MucheDumbre

In 1994, the Democrats lost control of the House for the first time in generations.  As the new minority party, they promptly re-elected the same House leadership which had brought them to disaster.

They were in the minority for 12 years.

In 2006 the Republicans lost control of the House.  As the new minority party, they promptly re-elected the same House leadership that had brought them to disaster.

However just 4 years later, the Republicans have a real shot at taking the House.

They don’t deserve it.

And I say this as someone who would like to see the Republicans re-take the House at some point, but not this Republican Party.  When the Republicans got control of the House in 1994, they had been out of power in the House for a long time.  There was a lot of pent up demand for change, and Gingrich’s Contract with America was the blueprint for that change.  That Republican Party was serious about the deficit and spending cuts.  The battle between the Republican Congress and the Democratic President resulted in a balanced federal budget and arguably good governance on the federal level for several years.

But 2010 is not 1994.  The Republican Party leadership in the House is basically the same (minus former Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, who retired) leadership that was ousted in 2006.  Have they changed their ways in 4 years?

Congressman Pete Sessions and Senator John Cornyn had the opportunity to show what the Republicans were made of on last week’s Meet the Press.  Apparently what they are made of is jelly.

Mr. Gregory:  This has been a debate so far this morning about, you know, the relative merits of Republican rule during the Bush years and what this president has or has not accomplished so far.  I think what a lot of people want to know is if Republicans do get back into power, what are they going to do?

REP. SESSIONS:  It’s quite simple that the American people do understand the agendas that are before us.  They understand what the president and the speaker stand for, and they understand what Republicans stand for. Republicans, and especially our candidates who are all over this country, very strong standing with the American people back home, we need to live within our own means.  And certainly the projections that are ahead including health care and the projections for unemployment for a long time and debt for as far as we can see is staggering.  We need to live within our own means.  Secondly, we need to make sure that we read the bills.  These bills are so bad, which is why we don’t have a budget that is being looked at now.  The 2011 budget is staggering in terms of taxes, and the, the discipline that is lacking from this House Democratic leadership to even debate and bring the bill for the budget and appropriations to the floor is a lack of leadership.  And lastly…[blah blah blah…]

MR. GREGORY:  But, Congressman, that’s a, that’s a pretty gauzy agenda so far.  I mean, what specific–what painful choices are Republicans prepared to make?  Are they going to campaign on repealing health care, for instance, repealing financial regulation?  Would you like to see those two things done?

REP. SESSIONS:  Well, first of all, let’s go right to it.  We’re going to balance the budget.  We should live within our own means, and we should read the bills and work with the American people.

MR. GREGORY:  How do you do it?  Tell me how you do it.  Name a painful choice that Republicans are prepared to say we ought to make.

REP. SESSIONS:  Well, first of all, we need to make sure that as we look at all that we are spending in Washington, D.C., with, not only the, the entitlement spending but also the bigger government, we cannot afford anymore. We have to empower the free enterprise system.  See, this is where…

MR. GREGORY:  Congressman, these are not specifics.

REP. SESSIONS:  Oh, they…

MR. GREGORY:  And voters get, get tired of that.

REP. SESSIONS:  That, that…

MR. GREGORY:  You want to deal with entitlement spending…

REP. SESSIONS:  They are…

MR. GREGORY:  …will you raise the retirement age on Social Security, will you cut benefits in Social Security?

REP. SESSIONS:  Let, let–let’s go…

MR. GREGORY:  Will you repeal health care?

REP. SESSIONS:  Let’s go right to it.

Pretty clearly Sessions was clueless.  It’s as if he had not once thought about what the Republicans would do if they controlled the Majority.  The Senate did not make a great showing either.

MR. GREGORY:  Senator, I’m sorry, I’m not hearing an answer here on specific–what painful choices to really deal with the deficit.  Is Social Security on the table?  What will Republicans do that, that, that would give them–like ‘94, there was a Contract With America.  What are voters going to say, “Hey, this is what Republicans will say yes to”?

SEN. CORNYN:  Well, the president has a debt commission that reports December the 1st, and I think we’d all like to see what they come back with.  We’ve got three of our most outstanding members on that commission–Mike Crapo, Tom Coburn and Judd Gregg–and I–my hope is they’ll come back with a bipartisan solution to the debt and particularly entitlement reform, as you, as you mentioned.  But I…

MR. GREGORY:  But wait a minute, conservatives need a, a Democratic president’s debt commission to figure out what it is they want to cut?

SEN. CORNYN:  I said we need to do this on a bipartisan basis.  We’ve, we’ve had a, we’ve had a…

MR. GREGORY:  But what is the Republican Party stand for with regard…

SEN. CORNYN:  …we’ve had a partisan juggernaut.

MR. GREGORY:  Right.

SEN. CORNYN:  Well, I mean, in, in part, what I alluded to earlier is what people are tired of is the runaway spending and the debt, and I think that is a positive agenda–smaller government, living with their means.

So what I get from that is that Republicans need to wait for Obama’s deficit commission, the same commission Cornyn voted against, before they can decide what they should do.

Then we can have a smaller government and live within our means.

Seriously?

How could any Republican in the House or Senate not be able to list off the top of their head a dozen ideas for cutting programs and reducing government?  If the Republican strategy is to wait for Obama’s debt commission, then the 2010 election is already lost, even if the Republicans win.

As someone who believes that our structural deficit threatens our ability to remain a major world power, it’s discouraging to hear such pablum from the Republicans, particularly when the majority of the country has recoiled from the big spending Democratic agenda.  That agenda is simply “more.”  More government, in every way, forever.  However like an Eastern Airline pilot, Chrysler auto worker, or a Greek government worker, eventually more becomes too much and the whole thing collapses. 

There are Republicans out there who are serious about saving the Democrats from themselves and the country from the Democrats.  New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who has become a YouTube sensation for his in your face Town Halls and Wyoming Congressman Paul Ryan, who developed a plan to cut the size of government, reform entitlements, and pay off the national debt, are the clear heirs to Reagan.  The Tea Party movement, much hated by the left and the media (same thing I know) are the outgrowth of sticker shock over Obamaism and the clear recognition that spending and deficits like this can’t go on.

