This column originally appeared in the Williston Observer on August 28, 2008.
Campaign Let-Downs
I feel let down by Republican presidential candidate John McCain.
To be fair, though, I also feel let down by the Democrats on two points, so let me get those out of the way.
First, I signed up to be "one of the first" to know about Barack Obama's choice for a vice presidential candidate, the message to arrive on my cell phone before even the cable news networks were told.
I got the message, but at 3:29 a.m. last Saturday morning, and before I checked my inbox, I saw the morning news telling me about Joe Biden. So much for being one of the first.
Second, I was disappointed that the Democratic National Committee decided to let Florida and Michigan off the hook for their disobedient behavior during the primary season. Having held primaries earlier than the rules allowed, they were stripped of their convention delegates.
After negotiations between the Obama and Hillary Clinton campaigns, the states were granted half their delegates, and now, this past weekend, the DNC decided to seat both states' full delegations. As any parent will agree, you have to follow through on your punishments or they mean nothing.
These let-downs, though, are minuscule compared to those of Candidate John McCain.
I had a lot of respect for McCain, but daily it's being chipped away at. I will always respect his times of service, both in the military and in the Senate, but his run for the presidency has rubbed the gloss off.
For example, McCain's stuttering confession that he was unsure about how many houses he owns certainly was not endearing: "I'll have my staff get back to you," he told reporters. To have so many that you lose count does not make me feel like he and I have the same concerns. The count, by the way, turns out to be eight.
I'll get back to McCain himself in a moment. His staff, however, deserves mention here. They seem to forget that the way things work is that the principal spokesperson for a presidential campaign is the candidate himself.
When McCain details some of his economic plans on the campaign trail, his budget policies end up nearly $3 trillion out of line with his published plans. McCain's chief economic adviser, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, was questioned about the discrepancy by online magazine Slate. Wrote Slate blogger Christopher Beam, "'This is parsing words out of campaign appearances to an unreasonable degree,' Holtz-Eakin said. 'He has certainly I'm sure said things in town halls' that don't jibe perfectly with his written plan. But that doesn't mean it's official."
This has widely, and not inaccurately, been paraphrased as "John McCain does not speak for the McCain campaign."
And it happened again, a week later. In an interview with ABC's George Stephanopoulos, McCain said that in discussions about saving Social Security, "nothing is off the table," specifically including payroll tax increases.
The next day, one of McCain's spokesmen corrected the candidate, saying that a payroll tax increase was "absolutely out of the question." Again, McCain does not speak for the McCain campaign. Troubling.
Back to McCain himself: In a speech before the Veterans of Foreign Wars, McCain criticized Obama's positions on Iraq, saying that they called into question the judgement he would need as commander in chief: "Behind all of these ... positions by Senator Obama lies the ambition to be president."
Maybe it is fair to criticize a presidential candidate for having ambition to be president, maybe not. But McCain should be careful of throwing stones. In 2002, McCain wrote a book about his 2000 run for the presidency, noting that he hadn't run for president to solve any particular problems. "I wanted to be president because," he wrote, "it had been my ambition to be president."
Look, we all misspeak. But in this day and age, when the lies told by "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth" are perceived as truth, one must be especially careful about what one says. Failure to do so is, in itself, a black mark against you.
I leave you this week with a McCain gaffe that I found amusing but which may have made McCain's home life a bit awkward for a few days.
At the beginning of August, when McCain and his wife Cindy were attending a motorcycle rally in South Dakota, McCain told the crowd that he had encouraged Cindy to enter the "Miss Buffalo Chip" contest held at the rally.
Perhaps he did not know (or, worse, perhaps he did) that the contestants for the Miss Buffalo Chip contest dress scantily, if at all, and dance lewdly in front of the hooting audience. For John's sake, let's hope Cindy has a big sense of humor.
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Friday, August 15, 2008
American Olympic stories from China
This column originally appeared in the Williston Observer on August 14, 2008.
American Olympic stories from China
Given a topic as broad as China, it is tempting to go off on tangents far and wide.
