THE ONE INESCAPABLE CONCLUSION FROM THE SEPTEMBER GOP DEBATE

9/18/15

One can make plenty of observations regarding Wednesday night’s GOP debates:

• Donald Trump has some chinks in his electoral armor and his opponents are starting to find them.
• Jeb Bush has a pulse.   That his supporters are touting as a huge positive for his campaign the evidence the debate provided of that pulse’s existence shows how much trouble the fair haired boy of the GOP establishment is in.
•  Marco Rubio did a pretty good job but, for some reason, the punditocracy didn’t notice.  He might be the establishment’s alternative if Mr. Bush should continue to fail to live up to what look like cut from whole cloth expectations.
• Mr. Rubio, if he is to inherit Mr. Bush’s well moneyed support, will have to somehow transcend Chris Christie, who performed quite the Lazarus act on his presidential hopes Wednesday night.   Christie was terrific, especially when lambasting the front runners for their obsessions with themselves and positioning himself as an establishment Republican who can still speak for the middle class.
• Rand Paul’s sensible, sober approach to foreign policy clearly disqualifies him for the nomination of a Party that equates to treason the exercise of caution, prudence, and Constitutionality when putting the lives of young Americans on the line.
• You can stick the proverbial fork in Scott Walker. 
• If the American people were yearning for the Fred MacMurray (the good, My Three Sons Fred MacMurray, not the double dealing, caddish, scheming, Double Indemnity and The Apartment Fred MacMurray) approach to life and politics, John Kasich would be a shoo-in.   But that approach became passé when yours truly was a small child.   Too bad.
• Ben Carson is probably too smart, and too much of a gentleman, to be president.  Also too bad.
• The debate was too long.   Even those of us who have yet to overcome our silly addiction to politics were getting bored as the debate moved into the third hour.

While those are all, at the risk of sounding a touch braggadocious, searingly insightful observations, we can only draw one inescapable conclusion from Wednesday night’s debate:  Carly Fiorina is going to be on the GOP ticket.  If she is not at the top of the ticket, still something of a long shot, she will be in the vice-presidential spot.

Mrs. Fiorina is clearly bright, articulate, forceful, and, despite Mr. Trump’s apparent opinion, attractive.  And she is a woman, which certainly has its attractions whether or not Hillary Clinton heads the Democratic ticket.  (See “Something(s)about Hillary,” 9/8/15.)  Mrs. Fiorina is also a cancer survivor, which not only shows courage and grit but is, ironically, a big plus in the increasingly emotional electoral climate we face.  The establishment is more than comfortable with this former corporate chieftain and the social conservatives also like her for her strong pro-life positions.  

Mrs. Fiorina only has two obvious drawbacks.   The first is that her record in corporate America is, to put it charitably, worse than mediocre.   However, the American people seem to be coming to the (correct) conclusion that even someone who did far less than stellar work in a real job is a better choice than someone who has spent his or her life in and around electoral politics, i.e., who has made his or her living having his or her hindquarters smooched and who consequently is terrified at the thought of having to work in the private sector, or even in a public sector job with responsibilities that transcend preening for the cameras, for a living.

The second drawback is that Mrs. Fiorina, unlike Messrs. Kasich, Rubio, Walker, or Bush, has no chance of bringing a swing state, or any state, into the GOP Electoral College fold.   California isn’t going to go GOP regardless of who is on the Republican ticket.   But enhancement of the electoral map by selection of one’s running mate is an overrated strategy, as evidenced by Bill Clinton’s selection of Al Gore, Barack Obama’s selection of Joe Biden, and Ronald Reagan’s selection of George Bush as their running mates.   Each of these veeps either didn’t bring his state into the fold or was from a state that was already solidly in the fold.   Running mates have an appeal that transcends their home states.   This is especially true in the case of Mrs. Fiorina.

QUINN ON IRAQ, SHAKMAN...AND THINGS FAR WORSE THAN PATRONAGE HIRING

6/20/14

Yes, I am a bit consumed with Iraq of late, but this story deserves plenty of attention; rarely do we find ourselves on the brink of catastrophic (at least) regionwide conflict in which at least some of the major players are clueless, fanatical, or both.  