But their biggest obstacle isn’t the Democrats; it’s the establishment Republicans.   Republicans who recognize that even in a center right country, the wheels of power; the media and permanent Washington establishment, are grounded on the left.  And they want to be part of it.  That’s why “conservative” former Republican Senate leader Trent Lott has no use for the Tea Partiers:

“We don’t need a lot of Jim DeMint disciples,” Lott told the Washington Post, referring to the conservative South Carolina senator who has been a gadfly for party leadership and a champion for upstart conservative candidates. “As soon as they get here, we need to co-opt them.”

But Lott is no longer in the Republican leadership — he resigned from the Senate in December 2007, mid-term, just before a law kicked in that would have required him to wait two years before lobbying the Senate. So who is he talking about when he says “we need to co-opt them”?

“We” means the K Street wing of the Republican Party.

A K Street co-opted Republican Party, the kind that Lott, Boehner, and many other in and out of elected office prefer, would probably have a record little different than that of the Pelosi Democratic House majority.  Eh… maybe a little bit less of this or that, but still going in the same direction:  Greece.   The important signature issues, such as repealing the odious health care bill, are beyond reach anyway until after 2012 because of Obama’s veto pen. 

Gingrich wasn’t afraid to tell the American people what he wanted to do with a Republican House majority.  The current Republican leadership is, which tells me that their real goal is just to get their bigger offices back.

Republicans may need more time in the wilderness, and a clearing out of the old guard, before they are ready to lead again.  Although Democratic implosion may force Republicans back in the driver’s seat again before they are ready, if Republicans are not able to pick up the mantle of leadership and run with it, they may be back on the skids again two years later.

And they would have deserved it.

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Occasionally some media type reporter will be interviewing some politician or some foreign policy wonk, and the media type will toss the softest of soft ball foreign policy questions to the political type, “What is it that keeps you awake at night?”  The question is great because, if the interviewer knows his role as lickspittle, he won’t follow up, and the interviewee is free to toss out some random word, and sound both thoughtful and obscure.

“Pakistan.”   Ohhh; hushed awe at the wisdom of the politico.  We don’t exactly know what he means by that, but it sounds profound.  Or it does as long as there is no follow up question, “What aspect of Pakistan worries you?”   Then of course, the jig is up.  “Uh something about their nukes, or the terrorists… yeah, terrorist nukes!” 

So much for profound.

 I had always thought if I were asked that question I would respond in a serious tone, “Djibouti.”  Now there is some method to my madness.  There are US operations conducted from that country against… other countries.  It’s all very hush-hush of course, but it’s a little reported but important part of the globe.  But honestly, that doesn’t keep me up at night.  The truth is, I just love the sound of that name, Dee-ja-bootie.  It’s a funny name and I love saying it!  I can say Djibouti over and over and just make myself laugh!  If I ever achieve vast wealth and power, I will take over a town and rename it Djibouti; or some variation.  Maybe “Djibouti City,” “Djiboutown,” or “New Djibouti.”  What this country needs is a Djibouti of our very own.

But that’s not what really keeps me up at night.

I was reminded of what does while recently reading, One Second After, by William R. Forstchen.  Forstchen’s book is a terrifying what if.  On a typical normal day in America, some unknown enemy launches a nuclear warhead modified to emit a strong electromagnetic pulse, capable of shorting out every microchip and electronic device in its line of sight.  Line of sight in this case includes the entire country.  It’s worse than just shutting down the power grid, it’s every device that relies on electronics, connected or not to a power source.  Every cell phone, virtually every car built in the last 40 years, every, TV, radio… and computers; it goes without saying.

It may take a moment to follow the implications of that.  Down here in Florida we are aware that hurricane conditions can shut down power for days, and sometimes for weeks in particularly hard hit storm areas.  But they don’t shut down power everywhere.  Backup generators will ensure that local emergency services still work as well as TV and radio.  We still know what’s going on, when power companies expect to get power on, where we can get water, what the weather conditions are, and that police and firefighters are still functioning. 

But what if when the power goes out, we lose everything?  If every vehicle is dead, than police and fire protection don’t exist either.  No ambulances are going to come, and unless you have a gravity fed water system, no water is going to flow to your house.  The stores won’t be re-supplied nor will the pharmacies, and there will be no State, or Federal government response.  The situation, nationwide, would get desperate and quick.  No water, no food, or at least none where people need it, and no way to get it to them.  In short, it’s the end of the world as we know it.  The United States becomes a 4^th world country immediately.  Haiti and Chad would have their shit more together than us.

The book details a small college town in North Carolina near Asheville, and its struggle to survive and hold it together in the face of food shortages, refugees pouring in from the cities, and being thrown back into an 18^th Century existence. An existence with no radio or communications, the townspeople don’t even know who attacked them or why.

And yes, bullets do become the new currency!  Ha!  I knew it!

One of the most terrifying things of the book is the rapid death rate that occurs over the course of just a few months.  The author, in conducting his research for the book, estimated that 90% of the US population could die within the first year.  If the figure seems a little high, figure that beyond the early die off from the initial chaos, without being able to move food from where we grow it to where we eat it we would see millions die from starvation.  Without high tech food production, storage, and transportation, the breadbasket of the world becomes a basket case.

One Second After reminds me in tone of Alas, Babylon, a 1959 post nuclear war tale of a small Florida town trying to survive after a nuclear war. Like One Second After, its not the large tale of a world with the United States and most of the West thrust back to the middle ages, but a small tale of a community fighting to survive day by day from disease, marauding gangs, and most of all, hunger. 

One of the marks of a good book to me is what I’m left with after I’ve read it.  In this case, I’ve thought quite a bit about the story and its implications.  It does make you think; particularly, how long could my family survive on the food and water we have in the house.  Answer: Not that long.  When we prepare for hurricanes, we prepare for a limited time.  Things will get back to normal eventually.

And they do.

But that’s what makes an EMP attack so insidious.  There will be no getting back to normal.  The days of the United States being a power, or possibly even a nation, will be over.  There would be no real recovery from an event like that, at least not in the lifetimes of anyone alive at the time of the event.  A single nuclear weapon going off in a big city, dirty bombs, weaponized plagues, hacking of the electric or utility grid; in fact everything except maybe a good old fashioned full scale nuclear war we would be able to recover from,  but not this.

So that’s what keeps me up at night.  I just wish I could really just say Djibouti.

Watching the promos for a new ABC series Lost several years ago, my impressions were of a show about plane crash survivors with a Michael Crichton touch.  You know, maybe an island with descendants of pirates on it.  Or perhaps a little Clive Cussler; the castaways find some ancient relics from Egypt or maybe Atlantis.  That was enough to get my interest to watch.  I knew whatever the mystery was, it would be a slow reveal, and it could last all the way to the first season finale!

