Eric Shinseki on The Huffington Post

Trish Kinney: Vietnam, Agent Orange and Secretary Shinseki's Timely Decisions

2009-10-16T10:24:23Z

A small article appeared on the bottom of a right-hand inside page of USA Today this week with the headline "VA May Ease Rules for Vietnam Vets." The story, acknowledged as first reported by the New York Times, was short and required further research to understand. What it boils down to is that three new medical conditions may gain presumptive status as to their causal relationship to Agent Orange exposure in Vietnam. These conditions, Parkinson's disease, ischemic heart disease, and B cell leukemias will join an existing list already presumed to be caused by Agent Orange exposure including prostate cancer, respiratory cancers, soft tissue sarcomas, Hodgkin's disease, multiple myeloma, and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.

Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric Shinseki was quoted as saying, "Since my confirmation as Secretary, I've often asked why, 40 years after Agent Orange was last used in Vietnam, we're still trying to determine the health consequences to our veterans who served in the combat theatre. Veterans who endure a host of health problems deserve timely decisions." Indeed, and with due respect, Secretary Shinseki.

I spent twenty years working with Vietnam combat veterans as a result of two years of intense research for my first film, Home of the Brave. I received hundreds of letters and phone calls from Vietnam veterans who were willing to tell their stories, mostly for the first time, for this work. The stories were so disturbing, reflecting the Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) of their tellers, that I experienced PTSD symptoms myself from continuing exposure to their trauma, and actually underwent treatment at my local Vet Center in order to complete the project. The film was used as an education and therapy tool in schools, family counseling centers and veteran treatment facilities and also aired on PBS.

Later I served as President of Operation Freedom Bird for many years, accompanying fifty hand-selected veterans in PTSD related treatment at the VA and their counselors to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial (the Wall) in Washington, D.C. each Veteran's Day. A difficult but ultimately healing experience of sharing, bonding, confronting and remembering, the Vet Center counseling staff believes that the participants may receive as much as four years worth of therapy in those few short days.

My memories of the trips are powerful and unforgettable. Standing in front of black granite in the dead of night in the cold November air, I watched as the men first reached out to touch the names of those whose stories were linked to their own and listened as they began to tell those stories that had been bottled up inside for so many years. We took veterans to the Wall who were very sick, some with the "presumptive diseases," and, in some cases, later attended their funerals. At our end-of-day sessions each evening, counselors gently guided the discussion away from anger and frustration with the VA and its delays and denials, instead focusing on healing and renewal.

Throughout my work on the film, and in all my years with Operation Freedom Bird, I never met a Vietnam combat veteran who said that combat was worse than the treatment received at the hands of the American people upon returning home. Being rejected and spurned by their own country was a violation of a sacred trust, often setting their PTSD in stone. When their physical issues began to intensify, and the frustrating struggle increased to prove that Agent Orange caused or contributed to their cancers, their children's birth defects, and other serious ailments, rejection of benefits and related care by the Veterans Administration sent them further into depression and despair. Families broke up and lives were shattered. Many veterans, due to both the physical and emotional toll of their service, did not survive.

While we were shooting the film over a three day period, we shared lunch with the camera crew. Deeply moved by working on this intense and raw material with the cast of real Vietnam veterans, the head cameraman addressed us all for the first time on the final production day. He was 10 years old when his brother was killed in Vietnam. His parents were so ashamed of his service that they put all his personal effects as well as all family photos and reminders of his life in boxes in the attic, as though he never existed, his brother said. After having the privilege of working on Home of the Brave with the veterans, he said he would take his summer vacation that year, go home to Iowa, and get his brother out of the attic.

The Vietnam combat veterans I know are loyal, dear friends who once guided me through my own close encounter with death as a high risk cancer patient. They taught me how to stare down death without looking away and worry about survivor's guilt later. They taught me how to think of chemotherapy as my army of foot soldiers and the loss of my hair to be the result of friendly fire, good fast growing cells accidentally killed by the chemicals. A bear hug from a Vietnam combat vet often held twice the healing power of any medicine. They were there when I needed them most to support and encourage. I am heartbroken that we, as a society, haven't been there for them when they needed us the most.

Being an eye witness over the years to the post-war emotional and physical toll of Vietnam service, I can honestly say that I am glad that the Agent Orange presumptive list has been expanded but puzzled by the secretary's comments about veterans deserving "timely decisions." I am afraid it is a little too late for that.

Jon Soltz: How General McChrystal May Have Hurt Himself

2009-10-08T12:32:37Z

In the debate about the internal White House debate on which way to go in Afghanistan, one piece has been seldom talked about - did General Stanley McChrystal hurt his own cause?

There is absolutely no doubt where McChrystal stands: He wants a massive influx of troops, to execute a counter-insurgency strategy, which includes securing the people, taking and holding of areas, and rooting out al Qaeda and the Taliban. The strategy would very much mirror what was done in Iraq. Now, leaving aside for the moment whether this strategy would work in Afghanistan, the way the General made his case may have done more harm to his opinion than good.

From his speech in England, to his interview with 60 Minutes, to the piece by Bob Woodward that detailed his fight, the General has been incredibly public, taking the debate out from closed doors. It's hard for me to criticize that in and of itself. After all, the many veterans I represent, and I, stood up for General Shinseki when he took his criticism public of the Bush/Rumsfeld strategy to invade Iraq. VoteVets.org gave voice to Generals Eaton and Batiste, who resigned from the military so they could speak out.

But therein lies the rub - from Generals MacArthur to Shinseki, history has taught us that trying to pressure your Commander in Chief from the outside almost never results in a change of opinion from the President. In fact, it breeds tension that could lose the debate, if not your job.

For all the criticism from the left and right about President Obama, no one can argue that, so far, he hasn't deferred to military leaders on most issues. From the early days of his administration when he approved a troop increase for Afghanistan, to his ordering a study rather than a quick repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell, to keeping pictures of Abu Ghraib under wraps, the President has heeded the advice of military minds, and has been backed up by the most senior retired officer in his inner circle, General James L. Jones.

On this occasion, however, Jones' response to McChrystal has been telling. Jones hasn't taken the General's side, or gone out of his way to defend him. In fact, on CNN, Jones bluntly said of McChrystal's public stance, "It is better for military advice to come up through the chain of command."

Ouch.

If I had to make a gut call right now, I'd say McChrystal won't get what he was asking for, but more of a hybrid strategy that focuses mainly on counter-terrorism - quick strikes against al Qaeda and some Taliban, yet some more troops to help the Afghan Army in some areas, and train them. Coming from President Obama, who is notoriously non-confrontational, that compromise strategy would mark the first time he's really said "no" to the military to any real degree, and some of that may have to do with how McChrystal handled all of this. It basically puts McChrystal on warning that he doesn't call the shots.

During the campaign, the President made a constant point of saying he wanted vigorous debate within the White House, and wanted to be told when he may be wrong. All indications are that he's getting his wish. That the debate has spilled outside the confines of the situation room, however, might not be the change he was looking for, or something he'll stand for much longer.

Crossposted at VetVoice.com

Michael D. Brown: Sen. Mark Udall and VA Secretary Shinseki Finger Pointing on Tim Masters Case

2009-09-27T22:41:48Z

Imagine being tried and convicted in 1999 for a murder you did not commit. Now imagine those nine years, five months and twelve days you spend in a Colorado state penitentiary for that murder. It happened in Colorado and while the subject of this post is not about the murders, you should read about Tim Masters' case have so you fully appreciate the anger I harbor toward Veterans Affairs, Sen. Mark Udall and his staff, and others who are failing to act.

One of the best summaries of the case can be found on a site I don't always give much credence to, Wikipedia. To really get your blood pressure up, read the story here.

In 1999, based mostly on Tim Masters' teenage drawings and a knife collection, Masters was convicted and sentenced to life in prison for murder. Though some jurors had doubts about his guilt, jury members cited his drawings and writings as compelling evidence against him.

After attorneys for Masters and special prosecutors in the case discovered what could be unethical and illegal activities in the case, including missing DNA, special prosecutors assigned to his appeal recommended overturning Masters' sentence as a result of the DNA findings. The Colorado Bureau of Investigation confirmed the DNA results.

On Jan. 22, 2008 a Colorado judge vacated Masters' conviction and ordered him released immediately. He's been busy trying to rebuild his life after almost ten years in prison for a crime he did not commit.

Should be the end of the story, shouldn't it? It actually gets worse.

Tim spent eight years in the Navy. He worked as an aircraft mechanic, including a stint with Learjet where he also worked as an aircraft mechanic.

Those eight years started when he was 18 (he is now 38) and included paying $100 a month into the GI Bill program. According to Susan Greene, a columnist for the Denver Post who brought this story to light in her Sept. 24 column, Masters would be entitled to approximately $30,000 under the GI Bill that he could use to get an education, a trade skill or other benefits to help him get a job.

You have to apply for those benefits within ten years after leaving the service. Tim Masters was honorably discharged in 1997 but his time limit expired while he was in prison for the murder conviction. Colorado inmates do not have access to GI benefits.

The logical and just thing would be for the Veterans Affairs to grant an exemption to Tim Masters, or extend his time limit, or issue a waiver and grant him his GI Bill rights. Right? Wrong.

Susan Greene writes:

He gave eight years of his life to the Navy and the nation, fixing planes that flew in the first Gulf War. Then he sacrificed nearly 10 more years as a victim of our justice system's many imperfections.

Colorado law gives him no compensation for the time he lost behind bars. And now the fine print in federal law keeps him from the education that's owed him.

Sen. Mark Udall, a member of the Armed Services Committee, is trying to help but says the matter is up to the Veterans Affairs Department.

The VA says it "empathizes with the veteran's situation" but that "the secretary of VA does not have the authority to grant a waiver in this case."

"It would take an act of Congress to assist in this matter."

In other words, ask your mother; if she says no, ask your father.

One VA official actually told me that if they bent the rules for Masters, they'd have to bend the rules for every veteran with a sob story.

This is classic Washington unaccountability and finger pointing.

Sen. Udall's staff should take a stronger stance. If it takes an act of Congress, then Senator, you should introduce and push the legislation through on a fast track. Democrats control both houses. Get it done.

Sen. Udall should being publicly asking the VA to issue a waiver. Heck, hold up an appropriations bill or something. It happens all the time, on both sides of the aisle. The Senator is on the Armed Services Committee. Put a hold on a nominee. But do something other than just say its someone else's responsibility.

The secretary of Veterans Affairs should issue a waiver. Surely somewhere in the VA statutes a good attorney could find some waiver power for the secretary. Even when I was FEMA director I had authority to waive policies and regulations if it was in the best interest of the agency. Somewhere within Veterans Affairs there has must be an advocate for veterans who would take up this case and convince the Secretary to do something. You would think Secretary Eric Shinsheki would be that advocate.

Hon. Eric E. Shinseki: Investing In Veterans

2009-08-12T14:02:46Z

Safely investing one's money requires study of the markets and a reasonable understanding of its forces. Here is an investment option that is guaranteed to pay high dividends for years to come: the education of America's Post-9/11 Veterans.

Near the end of World War II, a first "G.I. Bill" was enacted by Congress primarily to preclude Post-war depression. Some recall that lawmakers passed the Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944, less out of gratitude, than out of fear -- fear that at war's end an army of unemployed ex-servicemen would, again, march on Washington, as the "Bonus Army" did in 1932.

To keep the peace and spur the economy, Congress offered Veterans free college tuition, help in buying homes, and a year's worth of unemployment assistance. It turned out to be one of the best single investments the United States has ever made.

The American Dream has always included title to property. Settlers came to this continent to own their own farms, and Veterans of our early wars were often rewarded with acreage for their service. The 1944 G.I. Bill enhanced the American Dream to include both home ownership and a college education.

Low-interest, no-money-down home loans secured by the Veterans Administration sparked a boom in the construction and manufacturing industries, as Veterans moved to new homes in the suburbs, connected by new roads, and served by new schools, new churches, and new shopping centers.

Free college tuition shattered the notion that higher education was only for the rich, offering new social, economic, and intellectual opportunities to the humblest of Veterans. It also prepared a generation of young, highly motivated, glad-to-be-alive men and women to take the lead in every field of endeavor -- business, science, religion, government, education, and the arts.

Historian Milton Greenberg wrote, "By the time initial GI Bill eligibility for World War II Veterans expired in 1956, the United States was richer by 450,000 trained engineers, 240,000 accountants, 238,000 teachers, 91,000 scientists, 67,000 doctors, 22,000 dentists, and more than a million other college-educated individuals."

Educated by the G.I. Bill and motivated in part by the bill's incentive to home ownership, the Veterans of the "Greatest Generation" engineered a Post-World War II economic boom that allowed the United States to become the world's largest economy, leader of the free world, and ultimate victor in the Cold War.

Today, our youngest Veterans offer a similar promise of future leadership, thanks to a Post-9/11 G.I. Bill that was sponsored by Virginia Senator Jim Webb and 58 co-sponsors, including then-Senator Barack Obama. This new G.I. Bill is the most comprehensive educational benefits package offered to Veterans since the original G.I. Bill in 1944. It provides money for tuition and books, fees, a living allowance, and the option to transfer unused educational benefits to spouses or children. VA pays 100 percent of costs up to the highest rate of in-state tuition and fees at state colleges and universities.

