Open Letter to the White House - "Clear Strategy"

Dear Mr. President,

I have read the relevant excerpts from last night's speech. In brief, sir, if that's you're idea of a "clear" strategy, I recommend you have a look out your window at the Potomac River. You strategy is about as "clear" as that waterway. The bottom of the river is not at all visible; neither is the bottom of your so-called "thinking" about Iraq.

For openers, your thinking is clouded by a number of falsehoods. Despite the definitive evidence to the contrary, you continue to insist that Saddam Hussein's regime was responsible for the destruction of New York's World Trade Center. Despite daily bombings in Iraq, despite the daily deaths of American soldiers and Iraqi civilians, you continue to insist that operations in Iraq are going well and making progress. Despite the swelling ranks and increasing boldness of the insurgency, you continue to insist that it is freedom rather than terror that is on the march.

Your presentation, too, is clouded by a number of highly misleading, if politically clever, maneuvers. I notice that you gave this speech before a crowd of soldiers, hardly the sort of audience that would challenge even your most grievous errors; as usual, you set yourself up to look good no matter what you say. And it's all very well for you to pretend to weep at the images of horror coming out of Iraq these days, and to declare that these sacrifices are worth it, but your failure to attend even one military funeral brought on by this so-called war on terror casts additional clouds over your presentation last night. We will not believe your protestations of sorrow, Mr. President, until your actions speak at least as loudly as your rhetoric.

This is not the only example of muddy thinking brought on by political gamesmanship in last night's speech. Your contempt for American citizens was about the only clear message you got across, in a number of different ways. Did you think we don't know that Iraq's status as a haven for the Middle East's terrorists is a result of your war, not a cause? Did you think we don't understand that every action step you proposed last night was simply more of what you've been doing right along? Did you think we'd go along with you when you refused to either send more troops or withdraw the ones who are there, as if the ongoing murder of our young men and women was an acceptable state of affairs? When you told us the sacrifices required by this war are worth it and suggested steps we might take, did you think we're unwilling to do anything more than visit some soldier's family? Do you realize, sir, that you're talking to us like we're a bunch of moronic, decadent, spoiled children, exactly what the world's terrorists think we are? Does irony make any impression on you at all?

There's a saying that you would do well to take to heart in these times, which says that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, while expecting a different result. Last night you got up in front of a national audience and proceeded to do just that, while asking us to accept you as a model of good sense and intelligence. And then, having displayed your muddy thinking for all the world to see, you have the gall to tell us that "As Iraq stands up, we will stand down," and want us to believe that this is a clear strategy.

Mr. President, if last night's speech made anything clear whatsoever, it is the undeniable fact that you have no brains, no heart and no backbone. Your incompetence unfits you for any public office above the level of traffic cop, much less President of the United States. I want your resignation and I want it now.

Israeli justice

An Israeli military court has convicted a former Israeli soldier of manslaughter for killing a pro-Palestinian British activist in 2003.

Let's grant a few things:

Granted that Israel's treatment of the Palestinians is mediocre at best. (I know, there are those who say that Israel's treatment of the Palestinians is fascist, but I am not prepared to grant that.)

Granted that, given the facts of the case, manslaughter might possibly have been too lenient a verdict - it's at least debatable whether this guy murdered the Brit or not;

Granted that there may be other soldiers in the Israeli army who have done similar things and have not been prosecuted yet;

Granted that, although the shooter is an Arab, he was a soldier in the Israeli army and that Israel therefore bears some responsibility for the incident (I won't even object if you want to call it a crime);

Granted all that, I address myself to those who claim that the Jewish state of Israel has no right to exist and that the territory ought to be re-made as another Arab nation in the region.

If the situation were reversed, and a soldier in some Arab nation's army shot and killed a pro-Israeli activist under similar circumstances, I challenge you to seriously assert that there's one Arab government that would even put the shooter on trial, much less convict him. Admit it or not, you know that the shooter would become a national hero the very next day.

And for those of you who haven't made up your minds about the Mideast conflict - yes, both of you - the next time someone claims in your hearing that Israel is a fascist state conducting a program of genocide among the innocent Arabs to further its imperialist agenda, remember this incident, and remember that there is one state in the region that still abides by the rule of law. No one but Israel.

Benshlomo says, Close your mouth and open your eyes.

Multiple Personality Disorder

Do you believe in Cheney?

Or do you believe in Rumsfeld?

George W. Bush used to be the Edgar Bergen of his administration, with row upon row of Charlie McCarthys at his disposal. Now it looks like some of these wooden dummies are finding voices of their own. Oops.