In one direction, history: China's written history goes back further than any nation, back to the 15th century BCE. Its Ming and Qing dynasties top those of any English royal house - the Windsors have reigned only since 1910; the Ming ruled for 276 years, the Qing for 267.
In another direction, Sino-American relations: China is the second largest holder of American debt, after Japan (a debt to which, over the last five years, we added nearly $3 trillion). We import more goods from China than any other nation, and we have a massive trade deficit with China (a trade deficit that we share with Japan and the European Union).
But Olympic events in China in the past week permit me to put history and politics aside, and focus on a topic that I don't often feel the urge to write about -- sports.
Like many Americans, I only care about judo, fencing, shooting, kayaking, or water polo when there are Olympic gold medals at stake. And with the Games come the stories, compelling Olympic stories.
I wasn't even going to bother watching the opening ceremonies nor the mind-numbing parade of nations until I read about the athlete chosen by the U.S. delegation to be our flag-bearer. The story of Tully, New York, middle-distance runner Lopez Lomong is well-known by now, but worth repeating.
Lomong was living in Sudan when he was abducted from his family at the age of six, taken to become a child soldier in the Sudanese civil war. He and some other boys were able to escape to Kenya and for a decade, Lomong languished in refugee camps. He was finally chosen to be resettled in the United States, one of the "Lost Boys" of Sudan.
Lomong assumed his family had been killed during the civil war, and following his abduction, his family assumed he was dead and buried him in absentia. Though he was later reunited with his Sudanese family, Lomong decided to stay in the United States with his adoptive family, and became a citizen just last year.
Lomong's story inspired his fellow athletes just as it inspires many of us, and their choice of Lomong to lead them into the Bird's Nest Stadium was seen as both a dig at the Chinese, for their role in the turmoil in Sudan's Darfur region, and a recognition of the obstacles he had to overcome to reach the games.
Here is a sampling of the other stories to emerge from Beijing from just the first five days of competition.
American women swept the medals in the sabre competition, the first time Americans have swept a fencing competition since 1904. President George Bush was on hand to watch as three American flags rose over the medal podium on day one.
A quartet of American men came from behind to defeat the favored French team in the 4x100m free relay swim, a win that got Michael Phelps another gold medal in his quest to be the first to win eight in a single Olympic games.
In the women's version of the same event, 4x100m free relay, 41-year-old Dara Torres won her 10th Olympic medal, in her fifth Olympics, when she helped the American woman to a silver medal.
In oft-overlooked men's gymnastics, our team overcame the loss of Paul and Morgan Hamm to injury and pulled ahead to finish with a bronze medal, with Alexander Artemev's performance on pommel horse sealing the deal.
In baseball, a sport that Williston Little League champions should watch carefully since this will be its last appearance at the Olympics for a while, the U.S. team is one of only eight; if history is a guide, the Cubans have a better chance at gold than the U.S., but in exhibition play, the U.S. won a respectable 5 out of 6. After failing to reach the medal round in Athens in 2004, the Americans have something to prove.
Whether you're a sports fan or not, tune in to see what your athletes, and those of the rest of the world, have to offer in the coming week. No doubt you won't be disappointed.
American Olympic stories from China
Given a topic as broad as China, it is tempting to go off on tangents far and wide.
In one direction, history: China's written history goes back further than any nation, back to the 15th century BCE. Its Ming and Qing dynasties top those of any English royal house - the Windsors have reigned only since 1910; the Ming ruled for 276 years, the Qing for 267.
In another direction, Sino-American relations: China is the second largest holder of American debt, after Japan (a debt to which, over the last five years, we added nearly $3 trillion). We import more goods from China than any other nation, and we have a massive trade deficit with China (a trade deficit that we share with Japan and the European Union).
But Olympic events in China in the past week permit me to put history and politics aside, and focus on a topic that I don't often feel the urge to write about -- sports.
Like many Americans, I only care about judo, fencing, shooting, kayaking, or water polo when there are Olympic gold medals at stake. And with the Games come the stories, compelling Olympic stories.