Private institutions have signed up for the special Yellow Ribbon Program for academic year 2009-2010, wherein VA matches up to 50 percent of funding of the difference between tuition and fees covered by the Post-9/11 G.I. Bill and the total cost of the private institution's tuition and fees. Over 1,100 private colleges and universities have joined our public institutions in fulfilling the dream of the Post 9/11 GI Bill.

Colleges and universities can help underwrite the success of Veterans, many of whom are not taking the usual route to college. They have not spent time in SAT-preparation courses. Instead, they have been serving in high-performing units, practicing teamwork and self-discipline, and learning first hand about peace and freedom. Yet, if schools focus only on a Veteran's standardized test scores or prior academic records, they will miss so much of what these Veterans can offer to their classes and their classmates. Given a chance, they will be among the best students.

They have seen the alternatives to our way of life and appreciate our blessings in ways some may take for granted. They are mature for their years and eager to live productive lives--to make contributions. They are accustomed to working hard and to winning. They form teams easily and know a lot about building trust, having lived and worked with others from diverse backgrounds. They know how to plan, manage time, prioritize tasks, and are disciplined about goals accomplishment.

We face tremendous uncertainties and challenges as a Nation--economic, diplomatic, environmental, and social. We need motivated, energetic and highly educated young people to help us find solutions. We need to find ways, as America has before, to turn uncertainty into opportunity. The Post-9/11 G.I. Bill is a very good place to start.

In signing the first G.I. Bill, President Roosevelt assured Veterans that "the American people do not intend to let them down." In the decades since, Veterans have proven that they will not let America down. They are well worth our investment.

Luis Carlos Montalván: Will Veterans Sit for $250?

2009-08-10T11:07:18Z

According to the Treasury Department, 64 million Americans received "...one-time Economic Recovery Payments of $250" in June and July," thereby creating "...an economic impact of more than $16 billion."

As part of The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, "...all VA service-connected veterans receiving disability compensation -- regardless of their rating..." were "...eligible for this automatic payment." That means millions of disabled veterans received this $250 "stimulus check."

But many veterans are shaking their heads at this effort to stimulate the economy by appearing to meet the needs of America's veterans.

With the backlog of Veterans' disability claims now at 1,000,000, a Veterans' Benefits Administration under a cloud of corruption, and well-documented VA hospital problems ranging from dilapidated buildings to substandard care, perhaps we need to stimulate something other than the economy in this case.

Perhaps we can serve the men and women who have served us all so well by replicating or expanding the very successful intranet service, Army Knowledge Online (AKO), into a Veterans' Knowledge Online (VKO), which would substantively, positively change the lives of veterans and decrease service costs over time by:

Providing all veterans and VA service providers alike with one-stop, on-line, permanent storage of veterans' military, disability and medical documents;

Decreasing constant delays in often urgently needed services to veterans;

Improving the VA "processes, procedures and services."

Isn't that what VA Spokeswoman Katie Roberts expressed in when she said:

From day one [VA] Secretary [Eric] Shinseki has made it a top priority to understand where within the department we can improve our processes, procedures and services.

Two hundred and fifty dollars?

I will gladly send my check back for real change in "our processes, procedures and services."

The Department of Veterans' Affairs should ask Congress to fund the change required to install a VKO.

Now that's change we could believe in!

Luis Carlos Montalván is a veteran of Iraq.

Art Brodsky: VA Owes Reporter Apology for Agency's Idiotic Harrassment

2009-04-10T13:33:33Z

When he was in the Army, the current secretary of Veterans Affairs, Gen. Eric Shinseki (USA ret.), no doubt had occasion to read the riot act to subordinate officers. It's time for him to get into command mode again, and the subjects this time are his incompetent public relations staff, which created an embarrassing nightmare for an Administration dedicated to transparency and openness.

Last week, David Schultz, a reporter for WAMU-FM, a public radio outlet in Washington, D.C., went to cover a public forum on care for minority veterans. For the April 7 meeting, Schultz, a new, part-time reporter, had with him a recorder, headphones and a microphone. (Even with that gear, he was accused of not identifying himself as a reporter.) After listening to vets speak to a packed room in public about the care they were being given, Schultz wanted to interview one of them, Tommie Canady, 56, who has a terminal pancreatic disease and who said he has been denied benefits and had poor care.

According to a number of reports, VA staff said Schultz would need a waiver from the patient in order to do an interview, and here's where it got ugly.

VA public relations officials demanded his microphone, headphones and recorder. They brought four armed, uniformed guards to enforce the order and wouldn't let Schultz leave. Schultz called his editor, who advised him to give up the recorder's storage card to the VA and then get out, figuring the event shouldn't escalate and that the radio station would get the card back.

Here's how Schultz initially described the confrontation.

Eventually, Schultz went around the VA PR machine and got the story, interviewing Canady on the phone.

So far, the VA had declined comment on the story and the storage card remains with the agency.

How can we put this gently: Unacceptable. Ridiculous. Insulting.

Heaven knows, the VA is under a great deal of pressure these days, with an aging veteran population on the one hand, and the demands of a six-year (and counting) war on the other. Even so, this incident is low-hanging fruit and Shinseki should deal with it forthwith.

Start with the concept that the vets in the hospital were there as a result of defending freedom of speech and of the press, and it's not the duty of the VA flacks (and I'm a flack in my day-job) to interfere with that. Calling the cops to keep a reporter from leaving the building until he turns over a storage card is beyond sanity.

This wasn't a top-secret briefing the reporter had infiltrated. It was a public meeting. Announced by a news release.

WAMU's news director, Jim Asendio said he tried to hand-deliver a letter to the VA on April 9, but they wouldn't accept it. Today (April 10), a courier is taking over a letter from station management, which may find its way to the executive suites. The letter says in part: "WAMU and its owner, American University, take this matter extremely seriously. Our reporter was subjected to an unlawful detention against his will, a search of our recording equipment without any probable cause, and the seizure of our sound recording medium. Mr. Schultz's newsgathering activities and the product of his work not only are protected by the First Amendment, but he was attending a public meeting at which the VA had encouraged public discussion on the treatment it gives to minority veterans. It is inconceivable that any interest of government, let alone the Department of Veterans Affairs' desire to plan its press strategy, would ever justify the clearly unconstitutional behavior of its staff and uniformed officers".

Asendio told us he has heard that the agency is willing to release the flash card if the station signs a release.

It doesn't matter what the release says. The station shouldn't sign it. What should happen is that Shinseki should invite Schultz and Asendio to the department, return the card and apologize. And the PR people who were idiots enough to have perpetrated this assault should be sent away to learn how their jobs should really be done.

Then Schultz can get back to doing the important work of covering vets' health care - not covering it up as the VA was trying in its clumsy way to do.

Paul Rieckhoff: Six Years Later: Is Washington finally listening?

2009-03-20T00:09:35Z

In 2004, when I got home after spending a year patrolling the streets of Baghdad, you know what the top news story was? It wasn't the growing threat of roadside bombs, or the burgeoning problems at Walter Reed. It was Janet Jackson's Super Bowl "wardrobe malfunction."

On the 6th anniversary of the war in Iraq, the national tone could not be more different. Admittedly, the media are still covering Jennifer Aniston's relationship woes like it's national news, but in Washington, at least this week, the politicians were listening. Over the past few days, IAVA has met with President Obama in the White House, Speaker Pelosi in the Capitol, and VA Secretary Shinseki at the VA headquarters. It was a wild week.

The folks in Washington aren't just listening - in one area of government at least--they're acting. We saw real progress this week when the Pentagon announced it would phase out the use of "stop-loss." Stop-loss was intended as a Band-Aid solution in times of emergency. But since 2001, it has been used to extend the enlistment contracts of over 160,000 troops. The policy is corrosive to morale and unfair to military families, and after almost eight years, Washington has finally done something about it. The use of stop-loss will cease by 2010, and in the meantime, troops serving after their enlistments are supposed to be over will see an extra $500 in their monthly pay. It's about damn time we paid our troops for their overtime.

With the end of stop-loss, we've finally begun to address some of the burdens bad policy puts on our military families. But as the war enters its seventh year, there's still a ton left to do. As we draw down our forces in Iraq, we must also prepare for the surge of veterans returning home. And there's one simple fix that Congress and the President need to agree on this year: advance funding for the Department of Veterans' Affairs.

Advance funding sounds wonky, but it's actually a simple, common sense solution. Right now, the Department of Veterans Affairs runs over 150 hospitals and thousands of clinics nationwide, caring for almost 6 million veterans a year. But if you asked the VA Secretary how much money he'll have to run that whole operation in October, he couldn't tell you. Why? Because the government funding mechanism is broken. Every year, veterans groups like ours have to go to Congress and fight for funding. And when we finally get it, it's usually late. In nineteen of the past twenty-two years, Congress has passed the VA budget late. Think about that. America has been late in paying its wounded for their care for almost two decades. That record is a national embarrassment.

As a result of this broken system, the VA doesn't know how much money it will have three months from now. It is consistently forced to compromise and ration care for veterans. Hospitals and clinics can't hire critical staffing and address equipment needs. The Secretary can't hire thousands of needed psychologists and counselors. Those old VA buildings can't get repaired. Work can't get done all over the country. And veterans are left waiting.

You couldn't operate your household this way. The second largest department in the Federal Government can't either. Advanced funding--funding the VA a year in advance--is the solution.

Advance funding would give VA Secretary Shinseki the tools to better do his job and make the transformation necessary at the VA. It would give the Secretary the resources he needs to address the many critical issues facing new veterans, such as Traumatic Brain Injury and homelessness. And he'd have the flexibility to focus on properly implementing the new GI Bill, arguably the most pressing challenge facing the VA in the next year.

Of course, the best part of this solution is that it comes at no additional cost to the taxpayer. Advanced funding would not cost a single additional dollar. That's not something you are hearing much from Washington nowadays. No wonder we saw President Obama and Senator McCain agree on it during the election last year.

It's a popular, bipartisan, cost-free solution that'll help veterans of all generations, including the hundreds of thousands of troops coming home from Iraq in the next few years. So by the time we commemorate the start of the Iraq war again next year, advance funding should be a reality. There are no acceptable excuses. Six years is already long enough for our veterans to wait.

Crossposted at www.IAVA.org.

Peter J. Ognibene: Will The VA Take On Big Insurance?

2009-03-04T18:28:25Z

The Department of Veterans Affairs faces a crucial decision: Will it take on the private insurance companies that have long enjoyed a free ride at the VA's - and taxpayers' - expense? The drive by the Obama administration to move the nation toward universal coverage while reining in health care costs could compel the agency to do just that.

The casus belli is something called "coordination of benefits," or COB.

Some 2.2 million veterans enrolled in VA health care also have private health insurance. (These are typically policies from an employer that cover the veteran as well as his or her family.) Private insurers routinely coordinate - meaning share - benefit payments for patients who have multiple care plans - unless, that is, the patient is a veteran treated at the VA. If the veteran receives private care, the insurers coordinate. When it's provided by the VA, they abdicate.

If VA Secretary Eric Shinseki decides to take on the insurers over COB, it could prove the first shot in a broader war against Big Insurance, the most obdurate opponent of universal health care.

In his State of the Union address before Congress last Tuesday, President Obama warned that we can no longer put off addressing "the crushing cost of health care":

"This is a cost that now causes a bankruptcy in America every thirty seconds. By the end of the year, it could cause 1.5 million Americans to lose their homes. In the last eight years, premiums have grown four times faster than wages. And in each of these years, one million more Americans have lost their health insurance. It is one of the major reasons why small businesses close their doors and corporations ship jobs overseas. And it's one of the largest and fastest-growing parts of our budget."

An estimated 47 million Americans currently have no health care coverage. Yet, millions of others have multiple plans with overlapping coverage. That's just one of the many reasons Americans spend more on "health" but enjoy less of it than many other countries.

The U.S. annually spends $6,102 per capita (2004 data) on health care - more than twice the average of the world's 30 advanced democracies. Yet, in terms of that bellwether of health measurements, life expectancy, we ranked 37th, just behind Cuba (78.3 years,) and well below Japan, which is in first place (82.6 years.)

In years past, organizations representing doctors, hospitals and businesses militantly opposed universal health care. In the Sixties, for instance, the American Medical Association (AMA) led the charge against Medicare and hired Ronald Reagan to tour the country on its behalf. He even made a long-playing record for the AMA in 1961 entitled: "RONALD REAGAN speaks out against SOCIALIZED MEDICINE." (The capitalization and italics were in the original.)

How times have changed. In 2007, the AMA launched a web site, VoicefortheUninsured.org, and began spending money on TV and print ads to raise public awareness of the plight of the uninsured and build support for universal coverage.