And then there was the polar bear.

You just don’t throw a polar bear there in the middle of the jungle and not purposefully try to say, “Hey guys, where are we?” 

Obviously I wasn’t in the room when J.J Abrams first made his pitch to the execs at ABC for Lost.  I’m pretty sure he didn’t say, “ There is this island that moves back and forth through time and space, and it periodically throws people in all times and places and there are two godlike beings representing good and evil…”  at that point, Abrams would have been given the boot and told to pitch his idea to the Syfy channel.  Then Lost would have had a mega piranha or a giant snake in it.

But the creators were slyer than that.  And I’m not talking about what they told the ABC suits.  We, the viewing public were the primary ones that had to be fooled; or maybe led.  We couldn’t have the full scope of the show because we were not ready for it., and honestly, I’m not sure they knew where they were going at first.  They started us off slowly.  Polar bears, the Others, the hatch; all firmly rooted in the “real” world.  So that’s how I and I assume millions of others viewed the show.  A tantalizing mystery yes, but still rooted in at least a TV version of reality.

But from the hatch we went to the button, the other stations, Dharma, and mysterious electromagnetic phenomena.  Then rescue, time travel and we are still at the midpoint of the story arc.

Wait, did I say time travel?

We were given a wider picture of the Lost universe.  This was no more grounded to the real world than Back to the Future.  So, Lost is really a science fiction show.

Or was it?  I forgot to mention all the dead people walking, miraculous cures, the smoke monster, Kate’s horse.  So there was LSD in the island water?

There was the cabin, Jacob, the Man in Black, return to the island, Locke, the un-Locke, and the cave of light.  Then I realized this wasn’t science fiction.  This was a fantasy; a full on, Lord of the Rings style fantasy.  Powerful god like beings, protecting a source of power, and trying to keep chained an evil creature from  going out into the world and “end” everything.  This had quest written all over it, with Jacob starring as Gandalf!

**Spoilers below.  If you have not seen the series finale, you might want to hold off***

The finale left me with mixed feelings.  I would describe it as “mostly satisfying,” in spite of the multitude of questions still unanswered.  If I had a twinge of disappointment it was that the “alternate universe” was not really an alternate universe at all.  It was a holding area for the dead.   They stayed there until they could remember the moment of their deaths, and then they could move on.  Desmond and Hurley were not just remembering the island, they were remembering their lives, up till their deaths.  Some of those deaths must have occurred far in the future from where the story ends in “island time,” with Jack’s eye closing (yes he died).  But ultimately they all did.  Hurley and Ben referenced who knows how long a tenure with Hurley in the Jacob role and Ben in the Richard Alpert role.  Who knows how long that lasted, centuries?

This may not have to do with anything, but Kate (actress Evangeline Lilly) never looked sexier as when she was trying to coax Jack’s memory out of him outside the church. 

Wow.

OK that really doesn’t have to do with the story, but she can really turn it on when she needs to.

This almost seemed like it should have been two separate finales.  The prolonged post death 6^th Sense realization that they were dead, and then there was still that goddamn island.

What’s the light all about?  What does it do?  What were their destinies?  How did this whole island thing get started, what’s with the 4 toes on the statue….

That finale I don’t feel I ever got.  All the characters?  I guess they got their resolution because they’re dead.  Whether the alternate universe waiting room is something that everyone gets when they die or just the Losties because of their connection to each other and the island is unanswered, but what their destinies were in life is unclear.  What was Locke’s destiny?  To get strangled in a hotel room?  Jack’s destiny?  To fix something he had Desmond break in the first place?

I want to know these things because the show worked.  I fell for it and fell into the story and wanted answers.  Of course ultimately, the joke is on me because really, there are no answers.  This is a TV show after all and to a certain extent they were making it up as they went along.  They didn’t have the cave of light in mind when they penned the pilot episode.  If the show had ended after the first season, we probably would have been given the Crichton version of an ending.  A speech by the leader of the Others that they were all descendents of the survivors of the Black Rock.  However as the show gained in popularity the creators were stuck with upping the ante.  That’s how we went from mystery thriller to fantasy.  But… they did it well.  We were lead one step at a time slowly enough that we could shed our suspension of disbelief.  Being able to do that in a way that seems to logically flow is nearly impossible.  Imagine Law & Order suddenly dealing with a sex pervert from the future?  The show would lose all credibility.  It would seem ridiculous.   That Lost followed the path from thriller to fantasy, with a stop over in science fiction, successfully, is a testament to the writers.

I think ultimately, that will be Lost’s TV legacy.  A show that managed to pull off multiple genre switches without seeming ridiculous.  I don’t expect to see another show that can pull that off.

If there was ever a clearer sign that the Obama administration is making it up as they go along as far as the war on terror goes, it was Attorney General Eric Holder’s appearance on the Sunday shows yesterday. 

First, it took them until Sunday to admit that, yep, maybe the Times Square bomber, Faisal Shahzad, was an actual Islamic terrorist, not merely a crazed “Tea Bagger” upset about the health care bill or the foreclosure of his home by greedy Wall Street fat cat bankers.  Specifically, a terrorist of the Pakistani Taliban; a group allied both with the Afghani version of the Taliban and Al Qaeda.

Most of the country had figured that out already.  As columnist Mark Steyn noted, whenever a terrorist event happens, “there seem to be two kinds of reactions:

a) Some people go, “Hmm. I wonder if this involves some guy with a name like Mohammed who has e-mails from Yemen.”

b) Other people go, “Don’t worry, there’s no connection to terrorism, and anyway, even if there is, it’s all very amateurish, and besides he’s most likely an isolated extremist or lone wolf.””

As is usually the case, the people picking the second category, which includes almost all liberals, government spokesmen, and media types, are almost always wrong. 

Even wrong, the FBI, New York City Police Department, and apparently, the U.S. Army, managed to capture Shahzad in a little more than two days and before Shahzad could flee the country.  So certainly my hats off to those fine folks, and the investigation they ran.

Even the post capture investigation is going well.  The administration finally deployed their High Value Interrogation Group to interrogate Shahzad, and of course, good news for us, Shahzad is cooperating.

So, why is it that the Attorney General ready to throw Miranda rights to the wolves?

