read the story of Rodi Alvarado, a Guatemalan woman who fled to the United States after being brutally physically and sexually tortured for 10 years by her husband, while Guatemalan authorities stood by and did nothing. Now Attorney General John Ashcroft must decide whether the United States will grant her asylum or send her back to her torturer and his enablers.

How can we claim to stand for freedom in the world if we are not willing to stand with women like Rodi Alvarado? This isn't Darfur, where we would need to risk American troops or even spend American money. This is a small chance for us to be the nation we claim we to be, and shame on us if we turn away.

Call Attorney General John Ashcroft today at 202-353-1555 and remind him that he has a duty as a Christian and as an American to stand between Rodi Alvarado and her persecutors by granting her asylum so she can stay in the United States and be free.

Will military voters stick to their guns?

As we get farther from the vice-presidential debate, more details emerge about the litany of outright lies Vice President Dick Cheney let fly Tuesday. Newsweek catalogs the dishonesty in this article. I spent much of the day today working on a couple of pieces focused on military voters, and I got to thinking about the standards of integrity within the military and the standards of integrity within the Bush administration. Every year, otherwise worthy cadets and midshipmen are disenrolled from America's service academies for honor code violations that pale in comparison to Cheney's lack of integrity. (For a good sense of the intense scrutiny and high standards of honesty demanded at the service academies, read David Lipsky's book "Absolutely American.")

When Clinton was president, military people who were less than enamored with him would argue disparagingly that the commander-in-chief ought to be held to the same standards of conduct and integrity as the men and women in uniform under his command. This kind of leadership by example is a deep and important part of military culture. I can't help wonder if military voters this time around also will hold the Bush administration accountable for its growing list of lies. According to the latest Military Times voter survey, military voters still strongly prefer Bush to Kerry, although Kerry is doing better than Gore did, and his numbers seem to be growing. The survey isn't scientific and it over-samples likely Republicans and under-samples likely Democrats. But it's still an interesting data point. Respondents ranked character just behind the war in Iraq among the most important issues affecting their choice. Will military voters quibble and look for ways to rationalize Cheney’s dishonesty? Or will they hold him to the same standards of integrity they are expected to uphold?

Blair says no appetite for British or European troops in Darfur

Visiting Sudan yesterday, British Prime Minister Tony Blair issued the now banal call for the government of Sudan to do more to stop the genocide in Darfur. As Dean Marshall has noted in our U.N. Modernization discussion, it will probably take a major power to commit some number of troops to the crisis in Darfur, in addition to African Union troops, before the international community steps up seriously. With U.S. forces badly overstretched, one might hope Britain or the Europe Union would fill that role. However, Reuters reports that Blair ruled out sending in British or European troops, saying there was no appetite for such a move on the ground.

Cheney's political ham-handedness

When Dick Cheney said last night, "I have not suggested there's a connection between Iraq and 9/11," maybe what he really meant was, "I have not merely suggested it; I have stated it outright." Did he really think nobody in the media would dig up those clips and quotes where he used every rhetorical maneuver he could muster to connect Iraq with 9/11? When he said he had never met John Edwards in person until last night's debate, did he think John Edwards wouldn't remember standing next to him at a Feb. 1, 2001, prayer breakfast, or the two or three other times they've met? It's one thing for a candidate to stretch facts or selectively interpret data. It's another thing to simply lie and hope nobody will notice. I've grown accustomed to a baseline level of dishonesty from the Bush administration, but I wouldn't have expected this kind of political ham-handedness from Cheney.

Changing the subject won't make us safer

In an obvious election-year stunt yesterday, House GOP leaders used a usually innocuous parliamentary move to bring up a bill to reinstate the draft just so they could knock down the bill and drive home the Bush administration's opposition to the idea. A group of Democratic representatives who are military veterans entered the bill in January hoping to provoke a serious national discussion about who in our society bears the human costs of war. According to the Washington Post:

[Rep. Charles B. Rangel (D-NY)] and several co-sponsors said they introduced the bill primarily to raise awareness of who makes up most of the volunteer army and to stimulate debate about the administration's military and economic policies. The nation has "an indirect draft of minorities and the poor" -- people left out of Bush's tax cuts and struggling to find jobs, said Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.).

