alias Bruce.

It's not funny

when a president sends troops potentially to their deaths, and upon looking back at last night's post I need to say that I did not mean to imply that it is. There is no humor in the catastrophe of civilian and military deaths, rotted government and misogynistic persecution that we call the Afghanistan War. I think I was writing from a sense of the tragic absurdity of Obama's lack of moral and political leadership. He reminds me more and more of Ronald Reagan: a stylized figure who plays a bang-up Leader of the Free World on TV but who relinquishes the force of leadership to others behind closed doors.

Not that Reagan and Obama can be called equals. Reagan had far more resolve and conviction than Obama, which is in itself a horrifying realization. Obama has far more intellect. But both have done their best work on camera. Their main difference in usefulness, I think, is that Reagan made a great figurehead for his deeply-held agenda (because he had one), while Obama makes a lousy one (because he doesn't). What a sinking feeling I had last night as I watched Obama yet again strike his trademark commanding pose, this time in front of the cadets at West Point: his eyes flashing, his stance lean and strong, his words crackling -- all for naught, as we have learned with his treatment of Wall Street and health care reform and now Afghanistan, where once again his actual acts of policy fold miserably into a let's-please-everyone collapse that neglects essential ingredients for success in any direction.

In the case of Afghanistan, that means an escalation (no! say doves and most Americans) that broadcasts its ending date to the Taliban and al-Qaeda (no! say hawks) while increasing casualties (no! say doves and most Americans) without any reasonable probability of victory in a nation whose topography and social fabric are not made for successful foreign intervention (no! say doves as well as those hawks who know this cannot be a short war). Obama offers just enough of what pleases all sides -- tough-sounding troop increases for the hawks, a quickie withdrawal deadline for the doves, vague promises of partnership for skeptical and fearful Afghans -- to assure that this mess will yield no one's desired result. Obama lacks the spine to call this "anti-terrorist" stab at nation-building what it really is: a militarily unwinnable enterprise that, in saner times, would be supplanted by international economic and political development and detective work. Perhaps he has talked himself into this war. Or maybe, when things go badly, he will follow the Iraq War model and retreat toward the door while proclaiming that we have "achieved our goals." Or perhaps, if things get awful enough, he will simply change his tune and roll with the long-war plan, explaining in an artfully-delivered speech to the nation how we no longer have the option of withdrawal.

No, it is not at all funny, seeing a man of such great gifts roll over and do dog tricks in his desire to please many masters -- while people die for his lack of fortitude. For a man who cast a lonely vote as a senator against the war in Iraq, yesterday at West Point was just about the bitterest joke one could imagine.

For me, the laugh track

in Obama's Afghanistan speech last night began when he intoned with a straight face that the United States has never sought world domination. What a disappointing, gelatinous sop he has revealed himself to be.

Incoming.

I hope you had a good Thanksgiving holiday, whether you took part in a gathering or just enjoyed the time off. I did both.

There are new posts I want to put up, including one looking at what happens when colleges start treating their young enrollees as "customers" instead of as students -- it's not pretty -- and another asking questions about everyday things I can't figure out. Not to be evasive. But they're coming soon.

Meanwhile I notice, upon returning to the land of media, that Tiger Woods and his bizarre car crash seem to be in the crosshairs of every news operation, which is sad. But, as perhaps the most squeaky-clean demigod in sports, Tiger is the perfect target for rabid curiosity about any domestic or personal dirt that might be behind this weird incident. His silence further heightens the hunger.  And he sure hasn't helped his desire for privacy by thrice reneging on agreements to (voluntarily) do a sit-down with police investigators, which only spurs more speculation. I kind of wish he'd just go ahead and say something, even if it's embarrassing or painful, so the story can start to lose steam that much sooner.