Despite the time spent on Iraq, I did mention to commit some apostasy on Chicago politics, still one of my favorite topics, in my first (and thus the last in this reverse chronological list)  post this week.

This week’s paragons of insight included

“ADVISERS” TO IRAQ:   DOES OBAMA REMEMBER VIETNAM?

http://www.rantlifestyle.com/2014/06/20/sending-advisers-to-iraq-does-obama-remember-vietnam/

Our clueless commander-in-chief apparently can’t remember the major foreign policy debacle of his youth.   This post not only afforded me the opportunity to rant in a Cassandric fashion but also gave me an excuse to relate a few stories from the St. Walter School of my youth.  Such stories are bound to be included in my upcoming third book, still in its formative stages.

JOHN KERRY TO IRAQIS TRYING TO STAY ALIVE:   (WESTERN DEMOCRACY) IS WHAT YOU NEED 

http://www.rantlifestyle.com/2014/06/18/john-kerry-tells-iraqis-trying-to-stay-alive-that-western-democracy-is-what-they-need/

Mr. Kerry failed to propose mandatory nightly renderings of Kumbayah.  One wonders why he committed such an oversight.

PARTITION IRAQ?   ANOTHER LOUSY IDEA FROM WASHINGTON

http://www.rantlifestyle.com/2014/06/18/partitioning-iraq-just-another-lousy-idea-from-washington/

Modern day Metternichs pore over the map of the Middle East.  Oh, yeah, they’re qualified to redraw the world…just like the guys at Versailles in 1919.

PATRONAGE, THE SHAKMAN DECREE, THE CITY THAT ONCE WORKED…AND DAVID COPPERFIELD
http://www.rantlifestyle.com/2014/06/16/patronage-the-shakman-decree-the-city-that-once-worked-and-david-copperfield/
Yes, Mr. Shakman, et. al., there are worse things than patronage hiring.

For more on Chicago’s politics, see my books:

The Chairman:

http://www.amazon.com/Chairman-Novel-Big-City-Politics/dp/1439255598/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1355257845&sr=1-1&keywords=Mark+M.+Quinn

The Chairman’s Challenge:

http://www.amazon.com/Chairmans-Challenge-Continuing-Novel-Politics/dp/1426939108/ref=sr_1_3_title_1_pap?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1360098045&sr=1-3&keywords=Mark+M.+Quinn

THIS PARTICULAR STUPID THANKSGIVING TRADITION PREDATES THE “OPEN ON THANKSGIVING” IDIOCY

11/26/13

We are all aware of the stupid tradition of the President of the United State’s “pardoning” a turkey around Thanksgiving Day.   John Kennedy started this nonsense (as he did so much other nonsense…like Vietnam and the Great Society) back when he was darkening the White House door with his other shenanigans.  The first Bush continued the bi-partisan bout of brainlessness by making the exoneration an official presidential pardon.

A couple questions…

First, just how much time does the president, whomever he may be, have on his hands?

Second, I just learned today, in Michael Sneed’s column in the Chicago Sun-Times, that this year’s turkeys destined for pardon were trucked to Washington D.C. from a farm in Minnesota.  Who pays for this idiotic nonsense?   Please don’t tell me the taxpayers do!

People will argue “What can it cost to truck in a few turkeys?”   The first answer is “Plenty” by normal people terms.  The second answer is that, even if, in government terms, the cost of trucking the turkeys is peanuts, what’s wrong with small cuts in government spending?   Small cuts add up.  And eschewing small cuts because they are small leads to big spending.  

Blessed Thanksgiving, everybody.  And note that it’s not “Turkey Day”; it’s THANKSgiving, a day designated by President Lincoln for thanking God for the gifts He has bestowed on us.   Let’s remember that and enjoy the holiday before the almighty dollar society in which we live completely destroys this holiday...as it has done with the Holiday Formerly Known As Christmas.

SYRIA: “WE (WILL) GET FOOLED AGAIN!”

