Short Stories, Long Odds

Here’s to the confusion of our enemies! – Frank Sinatra

Dear Government:

I would like to ask you a question. If I were in charge of Homeland Security (or just if we were living in that fantasy world where everyone listened to me and believed in my righteous rightness), can you guess where I would put all the money? I would most likely give the majority of it to our largest ports and busiest airports, as well as major metropolitan centers, especially those with mass transit systems. That would be the terrorism money. The natural disaster money is something different.

But I’m curious, Homeland Security -why would you give most of the terrorism money to Alabama? I’m just spitballing here, and I know I’ve said it before, but how many terrorists are casing a joint like Alabama? Why would you give Kansas a million Congressional Funbucks, but deny all applications from Newport News, VA, America’s sixth busiest port and home to a major Coast Guard facility?

I understand that it is easy to sit back and point fingers, and to become an Armchair Despot. I get that. But this doesn’t make any sense. If you combine that with the State Department’s current Weapons / Jungle Warfare Shopping Spree, and you get Italian guys in your brain. They emphatically, yet coloquially, implore you to banish the consideration of such obvious oddities from memory

How well I have learned that there is no fence to sit on between heaven and hell. There is a deep, wide gulf, a chasm, and in that chasm is no place for any man. – Johnny Cash

Uh-oh. You need a subscription to read it, and if you’re too lazy, let me get you up ins: We are mad at Syria and our diplomats, particularly our Ambassador to Iraq, are angry at Syria. Sure, we were angry at them earlier this year for their occupation of Lebanon, but that worked out better than expected. What we’re really mad at now is what we’ve been saying for a while: Syria is aiding the insurgency in Iraq.

“Our patience is running out,” said the ambassador, Zalmay Khalilzad.

How ominous! Its almost as if we’re now openly discussing some sort of plan to go after other countries in the Middle East!

The smart money now is not on aggression against Syria. We don’t have the manpower or the resources to go after such an endeavor. This could be a rogue diplomat with his credentialed panties in a wad. But considering how thick we are into Iraq now, I somehow doubt such a hardline statement would come out of the diplomatic corps without some sort of okay from State.

Unless! Unless Iraq is planning on attacking Syria on its own! While totally implausible for at least a few years, that Iraq could mount any sort of military operation on its own, it still sort of makes you break out in a low-grade greasy sweat, doesn’t it?

Its cool though, I’m sure the civil war in Iraq will last way longer than Syria’s current regime.

You don’t have to hear it from me to know that things have gone south for the reasonable among us in the month or so since I left you. The last, despairing cries of my undergraduate career are echoing in the halls of the clean, ill-lighted place my days have become.

By that, I in no way mean that things are bad. Don’t think it. If I’m not at the Democrat HQ surrounded by good people, I’m in German class, where we’ve become good friends during our own private war mit Deutschem. If I’m not in those places, I’m home spending well-deserved time with my wife.

Now that we’re all caught up, let’s talk about the world. Not one of my favorite subjects these days.

My friend Jason was a combat medic in the US Special Forces. He still has Top Top Secret clearance, so it was no surprise to him that he received a phone call from someone still in the uniform Thursday morning. His aquaintance had been on one of the trains.

“He got hit with one of the chairs, and he said people were blown all over the place,” Jason said.

“Never mind that,” I said. “Give me the numbers. You’re familiar with this sort of thing, and 2 dead, 70 wounded sounds low.”

“You can expect a lot more. It won’t be pretty.”

It turned out to be a lot more. The Radio Funhogs suggested that now terrorists are bad at their jobs because this attack was “unsuccessful” and that also now is the time to buy stocks. The selling of the world picks up when things explode.

So China bails us out on a regular basis with RedBucks and the War On Terror’s failures are being trumpted as the obviation of our need for George Bush. The pundits say that 4 simultaneous bombings of our closest ally is a failure and that the War On Terror is working. Sandra Day O’Connor retires instead of (or perhaps along with, but at least before) Rehnquist, and my brother-in-law joins the Navy because not many other options in the world we’ve inherited look appealing.

I spent some more time with my Uncles, and they had more good natured ribbing. “What would Democrats do on Defense, Josh?” they ask.

I say “We would sure as shit have the good sense to take care of our soldiers when they come home. We wouldn’t cut veteran’s benefits. We’d make sure our soldiers have the tools they need to do the job.” The words fell out of my mouth and I realized I was reciting talking points. These are things I believe my party would do, but I sounded like a flak and it got my goat.

“But never mind that,” I said. “Woodrow Wilson, FDR, and Harry Truman were all filthy liberals, as your favorite guys like to call us. Harry Truman was a liberal, and he dropped the A-Bomb. Republicans can’t even make sure these guys have health insurance when they get sent home a leg lighter. How is that hard on defense?”

My words had become hard and my eyes flinty. My heart was full of ire and I hated more than ever that what is happening to my country is out of my control. I love these guys and I felt sorry for them, like they’d been ultimately mislead. None of us know anything but what the media tells us, so how am I any better than the guy with the W sticker on his car who thinks a little human rights abuse during freedom’s march is the cost of doing business?

