Frum Nitpicking Obama Speech

David Frum nitpicks his way through an exceptionally good, realistically sobering, speech.

Listen to this:

The Cold War ended with jubilant crowds dismantling a wall. Commerce has stitched much of the world together. Billions have been lifted from poverty. The ideals of liberty, self-determination, equality and the rule of law have haltingly advanced. We are the heirs of the fortitude and foresight of generations past, and it is a legacy for which my own country is rightfully proud.

“Of generations past?” Did those “generations” not contain any names? People – Americans! – who did brave things at risk and often at cost of their lives?

The memory of the crowd dismantling the wall is a lovely one. But the great events of November 1989 could only occur because of the successful defense of the Western world over half a century by the armed power of a military alliance headed by the United States. (NB – nor did the Cold War end in November 1989. It ended almost two years later, with the dissolution of the Soviet Union.)

Notice the abstractions and passive verbs: “commerce” “have been lifted.” Unless the sentence begins with an “I”, there are no antecedents, no doers, no causes.

So what? Frum may very well be reading into this. Our failures are also described with passive verbs. "We know that," Obama said, "for most of history, this concept of just war was rarely observed. The capacity of human beings to think up new ways to kill one another proved inexhaustible." "It became clear to victor and vanquished alike," he said one paragraph down.

Before I continue, here's Frum again:

Frum again:

The sentence I am about to quote may well have begun as an attempt to pay tribute to another:

As someone who stands here as a direct consequence of Dr. King’s life’s work, I am living testimony to the moral force of non-violence.

But on the way to the tribute, Obama managed to insert two references to himself in a sentence that found room for only one reference of King. And there are surely ways to praise Dr King without exalting yourself even higher. As is, it seems that King is a great man because he made Obama’s career possible. One wonders: surely there must have been at least one or two other beneficiaries of King’s work as well?



He refers to himself in three notable occasions on several occasions and in each case he does not once use it to credit himself. President Barack Obama did not, as Frum suggest, claim to be the good thing the late Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. did. He used himself as an (not the) of what nonviolent resistance can accomplish. Mr. Obama isn't "the one" who stands as the "other beneficiaries of King's work," as Frum would have us believe. He is, and Obama specifically told us, that he is "someone" who, as Frum puts it stands as a beneficiary of King's work as well."

Words have meaning. "Someone" according to Wikipedia tells us is an indefinite pronoun hat refers to one or more unspecified beings, objects, or places. "Merriam-Webster" defines it as "some person." The Free Dictionary says it refer to two groups of people, that "unspecified" group of people noted above, or that person who thinks he is really important. Frum obviously would have us believe that Obama thinks he is really something but one must also refer to the prepositional phrase "as someone who stands here." He can, in other words testify on Martin Luther King's behalf.


Oh and by the way, he did mention some "doers." In the beginning - Schweitzer and King; Marshall and Mandela

And Towards the end - Aung Sang Suu Kyi, Richard Nixon (in his role as a peacemaker), Pope John Paul II, Lech Walesa, Ronald Reagan)

Foreign Policy Snub

Turning down invitations with heads of state? I'd expect that from President Barack Obama's predecessor but apparently our president found a way to embarrass the Norwegians. Did he really need to turn down the Norwegian's king's invitation to lunch?

Supreme Court Watch

Expect the Supreme Court of the United States to rule for the Christian group and it would be well within its right to do so. Mandating the inclusion of those who do not agree with the religious organization's mission dilutes its message.

Iraq Bombing, Afghanistan and the Question that Must Be Asked in Light of It

The war in Iraq, we are told, wasn't going too well until President Barack Obama's predecessor authorized the troop surge General David H. Petraeus sought. Sunni insurgents and Al Qaeda terrorists were bombing Iraq's cities into oblivion while Shia militiamen associated with the Mahdi Army and the Al Badr Brigades were murdering Sunnis, Christians, and gays living in and around Baghdad. The Kurds, meanwhile were forcibly removing or otherwise butchering Turkmen, Yazidis, Shabaks and anyone else with a weird non-Kurdish sounding name near Kirkuk. The troop surge, we were told, ended the civil war and President Barack Obama, apparently agrees.

This newly-found confidence in military might is unfounded. The uneasy peace that followed our surge can be attributed to the opposing factions' decision to bide their time. Once we leave they can re-start their war if the negotiations which the surge was implemented to encourage fall through. They just passed an election law after weeks of haggling yet the fate over Kirkuk (and more importantly) the oil fields that surround it as well as the fate of those non-Kurdish minorities that live around is still in dispute. In a blow to Iraq's Security Forces and the surge which was designed to heal that country's wounds, terrorists (which Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki claims to be affiliated with Al Qaeda and former Baathists) detonated 5 bombs across the city, klling 121 Iraqis.