Back in the world of actual public events, we all await President Obama's entreaty on Afghanistan, for which all indications are that the U.S. will 1.) send enough troops to raise casualties and escalate trauma but not enough for victory (because troops can never resolve this conflict and we wouldn't have enough to send there even if they could) and 2.) make a token try at providing non-military support to stabilize the country even as we further destabilize it with points of military intervention. It's not looking good. I wish Robert McNamara were still alive so that he could stand on the White House lawn and yell warnings up to the Oval Office.

More soon. I hope your week starts well.

Obama's Latest Audition.

Is it just me, or was it straight-up creepy the way that Barack Obama put on his best kill-the-pig-drink-its-blood face to defend Eric Holder's 9/11 trial plans? In response to a reporter's question about some people finding it offensive to grant Khalid Sheikh Mohammed a federal trial (which is an absurd debate in the first place for a nation that claims to follow the rule of law), Obama set his jaw and intoned to the cameras, "I don't think it will be offensive at all when he's convicted and when the death penalty is applied to him."

It's not that this is some policy turnaround for Obama. He ran on a platform that challenged the general efficacy of the death penalty but that carefully left open a window to use it in heinous situations. But to me, the overzealousness of Obama's death declaration about the 9/11 trial (he quickly backed off and said he was just hypothesizing a possible outcome) stank of phoniness. Even through the television, for Chrissakes, he emanated the smell of a guy straining for primal toughness in the face of charges that he is a softie. The appropriate response in front of the cameras would have been a sober presidential declaration about the deadly seriousness of due process in order to secure justice for such a horrific crime. So why the bloodthirsty schoolboy overstatement? More and more, Obama reminds me of the title character in the film Zelig, who is addicted to being whatever others expect of him. How much of his soul will a man sell in pursuit of perceived gravitas?

"Dithering."

So Dick Cheney, that sneering ghost of failures past, has recently been hissing into the ear of the national punditry corps that Obama is "dithering" on Afghanistan.

It's an interesting accusation coming from Cheney, a man whose quick trigger finger and lack of perceptual acuity under pressure have made him a danger both to the world and to his hunting partners.

Not that prospects look good for a productively wise Obama response to the horrors in that tortured nation, which every day looks more and more like a mountainous quagmire for American hubris. It's looking clear that wrong-headed American military escalation is on the way. And it's also looking clear that furrow-browed Washington rhetoric about pairing a successful military surge with a hearts-and-minds political victory betrays a floundering cluelessness about how to actually pull this off. The honest folks in the room, I believe, already know that it cannot be achieved militarily and that it cannot be forced politically in a nation where the U.S. has cornered itself, with its drones and its dirty alliances, into the role of a hopelessly bloody-handed interloper. The growing comparisons to Vietnam are no coincidence, and Obama's nearly 300-day presidential record of spinal plasticity is no reason for confidence. Behind closed doors, the "realistic" options on the White House table may be various scenarios of good-old-college-try escalation followed, after a respectable interval, by the most face-saving winding down of U.S. intervention deemed politically possible. The Soviets tried to warn us.

But if Obama is, at worst, a weakling in the pull of a bad war, Cheney is a madman. There are reasons aplenty for deep deliberation on Afghanistan, not the least of which are the possible upcoming electoral defeat (or victory) of a corrupt and largely discredited Afghan government; the horrible prospects for the American war effort; and the hemorrhaging economy and spirit of an America caught in two bad wars and the worst economic meltdown since the Great Depression.

Add to that the fact that America's most catastrophic troubles of the past decade have resulted directly from dishonest and misinformed rushes to rash action (deregulation, Iraq), and you can make a pretty good case for dithering.

Obama, the Nobel Prize, and Jazz.

It's a fair question whether President Barack Obama really deserved to win the Nobel Peace Prize. It's just that, in the scheme of things, I don't think it's a very interesting question.