On ABC’s This Week, Holder said, “If we are going to have a system that is capable of dealing, in a public safety context, with this new threat, I think we have to give serious consideration to at least modifying that public safety exception [of Miranda warnings].”

Setting aside for the moment that Holder actually views terrorism as a new threat, why has he fought so hard to avoid enemy combatant detainee rules, and military hearings if he intends to turn the civilian criminal process into a vague copy of the enemy combatant one?

“One of the things that I think we’re going to be reaching out to Congress to do – to come up with a proposal that is both Constitutional, but that is also relevant to our time and the threat that we now face.”

I may be going out on a limb here, but I’m pretty sure many of the people who voted for Obama because they felt that terrorists shouldn’t be held in military custody and tried in military courts,  didn’t intend to see Miranda weakened, and thereby all American’s rights under a normal criminal proceeding. 

I’m not one of those who believe that the constitution requires a specific Miranda warning, but I’ve always felt that there should be a clear separation between the rights of American citizens in criminal courts and terrorists in league with a foreign organization waging war against the United States.  The Obama administration, so urgently wanted to separate itself from the Bush era military detentions and tribunals, now seem to be beginning the process of recreating it in the civilian court system.   The Obama administration is slowly learning and trying to adapt what the Bush administration had already figured out:  Terrorists are not common criminals, and they can’t practically be treated that way.   Interrogation is not just about getting a conviction, it’s about trying to prevent the next attack; a key difference between the civilian court system and a military detainee system.

Shahzad is different however.  He’s an American citizen, not just a captured detainee.  He does have rights that are not (or should not be) available to the average underwear bomber.  But the President still retains the authority to declare even American citizens  enemy combatants.  That would be a better alternative to altering our rights in order to accommodate the legitimate national security needs we have in fighting terrorism.  The last administration had already set up a system to do that.  But the new administration, in a bid to be the un-Bush, seems intent to set up a system in the civilian court system more Bushy than Bush ever dreamed.

And I’m guessing the pussy left will say nothing, proving once again the hypocrites that they are.

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Stardate 2010 point 04 point 18.  Assuming the command lounger of the USS Livingroom, I prepared for subspace comms from the usual Sunday morning suspects.  On the view screen, was Chris Matthews, on the syndicated and poor stepsister of Hardball, The Chris Matthews Show.  I know, it sounds like it should be some variety hour from the 1970’s.  However, anyone tuning in expecting a little song and dance would not be disappointed.

 Klein gets seditious

 Says Joe Klein, “I did a little bit of research just before this show – it’s on this little napkin here. I looked up the definition of sedition which is conduct or language inciting rebellion against the authority of the state. And a lot of these statements, especially the ones coming from people like Glenn Beck and to a certain extent Sarah Palin, rub right up close to being seditious.”

I nearly spit out my morning coffee. Liberals making accusations of sedition?  What is this, the 1800’s?  And that’s when it finally hit me.  The beard should have been a dead give away:  Joe Klein was from the Mirror Universe!

 The Mirror Universe is a concept originating from the original Star Trek episode, Mirror, Mirror.  In the episode, a transporter accident sends the gang into a parallel universe filled with evil twin counterparts of the regular Enterprise crew.  Instead of the USS Enterprise serving as the flagship of a peaceful Federation, wanting nothing more than exploration, kumbaya singing, and handholding, the ISS Enterprise is a warship of the Terran Empire, bent on conquest and exploitation of peaceful native peoples.  You know; evil like the humans in Avatar.

 The most popular of the Mirror Universe characters was clearly the evil Spock, who could use Vulcan logic to argue his support of the Terran Empire in the same way “good” Spock could use Vulcan logic to argue in favor of the Federation.

 In my opinion they were both out of their Vulcan minds.

 Get it?                    Ahem, with apologies to Ron & Ron.

 So sitting there in the command lounger, I realized that not only was Joe Klein from the Mirror Universe, but that there must have been other liberals replaced by their Mirror Universe counterparts for a while now, maybe years.  As I thought back, some of the clues that I had seen slowly started coming together…

 One of the early Obama Administration appointments to chair the National Intelligence Council was Charles “Chas” Freeman.  Freeman was unique in that he was not only an anti-Israel supporter of Saudi Arabia, but actually supported China’s Tiananmen Square crackdown of democracy supporters.  Liberals from this universe would be expected to be appalled by such a choice right?

 Nope.  They quickly suckled up to Freeman’s anti-Semitic, pro-Tiananmen crackdown.

 As astounding as that was, that was only one example where liberals took mirror universe positions.   The Citizen’s United case saw liberals turn snarling against the first amendment, even to the extent of wanting to repeal and replace the 1^st Amendment to the Constitution. 

 Remember how evil rendition was during the Bush administration?  No more!  Angry leftists (that should really be one word) should have been a bit disappointed.  This is not an issue that President Obama just has not gotten around to, considering how busy he has been restoring hope to the world; Obama signed an executive order authorizing the CIA to continue to “carry out what are known as renditions, secret abductions and transfers of prisoners to countries that cooperate with the United States.”  Leon Panetta, as CIA director nominee said renditions would continue under a Obama administration.

 So to paraphrase Gordon Gekko, Rendition, for lack of a better word, is good.

 The biggest turnabout though was on the Patriot Act.  This was renewed in February with barely a whisper.  This would have caused street protests and been the leading topic on the nightly news just a few short years ago.  Now, it gets you only a shrug. 

 So clearly I was right.  The only logical explanation for this strange turnaround on liberal opinion is that liberals themselves are being replaced with their Mirror Universe counterparts.  Is this prelude to an invasion?  Or are they refugees driven out by a third Bush term in the other universe?  I don’t know yet, but clearly I’m on to something.  Obviously these counterparts are not conservatives in their universe, not by any standards we would recognize, but they are certainly not the liberals I’ve known and made fun of for years.  Joe Klein, a man who participated in anti-war street protests, is now ready to drop the sedition hammer on sign waving grandmas, and have Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck hauled off to the gulag.

 I can only hope that maybe a Mirror Universe Cartman will drop through to our universe to clear things up.  Maybe a goateed Maureen Dowd, or Paul Krugman – wait, he already has a beard, drats!  Another one!  Until we can get to the bottom of this invasion, trust no liberals!  It’s always been good advice but it’s never been more important.  We don’t know what plans they hold for our world, but if they are anything like our world’s liberals, it’s nothing good.

 Keep watching the skies!