8/27/13

Secretary of State John Kerry’s speech yesterday calling Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s chemical attack on Syrian civilians a “moral obscenity” left little doubt that we are going to take military action, in some form, against Mr. Assad’s regime.   My opposition to such military action, or to any kind of meddling in the affairs of other states in which our interests are non-existent or indefinable, is well known to my readers.  See, for example, 6/17/13’s SYRIA AND THE WAR PARTY:  “AFTER YOU GET WHAT YOU WANT YOU DON’T WANT IT…”, only my latest post on Syria.

The ultimate irony, and idiocy, of intervention in Syria is that after spending billions of American treasure and incalculable quantities of irreplaceable American blood supposedly fighting Al-Qaeda and terrorism in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other venues in the Middle East and in Africa, we are now intervening, with more American treasure and, nearly inevitably, more American blood on behalf of terrorism and Al Qaeda in Syria.

Oh, yes, we comfort ourselves in our pure motives.   After all, Mr. Assad is a thug of major league proportions and we aren’t supporting the more radical, Al-Qaeda linked elements in Syria; we are supporting the “moderate” opposition to Mr. Assad.  By supporting these “moderate” elements, we are, indeed, thwarting Al-Qaeda’s evil designs in Syria.   One of these arguments is true but flawed; the other is a pile of horse excrement.

Mr. Assad is a thug; no one can argue with that.  But the Middle East, and much of the world, is peppered with thugs, and their thuggery never seems to bother us until they oppose our imagined interests and/or provide an excuse for War Party members in this country to enrich the “defense” contractors who sustain the lifelong sinecures those pols call careers.  Mr. Assad is no more of a thug than the likes of Shah Reza Pahlavi in Iran, Saddam Hussein in Iraq, or maybe even Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, with whom we did business quite happily until it became more profitable for some pols in this country to cease such business.  The consequences in all cases have been disastrous.  The consequences will be at least equally horrific in Syria as well because, just as in Iran, Iraq, Egypt, and countless other places, we don’t consider the alternatives before we go off on our neocon adventures of vainly attempting to make the whole world think just like us.

The second argument, that we are supporting the “moderate” elements in the Syrian opposition, reeks like the equine fecal matter that it is.   While there are plenty of people who will proclaim that they are “moderate” if doing so results in getting American cash and sponsorship, there probably are no “moderate” elements in Syria.   And if there are a few such types there, they are overwhelmed, in numbers, influence, and ferocity, by the radical elements we claim to oppose.   A victory by such imagined “moderates,” therefore, will be a victory by Al Qaeda and its wannabes, the very people we supposedly went to Iraq and Afghanistan to oppose.   Those like former President Bush, Senators McCain and Graham, and now President Obama, ought to get their stories straight before embarking on their missions to make the world comfortable for the arms merchants.

The Russians seem to understand what is happening in Syria.  They like Mr. Assad because he is their only friend in the Arab world and because they seem to be predisposed, perhaps because of certain affinities of their leadership, toward sponsorship of thugs.    But even if they had a clearer picture of the genuine evil of Mr. Assad, their sense of realpolitik would lead them to support his regime, and not only because Syria contains their only military base in the Arab world and on the Mediterranean Sea.   The Russians know that if Mr. Assad falls, Syria becomes a terrorist haven.   Russia not only has a huge problem with terrorists in its southern Republics but sits in far close proximity to Syria than we do.   Further, the Russians actually believed us when we said we opposed Al Qaeda and worldwide terrorism.  Silly Russians.

SYRIA: HOW LONG BEFORE WE’RE CALLING OUR STOOGES “BRUTAL DICTATORS”?

6/15/15

British Prime Minister David Cameron, a normally sensible fellow, in attempting to justify western aid to the group of thugs he favors in Syria in their fight against the group of thugs he doesn’t favor, argued yesterday that Syrian President Bashar Assad is

“…a brutal dictator who is using chemical weapons under our nose.”

Mr. Cameron, his French counterpart, and, presumably, our formerly cautious President Barack Obama prefer General Salim Idris, the latest third world fraud parading around calling himself a “moderate” in order to access western cash and a place to defect to if things don’t go his way.

