The World Is A Mess

"The world is a mess," declared former Secretary of State Madeleine Albreight on Face the Nation this week.

 Liberals act as though Putin's aggression, the rise of ISIS, the attack of Hamas on Israel, the gains made by the Taliban in Afghanistan, our forced abandonment of our embassy in Libya and ounce and our own border crisis are independent occurrences.  I assure you, they are not.  They are a direct consequence of the foreign policy (or lack thereof). It began with the "apology tour" early in the administration when Obama trotted around the globe beating his breast about America's sins, stating that America "has shown arrogance and been dismissive, even derisive" toward Europe, and that be believed in American exceptionalism the same way, "the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks in Greek exceptionalism."  In a unipolar world, Obama saw the U.S. as "getting too big for its britches" and a source of instability in the world.  The reality is just the opposite.  Without the moral, economic, and, yes, military force of America pushing back against totalitarianism, those forces envelope the world.  When America leaves a void, others fill it.  When America stops asserting its influence, others being to assert theirs.

Adversaries listen to what you say and watch what you do and respond accordingly.  When you draw red lines and then don't follow through, when you "pivot away" from a region, when you "let the Europeans come to their own conclusion [on Putin]," when you "lead from behind," when you announce precisely when you are going to withdraw your troops, when you slash your ability to fight 2 wars simultaneously to 1 and then to 1 but only if it is short, when you cut your navy to the lowest level in a couple generations, your enemies notice.  And so do your ever dwindling supply of friends.

No, it's no accident that in a single administration, the Islamic fascists have basically gotten a head start on establishing a caliphate in the Middle East and simultaneously Russia has begun the process of reassembling the Soviet bloc.  All the while, Hillary Clinton is asserting straightfaced that, "the reset with Russia worked,"  It did.....for Vladimir Putin.

If you are an adversary of the West, now is your time.  In 5 1/2 years, Obama has largely undone  the gains of the surge in Iraq and is on his way to reversing the collapse of the Berlin Wall.

How's that Reset Button Going For Ya?

Five years ago, the Obama administration and Hillary Clinton pledged to hit the "reset button" to improve relations with Russia after they had turned icy following Russia's invasion of Georgia.

You see, Republican foreign policy is stuck in the the past.  Hanging on to old notions of the Soviet Union is so 70's and 80's.  It's time we recognized that Russia has progressed since the days when they would invade other sovereign countries and shoot down passenger airliners...and then lie about it.

Right?

Every day I am more nostalgic for Jimmy Carter.

With Hillary as the presumptive front runner for the Democratic nomination in 2016, if the Republicans can't derail her on the Benghazi and "reset button" with Russia alone, they don't deserve the White House.

Own It!

A Quinnipiac Poll released this week showed that a plurality of Americans now believe that President Obama is the worst president since 1945.  If I were included in the survey, I think it would go back a bit farther, but the worst in 70 years is a far drop for a president that came into office on a crest of hope and change and Roman columns in the background.

How did this happen?  The New York Times is writing this swoon off to the sour mood of America or the general staleness of the 6th year of his administration.

Despite my general opposition to the bulk of his policies, I do not believe that his drop in the polls is due solely to staleness or to our sourness.  It is mostly, I believe, due to his administration's failure to take ownership of any of the difficult issues that it faces.  Not a single one.  Even more astonishing is that no one was held responsible for any of these pratfalls.

Here is my list of items that have gone south for this administration and to whom it ascribed blame:

ISIS in Iraq - Bush's fault
Worst post war economic recovery- House Republicans [for not spending more]
Government shutdown- See above
Healthcare.gov- House Republicans again [for not approving additional funding]
Benghazi- Filmmaker's fault
Failure of Mideast peace process- Netanyahu's fault
Monster debt and deficit- Rich people's fault
NSA spying- Snowden's fault
Mexican children piling up on our border- House Republican's fault [for not doing immigration reform]
Trayvon Martin- inherent racism in America's fault
IRS scandal- Local "rogue" administrator's fault
Crimea- Putin's fault
Keystone pipeline-Climate change deniers' fault
VA scandal- Bush's fault
Resurgence of Taliban in Afghanistan- Bush's fault again
Iranian nuclear program- You guessed it--Bush's fault
North Korean nuclear program - Truman's fault
Fast and Furious- Still trying to find out whose fault it was.  In any event, it was not Holder's fault He didn't know about it.
Unwanted pregnancy of Hobby Lobby employee- Bush's fault for nominating Sam Alito
High gas prices- Oil company's fault
Destruction of Lois Lerner's emails- hard drive manufacturer's fault

