Do Your Civic Duty

First off, my sincere apologies for the long hiatus. I have been working and traveling a good deal and, while both have been exciting and restorative, I happened to pick the most fodder-full month and a half to check out.

I don't even know where to begin, but I think I should start by imploring you all to do your civic duty. The President recently asked us to help him out in defending his health reform; one of his staffers even wrote in this blog post that "If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov."

Well, it would be downright un-American if we didn't do what the President asked us to. (In fact, if people don't do it, I hope the President does something about it. Maybe he should create some sort of committee to deal with people whose activities are that un-American. Put suggestions for names in the comments section.) So earlier today, I did my civic duty and reported some fishy information. I hope that my words might inspire you, even a little, to send my email or one of your own along to the proper authorities.

To: flag@whitehouse.gov

I have recently come across several websites that contain gross inaccuracies and exaggerations about President Obama's healthcare reform, and recently, they have also begun using shameless misdirection and even scare tactics against those who don't agree with them.

They can be found here:

-http://www.whitehouse.gov/realitycheck/
-http://www.whitehouse.gov/issues/health_care/

and in various entries here:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/

It's such a shame the people behind these websites feel the need to do what they do the way they do it. My very sincere thanks to you for keeping track of these perversions of the truth!
Best,
Jonathan

Adjusting Focus: Zimbabwe

America’s economic crisis. Iran’s election turmoil. These have been every major newscast’s top two stories, in some form or another, for nearly a week now. And it’s no wonder-these are two compelling stories that involve a high degree of both global importance and uncertainty regarding where they are headed.

Yet flipping through a recent Economist reminded me that any 30-minute newscast, or even a 24-hour news channel, is highly subject to tunnel vision, through no fault of their own.

An estimated 95% of Zimbabweans do not have formal employment, one of the worst rates in the world. They recently accepted the U.S. dollar after the Zimbabwean currency underwent hyperinflation that reached a high of five hundred billion percent. And they have an estimated GDP per capita of about $200, the world’s lowest. For a few more human numbers, the people of Zimbabwe have a life expectancy of around 46 years, in the global worst 15, and an adult HIV/AIDS prevalence of 15.3%, in the global worst ten.

On the political front, the reformist Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party, led by Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, won elections in March 2008, yet have since entered into a power-sharing agreement that the neo-fascist President, Robert Mugabe, and his ZANU-PF party continue to violate. Mugabe and cronies have used the power they have amassed over the years to shut the MDC out of just about every functional area of the Zimbabwean government, paying no regard to the agreement the South African Development Community is supposed to enforce (and, thus far, has not) or, more importantly, to the will the Zimbabwean people expressed clearly over a year ago.

I don’t mean to suggest that there is some grave injustice done by news organizations in covering the U.S. and Iran instead of every other place in the world that has problems. But it does put things in perspective, after hearing about the grave state of U.S. unemployment and the grave political situation in Iran, to be reminded that there is a country suffering from both consistent unemployment over ten times as great as ours and rule by a man and party with no true democratic mandate. And it puts things in even more perspective to learn that the only “stimulus package” the MDC finance minister has called for is $8.5 billion over three years to jumpstart Zimbabwe’s still-struggling economy. That’s just over 1 percent of the $787 billion dollars in the stimulus bill President Obama signed in February.

Let’s hope that, in our fascination with our own problems and those that get the most news coverage, that we find time to remember others who are in need. And perhaps, with more global attention focused on it, Zimbabwe will find the means to hold Mugabe accountable for his actions and piece together the global chump change it needs to begin the path to development.

Obama Kickin' Ass...or...um...Swatting It...

A quick update from the Coulda-Knocked-Me-Over-With-a-Feather Wire:

Obama’s approval rating is down 5% overall, down 14% among independents.

It probably had a lot to do with this act of violence...

Seriously, PETA? "He isn't the Buddha"? The man swatted a fly. Get over yourselves. Is this what happens when people stop wearing fur coats and you get bored? Now if you'll excuse me, I am going to go eat some meat. Just like the Buddha did.

Also, I jest about the approval rating thing. Coulda been the fly. Coulda been the mishandling of the economy. Coulda been our North Korea policy being a shambles. Some combination of those three. More on that to come.

Hey there! "theopposition" is using Twitter...