Let’s assume for a moment that General Idris wins this conflict with generous help, including who knows what at this stage, from the west and becomes the latest western stooge to occupy the seat of power in a Middle Eastern ethnic jigsaw puzzle of a “country.”  Should that be the outcome in Syria, one wonders how long it will take Messrs. Cameron, Obama, Hollande and others who are seemingly so anxious to create another dystopic terrorist breeding ground in Syria to call General Idris

“…a brutal dictator who is using chemical weapons under our nose.”

As I have said on numerous occasions in the past (Only my latest post on Syria is 5/29/13’s RUSSIAN ARMS TO SYRIA:   THANK YOU, COMRADE?; please read it and the posts to which it will direct you.), we have no friends in Syria and there are no moderates, whatever that means, in Syria.   We are left with a choice between the devil we know and the devil we don’t.   We do, however, have a promising course of action, to wit, stay the hell out and tell the winner we are willing to do business with him to the extent it is in our interest to do so.  Mr. Obama, though, has just announced his intention to back, with American arms, trainers, and air cover (but only for a “no fly zone” over the areas in Jordan in which we will “train” the Al Qaeda members and wannabes we will be backing), the devil we don’t.  Despite his rhetoric to the contrary, Mr. Obama apparently shares the George Bush view that we indeed can and should save the world and make it over in our image.  Terrific.

We never do learn anything in this country, do we?

RESPONSE TO THE BOSTON BOMBINGS: LESSONS FROM IRAQ

4/22/13

This morning’s (i.e., Monday, 4/22/13’s, page A16) Wall Street Journal reports that this weekend’s local elections in Iraq drew turnout of only slightly more than 50%, very low by Iraqi standards.

The reasons given for the poor turnout are, as the Journal reports, the feeling throughout Iraq that the country “seems to be sliding back towards authoritarian rule” and that many Iraqis “complained that the same politicians dominate the political landscape regardless of vote results.”

More telling are the comments of educated, middle class Iraqi citizens interviewed by the Journal.  Haider Al Amily, a 27 year old physician, says of the election

“It’s show business.  The Iraqi people are sick of it.  I’ve voted every time, but this is the first time I didn’t go.  All the educated people didn’t go.”

Ramzy Mardini, a fellow at the Iraq Institute for Strategic Studies, opines

“Elections are happening, but politics in Iraq remains stuck in a time warp.  The fact that these elections are taking place means very little for Iraqi democracy.”

The doubtless highly representative comments of these two Iraqis lead reflexively to one question:   What on earth did we accomplish by George Bush’s excellent adventure in Iraq?   However, after a moment’s pause, these comments, and the general situation in Iraq, should lead to a better question:   Why on earth did we think it was our business to intervene in Iraq?   Why did we go along with the nonsensical, never explained motives of Mr. Bush for decimating Iraq, killing thousands of Americans, and spending hundreds of billions of dollars we didn’t have for who knows what ends?

These are worthwhile questions to contemplate as we face inevitable, increasing pressure from the neoconservatives, and their most salient media organs, the Wall Street Journal editorial page and Fox News, to respond to the Boston bombings by invading somebody…anybody.   See my 4/20/13 piece LET’S SEE…U.S. CITIZEN, CRIME ON U.S. SOIL…ENEMY COMBATANT?  HMM… along with today’s lead editorial in the Journal, “Enemy Combatants in Boston” and an op-ed piece in the Journal by Michael Mukasey entitled “Make No Mistake, It Was Jihad” (sic)

JOHN McCAIN, CHUCK HAGEL, AND DEFERRING TO HISTORY

2/1/13

As anyone, and certainly anyone who reads my blogs, could have predicted, the War Party and its majordomo John McCain, are giving former Nebraska Senator Chuck Hagel one heck of a hard time in Mr. Hagel’s hearings for his confirmation as Secretary of Defense.   It seems that Mr. Hagel has the preposterous notion that we ought to be circumspect in military affairs and think long and hard before we send young men and women into combat for questionable goals.  Mr. Hagel apparently believes that further enriching the “defense” contractors who subsidize the lifelong sinecures War Party members occupy in the city they vociferously claim to detest is not sufficient justification for sending kids to their deaths.  Such apostasy is clearly anathema to Mr. McCain and his colleagues.