Labor unions - long among the leading advocates of universal health care - are now teaming up with corporations to present a unified front. A recent blog entry in Huffington Post, "Why Healthcare Can't Wait," is symbolic of the new alliance. Written jointly by Andy Stern, the president of the two-million-member Service Employees International Union, and Jeff Kindler, the chairman and CEO of the pharmaceutical giant, Pfizer, Inc. ($48.3 billion in 2008 revenue), this unlikely duo spoke with one voice:

"America loses an estimated $207 billion every year due to the poorer health and shorter lifespans of those lacking good coverage. Another $1.3 trillion is lost through easily preventable and treatable chronic conditions, such as hypertension, asthma and heart disease."

Though the insurance companies remain a powerful force with deep pockets, many of their onetime allies have defected to the other side. The details of universal care still need to be hammered out in Congress, but this labor-business-medical-pharmaceutical alliance appears united in its opposition to business as usual. Apart from the hard right of the Republican Party - ever at the ready with recycled talking points and many-splendored tax cuts - Big Insurance stands alone.

Health care costs have tripled since 1960 and now consume more than 15 percent of the U.S. Gross Domestic Product. They can't keep going up. That means the go-go years of ever-soaring insurance profits are gone-gone. If the insurance companies are willing to take the long view and work with, rather than against, "Obama Care," they could contribute to the solution.

In his speech before Congress, President Obama put it this way:

"I suffer no illusions that this will be an easy process. It will be hard. But I also know that nearly a century after Teddy Roosevelt first called for reform, the cost of our health care has weighed down our economy and the conscience of our nation long enough. So let there be no doubt: health care reform cannot wait, it must not wait, and it will not wait another year."

Coordination of benefits is important for the VA to offset the rising costs of veterans' medical care. But the issue could also prove a diagnostic test for Big Insurance. Will the insurance carriers remain an obstacle to be overcome, or will they choose to become a partner in designing and achieving universal health coverage? How they respond on this issue may well prefigure where they will stand when the battle begins.

Luis Carlos Montalván: Mayor MIA on Veterans' Affairs

2009-01-27T16:42:44Z

Even before the founding of our United States, New York has been a place where the wealthy elite were not inclined to support our troops.

In fact, the British and the Tories retained control of New York from 1776 to 1783 -- nearly the entire length of the Revolutionary War. New York City and Long Island served as the British military and political base of operations throughout the American Revolution largely due to a very large concentration of Loyalists.

Over the past eight years, Bloomberg's Mayor's Office of Veterans' Affairs (MOVA) has done little to nothing to assist hundreds of thousands of veterans in New York City. In fact, in total, nearly 2 million veterans and their family members have been affected by this loathsome neglect.

According to MOVA Commissioner Roger K. Newman's stated website message, it is their "...privilege to work on behalf of the hundreds of thousands of veterans and service members that live in our City and ensure that the needs of New York's veteran and military community are met."

When asked for assistance by constituent veterans, the Mayor's Office of Veterans' Affairs and other local and state leaders repeatedly regurgitate the same by now feculent phrase.

Their typical reply is, "...the troubles plaguing New York City's veterans are Federal issues -- and thus, ones we have no say in."

This belies the very existence of MOVA, which was established to "work with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), the New York State Division of Veterans Affairs (NYSDVA), City Agencies, veteran's organizations and other stakeholders to offer services to veterans, their dependents and survivors; while encouraging innovative partnerships to ensure creative problem solving."

When hundreds of thousands of New York's veterans do not receive the benefits and entitlements they deserve, is there then no cost to New York State taxpayers? Consider this: the Manhattan VA is ranked as one of the two lowest-performing of the VA's 57 centers across the country!

To make up for the shortfall of federal benefits and support due to inefficiency and corruption, New York City and state taxpayers contribute billions of dollars to social programs, some of which undoubtedly go to fill the vacuum left by the VA's lack of effective services.

Worse yet, the New York VA Regional Office has been involved in "Shreddergate" and a backdating scandal, pertaining to disability claims, leaving 800,000 veterans of Eastern New York to deal with the second-slowest VA Regional Office in the nation.

What reason does Mayor Bloomberg have not to insist upon an independent Department of Justice investigation into these scandals?

Considering that this problem affects an important percentage of New York City residents, Mayor Bloomberg should immediately take this matter up with Gen. Shinseki and/or get federal lawmakers to rectify the situation.

Our courageous and honorable military veterans deserve better!

If Mayor Bloomberg has been unwilling and/or unable to go to bat for these heroes during his last two terms in office, then veterans deserve a better mayor.

Luis Carlos Montalván is a resident of Brooklyn and veteran of the Iraq War.

Senate Confirms 6 Obama Cabinet Picks, Clinton Not Included

2009-01-20T16:20:47Z

WASHINGTON — The Senate swiftly approved six members of President Barack Obama's Cabinet on Tuesday, but put off for a day the vote on his choice of Hillary Rodham Clinton to be secretary of state.

The Senate confirmed all six with a single voice vote a little more than three hours after Obama took the oath of office to become the 44th president.

Joseph A. Violante: Open Letter to Veterans Affairs Nominee Gen. Eric Shinseki

2009-01-14T11:33:15Z

Dear Gen. Shinseki:

Congratulations on your nomination to lead the Department of Veterans Affairs. The VA needs a strong leader and veterans need a bold advocate who will begin to immediately and honestly address the critical challenges facing our wounded veterans and their families. Your leadership can begin today when you testify before the U.S. Senate, where we hope you will take the opportunity to address the single most important policy issue affecting veterans: the funding of their health care.

We can no longer tolerate a budget process that has long been defined by late, unpredictable, erratic funding decisions, the result of increasingly bitter partisan fights. It is time to take the politics and partisanship out of veterans' health care by reforming the budget process to provide sufficient, timely and predictable funding.

During the presidential campaign, President-elect Obama supported a proposal to do just that -- the Veterans Health Care Budget Reform Act. Essentially this proposal would allow Congress to appropriate veterans' health care funds one year in advance, while the actual monies would not flow until the year for which they were approved. In addition to Obama, other influential Democratic and Republican members of Congress (including Sen. John McCain), a growing coalition of leading veterans and military organizations, and many former Department of Veterans Affairs officials support this proposal.

We appreciate that Congress has significantly increased the amount of money allocated for veterans' medical needs for the past two years. But the history of veterans health care funding is so consistently poor that even when Congress has gotten the funding level right, it has usually been late. Last year marked only the third time in the past 22 years that Congress has had a VA health care budget ready on time; over the past seven years VA's final appropriation has been an average of three months late.

Imagine trying to run a private sector health care system without knowing what your budget would be until weeks or months after the start of the fiscal year. The advance appropriations proposal would enable VA to know the size of its annual health care budget and plan accordingly to care for the sick, injured and disabled veterans when and where they need it. We hope you will not only support this common-sense proposal, but aggressively advocate for it if confirmed.

In addition to budget reform, we want to bring two other critical VA health care issues to your attention, both of which need your strong and effective leadership this year: expanded coverage for women veterans' health care and support for family caregiver support.

Of the 75,000 women veterans who served in Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom, 42 percent have already come to VA for health care treatment. VA must become better prepared to meet women's unique health care needs and provide quality comprehensive care to all in need, while removing the barriers that discourage women from seeking their medical care in a VA system that is still predominately male-oriented. We encourage your support for legislation that would address these and other gaps in care for women veterans, including those who have experienced military sexual trauma.

Finally, as you are aware, when one of our brave warriors is wounded, their entire family is affected. Often a family member will drop everything -- school, work, their way of life -- to take care of a husband, wife, son, or daughter who has been injured in combat. VA needs to develop new ways to provide meaningful support to these caregivers and recognize that they are essential to the recovery and rehabilitation of our veterans. We need your support and leadership to bring new thinking to VA, and to help pass legislation that provides comprehensive financial and psychological support for family caregivers.

Gen. Shinseki, we encourage you to address these and other critical veterans issues at your confirmation hearing today and, if confirmed, we look forward to working with you in the years ahead to improve the lives of America's veterans and their families.

Joseph A. Violante

National Legislative Director

Disabled American Veterans

Hal Donahue: Welcome to Chaos, General Shinseki

2009-01-12T17:40:23Z

A Report from the Field

Should this war continue any length of time, in the great summing up those whose , dear ones have been sacrificed by maladministration in this important branch of the army will be justified in their resentment, and the taxpayer doubly taxed to support our pension burdens. VETERAN.
New York, May 27, 1898.

Published: September 6, 1898 Copyright © The New York Times

I am uniquely positioned to address both military healthcare and veterans healthcare and services. A patient at Walter Reed Army Hospital, I am constantly seeking to educate and assist veterans and returning military concerning access to benefits and opportunities. The news is not good.

The unknown veteran above was warning of civilianizing the military medical establishment. A lesson we learned well at great price. During this Iraq War, the Walter Reed military healthcare team did something the Department of Defense unsuccessfully tried to do since the Korean War. They reduced wounded deaths from 25% to 15%. In actual lives, this major success means well over 3,000 of our wounded soldiers did not become Killed In Action (KIA). However, the carnage of war makes casualties of us all. I first noticed the increasing numbers of local deaths due to military action. Then I noticed the financial and legal troubles mounting among our local young men and women who served in these wars. I became involved assisting them on an individual basis until I became known as a "veteran guy". I even accepted a position as county director of veterans affairs for a time. I found the situation to be FAR worse than expected.

Just yesterday, a young soldier discharged after two tours in Iraq, said he was finished dealing with the VA. His not unusual complaint was that he was grilled and treated like he was trying to get something for nothing. He will not pursue his claim any further. This veteran's claim involved PTSD, back injury and shrapnel damage. He has at least two purple hearts. Somehow the VA has gone from a supporting veterans to blocking veterans. Their on line fact sheet clearly does not first address caring for those who served; rather is clear it is a distributor or provider. Care is only mentioned well down the sheet.

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) was established on March 15, 1989, succeeding the Veterans Administration. It is responsible for providing federal benefits to veterans and their families. Headed by the Secretary of Veterans Affairs, VA is the second-largest of the 15 Cabinet departments and operates nationwide programs for health care, financial assistance and burial benefits.
Fact Sheet: Facts About the Department of Veterans Affairs
November 2008

Perhaps this is the exact problem. Somehow caring for the veteran and his family is lost as it is in the mission statement. Many current executives at both the national and regional levels appear to have neither the will nor the courage to fight the fight for our veterans. Or perhaps they are just worn out from trying? Perhaps they provided more with less for so long that they now feel that they are being asked to do everything with nothing? Why? The answer is to save money to fight Bush's Iraq War and for tax cuts for the well off trickle down that never did trickle down. All this causes even some veterans to see VA benefits as welfare rather than what they really are: earned benefits from a grateful nation and a direct cost of war.

The military family, composed of active, reserve, retired, veterans and their families, gives much to the United States. The requirements to restore the military and to care for "those who have borne the battle" are immense. The sea of incompetence and sheer malice left behind by the Bush Regime creates numerous challenges and opportunities. As General Shinseki's 54-page disclosure so clearly demonstrates, the general "gets it" and is rightly open to new ways of operating the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Payments to veterans and their families offer an immediate and continuing boost to the local economy and benefit men and women who were, and are, assets to their nation and community. In addition, many veterans remain deeply involved in their communities, veteran education and business development assistance not only immediately benefit the economy but provide our proven men and women with the tools and abilities to lead their community and nation into the future.

General Shinseki deserves quick Senate approval; veterans desperately need him.

Shinseki Promises Increased Care for Vets

2009-01-06T17:16:16Z

WASHINGTON — Retired Gen. Eric K. Shinseki pledged to move quickly to fix gaps in health care if confirmed as Veterans Affairs secretary, saying he will reopen benefits to hundreds of thousands of middle-income veterans denied during the Bush administration.

In a 54-page disclosure obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press, President-elect Barack Obama's choice to head the government's second largest agency also urged Congress to set VA funding a year in advance to minimize political pressures. And the former Army chief of staff said he will step down from the corporate boards of defense contractors to alleviate potential conflicts of interest.

Peter J. Ognibene: How the VA Could Lead the Battle for Universal Health Care

2008-12-30T11:16:55Z

General Eric Shinseki (US Army, retired) faces two major challenges as the incoming Secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) .

First, and above all, he must meet the needs of veterans grievously wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan. In its arrogance, the Bush administration ignored Shinseki in 2003 when, as Army Chief of Staff, he warned that it would require "something on the order of several hundred thousand soldiers" to occupy Iraq following a successful invasion. Then, compounding its arrogance with unforgivable incompetence, the administration failed to plan adequately for the inevitable damage war does to the bodies and minds of those we send into battle. The VA has been playing catch-up ever since.

Shinseki's second major challenge will be reforming the way health care is organized and paid for by his agency. With this challenge comes an opportunity that could enable Shinseki and the VA to lead the way toward redeeming President-elect Obama's pledge to bring about universal health care.

Of our nation's 23.4 million veterans, one third (7.8 million) are enrolled in health care programs managed by the Veterans Health Administration (VHA), which accounts for 204,000 of the VA's 279,000 employees and provides care nationwide through some 1,400 hospitals, clinics and other facilities.

According to a 2007 VA survey, 21 percent of veterans who receive health care through the VHA have no other insurance. About 31 percent have some form of private insurance while 77 percent have government-funded insurance such as Medicare, Medicaid or TRICARE. (The figures total more than 100 percent because many veterans have more than one type of insurance.)

