I know its dopey but I have this childlike trust that professional anti-terror cops are out there protecting us. You know, just like Jack Bauer tracking down sleeper cells with Chloe O'Brien and her magic lap top back in headquarters telling him about the layout of the plumbing system in the terrorist's apartment building so that Jack can sneak in through the toilet and waste the bastards with only seconds to spare.
Then last week, just after this season's 2 hour finale of 24, reality had to rear its depressing head. Instead of Jack. I was stuck watching an army of state, local and federal cops, huddling together to make sure they were on camera, at a press conference called to announce the bust of some broken down ex-con jihad wannabes in Newburgh NY who thought they were about to blow up a jewish center in Riverdale.
Apparently, an informer ensnared these guys, who couldn't have found the local K Mart without help much less Riverdale, and handed them the keys to a ready made, make believe, terror plot concocted by FBI agents and funded by taxpayers. Then like shooting fish in a barrel the cops parked outside the Jewish Center target, chosen by the Feds, and waited for the entrapped geniuses to arrive with their trunkful of government issued fake explosives.
I don't know about you but I don't feel any safer. Of course, I'm glad about the arrest of guys who thought they were about to murder people. But what I want to hear is some monotone gum shoe in a cheap suit describe how boring old fashioned police work brought down a real sleeper cell. It doesnt do it for me to hear a bunch of well dressed big shots bragging about how they used limited taxpayer anti terror funds to trap some anti semitic shit heads with a "paint by numbers" plot.
Maybe this deters would be terrorists on the fringes. But I'm worried that when real al quaeda terrorists, working in real sleeper cells on real plots that take years to hatch, see this story on the 6 o-clock news they just laugh and go deeper underground - that's what scares me.
Jack? Chloe? Renee? Help me! I'm not sure I can hold out until the fall.
Saturday, May 23, 2009
Sunday, May 17, 2009
HOW TO CRITICIZE A PRESIDENT YOU ADORE
Folks on my wing of Obama's base are grumbling. The big problem is the decision to escalate the hopeless bloody Afghanistan quagmire which threatens to be his Vietnam. Then there was the decision not to go after the Bush torture war criminals and then to keep the Guantanamo kangaroo courts. On top of this he's allowing the torture pictures to hidden from public scrutiny.
Here is my problem. I'm so smitten by Obama and Michelle as extraordinary people, and as brilliant skillful down to earth leaders that whatever they want right now is OK by me. I understand that I will need to return to earth as soon as possible - but not just yet.
This experience makes me think about a friend of my Dads. Until his death at age 94 two years ago - Dad, an old lefty, formed a dear friendship with a retired career military guy named Angelo. After a lifetime in distant political and geographic worlds, these two old gents met in Dad’s Florida retirement community. They played string duets with Angelo on fiddle and Dad on cello. But I think mostly they sat at the kitchen table over coffee and sandwiches talking about the world they were leaving for their kids - and getting a kick out of each other. When Angelo’s arthritic fingers froze up Dad became a physical therapist working to get his violinist back.
Whenever Dad would get going about George Bush’s disastrous presidency - Angelo would end the conversation with “Jack, he’s my commander in chief.” In my mind’s eye Angelo stood at attention and saluted every time he said it - but I think I made that part up. When Dad would tell me this I would shake my head with patronizing amusement at his old buddy's unthinking, blind patriotism.
Sadly Dad didn’t get to see the breathtaking, horizon changing, new world of President Barack Obama and his megawatt smile.
Here’s why Im bringing it up - when people criticize Obama at this point in history I feel like I’ve become Angelo- without the salute. Who'd a thunk it?
I understand that this is not workable. My problem is going to be figuring out how to walk this line of supporting a man who rescued the country and the world from the most destructive criminal regime in American history and did it by remaking the political landscape with his different brand of politics without morphing into an Obama era charicature of the "my country right or wrong" guys.
This is uncharted territory. Obama has a distinct approach to international relations which parallels his domestic policies. His tools are his brilliance, his skill and a personal visionary charisma which has created a reservoir of good will that transcends the Balkanized domestic and international political landscape. If there is a quality that keeps him from being this generation's Roosevelt or perhaps even Lincoln it might be that he cares too much about being liked.
Obama's progressive friends may soon need give him some "tough love". If he nominates a spineless plain vanilla Souter replacement it will be time for that "plan B" to start. The key will be doing it in a way that doesn't help Limbaugh, Cheney and the neanderthal forces of darkness.
We also need to remember where we've been and where we might have gone without this man. I firmly believe that Hillary could not have won and but for Barack Obama we'd be living a McCain/Palin nightmare. Ironically, Obama would probably have lost to McCain if Clinton hadn't forced him into a two year job interview.