Today, General Stanley A. McChrystal expressed some optimism for the new, far more sober and limited objective placed before the American troops - to deny the Taliban what it wants to do. In other words, we aren't going to defeat the Taliban and drag Al Qaeda spiritual leader Osama bin Laden from his cave. The occupying power never wins a stalemate. They want to leave by a certain point of time while their opponents, who are fighting for their homeland, wait them out so we will either squander what remains of our financial resources by piling up more debt while forgoing much needed infrastructure programs by keeping while our forces fight the terrorists until the Afghans can train themselves or we will leave the Afghans to their own fate. The president said he wants us to begin (not complete) a withdrawal in 2011. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Secretary of Defense Bob Gates, condition any withdrawal to the conditions on the ground. And the Afghan president says we'll have to stay until 2014 to get this done right.

Will the president have any resources to fight for the people who elect him?

A Conservative With a Proposal for Afghanistan

"Vice President Joe Biden, speaking at the Munich Security Conference earlier this year, emphatically rejected the idea of "spheres of influence" in the 21st-century global order. Yet a revival of this 19th-century concept for Afghanistan might be quite necessary -- with explicit zones for India and Pakistan in the north and south respectively, Afghan regions enjoying greater autonomy from the center, and binding provisions for ensuring a "neutral" central government in Kabul.

What the U.S. cannot do effectively within the timeline sketched out by the president -- and given limitations on the personnel and resources Obama is prepared to commit -- is to impose a central government on the country and get India and Pakistan to agree to whatever order we deem necessary in Kabul.

The success of the president's plan requires that Afghans actively take control over security to satisfy U.S. concerns about denying al-Qaida safe havens to train and plan. But without Pakistan's explicit support, the strategy of catching the Taliban and al-Qaida in a vise along the Afghan-Pakistan border fails. And while Obama neglected to mention India in his West Point address, India's ongoing and extensive reconstruction efforts are vital to the U.S. effort.

These roadblocks cannot be wished away, and factors outside America's control could spoil the best-laid plans in Washington. Rather than waiting for the inevitable complications to arise, the Obama administration would be well-advised to take a proactive approach in the days and weeks ahead to confront the realities that will likely give rise to them." Nikolas Gvosdev at World Politics Review

I like it but there are some questions:

Can the Pakistanis and the Indians agree on their respectable zones of influence?

and

Will the Pakistanis rely upon the Taliban to govern their zone of influence or is there another group which they can rely on?

Frum's Error in Logic

"Having urged the president to honor his commitment to the Afghan war, we Republicans must honor our commitment to support him as he fights it. Given the public unenthusiasm for the conflict, there will be political temptations to “go rogue” on the president, if not now, then in the summer of 2010. That will be our test, for us to pass as the president has passed his. I know many Republicans and conservatives will say: “Hey – the Democrats did not give President Bush support when he most needed it.” Correct. They didn’t. And the country suffered for it. The right way to react to that dereliction of duty is not by emulating it, but by repudiating it. “For it before I was against it” has deservedly become an epithet for shameful wavering. Let’s not inflict it upon ourselves." David Frum at FrumForum.com

Except that when the Democrats were opposing the Bush administration they were opposing a policy they did not agree with. Asking the Republicans to side with President Barack Obama should be far easier than it was to ask the Democrats to back his predecessor. The Republicans generally agree with the president on the troop surge. The Democrats did not agree with Obama's predecessor on his troop surge.

Bacevich Strikes Again (On Afghanistan)

"If knowing when to cut your losses qualifies as a hallmark of statesmanship, Nixon flunked. Vietnam proved irredeemable.

Obama's prospects of redeeming Afghanistan appear hardly more promising. Achieving even a semblance of success, however modestly defined, will require an Afghan government that gets its act together, larger and more competent Afghan security forces, thousands of additional reinforcements from allies already heading toward the exits, patience from economically distressed Americans as the administration shovels hundreds of billions of dollars toward Central Asia, and even greater patience from U.S. troops shouldering the burdens of seemingly perpetual war. Above all, success will require convincing Afghans that the tens of thousands of heavily armed strangers in their midst represent Western beneficence rather than foreign occupation."


and for what end?

"What Afghanistan tells us is that rather than changing Washington, Obama has become its captive. The president has succumbed to the twin illusions that have taken the political class by storm in recent months. The first illusion, reflecting a self-serving interpretation of the origins of 9/11, is that events in Afghanistan are crucial to the safety and well-being of the American people. The second illusion, the product of a self-serving interpretation of the Iraq War, is that the United States possesses the wisdom and wherewithal to guide Afghanistan out of darkness and into the light."