Just like virtually everyone else in the country that lives at a fixed address, I received a census form in the mail a few weeks ago.  Apparently my “response is required by law” and I have no intention of disappointing the Commerce Department.  I’ll fill it out.  A quick perusal shows that more than any other issue, this version is concerned about my race.  They could have at least asked, “How ya doing?  Everything OK?”  Nope, just upteen different options for racial and ethnic identity.

Post racial era indeed.

Not wanting to disappoint, I checked all of my potential ethnic check boxes.  One thing that caught my eye, “Negro” has made its appearance on the census once again.  I suppose it’s an after the fact legitimization of Harry Reid’s “Negro” remark.   See?  It’s perfectly OK to say!

Apparently not everyone is a Harry Reid supporter, since the Census Bureau received plenty of complaints on the use of the word. But hey, there were experimenting with terminology.  Some people, mostly older people, still prefer it.  Not everyone got the word that Jesse Jackson renamed Blacks African American.  Now that is power!  I’m still working on my plan to rename the city of Deltona into Miketopia.  Residents would be called, of course, Miketopians.  But it’s not as easy as Jackson made it appear.

The term Hispanic, is even vaguer than the handful of acceptable terms for black.  The United States is the only country in the world in which a Spaniard can fly out of Madrid as “white” but by the time he lands in New York, he’s no longer white, he’s Hispanic.  The census does break down three nationalities from that, Puerto Rican, Cuban, and Mexican (and it’s derivatives; Mexican-American and Chicano).  But everyone else?  You’re Hispanic.

The word Hispanic wasn’t a word that boiled up from Latin culture, it came from US government bureaucracy, specifically, the Ad Hoc Committee on Racial and Ethnic Definitions.  Although I’m a little vague on why the already existing word Latino, was not acceptable, for some reason the Committee wanted to exclude non Spanish Latins, such as Portuguese and Italians.

So in census terms, an Italian is white, but a Spaniard is not, he’s Hispanic.  No book definition defines Hispanic as a racial term, merely a cultural one, but on the census form, it’s used as a de facto racial term.  This adds to the confusion of who is white and who isn’t, since 30 million Hispanics are also white.  This to me seems to make the entire exercise of identifying Hispanic on the census form irrelevant.  Since I’m not Hispanic, the government feels it needs to know what race I am, but if I’m Hispanic, I could be White, Black, Indian, or mixed race.   If you are Hispanic, you get to check two boxes, race and Hispanic ethnicity.  Lucky bastards.  I wish I had two boxes!

Of course, who is white and who isn’t is an evolving standard.  A century ago, Southern Europeans, like Italians, Slavs, and European Jews were not considered “white” by common American standards.  The Irish were just barely white.  The Supreme Court determined that Indians (those from the Indian subcontinent, not American Indians, who are actually Asian), who although Caucasian, were not white enough to be Americans.  Arabs however, were considered white, even though they were not Caucasian.  Now days, a Muslim from Syria, a Swede, and yes, even the Irish, are all considered white.

Confusing, but race as a concept has more to do with a social construct than DNA.  Several years ago I worked in the Health Department screening pregnant women for a State program that provided prenatal services to qualifying expectant women.  Much of our screening was demographic.  One day I was interviewing a woman from Belize, who by all appearances was black.  However she had put herself down as white on the demographic questionnaire.  Later I asked my supervisor about this, “So should I just change this to black?”   My supervisor just shrugged, “Let her be whatever race she wants to be.”  That turned out to be really good advice.  People really are whatever race they think they are.  If you have blond hair, blue eyes, and were raised in a Spanish household, maybe you identify far more as Hispanic than white.

This makes me think that the entire effort of trying to track race via the census as ridiculous and ultimately self defeating.  A hundred years ago a Polish immigrant probably thought of himself as far more Polish than white, in the then current American sense.  His descendents today probably think of themselves as more white, in the current American sense of the word, than as either a Pole or even Polish-American.

We are identifying Puerto Ricans, Mexicans, and Cubans as separate groups on the census now, but will they still think of themselves by those nationalities a century from now, as, white, black, or mestizo, or will they think of themselves as Hispanic?  Or for that matter, will they think of themselves as having a non American identity at all?

This country has done a pretty good job of creating quite a melting pot of ethnicities to create a new, American identity, and although we’ve have had plenty of hiccups along the way, including the competing “Salad Bowl” theory, we’ve probably done better than any other nation in welcoming and integrating newcomers.  In a perfect census, we wouldn’t even ask about racial or ethnic identification.  It just shouldn’t be a compelling state interest to know how much melanin I have.

Back in the real world, there are various competing groups that really feel that there is a compelling state interest to know who is part of what group, so these questions won’t be going away anytime soon.  In fact, they will probably get more ridiculous in each successive version of the census, at least for the next few decades.  Hopefully at some point though, we will wonder why we ever cared.

No really.  What is it?  This turned out to be much more difficult to answer then you would think.   Of course, I’m not talking about boiling someone’s feet, or taking a blowtorch to the eyeballs.  Those acts seem to be rather uncontroversially designated as torture.  No, I’m talking about that crown prince of enhanced interrogation; waterboarding.   

 On a philosophical and personal level, I feel waterboarding is torture.  Its purpose is to cause mental anguish enough to cause the subject to spill their guts on plans and operations.  Still, unlike a blow torch to the eyeball or boiling feet, people are lining up to have themselves waterboarded, either for a bet, charity, or publicity.   One wonders why Jackass star Steve-O didn’t think of it.  Vanity Fair journalist Christopher Hitchens did think of it.  As well as Chicago radio personality Mancow (allegedly) and Central Florida radio listener Evil Eye.  Sean Hannity made the offer to do it, but as yet hasn’t made good on his offer.  In a battle of the ratings can Chris Matthews and Glenn Beck be far behind?

On a legal level however, I have grave doubts on if waterboarding meets the standard.   Torture is against Federal law, specifically, Title 18 Part 1 Chapter 113C of the US Code.  However what does it actually say?  The law defines torture this way:

(1) “torture” means an act committed by a person acting under the color of law specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering (other than pain or suffering incidental to lawful sanctions) upon another person within his custody or physical control;

(2) “severe mental pain or suffering” means the prolonged mental harm caused by or resulting from—

(A) the intentional infliction or threatened infliction of severe physical pain or suffering;

(B) the administration or application, or threatened administration or application, of mind-altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or the personality;

(C) the threat of imminent death; or

(D) the threat that another person will imminently be subjected to death, severe physical pain or suffering, or the administration or application of mind-altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or personality; and

 It would be difficult to argue in court that waterboarding results in severe mental or physical pain.  No marks or physical damage after all, and no reported mental issues from waterboarding.  Or at least I have not heard of anyone suffering from Post traumatic Stress Syndrome or other long term issue from the interrogation method.