I won’t make any bones about it: Twitter has always ticked me off. I am not an old man or resistant to change, and as much of my life is consumed by Web 2.0 as the next guy. But I don’t understand the need to give the entire world a one-sentence update on your life from wherever you might happen to be. It might be the one thing on which I agree with Keith Olbermann; the left wing’s Ann Coulter-cum-Bill O’Reilly recently named Twitter the “Worst Person in the World.” (Even funnier to me was Conan O’Brien’s recent prediction that, in the year 3000, YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook would merge into one social networking conglomerate, YouTwitFace.)

My main beef with Twitter has been how it has contributed to the narrowing of our attention spans. The days of reading through a newspaper gave way to watching a half-hour of news summaries. Then that gave way to watching a digest of headlines on the 24-hour news cycle’s tickers as they made their programming boring enough that you’d have to pay attention to the ticker. Then that gave way to shorter and shorter online news alerts until, finally, we got single sentences. The only step left now is single words and monosyllabic expressions of emotion; Twitter will no doubt give way to Cheeper, on which I would simply summarize this blog entry as “grr”.

Yet recent events have made me wonder if watching the twits around me had caused me to judge the action of Tweeting too quickly. As Iran is cracking down on the release of unfiltered information, they have been at best refusing to renew visas, as in the case of NBC’s Richard Engel, and at worst detaining journalists and bloggers. Yet the information is getting out, by way of Iranian computers and mobile devices using Facebook and, yes, Twitter. As a result of the increased activity coming out of Iran, the US government urged, and Twitter decided, to suspend scheduled site maintenance to make sure they were still live.

Now, in Keith Olbermann’s and my defense, none of us could have seen this coming. Yet in spite of our spite, Twitter has given people on the ground an opportunity to give dispatches from the ground. CNN and other news agencies, with their correspondents cut off, are turning to Twitter for accurate (and some inaccurate) pictures of the situation in Tehran. And in spite of the Iranian government’s threats of legal action against those whose tweets might “create tension” and attempts to shut off internet and mobile phone service, the Tehran Tweetolution rolls on.

So, if Twitter has enabled us to break through the Iran Curtain, does this mean the end of unfree media? Not so fast. It is an extremely important development that some people around the world (NB: I said “some) have the means to get real information out from states that attempt to control the flow of real information. Yet we still need to strengthen our efforts to make sure free media gets in to these states. One thing is for sure, though-never again will I sell a new social networking technology short until I know for certain that it is completely useless.

Whose Defense is it Anyway?

Since it’s Sunday, I thought it might be fun to play a little game. Might not want to pull this one out at your next dinner party, but it’s some good clean fun the whole family can enjoy and is a lot less complicated than Yahtzee. (…or is it…?)

The way the game works is like this. I give you a statement. Your job is to tell me whether that statement comes from:

-then-President George W. Bush’s February 8, 2004, Meet the Press interview, in which he defended the decision to intervene in Iraq despite apparent failures by the intelligence community in assessing the threat leading up to it; or
-Vice President Joe Biden’s June 14, 2009, Meet the Press interview, in which he defended the government’s decision to intervene in the American automobile industry’s present crisis by effectively taking the helm of GM and Chrysler.

Here’s one to get you started:

“And the President of the United States’ most solemn responsibility is to keep this country secure. And the man was a threat, and we dealt with him, and we dealt with him because we cannot hope for the best.”

Ok, ok, that was a softball-obviously that was Bush. These next ones won’t be so easy…

1. “I love these folks who go out there and say, ‘Why'd you get involved?’”

2. “What is the one thing they all agreed on, every country that we participated with? We need to have…some control over the system that--so it can't run wild.”

3. “The exit strategy is that we, in fact…where the United States government…has got engaged in helping them stay alive is that they begin--they are retooled…We get the hell, the heck out as quickly as we can.”

4. “Well, we're not trying to run the [country/companies]. We've turned over the daily operation…to the [Iraqis/boards of directors of these companies].”

5. “And by the way, had we not done this, they'd all be in deep, deep, deep trouble…I love these folks who say we shouldn't have done anything. At the time I didn't hear anybody saying that.”

All done? Ok, let’s see how you did.

All five were Biden.

---
**On a completely serious note, I wanted to take this opportunity to honor the memory of Tim Russert. Reading over the transcript of the Bush interview reminded me just what a fine example he was and remains to anyone who writes or thinks about politics and government. May you feast with the angels, Mr. Russert, and know that the void left by your departure from this world a year ago is exceeded only by your legacy; namely, a generation willing to ask tough questions on Sunday and spend the rest of the week really thinking about the answers. Thank you, sir.

Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Her...