Benshlomo says, Watch the puppetmaster's head come apart.

What I'm Not

My fiancee (whom I will refer to on this blog as Little Miss until I get a better idea, because she's rather like the character in the Asimov story in her care of me), has made the interesting suggestion that I use this space to cover some controversies in Jewish life and practice. I'm no scholar, but I've been taught a few things, so let's see how it goes.

Let's start with a practice that many feminists find highly objectionable, one that leads some of them to assert that observant Judaism is a misogynistic system. Each morning, an observant Jewish man will say, among other things, "Bless are You, Lord our God, for not making me a woman."

That link actually covers what I was taught on this subject, and it links back to a lot of other women's issues in observant Judaism as well. I'll just mention that this prayer bothers me too, despite the explanations given.

Most observant Jewish families that I know include working mothers, and quite a few of them own businesses or work in the professions, so the phrase "not making me a woman" implies no disrespect for women's abilities at all. Nevertheless, as Ms. Kressel's site demonstrates, the prayer requires some explanation these days, and it's still bothersome.

That's the way it is with a lot of Jewish subjects, which I'll be writing about as time goes on. Meantime, let's ask this question - when it comes to your spiritual life, what are you looking for? Something that will validate everything you already believe, or something that requires some adjustment and some thinking from you? Something designed to make you feel good, or something designed to make you wise? Something you can bend to your will, or something that requires you to bend your will to that of Another?

Because if you want something spiritually that will encourage you to grow, rather than to stay still, take it from me - it's not going to be comfortable all the time.

Thanks, Little Miss.

Benshlomo says, God is not your drinking buddy.

Cruisin' for a Bruisin'

I like celebrity gossip as much as the next guy (okay, maybe not that much), but what the dickens is wrong with Tom Cruise lately?

He used to be such a nice guy, rescuing people in trouble and all that.

Now all of a sudden he's dissing Brooke Shields for getting some help he doesn't approve of, losing it over a crummy but harmless practical joke, and setting himself up as an expert on psychiatry.

Either he's really gone crazy because of a girl half his age, or he's running for President.

I'm embarrassed that I even care.

Benshlomo says, It's summer, when a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of paranoid schizophrenia.

Surprise!

Karl Rove is getting a nice pat on the back from White House sources for lying about the liberal approach to the war.

Is everyone paying attention? With a few lunatic exceptions, akin to the lunatics on the right, liberals have been suggeting for a while now that the thing to do is fight terrorism in such a way that we defeat it, rather than attacking nations that bear no responsibility for 9/11 and pose no threat. Karl "Maggot" Rove gets on national television and lies about that, saying that liberals want to send terrorists to trial and psychoanalyze them. And then President Shrub says that Maggot Boy is absolutely right and there's no need for an apology.

I'd say I was speechless, but this administration has been trying for years to stifle free speech.

Benshlomo says, Someone needs to sew shut every orifice in that blob of grease and watch him explode.

Nose is Longer than a Telephone Wire

And now that I've raged and had time to calm down, here's something worth considering.

My best friend is a moderately conservative man and his wife is a die-hard Bush supporter. I do not discuss politics with her and I only discuss politics with him when he brings it up, which he does on a surprisingly regular basis. Once, though, his wife brought up an interesting point.

She said that the liberals are to blame for the current lack of civility in public discourse because liberals, when you talk to them, get so condescending about those who disagree with them. Therefore, when it comes to publicly insulting your opposition, she said, the left started it.

I disagree with this, needless to say, but even if it were true there's one thing that this latest boner by Karl Rove makes clear (that is, it would be a boner if he looked like he's ever had sex in his life): Liberals, to the best of my knowledge, do not smear conservatives from the White House, the Cabinet, or the inner sancti (plural of sanctum) of the Executive Branch, whereas radical conservatives have been doing it for years (see what this jackass has to say about Democrats).

Benshlomo says, Anyone who tells me I don't love my country because I'm a liberal is ready to get socked.

To an Athlete Dying Young

Okay, she's not dead, but Brandi Chastain's career with the US Women's Soccer Team is over. And, of course, any minute now we'll be seeing her drop to her knees and rip off her jersey all over the news in those pictures from the 1999 World Cup.

