The Case Against Webb

Dear Sen. Obama –

Congratulations are due: You can finally claim the Democratic nomination. Take a moment, "catch your breath," as you say, and then turn your full attention to the next big decision: Your running mate.

The "Quayle Factor" shows that in the total scheme of winning elections, choosing a running mate rarely makes much of a difference regarding your chances. One report recently cited by Mother Jones optimistically shows that the VP choice can improve a ticket's performance by 0.5 percent – in the VP candidate's home state. If that is the case, your best bet is to choose someone from a swing state, where half of one percent may matter.

Of course, any old swing state won't do; why choose a VP from a swing state that you've already won? Or from a swing state that does not offer many electoral votes? Focus on the big players that aren't insurmountable but still unpredictable: Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida and Michigan. You have to win two of those states in order to arithmetically win the general election.

By that suggestion, Virginia Sen. Jim Webb is out, but that is not why you should not choose him to share the ticket, no matter how tempting offering the invitation may seem.

Inarguably, Webb offers some promising qualities as a running mate. While not from the "big four" swingers previously mentioned, Virginia's 13 electoral votes are nothing at which to scoff. Furthermore, he embodies your message of bipartisanship and changing Washington politics. Nothing would send a stronger message that you're ready to reach across the aisle than choosing a Reaganite veep that only recently labeled himself a Democrat. And in the face of McCain's war hero identity, Webb's Navy Cross, Silver Star, two Bronze Stars and two Purple Hearts would not hurt, either. Overall, Webb would bridge the gap between your message and the seemingly deaf ears of the Appalachian voter.

That being said, under no circumstances should the 2008 Democratic ticket read "Obama-Webb."

Conventional wisdom may say that the vice presidential pick may not matter in determining the outcome of the overall election, but conventional wisdom does not take into account the Hillary Clinton factor. Or the Barack Obama factor, for that matter. This primary season was unprecedented. It forced you to take on the race issue, but running alongside Webb may force you to tango with the gender issue, as well.

Webb, for all of his "pick me!" qualities for VP, has a big liability, and it's bigger in the context of Hillary's campaign: He carries baggage as a loud and proud chauvinist.

Though Webb has rethought his statements about women when he served as Reagan’s secretary of the navy (calling said statements “an overreach”), female voters, particularly Hillary supporters, will not be so forgiving. His 1979 writing “Women Can’t Fight” contended that females are biologically inept for military combat, and that no senior female in a leadership position earned that position by merit. Then, to add salt into the wound, he labeled the Naval Academy “a horny woman’s dream.” Not exactly inspiring and downright insulting to the 2 million U.S. female veterans.

More than two decades later, Webb did little to help his image with female voters in his response to the widespread (83!) reports of sexual harassment (and yes, even some reports of assault) at the 1991 naval convention known as Tailhook. He dubbed the investigation a “witch hunt” in a 1992 op-ed he wrote for the New York Times.

Fifteen percent of the electorate in November voted for Hillary during the primary. Many of them claim they would not vote for you. Do you want to call their bluff by choosing Webb as a running mate? No other contender for the VP position would isolate Hillary supporters as he would, no matter how hard Hillary works to support your campaign. And with many of those supporters feeling rebuffed in Florida and Michigan – two of the “big four” – you cannot afford to lose their support. Your campaign is about hope and change; make sure you choose a running mate that can deliver on that promise as well as you will. Webb’s reputation for being gruff and tough will isolate at least as many voters as he would attract. And don’t forget: Webb is important where he is, strategically speaking. His role as a Democratic Senator from a traditionally Republican state is crucial in acquiring a filibuster-proof Democratic Congress. Is it worth it to remove him from that role – and risk him being replaced by a Republican – in order to have a running mate from a state that you won by 30 points in the primary?

Denver Speech Leaves Much to be Desired

John McCain would have voters believe he furthered his case that he is the foreign policy expert in the presidential race in Denver yesterday.

