If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
The fact that Republicans supported their corrupt president doesn't make the accusations against the Obama Administration baseless, but it should be enough to give Republican voters pause as we go forward.
Democratizing service and sacrifice would revitalize the meaning of citizenship, regenerate the civil-military relationship, and introduce an inclusiveness to help us find a more common basis of strength in our dangerously divided nation.
Smarting from its 2012 presidential election defeat, the Republican Party appears intent on bringing the Obama Administration to its knees. Diversions...
... fill in the blanks: Teapot Dome, Watergate, Iran Contra, Lewinsky... Benghazi? You may have noticed that every time one erupts, it's compared in heinousness to the last really big one.
I predict that when the last "lefty" white commentator has wrung the last drop of sanctimonious drivel out of the "failures" of this presidency that the actual facts will stand for all time.
Soldiers are well trained and prepared psychologically to face armed conflict. Civilian contractors, government servants and diplomats -- who serve alongside and in support of our military -- are not as well trained, prepared or supported pre, during and post deployment as their military counterparts.
The president is either moping or muttering defensively about the abuses by the IRS and the tragedy of Benghazi. As I see it, if he wakes up tomorrow and is willing to speak up, there are a few things he could fairly state. First, any suggestion that "the IRS" went after the Tea Party are bogus.
On the other end of the political spectrum from all of the foolishness in D.C. is a groundswell of terrific, on-the-ground activism and organizing work taking place across the country in just about every state, with tangible results.
On the face of it, the Tea Party seems autonomous and even a thorn in the side of the GOP. But that façade masks the real truth about the Tea Party, which is that ultimately it is less a political organization than a contract killer working for the Republicans.
Many in Washington now dismiss further assistance to Libya as useless: the Libyans themselves are fractious and have limited 'absorbtive capacity.' At the same time, it is wrong to say we have no influence in Libya, or that we have no means of increasing that capacity.
What a week for Republicans! It started with Obama fighting off simultaneous scandals and 24 coming back this Fall. But as Spitzer and Reagan discuss, by Friday the Scandals Scorecard revealed more smoke than fire. Who'll tell FOX?
I might suggest that we first take a deep breath and make an effort to put the events of the past week in some perspective, but I know it wouldn't do any good. There is blood in the water and in deeply partisan Washington, the struggle for advantage and power always trumps reality.
Scandals real and imagined rocked Washington this week. See how good of a muckraker you are by taking our news quiz.
By attacking Obama, the Republicans are throwing red meat to their base, which is an increasingly small and extreme group of right-wingers. The danger of tossing red meat to a tiger is that it becomes even more aggressive.
Imagine a Washington, D.C. where Republicans came to work each day fired up with renewed passion and zeal. A Congress where energized Republicans legislated in bi-partisan fashion on behalf of the American people.
Every U.S. president should visit a Blackjack table in Atlantic City sometime in the first term. It should happen just as they are in the middle of those Dreams From Your Ego, which promise bright new hopes if they can only win that second term.