I'm not a sports fan - I don't even watch baseball. (Don't tell anyone, you can get deported for admitting that.) This news still makes me feel sad, though. Brandi Chastain was about 31 years old when she showed us all what pure joy looks like (and what her torso looked like). She's not 40 now, and yet her coach thinks she's past it. He may even be right. Sport is probably the least forgiving pursuit there is, with the possible exception of music, painting, theater and movies, politics, and a couple dozen others.

Still, I've got two quotations in mind now. Can't remember the exact words or who said them. One goes something like this: "The most charming things in the world are charming just because they're temporary." The other (which I seem to recall comes from Ray Bradbury) goes something like this: "I like to read the sports page because on the front page I read about wars and murders, whereas on the sports page I read about human accomplishment and teamwork."

Benshlomo says, Keep on truckin'.

Not a Good News Day

Okay, one more time - The. Right. Wing. Is. A. Bunch. Of. Hypocrites.

Here, for instance, is a guy who calls himself a conservative. Remember when that used to mean a man who said American power was too centralized? The Presidency had become an imperial office, and Congress ought to act independently? Not anymore - now that there's a right-winger in the White House, being a conservative means being the President's lap dog.

In other news, remember how long Michael Jackson's trial took, and how the media let that circus drool all over the first half-hour of the nightly news? Don't you think this trial was a little more important? Here's a guy who apparently masterminded three horrible Mississippi deaths forty-odd years ago, and the prosecution somehow couldn't convince a group of jurors that he was guilty of anything more than manslaughter. I'm glad he's being put away, oxygen tank and all, but can't we do better than that?

Benshlomo says, Sometimes I just get so depressed.

Vision of Mt. Sinai

Yesterday was Shavuot, the holiday where we Jews commemorate the day we received the Torah about six weeks after leaving Egypt.

We're supposed to stay up all the previous night learning. Some, who know how, will learn Torah with partners while sitting across from each other at a table in a library full of books in Hebrew. Others will take classes from rabbis or other knowledgeable people. I didn't do that.

We're supposed to have a celebratory feast, traditionally featuring dairy items and lentils. I didn't do that.

We're supposed to read the Biblical book of Ruth, the story of a woman from the ancient land of Moab who marries a Jewish man, then is widowed, and follows her mother-in-law back to the land of Israel and becomes a Jew. She is an ancestor of King David, and therefore of the Messiah. I read that book, in English.

It's a "chag", or holiday described in the Torah itself, and a holy day, so we do no work but go to the prayer house instead. I took the day off work, but I didn't go to the synagogue.

What I did do was ask my girlfriend to marry me. She said yes.

Looking into her eyes as I asked her, it seemed like I saw a vision of life that I wasn't familiar with, and like all the remaining walls around my soul were coming down. It hurt a little, but less than the delight it all brought.

I don't suppose that my vision was anything like the vision at Mt. Sinai all those thousands of years ago, but it's a step in the right direction.

Benshlomo says, Thank you God.

A Little Late

Benshlomo says, duh.

What We Learn from Reality TV

I blush to admit it, but this actually strikes me as a fairly decent idea.

I haven't seen it, and I'm afraid that the producers probably spend a lot of time condescending to both the beauties (some of whom are not really all that beautiful) and the geeks (some of whom look perfectly normal), but I still like the notion of bringing peope together to help each other out. When I was an early-20s hopeless case, back in the Middle Ages, I could have used something like this.

Also interesting is that, when googling this show, I ran across several sites (not the official one above) that obviously copied someone's press release word for word. "They're so far apart socially they're practically different species," they all said, and a number of other cute phrases. In the old days, the publicity mill could have gotten away with this, but in the digital present it's a little too obvious that someone isn't WORKING.

That's the other thing I'm embarrassed to admit - when I realized these publicity sites actually copied text from one another, I was actually shocked. Who knew I was such an innocent at my age?

Benshlomo says, Oh my virgin ears.

Those Pesky Headlines

Oh could he, now?

UPDATE: Looks like someone at CNN caught it, more's the pity. The headline used to read something like "Keys Could Feel Arlene This Weekend." I like the original version better.

Benshlomo says, Hey, CNN, don't be such a wimp.

Open Letter to the White House - African Debt Relief

Dear Mr. President:

I read with interest your announcement with Prime Minister Blair of a plan to relieve the debt of African nations who are "on the path to reform". Sounds good - better, in fact, than just about anything I've heard from your administration since the year 2000.

That's not saying much, of course, since I've heard little but nonsense from your office in all these years, and upon closer examination I have a number of questions regarding this "relief" program as well.