I wasn't even going to bother watching the opening ceremonies nor the mind-numbing parade of nations until I read about the athlete chosen by the U.S. delegation to be our flag-bearer. The story of Tully, New York, middle-distance runner Lopez Lomong is well-known by now, but worth repeating.
Lomong was living in Sudan when he was abducted from his family at the age of six, taken to become a child soldier in the Sudanese civil war. He and some other boys were able to escape to Kenya and for a decade, Lomong languished in refugee camps. He was finally chosen to be resettled in the United States, one of the "Lost Boys" of Sudan.
Lomong assumed his family had been killed during the civil war, and following his abduction, his family assumed he was dead and buried him in absentia. Though he was later reunited with his Sudanese family, Lomong decided to stay in the United States with his adoptive family, and became a citizen just last year.
Lomong's story inspired his fellow athletes just as it inspires many of us, and their choice of Lomong to lead them into the Bird's Nest Stadium was seen as both a dig at the Chinese, for their role in the turmoil in Sudan's Darfur region, and a recognition of the obstacles he had to overcome to reach the games.
Here is a sampling of the other stories to emerge from Beijing from just the first five days of competition.
American women swept the medals in the sabre competition, the first time Americans have swept a fencing competition since 1904. President George Bush was on hand to watch as three American flags rose over the medal podium on day one.
A quartet of American men came from behind to defeat the favored French team in the 4x100m free relay swim, a win that got Michael Phelps another gold medal in his quest to be the first to win eight in a single Olympic games.
In the women's version of the same event, 4x100m free relay, 41-year-old Dara Torres won her 10th Olympic medal, in her fifth Olympics, when she helped the American woman to a silver medal.
In oft-overlooked men's gymnastics, our team overcame the loss of Paul and Morgan Hamm to injury and pulled ahead to finish with a bronze medal, with Alexander Artemev's performance on pommel horse sealing the deal.
In baseball, a sport that Williston Little League champions should watch carefully since this will be its last appearance at the Olympics for a while, the U.S. team is one of only eight; if history is a guide, the Cubans have a better chance at gold than the U.S., but in exhibition play, the U.S. won a respectable 5 out of 6. After failing to reach the medal round in Athens in 2004, the Americans have something to prove.
Whether you're a sports fan or not, tune in to see what your athletes, and those of the rest of the world, have to offer in the coming week. No doubt you won't be disappointed.
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Restoring the world's faith in America
This column originally appeared in the Williston Observer on July 31, 2008.
Restoring the world's faith in America
Listening to NPR on Monday, I heard the story of a Billings, Montana businessman who was in a bind. In his low-unemployment city, he was having a hard time filling an information technology position in his small company.
Driving to work one day, Rob Hunter heard the story of Bahjat, an Iraqi IT specialist who worked with the Americans in his country. Because of his work, Bahjat was targeted by Iraqi insurgents. He applied for and got refugee status, moved his mother and sister with him to Florida, and began looking, in vain, for work.
Hunter contacted Bahjat and offered him the open position. Though unsure why someone from so far away would want to help him, Bahjat eventually accepted the job.
As the family drove a donated car from Florida to Montana, Hunter organized his friends and neighbors to contribute home goods to furnish a small apartment and to ensure that Bahjat and his family would feel welcome when they arrived.
Throughout the world, America is reviled, looked down upon, feared, hated. But in a world where crowds are wont to chant "Death to America!", stories like that of Hunter and Bahjat give me some hope that we can turn this negative perception around.
While hatred of America is nothing new, it is surprising when you look back at where we were in September, 2001.
As I'm sure you recall, in the days following the attacks on Washington and New York, we enjoyed an outpouring of support from all corners of the world. The Bush administration, with its arrogant approach to diplomacy, has squandered most of that good will.
We need more Rob Hunters to restore our position in the world.
Locally, we are doing our part. My parents run an employment agency in Burlington, and over the years I've heard many stories of refugees coming here to start over. Be they Vietnamese, Cambodian, Croatian, Bantu, Congolese, or Iraqi, desperate to make their own way, they would take any job they could find.
