Where to begin?

There is a certain amount of excitement in being a news junkie. Not only do you get your daily adrenaline rush from fear, fury or frustration as events unfold, secrets are revealed, prevarications are spun into tangled webs and once again the Emperor is seen strutting about naked, but you learn about some really interesting things you might never know if you weren’t an addict.

Of course, that begs the question: Now that I know all this stuff, what do I do with it? Do I even need to do anything with it? After all, it’s a very exciting hobby in and of itself, just knowing what’s going on in the world. But for some of us the need to share is irresistible.

Sometimes, like a joke, it’s because the pleasure grows with sharing. And sometimes “misery loves company” would explain it. But at other times it feels urgent, like spreading the alarm about a tornado watch, even though warning your neighbor doesn’t guarantee that he’ll seek shelter.

Molly Ivins looked at it this way:

I just think it helps, anything and everything, if the people know. Know what the hell is going on. What they do about it once they know is not my problem.

Last week we learned that 4,032 American troops have been killed in Iraq. We don’t hear as much about the estimated 50,327 who have suffered severe injuries, including amputations and brain damage, and of course there’s no way of knowing the eventual toll in psychological injuries including post-traumatic stress disorder.

But President Bush was pleased to announce that the surge in Iraq has “revived the prospect of success.” He announced there will be a troop reduction between now and July (the troops originally slated to be brought home by July; this isn’t because of the surge, it is because they will have been there 15 months and must be brought home).

Speaking of which, it was also Mr. Bush’s pleasure to announce that the length of deployment will be reduced to 12 months (which is where we were before the deployment increase back in April of 2007, by the way). And how many folks do you suppose noticed that this kindness will apply only to those troops deployed to Iraq after August? Any respite for troops presently in harm’s way? Forget it.

And as for the prospect of success, Gen. Petraeus told Congress last week that the progress in Iraq is fragile and reversible and he really can’t say when – indeed, if – any further troops will be coming home during Bush’s term in office. Just can’t speculate, sorry.

He also declined, though pressed, to define success, or even to describe the conditions that might make it possible to send more troops home.

By the way, the Iraqi government is expecting a $25 billion budget surplus this year, up from its surplus last year in excess of $13 billion. While the price of our gasoline surged, so to speak.

Don’t get me wrong: I don’t blame the 6 o’clock newscasters for not talking about every item that I think we should know about. Truth to tell, there’s just too much out there for any one source to cover. You almost have to be a news junkie just to keep up with the important stuff.

It’s a function of the world we live in, a world much larger in many ways than the world of our youth. If you don’t believe me, take a look at today’s high school math textbook – why, kids are learning stuff you and I never dreamt of; what used to be taught in college is now a requirement to get into college.

Anyway, the least I can do is share.

As for spin: The proponents of the Bush/McCain plan to stay in Iraq for an indeterminate number of years insist upon contrasting their position with what they call the Democrats’ plan for “precipitous” withdrawal. So here’s my question, and I think it’s a fair one:

If wanting to begin drawing down the troop level in 2009 and be done with Iraq within 20 months or so after that is “precipitous,” what time frame would not be? Just curious.

Despite the fact that a new president will be sworn in on January 20, 2009, the Bush administration proposes to enter into an open-ended troop commitment with the Iraqi government, but claims it need not be approved by our Congress. The irony is that the government in Iraq insists that their congress should approve it and we have agreed to that condition.

Last but hardly least, it was revealed last week that, beginning back in 2002, the National Security Council's Principals Committee — a group including Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld, Powell, Tenet and Ashcroft, among others — met in the White House to discuss torture, and specifically which kind to apply to which terrorism suspect.

Torture planning. In the White House.

In the words of John Ashcroft himself:

History will not judge this kindly.

Upside-Downside

If you think I’m spending too much time thinking about the upcoming presidential election, I might agree. Or I might say there’s no such thing as too much thinking when it comes to changing presidents, something our current Commander in Chief might choose to call “a defining moment.”

Defining decade might be more like it; that’s how long it seems to have taken to turn this battleship around. Perhaps defining generation, as in “We are so out of here!”

Amazingly, there are still three candidates in the race, with no end in sight, apparently -- though it is devoutly to be wished by most Democrats that we were already down to only two. A few brouhahas have erupted, some silly, some troubling, not least the penchant on the part of Hillary Clinton to gussy up her resume a bit.

As the candidates head for the finish line next fall it behooves the voter to do more than just listen to words or watch the ever-changing polls. It is time to think.

As recently as a couple of weeks ago I agreed with those Obama supporters and not a few pundits who thought Clinton should pull out of the race because it is statistically well nigh impossible for her to win the nomination without very sharp and unacceptable tactics. But then I changed my mind.

Why shouldn’t she continue? There is a rationale that can’t be disputed: Lightning might strike, Obama might stumble, votes in the remaining state primaries might break 90-10 in her favor. But it could happen.

The upside is that Obama gets a lot more experience surviving nastiness, while all the remaining states get to vote; the downside is that every one of her attacks on Obama is recorded by the Republicans for playback in the fall – and don’t think Obama is the only one who would be hurt.

Yes, she has every right to continue in the campaign, so long as she runs an honorable race. Dishonorable might make me think again.

As for McCain and his laser-like focus on all things military – there are a few problems he’ll have to deal with, not least his age, which may account for his Lieberman-guided understanding of who we’re fighting in Iraq; his desire to keep our over-extended soldiers in Iraq for years while keeping the Bush tax cuts (something we used to call having our cake and eating it too); and his dismissive approach to our current economic crisis.