I'm still digesting all of this, of course. Talk about a weekend surprise. But if we go by the usual Nobel standards, I can't see, at the moment, how Obama even comes close to deserving the laurels, which generally reward either a life commitment to changing the world (think Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela) or a huge accomplishment in the cause of peace (think Mikhail Gorbachev, pivotal in ending the Cold War, or Woodrow Wilson, instrumental in the Treaty of Versailles). Not that every Nobel Peace Prize winner has that kind of global veneration; recent recipients include former Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari and Mohamed Elbaradei of the International Atomic Energy Agency. And anyway, I do think Obama has the potential for greatness in leadership -- if someday soon he would gird his loins to lead his party and his wobbly nation.

No doubt, there is plenty of sound and fury in the "is he worthy?" Nobel debate that is now rattling our American windows. Head Republican buffoon Michael Steele darted into traffic to yell public insults to the effect that Obama is a sorry excuse for a Nobel laureate. Some prominent Washington figures with better home training than Steele have murmured their tepid congratulations. Others are heartily slapping the prez on the back. Obama himself, wisely, comes across as humbled and overwhelmed by the honor. If nothing else, the event illustrates in thick bright-red crayon just how childishly single-minded some Republicans are in finding any Obama outcome to be proof of his evil. (RNC position if Obama wins Nobel: Of course he won. He's a slick black strutter who has managed to sweet-talk the world. RNC position if Obama does not win Nobel: Of course he didn't win. Did you really think this gibbering fascist huckster was even in the running?)

But as I said, to me what's important about this is not how we in our Americanness try to hash out Obama's Nobel merit. What's important is what Europeans are actually trying to say in giving him the award and in their response to his receiving it. It looks to me as if, for Europe, this award is less about what Obama has accomplished and more about what he makes possible, which I'm guessing they see as a bona fide hallelujah moment after the apocalypse of the Bush years.

Listen to French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who the New York Times quoted as saying the award marked “America’s return to the hearts of the world’s peoples.”

And here is German Chancellor Angela Merkel, proclaiming that “In a short time [Obama] has been able to set a new tone throughout the world and to create a readiness for dialogue.”

Then there was Nobel committee chairman Thorbjorn Jagland, who declared, “The question we have to ask is who has done the most in the previous year to enhance peace in the world. And who has done more than Barack Obama?”

That whooshing sound you hear is a great gasp of relief from across the Atlantic at their now having an American partner who studies, thinks, plays well with others, and who keeps the cover securely locked over the blinking red buttons on the console.

Which is where jazz comes in.

Our country has a long tradition of missing or dissing the global meaning of things African-American. Just as jazz has been revered in Europe as essentially a very advanced and creative form of classical music while its primarily-black American practitioners have struggled here to be viewed as more than barroom entertainers, Europe now bows to a man (who happens to be black) who represents a return to global statesmanship on a teetering planet -- while Americans squabble about whether he is really a legal citizen and whether he really hates white people.

We Americans really need to get out more often.

"Fed."

When you get beyond the raw awfulness of the apparent murder of a cancer patient and father who was holding down three part-time jobs, the second-worst thing about the death of Bill Sparkman is the kind of political act it appears to be.

The body of Sparkman, 51, you may know, was found September 12 hanging from a tree in a remote dirt-poor section of rural Kentucky, a noose around his neck and his feet touching the ground. The word "Fed" was written across his chest.

One of Sparkman's three jobs was as a canvasser for the U.S. Census Bureau.

In other words, what this looks like is a man being murdered for being a government worker in a climate in which hateful howlers on the far right are now doing their best to convince the white poor and near-poor that government initiative is the work of Satan.

This is striking, given that Sheriff Kevin Johnson of Clay County, where Sparkman worked as a census taker, told the Washington Post, "The government's taking care of 70 percent of people here, through Social Security, SSI, food stamps, Medicare and Medicaid." Thirty percent of the residents of Clay County live below the poverty line (three times the national average), and the median household income is $20,000 (as opposed to $50,000 nationally), according to the Post.

So the question is whether Sparkman's death -- if he was murdered -- has anything to do with the perversely rising "You lie!" tide of government-hatred among government-needers, or if instead it's the work of one of the notorious backwoods paranoiacs in a community where Sheriff Johnson and many residents say most folks appreciate government instead of hating it. Or maybe it's both: the current spread of anti-government fever has spiked the delirium of some while still leaving most in possession of their faculties.