Frankly, I think McCain underestimates the American voter.

That much was evident at least four times during the speech he made at the University of Denver, when audience members interrupted the Republican presumptive presidential nominee with anti-Iraq occupation shouts. While the maturity of such antics is questionable, the "interrupters" had a point: McCain touted future diplomatic progress with Russia and China, but gave scarily little insight into his plans for the Middle East and South Asia.

McCain started out rather promising: after the obligatory thank-yous, he immediately started discussing America's need to be a "good citizen of the world -- leading the way to address the danger of global warming and preserve our environment, strengthening existing international institutions and helping to build new ones, and engaging the world in a broad dialogue on the threat of violent extremists, who would, if they could, use weapons of mass destruction to attack us and our allies." For a man who had just come from a closed-door fundraising event side-by-side with President George Bush, and who is trying to buttress Democrats' allegations that a McCain presidency would equate to a third Bush term, talking about extremists wishing to use WMDs against us and our allies was a peculiar talking point. Nevertheless, it served as a nice segue into the meat and potatoes of the speech: stopping nuclear proliferation.

And it was a nice segue. McCain tried to make a bipartisan appeal by referencing John Kennedy and then immediately brought up the remaining parts of Bush's Axis of Evil that we have not attacked: North Korea and Iran. Side note: unlike Iraq, North Korea and Iran represent the parts of the Axis of Evil that were in fact developing nuclear capabilities. McCain still supports our invading the only country on the Axis that, well, wasn't.

Regarding North Korea: "North Korea pursues a nuclear weapons program to the point where, today, the dictator Kim Jong Il has tested a nuclear weapon and almost certainly possesses several more nuclear warheads. And it has shared its nuclear and missile know-how with others, including Syria. It's a vital national interest for the North Korean nuclear program to be completely, verifiably and irreversibly ended." Alleging that Kim Jong Il "almost certainly possesses several more nuclear warheads" is about as credible as Vice President Dick Cheney saying in August, 2002 that "simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction." That is essentially all McCain had to say about North Korea.

Regarding Iran: "...we have seen Iran marching, marching with single-minded determination toward the same goal, authenticated again today by the International Atomic Energy Agency." Fascinating that he chose not to explicitly say what that goal is -- even the IAEA report had more backbone than McCain on the issue. "President Ahmadinejad has threatened to wipe Israel off the face of the earth, and represents a threat to every country in the region -- one we cannot ignore or minimize." Again, a fascinating choice of words. Ahmadinejad is, as McCain said, someone that "we cannot afford to ignore or minimize." Yet McCain is the candidate that said "an unconditional summit meeting with the next American president would confer both international legitimacy on the Iranian president and could strengthen him domestically, when he is very unpopular among the Iranian people."

Wait a minute -- if Ahmadinedjad is someone that "we cannot afford to ignore," clearly he already has international legitimacy. As far as strengthening him domestically, nothing strengthened him more than the 2003 American invasion of Iraq. Then there is the Khamenei factor. In Iran, the faqih has the real power, not the president.

After an interruption from the crowd, McCain went on to say something profound, though he did not seem to realize the full spectrum of possibilities when he said it: "...other nations have begun to wonder whether they too need to have such weapons, if only in self defense." Amazingly, in that one statement, McCain unknowingly supported Obama's stance that the United States and Iran should talk without preconditions: the American people might learn something about Iran and its incentives for pursuing nuclear options. Self defense.

Nobody here is trying to paint Iran as a victim. That being said, the nice thing about talking is that new perspectives are heard. And, from Iran's perspective, it is almost backed into a corner by the United States. With U.S. troops in Turkey, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Pakistan and Afghanistan, it should not come as much of a surprise that Iran is doing everything in its power to invest in a strong pro-Shi'a Iraq. The close American relationship with Saudi Arabia must be particularly offsetting for Iran, since Saudi Arabia reportedly funds Sunni extremist militias in Iraq. Not that McCain shows any knowledge of this sort of context; he has jumbled the Sunni-Shi'a distinction more times than I can tabulate.

