The Internet Makes Me Nuts, Sarah Palin Has a Point...Sort Of, If You Still Oppose Gays In the Military It Means You Are a Bigot

When Did the Other Side Stop Being Human?
The light-hearted news of the holiday weekend involved President Obama taking an elbow to the face from one Ray Decerega in a morning basketball game at the White House. This is the sort of light-hearted, humanizing story that ought to give us a break from the usual political wrangling. But the response in this hyper-partisan age is all too predictable. Just read the comment section below any major news story on the event.

"The President is playing basketball while we are on the brink of World War 3" writes one blogger
"Lucky guy, Ray Decerega, I'd like to punch all libs in the face" writes another
And on, and on...

On the left, of course, the defense is offense....President Bush took more days often than anybody on Earth, etc., etc.

It is all very petty, stupid and undignified.

In the interest of civility, can we agree on a few things?
No President ever worked on policy every single minute of every day. They all found time to shower, use the bathroom, eat breakfast and maybe even talked to their spouses every once in a while. Blowing off steam by playing basketball for an hour in a day isn't a bad thing. Ronald Reagan took naps in the afternoon. George H.W. Bush loved going up to New England. Bill Clinton liked escaping there as well. George W. Bush had Crawford.

You cannot be a 24/7 President. So let's cut the nonsense. All Presidents have unbelievably grueling schedules. They are in the public eye all the time. They are on call all the time. They work every weekend, every holiday. Most get but a few hours of sleep a night.

Can we have a dialogue that is about policy? Barack Obama is not evil. You might think he's wrong as hell politically, but by every credible accounts, he is a nice guy, a good family man and a patriotic American. So was George W. Bush, by the way. Clinton too, if you exclude the good husband part of being a good family man.

So let's those of us of reasonable intelligence agree to debate policy and just enjoy, rather than politicize the light-hearted, humanizing parts of the Presidency.

I Don't Think Sarah Palin Is Stupid Because of Her North Korea Gaffe
It all happened so innocently during a friendly interview from Fox News Commentator (is that the right description?) Glenn Beck. Sarah Palin, asked about the recent crisis in the Koreas, stated:
“This speaks to a bigger picture here that certainly scares me in terms of our national security policy. But obviously we’ve gotta stand with our North Korean allies.”

Glenn quickly corrected her, noting that she must have meant our South Korean allies.

Predictably, the left was all over this gaffe, offering it as further evidence that the Grizzly Mama is completely out to lunch when it comes to discussing any policy matters. Palin, in turn, published a response to the criticism via Facebook, which cited a number of verbal gaffes that President Obama had made over the past 3 years and noted that she quickly corrected herself (not quite accurate, as it was Beck who corrected her, but from the context of the conversation, it is reasonable to assume that it was a verbal gaffe and not a mental one as she had been talking about our allies in South Korea just prior to the statement above.)

Sarah has a point, sort of. Her point that her intelligence or knowledge of foreign policy should not be judged solely on the basis of one verbal gaffe is absolutely correct. Her point that the President, or heck, any politician who is on the camera a lot, makes gaffes is also correct.

I don't think Sarah is stupid because of this gaffe. Heck, I don't think she is stupid at all. I do think she is profoundly ignorant. But not because of her statement about Korea. I think so because of her statement that she had foreign policy experience because she could see Russia from her window...a statement she did not correct or clarify. I think so because she said that the Vice President controls what the Senate votes on, another statement she has never corrected or clarified. I think so because she repeatedly flubbed very basic questions of policy during the 2008 campaign and seems incapable of forming complete sentences with coherent policy thoughts in even the most friendly interviews now.

Sarah is ignorant and dangerous. But not stupid. Our comparative tax returns this year will prove that fact.

Gays In the Military -- Your Excuses Are Gone
I have long contended that gay rights is the defining civil rights battle of this generation. Whether you are talking about non-discrimination laws (did you know that employers can fire gay workers simply for being gay in 33 states still?) to gay marriage and civil unions, to gay adoption to military service, LGBT Americans are the last major demographic that are still routinely denied equal rights under our laws. This is not to say that discrimination doesn't exist in other areas; we certainly still have our share of racial and gender bias problems, just that discrimination against LGBT is the only kind that is sanctioned by the law.

I have long advocated for the right of gay Americans to serve openly in the armed services. In the past, however, I was reluctant to accuse my opponents of bigotry. While there are many intrinsic logical and moral problems that I have with the point of view that gays shouldn't be allowed to serve because it would harm morale, I tried hard to accept that those who espoused that view held it honestly. No rational person can take such a stand any longer.

Consider the facts:
(1) The Israeli Army, perhaps the most fearsome fighting force on the planet, has allowed gays to serve openly for some time. An army from a heavily religious country, surrounded by people trying to destroy it, has made this arrangement work. Do we really not have our act together as well as Israel? By the way, Gays are also allowed to serve openly in 34 other countries, if you are interested, including virtually every NATO ally.

(2) 75% of troops do not believe that allowing gays in the military would damage military readiness, says a very recent pentagon study. There goes the morale argument. Do you think 75% of the enlisted supported integrating the troops at the time it was done?

(3) Every major military leader is in favor of the change, include the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mike Mullen, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and former Secretary of State Colin Powell. By the way, all 3 are Republican appointees. Sure you can locate a General or and Admiral who opposes the change, but the top leadership is pretty united.

(4) During every draft war in the 20th century, the military refused to discharge gay soldiers. This included both World Wars, Korea and Vietnam. They were good enough then but not now? Remember Corporal Klinger from MASH? The joke was that he was behaving in an openly gay manner and couldn't get discharged.