I'll say more in a forthcoming article about why Rangel and Conyers are demonstrably wrong about who joins the all-volunteer force. However, the bill was killed without debate by vote of 402 to 2, so it's disappointing to see elected leaders on both sides of the aisles effectively avoiding a serious topic that merits serious discussion. America's current military and first-responder forces are simply too small to protect the American people effectively, and our national leaders are changing the subject.

Welcome, AlterNet readers!

AlterNet picked up my latest TomPaine.com piece and is running it under the title, "Endangering the National Guard." Welcome, AlterNet readers! If you enjoyed this article, then I hope you'll subscribe to my mailing list so you'll automaticaly be notified about future articles. If you're only interested in the blog, you can enter your email into the form at the top right of this page and you'll get a daily email summary of blog posts.

Also, don't forget to check out our U.N. Modernization Project and add your comments to the discussion.

Critics of the draft have it wrong on several fronts

In this op-ed today, MIT's Cindy Williams argues that those who would consider a renewed discussion about reinstating the military draft ought to examine why many European countries have ended their own drafts in recent years. While she makes some arguments based on the utility and efficiency of draftees, her main point is that European drafts over time have lost political legitimacy in their respective countries, noting that "a draft that is substantially less than universal is not politically sustainable in a modern liberal democracy."

It's no secret that I support the draft as part of a system of universal national service. I think arguments about the quality and utility of draftees underestimate the historical performance of American draftees, who, after all, performed with distinction in World War II, Korea, and even Vietnam. (Remember that our defeat in Vietnam was geo-political and strategic. While decisions by senior career officers may have contributed to that defeat, the rank-and-file force, including the draftees, proved themselves to be superior warfighters throughout.) Moreover, while Williams' argument about the legitimacy of the draft is correct, to get there she has to assume the draft would only apply to a tiny fraction of society. Constructs that apply national service -- military or civilian -- to every member of society without exception inherently overcome the "unfairness" problem to which that Williams attributes the loss of legitimacy in Europe.

The kind of system I suggest would require every citizen to give two years of service prior to his or her 30th birthday, with positions divided equally between military and civilian service, assigning military service by lottery until the 50 percent threshold has been met. For civilian service, citizens ought to be able to choose from a number of jobs that perform some direct public benefit. Certain fields, such as education, medicine, and law enforcement immediately come to mind. However, other jobs that are less tied to existing government bureaucracies might also be included, such as working with the homeless or running after school programs. Jobs related to critical infrastructure might also qualify, such as highway construction or maintaining public broadband utilities. Giving citizens the flexibility to perform the required service any time before they turn 30 would allow for a variety of personal circumstances, negating the need for the kinds of deferments that corrupted and delegitimized the Vietnam-era draft.

This kind of system would harness the energy of people in their late teens and twenties to meet critical public needs while also improving the character of citizens as individuals and of society as a whole. Moreover, it would address a legitimacy problem that Williams fails to mention. By giving every family an equal stake in the human cost of military action, political decisions about war and peace will become decisions about whether your child's life is worth risking. Sometimes the answer will be yes, and sometimes it wont, but there's no better way to confer legitimacy on any military endeavor.

Military liberals, stand up and be counted!

As an unabashed liberal and an Air Force veteran who was born, raised, trained, and educated in the military, I'm excited to see a new group of progressive troops, veterans, and family members trying to bridge the gap between civilian and military progressives. The group's intrepid founder, Jonathan Evans, describes Civic Soldier Forum as "patriots who understand our vital role in championing a progressive military voice." The group hit the ground running Friday with the launch of a $25,000 print ad campaign that will target military audiences via all four versions of the Military Times (Army Times, Air Force Times, etc.)

This is a cause I wholeheartedly support, and I've actually already been working on an article correcting liberal misperceptions about who joins the military. I ran into beleaguered liberals in uniform throughout my military career, including some very senior officers, and it's great to see an attempt to bring those people together and give them a voice. I have always argued that political liberalism and military service are not competing values. In fact, the military is American society's best expression of many liberal values. When you join the military, in exchange for your hard work, you and your family are guaranteed a steady income, decent housing, and quality healthcare, childcare, and schools. The state of race relations in the military is probably closer to Dr. King's dream than anywhere else in American society, and the military is actually an incredibly family-friendly employer. That's not to say that the military doesn't have its problems -- it's pretty abysmal on gay rights, for example. But it's certainly not a place devoid of liberalism, as both conservatives and liberals often seem to suggest.