" Andrew Bacevich in The Los Angeles Times

Ensign's Selfless Act

How selfless of Senator John Ensign (R-Nevada). He's not resigning because it will hurt the Republican Party and its effort to oust the senate majority leader.

Perhaps he should get himself a gig writing for The Daily Show.

Misleading Headline for a Very Good Article

The Hill has a very good article summarizing the CBO's analysis of the senate health care bill's impact on health insurance premiums.

See if the headline matches the news article and then ask yourself, did the headline writer read the story?

Here's the headline:

"CBO: Senate bill would increase individual insurance premiums"

Here's the CBS' findings as summarized by the reporter:


1. "It finds the Senate legislation would reduce premiums by up to 3 percent for 134 million people who get insurance as a job benefit at a large company. This population is by far the largest component of the health insurance market: When the reforms kick in, 70 percent of people with coverage would get it from their jobs, a slight increase from the current rate."

2. "The average premium for people who work at large companies would remain about the same: $7,300 annually for an individual plan and $20,100 for a family policy."


3. "For small businesses that cover their workers in the so-called small group market, the average change in insurance premiums would range from a 2 percent decrease to a 1 percent increase. Under the bill, 13 percent of insured people would fall into this category. Factoring in new subsidies available to people with incomes below 400 percent of poverty, individuals in this market would pay 8 percent to 11 percent less than they do now."

4. "The direst finding for Democrats — and the figure most highlighted by Republicans — is health insurance premiums would be 10 percent to 13 percent higher for the 13.3 million people required to buy insurance under the bill, compared to what they would pay absent the legislation."

but please note the caveats to #4:

a. the [expensive] subsidies noted to offset those increases [a public option that was open for every American citizen would eliminate the need for the subsidies since that would drive down costs] for 17.7 million people (57% of those who will see their premiums increased)

b. the reason for the increase - better quality care

"One of the chief reasons insurance premiums would be higher for some people is that reform would require insurance companies to offer everyone in the individual and small-group market more generous and more stable coverage and increase competition among insurers, the report notes."

In other words, the price isn't really going up, the services that you are required to pay for are.

So, back to my original question? Did the person who wrote the headline read the article?

Priorities: Afghanistan vs. Domestic Concerns

see here.

Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) raised a good point on ABC's "This Week" today.

"You know, if I were to put Afghanistan into the context of what's happening in America today, and what's happening now is not only a $12 trillion national debt; we're in the midst of the worst economic recession since the Great Depression of the 1930s. The middle class is collapsing. The gap between the rich and the poor is growing wider.

Piece in the paper today, one out of four kids in this country are on food stamps. One out of eight Americans. And when we go Christmas shopping, we're going to be buying our products from China, who are lending us money to fight the war in Afghanistan. So I've got a real problem about expanding this war where the rest of the world is sitting around and saying, isn't it a nice thing that the taxpayers of the United States and the U.S. military are doing the work that the rest of the world should be doing?"

We have only a finite amount of resources and the question our president has to ask is whether he would devote our financial resources to job building programs and health care for working American citizens or if he would squander it on an endless commitment to Afghanistan.

Well, we know where Senator Lugar (I-Indiana), who was on CNN's "State of the Union" stands:

"I believe there will be a separate accounting, but in any event, I think we will have to pay for it. I would just make this suggestion, that in the three weeks of debate we still have ahead of us, we really ought to concentrate in the Congress on the war, on the overall strategy of our country and the cost of it. And we ought to be on the budget. Passing appropriations bills in a proper way.

Now in the course of that, we may wish to break out that. We may wish to discuss higher taxes to pay for it. But we're not going to do that debating health care and the Senate for three weeks through all sorts of strategies and so forth.

The war is terribly important. Jobs and our economy are terribly important. So this may be an audacious suggestion, but I would suggest we put aside the health care debate until next year, the same way we put cap and trade and climate change and talk now about the essentials, the war and money."



I wonder if the Republicans understand what most hard-working Americans are going through.

Obama is really blessed by his enemies, for as much as he has fumbled the ball on health care reform and as much as he has decided to tie his policies to the "bankers" on Wall Street, his opponents are much worse. They really, as Matt Taibbi pointed out in his latest Rolling Stone article, hate him for the wrong reason. They hate him because he is a liberal, or because he is black or because he doesn't get offended when two male lovers hold hands and not because he is selling out to Wall Street. They hate him because he, however tepidly, "fighting" for something that could ultimately help them. Go figure.

"-Obama's Big Sellout" by Matt Taibbi

I get Rolling Stone, and read this depressing but must-read article. Too bad the link is not up yet.

Basic gist: Obama hired the people who have no interest in promoting financial regulatory reform.