During the presidential campaign, Obama pledged that his administration would seek to "guarantee affordable, accessible health care coverage for all Americans." Though his Republican opponent, John McCain, caricatured the Obama plan as "a nationalized health-care system," Obama did not propose placing practitioners and medical institutions under government control. What "Obama Care" would do is create universal insurance that includes the 47 million Americans - some 15 percent of our population - who now have no coverage.

The military and the VA do, in fact, provide "nationalized health care" in that they both pay the bills and manage practitioners who are (mostly) government employees working in government facilities. By contrast, the two largest government-funded insurance programs, Medicare and Medicaid, operate solely as paymasters and auditors for the care their patients receive from clinicians and facilities in the private sector.

If Shinseki is to lead his agency toward the goal of universal health care, he will first need to confront the tangle of laws and regulations governing who gets VA care and who does not. Instead of developing a coherent approach to veterans' programs, Congress tends to enact categorical requirements, often with the best of intentions, in response to specific problems or issues - especially those that generate embarrassing headlines. So, before veterans can get VA coverage, they need to convince the VA bureaucracy that they meet specific eligibility criteria.

How, for example, do you establish that a disability was related to military service? For a combat wound, the case is clear. What about a bad back? Or psychological problems that may, or may not, arise from post-traumatic stress disorder? Was exposure to the deadly herbicide, Agent Orange, responsible for a Vietnam veteran's cancer or diabetes? (The VA has controversial rules regarding Agent Orange to determine who is eligible for care and compensation.)

Veterans found eligible for VA health care are assigned to one of eight priority groups. Those with the most severe service-related disabilities are in Priority Group 1. At the lower end of the scale are Priority Groups 7 and 8, which encompass about 30 percent of all veterans eligible for VA health care. Veterans in these groups have no service-related disabilities and, according to VA criteria, have sufficient income to make co-payments for the care the VA provides. As a practical matter, the VA is their HMO.

The fundamental premise inherent in Obama's proposal for universal coverage is that health care should be a right for all Americans. Enacted into law, that premise would largely eliminate the need to determine whether someone's injury or illness conforms to a complicated set of rules under a government or commercial insurance program. Everyone would be guaranteed a baseline level of care.

By separating insurance financing from the care provided, universal coverage would enable the VA to expand its services to non-veterans whose care would be paid through universal insurance. Veterans in the top priority groups could continue to be treated cost-free through the VA or receive care through private practitioners or HMOs. Given that nearly four of every five veterans already have another form of insurance, the VA would likely lose some portion of its patient population. In short, it would need to compete for veterans and non-veterans alike.

Where would universal coverage leave the VHA's 204,000 employees and 1,400 facilities? In position, I would argue, to become a leading nonprofit health care network. Few institutions are as advanced as the VA, for example, in automating patients' records - an important factor in reducing medication errors, eliminating duplicative tests and containing costs.

Yet, we also know the agency has room for improvement. The VA's Office of the Inspector General (OIG) recently reported that 18 percent of VA clinic appointments currently go unused. The OIG put the value of those unused resources at $76 million. If the VA were in a position to compete for non-veterans, it would have a financial incentive to do a better job managing appointments, practitioners and facilities.

Would the VA system attract non-veterans? Absolutely. In 2003, the New England Journal of Medicine reported "the quality of care in the VA health care system substantially improved after the implementation of a systemwide reengineering and, during the period from 1997 through 2000, was significantly better than that in the Medicare fee-for-service program." (Phillip Longman's 2007 book, Best Care Anywhere, ably documents the VA's remarkable transformation from a substandard outfit into the outstanding health care organization it has become.)

Health insurance entails pooling funds from large numbers of individuals to account for the risks of all members of a group. Private insurers allocate funds for medical underwriting to determine who they will insure and wind up rejecting one in nine applicants based on medical history, age and other factors. The costs for underwriting, marketing, sales, administration and profit that go into some private insurance plans can account for 10 to 40 percent of the premiums paid by an employer or policyholder. With universal care, the pool would expand to include the entire nation, eliminating the need for many of these costs and encouraging competition for patients.

No medical institution in the U.S. can match the experience of the VA and its employees. It must budget for a risk pool that includes nearly eight million individuals and then manage its 36,000 physicians and other medical resources to treat young veterans recuperating from recent wounds as well as older veterans facing acute conditions and chronic illness.

While the VA has the potential to expand its role, formidable barriers remain. Congress would need to amend current legislation to enable the VA to compete for, and treat, non-veterans. VA bureaucrats and veterans' advocacy groups that have grown accustomed to things as they are could mount rear-guard actions to thwart a broader VA role.

In selecting Gen. Shinseki to lead the VA, President-elect Obama chose someone who understands the risks of speaking truth to power and paid a personal price for doing so. He will soon take charge of an agency second only to the Department of Defense in size and second to none in the breadth, complexity and importance of its mission.

The VA that Shinseki inherits will confront the ongoing consequences of two wars and an economy in recession. The first priority of the VA must continue to be the needs of our nation's veterans. Under Shinseki's leadership, the VA will also have an opportunity to move the nation closer to universal health care - an outcome that will benefit veteran and non-veteran alike.

David Quigg: Trouble Buying That Illinois Senate Seat? (A Cheaper Alternative for Holiday Gift-Giving)

2008-12-11T03:38:25Z

I cannot be bought. Not for less than 20 bucks.

So there's no need to worry that my judgment has been tainted by the fact that a publisher sent me a free review copy of a $16.95 book. Trust me when I say that you should consider giving What Do We Do Now? (A Workbook for the President-Elect) to anyone on your holiday shopping list who's spent huge chunks of 2008 obsessed with politics. Or don't trust me. Trust yourself. Read some excerpts.

For me, What Do We Do Now? is about timing. As wise and accessible as the book is, it would have held no interest for me during the presidential transitions of 2000 or 1992 or 1988 or 1980. Nor would it have shaken me out of my despondency if we were living through a McCain/Palin transition right now. No, this book is all about this moment, this unprecedented time when I feel fiercely protective of the change so many millions of us voted for and acutely aware that the choices in this transition will help decide whether the Obama Administration dazzles or fizzles.

So I was heartened this week when I interviewed the book's author. Stephen Hess, whose experience with presidential transitions dates back to his time as an aide to President Eisenhower, was emphatic when I asked him what, if anything, he likes about Obama's approach to the transition.

"I like a lot," Hess said Monday. "It's been a superb transition to date. ... If (Obama) was reading my book, which I don't have any reason to believe he was, he would be doing things exactly in the order he is doing them."

If Hess's praise for the transition stemmed exclusively from some smug sense that Obama is marching in lockstep with his book's advice, the author wouldn't be nearly so fun to talk to and his book probably wouldn't be worth a damn. Good things invariably grow out of curiosity and a love of surprise. On the day we spoke, Hess was reveling in a cabinet pick that took him completely by surprise: Obama's choice of retired Gen. Eric K. Shinseki to be secretary of the Veterans Affairs Department.

"I'm fascinated by that on a number of levels," Hess told me. "First of all, because it surprised me. And I like that."

All in one, Shinseki gives Obama an Asian-American, a military man, the most prominent skeptic of Donald Rumsfeld's disastrous plans to occupy Iraq with a relatively small force, and "somone who is totally qualified," Hess said.

It "showed how much shrewder (Obama) is as a political strategist than I am," Hess said, chuckling. "We're not even in the same league."

Different readers will get different insights from Hess's work. For me, there was an especially valuable portion of the book that caused me to re-examine some of the assumptions I took away from reading Team of Rivals. I still love that book and the story it tells of President Lincoln's extraordinary cabinet. Hess does, too: "I love that book. It's a wonderful book. I don't think it's a terribly useful recommendation for this administration."

In the section Hess titled "Why Can't We All Just Get Along?," he provides some useful sketches of destructive cabinet rivalries: Shultz v. Weinberger under Reagan; Vance v. Brzezinski under Carter; Kissinger v. Rogers under Nixon.

As Hess writes, "whatever irritants exist initially within the inner circle are sure to rub raw after staff and media get hold of them."

With this in mind, I'm still keeping my fingers tightly crossed about Obama's pick of Senator Clinton for secretary of state. But Hess assured me that almost anything can be made to work.

"It can work almost regardless if the president is not merely self-confident but knows exactly what he wants" and what he wants from his cabinet members, Hess said.

A few sections of What Do We Do Now? didn't do much for me. For my own eccentric reasons, I'm not especially fascinated by the various historic desks that a president has to choose from. To me, it's trivia. But it's trivia I've never heard of, at least. Some people might love this stuff.

My anti-desk bigotry aside, copies of Hess's book really do deserve to end up in wrapping paper this month. So if your plans to buy Barack's old Senate seat for your kid have hit a snag, consider What Do We Do Now? as a thoughtful, cheaper, non-felonious Plan B.

Huffington Post blogger David Quigg lives in Seattle. Click here to visit the blog where he's gradually posting his entire first novel. Click here for an archive of his previous HuffPost work.

Jayne Lyn Stahl: Shinseki and Volcker: Military Contracts and Banking

2008-12-08T21:44:39Z

Make no mistake, this is not about questioning the integrity, judgment, or credentials of retired Army General Eric Shinseki. After all, it was Shinseki who told a congressional committee, back in 2003, that it would take "several hundred thousand soldiers" to attain victory in Iraq.

As the President-elect himself has indicated, the ability to envison, and anticipate, are crucial components of leadership. No one would deny that the general is in possession of the requisite skills both to lead troops in the Army, and to perceive, as well as implement, necessary programs in the V.A.

But, since his retirement, Shinseki appears to be more interested in sitting on the boards of military contracting firms than in closely following developments in veteran's affairs. According to an article in The Washington Post, he is now on the boards of Honeywell International and Ducommum. Ducommum, as you may know, primarily services the aerospace and defense industry by manufacturing parts for aircraft. And, here's where it gets interesting, General Shinseki is also on the board of First Hawaiian Bank.

Shinseki isn't the only Obama adviser with a background in banking. Paul Volcker, who is slated to be head of the President-elect's economic team, after leaving the Federal Reserve in 1987, became chair of the New York banking firm J. Rothschild, Wolfensohn, & Co. J. Rothschild et. al is a corporate investment firm spearheaded by Wolfensohn who later became president of the World Bank.

Just as General Shinseki is on the board of First Hawaiian Bank, Paul Volcker has had a relationship with Chase Bank, as well as a long association with the Rockefeller Family. If you're looking for a spokesman for the lumpin proletarian, Volcker's not your man.

As Alan Greenspan's predecessor, and a former Federal Reserve Board chair, Volcker, unlike Greenspan, is a registered Democrat, but market manipulation is, and always has been, a bipartisan affair.

Interestingly, too, Mr. Volcker is a member of the G30, (Group of 30), a global body of financiers and academics whose interest lies chiefly in international capital markets, financial institutions, and central banks, so when we speak of markets, we're playing in a larger ballpark.

Who better to advise the 44th President of the United States on economic recovery than someone like than a former Federal Reserve Board chair with a state of the art record in helping to rescue two administrations from free market excesses? Absolutely. If we're willing to go down the slippery slope of free market fundamentalism all over again, Paul Volcker is our man.

Though it would be hard to argue given the current infatuation with all things Obama, there is a valid question as to whether or not Mr. Shinseki's position as board member of major defense contracting firms, poses a conflict of interest insofar as it may reflect more concern with the profit margin from manufacturing military aircraft than for the post traumatic stress with which our troops return from war.

More importantly, we must ask if Barack Obama's appointments of those with ties to corporate behemoths like Rockefeller, Chase Bank, and Honeywell reflects the kind of financial hawkishness that has brought us to the edge of the abyss from which we're trying to extricate ourselves.

Arianna Huffington: Rewarding Those Who Got It Right

2008-12-08T16:16:17Z

Among its myriad failings, the Bush administration has repeatedly gotten it wrong when it comes to getting it right. Over the last eight years, there has consistently been no penalty for those who have gotten things - even the most important things - wrong, and no reward for those who have gotten things right.

Call it Bush Darwinism: survival of the unfittest.

Over the weekend, Barack Obama made an encouraging move to reverse that unintelligent design by appointing retired General Eric Shinseki to be the Secretary of Veterans Affairs. While having had a long and distinguished career, Shinseki is most famous for getting it right when it came to Iraq - and for suffering the consequences typical in the Bush administration for getting it right: being shown the door.

Shinseki, you may recall, was the general who told Congress in February 2003 that it would take "on the order of several hundred thousand soldiers," to occupy Iraq, because "we're talking about post-hostilities control over a piece of geography that's fairly significant with the kinds of ethnic tensions that could lead to other problems."

That's about as wise and prescient an assessment as you can get. But wisdom and prescience were two attributes that had little place in the Bush White House, so Shinseki's sober judgment was quickly ridiculed by Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz, the Tweedledum and Tweedledumber of the Iraq war. Rumsfeld preferred going "to war with the Army you have, not the Army you might want or wish to have." And Wolfowitz, whose crystal ball said the U.S. would be greeted as liberators and that the war would pay for itself, called Shinseki's estimation "outlandish" and "wildly off the mark."