I think I have it about right.  Contrast this list with Ronald Reagan's ownership of the Iran-Contra scandal.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Pa4_NBlYK8

In it, Reagan takes ownership for the scandal unfolding on his watch and blames himself for not asking the right questions.   Is it any surprise, then, that Reagan was viewed as the best president since 1945.

Policies aside, it comes from owning it.

Ghastly

I have been tempted to write about my fears that Western Civilization may have reached an inflection point.  No one wants to read Chicken Little analysis and there have always been signs of decadence to point to and they have always been overblown. Even when the West seemed to be on its heels as it was during the early days of WWII, it always was able to gather itself and mount a comeback.

I was fortunate to have William H. McNeill as a professor in college, one of the world's most preeminent historians, and author of The Rise of the West.  I was too young and too immature to fully grasp what a gift he was, but I absorbed enough to understand the miracle of Western Civilization and the victory of the Enlightenment, liberty and of the individual over the State and tyranny.  And with that victory, the superiority of the value of the individual human life over statist aims in all circumstances was established.  The obvious polar opposite was Nazi Germany where state aims grossly and horrifyingly took the lives of millions.

But a few news items recently caught my attention (but did not get much play in the mainstream media) to give me pause about the state of Western Civilization.

The first was the revelation that UK hospitals were using the remains of aborted fetuses to heat hospitals.  The issue of abortion is a difficult one....more difficult than the true believers on each side of the debate would have you believe.  I have flip flopped on that issue several times during my lifetime.  But treating these remains as fuel is ghastly and sick - even if you think a fetus is "pre-human."  It is something out of Soylent Green, demeaning to humans and too reminiscent of Auschwitz and Bergen Belsen to be tolerated in the West.

The second news item was the revelation that the US EPA has been conducting experiments humans and that subjects were not fully informed of the risks of certain pollutants.  The testing allowed researchers to pump "gaseous pollutants at precise concentrations" into enclosed chambers.  The State conducting experiments that risked the health of the subjects.  Move over, Dr. Mengele.  Again, this was barely mentioned in the mainstream media.

The third item was the murder conviction of Kermit Gosnell, who apparently hideously murdered live babies at his abortion clinic.  Of course, while he was convicted, there was no outcry for more regulation and more supervision at abortion clinics.  We have a State that regulates light bulbs, microwave ovens, toilet tanks, plastic bags, mortgages applications, gasoline content, ad infinitum.  If this "house of horrors" (prosecution's words) had occurred in any other context, there would be a hew and cry for an army of regulators and there would be an avalanche of new regulations and probably a new regulatory body.  But it is about abortion and we hear nary a peep.

Taken together, these three items are very troubling to me--troubling because of the paucity of press coverage they received; troubling because of the callousness with which life is being treated by the State and the press; troubling because they are acts that echo the acts of the most inhuman regime in modern history. And they are barely mentioned.

Are my fears that these things do not portend well for the West overblown?  Perhaps.  But these items give me a very queasy feeling in the pit of my stomach.

Some Things to Think About

While Barack Obama has been busy apologizing for American hegemony, cutting back on our military, precipitously withdrawing from Afghanistan and Iraq, forfeiting hard earned success, Vladimir Putin has been busy trying to patch the old Soviet Union back together again.  Here are just a few things to think about.