McCain then launched into his own I Have a Dream speech, playing upon most Republicans' common sense of nostalgia: he referenced Ronald Reagan. "A quarter of a century ago, Ronald Reagan declared, 'Our dream is to see the day when nuclear weapons will be banished from the face of the Earth.' That is my dream too." He then spent the bulk of his speech outlining his vision for negotiations with Russia and China. It is a nice vision to be sure, but Russia may not be feeling particularly cozy toward McCain, who proposed excluding Russia from the Group of Eight industrialized countries.

Speaking of Russia, McCain used Russia to bring up again Iran’s uranium-enrichment program. He said, “Nations that seek nuclear fuel for legitimate civilian purposes will be able to acquire what they need under international supervision. This is one suggestion Russia and others have made to Iran. Unfortunately, the Iranian government has so far rejected this idea. Perhaps with enough outside pressure and encouragement, they can be persuaded to change their minds before it is too late.”

Before it is too late for what, exactly? McCain said, “While the use of force may be necessary, it can only be as a last resort, not a first step.” But he has already said that direct talks are off the table. What happens if Iran’s uranium-enrichment program enhances to the point that McCain views as “too late?”

One of Osama Bin Laden’s stated goals behind the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 was to incite an overreaction from the United States that would create a breeding ground for Al-Qaeda recruits. America’s invasion into Iraq did just that. After the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, uncovered documents outlined another extremist goal: lure the United States into war with Iran. While it is doubtful that any of the candidates would declare outright war with Iran, McCain’s rhetoric certainly gives the American voter good reason for concerned pause.

New Home!

The Burro has moved! Newest political and society contributing writer to Suite101.com. Check out the list of the latest: http://www.suite101.com/profile.cfm/mt244804 and as always, I invite commentary!

Cheers,
The Burro

A Glimpse at Deficit Spending

Is it mere coincidence that the Republican party is the "Red" party? Partisan politics aside, the numbers are grim for the GOP.

Think the national debt doesn't matter? In real terms, think of how many of your dollars go toward taxes. Now, take 9 cents of each one of those dollars. Almost 10 percent of your tax dollars goes toward nothing -- well, nothing to you, anyway. Think of the national debt as an added credit card payment that you have to pay: deficit spending from year to year accumulates, adding to the overall national debt. But unlike you, the average credit card holder, the government has no income. YOU are the government's income, or rather your tax dollars are. So when government leaders cut taxes (ahem, Reagan and Bush I & II), they are essentially cutting the government's income. That is all fine and well, so long as spending is proportionately cut.

This of course is never the case, however, which is why the national debt tripled during the eight years that Reagan was in office, and the current Bush has undone Clinton's start at balancing the budget (note the smallest blue block on the above chart, marking Clinton's last year, when he had all but stopped borrowing new money).

So while tax cuts may mean less taxes for you in the short term, they also, history shows, mean increased deficit spending. Which means a larger national debt, and a larger national debt means more interest. Interest that consumes your tax dollars, which could have been spent on infrastructure or education or national security.

And guess what? We are only making payments on the interest. The actual core debt never even gets touched.

Want to learn more? Here is a starter kit of Web sites to browse:

• U.S. Treasury, http://www.treasury.gov/education/faq/markets/national-debt.shtml


• The Grandfather Economic Report, http://mwhodges.home.att.net/#debt
  
• The Muser, http://www.greatreality.com/DebtMain.htm


• zFacts, http://zfacts.com/p/461.html


• Source Watch, http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=U.S._tax_cuts


• The Skeptical Optimist, http://www.optimist123.com/optimist/a1_national_debt/index.html

Or, for some heavier reading, check out Analytic Perspectives, a 400-page publication dedicated to all things U.S. budget for FY2005.

If you still want more, there are dozens of organizations dedicated to awareness and various responses to the national debt conundrum.