If Civic Soldier Forum is successful, it could do our country a great service by calling out these issues and giving voice to the liberals who do take on the obligations of military service, making it clear that the military is a place for all Americans who love their country enough to defend it with their lives.

Wrestling With The Reserves: On the real scandal about President George W. Bush and the National Guard.

by David L. Englin
TomPaine.com, Oct. 4, 2004

The real scandal about Bush and the National Guard is not what he did—or avoided doing—during Vietnam; it is the damage Bush is doing to the National Guard today through his utter mismanagement of the war in Iraq, thereby risking the security of Americans at home.  So declared former Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura at a recent event focused on transforming the reserve component of the U.S. military.  Last week's presidential debate made it clear that John Kerry agrees.  Kerry told our ill-equipped, overstretched, and overdeployed military reserves that "Help is on the way."  Ventura’s ire—and Kerry's pledge to the troops and their families—bring into focus an important policy question, which underpinned the conference where Ventura spoke:  Is the purpose of the Guard and Reserve to defend the American homeland or to augment the active-duty military wherever in the world it is engaged?

Speaker after speaker at the conference sponsored by the Association of the United States Army, the Center for American Progress and the Center for Peace and Security Studies described the current situation in the Guard and Reserve.  The news was not good.  In what John Kerry has called a "back-door draft," thousands of Guard and Reserve soldiers are being barred from leaving the supposedly "all volunteer" force when their voluntary service periods are over.  Men and women who joined understanding they would be part-time warriors are deploying to combat as much as or more than their active-duty counterparts.  A host of elected leaders, senior military officers, government officials and defense policy experts mostly painted a dismal picture of military reserves pushed to the breaking point because of the war in Iraq, and because of the Bush administration’s stubborn refusal to increase the size of the active-duty force. 

Relieved to be able to “speak out” now that he is no longer the commander-in-chief of the Minnesota National Guard, Ventura said reservists weren't correcly outfitted for war.  “We don’t equip them as frontline combat units,” he said, yet they are being sent into frontline combat with only the equipment supplied by the people of Minnesota.  He also lamented the fact that, since Guard and Reserve soldiers tend to be older, they're more likely to have families, and those families often are left behind without the comprehensive support services available on bases to the families of active-duty soldiers.

When Guard or Reserve soldiers are called up and sent overseas to fight, they have no choice but to drop everything—school, career, family—and go to war.  With civilian jobs on hold, many families are forced to get by on severely reduced incomes, since family breadwinners often earn better pay and benefits in civilian life than they earn in the military.  In many cases, families even have to suffer the indignity of losing their employer-based health insurance.  If they are lucky, their civilian jobs will be waiting for them when they return from overseas, which is what the law requires.  However, those laws were written when Guard and Reserve troops deployed for a few months here and there over the course of a couple of decades.  Because of the war in Iraq, these men and women may be gone for a year or two, come home for a few months, and be called up for war again for who knows how long.  Thanks to these excessive deployments and a strained economy, many employers are simply incapable of holding positions open.  Add to the family separation and loss of income and benefits the constant fear that your loved one will be killed, and it is easy to understand why many families of Guard and Reserve troops find the pressure unbearable.

Thanks to this new reality, the Army National Guard missed its fiscal year recruiting goal by 5,000 people.  Guard and Reserve units are being retrained in crash programs to fill active-duty shortfalls, sometimes by inexperienced trainers, since regular training units have been sent overseas.  Morale and cohesion, which are the lifeblood of military units on the battlefield, are starting to erode, and we are on the cusp of a serious problem with the voluntary retention of experienced soldiers.  The Army Research Institute projects that only 27 percent of Guard and Reserve soldiers intend to re-enlist—an all-time low.

“This really is about Iraq,” said Dr. Hans Binnendijk, director of the Center for Technology and National Security Policy at National Defense University, lest anyone think otherwise.  Binnendijk noted that the National Guard is still struggling to put into each state a 22-person Civil Support Team trained to respond to nuclear, biological or chemical terrorism.  He also said that these teams really need to be battalion-sized units (a couple of thousand people) to be capable of responding effectively.