Similar stories dot the pages of the Vermont Refugee Resettlement Program's online newsletters: Vermonters lending their language skills to newcomers; Vermonters donating gently-used winter gear to Africans seeing snow for the first time; and Vermonters introducing immigrants to the wonders of an American grocery store.
We Americans have big hearts, and it is disheartening when the world reacts only to the negatives.
So it was with some great enthusiasm that I watched Barack Obama visit Europe last week. According to some estimates, the size of the crowd that he addressed in Berlin was even larger than his largest thus far here in the U.S.
Some of the onlookers were spurred by curiosity, to be sure. But I think there is more to it than that. With some exceptions, I think that most of the world wants, desperately, to look up to the United States. It cannot bring itself to do that while George Bush is at the helm, and John McCain just looks like more of the same.
Obama is bringing ideas to the American people, and, by way of wide media coverage, to the world. Most of them are not new ideas -- they are long-held Democratic Party principles -- but they seem fresh after eight years of Bush.
But more than restating Democratic Party ideals, more than a return to an America that values conversation, diplomacy, and cooperation, Obama is seen as a realization of a classic American ideal, the same ideal that Lincoln's log cabin once evoked.
That's the ideal that anyone, from whatever background, can excel in America. That regardless of our checkered history, even the son of a Kansan and a Kenyan can become our head of state.
Obama is also seeking to restore another classic American ideal - that of John Winthrop's City Upon a Hill. Though Winthrop envisioned an America worthy of almost religious worship, the phrase has evolved to mean an America founded on democratic principles that all nations should aspire to.
Restoring our position of leadership in the world must be a goal of the next president. With people like Barack Obama and Rob Hunter working to that goal, either deliberately or tangentially, we can restore our position, we can be a beacon, we can again be that city upon a hill.
Restoring the world's faith in America
Listening to NPR on Monday, I heard the story of a Billings, Montana businessman who was in a bind. In his low-unemployment city, he was having a hard time filling an information technology position in his small company.
Driving to work one day, Rob Hunter heard the story of Bahjat, an Iraqi IT specialist who worked with the Americans in his country. Because of his work, Bahjat was targeted by Iraqi insurgents. He applied for and got refugee status, moved his mother and sister with him to Florida, and began looking, in vain, for work.
Hunter contacted Bahjat and offered him the open position. Though unsure why someone from so far away would want to help him, Bahjat eventually accepted the job.
As the family drove a donated car from Florida to Montana, Hunter organized his friends and neighbors to contribute home goods to furnish a small apartment and to ensure that Bahjat and his family would feel welcome when they arrived.
Throughout the world, America is reviled, looked down upon, feared, hated. But in a world where crowds are wont to chant "Death to America!", stories like that of Hunter and Bahjat give me some hope that we can turn this negative perception around.
While hatred of America is nothing new, it is surprising when you look back at where we were in September, 2001.
As I'm sure you recall, in the days following the attacks on Washington and New York, we enjoyed an outpouring of support from all corners of the world. The Bush administration, with its arrogant approach to diplomacy, has squandered most of that good will.
We need more Rob Hunters to restore our position in the world.
Locally, we are doing our part. My parents run an employment agency in Burlington, and over the years I've heard many stories of refugees coming here to start over. Be they Vietnamese, Cambodian, Croatian, Bantu, Congolese, or Iraqi, desperate to make their own way, they would take any job they could find.
Similar stories dot the pages of the Vermont Refugee Resettlement Program's online newsletters: Vermonters lending their language skills to newcomers; Vermonters donating gently-used winter gear to Africans seeing snow for the first time; and Vermonters introducing immigrants to the wonders of an American grocery store.
We Americans have big hearts, and it is disheartening when the world reacts only to the negatives.
So it was with some great enthusiasm that I watched Barack Obama visit Europe last week. According to some estimates, the size of the crowd that he addressed in Berlin was even larger than his largest thus far here in the U.S.