We don't yet know the answer to this question. We do know that being a census worker who goes out alone in moonshining/marijuana-farming/meth-lab country is dangerous. We know that census canvassers have been attacked and murdered before, if not with "Fed" emblazoned across their chests.

And we know that some poor whites' narcissistic illusion of their own flesh-ripping power in the face of a perceived black threat -- now fostered by talk-show barkers who use the Obama presidency to spur an all-out war against government, even in flagrant denial of what government does for suffering whites -- is the oldest game in town for inducing down-and-out American whites to lustily cheer that which routinely screws them.

As I've said before, it's an elegantly effective way of causing the brains of some whites to fall out of the backs of their heads.

Holder Holding Back on Justice?

It's looking as if Attorney General Eric Holder may be following the Obama Administration's approach of proclaiming bold action for a just cause but then backpedaling and apologizing its way out of any meaningful initiative.

Which is to say, Holder may find himself mired by the same feet of clay that are slowly and agonizingly discrediting his boss.

Current talk has it that Holder's Justice Department, after having the nerve to re-open criminal investigation of CIA abuse of detainees against the wishes of a nervous Obama, is slowly yielding to withering criticism of the probe. Holder last month issued a statement assuring critics that "neither the opening of a preliminary review nor, if evidence warrants it, the commencement of a full investigation, means that charges will necessarily follow," according to the Washington Post. And now, according to the Post, sources say Justice's review will focus on a "very small number of cases." That may be legally wise if these are the most winnable cases. But the language coming out of Justice continues to sound more like equivocation than energetic prosecution.

No question, Holder is getting hammered by those who would like to weaken or kill this investigation. Seven former CIA directors called on Friday for the entire investigation to be scrapped on the grounds that it would impede future intelligence work and demoralize CIA employees who thought they had the government's protection and who believed they had been cleared by previous investigators' decision to not pursue the cases, according to the Post. This is truly fun-house logic. It's like claiming that an apparently crooked police department should not be investigated because it would demoralize those who were previously assured under the crooked regime that their nasty acts were okay, and it might scare employees who may be asked to carry out questionable acts in the future.

This one is easy: Receiving orders or soothing assurances from one's organization never, ever insulates one from the personal obligation to do the correct thing. We learned this at Nuremberg, we learned it during Watergate, we learned it from Enron, we learned it in the recent bank meltdown, and we have learned it in countless whistle-blower cases. Being assured protection under the amoral Bush Administration for using "enhanced" interrogation techniques, and being promised by a stooge Justice Department that no investigations would follow, provide no more excuse for CIA personnel violating international standards of human rights than did the commands handed down to the guards at Auschwitz or the orders given by Lt. William Calley at My Lai. If you work for a bad boss, his being your boss does not spare you the consequences of your having chosen to follow his instructions to behave badly. Eric Holder should aggressively push forward with the CIA investigations, remind his critics that no chain of command negates the Geneva Conventions, and respectfully remind his boss in the Oval Office of the job he was hired to do as Attorney General.

The compelling reason to prosecute any CIA operatives shown to have violated standards for human rights is one that any conservative should understand: it's called taking personal responsibility.

Obama, Spock, and Rocky.

Nobody wants for Barack Obama to start grunting like Sylvester Stallone and trading haymakers to the head. (Although some left hooks and an occasional right cross would be good.)

But Maureen Dowd hits it on the nose in her recent New York Times column, "Obama needs to be less Spocky, more Rocky."

A lot of folks, including me, have been bemoaning Obama's Incredible Shrinking Man syndrome, and grieving at how the fully-statured man we thought we elected is now trapped inside the silverware drawer trying to hold off a ravenous spider with a sword made from a hat pin.

Dowd gives an incisive telling of this sad parable of Little Mr. Nice Guy. A sample:

President Obama is so wrapped up in his desire to be a different, more conciliatory, beer-summit kind of leader, he ignores some verities.