A few days later I found myself in the company of another Deutschfreunden, a guy I call Metal Mike. We were having a cup of coffee outside the Jupiter House at 1 am and talking the hard talk of men who understand politics and can no longer dream big because the reasonable die lonely political deaths in the back alleys of idealism. Two guys sat next to us and played songs on their guitars.

Another patron of the Jupiter House turned to us after Metal Mike explained why he usually voted Republican but thought they were getting a little out of hand. The new guy said “You know, sometimes I wish Democrats would just come out and say that abortion is wrong but choice is important, or offer a plan about foreign policy. I couldn’t vote for Kerry because, while I knew Bush was bad, I didn’t have any idea how Kerry would be or what he would do. I did not vote”

I said “Never mind that. Gary Hart once told Hunter S. Thompson that part of the Democratic Party’s problem was that it ‘doesn’t have any policies. It doesn’t have any direction. People know that. They’d rather go with a Republican they know than a Democrat, a devil they don’t know.’”

This was in 1987. If it sounds familiar, well, there’s a reason for that. Later on in the conversation, Hunter told Hart that “we can’t afford another four years of these Half-Bright Rich Boys in the White House. Its time to win. We must maintain the bloodlines.”

This is a good point, and a true story. Its time to win, and to win will require the dirty work of a thousand guys like me in the back-water back-alleys of politics. It won’t happen in the smoke-filled room. There are no magic bullets and there are no quick fixes – every solution to one problem opens the door on another, bigger problem with a flat head and a mean mouth.

If we ever get to foreign policy, the clean, ill-lighted room will have gotten very large indeed.

On February 17th, Sensenbrenner and a few of his pals introduced this legislation:

109th CONGRESS
1st Session
H. J. RES. 24

Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States to repeal the 22nd amendment to the Constitution.

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

February 17, 2005

Mr. HOYER (for himself, Mr. BERMAN, Mr. SENSENBRENNER, Mr. SABO, and Mr. PALLONE) introduced the following joint resolution; which was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary

JOINT RESOLUTION

Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States to repeal the 22nd amendment to the Constitution.

Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled (two-thirds of each House concurring therein), That the following article is proposed as an amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which shall be valid to all intents and purposes as part of the Constitution when ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States within seven years after the date of its submission for ratification:
`Article --

`The twenty-second article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States is repealed.'.

Despite what I think about how the 2006 midterms will turn out, if the GOP gets anything CLOSE to a 2/3 majority in both houses, hello Glorious General George.

This is real – its made it through at least one committee. Its in the Library of Congress Congressional Record, and it hasn’t been killed yet.

I’m not usually one to run off to the Panic Barn and freak out about little things. Legislation like this gets proposed all the time – balanced budget amendments, to repeal the 22nd amendment, etc. Clinton got a party similar to this one started during his time in office.

I wouldn’t normally be worried about something like this, if not for the GOP making so many moves to consolidate power lately, chief among those being the nuclear option. I’m not saying the sky is falling, I’m just saying that this bears watching.

Or perhaps, what is and is not actually news. Or even, the halflife of news.

We’ve been inundated with the Pope for the last week. The Pope is still dead everytime I turn on my TV. I think airing his funeral was fine – he is, after all, an historic figure and as such deserves airtime – but the amount of coverage dedicated to the Pope in the last week created some serious problems.

For instance, this story ran on Sunday, April 3rd, and it gives details concerning an attack on Abu Ghraib by about 60 insurgents. At least 50 US soldiers were injured in the attack, that number up from the initially reported 20 and later updated to 44. Did you hear about this? You probably didn’t. It made page A-16 of the New York Times.

At the end of March 2005, the number of United States soldiers wounded in Iraq was 11,442. I don’t know how many of them lost limbs or eyes or will be broken for life, but war injuries tend to not be skinned knees.

Here’s an interesting accompanying fact for you – did you know that if you get wounded in action and cannot finish your tour of duty, if you received a signing bonus you have to pay it back? It enters repayment 30 days after you go home, and it shows up on your credit. I’m willing to bet this is also something you didn’t hear of.

Prince Charles got married today to Camilla Parker Bowles. He’s the man who might be King someday (if the monarchy lasts that long) so I understand why this would make the news. Maybe a 30-second segment with some shots of the ceremony. That’s fine. Hell, I’ll even give you a minute for it.

But I watched CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC in a rotation for three hours this morning, and I didn’t hear one word about the massive anti-American protest in Iraq. Nor did I hear about the CBS cameraman who was shot and then arrested by coalition forces.

You would think a story about a journalist getting shot and arrested in the midst of a conflict that the newspaper guild CWA and the American Federation of Radio and Television Artists purport carries an extremely high casualty rate for media personnel would make the news. They even said so in a letter to President Bush. It is, in fact, news about the news, and it doesn’t make the news.