• Russia invaded Crimea merely days after the Obama administration announced massive cuts to our military, taking our troop strength to its lowest levels since 1940.
• President Obama was firmer and more decisive in his condemnation of George Zimmerman and Cambridge police than Russia.  He clearly spoke in more personally empathic terms with respect to Trayvon Martin than the Ukrainian people.
• Obama has been harsher toward Netanyahu with respect to its settlements.  Remember, Obama called for Israel to pull back to its 1967 borders.
• We are in a place that is completely analogous to the position we were in with Jimmy Carter in 1979.  Then, the Russian bear was annexing Afghanistan and the mullahs in Tehran were defying the US.  Today, the Russian bear is attempting to annex the Ukraine and the mullahs are still defying the US, pushing forward with their nuclear program.
• One of my progressive friends accused me of not learning from history.  Really?  Does Germany and the Sudentenland ring any bells for anyone?
• Barack Obama is steeped in anti-colonialist history.  Rather than American exceptionalism, that is the lens through which he views the world.   Well, Mr. Obama, if you don't like colonialism, shield your eyes from your friend Vladimir.  You ain't seen nothin' yet.

The Russian threat to the Ukraine should not have been a surprise.  Putin has been lusting after it for years.  And just as with Iran, Obama kept silent for days while the crisis escalated.  Instead of being a champion for freedom, the integrity of nations, and international order, Obama delivered a statement that was written in pure bureaucratese, vowing only to "consult with our allies" and "communicate developments."   Just the consequences a thug fears.   Worse, his crack foreign policy team of John Kerry, Susan Rice and Samantha Power were caught more flat footed than Carter was when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan.  At least this time, they had the good manners to invade AFTER the Olympics.   

The mainstream media will never tie the loose ends.  As with Jimmy Carter, the Russian invasion is the result of persistent naivete in a Democratic administration.  This crisis, along with the Benghazi tragedy, is a direct result of the statecraft of Hillary Clinton.  Her Republican opponents should not forget to remind the voters.

Spouting Off

Not sufficiently occupied with Middle East peace, the economy, Obamacare, the Iranian nuclear program, Barack Obama had to weigh in on another matter of utmost importance to him-- pro football.

"I would not let my son play pro football," inveighed Obama, addressing the risk of head injury, and following the orchestrated propaganda of the New York Times.  First, let's put a couple of factual points to rest.  First, Obama does not have a son.  Second, only adults play pro football and Obama would be powerless to stop his theoretical son from playing.

This is not the first time President Obama has used his theoretical son to make a point.  Just like his "composite girlfriend" that showed up in his autobiography,  Obama has used a fictitious son once before--in the Trayvon Martin case, claiming that if he had a son, he'd look like Trayvon.  And, as in the Martin case, is opining in a place where he doesn't engage in weighing any of the facts.  He just spouts, and he is now spouting the liberal line against football.

I find it interesting whom Obama uses this fictitious son to identify with.  While it is tragic that Martin lost his life in the altercation with Zimmerman, Trayvon was no choirboy.   He was suspended from school multiple times and had other issues.  I wonder if President Obama would have permitted one of his daughters to date Trayvon.  But in his public statements, he positively identifies with Trayvon.

But now, he uses his theoretical son to push against football, and the implication is that it would be OK for his son to be hanging around pointlessly rather than play ball.  Forget that pro football players have had to demonstrate great discipline and training to achieve what they have to achieve.  Forget that a football field is someplace where race is absolutely no factor whatsoever in getting ahead, and, in fact, is a profession where people of color have gone from dirt poor to unimaginably rich in a few years.  Forget that the Chicago Public School coaches were in a panic last year during the teachers' strike because they were afraid that without the structure of football, they would lose hundreds of boys to gangs.  None of this matters to Obama.  He is compelled to comment on a matter over which he has no control, using a son that does not exist to advance the progressive vendetta against the sport, a topic which I will flesh out more fully in a later post.

When you take his comments together, it is clear that Obama would be not troubled by a son that is an aimless, in-and-out of trouble youth, but would be troubled if his aspirations were to work hard, train hard, and sacrifice to make it up the ladder to the NFL.