For being so spectacularly wrong, Rumsfeld was rewarded by being allowed to stay in his job for three-and-a-half more years. Wolfowitz's reward came in the form of a cushy appointment to head the World Bank. Too bad they didn't do an even worse job -- maybe they'd have earned the Presidential Medal of Freedom, like Paul Bremer and George Tenet did.

As detailed by James Fallows, Shinseki responded to Rumsfeld's and Wolfowitz's bullying with stoic dignity: "Despite being unfairly treated, despite being 100% vindicated by subsequent events, Shinseki kept his grievances entirely to himself."

In discussing the Shinseki appointment on Meet the Press, Obama gave a nod to the karmic justice aspect of it:

BROKAW: He's the man who lost his job in the Bush Administration because he said we will need more troops in Iraq than Secretary of Defense Don Rumsfeld thought we would need at that time.

OBAMA: He was right.

It will be nice if "he was right" continues to be something that qualifies one for a job in the Obama administration instead of the cause for dismissal it was under Bush.

Obama's commitment to reversing Bush Darwinism isn't as clear when it comes to his economic team. As Frank Rich notes, Obama's economic brain trust -- Tim Geithner, Larry Summers and Robert Rubin - didn't exactly exhibit a Shinseki-like foresight when it came to the financial meltdown.

And, as was the case with Iraq, it's not as if there weren't those that got it right when it came to the economy. Economists Joseph Stiglitz, Nouriel Roubini, Nassim Taleb, and Paul Krugman did. And financial blogger Tanta (aka Doris Dengey), who raised a red flag about Citigroup in late 2006, while Rubin continued to rake in mega-millions on the bank's increasingly risky moves. Tanta died last month at 47 -- much too soon, but long enough to know she had gotten it right.

In his 2006 book The Black Swan, Taleb wrote: "The financial ecology is swelling into gigantic, incestuous, bureaucratic banks -- when one fails, they all fall. The increased concentration among banks seems to have the effect of making financial crises less likely, but when they happen they are more global in scale and hit us very hard... I shiver at the thought."

Fittingly, on the same weekend Shinseki was appointed, Krugman was in Stockholm picking up his Nobel Prize. Here he is from 2005:

The U.S. economy is currently suffering from twin imbalances. On one side, domestic spending is swollen by the housing bubble, which has led both to a huge surge in construction and to high consumer spending, as people extract equity from their homes. On the other side, we have a huge trade deficit, which we cover by selling bonds to foreigners. As I like to say, these days Americans make a living by selling each other houses, paid for with money borrowed from China. One way or another, the economy will eventually eliminate both imbalances.

By making a deliberate effort to reward those who got it right -- on Iraq, on the economy, on global warming, on health care -- Obama will not only send a message that the days of Bush Darwinism are over, he will also puncture the White House's favorite defense, especially on Iraq, that "everybody got it wrong."

No, they didn't. And it's vital that the Bush apologists, in the midst of their Bush Legacy Project, not be allowed to rewrite history.

Recognizing and rewarding Those Who Got It Right also makes it far more likely that the next Eric Shinseki will be willing to step forward and speak up. Obama's appointment of Shinseki is a solid first step.

Washington Times Smears Shinseki In Blind Quote

2008-12-08T09:57:14Z

Not everyone is taking the news of General Eric Shinseki's vindication and ascension into the Obama cabinet that gladly, apparently. Just ask the people over at the Washington Times! They have an article up about Shinseki today titled, "Shinseki garners plaudits, doubts." It's a curious thing, actually, because Sunday morning, there wasn't heard much of a discouraging word from pundits of any stripe. Of course, as the Times article soon reveals, casting doubt on the Shinseki appointment is the sort of thing that doesn't lend itself to showing one's face in public.

In her lede, reporter Audrey Hudson claims that "others are quietly questioning" Shinseki's qualifications, in what sort of sounds like editorial directive that isn't distilled into the language skillfully enough.

Here are the named individuals in the piece: Bob FIlner, John Rowan, and Glen M. Gardner. The closest you get to "doubts" come from Gardner, who is said to have "also praised Gen. Shinseki but noted the different requirements for heading a Cabinet agency." "Running the VA will be far different than leading troops into battle," Gardner told the Times, in a statement that's pretty much anodyne. So where, exactly are the "doubts?" Why, they're right at the end:

One high-ranking retired officer who asked to remain anonymous questioned Gen. Shinseki's record on veterans health-care issues.

"How much time has he spent visiting the PTSD wards, the multiple-amputee wards, the burn wards? The major question I have is: Just what has he done for the past five years to show any concern for our veterans? I do not see any evidence of Shinseki being an agent for change."

Yeah, uhm...you'll forgive me if I encourage the world to not take the word of some anonymous coward seriously when it comes to this appointment. I'll only point out that when it comes to purchasing dishonor, the Washington Times appears to have a source that can get it for you at wholesale.

Paul Rieckhoff: Shinseki for VA Secretary: A Bold Choice

2008-12-07T09:00:43Z

During the campaign, President-elect Obama promised to make veterans' issues a priority if elected. While campaign promises are a dime a dozen, I sincerely hoped that our veterans and their families could rest assured that the tremendous challenges they are currently facing would finally be addressed. One of the key first steps to tackling the critical issues of our newest generation of veterans was for the new Administration to appoint its choice for VA Secretary, and I've frequently called on President-elect Obama to do just that. Today, on the 67th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, I am pleased to announce that the President-elect has made a historic selection: General Eric Shinseki has been tapped to be the new Secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs.

General Shinseki has a record of courage and honesty, and I believe he is a bold choice to lead the VA. As a wounded and decorated combat veteran and the first Asian American in U.S. History to be a four-star general, General Shinseki has the potential to be an effective and dedicated advocate for veterans of all generations. He is a man that has always put patriotism ahead of politics, and is held in high regard by veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan. IAVA looks forward to supporting him to implement the historic change that is needed at the VA.

But General Shinseki has a monumental task before him. One in five veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan are facing serious mental health injuries like Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) or depression. Wounded veterans are waiting months, sometimes years, to receive disability benefits. The struggling U.S. economy is hitting new veterans especially hard. And the new GI Bill, which will make college affordable to every veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan, must be implemented by August 2009. To address these issues will require real leadership that encourages active VA outreach and transparency. We recommend General Shinseki to move quickly to add Iraq and Afghanistan veterans to key positions in his senior staff.

So far, the new Administration has been saying the right things about veterans' issues. President-elect Obama has talked about eradicating homelessness among veterans, addressing the high unemployment rates, and making adequate mental health care available to our troops and veterans. Michelle Obama has also called military families one of the issues she cares most about. But we'll be watching carefully to make sure these campaign promises are kept. And we look forward to working closely with General Shinseki and the new Administration to ensure every veteran in this country gets the care and support they have earned.

Eric Shinseki : Veterans Affairs Secretary

2008-12-06T20:29:33Z

***UPDATE*** 12/7 2:21PM Obama formally announced his choice of General Eric Shinseki as Secretary of Veterans Affairs. Below is an excerpt of Obama's remarks, as prepared for delivery. (Scroll to the bottom for the full text.)

That is the kind of VA that will serve our veterans as well as they have served us. And there is no one more distinguished, more determined, or more qualified to build this VA than the leader I am announcing as our next Secretary of Veterans Affairs - General Eric Shinseki. No one will ever doubt that this former Army Chief of Staff has the courage to stand up for our troops and our veterans. No one will ever question whether he will fight hard enough to make sure they have the support they need.

A graduate of West Point, General Shinseki served two combat tours in Vietnam, where he lost part of his foot, and was awarded two Purple Hearts and three Bronze Stars. Throughout his nearly four decades in the U.S. Army, he won the respect and admiration of our men and women in uniform because they have always been his highest priority. He has always stood on principle - because he has always stood with our troops. And he will bring that same sense of duty and commitment to ensuring that we treat our veterans with the care and dignity they deserve.

A decorated soldier who has served at every level in the Army, General Shinseki understands the changing needs of our troops and their families. And he will be a VA Secretary who finally modernizes our VA to meet the challenges of our time.

Barack Obama will name General Eric Shinseki as his Secretary Of Veterans Affairs. Obama will make the announcement tomorrow, on the anniversary of Pearl Harbor. Watch Obama confirm the appointment during his appearance on Meet the Press.

PRESIDENT-ELECT OBAMA: Tomorrow, you had mentioned earlier, is when we commemorate Pearl Harbor, and so I'm going to be making announcement tomorrow about the head of our Veterans Administration, General Eric Shinseki, who was a commander and has fought in Vietnam, Bosnia, is somebody who has achieved the highest level of military service. He has agreed that he is willing to be part of this administration because both he and I share a reverence for those who serve. I grew up in Hawaii, as he did. My grandfather is in the Punch Bowl National Cemetery. When I reflect on the sacrifices that have been made by our veterans and, I think about how so many veterans around the country are struggling even more than those who have not served -- higher unemployment rates, higher homeless rates, higher substance abuse rates, medical care that is inadequate -- it breaks my heart, and I think that General Shinseki is exactly the right person who is going to be able to make sure that we honor our troops when they come home.

BROKAW: He's the man who lost his job in the Bush Administration because he said we will need more troops in Iraq than Secretary of Defense Don Rumsfeld thought we would need at that time.

PRESIDENT-ELECT OBAMA: He was right.

Think Progress flashes back to Shinseki's Senate testimony:

In the run-up to war in Iraq in early 2003, General Eric Shinseki testified to the Senate Armed Services Committee that it would take "several hundred thousand soldiers" to secure Iraq:

I would say that what's been mobilized to this point, something on the order of several hundred thousand soldiers, are probably, you know, a figure that would be required. We're talking about post-hostilities control over a piece of geography that's fairly significant with the kinds of ethnic tensions that could lead to other problems.

Just two days later -- and exactly five years ago today -- then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, swiftly and infamously dismissed Shinseki's assessment:

The organization of Iraq And Afghanistan Veterans of America released this statement praising the choice of Shinseki:

"IAVA applauds President-elect Obama and the transition team for making this historic selection. General Shinseki has a record of courage and honesty, and is a bold choice to lead the VA into the future. The President-elect has demonstrated an understanding of the urgency of the issues facing America's veterans by making this announcement early. General Shinseki is widely-respected, honest and experienced. He is a man that has always put patriotism ahead of politics, and is held in high regard by veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan. IAVA looks forward to supporting him to implement the historic change that is needed at the VA.

As a wounded, decorated, combat veteran, and the first Asian American in US History to be a four-star general, General Shinseki, has the potential to be an effective and dedicated advocate for veterans of all generations.

From AP:

Shinseki, 66, is slated to take the helm of the government's second largest agency, which has been roundly criticized during the Bush administration for underestimating the amount of funding needed to treat thousands of injured veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Thousands of veterans currently endure six-month waits for disability benefits, despite promises by current VA Secretary James Peake and his predecessor, Jim Nicholson, to reduce delays. The department also is scrambling to upgrade government technology systems before new legislation providing for millions of dollars in new GI benefits takes effect next August.

Sen. Daniel Akaka, chairman of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, praised Shinseki as a "great choice" who will make an excellent VA secretary.

"I have great respect for General Shinseki's judgment and abilities," said Akaka, D-Hawaii, in a statement. "I am confident that he will use his wisdom and experience to ensure that our veterans receive the respect and care they have earned in defense of our nation. President-elect Obama is selecting a team that reflects our nation's greatest strength, its diversity, and I applaud him."

Below is the full text of Obama's announcement of General Eric Shinseki as Secretary of Veterans Affairs on Sunday, Dec. 7th, as prepared for delivery.

Good afternoon.

Earlier this week, I announced key members of my national security team. They have served in uniform and as diplomats; they have worked as legislators, law enforcement officials, and executives. They share my sense of purpose about American leadership in the world, my pragmatism about the use of power, and my vision for how we can protect our people, defeat our enemies, and meet the challenges of the 21st century.

As we seek a new national security strategy that uses all elements of American power, we must also remember those who run the greatest risks and make the greatest sacrifices to implement that strategy - the men and women who wear the uniform of the United States of America. Even as I speak, they are serving brilliantly and bravely in Iraq, Afghanistan, and around the world. And we must show them and their families the same devotion that they have shown this country.

We don't have to do our troops and our veterans a favor, we have a sacred trust to repay one. That starts with recognizing that for many of today's troops and their families, the war doesn't end when they come home. Far too many are suffering from the signature injuries of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan - Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and Traumatic Brain Injury. And far too few are receiving the screening and treatment they need. The servicemen and women who embody what's best about America should get the best care we have to offer, and that is what we will provide when I am President.

And in this struggling economy, we also have to do more to ensure that when our troops come home and leave the service, they can find jobs that pay well, provide good benefits, and help them support their families.

But we don't just need to better serve veterans of today's wars. We also need to build a 21st Century VA that will better serve all who have answered our nation's call. That means cutting red tape and easing transition into civilian life. And it means eliminating shortfalls, fully funding VA health care, and providing the benefits our veterans have earned.

