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Opinion
The Daily Dispatch
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A pragmatic look at Obama’s pragmatism II III
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Wednesday, September 30, 2009
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Editorial Board: James Edwards, Publisher Glenn Craven, Editor
jedwards@hendersondispatch.com gcraven@hendersondispatch.com
Don Dulin, News Editor ddulin@hendersondispatch.com
304 S. Chestnut St./P.O. Box 908 Henderson, N.C. 27536 PHONE: 436-2700/FAX: 430-0125
Daily Meditation Woe to them that devise iniquity, and work evil upon their beds! when the morning is light, they practise it, because it is in the power of their hand. Micah 2:1
Our Opinion
Our town, your paper Anyone who doubts that newspapers can hold the interest of young people should actually talk to a few. On Monday and Tuesday, at Vance Charter School and Henderson Middle School, representatives of this newspaper spoke with students. The VCS kids were all fifth-graders. Students at HMS ranged throughout the school’s grade-levels and are taking part in the Citizen Schools program held after the class-day concludes. In both groups, many students were not only familiar with The Daily Dispatch, they had appeared in the paper themselves, or knew someone who had. And it wasn’t just a case of being mentioned as a member of the honor roll, or getting a hit in a Little League baseball game, although those are reason enough to be included in the newspaper. No, these kids, their families and their neighbors were part of this town’s “everyday big news.” In one class, a child noted that her father was the driver of a vehicle involved in a serious traffic accident that had made the front page. Another child noted that her neighbor had died in a motorcycle crash and she read about it in the paper. Another little girl related a news story about a sibling that started out a little scary in the telling, but to the relief of the listener has ended with her sister furthering her education at a respected North Carolina college; a case of “bad news turned good.” Thankfully, there were other positive stories told among the students, as well — tales of siblings and cousins who had achieved beyond the norm in sports or in school. After all, we know that not all the news of the town is bad, nor is only bad news reflected upon our pages. And in every class, there were stories, good and bad, related back to this newspaper’s employees by the children whose friends and families whose lives and times have “made the news.” The key message derived from these hours spent with children: The Daily Dispatch — like newspapers particularly in communities our size and smaller, all across America — is woven into the fabric of this town. The Daily Dispatch is a part of this community, and this community is part and parcel of every day’s mission at The Daily Dispatch. We promise to never forget that. And we hope that you, our readers, can make that promise, as well.
Quotable “The District Attorney’s Office in the 30 years since Mr. Polanski left the jurisdiction, has not once sought to have him extradited. If it had, there would have been a hearing regarding the misconduct in this case.” — Roman Polanski, attorneys in a July filing as American prosecutors dispute Polanski’s claim that they had never tried to nab him after he fled overseas to escape sentencing on charges he had sex with a 13-year-old girl. “We completely understand why our lending partners like Bank of America want assurances that the recent allegations against us won’t happen again. We are taking a number of steps to ensure this, including providing ethics training to all of our staff.” — ACORN Housing Corp., in a statement after Bank of America Corp. suspended its work with the housing affiliate of embattled community organizing group ACORN.