This was the gist of the “Torture Memos” which I had discussed a few weeks ago.  The former Justice Department attorney’s, whom President Obama has decided to give the Kangaroo Court go ahead to the Attorney General, made a fairly good case that waterboarding doesn’t violate US law as torture.  That’s not an argument that waterboarding is a harmless prank, or around the level of good cop/ bad cop when it comes to interrogations, but it does give good evidence that the high bar to define it legally as torture was not met.

And who should confirm that conclusion? None other than Attorney General Eric Holder.  Holder gave away the store a few weeks ago during a Congressional hearing on closing the detainee facility at Gitmo. Holder was being questioned specifically about torture and confirmed again (as he did during his confirmation hearing) that he regarded waterboarding as torture.  Then he was asked if he regarded the waterboarding that Navy Seals received during their training as torture.

Holder:  No, it’s not torture in the legal sense because you’re not doing it with the intention of harming these people physically or mentally, all we’re trying to do is train them —

 Rep. Dan Lungren:  So it’s the question of intent?

Holder:  Intent is a huge part.

Lungren:  So if the intent was to solicit information but not do permanent harm, how is that torture?

 Holder:  Well, it… uh… it… one has to look at… ah… it comes out to question of fact as one is determining the intention of the person who is administering the waterboarding.  When the Communist Chinese did it, when the Japanese did it, when they did it in the Spanish Inquisition we knew then that was not a training exercise they were engaging in. They were doing it in a way that was violative of all of the statutes recognizing what torture is. What we are doing to our own troops to equip them to deal with any illegal act — that is not torture.

 Rep. Louie Gohmert:  Whether waterboarding is torture you say is an issue of intent.  If our officers when waterboarding have no intent and in fact knew absolutely they would do no permanent harm to the person being waterboarded, and the only intent was to get information to save people in this country then they would not have tortured under your definition, isn’t that correct? 

Holder:  No, not at all.  Intent is a fact question, it’s a fact specific question.

 Gohmert:  So what kind of intent were you talking about?

 Holder:  Well, what is the intention of the person doing the act?  Was it logical that the result of doing the act would have been to physically or mentally harm the person?

 Gohmert:  I said that in my question.  The intent was not to physically harm them because they knew there would be no permanent harm — there would be discomfort but there would be no permanent harm — knew that for sure.  So, is the intent, are you saying it’s in the mind of the one being water-boarded, whether they felt they had been tortured.  Or is the intent in the mind of the actor who knows beyond any question that he is doing no permanent harm, that he is only making them think he’s doing harm.

 Holder:  The intent is in the person who would be charged with the offense, the actor, as determined by a trier of fact looking at all of the circumstances.  That is ultimately how one decides whether or not that person has the requisite intent.  

   So Holder, seems to be saying, without outright admitting it, that in a legal sense, under Title 18 Part 1 Chapter 113C, the waterboarding that was done by the CIA was not torture.  It’s all about the intent.  And Holder practices what he preaches.  That is the exact position the Justice Department is taking in another case, Demjanjuk v. Holder.  In that case, John Demjanuk, a former Nazi camp guard was fighting deportation to Germany to stand trial on the grounds that considering his age, poor health, and expected bad treatment at the hands of German jailors (ohh irony!),  would be the equivalent of torture due to the “severe Pain and suffering” that he would be expected to endure.  Demjanjuk lost, since the court found there was no established intent (there is that word again!) by German authorities to torture him.

And yet, law is apparently not going to stand in the way of political opportunism both for the Obama administration and the Holder Justice Department.  A leaked DOJ ethics report on John Yoo and Jay Bybee, two of the authors of the infamous torture memos, will recommend disciplinary action.  All because they devised the legal strategy that Holder is using in another case, and has basically admitted in hearings is correct.

Frankly, this is bullshit.  I know it and Attorney General Holder knows it, but with such a friendly press, there is never going to be a gotcha moment in a press conference; at least not one that will receive wide coverage.  Did you catch Holder’s admission on intent in those hearings leading the nightly news?  Neither did I, even though it exposes the hypocrisy of deriding a legal theory in public that the Obama administration is accepting as it’s own on the down low.

Was it worth it?  The waterboarding I mean.  The former Bush administration took a political risk in adopting that technique, and competing camps have battled on cable shows on whether waterboarding was effective or saved American lives.  However the opinion of the intelligence community seems to be yes, it did.  A Washington Post piece describes the “second wave” attack that had been planned for Los Angeles.  A hijacked airliner would have been used to crash into the Library tower in LA.  Thanks to information collected through waterboarding, we were able to stop the plot before it ever got off the ground (pun is mine).

You can have a philosophical argument on if any sort of enhanced interrogation is ever justified, regardless of the lives saved.  Some people, incredibly, would rather see such plots go forward rather than sully their hands at the dirty work of intelligence collection.  But that’s different from the legal argument on whether the three Al Qaeda terrorists that were waterboarded were legally tortured.  I would have to say, based on the preponderance of evidence that they were not.  As I said at the beginning of this piece, I do personally regard waterboarding as torture, however there are several other techniques I may feel personally are torture that just don’t meet the legal standard.  Letting me drink a couple of beers and then not letting me pee for instance.  President Obama has already banned the use of waterboarding as an interrogation technique by executive order, but don’t look for the Congress to try bring up another bill to outlaw the technique, like they did during the Bush administration.  I imagine if there is another 9/11 style attack, that executive order will quietly be rescinded, in a closing the barn door after the horses are out kind of way.

So we now live in a world in which we can waterboard Mancow, or any other publicity whore, but not Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, or if we ever catch him Osama Bin Ladin.  I’m not sure we could even force KSM to listen to Mancow. Maybe if KSM would agree to be waterboarded  for charity…

Some wag once said that Obama keeps all of his promises; they just have an expiration date.  I guess that’s how we got from “President Barack Obama will not pursue the prosecution of Bush-era officials who devised torture policy against detainees” to it “is going to be more of a decision for the attorney general” within a few days.  That was a quick turnaround, even by Obama standards.  However events and leftie blogs pushed Obama rather quickly after the release of the “torture memos,” which reveal the legal underpinning for what is euphemistically referred to as “enhanced interrogation.”

