Sunday, January 16, 2011
MTP at Brookings: Top foreign policy for 2011
What does the future hold for Afghanistan and Iraq. How will China's growing role impact relations on the worlds stage. Foreign Policy at Brookings and NBC's Meet the Press host a panel discussion on the issues that will define the year ahead. Moderated by David Gregory the panelists include: Brookings senior fellows Michael O'Hanlon, Kenneth Lieberthal, Robert Kagan and Stephan Cohen.
JFK's famous 'ask not' address
I remember this speech tells you how old I am. I remember the day in my civics class when the principal came over the load speaker and told us that President Kennedy was shot and died in Dallas that morning. I also remember a little boy standing with his mom and sister saluting not understanding exactly what was going on. It is a picture in my mind that is hard to erase. Hard for me to grasp the idea that 50 years have passed.....
On Jan. 20, 1961, President John F. Kennedy was sworn into office and delivered one of the most famous inaugural addresses in U.S. history with the line "Ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country."
JFK's inaugural address 50 years later
On Jan. 20, 1961, John F. Kennedy was sworn in as the 35th president of the United States. His famous "ask not" line in his inaugural address stirred Americans to action and inspired a generation. Fifty years later, the speech remains one of the most important in political history.
Young Ariz. victim's organs donated
The father of the youngest victim of the Arizona massacre says some of her organs have been donated to a young girl in the Boston area.
After the shootings, Obama reminds the nation of the golden rule
By John McCain
Sunday, January 16, 2011;
President Obama gave a terrific speech Wednesday night. He movingly mourned and honored the victims of Saturday's senseless atrocity outside Tucson, comforted and inspired the country, and encouraged those of us who have the privilege of serving America. He encouraged every American who participates in our political debates - whether we are on the left or right or in the media - to aspire to a more generous appreciation of one another and a more modest one of ourselves.
The president appropriately disputed the injurious suggestion that some participants in our political debates were responsible for a depraved man's inhumanity. He asked us all to conduct ourselves in those debates in a manner that would not disillusion an innocent child's hopeful patriotism. I agree wholeheartedly with these sentiments. We should respect the sincerity of the convictions that enliven our debates but also the mutual purpose that we and all preceding generations of Americans serve: a better country; stronger, more prosperous and just than the one we inherited.
We Americans have different opinions on how best to serve that noble purpose. We need not pretend otherwise or be timid in our advocacy of the means we believe will achieve it. But we should be mindful as we argue about our differences that so much more unites than divides us. We should also note that our differences, when compared with those in many, if not most, other countries, are smaller than we sometimes imagine them to be.
I disagree with many of the president's policies, but I believe he is a patriot sincerely intent on using his time in office to advance our country's cause. I reject accusations that his policies and beliefs make him unworthy to lead America or opposed to its founding ideals. And I reject accusations that Americans who vigorously oppose his policies are less intelligent, compassionate or just than those who support them.
Our political discourse should be more civil than it currently is, and we all, myself included, bear some responsibility for it not being so. It probably asks too much of human nature to expect any of us to be restrained at all times by persistent modesty and empathy from committing rhetorical excesses that exaggerate our differences and ignore our similarities. But I do not think it is beyond our ability and virtue to refrain from substituting character assassination for spirited and respectful debate.
Public life has many more privileges than hardships. First among them is the satisfying purpose it gives our lives to make a contribution to the progress of a nation that was conceived to defend the rights and dignity of human beings. It can be a bruising business at times, but in the end its rewards are greater than the injuries sustained to earn them.
That doesn't mean, however, that those injuries are always easy to slough off and bear with perfect equanimity. Political leaders are not and cannot reasonably be expected to be indifferent to the cruelest calumnies aimed at their character. Imagine how it must feel to have watched one week ago the incomprehensible massacre of innocents committed by someone who had lost some essential part of his humanity, to have shared in the heartache for its victims and in the admiration for those who acted heroically to save the lives of others - and to have heard in the coverage of that tragedy voices accusing you of complicity in it.
It does not ask too much of human nature to have the empathy to understand how wrong an injury that is or appreciate how strong a need someone would feel to defend him or herself against such a slur. Even to perceive it in the context of its supposed political effect and not as the claim of the human heart to the dignity we are enjoined by God and our founding ideals to respect in one another is unworthy of us, and our understanding of America's meaning.
There are too many occasions when we lack that empathy and mutual respect on all sides of our politics, and in the media. But it is not beyond us to do better; to behave more modestly and courteously and respectfully toward one another; to make progress toward the ideal that beckons all humanity: to treat one another as we would wish to be treated.
We are Americans and fellow human beings, and that shared distinction is so much more important than the disputes that invigorate our noisy, rough-and-tumble political culture. That is what I heard the president say on Wednesday evening. I commend and thank him for it.
The writer, a senator from Arizona, was the 2008 Republican nominee for president.