Who is going to determine which African nations are "on the path to reform"? Granted that we do not want to support dictatorships, America tragically has a long history of doing just that, including the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein; why are we to trust ourselves to change that pattern now? Furthermore, Africa contains almost nothing but dictatorships at present, from more benign ones in places like Egypt to genuinely frightening ones in places like Sudan - can you give us a more accurate definition of the activity that constitutes the "path to reform"?

I notice that you took the opportunity at your press conference with Prime Minister Blair to announce an addition of $674 million in aid to African nations, over and above the current $1.5 billion America has pledged. This, again, sounds pretty good, until we set it against the $25 billion package that Prime Minister Blair advocates and that you have done your level best to block. I also notice that you took the opportunity to praise your administration's charitable impulses, stating that aid to Africa has tripled during your administration. Again, this sounds wonderful until one recalls that you are woefully behind schedule in terms of the amount of aid you promised to Africa at the beginning of your term. Would you please explain, given all these discrepancies, how you expect an additional $674 million in aid to impact a problem as large as African debt?

Finally, as compared to this additional $674 million, the amounts you have spent on the war in Iraq strike one as colossal beyond all comprehension. Over the last four years, you have spent some $17 billion on the war, and the results are less than impressive. Saddam Hussein languishes in prison, true, and in his underwear at that (as Prime Minister Blair must know, since the photos of Saddam in his underwear appeared in an English paper). On the other hand, the new government in Baghdad progresses toward genuine democratic reform at a snail's pace, while the insurgency grows in strength and boldness every day. If $17 billion over four years produces this morass, could you tell us how you expect $674 million in one year, spread over an entire continent, to produce any more hopeful result?

In short, your plans for African debt relief evidence your usual combination of lazy thinking, delusional fantasies, and lack of forethought, not to mention your usual failure to support your allies. I can only feel sorry for Prime Minister Blair, who has shown you nothing but the fiercest loyalty throughout your term of office to date, only to find the ground cut out from under him every time.

As for your spending plans themselves, as I often find, this announcement of yours has cleared up at least one confusing thing about your character. It's evident now that you like to spend money indiscriminately, but only on war. When it comes to more humane pursuits, you, like many men of your social class throughout history, are the worst kind of cheapskate. Not much has changed since you played toy soldiers on the nursery rug when you were a kid, has it, sir?

What Kind of Blog This Is

I didn't intend for this to be a political blog, really I didn't - I'm not informed or experienced enough to make a decent pundit, nor conceited enough, nor egotistical enough, etc.

No, whatever this blog was intended to be, exclusively political wasn't it, but what can you do when you read stuff like this?

Dr. Dean is right about one thing - I rather suspect that Republican criticism of him is intended to divert attention from this administration's delusional agenda. As for the Republicans being primarily a white, Christian party, they certainly were once. In this day and age, when the country is so evenly divided between liberal and conservative thought, you can't make generalizations like that about anyone.

I suspect that Dr. Dean actually meant to refer to this presidential administration in his remarks, not to the Republican party at large. Whether that's what he meant or not, it made me think of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld; now there's a white Christian party for you. And yes, that includes Rice and Gonzales.

And it's time for me to write to the Prez again, this time about this debt-reduction plan for Africa that he announced with Tony Blair the other day. After that it's goodbye to politics for a while - the Jewish holiday of Shavuot is coming up soon, when we celebrate the giving of the Torah on Mt. Sinai. That trumps both Doctor Dean and Undoctor Bush every time.

Benshlomo says, I beg your pardon, my priorities are a bit screwed up.

Mental Midget Mouthpiece

Here's a nice little speech from Al-Jazeera television featuring Member of the British Parliament George Galloway, yet another sucker for extremist Palestinian rhetoric and world socialism to boot.

In case it's not clear by now, I am (unlike, I'm sorry to say, most liberals) a Zionist, and anyone who states in my hearing that the world's problems are due to Israel and the West's support of her is in for a hell of a time.

Galloway goes on to state that world capitalism has killed more people than Adolf Hitler. Let me just point out that Josef Stalin also killed more people than Adolf Hitler, but do you suppose that this fool would have called Uncle Joe to account? I think we all know the answer to that one.

The point is that, whether or not world capitalism has actually killed more people than Adolf Hitler (which may indeed be true), that's not a sufficient reason to conclude that world capitalism is more evil than Nazism. I'll leave the details to your imagination.

Mr. Galloway expresses his regret that he can find no great Arab leader to fight for this cause. Someone like Nasser. Hoo boy.

Benshlomo says, Here come the marching morons.