Voicing a point former Secretary of State Madeline Albright also made recently, Ventura argued that the Bush administration is “jeopardizing homeland security” by leaving state governors “woefully short-handed.”  With southern Minnesota recently hit by 10 to 12 inches of rain from Hurricane Ivan, he openly wondered if current Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty didn’t use the National Guard to respond to flooding because too many of the units are in combat overseas.  Ventura also noted that the men and women who join the Guard have a higher tendency toward professions like law enforcement, fire fighting and emergency medical services.  Thanks to the war in Iraq, Guard and Reserve deployments overseas have left communities across the nation short of the first responders needed to cope with everything from terrorist attacks to more mundane crimes and emergencies.  “Whose security are we defending the most, Iraq’s, or ours?” Ventura asked.

With a former professional wrestler’s flair for the dramatic, Ventura called the fact that we’re sending Guard and Reserve forces overseas “a flagrant misuse,” because, he said, “The first rule in the military is you protect your homeland first before you venture into enemy territory.” 

Bush has clearly mismanaged the Guard and Reserve at the expense of American security.  However, the military has been operating under a doctrine put in place after Vietnam that was designed to make it structurally impossible to wage a major war without sending the Guard and Reserve overseas.  According to Dr. Bernard Rostker, a senior fellow at the RAND Corporation, this rule—called the Abrams Doctrine—was a reaction to President Lyndon B. Johnson’s refusal to send the National Guard to Vietnam.  The Abrams Doctrine was supposed to help keep the United States out of another costly and unpopular war because Guard and Reserve units naturally tend to have closer political relationships with the communities where they are based.  More than one presenter at the conference dryly noted the failure of the doctrine on that count when it comes to Iraq.

While uncomfortably unaware of the Abrams Doctrine, Ventura’s common-sense attitude toward the National Guard (“It’s called the ‘National’ ‘Guard’ so its job should be to ‘guard’ the ‘nation’ here at home.”) effectively endorses the most interesting idea to come out the conference: Binnendijk’s proposal for a major restructuring of the Guard and Reserve.  Binnendijk would use only the Reserve, which is a federal force in the first place, to supplement the active-duty force in its overseas war-fighting role.  He proposes training the state-based National Guard as a homeland security force, only sending it overseas for stabilization and rebuilding operations—versus combat operations—which are very similar to what the National Guard does at home in response to natural disasters.

Jesse Ventura and John Kerry seem to agree that, for the sake of the brave men and women of the military reserves and their families, and for the sake of America's national security, something needs to be done to fix the Guard and Reserve.  The problems with the reserve component of the U.S. military boil down to three things: mismanagement by an arrogant, incompetent commander-in-chief; a doctrine not suited to the dual domestic and international challenges of the war on terrorism; and a long-term security environment that demands more troops at home and abroad.  The security environment won't change any time soon, but we put our nation at risk if we don't change the other two.

Is Tucker Carlson really willing to give aid and comfort to the enemy?

I was up working late last night, and my trusty TiVo thought I'd be interested in a rerun of the post-debate edition of HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher." During an interview with conservative pundit Tucker Carlson, Maher pressed Carlson on how much national security information it's okay for a reporter to release. The question was in the context of trying to get Carlson to criticize fellow Republican shill Bob Novak for knowingly revealing the name of a CIA covert operative in his column, which is a crime. Carlson's response was shocking. He jumped to Novak's aid, of course, but he went beyond that, saying that there's no information -- ever -- that a reporter shouldn't release as long as it's the true. Maher pressed him further, asking if that included troop positions and other information which, if broadcast, would clearly put the lives of American troops at risk. Carlson said yes. Maher was rightfully shocked.

As a former military public affairs officer, I find this quite disturbing. Sure, the Bush administration's irrational emphasis on secrecy harms American democracy. But even the most liberal, Bush-hating Americans (like Bill Maher) understand that certain details of ongoing military operations ought to be kept secret. In fact, in the history of media coverage of the U.S. military up to the war in Iraq, there isn't a single case of American troops being put at risk by American reporters not willing to hold onto a secret. This is a battle public affairs officers fight all the time in the military. Commanders constantly need to be persuaded and educated and cajoled by their public affairs staffs to understand that the media is not the enemy, that the media is not out to reveal operational details that will put their men and women at greater risk. In recent years, commanders have started to wake up to this fact, and we saw how successful embedding reporters with military units was from the point of view of the military. However, the military public affairs community is far from ready to declare victory on this front, and Carlson's incredible assertion certainly won't help.