When it comes to opinions, we're all living in an intellectual Costco, where it's volume, volume, volume.
latimes.com
Op-Ed
Mouthing off in America
By Stephen Randall
January 16, 2011
You think too much. And you're not alone. Everybody's thinking too much. We live in an era in which it is important to have opinions. Not necessarily smart or original ones; almost any opinion will do as long as it's forcefully expressed. When it comes to opinions, we're all living in an intellectual Costco, where it's volume, volume, volume.
It wasn't that long ago that opinions were something carefully considered and weighed, so that they'd stand the test of time and reflect well on the author. Thinkers were like gourmet chefs laboring over an elaborate meal they wanted to be perfect. But today, opinions are Big Macs — thrown together hastily, served by the billions and not very good for you.
You probably don't want to have as many opinions as you have. But everyone around you has them. There's cable news, of course. Keith Olbermann and Glenn Beck each have plenty of opinions.
When you sell opinions for money, the way Keith and Glenn do, it doesn't take you long to catch on that the more opinions you have, the more money you make. So, like radish farmers who grow more radishes in order to get rich, Keith and Glenn create dozens of new opinions per night.
But here's the problem: They're not very smart opinions. And they're forcing everyone around them, including you, to also have far too many opinions. We post them on Facebook; we tweet them; we express them in comments on Huffington Post. We've become junior-grade cable goons — but paid much less.
We get angry too, just like Keith and Glenn. What's the point in having an opinion if it's not an angry opinion? If something upsets us — like a member of Congress and a bunch of innocent bystanders being shot in Tucson — we don't mourn, we fulminate. We assign blame. Or we deflect blame — angrily.
It's hard to find the good guys when one side is self-righteously accusing the other side of lacking civility as if that were any more likely to spark violence than movies or video games, and the response is, weirdly, to defend a lack of civility as if it's a good thing.
Opinion inflation has invaded every aspect of our lives. It causes us to post our opinions about our dry cleaner on Yelp. Did you used to have an opinion about your dry cleaner, or was he just sort of there, like a shrub or a parking meter?
Did you even notice what George W. Bush wore on his feet? Probably not, but half the country wanted to weigh in on President Obama's wearing of flip-flops to the beach.
If the Gap or Starbucks changed their logos a few years ago, would you have noticed? And more important, would you have run to Facebook (if it had existed) to cast your vote for the old Gap logo, as if it had always been a meaningful part of your life?
The Internet is a Petri dish of opinion inflation, breeding commentary like bacteria. Because few people do anything interesting or have anything factual to report, they toss off a short opinion. That, in turn, leads to opinion hyperinflation; just look at the comments sections on any blog. Opinions quickly devolve from Big Macs into rat poison. Civility makes only a rare appearance, and facts are no longer facts. Evolution, climate change, gravity — it's all one point of view against another. Everyone gets a vote, even the people who aren't particularly sane.
There was a time when thoughtful people tried to be balanced. The old-style political columnists were famous for saying nothing. The presented both sides of any given issue in an "on the one hand/on the other" fashion, pretty much allowing readers to form their own opinions, which — lacking proper guidance — readers rarely did. Walter Cronkite voiced so few opinions that when he uttered one — about the Vietnam War — it changed the course of history.
Of course, those days were boring. Today's onslaught of nonstop commentary everywhere you look is significantly more entertaining. Walter Lippmann was boring; Arianna Huffington is not. Eric Sevareid could put you to sleep faster than Ambien; Sean Hannity is a shot of double espresso (with the new, not the old, Starbucks logo).
Now we're hooked. We don't go to a new restaurant to eat a meal; we go there to dissect it and then tweet about it. We can't post a link to an article without giving it some sort of grade. We criticize the music we listen to and the TV we watch. Awards shows have been reduced to weird Joan Rivers screeds about what celebrities are wearing on the red carpet. Each dress has to be deconstructed by a panel of experts and found wanting.
It's all turning us into surly teenagers who disagree with everything.
There's a certain irony, I realize, to expressing an opinion about opinions. And perhaps I should be grateful. Not only am I more entertained these days, but when I'm feeling lazy, I can switch from thinking too much to not thinking at all. I am so surrounded by opinions that I don't need any of my own. I can turn on Fox or MSNBC and adopt an entire political philosophy without knowing a thing.
Of course, the problem is that when I share that philosophy, I don't sound intelligent, I sound like a drunk at a bar arguing with an empty barstool.
On his old HBO show, Dennis Miller used to end his trademark rants with, "Of course, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong."
He was right. I could be wrong too. But he was also way too opinionated.
Stephen Randall is the deputy editor of Playboy.
Glenn: President was great. Crowd? Not so much
was moved by the speech. The crowd, however, was a different story.