Once you become an informed and concerned citizen, feel free to let your voice be heard:

• 202-456-1111 (the White House phone line for leaving comments)
  


• vice_president@whitehouse.gov (Vice President Richard Cheney's e-mail address)

Holiday Shopping with Blackwater?

In the spirit of the upcoming holidays, I've been contemplating buying my 6-week-old cousin a Teddy bear for Christmas. He would assuredly adore the new cradle mate, and his mom would, in theory, love the bear as well, especially the black T-shirt the bear proudly wears with the Blackwater logo on the back.

And why wouldn't she? Blackwater and its founder, conservative Christian Erik Prince, supposedly stand for everything she and most any other American believes in – security and democracy.

But while Blackwater broadcasts its vision as one of “understanding the need for innovative, flexible training and operational solutions to support security and peace, and freedom and democracy everywhere” to the public, its actions in the past several years have shown otherwise.

The American public – and Congress, for that matter – went ho-humming along with life without Blackwater until about 2004, when four men contracted with Blackwater were murdered in Fallujah and brutally made an example of. Insurgents even strewn two of the men's corpses from a bridge across the Euphrates River. The incident launched a heated American-Iraqi conflict in the city, one marked with at least as much revenge as with spreading democracy.

Suddenly, everyone wanted to know about Blackwater. But the North Carolina-based company had been enjoying multi-million dollar contracts with the State Department – largely charged to the American taxpayers – for years by that time. As soon as the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 gave Bush the go-ahead to launch a never-ending “war on terror,” it also gave companies such as Blackwater the in to government influence never before enjoyed by private companies in the war-making business. Essentially, the “war on terror” and Blackwater ushered in a new privatization of war in the United States, and Blackwater has been able to operate under utmost secrecy and criminality. It was getting away with it until January 2005, when the families of the Fallujah victims slapped Blackwater with a wrongful death lawsuit.

The families argued that Blackwater sent their loved ones into a hostile area without sufficient vehicles or weaponry. For one thing, the men were sent in driving Pajero jeeps rather than armored vehicles. Blackwater was able to justify this decision at the time because it saved the company $1.5 million dollars. This coming from a company that was enjoying a $300 million contract with the State Department.

By 2006, there were almost 100,000 private contractors in Iraq, nearly a one-to-one ratio with U.S. soldiers. These contractors, thanks to one last act of Donald Rumsfeld before he resigned out of mounting pressure, are protected under a category called the Department of Defense's “Total Task Force,” which puts contractors such as Blackwater in the same category as the Department's active and reserve military components and civil servants. Basically, the “Total Task Force” legitimizes Blackwater and crew without holding them to the same standards as active and military components. In fact, none of the statistics associated with contractors are included when discussing the war's deaths and casualties, much less criminal actions.

This no-accountability cushion is far-reaching. When an off-duty (or so the Blackwater spokespeople claimed in court after months of refusing to admit that the man in question was even associated with the company) Blackwater contractor shot an Iraqi bodyguard ten times in the chest, killing the man on Christmas Eve, Blackwater arranged for the man to be flighted out of Iraq back to the United States, where he would be safe from Iraqi persecution.

Yes, Blackwater has certainly proven that it understands the need for “innovative, flexible training and operational solutions,” but it is rather unclear how those solutions “support security and peace,” much less freedom and democracy. Instead, it has shown that it is rather clever in sidestepping the laws of two countries: the United States and Iraq. And by reshaping the way war is carried out – and reshaping the government's and people's outlooks regarding war along the way – Blackwater and other private contractors are literally making up the rules as they go, and going largely unchecked in the process.

On second thought, perhaps I will not be buying that Blackwater Teddy bear after all. It seems that I have already been giving plenty of money to that corporation through my taxes; it does not need an additional $10. And, in fairness, it seems a bit ironic to buy a Christmas gift from a company that directed resources to helping an alleged criminal escape prosecution for a murder he committed Christmas Eve.