“When John McCain said we could just ‘muddle through’ in Afghanistan, I argued for more resources and more troops to finish the fight against the terrorists who actually attacked us on 9/11, and made clear that we must take out Osama bin Laden and his lieutenants if we have them in our sights,” Barack Obama thundered as he accepted the Democratic nomination for president in Denver last year. “John McCain likes to say that he’ll follow bin Laden to the gates of Hell. But he won’t even go to the cave where he lives.” It was a shabby bit of rhetoric, even for a campaign. Insinuating that McCain, of all people, didn’t have the intestinal fortitude to take the fight to bin Laden was not only absurd on its face, it smacked of overcompensation coming from the former community organizer whose greatest foreign policy passion prior to his presidential bid had been nuclear disarmament. But the line did what it needed to do: communicate that Obama had the sort of true grit required to fight the good, i.e. popular, war in Afghanistan. That war may or may not be good anymore, but it is most certainly not popular. And so what was for Obama a “war of necessity” has become a de facto war of choice. At least that’s
the sense one gets as the president is suddenly searching for a politically palatable strategy other than the one he announced months ago. Now, I think it would amount to both breathtaking cynicism and, far worse, Jonah bad policy Goldberg for Obama to abandon Tribune Media AfghaniServices stan to the Taliban and al-Qaida. That goes for the “Biden plan,” which would amount to little better than a public relations effort whereby we would score regular symbolic victories while steadily losing the war. But if it’s sincere, I welcome Obama’s willingness to rethink his position on an issue in which he invested so much political capital and machismo. Obama came into office swearing he was a pragmatist who would support any approach that worked. He liked to invoke Franklin Roosevelt as his lodestar, for Roosevelt championed “bold, persistent experimentation.” Discussing the economy, Obama told “60 Minutes”: “What you see in FDR that I hope my team can
emulate is not always getting it right but projecting a sense of confidence and a willingness to try things and experiment in order to get people working again.” That spirit has been woefully lacking in Obama’s presidency so far. During the campaign, Obama’s top domestic priorities were reform of health care, education and energy. When an economic crisis that is — according to Obama, at least — second only to the Depression exploded in front of him, Obama the alleged pragmatist concluded that, mirabile dictu, his year-old agenda was the perfect solution. Obama insisted that as president of both “red” and “blue” America, he was open to ideas from both sides of the aisle. But his stimulus bill was as partisan and one-sided as Democrats claimed George W. Bush’s tax cuts were. At least Bush’s tax cuts actually cut taxes. It remains to be seen whether Obama’s stimulus stimulated anything at all. After ending the war in Iraq and taking the fight to bin Laden’s cave, direct engagement with the Iranian regime was candidate Obama’s greatest foreign policy priority. Partly this stemmed from the fact that he accidentally suggested in a debate that he would meet with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad without preconditions. Rather
than admit he was wrong, Obama stuck to his idee fixe throughout the campaign. Since being elected, it seems that his off-the-cuff slipup wasn’t that off the cuff. Despite an ever-increasing number of lies, subterfuges and outrages on the part of the Iranians, the Obama administration has seemed convinced that they can be talked into compliance with the so-called international community. But the optimist can look at Obama’s newfound openmindedness on Afghanistan and his potential orchestration of international sanctions against Iran as proof that reality is prying him from his ideological cocoon. Alas, there’s another way of reading recent events. Critics always claimed that Obama was a very left-wing fellow who was never the centrist he claimed to be. The pessimist might suspect that Obama’s newfound pragmatism only manifests itself when it permits him to abandon the centrist positions that may have helped him get elected but are of no use to him politically anymore. What seemed like principled centrism in 2008 might simply be exposed as left-wing expediency in 2009. Here’s hoping the optimists are right. You can write to Jonah Goldberg by e-mail at JonahsColumn@aol.