I'd also like to know if Carlson really, truly believes what he said, or if he just felt like it was more important to stick to an indefensible position under pressure in the name of certitude. Hmmm...who else does that sound like?

Another reason for veterans to support Kerry

As I noted in this article I wrote for The Gadflyer, the Bush administration is cutting veterans medical benefits, even while the war in Iraq is resulting in thousands more disabled veterans. This article notes that Bush's FY2005 budget "calls for cutting the Department of Veterans Affairs staff that handles benefits claims," which can only worsen the bleak situation facing these brave men and women:

"Through the end of April, the most recent accounting the VA could provide, a total of 166,334 veterans of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan had separated from military service, and 26,633 -- 16 percent -- had filed benefits claims with the VA for service-connected disabilities. Less than two-thirds of those claims had been processed, leaving more than 9,750 recent veterans waiting."

My own experience with the VA has been no less disappointing. As part of the process of separating from the Air Force, I enrolled in the VA's "Benefits Delivery at Discharge" program, under which the VA would supposedly issue my medical benefits determination (based on a service-related back injury) immediately after my separation date in exchange for completing the application while I was still in uniform. The day after my separation date, the VA let me know that I should find out something in six to nine months -- not quite "at Discharge." I wouldn't mind the delay if it meant wounded veterans returning from Iraq were being properly taken care of, but that's apparently not the case.

Washington Post's weekly Darfur installment

An editorial on Darfur has become a weekly exercise for the Washington Post, which as done a reasonable job trying to keep the issue on the radar of its largely inside-the-beltway audience. This week's installment notes that the government of Sudan now claims it would welcome 3,500 African Union peacekeepers, but only as ceasefire monitors. It also highlights both the problem with regional security organizations and the problem with lack of "great power" military involvement that Dean Marshall noted in our U.N. discussion yesterday. This from the Post editorial board:

Then there is the African Union itself. Its leaders have been offering loudly to send troops to Darfur. But now that they are faced with a government that welcomes them, they say it will take another two or three weeks to win approval from all member governments for the deployment. In another measure of the African Union's urgent commitment to combating genocide, its officials recently delayed a meeting on Darfur on the ground that they had not received the per diem they thought due them.

Finally there is the role of the United States and its allies. The Bush administration is comfortable pushing resolutions through the Security Council and then calling upon the African Union to deploy: "My hope is that the African Union moves rapidly to help save lives," Mr. Bush declared in the debate on Thursday. But if he is serious about that hope, he needs to try harder to make the deployment happen. The United States needs to ensure that the mandate under which peacekeepers deploy is not restrictive. It must encourage the African Union to make haste. And it must get ready for the time when the African Union comes up with a firm deployment proposal. The African troops will need vehicles, helicopters and prefabricated housing. All this needs to be prepared now, in concert with other members of NATO. Otherwise the interminable delays in getting help to Darfur will stretch out even longer.

Is Oklahoma going to Zell?

The Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate from Oklahoma, Rep. Brad Carson, sounded more like a Republican this morning during his "Meet the Press" debate with Republican Tom Coburn. Carson repeatedly invoked President Bush (although he claims he will vote for Kerry), criticized Democratic positions on several issues, and touted his support for Bush's Medicare bill, which does more to profit drug companies than it does to help seniors (and about the cost of which the Bush administration intentionally misled Congress.) On issue after issue, Carson seemed to toe the Republican Party line. Coburn, on the other hand, expressed concern about the dangers of the Patriot Act, and he made a rather forceful and eloquent argument against continued massive federal deficits, calling it "evil" to "steal from our children and grandchildren." Of course, Coburn also wants to outlaw abortions and sentence to death doctors who perform them. I don't envy the choice facing the good people of Oklahoma. The sad truths are that the Republican agenda is destroying our country, and that Congress is a game of numbers, so I hope Carson wins. But one has to wonder if he's a Democrat because there was too much competition for prominence in the Oklahoma Republican Party.

"I can't shoot any closer or we'll shoot the people"

An interesting feature in the Style section of today's Washington Post suggests that Swift Boat Veterans for Bush began as one man's attempt to rationalize his questionable conduct in Vietnam. Here are the choice quotes:

"You mean the guy who's criticizing Kerry for war crimes is the only one who ordered me to commit one?"

Douglas Brinkley says he soft-pedaled Hoffmann's role in the book, but that he is "the most egregious exampl