Month: January 2009

The appointment of Leon Panetta as Director of the Central Intelligence Agency is to be applauded, as Panetta comes to that sensitive position with an impressive resume.

Not only did Panetta have a significant career in the US House as a California Representative, but also he served Bill Clinton for a few years as Chief of Staff, and also was a member of the Iraq Study Group which assessed the Iraq war controversy.

It is true that he has not worked directly in the intelligence field, but he is a very capable man with excellent judgment, and a person such as Panetta is just what the CIA needs after much controversy over use of torture, and the general image that the agency has been involved in illegal, abusive use of its power, something investigated before by the Church Committee in the mid 1970s. 

We need a strong, effective CIA, but also a CIA that lives within legal limits that can be monitored by Congress, and Panetta will be able to restore the moral basis of this very important agency.  It also bodes well for a return to lawfulness by the executive branch in the continuing War on Terror.

It was disappointing news to hear that Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico, President Elect Obama’s choice for Secretary of Commerce, has withdrawn because of a grand jury investigation dating back to events in 2004 in that state.  There is no claim at this time that Richardson has done anything wrong, but he felt that the whole issue would delay his confirmation hearings and complicate the beginning of the Obama Administration. 

Obama has indicated that he hopes to employ Richardson later on when this grand jury investigation hopefully ends on a positive vein.  Richardson has a tremendous background in government, having served in the US House, as United Nations Ambassador and Secretary of Energy under Bill Clinton, as well as being governor of his home state since 2003.  He also, of course, was a competitor in the 2008 Democratic Presidential nomination battle.

Now Obama must work quickly to find an equivalent person of great talents and experience to fill that crucial position as head of the Commerce Department, an extremely important agency at all times, but particularly at a time of great economic turmoil  as we are now experiencing.

The state canvassing board and state court of Minnesota have ruled that Al Franken, the former comedian on Saturday Night Live and radio talk show host, has won the Senate seat over Senator Norm Coleman by a total of 225 votes statewide.

It is quite clear that Coleman will not prevail in a court suit, and meanwhile the state of Minnesota will suffer with only one senator, at a crucial time where every vote is needed for the Democratic administration of Barack Obama that begins in fifteen days. 

This may not be pleasing to the Republican party, but one cannot contend that the vote recount has been unfair.  Remember that Coleman was ahead right after the election, but a careful, tedious consideration of the close vote and of contested ballots has led to the changing of the result.  How can Coleman claim corruption, when there is no evidence of it? 

It is time for Norm Coleman to do the right thing and gracefully concede defeat and offer his assistance to Al Franken in doing what is best for Minnesotans!

After much reflection, I now believe that there is no just cause to deny Roland Burris, the choice of Governor Rod Blagojevich for Barack Obama’s Senate seat, to be denied that right.

My original thought was that Blagojevich should not be allowed to make that Senate appointment, but when one looks at the present situation, we must face the facts:  Blagojevich has been accused of corruption by prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, but there has been delay in bringing an indictment, and to deny the fifth largest state in population one of its two senators, is unjust.  Blagojevich is innocent until proven guilty in a court of law, and he has not been indicted or convicted and not even yet impeached by the Illinois legislature.  That body failed to take the opportunity to change the state law and allow for an election for the remaining two years of the term, and meanwhile the state deserves proper representation.

Burris is not personally tainted by the Blagojevich controversy, and should not be victimized by simple accusations against the governor.  If the people of Illinois through the ballot box do not want Burris as the Democratic nominee in 2010 or to be the winner of a full six year term, that is their privilege, but one cannot contend that Burris is not qualified.  There are no specific qualifications to be a US Senator by appointment or election other than age and citizenship, and Burris is certainly not without credentials.  He was the first African American candidate to win statewide, a total of four times, as State Controller and State Attorney General.  He may not be a household name to the nation at large, but that does not matter.

It is time for Harry Reid and Dick Durbin, the top two Democratic leaders in the Senate, to stop preventing the lawful seating of Roland Burris as the next senator from Illinois, for at least the next two years!  We need that extra vote in the Senate for the Democratic administration of Barack Obama beginning in fifteen days!

President George H W Bush was on Fox News Sunday this morning, promoting the idea of his younger son, Jeb, the former governor of Florida, running for the Senate seat of retiring Senator Mel Martinez.

While certainly one can understand that a father tends to be proud of his sons, Bush Sr went further, suggesting that Jeb also run for President one day, as well as serve in the Senate.  He stated that the Bushes believe in "service", but also admitted but not right now or soon, as there may have been too many Bushes already for the time being.