The timing strikes me as odd considering just a week ago a Spanish court decided to investigate whether to pursue charges against Bush administration officials who provided the legal underpinning for those interrogations.  Then low and behold, the Obama administration declassifies those very documents written by those Justice Department lawyers.  That could hardly be a coincidence.  The message seems to be that the Obama administration will not attempt to protect and may even assist, in international prosecutions of Bush administration officials, and who knows, maybe even prosecute a few themselves.

I took a look at the torture memos out of curiosity and to confirm that things people were saying were in there actually was.  I’ve learned you can’t trust someone else’s interpretation.  Full disclosure:  I didn’t read the whole thing.  I just don’t have the legal background to make a determination if the case the Justice Department attorneys tried to make made sense or not, but I was curious about a few things.

First of all, what was the classification of these damn things?  Looking at the pdf of the memo, I could see that the pages were all classified Top Secret (scribble scribble) NOFORN, but what was the caveat or code word that was scribbled out?  I magnified and tried to see through the blackened areas, but no such luck.  Just curious I guess.  I was just wondering if it was a cool sounding codeword, Top Secret Maximum Hammer, or just something dorky, Top Secret Loosie Goosie?

Another thing; what was the deal with all the waterboarding?  The original leaks described it as the most successful interrogation technique since “good cop, bad cop.”  Abu Zubaida supposedly broke after 35 seconds.  However page 37 of the memo details something more complicated:

…where authorized, it may be used for two “sessions” per day of up to two hours. During a session, water may be applied up to six times for ten seconds or longer (but never more than 40 seconds). In a 24-hour period, a detainee may be subjected to up to twelve minutes of water appliaction. See id. at 42.  Additionally, the waterboard may be used on as many as five days during a 30-day approval period.

…The CIA used the waterboard “at least 83 times during August 2002” in the interrogation of Zubaida…and 183 times during March 2003 in the interrogation of KSM”

So somebody check my math, but that that means either the guidelines for waterboarding are wrong, they ignored their own guidelines, or the number of waterboarding sessions is wrong, since the could not have waterboarded that many times in a month if they followed the guidelines.  Or they are counting applications, instead of sessions.  It’s too vague to tell.

As far as I know, I’m the first person to discover this, so somebody give a prize or something.

However I’m not the first person to notice the incongruity of it being reported that Zubaida broke after 35 seconds and being waterboarded 83 times in one month.  I don’t see how both of those can be true.

But like a 23 minute Arlo Guthrie song, that’s not what I’m here to talk about.  OK well maybe a little, but what I am really worried about is the Obama administration deciding to settle scores.  Since President Obama is the Attorney General’s boss, going from being not interested in pursuing prosecution of Bush era officials to saying it’s up to the Attorney General is tantamount to giving the green light to prosecute.

Now I am of two minds on this.  There is one part of me, the mean, hateful part, that would love to see lawyers have to take responsibility for writing legal opinions, and by taking responsibility I mean forced to pull their orange jumpsuits down in a dark corner of a federal prison and get doo doo raped.  I’m not a fan of lawyers as you might notice.  Generally, lawyers don’t have to take any responsibility for their poor performance. Their clients do. These lawyers, if prosecuted, certainly would.

Also there is the precedent.  Once one administration opens the door to prosecuting the previous administration for policies it disagreed with, every time there is a change in power, the new administration will do the same.  In 4 years I could sit back and watch members of the Obama administration be indicted for all manner of crimes.  What comes around goes around eh?

But that is only one side.  I have a more dominate opinion on this, not one based on score settling, hatred of the bar, or getting revenge on wrongs, real or otherwise, on the current administration at some point in the future, but based on reason, rule of law, and the dangers setting bad precedents.

 First of all, I’m not sure there is even a crime here.  There may be a crime somehow under Spanish law, but I’m fairly certain there is no Federal Statute against giving a legal opinion that the current administration disagrees with.  One can imagine the kangaroo courts if we decide it’s OK to prosecute judges for ruling on a decision that’s been overturned, or a legislator who votes for a law that is later found to be unconstitutional.  That would be as criminal as anything those Bush Justice Department attorneys did.

The precedent of one administration getting revenge on the previous one would be a bad one.  Senator Leahy’s idea of a truth and reconciliation commission; as if going from the Bush administration to the Obama one is equivalent to eliminating apartheid, or the Nuremberg Trials, is ridiculous.  During every election, we always like to repeat the old canard about “the peaceful exchange of power” but how long would that be true if we up the stakes every time  political parties switch positions of power?  If hundreds of administration officials could expect nothing but indictment if a rival party takes power, are we really not that far from Peron’s Argentina?

It’s one thing to indict and prosecute officials who have actually done criminal wrongdoing, but I’ve noticed from my friends on the left is their tendency to want to criminalize policy differences.   They would love to have Bush and Cheney doing the perp walk, weighed down with chains, but ask them what sort of charges its usually something vague, like “war crimes” or just that they were criminals.  Their real crimes?  Holding different policy positions.  Not violating federal statutes.  If we try to prosecute attorneys for writing legal opinions, that won’t be justice, it will be punishment.  Punishment for losing the election.

Once we cross that particular Rubicon, it’s damage that cannot be undone. Rome could never go back to it’s Republic, and if we allow score settling after every change of power, we won’t be able to go back either. 

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• Released Memos Could Lead to More Disclosures (nytimes.com)

My best friend flew down to the Orlando area to visit family and friends for a few days, and to go to a Ben Folds concert at the Hard Rock at Universal.  What was a little surprising was that he invited my son, rather than me to go along with him.  Well, he is my son’s godfather, and besides the obvious job of granting favors, that someday (and that day may never come) he will need to do a favor for him, godfathers are usually responsible for some aspect of religious education if I die.  Besides the obvious problem of me still being alive, the one religious discussion he had with my son began with, “See there are these things called Thetans, which came to Earth 75 million years ago…”

So religious education is out, but music education is in.  I took my son as far as I could, The Clash, B-52’s,  The Cure, uh who else… anyway I dropped out of music about the same time I discovered talk radio, so if my son is going to learn of music past the 80’s he will either have to pick it up on the streets, or from his godfather.