That is the kind of VA that will serve our veterans as well as they have served us. And there is no one more distinguished, more determined, or more qualified to build this VA than the leader I am announcing as our next Secretary of Veterans Affairs - General Eric Shinseki. No one will ever doubt that this former Army Chief of Staff has the courage to stand up for our troops and our veterans. No one will ever question whether he will fight hard enough to make sure they have the support they need.

A graduate of West Point, General Shinseki served two combat tours in Vietnam, where he lost part of his foot, and was awarded two Purple Hearts and three Bronze Stars. Throughout his nearly four decades in the U.S. Army, he won the respect and admiration of our men and women in uniform because they have always been his highest priority. He has always stood on principle - because he has always stood with our troops. And he will bring that same sense of duty and commitment to ensuring that we treat our veterans with the care and dignity they deserve.

A decorated soldier who has served at every level in the Army, General Shinseki understands the changing needs of our troops and their families. And he will be a VA Secretary who finally modernizes our VA to meet the challenges of our time.

Nearly seventy years ago today, "a date which will live in infamy," our harbor was bombed in Hawaii, and our troops went off to war. And after that war was over, after we reclaimed a continent from a madman and beat back danger in the Pacific, those troops came home to a grateful nation - a nation that welcomed them with a GI Bill and a chance to live out in peace the dreams they had fought for, and so many died for, on the battlefield. We owe it to all our veterans to honor them as we honored our Greatest Generation - not just with words, but with deeds.

And with the national security team I announced this week and the extraordinary and courageous Secretary of Veterans Affairs I am announcing today, I am confident that we will never hesitate to defend our security, that we will send our troops into battle only when we must, and that, in the words of Abraham Lincoln, we will truly care for all "who shall have borne the battle."

Now, I'd like to turn it over to our next VA Secretary, General Eric Shinseki.

Obama's Meet The Press Interview: Discusses Economy, Auto Bailout, Iran, Foreign Policy, More (VIDEO)

2008-12-06T18:49:07Z

***UPDATE*** 12/7 12:31PM -- SCROLL DOWN FOR VIDEO

Obama discussed the importance of using the White House as a "bully pulpit" to encourage the youth of America to reach for the stars in the arts and sciences, and to remind people that the White House is "the people's house":

"Part of what we want to do is to open up the White House and remind people this is the people's house," Obama told NBC's Tom Brokaw during a "Meet the Press" interview taped Saturday in Chicago.

"There is an incredible bully pulpit to be used when it comes to, for example, education: Yes, we're going to have an education policy; yes, we're going to be putting more money into school construction. But ultimately we want to talk about parents reading to their kids. We want to invite kids from local schools into the White House."

The president-elect said his administration is interested in "elevating science once again, and having lectures in the White House where people are talking about traveling to the stars or breaking down atoms, inspiring our youth to get a sense of what discovery is all about."

"Thinking about the diversity of our culture and inviting jazz musicians and classical musicians and poetry readings in the White House so that once again we appreciate this incredible tapestry that's America," he said.

"Historically, what has always brought us through hard times is that national character, that sense of optimism, that willingness to look forward, that sense that better days are ahead," Obama said. "I think that our art and our culture, our science--you know, that's the essence of what makes America special, and we want to project that as much as possible in the White House."

***UPDATE*** 12/7 10:16AM

From AP:

President-elect Barack Obama said the economy seems destined to get worse before it gets better and he pledged a recovery plan "that is equal to the task ahead."

Obama also said in an interview broadcast Sunday that the survival of the domestic car-making capacity is important, yet any bailout must be "conditioned on an auto industry emerging at the end of the process that actually works."

Less than six weeks before he takes office, Obama said that help for homeowners facing foreclosure is an option as part of his plan. He sidestepped a question about when he plans to raise taxes on wealthy Americans.

Obama's interview on NBC's "Meet the Press" was his most extensive since winning the White House more than a month ago.

In the intervening weeks, the economy has showed clear signs of worsening. Employers said they eliminated more than 500,000 jobs in November alone and retailers reported disappointing holiday-season sales.

"The economy is going to get worse before it gets better," he said twice in the early moments of the interview, taped Saturday in Chicago.

The president-elect announced on Saturday he would call for the most massive spending on public works since the creation of the interstate highway system a half-century ago. In a word of caution to powerful lawmakers, he said the first priority would be "shovel-ready" projects _ those that could create jobs rights away.

"The days of just pork coming out of Congress as a strategy those days are over," he added.

Obama on the economy getting worse before it gets better.

Obama also discusses a potential bailout of the auto companies, but he was careful not to commit himself too firmly to any specific plan.

Brokaw and Obama discuss the potential diplomatic approaches to Iran.

Obama outlines his approach to foreign policy in general.

EARLIER: Barack Obama will be on Meet the Press Sunday. NBC has released an excerpt from the interview in which Obama announces that tomorrow, on the anniversary of Pearl Harbor, he will name General Eric Shinseki as Secretary of Veterans Affairs. Shinseki gained fame for losing his job in the Bush Administration after he testified to Congress that an occupation of Iraq would require hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops, a view which was not shared by the Pentagon under Donald Rumsfeld, but is now widely regarded as correct. Watch the excerpt from the interview below, and check back for the full video.

Transcript of Obama video clip:

PRESIDENT-ELECT OBAMA: Tomorrow, you had mentioned earlier, is when we commemorate Pearl Harbor, and so I'm going to be making announcement tomorrow about the head of our Veterans Administration, General Eric Shinseki, who was a commander and has fought in Vietnam, Bosnia, is somebody who has achieved the highest level of military service. He has agreed that he is willing to be part of this administration because both he and I share a reverence for those who serve. I grew up in Hawaii, as he did. My grandfather is in the Punch Bowl National Cemetery. When I reflect on the sacrifices that have been made by our veterans and, I think about how so many veterans around the country are struggling even more than those who have not served -- higher unemployment rates, higher homeless rates, higher substance abuse rates, medical care that is inadequate -- it breaks my heart, and I think that General Shinseki is exactly the right person who is going to be able to make sure that we honor our troops when they come home.

BROKAW: He's the man who lost his job in the Bush Administration because he said we will need more troops in Iraq than Secretary of Defense Don Rumsfeld thought we would need at that time.

PRESIDENT-ELECT OBAMA: He was right.

Think Progress flashes back to Shinseki's Senate testimony:

In the run-up to war in Iraq in early 2003, General Eric Shinseki testified to the Senate Armed Services Committee that it would take "several hundred thousand soldiers" to secure Iraq:

I would say that what's been mobilized to this point, something on the order of several hundred thousand soldiers, are probably, you know, a figure that would be required. We're talking about post-hostilities control over a piece of geography that's fairly significant with the kinds of ethnic tensions that could lead to other problems.

Just two days later -- and exactly five years ago today -- then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, swiftly and infamously dismissed Shinseki's assessment:

The organization of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America released this statement praising the choice of Shinseki:

"IAVA applauds President-elect Obama and the transition team for making this historic selection. General Shinseki has a record of courage and honesty, and is a bold choice to lead the VA into the future. The President-elect has demonstrated an understanding of the urgency of the issues facing America's veterans by making this announcement early. General Shinseki is widely-respected, honest and experienced. He is a man that has always put patriotism ahead of politics, and is held in high regard by veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan. IAVA looks forward to supporting him to implement the historic change that is needed at the VA.

As a wounded, decorated, combat veteran, and the first Asian American in US History to be a four-star general, General Shinseki, has the potential to be an effective and dedicated advocate for veterans of all generations.

From AP:

Shinseki, 66, is slated to take the helm of the government's second largest agency, which has been roundly criticized during the Bush administration for underestimating the amount of funding needed to treat thousands of injured veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Thousands of veterans currently endure six-month waits for disability benefits, despite promises by current VA Secretary James Peake and his predecessor, Jim Nicholson, to reduce delays. The department also is scrambling to upgrade government technology systems before new legislation providing for millions of dollars in new GI benefits takes effect next August.

Sen. Daniel Akaka, chairman of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, praised Shinseki as a "great choice" who will make an excellent VA secretary.

"I have great respect for General Shinseki's judgment and abilities," said Akaka, D-Hawaii, in a statement. "I am confident that he will use his wisdom and experience to ensure that our veterans receive the respect and care they have earned in defense of our nation. President-elect Obama is selecting a team that reflects our nation's greatest strength, its diversity, and I applaud him."

Paul Abrams: Cowardly Bush Hides Behind Laura's Skirts: Gibson Fails to Ask the Key Questions

2008-12-05T18:42:12Z

In his 'exit' interview with Charlie Gibson, George W. Bush appeared with Laura in a 'family setting' sitting together on a couch. Although Charlie did press Bush on the Iraq War--would he have fought it knowing there were no WMDs?--the presence of Laura did much to disarm Gibson.

It is, after all, unseemly to show up a man in the presence of his wife. Especially when they are sitting next to one another on a couch in "their" living room. Especially by pressing him on an evasive or untruthful answer. Although Charlie made sure Bush knew what question he was asking, he let Bush's answers stand without challenge. Bush's biggest disappointment--failure of intelligence. Not his own failures on 9/11, Katrina, the Financial Meltdown. The failure of others.

Gibson just let that stand. In Laura's presence he did not ask the key questions to challenge him.

The Iraq War was an intelligence failure? We know from the Downing Street memo that the facts were being marshaled around the decision. But, we need not take the word of Britain's intelligence chief (who wrote the memo).

It is confirmed by analyzing George Tenet's famous "slam dunk" comment. Bush, uncharacteristically analytical, tells Tenet that the case he presented Bush is not very strong. Tenet says he said that it was a "slam dunk" to make it stronger.

If Bush were truly trying to determine whether the US should invade Iraq, as opposed to getting the evidence he needed to justify an invasion that had already been pre-determined, he would have asked his intelligence chief a simple question: if it is such a "slam dunk", why did you not present that right now, upfront, the first time.

The answer is obvious: the "slam dunk" evidence was questionable. Tenet had, as a good intelligence chief should, presented only that information he could verify. And, as Bush himself realized, that verifiable evidence was weak.

So, Tenet did what bad intelligence chiefs do--he gave Bush the evidence he wanted to hear, verifiable or not, and with no disclaimers about its reliability.

But, that is not even the key question. Even if one assumes that good intelligence could have missed something, why did Bush truncate the on-the-ground inspections? Why did he not, as the inspectors pleaded, give them more time to complete their assignment?

This answer, too, is obvious: the inspectors were finding nothing at places where Cheney and others were absolutely certain the weapons were. If the inspectors worked for months, and could find nothing, even at places the US "knew" they were, then the "slam dunk" information would become a blocked shot.

Specifically, the questionable information Tenet had not presented in the first submission would have been found to have been wrong.

That, alone, may not have precluded war. Bush would have claimed that Saddam Hussein was not cooperating, and shuttling the weapons around ahead of the inspectors' visits. He would also have bashed the United Nations as soft, implying the inspectors were biased against finding evidence to support an invasion.

But, since Bush has fingered the failure of intelligence in Iraq as his biggest disappointment, what reason could he advance today for refusing to allow the inspectors to finish their job? How credible is that nuclear warheads could be moved quickly without a trace? Bush's mushroom cloud argument would have vanished.

If Bush were not exiting by hiding behind Laura's skirts, moreover, Charlie might have asked him why Katrina, or the financial disaster, or his failure even to call a meeting when he was warned about a terrorist attack, did not equal the Iraq intelligence failure as a disappointment. He might have asked him what Dick Cheney was doing spending all his time at the CIA. He might have asked him why he dissed General Shinseki's sober analysis of the needs for the occupation.

In fact he might have asked Bush if he were backing away from his consistent assertion that he would have invaded even if he had known there were no weapons. That was Bush's main case against John Kerry in 2004, that he was "flip-flopping" on his support for the war because he (Kerry) now knew there were no weapons.

Charlie may also asked him about things such as White House involvement in Justice Department decisions, why there were over 400 allowable contact people, whereas under prior Presidents there were just 4, and why Dick Cheney was even on the contact list; or, perhaps why he did not follow through on his campaign pledge to list carbon dioxide as a pollutant.

But, he didn't. Laura's skirts effectively shielded George W. from the truth about himself.

The good news is that on January 20th he will stop abusing our patience.

Georgianne Nienaber: Former MN Senator Becky Lourey: Why Not Let Moral Principles Guide Governance?

2008-08-26T13:28:06Z

Image: Coleen Rowley, Congressman John Murtha, Becky Lourey (2006 G. Nienaber)

It was late September 2006 and Minnesota was in the throws of mid-term elections. Coleen Rowley was waging an impossible uphill battle against incumbent John Kline for a congressional seat in the countryside south of Minneapolis. I was working the Rowley campaign, having taken six months off from writing to try to make a difference and help a real-life heroine. Rowley had consistently opposed the Iraq war since before it was launched, stating that there was no link to al Qaeda, as the administration and her opponent, John Kline, both claimed. Rowley was and is a 24-year veteran of the F.B.I. and Time "Person of the Year" in 2002 for her role as a whistleblower on intelligence failures prior to 9/11.

