Here's a perfect example showing why Wesley Clark is an over-educated doofus.
With Senator Barack Obama planning to visit the Middle East and Europe in an apparent effort to burnish his foreign policy credentials, the credentials of his likely presidential rival, Senator John McCain, came under sharp attack Sunday from a man considered a possible Democratic vice presidential candidate.The retired general Wesley Clark said McCain had not "held executive responsibility" and had not commanded troops in wartime. [...]
When the interviewer, Bob Schieffer, noted to Clark that McCain had been shot down over Hanoi, Clark replied, "I don't think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to be president."
When Schieffer then asked what executive responsibility Obama had held - the Democrat's résumé includes work as a community organizer in Chicago and eight years in the Illinois legislature - Clark said that Obama was running on the strength of his character and good judgment.
This is such a basic idea, but of course even this is unacceptable to the no-development crowd.
The debate over whether to lift a 27-year-old ban on offshore drilling in most U.S. waters raises a key question that some say hasn't been answered: How much oil and gas is really out there?Government estimates are based on data that in some cases haven't been updated in 40 years. Technology used to detect oil and gas resources in rockbeds below the sea floor has improved dramatically since then.
That's why the oil and gas industry argues that the only way to have a fair discussion about opening all or part of the banned areas is to do new surveys, using the latest technology.
"We would think policymakers would want to know what's out there," said Dan Naatz, vice president for natural resources at the Independent Petroleum Association of America, an industry trade group. "Right now, it's a complete black hole."
Randall Luthi, director of the U.S. Minerals Management Service, an arm of the Interior Department charged with overseeing offshore drilling in federal waters, said the ban removes the incentive for companies to perform new seismic surveys.
"Most seismic companies are more than willing to go look at areas, but frankly they want to be able to sell their data to someone," Luthi said. "And as long as those areas are covered by federal moratoria, there's really no market for it."
Opponents of lifting the ban see new testing as the start of a slippery slope that would lead to drilling. And they say it's a waste of money at a time when the U.S. should be investing in ways to break its addiction to oil.
Here's more in the never-ending drama of The Clintons, and bad news (at least temporarily) for Democrats.
Bill Clinton is so bitter about Barack Obama's victory over his wife Hillary that he has told friends the Democratic nominee will have to beg for his wholehearted support.Mr Obama is expected to speak to Mr Clinton for the first time since he won the nomination in the next few days, but campaign insiders say that the former president's future campaign role is a "sticking point" in peace talks with Mrs Clinton's aides.... [T]he former president's rage is still so great that even loyal allies are shocked by his patronising attitude to Mr Obama, and believe that he risks damaging his own reputation by his intransigence.
A senior Democrat who worked for Mr Clinton has revealed that he recently told friends Mr Obama could "kiss my ass" in return for his support.
A second source said that the former president has kept his distance because he still does not believe Mr Obama can win the election.
Whatever else it may mean, it's surely more evidence that Barack Obama has done us all at least one huge favor by preventing this sordid bag of psychodrama from re-entering the White House.
As she's done so often, Peggy Noonan offers a different and provocative take on the political scene, this time concerning John McCain.
[T]here is a sense about his campaign that . . . John McCain has already got what he wanted, he got what he needed, which was to be top dog in the Republican Party, the party that had abused him in 2000 and cast him aside. They all bow to him now, and he doesn't need anything else. He doesn't need the presidency. He got what he wanted. So now he can coast. This is, in the deepest way, unserious. JFK had to have the presidency—he wanted that thing. Nixon had to have it too, and Reagan had to have it to institute his new way. Clinton had to have it—it was his destiny, the thing he'd wanted since he was a teenager.The last person I can think of who gave off the vibe that he didn't have to have it was Bob Dole. Who didn't get it. And who had a similar lack of engagement in terms of policy, and philosophy, and meaning.
For myself, I'm not so sure that McCain isn't serious; he may just be such an eclectic candidate that his campaign seems all over the place, even incoherent. Or maybe it's just symptomatic of the summer political doldrums; neither campaign seems very coherent right now. We'll know more by Labor Day.
It's a happy Father's Day around here (thanks). Elsewhere, not always so much, as noted by Juan Williams.
In his fictional books, Walter Dean Myers has found that the key to reaching young readers is to connect with their "internal life of insecurities and doubts." These doubts and insecurities involve answers to painful questions such as, "do you feel loved, do you ever feel lonely?" These are feelings that are hard to share with a teacher, a coach or even a friend.More so today than in the past, reaching the heart of insecurity among young people means writing about the hurt of life without a dad. It also means writing about being young and black or brown in the midst of the flood of negative images in rap videos without a positive male role model. These young people see so many others just like them standing on street corners, unconnected to family life and failing at school and work and threatening violence – and in so many cases just like them, without an adult male to guide them.
When these children see Barack Obama, Colin Powell or Condoleezza Rice, they tell Walter Dean Myers that those black people must be "special; they are not like me, they don't have the background that I have."
In his own life, Mr. Myers often looked down on the man in his house: his stepfather, who worked as a janitor and was illiterate. He felt this man had little to teach him.
Then his own son complained one day that he, Myers, "sounded just like granddad" when he told the boy to pick up after himself, to work harder and show respect to people.
"I didn't know it at the time," says Mr. Myers of his stepfather, "but just having him around meant I was picking up his discipline, his pride, his work ethic. . ." He adds: "Until I heard it from my son I never understood it."
The shocking loss of NBC's Tim Russert is another blow to the traditional values of journalism that seem to be more and more scarce.
NPR media correspondent David Folkenflik likened Russert's table at the popular Sunday morning news program to the smoke-filled rooms of previous generations where serious political issues were debated. "If you were not ready for prime time, Tim Russert's questioning would expose that," he says.Russert did not betray his personal beliefs on the air, but he held powerful figures accountable — senators, presidents, prime ministers alike....
When Russert first joined NBC, he did so as a senior executive. But when he became a journalist, "he applied a lawyer's ability for inquisition to find the truth," says Folkenflik. Russert often cited the advice given him by Lawrence Spivak, one of his predecessors on Meet the Press: Be aggressive, persistent and civil.
This will be an interesting test of the leadership at NBC News. Will they fumble it like they have with the partisanship of MSNBC?