So,  you would not let your son play in the NFL?  Fair enough.  I would not let my son become a pot smoking community organizer, either.

So Long 2013

What a remarkable year it has been.  For me, personally, it has been a year of profound changes.  My oldest graduated from college and landed a great first job, stopping that cash outflow.  New passions and friendships were ignited and reconnected.  My new and revitalized passions included an increased zeal for the game of golf, culminating in a trip to Pinehurst, North Carolina, one of golf's great Meccas for a wonderful 3 day trip in November. And, alas, the year was not without great pain as I lost my longtime friend, hiking partner and mentor Jim Hopper in June.  Jim introduced me to the economics department at the University of Chicago, helped me greatly throughout my career, and encouraged my writing and my intellectual growth throughout my life.  I was honored to deliver one of his eulogies and I shall miss him greatly.

I have taken a short sabbatical from blogging and one of my New Year resolutions is to resume on a more frequent basis and there is not a better way than to resume by my annual year end summary of the best and worst of 2013.  Interestingly, the main character of both my favorite film and book of the year this year is a strong, independent woman.

Best Film
Gravity.  While it was considered by many to be overrated, and contained some factual flaws, Gravity was my favorite film of 2013.  Both Sandra Bullock and George Clooney put forward outstanding performances and the special effects were outstanding.  I am a sucker for survival movies and I thought that Bullock's character was well developed.  Other strong contenders were the comedy The Way, Way Back, Blue Jasmine and Inside Llewyn Davis.  I confess, however, that I missed The Butler and 12 Years a Slave.

Best in Fiction

Mary Coin by Marisa Silver.  Again, this novel was basically a survival story involving an independent woman.  But this was a fictionalized account of real survival of a single mom during the Great Depression.  The story revolved around the life of the woman depicted in the famous photograph, "Migrant Mother."  The uneasy intersection of the lives of the photographer and her subject was well developed and the strain of the life of this woman as she fought to survive and care for her children made for riveting reading.  Mary Coin was a close call as a choice as I also loved Canada by Richard Ford and Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walker.

Best in Nonfiction
Antifragile by Nassim Taleb. Many people disregard Taleb as not academically rigorous enough and arrogant and there is some truth to both charges, but I found Antifragile to be interesting and full of little anecdotes that caused you to pause and think a little differently.   The real message of Taleb's book is that sometimes unforeseen events occur which, on the surface, appear to be disastrous, but often turn out to be positive in the long run.  This is not necessarily a new concept, but Taleb says it in an interesting way.

Best Album
I thought this year was a little thin.  Last year, we had The Lumineers, Of Monsters and Men and Mumford & Sons.  In a weak field, I liked Night Visions by Imagine Dragons followed by a dark horse selection of Barton Hollow by The Civil Wars.

Best Live Concert
Bob Seger.  Hands down, Seger was the best.  It was with great dismay that I looked around at the crowd, and thought, "This is supposed to be a ROCK concert, not an Englebert Humperdink concert.  What are all these old people doing here?"  But Seger delivered.  Unlike some of the other old rockers that have lost a step or two or several octaves, Seger put forward an outstanding performance.  Being grey and dumpy didn't slow him down a bit as he belted out versions of "Hollywood Nights," "Against the Wind," "Like a Rock," and "Turn the Page" that were indistinguishable from albums that are over 30 years old.  And his warmup act was Joe Walsh, who, by himself, was phenomenally entertaining.

Most Interesting Figure
Pope Francis.  Within a couple of months Pope Francis both gave me hope for a renewed Catholic Church by his humility and his de-emphasizing sexuality as a centerpiece of morality of the church.  I also saw his willingness to begin to start to loosen centralized authority as a positive development.  But then he undermined his standing by his frontal attack on the "tyranny of markets" and capitalism with no corresponding criticism of the tyranny of the state.   He appeared to fully understand Christian humility but then failed utterly to understand how capitalism has lifted millions of people out of miserable and hopeless poverty worldwide.

So I am back, hopefully with some interesting things to say from time to time and I will endeavor to blog more frequently, even if they are just short and random thoughts.