Some of the onlookers were spurred by curiosity, to be sure. But I think there is more to it than that. With some exceptions, I think that most of the world wants, desperately, to look up to the United States. It cannot bring itself to do that while George Bush is at the helm, and John McCain just looks like more of the same.
Obama is bringing ideas to the American people, and, by way of wide media coverage, to the world. Most of them are not new ideas -- they are long-held Democratic Party principles -- but they seem fresh after eight years of Bush.
But more than restating Democratic Party ideals, more than a return to an America that values conversation, diplomacy, and cooperation, Obama is seen as a realization of a classic American ideal, the same ideal that Lincoln's log cabin once evoked.
That's the ideal that anyone, from whatever background, can excel in America. That regardless of our checkered history, even the son of a Kansan and a Kenyan can become our head of state.
Obama is also seeking to restore another classic American ideal - that of John Winthrop's City Upon a Hill. Though Winthrop envisioned an America worthy of almost religious worship, the phrase has evolved to mean an America founded on democratic principles that all nations should aspire to.
Restoring our position of leadership in the world must be a goal of the next president. With people like Barack Obama and Rob Hunter working to that goal, either deliberately or tangentially, we can restore our position, we can be a beacon, we can again be that city upon a hill.
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Breaking up the Axis of Evil
This column originally appeared in the Williston Observer on July 17, 2008.
Breaking up the Axis of Evil
Technically, the United States is not now, nor has it been since 1945, at war. The Constitution is very specific on the point - for a legal state of war to exist, war must be declared by the Congress. No such declaration was made for Korea, nor Vietnam, nor Iraq, nor Afghanistan, nor Iraq the second time around.
But in 2002, just a few months after the September 11 attacks, President Bush created a new kind of declaration, a declaration that we still live with every day. This declaration was that some nations, and three in particular, were an Axis of Evil.
In his declaration, Bush put these nations and the world on notice: "America will do what is necessary to ensure our nation's security."
Those three nations, of course, were North Korea, Iraq, and Iran.
These nations all seemed to derive perverse pleasure out of goading the United States and the world.
Iraq's Saddam Hussein infamously ordered the use of poison gas against his own people in the 1980's and used "human shields" in 1990. He was dispatched by the most direct of means.
After being told that Hussein had and was ready to use all manner of weapons of mass destruction - chemical, biological, nuclear - he was deemed a threat that had to be dealt with harshly.
His nation invaded and overwhelmed by American and British troops, Hussein fled and hid. He was captured by U.S. troops, and was then tried, convicted, and hanged by Iraqi courts.
In North Korea, "Dear Leader" Kim Jong-il is a megalomaniac dictator who sees nuclear weapons and missile development as more pressing needs than the care and feeding of his people.
Here, Kim has had a better fate than Hussein. Much of this likely has to do with the fact that he actually has nuclear weapons - something Hussein could only dream about. Though his tests seemed to fizzle, they were nukes nonetheless, and the U.S. and four other interested nations have been negotiating with Kim's acolytes for years.
With the symbolic implosion of a cooling tower at North Korea's nuclear fuel processing facility, a potential crisis seems to have been avoided.
The third leg of the Axis is Iran, with which the U.S. has had poor relations for nearly thirty years. The big question is, what to do with Iran?
Iran has cycled through a procession of leaders, both political and religious, over the last thirty years, and so it is hard to point a finger at a single individual to rally public opinion. Iran, though, seems intent on drawing that attention to itself.
Whether it is direct threats to shipping in the Persian Gulf or the Straits of Hormuz, issuance of threats against the U.S. and Israel (including banners declaring "Death to America!" and "Death to Israel!" in military parades), or the recent test-firing of missiles capable of reaching Israel (going so far as to use PhotoShop to make it look like more missiles were fired than actually were), Iran's saber rattling seems designed to provoke a response.
Though the Bush administration correctly says that a military option is always on the table, my sincere hope is that we take the tack that we took with North Korea.
Unfortunately, preventing a conflict is not going to be easy. Iran is deliberately making Israel feel like it is backed into a corner. Iran's unfortunate and irrational animosity toward Israel could be its undoing, and the undoing of any chance for peace in the region.