All of this leaves me to a simple conclusion...all of the evidence points towards the right answer being allowing gays to serve openly in the military. If you oppose the opinion of the troops, the military leadership, the American people and the world, why are you doing it? You are either a bigot or you are pandering to bigots.

Shame on those who fall into either category. And shame on those who support a change but continue to shove this issue to the back burner.

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The Obama Slide Continues, Evan Bayh is Out and No Democrat is Safe, No Courage on Gays in the Military

First, loyal reader, let me apologize for the absences of posts for the past week and a half. I was traveling on business, followed by some great R&R in Florida, which included a trip down to Daytona for the 500 (where Sarah Palin briefly spoke, incidentally.)

First order of business....I had not updated my Presidential Approval tracking charts in this space on several weeks, so let me give you the latest updates.

Since January 12th (my last publication of these charts), the President has moved both down and up in approval, but the trend is definitely still downward. He crossed a psychologically significant threshold on February 7th and 8th when his disapproves exceeded his approves for the first time in his Presidency. He has since crossed back into narrowly positive territory, but it would be hard to read his current numbers as good for being only 13 months into his Presidency.



His monthly numbers (which smooth out the bumps in daily polling) show a modest decline in January. This marks 12 out of 13 months in his Presidency where his numbers have declined, with September 2008 being flat. He has yet to post an approval increase in any month. February is on trend to post decline number 13.



Evan Bayh Retiring -- Another Lean GOP Pick-Up
The title above pretty well captures my thoughts -- with Sen. Evan Bayh (D-IN) retiring after this term, this is another seat that you would have to favor the GOP to win. Bayh was highly popular in a red-leaning state (although Obama won Indiana in 2008, it was by a 7 point closer margin than the vote as a whole and John Kerry lost by a huge margin in 2004) and the Democrats are now without a candidate and unlikely to find one with much star power. Seems like every week these days brings more bad news for the Democrats 2008 prospects. The possibility of a GOP pick-up of the Senate has gone from unfathomable to far-fetched to entirely possible. It is still more likely than not that the DEMs will retain at least the 48+2 seats they would need to hold control, but the GOP scenarios for victory continue to become more plausible.

On substance, Bayh's departure was essentially a shot at both sides on capital hill. It is frankly rare to hear a retirement announcement so candid. He forwent the usual nonsense about wanting to spend more time with his family and instead ripped into the excessive lack of bipartisanship on both sides of the aisle and took shots at what he views as misaligned priorities in the Democratic party.

Some on the left have simply said "good riddance" to the moderate Indianan, who was never on board with pushing an economically liberal agenda. But the loss of any moderate is a sad day in my book. The Democratic Party needs centrists who will check the Pelosi wing of the party with some populist common sense. And moderates seem to be becoming more and more rare on both sides of the aisle, which probably has contributed to the collapse in bipartisanship more than anything else.

Gays in the Military -- An Absence of Leadership
The senior officiers in the military are united...it is time to allow openly gay members of the military to serve without fear of retribution. Dick Cheney is on board. The Israeli Army -- a fiercely effective force from what is hardly a socially liberal company, has made this policy work for over a decade now. Three quarters of Americans rightly support changing the policy.

But there is no courage. Shame on John McCain for reneging on his pledge 10 years ago to support a policy change when senior military officials supported the change. But far more important, shame on President Obama for not taking action. Proposing that Congress change the law is well and good, but there is no reason for the President to hide under Congressional cover. He could stop prosecutions of gays tomorrow by executive order. Don't gays deserve the same consideration as medical marijuana users? How many more Arabic translators do we need to fire because of this outdated policy? How about a little leadership, Mr. President?

I'll update my Senate race projections in full in my next blog.

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Is This Year 1 of the Clinton Administration Again?

Today is day 188 of the Obama Administration. He has served 12.9% of his elected term. As health care languishes and his poll numbers have started (continued?) to drop off, it begs the question -- is this a replay of the Clinton Administration?

Health Care
Health Care reform is stalled in congress, no two ways about it. The possibility of passage of a bill prior to the August recess looks to be essentially nil. Blue Dogs in the House and moderates in the Senate are concerned about re-election and worried about the cost. The insurance industry is running wall-to-wall commercials opposing reform. Poll numbers on the subject are not particularly encouraging. Feel a little like 1993?

Polls
I will update the charts when I return from Australia but there is no doubt that President Obama's numbers have continued to fall during the month of July. Perhaps most significantly, July 24th marked the first poll release by a non-partisan organization that showed the President with disapproves that exceeded his approves -- the Rasmussen poll had him at -2% (49% approve, 51% disapprove). While this is only one data point and the Rasmussen poll has fairly consistently shown his numbers lower than other major polls, it is still significant in that it opens at least the possibility for opposing politicans that opposing the President may be the popular thing to do. Feeling like 1993 yet?

Stepping In It
President Obama has been rapidly trying to walk back this past week a statement he made that police had "acted stupidly" in arresting Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., which has reopened national wounds around the interreleated of race, profiling and police conduct. President Obama's words were ironically self-describing and it is the most significant verbal gaffe he has mdae since coming on the national stage. Gays in the military, 1993, anyone?

What's Different
The President HAS signed into law one major piece of legislation, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act -- President Clinton failed to get his much more modest stimulus. The President has also signed significant legislation expanding children's health care, changing pay discrimination law and protecting consumer holders of credit cards. The bulk of the economic recovery is likely to come and that should improve the President's numbers, particularly if people associate the recovery with the stimulus bill.

Still, it isn't hard for me to see a scenario where Health Care fails, unemployment stays high and the GOP wins huge gains in 2010 (although I still can't conceive of a scenario where they could retake the Senate.) President Obama isn't looking much like a new kind of politician these days. Those transformational speeches are a distant memory. The time for leadership is now.

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