Confucius once said, “To know that we know what we know, and that we do not know what we do not know, that is true knowledge.”

Perhaps, then, when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton appeared on ABC’s This Week this past Sunday, she was just hoping to inject some redacted Confucian wisdom into the interview as she, again and again, said: “…we…do not…know.”

I have to give her credit for the many different permutations of “IDK” she managed to craft when discussion turned to Asia. There was the simple “I don’t – I don’t have an answer for you right now.” There was the more delicate “we’re not sure exactly,” but my personal favorite has to be “You know, George, it’s such a great question. And there’s no one easy answer.” (I can’t resist pointing out the irony here-that one was in reference to China.)

But no matter what HRC’s abundant campaign experience has taught her, an “uh…duh…” by any other name still stinks as bad. It’s sad when you see it on “Are You Smarter than a Fifth Grader.” When you see it from America’s chief diplomat on national television, it’s scary. My count was at least five different utterances of some form of “we don’t know”. For context, that's more than a third of George Stephanopoulos' thirteen questions pertaining to East Asia, including follow-ups.

Secretary Clinton had a national stage on which to communicate both her qualification for her position and the administration’s qualification to handle the various foreign policy challenges before it. Instead, she communicated confusion about an entire region – one that contains our chief competitor in the global economy as well as the nation that is currently both nuclear security threat #1 and holding two of our citizens on trumped-up charges as geopolitical pawns.

Confucius’ definition of true knowledge works in many cases, but not, I’m afraid, in high-level international relations. True knowledge from Clinton in this case would have been, quite simply, answering the relatively basic questions that she couldn’t. If it’s a complicated issue, explain the complications. If it’s a multi-faceted answer, polish off the facets for us. To know that we know what we know, and that our elected and appointed officials can fill in the rest, that’s true knowledge in Washington. Let’s hope Hillary Clinton acquires it before too long.

Ba-Rockin in the Muslim World

Don’t let the White House’s coyly understated title fool you. The “Remarks by the President at Cairo University” delivered on June 4 will forever be known as “The Speech to the Muslim World.” Our first orator-in-chief in a long time dazzled with a 55-minute riff on history and politics, Jews and Muslims, Barack Obama in Kenya and Barack Obama in Indonesia. Buried among the many important messages Obama had for the Muslim world, however, was this equally important message from the Muslim world to Obama (included only in the transcript the White House released):

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Barack Obama, we love you!
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Thank you. (Applause.)

(For the record, this is practically inaudible in the video. Seriously. Go to 40:00: "Lower Quality Version: President Obama Speaks to the Muslim World from Cairo, Egypt")

All kidding aside, though, I’ve been wondering as I’ve watched and read this speech just who Obama thinks he is. Despite the token admission that “no single speech can eradicate years of mistrust”, he launches into a series of verbal apologies and attempts to, it seems, eradicate years of mistrust.

I entirely agree with the President’s identification of American misunderstanding of the Muslim world. Americans often do conflate Muslims as a whole with the violent extremists who pervert Islam and the teachings of Muhammad. They are not Muslims, and the sooner we figure that out, the better. Yet is Obama so arrogant as to think that the sound of his voice is enough to counteract that ignorance?

But it seems the President has anticipated a counterargument. He made it clear with that mellifluous voice that, to relieve the “tensions” between America and Islam, “The first issue that we have to confront is violent extremism in all of its forms.” Ohhh, ok, my bad...

...Waaaait a minute...(wow, you almost got me! You're good, you.) If that’s the first issue we have to confront, then why are you talking about it before taking active steps that clearly improve on those of your predecessor to confront it? Why are you delivering an apology to the Muslim world instead of delivering a “stop-besmirching-the-good-name-of-my-friends-the-Muslim-world-or-else” to the violent extremist world? And I don’t mean a speech, either.

And, perhaps most importantly of all, why isn’t the President, perhaps the one man in the world who can get what he asks for most of the time, calling on the Muslim world to partner with us, in whatever ways we might need, to combat these extremists? The most helpful thing Obama can do for the Muslim world isn’t patronizing them, hitting up France, then coming home. It’s urging them to take on the filth masquerading around as members of their own faith and pledging our help in that effort.

The “Audience Member” you shut down with a "thank you" (seriously, not even a "love you too, man"?) may well echo the sentiments of the Muslim world by echoing your words of love, Mr. President. But remember what Mama Cass said:

Worn out phrases and longing gazes
Won’t get you where you want to go;
Words of love, soft and tender
Won’t win her anymore…