Fortunately for Mr. Hagel and for those of us who favor a defense that defends, Mr. McCain is not the brightest bulb in the Congressional chandelier.   Note the following exchange between Mr. McCain and Mr. Hagel on the “surge” in Iraq, of which Mr. McCain was the most salient and ardent champion:

McCain:

“Were you correct or incorrect when you said that the surge would be the most dangerous foreign policy blunder…since Vietnam?”

Hagel:

“It’s far more complicated than that…My answer is ‘I’ll defer that judgment to history.’”

McCain:

“I think history has already made a judgment about the surge, sir, and you’re on the wrong side of it.”

John McCain is, as is his usual custom, clearly wrong on at least one issue here.  History does not make judgments in the space of 5, 10, 20, or even 30 years.  History, unlike current events, takes a long time go play out.   So history has yet to make a judgment on the surge.

Mr. McCain’s narrative is that the “surge” led to pacification in Iraq that gave the United States the opportunity to leave, more or less, Iraq without the guilt of leaving behind a failed state in which anarchy and violence ruled the day.   This former may or may not be true and the latter seems to be turning out to be wishful thinking.

We do know that the “surge” cost 1,200 American lives and, less importantly, billions of dollars.  We don’t know if the “surge” led to pacification, even temporarily, of Iraq.   At the same time we were “surging,” we were stepping up a program of payouts (bribes, really) to various warring factions in Iraq to come over to our side, or at least to behave themselves for awhile.   Whether the surge or the payoffs led to Iraq’s temporary pacification we don’t know.  And we also don’t know whether we would have left regardless of conditions in Iraq; the American people were, even long before we left, sick and tired of George Bush’s Excellent Adventure in Iraq, an Adventure that John McCain was critical of only in the sense that it was not pursued aggressively enough for his tastes.

We also know that the pacification, whether the result of the surge or the expenditures of plenty of spondulicks, was temporary.   Just about every day, we hear of car bombings, kidnappings, or other such goings-on in Iraq.   The minority Sunnis, who used to run the country, are disdainful, or worse, of the now ruling majority Shiites, who are very cozy with their Shiite brethren in Iran.  The Kurds in the north have more or less seceded from Iraq, and neither the Sunnis nor the Shiites are happy about what that means for their access to Iraq’s oil wealth, much of which is located in the Kurdish north, which is now openly called Kurdistan.

It looks like Iraq will wind up being a failed state and will descend into anarchy and civil war.  It may become, or at least parts of it will become, an Iranian satellite.   Thus we will have left either another breeding ground for terrorism or have handed the Iranians a client state at the expense of American blood and treasure.   And John McCain accuses Chuck Hagel of not being sufficiently tough on Iran!

Iraq’s either descending into a hellish dystopia, becoming an Iranian satellite, or both seems to have been inevitable from the moment George Bush decided, for reasons no one has yet been able to discern, that it would be a good idea to invade Iraq.    The only difference the “surge” has made it is to delay this outcome for perhaps a few years.   Was that delay worth 1,200 human lives?

One more thought…

If Iraq keeps heading in the direction it seems to be going, it, too, will become a breeding ground for terrorism, if it has not already become one, as seems likely given the hatred the Iraqi people have developed for Americans after George Bush, er, had his way, with their country.  Note that the justification for our going into Afghanistan was that it had become a breeding ground for terrorism.  So perhaps Mr. McCain and his henchmen are brighter than I think and are simply laying the groundwork for more military adventures in Iraq, which would make the “defense” contractors even richer…and more grateful to the likes of Mr. McCain, his mini-me from South Carolina, Lindsey Graham, and the rest of those who find Mr. Hagel’s talk of prudent exercise of military power so reprehensible.

History, a subject that Mr. McCain clearly does not understand, will have to tell us.