Let’s give credit to the elder Bush that "service" is a good thing, but also agree that now is not the time to talk about a future Presidency.  His blunt statement of "too many Bushes" rings more than true, and despite his fatherly wishes, the thought of a future Bush Presidency is a horrifying thought, even with the clear understanding that Jeb was and is more capable than his brother, George W, who many now think will go down as possibly the worst President in American history.

My thoughts are the Bushes have done more than enough "service"  in the years they have held power, and as was said when Jeb Bush ran for re-election as Governor of Florida in 2002, "eliminate the Bushes, not the trees!"  LOL 

As we begin the year 2009, we can finally see the end of the Bush Presidency on January 20, and that date comes not too soon.

The tenure of George W. Bush in the Presidency is already rated as possibly the worst of our history, rivaling that of James Buchanan, Warren G. Harding, Franklin Pierce, Andrew Johnson, Ulysses S. Grant and Herbert Hoover.  Even these Presidents had some virtues, as for instance, Buchanan, Pierce, Johnson and Hoover only had one term in office and Harding died after two and a half years in office.  Grant, like Bush, served two terms, but he had the virtue of being our most successful general during the Civil War.  Bush, on the other hand, came into office under a cloud of being appointed by a partisan Supreme Court which had no authority to intervene in the contested election,  and he proceeded to do tremendous damage to America in just about every possible way.

No one could have imagined the disaster awaiting us.  Bush lied to the nation about the danger of Iraq, a war now ending its sixth year with the loss of over four thousand US soldiers and over 30,000 wounded, half of them severely, and no immediate end to the mess.  Bush dropped the ball on Afghanistan and that war seems interminable as well.  Bush was lazy and not up to par on intelligence, and had he been otherwise, MIGHT have prevented the shock of 9/11.  He undermined our respect in the world and did tremendous damage to our credibility and alliances with our European allies.  America’s international standing is at its low point in the period of American world leadership since 1945.

Not only was our foreign policy horribly twisted by Bush, but the impact of his Vice President, Dick Cheney, was to promote evil and destroy our Constitution by endorsing the use of torture and the violation of the civil liberties of our citizens.  In the process of fighting world wide terrorism, we saw our government set out to destroy our own democracy and belief that America was a special place that would always stand for good in the world. 

Bush also promoted economic policies that made the rich richer, the poor poorer, and sent many in the middle class into a spiral of economic collapse that has now led to the greatest economic downturn since the Great Depression.  Great fear and uncertainty remain as to just how low our economy will fall in the new year.  Many millions of Americans will be so damaged by the collapse of housing,  employment, and retirement plans, that it will take probably at least a decade for a full recovery from the disaster we are now witnessing. 

Bush’s failure to come to the aid of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina in 2005 will also contribute to the sense that he might go down as the worst President in US history.  His speech after that disaster which made him briefly sound like Lyndon Johnson at his best on the Great Society will continue to promote cynicism that one could believe anything he said or advocated while in office. 

Bush also presided over the demise of the Republican party, which only belatedly has repudiated him and his record, hoping to revive and return to power, but it seems as if they are going in the wrong direction, when they enthuse over Sarah Palin, condemn Bush’s belated actions on financial rescue as "socialism", and make it clear that they have no intention of appealing to the various interest groups that brought them down in the election of 2008.  As long as the GOP remains the party of religious zealots and is heavily southern and Appalachian rural whites, it has no future.

Bush was an embarrassment much of the time in the White House with his statements and actions, even bragging that he did not read the newspapers, and he set a bad model for young people by seemingly repudiating the need to be knowledgeable and educated.  But now suddenly at the end of his Presidency, we are being told by Karl Rove that he and Bush competed with each other for how many books they could read annually.  For one to believe that Bush read more than one book a week is beyond all credibility. 

Bush promoted the "big lie"  technique and emphasized the glories of ignorance and narrow mindedness, not the kind of traits one would wish in the White House.  As he moves back to Texas later this month, one can say "good riddance", and wish that he remain in private life out of the public eye, as he has been a disgrace and leaves us with more cynicism and pessimism about politics than anyone since Richard Nixon, and even he had more virtues than Bush!  Imagine that and weep for our nation!

Let us hope that Barack Obama can regain our dignity in the world, restore health to our economy, revive our Constitution and civil liberties, make us a country again of "we",  not "me",  and convince us once again that we can believe in our political leadership as a model for our children!