Who's High?

It almost doesn't bear repeating, but a lot of people (blue or red states) don't seem to get it, so here goes: Most conservatives on a national level are hypocrites, including the Supreme Court.

This is a states-rights Court, remember, and supposedly believes that the individual states have authority to conduct their own business in areas for which the Constitution does not give authority to the national government. In truth, it's now clear, by "states' rights" the conservatives on this Court mean "the right of the states to govern themselves except when they try to do something conservatives don't like."

For instance, if a state passes a law giving its doctors the right to prescribe marijuana to their patients for the relief of pain or nausea in diseases like cancer or AIDS, you'd think the states-rights Court would say "Go for it, boys," wouldn't you? Nope.

They couch their decision as a matter of Congressional authority over commerce. That is, their argument says that the states may not legalize marijuana for any reason at all because such legalization falls under the heading of commerce, which is Congress' bailiwick and not a matter for the states to decide.

Let me get this straight - the medical use of marijuana is a matter of commerce. Right.

But then again, for all the conservative shouting about states' rights, this Court has interfered with the states quite often, remember?

I'm not much of a states-righter myself, although I've come to realize that the national government does take too much authority to itself. The memory of civil rights abuses in the South is too fresh for me to want the states to have too much decision-making power (remember, some Southern states denied basic human and civil rights to their black citizens as a matter of states rights, saying "We get to discriminate against some of our people if we want to!"). My point is not that states' rights is a valid or invalid policy - my point is that conservatives only believe in it when it's convenient. If the states want to teach bad science in the classroom, conservatives believe in states' rights - if the states want to give chemotherapy patients marijuana so they can keep their food down, suddenly conservatives don't believe in states' rights.

All of which begs the question; the Supreme Court doesn't let anyone observe its deliberations - what do you suppose they're smoking in there?

Benshlomo says, Smoke, smoke, smoke that cigarette.

Breathtaking

I've read about weddings taking place in caves, underwater, while parachuting, and even (if I remember correctly) in a tank full of snakes, but this?

Benshlomo says, At least they didn't consummate the marriage in the same spot.

Oedipus Prez

Everybody knows that George W. Bush has spent his life trying to measure up to his father, right? And that he never quite made it?

George Sr. was a fighter pilot in World War II - George Jr. sat out Vietnam as a pilot in the Texas Air National Guard.

George Sr. was a college athlete, playing baseball at Yale. George Jr. was a college athlete too, but his sport of choice gets far less respect - he was a yell leader.

George Sr. moved from his privileged upbringing in Maine (although he took a lot of money with him and never did give up his home or his cigarette boat) and made a fortune of his own in the oil business. George Jr. tried a couple dozen businesses, it seems like, ran them all into the ground and had to have his father's buddies bail him out.

Hell, there's even a suspicion that George Jr. started the war in Iraq just to prove that he could accomplish something his father never managed - to wit, the ouster of Saddam Hussein from power. He went so far as to say that he wanted Saddam because the man "threatened to kill my daddy."

And as if that wasn't enough, there was the time everyone knows about when a drunken George Jr. challenged the old man to a fistfight.

Well, what's the latest on the Bush home front? After all these years of George Jr. trying desperately to win Senior's approval, old George Herbert Walker Bush gives an interview discussing who might make a good president? Not George Jr., oh no - baby brother Jeb, that's who.

Benshlomo says, Oh my God, we're in for it now.

Cheap Throat

Well, well, well...now we know who Deep Throat was. His name is W. Mark Felt and he was second in command at the FBI during the Nixon administration.

He provided information to Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein which they printed in the Washington Post regarding the break-in at the Watergate Hotel, information which demonstrated that Nixon was, in fact, a crook and which led eventually to his resignation.

Mr. Felt did this because he worried that under Nixon, the White House sought an advantage over the FBI and the rest of the "intelligence community" (whatever that means). That is, Director Gray of the FBI at the time was in the habit of briefing the Nixon White House on matters that the FBI thought it shouldn't know about. In short, Mr. Felt brought down the Nixon White House in a power struggle.

Not that this makes Nixon an innocent victim or a good president, necessarily. And I can certainly understand those who wish that Deep Throat had acted from purer motives.

However, at bottom, I am reminded of something Benjamin Franklin said long ago about the founding of the United States of America: "Nations come into the world like bastard children - half compromised and half improvised." And clearly, the same can be said about the United States of today.

Benshlomo says, in the words of the old proverb, The wheels of justice grind slow, but they grind exceeding small.