The issue of how and when friends should criticize Obama brings to mind the story of what Lincoln said when someone complained about Grant's drinking, which was something like, "find out what brand of whiskey he's drinking and send a bottle to all my other generals".
A FRIEND RESPONDS
Here is my problem. I'm so smitten by Obama and Michelle as extraordinary people, and as brilliant skillful down to earth leaders that whatever they want right now is OK by me. I understand that I will need to return to earth as soon as possible - but not just yet.
This experience makes me think about a friend of my Dads. Until his death at age 94 two years ago - Dad, an old lefty, formed a dear friendship with a retired career military guy named Angelo. After a lifetime in distant political and geographic worlds, these two old gents met in Dad’s Florida retirement community. They played string duets with Angelo on fiddle and Dad on cello. But I think mostly they sat at the kitchen table over coffee and sandwiches talking about the world they were leaving for their kids - and getting a kick out of each other. When Angelo’s arthritic fingers froze up Dad became a physical therapist working to get his violinist back.
Whenever Dad would get going about George Bush’s disastrous presidency - Angelo would end the conversation with “Jack, he’s my commander in chief.” In my mind’s eye Angelo stood at attention and saluted every time he said it - but I think I made that part up. When Dad would tell me this I would shake my head with patronizing amusement at his old buddy's unthinking, blind patriotism.
Sadly Dad didn’t get to see the breathtaking, horizon changing, new world of President Barack Obama and his megawatt smile.
Here’s why Im bringing it up - when people criticize Obama at this point in history I feel like I’ve become Angelo- without the salute. Who'd a thunk it?
I understand that this is not workable. My problem is going to be figuring out how to walk this line of supporting a man who rescued the country and the world from the most destructive criminal regime in American history and did it by remaking the political landscape with his different brand of politics without morphing into an Obama era charicature of the "my country right or wrong" guys.
This is uncharted territory. Obama has a distinct approach to international relations which parallels his domestic policies. His tools are his brilliance, his skill and a personal visionary charisma which has created a reservoir of good will that transcends the Balkanized domestic and international political landscape. If there is a quality that keeps him from being this generation's Roosevelt or perhaps even Lincoln it might be that he cares too much about being liked.
Obama's progressive friends may soon need give him some "tough love". If he nominates a spineless plain vanilla Souter replacement it will be time for that "plan B" to start. The key will be doing it in a way that doesn't help Limbaugh, Cheney and the neanderthal forces of darkness.
We also need to remember where we've been and where we might have gone without this man. I firmly believe that Hillary could not have won and but for Barack Obama we'd be living a McCain/Palin nightmare. Ironically, Obama would probably have lost to McCain if Clinton hadn't forced him into a two year job interview.
The issue of how and when friends should criticize Obama brings to mind the story of what Lincoln said when someone complained about Grant's drinking, which was something like, "find out what brand of whiskey he's drinking and send a bottle to all my other generals".
A FRIEND RESPONDS
Yeah, it's just too early to shake that Honeymoon feeling. Especially after the last one. This just feels good, and you just don't want to look too closely at what she's really doing in the kitchen.
AND HERE'S ANOTHER OPINION FROM A FAMILY MEMBERYour blogged piece on being charmed by Obama was nicely put and sweet.
It seems to go along with a common hope that Obama has to compromise on minor things like the war, the economy, health care, government transparency, rule of law, climate change, abortion and gun control in order to accomplish his real agenda, like getting re-elected and putting the US back in the running for the stem cell research going on in other countries.At what point in Obama's systematic betrayal of the enthusiastic new voters who pushed him over the top will a catastrophic awakening be apt?
Of course there may be all sorts of things going on behind the scenes that have tied Obama's hands or that are strings controlling them. Maybe Biden is secretly playing the same role Cheney did with Bush, or maybe a J. Edgar Hoover has information on Obama like the real J.Edgar Hoover had on a succession of other presidents, making it unwise to do anything other that what he is told to. But that would be a conspiracy theory and those are out of fashion these days, much like"liberal" was out of fashion just a couple of years ago.
At any rate, from the point of view the commercial media permit, Obama would seem to be in a position to quickly and decisively institute real health care reform. The majority of the population currently favors single-payer, hates managed care and the phony "insurance"industry, and is aware that they are constantly risking financial and health disaster by cutting corners on their health care insurance (if they even have any), on doctor visits and on taking prescribed medication. The people have spoken in poll after poll. Obama has spoken in speech after speech... until he got in. The press has largely avoided the single-payer debate, downplayed the protests and accepted how Obama's commission failed to include a singlesingle-payer advocate. We do not see any discussion of the huge waste in the current system in terms other than claims that doctors are overpaid and that government control of healthcare would make everything worse.
Take a look at the Bill Moyers article:
http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2009/05/22/moyers/index.html?source=newsletter
... then take another few minutes to decide if supporting Obama right or wrong is right.
Love, M
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