Congressman John Murtha was in town to give Rowley a boost, and the Rowley campaign staff had gathered at the Rosemount American Legion Post No. 65 that was literally bursting at seams with Rowley supporters. Congressman Murtha, Minnesota's senior Congressman, Jim Oberstar (D-MN 8th), and Rowley were meeting with U.S. military veterans and the public.

Congressman Murtha, a 37-year Veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps who had served in the U.S. Congress since 1975, had recently taken the lead in Washington by proposing to redeploy American troops in Iraq with a resolution known as "The Murtha Plan." FOX News was gathering for the kill, even though most local media was out covering the aftermath of a tornado that devastated a suburban community the night before.

But, someone else caught my eye. Virtually unnoticed, former State Senator Becky Lourey was standing quietly in the back of the room. Not months before, she had been the center of media attention as she bucked the party hacks in her quest for the gubernatorial nomination. She lost that bid, and the media lights vanished in favor of the anointed DFL candidate who subsequently lost to current Republican vice-presidential option, Tim Pawlenty. But Lourey never lost the hard-earned moral high ground that had defined her political career from the beginning, when she became the first woman elected to represent her rural district in eastern Minnesota.

During her run for governor, Lourey championed peace above all. Lourey had been a peace advocate even before her son, Army Chief Warrant Officer Matthew Lourey, 40, died when his helicopter was shot down in Iraq. Matt was killed on May 27, 2005 over Buhriz, Iraq during his second tour of duty.

Well before Matt was killed, Lourey was adamantly opposed to the invasion of Iraq. A voice for the minority in the hopped-up days before the war, she authored an antiwar resolution signed by eighteen other Minnesota state senators in March 2003. She said she spoke out against the Iraq war because "this war is alienating us from the rest of the world, and I believe that this occupation in Iraq is making Americans less safe."

Matt Lourey was a hero. He did not have to go back the second time and had also served time in Bosnia. After his death, Lourey received many emails from soldiers whose lives were saved because of him.

In an interview with Amy Goodman on Democracy Now after Matt died, Lourey made the point that needs to be made now as we consider our presidential choices and our moral obligations as citizens to be actively engaged in policy.

"We must have an honorable, honest commander-in-chief who directs the work that our armed forces do. There is a serious distinction between the irresponsibility of bad decisions by a commander-in-chief and the responsibilities that the army folks hold among themselves for protecting each other in conflicts like this," Lourey said.

The irony of the diminutive farm woman with the huge convictions standing alone dressed in a navy suit with the Gold Star on her lapel was enough to take my breath away. There was only one thing to do, and I walked to the back of the Legion Hall, tripping over local FOX-TV television cables along the way, and guided her gently to a seat next to Congressman Murtha. Murtha was there to not only support Rowley, but to take on the mainstream network talking heads that were savaging him.

Even Tim Russert went for Murtha's jugular on Meet the Press weeks later and asked Murtha, "Congressman, when you heard those words, 'Cowards cut and run, Marines never do,' how did you feel?"

This, after Russet made editorial comment after editorial comment about how leaving Iraq would result in a "bloodbath."

This past March 19, 2008, private citizen Becky Lourey gave a speech at the Minnesota State Capitol Rotunda. It was the fifth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq.

In these days when there is bitter debate both here and at other progressive news sites about what constitutes "news" and worthy editorial commentary, perhaps we need to be asking the bigger questions. The Internet is filled with impossible amounts of writing, commentary and just plain old rambling, but this "lost" speech by a steely woman from rural Minnesota has a message which all Americans and especially those writers with a bully pulpit might do well to consider.

Following, is Lourey's speech with minimal editing. I dropped Lourey a note and asked if I could write an op-ed around it, since I have been deeply troubled by the lack of a moral compass in media and in our leadership choices.

Her response?

One word.

"Yes!"

Imagine this Gold Star mother giving a speech under the Minnesota Capitol dome, with the floor in front of the podium littered with empty combat boots.

Lourey's Comments

I have placed Matt's photo directly in front of me so that as I glance up I am gazing into his eyes. This message today on the 5th Anniversary of the Invasion of Iraq -- a conspiracy to defraud the United States by President Bush, Vice President Richard B. Cheney, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of Defense Donald M. Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin M. Powell -- is laden with pain, but also with determination. Determination to see that these tragedies are not repeated in places such as Iran, promises that the persons who wrote the torture memos and allowed horrendous acts against humanity and human rights in prisons in Bagram, Afghanistan, at Guantanamo, Cuba, at Abu Ghraib, Iraq, and extraordinary rendition are brought to justice.

How We Allowed Fear to Completely Annihilate Our Humanity

I just hate it when we don't learn from history. After realizing the horrible things we had done by interring the Japanese Americans in detention camps during World War II, and following President Ronald Regan's apology in 1988, when he signed a law passed by Congress, I thought we would never do things like this again. Especially now since we have the Geneva Convention and the Nuremberg Principles to guide us, how is it we let fear completely annihilate our humanity! Have patience, because justice will be done, and as a nation, as a people, we will seek atonement for the sins we have committed.

The Nuremberg Principles provide for accountability for war crimes committed by military and civilian officials. Principle IV of the Nuremberg Principles states: "The fact that a person acted pursuant to an order of his Government or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him. Principal VI of the Nuremberg Principles: The following crimes are punishable as crimes under international law:

Crimes against peace: i. Planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances; ii. Participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the acts mentioned under (i).
War Crimes: Violations of the laws or customs of war which include, but are not limited to murder, ill-treatment or deportation to slave-labor or for any other purpose of civilian population of or in occupied territory, murder or ill-treatment of prisoners of war, of persons on the seas, killing of hostages, plunder of public or private property, wanton destruction of cities, towns, or villages, or devastation not justified by military necessity.

Crimes against humanity: Murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation and other inhuman acts done against any civilian population, or persecutions on political, racial or religious grounds, when such acts are done, or such persecutions are carried on in execution of, or in connection with any crime against peace or any war crime.

Attacking Iran Would Be a War Crime

Attacking Iran will be a crime against peace, a war crime. Those conducting military operations will be violating the Nuremberg Principles, the Geneva Conventions and the Laws of Land Warfare. Prosecution for commission of war crimes is possible.

Why am I talking about attacking Iran?

The recent resignation of Admiral William J. Fallon caused many of us who watched the conspiracy to invade Iraq move steadily forward to pay closer attention because Admiral Fallon is a critic of Bush and is adamantly against invading Iran.

The Boston Globe considers "the validity of Fallon's advice" as it notes that Bush has a "history of stumbling into grievous strategic errors" because he ignores the advice of military commanders. While Secretary of Defense Robert Gates states that he also does not want to invade Iran, President Bush has stubbornly refused to take it off the table and we know that Vice President Cheney has certainly considered the idea.

In 1997, a new conservative Washington think-tank called the Project for the New American Century was established. Vice President Dick Cheney, at the time Chairman of Halliburton, was a founding member. Soon after its founding, the Project for the New American Century produced a white paper published in September of 2000, which outlines what is required of America to create the global empire they envision. The white paper expressed the conviction that, and I quote, "Over the long term, Iran may well prove as large a threat to U.S. interests in the Gulf as Iraq has. And even should U.S.-Iranian relations improve; retaining forward-based forces in the region would still be an essential element in U.S. security strategy given the longstanding American interests in the region." End quote.

And I suspect that they don't care at all that the National Intelligence Estimate which represents the consensus view of 16 US Intelligence Agencies reported on December 3, 2007, that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003 and that the program remains frozen.

So, Why Wouldn't We Be Worried?

Admiral Fallon succeeded Army General John Abizaid and both were against the surge. On November 15, 2006, General Abizaid appeared before the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee and said, "It is easy for the Iraqis to rely on us to do this work. I believe that more American Forces prevent the Iraqis from doing more, taking more responsibility for their own future."

Let's look closer at the surge. It is interesting to me to discover that the surge is indeed killing fewer American soldiers, but just as many Iraqis are being killed -- the death toll is at 2005 levels. Does someone think this is acceptable?

Don't we care about them?

International agencies are reporting Iraqi death tolls as high as one million dead. But these numbers aren't reported here in the US. My dear friend, Ann Wright, who retired from the U.S. Army Reserves as a Colonel after 29 years, who served in Grenada, Panama, Greece, the Netherlands, Somalia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Sierra Leone, Micronesia, and Mongolia, who was on the small team that reopened the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, in December 2001, and who resigned from the U.S. Diplomatic Corps in March 2003 in opposition to the Iraq War, agrees with the observation written by Peter Oborne from Baghdad for The Daily Mail.

Holding a Bull by its Tail

Ann and Peter both worry that "by arming former insurgents and paying them to swoop sides, the U.S. risks building up heavily armed new militias who could unleash untold terror and blood-letting once American troops pull out." (Peter's quote.) The surge is like the concept of holding on to a bull by his tail; if you let go, everything breaks again. It is also like squeezing a balloon, U.S. personnel are dying in fewer numbers where the surge (the squeeze) is occurring, but the killing is swelling out to the surrounding areas.

The surge is also creating problems with U.S. Army recruitment, Peter Oborne reports. "Former U.S. General Barry McGaffrey warned that "the U.S. Army is starting to unravel. Our recruiting campaign is bringing into the Army thousands of new soldiers who should not be in uniform "- drugs and mental delinquency being the reason." (Peter Oborne.)

Think of it, Americans on the edge being recruited to die for oil. I feel more comfortable saying that, now that so many more people with more credibility than I are also saying it: General Abizaid, Retired, "Of course it's about oil, we can't really deny that." New York Times columnist, Thomas Friedman, "We've treated the Arab world as a collection of big gas stations." Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, "the Iraq War is largely about oil."

Just look at what the greed of this administration has done to our country. It has devastated our economy. It is said that the attention of the electorate in this election season that is upon us is focused on the economy, and not on the war.

It is said that Americans have become accustomed to the backdrop of the ongoing killings in the war in Iraq as they struggle to make ends meet and deal with financial challenges as food and energy prices soar, as they lose their homes, as they lose value in their retirement accounts, as they can't afford college, as their schools lay off teachers, as they lose their health care.

Where Have Our Morals Gone?

But can't you see, it is the war in Iraq that is causing the crumbling of our own economy, it is the unchecked greed of the people at the helm of our failing institutions as they walk away with golden parachutes and their employees lose their pensions and their jobs. Where have our morals gone? We have a president who told us to go spend money in time of crisis -- I was raised to believe that it is not spending, but working -- jobs, jobs that are needed to meet the challenges facing our world -- that build and rejuvenate an economy. And war only makes a few rich -- the oil companies and a few defense contractors.

Bush of course denies it, but the new report by Joseph E. Stiglitz and Linda J. Blimes presents figures to us that are staggering. The Washington Post reports that the authors "final tally reaches $2.2 trillion in their best case scenario and $5 trillion in their realistic scenario -- and those figures don't even count the costs to Iraq, U.S. allies and the rest of the world. Choosing to err on the conservative side (and perhaps on the side of a catchier book title) the authors settle on $3 trillion." The title of the book is The Three Trillion Dollar War; its authors are experts on the subject. Stiglitz is the Nobel Prize winning Columbia University economist and Blimes is a Harvard University lecturer and public finance expert.

So -- when Americans are focusing on the economy, they are in fact focusing on the war at the same time -- whether they are aware of it or not.

Maybe 4,000 U.S. military dead by the time this 5th anniversary ends, 29,000 physically wounded with multiple serious injuries, not to mention the psychological scars from repeated deployments and extended tours of duty without rest, inadequate medical support upon returning home. Somewhere between 600,000 and one million Iraqis dead, and 5 million displaced -- take a moment to consider the horror refugees and immigrants are experiencing and the crisis created for the people and the countries. With the Red Cross estimating that more than 2,200 doctors and nurses have been killed and of the 34,000 doctors registered in Iraq in 1990, at least 20,000 have left the country.

Beatrice Megevand Roggo of the Red Cross pleads, "Better security in some parts of Iraq must not distract attention from the continuing plight of millions of people who have essentially been left to their own devices."

How can caring Americans bear this unconscionable state of affairs? How can we go on remembering what we knew from the back pages of the newspapers, from former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson, that there were no weapons of mass destruction. We knew there were no operational links between Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein even before the March 11, 2008, report from The Institute for Defense Analyses stated, after examining 600,000 Iraqi documents, that there was no link. What have we done!

Remaining Calm and Steady

We must remain calm and steady. We must not appear to be hysterical because we have a message. And we must never tire. We must seek justice -- for hope I recommend that you read former federal prosecutor Elizabeth de la Vega's book United States v. George W. Bush et al. It is from her hypothetical indictment to a hypothetical grand jury that I read in the first paragraph "a conspiracy to defraud'. Elizabeth states, "because of Bush's fiction, we agreed to bomb people 8000 miles away whose only "crime" was that they were oppressed by a violent and cruel dictator".

For emotional support and inspiration, I recommend you read Dissent, Voices of Conscience -- Government Insiders Speak Out Against the War in Iraq by Colonel (Ret.) Ann Wright and Susan Dixon, with a foreword by Daniel Ellsberg.