Glenn praised Obama’s speech, saying, “This is probably the best speech he has ever given, and with all sincerity, thank you, Mr. President, for becoming the president of the United States of America last night. It was needed, and you accomplished the job, and you did it expertly. Thank you, Mr. President.”
And the rest of the radio crew was in agreement, it was a fantastic speech. Their one issue? The crowd. It reminded Glenn of the funeral for Paul Wellstone, which was more like a political rally than a memorial service, although the guys admitted that Obama did not do anything to encourage the crowd’s behavior during the speech.
Pat played audio from the Wellstone funeral, “And help us win this election for Paul Wellstone. For Paul Wellstone! Will you stand up and keep fighting for social and economic justice! Say yes! We will win! We will win! We will win! We will win! We will win! We will win! We will win! We will win! “
While Glenn felt the event was branded and the crowd had the wrong tone, he did not say it was Obama or the White House’s fault. “I’m going to give him the benefit of the doubt that the speech was great and the crowd was inappropriate and leave it at that.”
Glenn has been told that there was some booing from the crowd as well. He said, “There were some boos during, at least this is what some people said. If that happened, that’s even more inappropriate. Again, thank you, Mr. President, for being the President of the United States of America. Thank you for the speech last night. It was a great speech. The people [in the crowd], I don’t understand what happened. I don’t understand what happened.”
Friday, January 14, 2011
We're Still at War:
Photo of the Day for January 14, 2010
Fri Jan. 14, 2011 2:30 AM PST
U.S. Army Spc. Jamus Grandstrom of Reading, Pa., and Spc. Daniel Collazo of Newport, Va., Brigade Special Troops Battalion, 10th Mountain Division, run communications equipment from a sandbag bunker in the Daymirdad District Center, Wardak province, Afghanistan, Jan. 9, 2011. U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Sean P. Casey
The OpEd: Kucinich: Boehner 'setting good tone' after Obama's plea
Posted on Friday, January 14, 2011
Homeland Security chief cancels costly virtual border fence
January 14, 2011 5:36 p.m. EST
U.S. Border Patrol agents monitor the U.S.-Mexico border on in December 2010 near Nogales, Arizona.CNN) -- Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano on Friday canceled the controversial virtual fence along the U.S. border with Mexico, citing technical problems, cost overruns and schedule delays since its inception in 2005.
The Secure Border Initiative-network, a high-tech surveillance system to reduce border smuggling, so far has cost taxpayers almost $1 billion for two regions in Arizona, covering 53 miles overall on the 2,000-mile border, according to a Homeland Security report.
Napolitano announced "a new path forward for security technology" along the border that is tailored to the needs of each region and provides "faster deployment of technology, better coverage and a more effective balance between cost and capability," she said in a prepared statement.
"There is no 'one-size-fits-all' solution to meet our border technology needs," Napolitano said about her decision to end the problem-plagued virtual fence.
Her new plan would use mobile surveillance systems, drones, thermal imaging devices and tower-based remote video surveillance, she said.
"Where appropriate, this plan will also incorporate already existing elements of the former SBInet program that have proven successful, such as stationary radar and infrared and optical sensor towers," Napolitano said.
Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Connecticut, chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, lauded the decision.
"The secretary's decision to terminate SBInet ends a long-troubled program that spent far too much of the taxpayers' money for the results it delivered," Lieberman said in a written statement. "From the start, SBInet's one-size-fits-all approach was unrealistic. The department's decision to use technology based on the particular security needs of each segment of the border is a far wiser approach, and I hope it will be more cost effective."
Rep. Bennie G. Thompson, D-Mississippi, ranking member of the House Committee on Homeland Security, said the virtual fence "has been a grave and expensive disappointment since its inception."
Thompson said he is glad that homeland security officials are "finally listening to what we have been saying for years -- that the sheer size and variations of our borders show us a one-stop solution has never been best," he said in a prepared statement. "I applaud them for taking this critical step toward using a more tailored technologically based approach to securing our nation's borders."
Napolitano said "unprecedented" manpower, infrastructure and resources along the border will complement her new border security plan.
The U.S. Border Patrol is better staffed than at any time in its 86-year history, having nearly doubled the number of agents from approximately 10,000 in 2004 to more than 20,500 in 2010, according to a homeland security report.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement has increased the number of federal agents deployed to the Southwest border, with a quarter of its personnel currently in the region.
President Obama has also deployed 1,200 National Guardsmen to the border.
In fiscal years 2009 and 2010, federal agents seized more than $282 million in illegal currency, more than 7 million pounds of drugs, and more than 6,800 weapons along the border -- increases of more than $73 million, more than 1 million pounds of drugs and more than 1,500 weapons compared with 2007-2008.
Also, the Border Patrol's nationwide apprehensions of undocumented immigrants decreased from nearly 724,000 in 2008 to about 463,000 in 2010, a 36 percent reduction, indicating that fewer people are attempting to illegally cross the border, a homeland security report said.
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