Letters to the Editor Obama needs an old first sergeant To the editor:
A nutty response from ACORN Isn’t it obvious? If you believe you’re the object of a witchhunt, the first thing you do is stop hanging around with witches. You’d think that’d be common sense, but then, the paradox of common sense is, it’s not all that common. So Bill Clinton, though dogged by a perpetual investigation desperate for dirt, decided to go ahead and play slap and tickle with the hired help. And Larry Craig, though the object of rumors about his hidden sex life, didn’t think twice about widening his stance in that men’s room stall. And ACORN, though accused of every act Leonard of malfeasance this side of Pitts the Manson murders, failed to divest itself of the sort of Distributed by imbeciles who would give Cagle Cartoons advice — on hidden camera, yet — on how a prostitute and pimp might hide their profits from the IRS. You are surely familiar with the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. It’s a nonprofit group, founded in 1970, that advocates for a higher minimum wage and more money for urban schools and also offers free tax preparation, voter registration and mortgage counseling for the poor. Or, it is one of the five families of the New York Mafia, a vast criminal enterprise specializing in voter fraud, prostitution, drug dealing, armed robbery, jaywalking, spitting on the sidewalk and taking more than 10 items into the Ten Items or Less line. Which one you believe depends on whether you get your news from Fox or from sane people. This much is inarguable: Because a young lawyer named Barack Obama once represented it in a voter rights lawsuit, ACORN has proven a useful obsession for the president’s political opponents. And ACORN has rewarded that obsession, providing the witch hunters a whole coven of witches. This would include investigations of alleged voter fraud in Las Vegas and Miami,
delinquent taxes, the embezzlement of nearly a million dollars by the organization’s former chief financial officer, a decision by the leadership to hide that embezzlement from the rank and file, and growing concern that the group may have used tax-deductible charitable contributions for partisan purposes, which is legally proscribed. So if it’s not the Manson Family, well, it ain’t the Brady Bunch, either. Now there’s this hidden camera sting wherein two conservative activists, posing as pimp and prostitute, visited a number of ACORN offices seeking advice on how to hide their criminal income from the government. The only thing more ludicrous than the premise is the fact that ACORN staffers actually gave the requested advice without flinching, even when the “pimp” suggested his workforce might include “children from El Salvador.” Faced with a loss of government funding, public outrage, and a severing of ties by such partners as the IRS and Bank of America, ACORN has filed suit against the two activists, contending that the videos constitute illegal wiretapping. This, I believe, is called killing the messenger. Meaning that whatever legal merit the lawsuit has or does not have, it could hardly be more wrongheaded as a response to the burgeoning controversy. It suggests that even at this juncture, ACORN simply doesn’t get it. The issue here isn’t a hidden camera sting. Rather, it is ACORN itself. If it is not the cabal of thugs some of its critics contend, it “is” an organization whose sloppiness and unreadiness for prime time become more manifest each passing day. The ascension of its one-time lawyer has propelled ACORN irrevocably into the national spotlight. If it wishes to survive the experience with its mission or its remaining credibility intact, it will accept some friendly advice: Don’t kill the messenger. Kill the witches instead. Leonard Pitts is a columnist for the Miami Herald, 1 Herald Plaza, Miami, Fla., 33132. Readers may contact him via e-mail at lpitts@miamiherald.com.
In 1966, I graduated from college and became a second lieutenant in the United States Air Force. My first assignment at Keesler Air Force Base, I became a commander of an 800 man student squadron. What an ego-booster to be in charge of 800 students, 12 veteran training instructors (T.I.s), five administrative airmen, and one wise old first sergeant. Prior to this, my only experience of leadership, decision making and responsibility revolved around working part time, playing on sports teams, and being a student. Although being extremely “green,” I jumped into my new career with enthusiasm, confidence, and a degree of arrogance that I knew best for everyone. I made decisions and changes with minimal forethought and practically no input from a career staff having eons of years’ experience. As the days passed, squadron morale began to slip, effectiveness dissipated, I was working more, and my image of myself was not shared by others (sound familiar). About this time, my first sergeant asked, “Sir, can I speak to you man to man?” What Master Sergeant Dewey said to me I never forgot and carried with me through a very successful Air Force career. “Sir, you have an outstanding team of T.I.s who are extremely capable of doing their jobs … if you will let them. If you delegate and trust them they will take care of the students and both you and the Air Force will benefit.” I likened this experience to President Obama who charged onto the scene as a naïve and inexperienced leader who felt compelled to do something because that’s what he thought leaders were suppose to do. I’m confident President Obama has never had the benefit of a Master Sergeant Dewey and, in turn, the insight to surround himself with true professionals as opposed to political parasites. In this case, I believe President Obama has been too eager to do his own thing without first taking time to fully analyze the problems, gather facts, set priorities, obtain bipartisan input, formulate a plan, properly brief the American people, and implement the best team plan possible (leadership 101). The situation President Obama finds himself in is like a second lieutenant who has been given the duties of a wing commander without the benefit of the basic knowledge of how a 5,000 man wing operates and the lack of wisdom to find out how. What President Obama needs is one wise old first sergeant who is not afraid to tell it like it is. John R. Metzger, USAF (Retired) Henderson