Equally unfortunate, diplomacy is not seen as one the Bush administration's strong points.
On this one, though, we can't wait for an Obama administration. This is something Bush will have to deal with in his waning time.
If Iraq was the only example we had, I would not be confident that Bush could fix this one without force. But with the example of North Korea added to the picture, I think we have at least even odds of averting crisis.
Our troops, and civilian populations in Israel and Iran, would not be able to tell the difference between a declared war and an undeclared war. The result in either case is invariably death and destruction. For this last leg of the Axis of Evil, hopefully diplomacy will be the weapon of choice.
Breaking up the Axis of Evil
Technically, the United States is not now, nor has it been since 1945, at war. The Constitution is very specific on the point - for a legal state of war to exist, war must be declared by the Congress. No such declaration was made for Korea, nor Vietnam, nor Iraq, nor Afghanistan, nor Iraq the second time around.
But in 2002, just a few months after the September 11 attacks, President Bush created a new kind of declaration, a declaration that we still live with every day. This declaration was that some nations, and three in particular, were an Axis of Evil.
In his declaration, Bush put these nations and the world on notice: "America will do what is necessary to ensure our nation's security."
Those three nations, of course, were North Korea, Iraq, and Iran.
These nations all seemed to derive perverse pleasure out of goading the United States and the world.
Iraq's Saddam Hussein infamously ordered the use of poison gas against his own people in the 1980's and used "human shields" in 1990. He was dispatched by the most direct of means.
After being told that Hussein had and was ready to use all manner of weapons of mass destruction - chemical, biological, nuclear - he was deemed a threat that had to be dealt with harshly.
His nation invaded and overwhelmed by American and British troops, Hussein fled and hid. He was captured by U.S. troops, and was then tried, convicted, and hanged by Iraqi courts.
In North Korea, "Dear Leader" Kim Jong-il is a megalomaniac dictator who sees nuclear weapons and missile development as more pressing needs than the care and feeding of his people.
Here, Kim has had a better fate than Hussein. Much of this likely has to do with the fact that he actually has nuclear weapons - something Hussein could only dream about. Though his tests seemed to fizzle, they were nukes nonetheless, and the U.S. and four other interested nations have been negotiating with Kim's acolytes for years.
With the symbolic implosion of a cooling tower at North Korea's nuclear fuel processing facility, a potential crisis seems to have been avoided.
The third leg of the Axis is Iran, with which the U.S. has had poor relations for nearly thirty years. The big question is, what to do with Iran?
Iran has cycled through a procession of leaders, both political and religious, over the last thirty years, and so it is hard to point a finger at a single individual to rally public opinion. Iran, though, seems intent on drawing that attention to itself.
Whether it is direct threats to shipping in the Persian Gulf or the Straits of Hormuz, issuance of threats against the U.S. and Israel (including banners declaring "Death to America!" and "Death to Israel!" in military parades), or the recent test-firing of missiles capable of reaching Israel (going so far as to use PhotoShop to make it look like more missiles were fired than actually were), Iran's saber rattling seems designed to provoke a response.
Though the Bush administration correctly says that a military option is always on the table, my sincere hope is that we take the tack that we took with North Korea.
Unfortunately, preventing a conflict is not going to be easy. Iran is deliberately making Israel feel like it is backed into a corner. Iran's unfortunate and irrational animosity toward Israel could be its undoing, and the undoing of any chance for peace in the region.
Equally unfortunate, diplomacy is not seen as one the Bush administration's strong points.
On this one, though, we can't wait for an Obama administration. This is something Bush will have to deal with in his waning time.
If Iraq was the only example we had, I would not be confident that Bush could fix this one without force. But with the example of North Korea added to the picture, I think we have at least even odds of averting crisis.
Our troops, and civilian populations in Israel and Iran, would not be able to tell the difference between a declared war and an undeclared war. The result in either case is invariably death and destruction. For this last leg of the Axis of Evil, hopefully diplomacy will be the weapon of choice.
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