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!

The War

Today I want to talk about the war. Now, first let me say I am referring to The War. The Second World War. Folks of a certain age know what I’m talking about, and it’s not about Iraq. Not exactly.

For those of us who remember it, The War will always be World War II. But now there are too many who, through no fault of their own, missed out on a really important chunk of American history.

All these thoughts came to mind thanks to Ken Burns’s incredible documentary just recently shown on PBS.

I was riveted. And felt oddly proud of the way ordinary people mustered every ounce of support for the war effort, many of the familiar details recalling my own childhood experiences.

There were the songs, of course: “Let’s Remember Pearl Harbor” and the song of the Army Air Corps; I remember a song about “Collecting Tin to Win the War,” though I’ve never met anyone else who does, and I still remember the tunes if not the words to “This is the Army, Mr. Jones,” “Comin’ in on a Wing and a Prayer,” and “Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree.”

The boys at school made drawings of fighter planes all during class, the favorite being Flying Tigers, and there were school yard arguments, naturally: “Who’s the best, the Army, Navy or Marines?”

We had a victory garden and raised chickens, sat in front of the radio to listen intently to news I didn’t completely understand, and Mom and group of her friends met at our house to roll bandages.

We lived just outside Washington, D.C. which may be why there were frequent air raid drills in school (I honestly thought that “they” covered our school in plain brown paper to hide it, though I couldn’t figure out how) and blackouts at night; neighbors in Civilian Defense helmets patrolled the darkened streets and scared a little girl just about to death with a flashlight beam in the face as she peeked out the window.

Oh, yes, the war was very much with us.

There were ration stamps to preserve supplies of sugar, grains, coffee, meat and butter, so as to be able to feed our troops, not to mention gasoline, tires, and shoes (the family Packard went up on blocks in the garage pretty much for the duration as the rubber went to war).

Each Saturday morning meant a trip to the post office to pick up the mail and buy a war stamp for 10 cents; if you filled up a book with $18 or so worth of stamps you could trade it in for a $25 war bond, but just buying that stamp felt important. War Bonds, or Victory Bonds, were everywhere because everyone promoted them, from the local newspapers and movie theaters to politicians and movie stars.

Everyone bought into the war effort, everyone had a stake in it, everyone’s life was affected by the war, and most of all the homes with service flags in the window.

There was a draft, too, and the irony was that a young man who was not in the service often became somewhat of a social outcast, even if he had volunteered and was turned down. Almost every able-bodied young man was called up. Uniformed young men were everywhere, including in our home when uncles came to visit.

I knew what the draft meant and remember each Saturday examining the family mail in dread, lest one envelope might contain a draft notice. (It turned out that the letters from the State Department were not to worry about, since my father worked for them, and anyway he was too old to be called up.)

My childish understanding of what was going on was limited, but I knew there were bad guys and bombs and dogfights in the air, and people dying in places I’d never heard of. Every show at the movie theater was preceded by a newsreel and it was pretty much all about the war.

There was a POW camp somewhere nearby, apparently, because from time to time a contingent of POWs would be seen in our small town, working on some kind of construction project. We pointed and stared, but didn’t really understand what we were seeing.

It was all war, all the time, everywhere; it limited us and it defined us, individually and as a community.

These memories came back as I watched The War last week. Well, they didn’t really come back because they are always present or just about so; these experiences were formative, I guess you could say, at least for me. I’d be interested to hear from others on that.

But some parts of the documentary were new to me, even after years of learning more about it; they were stories that hadn’t been told before, that have been learned only recently, as aging veterans have finally, according to Ken Burns, begun to talk about what they’d been through.

And there are many, many lessons for today.

I am really sorry that inevitably some folks didn’t see the series, especially from the beginning. The good news is that some installments are still scheduled to be repeated, beginning this Wednesday evening on KERA, and that there’s a web site that provides a decent glimpse.

One way or the other, sooner rather than later, The War should be seen by every American who worries and waits as our amazing and dedicated troops struggle to sort out the mess in Afghanistan and Iraq, for there are lessons in it.

It should be mandatory viewing for those Americans still out at the shopping mall.

China Dog and Pony Show

“Life with Father” has always been one of my favorite movies, even after all this time — it came out in 1947, though I may have seen it first in the 1950’s, and I’ve seen it two or three times since then.

Certain scenes are classic, as any fan of the show will tell you, like the parade of children filing down the stairs to greet the new maid who, filled with Irish superstition, anxiously signed a digital anti-hex at the sight of each young red-head.

Father’s roaring temperament held sway over the family; Mother, very much in love with him, was doting, but like the Edith Bunker many of you may know better, managed the work-arounds that kept things running smoothly.

Here lately the movie came back to mind, in all its Technicolor glory, because of a recollection of what I call the china dog affair. It began when Mother bought a life-size bulldog figurine at the local department store.

Such ceramic ornaments were popular around the turn of the century, and it was perfect for the parlor. It was only $15.00, though that was not cheap in those days.
At the same time, even though Father really didn’t want to spring for a new suit for one of the boys, she told her son to go ahead and order it while picking up the bulldog; she was sure she would convince Father of the need.

When Father came upon the bulldog in his parlor he hit the ceiling; $15.00 was a lot of money and he considered it an eyesore in any event, and he ordered that it be returned to the store immediately.

Once her son pointed out to Mother that returning the china dog to the store would mean a $15.00 credit to their account that would just pay for the suit, the suit purchase was completed. Mother never could understand why Father didn’t see that it didn’t cost him a cent, after all!

When George Bush sent our sons and daughters to war in Iraq he took all the ones available from the ranks of the Army, the Navy, the Marines and the Air Force, and reached into the military reserves and the National Guard for more.

As time and the war went on, and it became clear that normal rotations would leave the field commanders without the numbers of troops they needed, some tours were extended from 12 to 15 months.

Some who had gone home were called back before their promised time at home had ended.
Some Guard and reserves who were due to go home were stop-lossed — told they must continue to serve beyond their original commitment.

As a result, many have served three and four tours in as many years.

Last week we were told that finally some troops will be coming home. Not a huge number, mind you, certainly not the number the most vocal war opponents have demanded, but some.

So what’s the problem?

The problem is that life with Bush is turning out to be a lot like “Life with Father,” except that in this case Bush is both Father and Mother: on the one hand running the family home with demands for more and longer service that approach tyranny, and on the other expecting us to believe that there is a generous 5,000 or so troop reduction about to happen because “we are making progress.”

When Senators asked General Petraeus how he could call the plan to bring those troops home between now and March a “reduction,” let alone because of progress, given that those troops had reached the absolute end of their tours and were due to come home anyway, he replied (I paraphrase):

“Well, yes I know they were due to come home anyway, but I could have requested they be extended, and in fact I was thinking about doing that, but I didn’t.”

And thanks to Mother’s china bulldog, those pants didn’t cost a thing.