Congress Finally Fights Back

If President George Bush had his way, the terrorists would win.

It's rather simple, really. A handful of terrorists launch the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, then sit back and watch while the United States bankrupts itself via war spending over the next few years.

Meanwhile, our infrastructure crumbles and American citizens go without water.

That's exactly what Bush essentially told the country (and the world) when he vetoed the Water Resources Development Act Nov. 6, saying that the bill was too expensive. The WRDA is a series of 12 bills that would have allocated $23.2 billion toward hundreds of home district projects and infrastructure needs.

And with 43 percent of the country currently under drought conditions, according to Business Wire, the money is sorely needed.

But regardless of the facts, Bush vetoed the one act that directly addressed the issue.

The veto speaks volumes about Bush's priorities for the country. At the same time that he vetoed the WRDA, saying that $23 billion is too much to spend on the country's crumbling infrastructure, he is fuming that Congress won't give him the $200 billion in new deficit spending that he wants for Iraq.

This time, however, Congress is fighting back with a two-pronged attack. On the one front, 138 Congressional Republicans joined 223 Democrats in an easy override of Bush's veto -- the first time this Congress has been able to accomplish such a feat. On the second front, Congressional Democrats readied a $215 billion bill that will pay for health, education, labor and -- here's the catch -- veterans programs.

The combination is unorthodox, but combining the almost $151 billion measure that addresses health and labor concerns with the $64 billion measure to address veterans programs puts Bush in a difficult position. He has already said that he will sign the veterans programs spending, but wants to veto the health, education and labor spending. And with new-found confidence and some bipartisan support already, Congress may finally be able to say "gotcha" to the president.

“If the president wants to talk about priorities, let’s talk about what is really important to the American people,” said Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the New York Times reported. “I’d rather have a war on cancer than fritter away many more dollars in Iraq.”

Indeed, a country's infrastructure and health are just as much part of a nation's security as any military defense. Even the terrorists set out to hurt us seem to know that better than our president. Fortunately, so does our Congress. Finally.

A Letter of Encouragement

Dear John Edwards --

Kudos on your crusade to fix this country. And make no mistake about it; it is a crusade. But rather than the crusades against largely irrelevant topics to the country's health favored by Republicans, such as anti-abortion and anti-gays, you're taking on some powerful, very real adversaries. Calling out the executives of multinational corporations and lobbying groups that have padded Washington with special interests to help their bottom line in the stead of the American people is brave. And, unlike your opponents, you have stuck to your guns by showing these corporate executives that you cannot be bought.

And yet, you're third in the Democratic line of fund raising -- without having to take corporate or lobby money. Thirty million honest dollars is far more impressive than the money Hillary Clinton has collected from criminals and Barrack Obama has raked in from lobbyists. After two terms of George Bush and neoconservative corruption in Washington, Americans are finally starting to come to the same conclusion: the American government is no longer acting in the interest of Americans, and it hasn't been for quite some time.

The wealthiest 1 percent of the American population controls a third of the total wealth in the economy. And guess who those top 1 percent are? The very people (or their companies) that you are going after in your campaign. (Excluding Bill Gates, of course. Gates, keep up the philanthropy!)

The road you've chosen is not one of popularity. But you are the only Democratic candidate talking about real reform and real change in a broken system. And after last year's defeat, you've learned to rise above playing the popularity game to win candidacies. Fortunately, this time around, people are listening.

Third place is not a great place to be in the primary race. But then again, maybe it is. It's still early. Waiting in the wings all this time has worked out well for you. Obama has proven that, while he has a lot of ideas to contribute to the Democratic platform, he is more rhetoric than action and too green for the presidency. The Clinton Machine could be on its way toward destruction. That leaves you to pick up the pieces of the Democratic primary. And after that, you'll be the one to pick up the pieces of this country's government and reputation.

For now, hang tight and continue your campaign with tenacity. A lot can happen in two months.

Sincerely,
an American wanting her country back