My son admired and respected General Eric Shinseki so I had planned to read the section where he was castigated in public by Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld for speaking truth. However, this quote from Marine Lieutenant General (Ret.) Greg Newbold reaches deep into my emotion and soul, "The commitment of our forces to this fight was done with a casualness and swagger that are the special province of those who have never had to execute these missions -- or bury the results."

On his death bed on March 7, 2006, Psychology Professor Emeritus, Kamal Gindy, UMD, called me to his bedside and told me to never give up. I'm here with you because of my promise to him.

But it is so hard, so hard, isn't it, to be fighting fear -- fear is primal, it is not taught, it is within us, and we must resist it and replace it with empathy and love and action.
--Becky Lourey

Words of grace, wisdom and honor from a formidable Minnesota woman. Another heroine who gives strength to this writer's sword arm.

John Lumea: Obama Simply Must Pick A Man (4-Star General) Or A Woman (Hillary Clinton)

2008-08-22T10:07:16Z

Barack Obama has been getting a lot of advice about whom he should pick for his running mate. But the "four-star checkmate" contingent and the no-woman-but-Hillary crowd must be feeling a little left out in the cold, if we can believe what all the vice-presidential crystal-ball-ers and tea-leaf readers are telling us these days.

Good.

For starters, the notion that Hillary Clinton is, by definition, the only woman Obama can or should pick for VP is just silly.

The general argument for Hillary as Obama's running mate is that, based on those 18 million votes Hillary and her supporters keep reminding us about, Hillary deserves the vice-presidency, as a kind of consolation prize for coming in second. But leaving aside the fact that the Democratic nominating contest is a race for delegates, not votes; leaving aside, too, the fact that the very idea of "the popular vote" is meaningless in a contest comprised of both primaries and caucuses, some open and some closed; leaving aside all of that, the only way Hillary actually still could "have" 18 million votes is if it were a static electorate --- which it's not.

Hillary earned her 18 million votes over the course of five months, and some of those who voted for her in the earlier contests had switched their loyalties by the end of the primary. In the California primary, for example, Hillary edged Obama by 8+ points, 51% to 43%. But three months later, California voters said in response to a poll that, given the chance to vote again, they preferred Obama by 6 points, 49% to 43%. Obama's net gain: 14 points. A similar New Jersey poll, conducted around the same time, found that, although Hillary defeated Obama there by 10 points, 54% to 44%, Jersey voters preferred Obama by 7 points, 45% to 38%. Obama's net gain: 17 points. Both those polls were conducted while Hillary still was a publicly active candidate in the race.

The fact is, people's minds change over time. And, however many supporters Hillary Clinton still "has," chances are that, at this late stage of the campaign, it's a lot less than 18 million.

Fair enough, though: Hillary Clinton ran for President and got a lot of votes in the process. But does that mean that Hillary is the only political woman who can, as she likes to say, "break the highest and hardest glass ceiling," by becoming President or Vice-President? Wouldn't any woman elected to those positions do that?

Obviously, Hillary Clinton is a brand. That her fame, like her political skills, her access to power, and her office, can't be separated from the opportunities afforded her in being (and remaining) married to an even larger brand doesn't change the brute fact of her fame, her skills, and her access, all of which have real political value. But there is something reductive, elitist, anti-democratic, astonishingly arrogant, and downright anti-feminist in the assumption that Hillary Clinton embodies every political asset Barack Obama can and should want in a VP, woman or otherwise. Indeed, in the context of the necessary reinvigoration of the Democratic Party --- for this, as much as anything else, is what an Obama presidency would be about --- the self-censoring, self-negating, and, ultimately, self-sabotaging no-woman-but-Hillary-impulse betrays a complete failure to understand who Barack Obama is, and a complete absence of curiosity and imagination about who has what he really needs to help move the party forward.

On that last score, there are Democrats who have very strong opinions about which boy on the various media shortlists they would like to see as Obama's running mate. But who ever heard anyone prop their personal pick and object to the other boy who's getting more buzz that week, by saying, "Well, jeez, if he's gonna pick a man, why not just pick Bill Richardson?" But that's exactly what one hears from Hillary partisans, with respect to Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius.

Here's the thing, though. Hillary Clinton is Hillary Clinton, and Kathleen Sebelius is Kathleen Sebelius. Each brings her own unique set of political assets to Obama's vice-presidential contemplations. For my own money, Sebelius's political approach and proven abilties are far more in line with Obama's vision of presidential governance and leadership. Ultimately, only Obama can say for sure.

But the biggest reason that Hillary should not be Obama's VP has to do with the little present she gave to Republicans, a year ago. It's a gift that keeps on giving.

Ever since Hillary sought, in July 2007, to poison the well of Obama's nascent candidacy, by branding him as "irresponsible and, frankly, naïve" on matters of foreign policy and national security --- and, despite what Hillary and Bill would have us believe, those four words were the Original and, as it turns out, Defining Attack of the Democratic primary (and perhaps of the entire campaign) --- we have been hearing, from an endless parade of pundits and other armchair philosophers, some version of the following: Should Obama accede to the Democratic nomination, he simply must choose as his running mate someone with clear foreign policy or national security "credentials," to balance his own "obvious" deficiencies in this area.

Never mind that Obama is the one whose judgment on the Iraq war has turned out to be right. Never mind that Hillary --- the same Hillary who, according to Indiana Senator Evan Bayh, has a "spine of steel" --- was the one who not only caved to George Bush on Iraq but who still cannot bring herself to express any unqualified remorse about her vote. Never mind that, beginning within days of Obama's remarks last summer on Pakistan, on presidential diplomacy, and on nuclear weapons, waves of editorial and op-ed writers began to affirm that Obama's thinking is well within the mainstream of Democratic foreign policy. Never mind that respected political analysts from New York Times contributing writer James Traub to Newsweek editor Fareed Zakaria have concluded that Obama, far from being a naïve idealist on foreign policy, is a next-generation realist in the tradition of Dean Acheson, George Kennan, and George H.W. Bush.

Never mind all that. From the moment Hillary Clinton uttered "irresponsible and, frankly naïve," the damage was done. And although the damage is by no means irreparable, the perception wrought by those four hellish words remains the reality against which Obama runs against the "experience" candidacy of John McCain.

Were Democrats to pay attention to what Obama actually has said (and written) about foreign policy and national security --- moreover, were they to compare what Obama has said and written with what McCain has --- they would know that they are in extraordinarily good hands on these issues. Instead, they have paid less attention to what Obama has said for himself than to what Hillary has said about him, and to what the traditional media have said about McCain --- including the laughable shibboleth that, by some mystical osmosis, being a P.O.W. forty years ago makes one a lifelong savant on all matters related to foreign policy and national security.

Of course, a presidential campaign is, among other things, a media proposition; and the one thing Obama can't do is to look into a camera and say, "My friends, I was a P.O.W. I know war." Which is why some nervous Democrats, looking for a silver-bullet VP with which to neutralize McCain, latched on to freshman Virginia senator and former Navy Secretary Jim Webb this past spring and early summer --- the (literally minded) idea being that the only way to counter one old soldier was with another one. Tit for tat. The speculation was good for Webb --- or, rather, for Webb's book tour --- but, eventually, Webb removed himself from speculation, fairly quickly to be replaced in the fantasies of the military VP set by Wes Clark.

Just last week, in a piece bluntly enough titled, "Why Obama's VP Needs to Be a 4-Star General," Andy Ostroy offered Obama a VP shortlist which included Clark, along with fellow retired Generals Colin Powell, Eric Shinseki, and Anthony Zinni. One of these four must be on Obama's ticket, Ostroy argued, because "Obama himself has zero foreign policy or national security chops."

Really? What does Ostroy mean by "chops"? Has he been listening to, or reading, anything that Obama has been saying or writing on foreign policy and national security, for the last six years? Exactly which kind of "chops" was it that totally screwed the country over for the last seven years, for want of enough sobriety, judgment, or long-term vision for the country's foreign policy and national security? Does Dick Cheney have "chops"? Does John McCain have "chops"? Really?!!

And since when does any Administration's best foreign policy and national security "chops" reside in the vice-presidency? Isn't that what the Secretaries of State and Defense, and the National Security Adviser, are for?

And let's assume that Mr. Ostroy gets his wish, and that Obama chooses, as his running mate, a four-star general. Do we really want to set ourselves up for a crypto-military presidency in 2016?

Much as I prefer an outside-the-Beltway pick like Kathleen Sebelius or Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer, it may well turn out that --- absent an imminent endorsement by Colin Powell --- Barack Obama has yet to well enough close the deal on foreign policy and national security "experience," to keep from choosing an establishment type like Joe Biden, or even Bill Richardson, as VP. But either of those choices could work in ways that neither a four-star general, on [his] own, nor Hillary Clinton, on her own, could.

Unlike any of the generals that Ostroy proposes, both Richardson and Biden are generalists --- experienced and well-versed in both foreign and domestic policy, as we like our presidents to be.

And unlike Hillary Clinton, neither Joe Biden nor Bill Richardson betrayed Democrats by telling the country at large that Barack Obama is "irresponsible" and "naïve" --- that he is, in effect, unpresidential.

Based on all the public evidence, it seems much more likely that Obama will choose Sebelius, Schweitzer, Biden, or Richardson, than that he will choose Hillary Clinton or a four-star general.

This is a very hopeful sign --- both for Democrats and for all Americans.

Andy Ostroy: Why Obama's VP Needs to be a 4-Star General

2008-08-15T15:56:50Z

It's an obvious problem facing Sen. Barack Obama and the Democratic Party as both head to the November presidential election. While a majority of Americans are against the Iraq war and believe the Bush administration took its eye off terror organizations like al Qaeda, they see Sen. John McCain, the GOP's presumptive nominee, as being stronger on foreign affairs and national security. Despite this clear disadvantage, the odds-on favorites to be selected as Obama's vice presidential running mate are little known state Governors -- Evan Bayh (Ind) and Tim Kaine (VA) -- who have no real foreign policy or national security experience. We are a nation at war, targeted by Islamic terrorists, and now back in a potential Cold War with a militaristically invigorated Russia, which has just invaded the Republic of Georgia.

So, why are two neophytes on the world stage, Bayh and Kaine, at the top of the list when Obama himself has zero foreign policy or national security chops? With McCain perceived by voters as the more capable commander-in-chief, leading in the polls by about 25 points on this issue, Obama's gonna need more than Bayh or Kaine if he expects to occupy the White House in January. Which is why he and the party must put the offensive block on the GOP by choosing a retired 4-star general as his running mate. Someone like Colin Powell, Eric Shinseki, Anthony Zinni or Wesley Clark. A move like this would totally disarm the McCain campaign and take away one of it's biggest attack points: that an Obama presidency would be woefully ill-equipped to defend America. Who better than to be at Obama's side helping to protect the United States than his 4-star general vice-president? In an age where, thanks to Dick Cheney, VP's are viewed as having much more influence and power than ever, this could prove to be a critical strategic maneuver on the part of Democrats. It would allow Obama to point to Iraq, Russia, Iran and the battle against terrorism and project strength, experience and resolve ... giving voters a sense of confidence that his administration, contrary to the relentless GOP talking points, is highly capable, more capable that McCain, of defending America both at home and abroad. Think of the image of Obama standing beside a uniformed 4-star general. Think of what that image projects to these voters, many of whom are independents still on the fence.

Conventional wisdom argues that one's choice of VP means little or nothing come November. There's no real guarantee they'll "deliver" their home states and, virtually everyone simply votes for the top of the ticket anyway, no matter how bad the VP choices appear to be. Case in point Dan Quayle and Spiro Agnew. These clowns didn't stop Richard Nixon or Pappi Bush from winning. But, given the global stage these days, and the edge McCain has on foreign affairs, coupled with how the GOP has successfully defined Democrats as weak on national security, the selection of a 4-star general could very well, against 2008's treacherous international landscape, have major impact on the outcome of this election in particular.

Some notable choices for Obama would be retired Army generals Clark, Shinseki and Powell, along with the Marine Corps' Zinni. Clark's a Democrat who's already tried his hand at the presidency in 2004, and failed. But he'd make for a terrific Veep. Given the crisis in Georgia, with his track-record in Bosnia, he'd be a great running mate, as would the others, all of whom have a bone to pick with the Busheviks. Shinseki was fired after arguing that at least 300,000 post-invasion troops would be necessary in Iraq to properly stabilize the country. We now know he was dead-right. Zinni, former chief of the Central Command, the U.S. military headquarters for the Middle East, knows more about what's needed in Iraq than perhaps anyone, and he's been at odds with President Bush over this handling of the war. And Powell, for obvious bi-partisan and celebrity-cache reasons, would be a coup.

No matter how you slice it, this is the image Obama must project for his administration. As with 2004, what will award the White House to Republicans is fear, plain and simple; Americans' desire to feel safe and secure and protected here at home. On this front, McCain wins hands down. Unfortunately, guys like Bayh and Kaine, or any other generally unexciting, inexperienced, relatively unknown potential running mate, doesn't even make a dent. It's time Democrats once and for all trump the GOP on matters of national security.