Sometimes, when you've got the mojo, you have to keep your foot on your opponent's neck. When you're trying to get a Sisyphean agenda passed, it's good if people in the way - including rebellious elements in your own party - fear you.

Civil discourse is fine, but when the other side is fighting dirty, you should get angry. Don't let the bully kick sand in your face. The White House should have impaled death panel malarkey as soon as it came up.

By the time the president got feisty in a speech on Monday, the inmates had taken over cable TV, much like the spooky spirits swarming up over Bald Mountain in "Fantasia."

Her entire piece is worth reading and sharing.

Thanks to Rob.

Obama: Big Speech, Small Talk.

President Barack Obama is a great orator.

It's a shame that he is shaping up to be a mediocre leader.

Obama's speech to a joint session of Congress last night was oratorically masterful, soaring with lines that get the heart racing and that tell it like it is: "I am not the first president to take up this cause, but I am determined to be the last." "I will not back down on the basic principle that if Americans can't find affordable coverage, we will provide you with a choice." "[Health reform will cost] less than we have spent on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.” "The time for games has passed." "If you misrepresent what's in the bill, we will call you out."

And the speech gave long-overdue satisfaction on some scores. Obama bluntly confronted the lies of his opponents, telling them flat-out that the death-panel rumor "is a lie, plain and simple." He reminded legislators that health care is not just an economic equation but a moral value, and he unveiled a personal letter from the late Senator Edward Kennedy in which Ted made this very point, devastatingly, from the grave.

But the rest of Obama's talk was cheap. His almost apologetic defense of a public option -- which he made sure to say would constitute only a small percentage of the market, and which he seemed to imply would be available only to those who now lack any insurance -- was a pathetic shadow of Obama's former commitment to providing a robust federal competitor to pull down the outrageous prices most Americans pay for private insurance and drugs. And the way Obama last night tossed up the public option as a mere "possibility" for consideration is a virtual guarantee that it will eventually be dropped from any bill, unless there is some sudden and explosive insurrection among Democrats. Obama's backpedaling, in which he assured the audience that a public option is simply one of many possible means to increase consumer choice and is not necessarily a goal in and of itself, is shamefully disingenuous. Only a public competitor will have the clout to exert meaningful downward pressure on the price of health coverage; scared Dems and angry Republicans tacitly acknowledge this when they claim that a public option will put insurers out of business because the government can deliver a health plan more cheaply. Voters, who in polls have repeatedly shown broad support for a public option, will be shown the door on this issue by a senate, a congress, and a president who lack the guts for a showdown with the insurance industry.

Obama's non-explanation of an "insurance exchange" to allegedly increase choice (within which he buried the public option as a possible contender) left even more empty space for rearrangement of the deck chairs on the industry Titanic. And his declaration that "it makes more sense to build on what works... rather than to build an entirely new system from scratch" pretty much spells out in neon Obama's willingness to protect and preserve the supreme dominance of a thoroughly broken for-profit insurance system.

If our president has his way, the best we will possibly see is some improvements in regulation of the insurance industry, such as outlawing the infamous prohibition of pre-existing conditions and pushing insurers to relax some of their draconian restrictions. That would be a good thing. But reform of American health care? Hardly. Obama is sticking with the same M.O. that has failed his policy agenda all along: trying to rise above conflict by reasoning with the unreasonable, instead of kicking ass and taking names within his party and throughout Congress and the Senate for the sake of what citizens want and need. In pursuing his top priorities, he'd do well to use less TLC and more LBJ.

We will see if and how the President follows up on the things he said last night that do carry actual substance. As I continue to stubbornly insist, Obama has the tools and the high intentions for the astronomical demands of this presidency if he can find the heart for it. So far, though, he acts like a man who plays a rhetorically formidable president on TV but who has little idea how to actually do the job. Nearly 30 years after The Gipper took office, that's some irony.