The Chicken Littles in the punditocracy opine often and loudly that the continuing Democratic contest is giving McCain an advantage that might be insurmountable, but they totally forget two truths: First, the guy who is not getting attacked always rises, like cream in unstirred milk; doesn’t mean a thing. And, most important, McCain can’t win because he is a terrible campaigner, a weak candidate who doesn’t seem all that charged up by comparison, and whose entire basis for running is his military background.

Don’t get me wrong. I kinda like the guy; I sent him money once. But if you don’t buy my reasoning, then think about the fact that just recently the word “recession” finally passed the lips of significant folks – like Ben Bernanke, head of the Federal Reserve System where, you should excuse the expression, the buck stops in these matters.

John McCain? Bush policies to be continued? In the middle of a recession? I don’t think so.

Which brings me to Barack Obama.

I thought I would explode at one point early this month: it was after a couple of days of drumbeat around the Clinton campaign’s assertion -- but not in public and not in speeches -- that Barack Obama “can’t win.” I didn’t see it coming, I have to admit, though I should have. It just hit me all of a sudden: The Clintons have come to the point where they are running a purely racist campaign.

All of this talk, the Clintons' claims that states with more electoral votes, or states that voted solidly Democratic time after time in the past, or states that chose their delegates – or some of them, like Texas – by caucus, or states with more voters, period, being likely to refuse to vote for anyone but Hillary Clinton, is just so much malarkey. This gambit is all they have left.

Now, I don’t believe for a minute that either of them is a racist; I just think that they want the superdelegates to believe that the American voter is, and that they have nothing to lose by playing the only card they have left to play: “Obama can’t win. You know Obama can’t win.”

That’s code, folks. You’re supposed to understand from this that a black man cannot be elected president of the United States.

Well, let me tell you the upside in nominating Barack Obama.

All over America governors and members of Congress representing not-so-blue states are supporting Obama in droves, in many cases because they know that if Hillary Clinton is at the head of the ticket her negatives and the resulting higher Republican turnout will hurt them down-ballot, whereas an Obama-led ticket will bring so many new and enthusiastic voters and independents out to vote it is bound to help them.

The way I see it, this could mean so many Democratic victories that even if McCain ends up winning, the Democrats will have such majorities in Congress that he wouldn't be able to do a doggone thing they don't like.

The downside? The risk that the Clintons are proven right and in the midst of a recession, with homes foreclosing all around us, joblessness on the rise and a bloody war without end in sight; despite a Republican candidate who offers more of the same, racism will prevail.

If that happens, America will be the worse for it, and God help us.

I believe in America, though, and my faith is strong that we are all we say we are and all that we wish for the rest of the world.

So I’m rolling the dice. America, call it!

A Parable

Before I came to Texas, I was terrified of flying. No joke. I am no longer so afraid, I'm happy to say, and maybe that has something to do with becoming a Texan, who knows? But that’s not where I’m going here.

In those days I did not fly, period. Thus it was that I arrived in Texas at the Amtrak station in Fort Worth on a hot day in May of 1989.

Now I had heard lots of stories about cowboys and cattle drives and the wild, wild west. My bosses at the Super Collider had heard the same stories, which was why they had sent me, a relatively low-level person, to help set up the laboratory in Waxahachie; the lives of physicists were not to be risked. But even so I was hardly prepared for what happened next.

The kindly conductor helped me down from the train and had just placed my bags on the platform, when I heard a distant thunder, a strange sound that had nothing to do with the clear blue day.

Before you could say “Omigosh, what’s that?” the thundering grew closer and there came into view a huge dust cloud, and it was moving toward us.

“Omigosh, what’s that?” I cried, as out of the dust there materialized a mighty herd of red-eyed cows, goaded on by cowboys on horseback, whooping and hollering and cracking whips and firing pistols. And the whole doggone tangle was headed right toward me!

“Quick!” yelped the conductor, grabbing my arm. “We’re gonna have to run for it!”

This wasn’t supposed to happen in a modern city like Fort Worth, right? Yet closer and closer they came, the sound of their hooves like steel on the pavement; their horns were black and shiny and for just an instant I thought I could feel their hot breath, so close they came. Then I ran. Seriously.

Without my luggage, and without much dignity, I let the conductor pull me across the track and into the station.

The ruckus went past us, and then out of view, and I could finally breathe again.

Now, you can say what you want, you can be skeptical. You can say cowboys don’t drive thundering herds of longhorns through downtown Fort Worth at midday anymore. You can even accuse me of making it up. But I remember it that way, and I’m sticking to it.

Unless, of course, that’s not what happened that day. In which case, all I can say is “So? So I made a mistake, which just shows I’m human.”

Truth to tell, lots of us have memories, or so we think, of events that may have happened differently. And sometimes some of us consciously elaborate, even make things up. But events that happened not at all? No.

So. I made it up. But you know what? It doesn’t matter, because I’m just having fun with you, and when a relatively insignificant person like me makes things up, it doesn’t matter. Unless it’s to make a point.

Consider Hillary Clinton’s description of arriving in Bosnia with her teenage daughter and the two of them having to duck sniper fire and run for cover the moment they disembarked from their plan. Consider how, after irrefutable evidence proved the account to be untrue, she said she "made a mistake." It is irresistible to wonder how that could be.

The problem for Hillary Clinton is that there are only two possible explanations.

She may have made it up out of whole cloth (see above), which is troubling in a potential leader of the free world; or she may have come to believe it herself, which is even more troubling.

That’s why it’s a story that matters, and one that won’t go away.

Thanks for the memories: To Greg Jones, for "Ghost Riders in the Sky," a real memory that needs no embellishing.