But I wasn’t the only one standing out in front of the Hard Rock waiting for the concert to be over; my friend had abandoned his own girlfriend as well.  When he originally bought the tickets, he didn’t know his girlfriend would be able to come down to Orlando that week, so it was a confluence of events and family members that led to me and his girlfriend waiting around for the show to be over.

Actually that served multiple purposes.  I had to wait around anyway for my son, and he wanted to submit his new girl to a bro review.  These were the relevant things he had told me about her so far:

• She was Russian
• Had a great sense of humor
• She was smokin’ hot

Since I’m somewhat introverted, and according to various recently discovered online tests, somewhat autistic as well, I decided I would need some back up, so I called up a mutual friend who also spoke Russian, figuring I would need help in the whole “keeping the conversation going” thing.  What better help than to have someone who actually speaks her language?

So the tradeoff was made, cold war style, across a bridge at Universal Citywalk, where I traded my son for his girlfriend.

Yes I know.  I’m a terrible father.

Anyway Svetlana turned out to be a delight!  First of all, although Russian she was not actually a citizen of Russia, but a citizen of Moldova, which had a large Russian ethnic group thanks the hard work of so many Russian Czars and Soviet Premiers.  OK she was not actually Moldovan (who are ethnic Romanians), she is actually a citizen of Transnistria, a strip of Moldova that is predominately ethnic Russian.  Never heard of it?  Well hardly anyone recognizes it except Russia, so it has all the same legitimacy of an independent state as South Ossetia does.  As you can see, the answer to the question, “So where are you from?” took a while. But her English was great, and she had no problem giving her blunt impressions of the United States, President Obama, and asking pointed questions of us about the United States and U.S. foreign policy.

But U.S. or Russian foreign policy isn’t what I wanted to write about.

Back up.  It wasn’t just a trade across the bridge, we met, sat down, and had drinks before the show, and we heard Svetlana to give her version of my friend’s father’s birthday. It was a family dinner at that most pedestrian of the Darden chain and the waitress showed up.

With flipper arms.

As she flip flopped taking their order, everyone pretended that they hadn’t noticed the waitresses flippers.  Everyone except Svetlana that is.  She had been in the country long enough to know Americans pretend not to see those things.  So she waited until the waitress left and plainly spoke out.  “OK you all did see that right?”

My Buddy:  “Uh see what?”

My Buddy’s Brother:  I see nothing…Nothing!”

Svetlana:  “This waitress is a cripple and clearly not capable of doing this job.  Plus, she looks odd.  I want to request another waitress.  One with real hands.”

My Buddy:  “We can’t do that.”

Svetlana:  “And why not?  Do you want the cripple to spill hot food on you?”

My Buddy’s Brother:  “Shhh, she’s coming back!”

So the crippled waitress very nearly spilled food.  Not being able to set the food down properly, she just let it drop on the table.  Everyone smiled.  Or almost everyone. 

So as Lana related this story she ended it this way, “Everyone is afraid to say anything; your whole country.  You say you have freedom of speech but you don’t.  Russians have more freedom of speech than you do.”

At least she didn’t say that the waitress belonged in the Special Olympics.

Of course when President Obama made his “botched joke,” most people understood it was a slip of the tongue, and whether you thought it was a stupid comment (and lesson to bring that teleprompter along at all times!) or an irrelevant one, most people didn’t think it was malicious.  Never the less the left girded it’s loins in preparation of the right wing attack machine.

Which never attacked.

 I suppose you could count Sarah Palin, but Palin actually has a “special” child.  If she doesn’t have a right to be offended, who does?  I imagine the quip looks quite a bit different if you are the parent or sibling of a special needs child, or as we used to say, retarded.  But there was no phony outrage generated by the right as is typical from the left.  Of course they were expecting it.  It’s what they would do.

I thought about that a bit.  Having seen liberals deconstruct the English language for political points over such words as tar baby, niggardly, and even black hole, we are afraid to challenge the most ignorant and stupid among us because they didn’t understand the word.  Niggardly comes from Old Norse and has nothing to do with black people, but try telling that to the ignorant self righteous.  We don’t need Big Brother to dumb down our language, robbing us of our ability to express complex ideas.  We are more than willing to do it ourselves.  Who knows what language our grandchildren will be speaking in the idiocracy we are determined to leave them.  Some sort of text-speak probably.

But first comes the fear to say anything.  We are certainly there.  Even Russians feel freer than us.

There used to be an old TV show that in its narration included the phrase, “there are 8 million stories in the naked city”, and I was trying to riff off of that to begin a piece on gays in the military, but I just couldn’t make it work.  There are a million gays in the naked military?  There are a million naked gay stories in the military?  Naahh, this was not going anywhere.

But neither is this subject.  Repealing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell will probably be a first 100 days agenda item for President Obama; at least the executive order part of it.  Although no doubt the actual law (Public Law 103-160, Section 654, Title 10) will come up in the new Congress as well.  Congresswoman Ellen Tauscher has already stated she plans to introduce legislation this year to repeal the law.  So one way or another, DADT is going down.

But as to those stories, there are a lot of them.  DADT policy creates a weird loophole that allows gays to serve, in violation of Public Law 103-160 which prohibits homosexuals from serving in the military, as long as they keep their gay shit quiet.  This creates all sorts of ambiguity for the military, Commanders, and gay service people themselves.

Several years ago, there was an active duty Army unit  that was turning over several items of equipment to a local Reserve unit.  I was in the Reserve unit at the time and was part of the group being trained on the new hardware and software.  Now I hate to pull out stereotypes, however they are a lot of fun and in this case accurate.  Our trainer was a female Sergeant who just looked lesbian.  At a distance, and close up for that matter, it was hard to tell if this was a dude or a chick.  Needless to say, we waited on following the lead from other people in her unit before determining which pronoun to use.

Driving from one location to another, a bunch of us were in a car following hers, which was festooned with pink triangle, rainbow, and other assorted and like-minded bumper stickers.

“Ha!  I knew it!”

“Know what?” replied my crusty old Warrant Officer.

“She’s gay!” I replied.

“Just because she seems kind of mannish?  That’s not really fair.”

“No, because of all the gay bumper stickers.”

“Eh?”  As far as following pop culture, and its various buttons, stickers, and icons, he had lost track shortly after the smiley face.

As we pulled up to the next training facility, he decided to trump me and my alleged bumper sticker lore.  “I’m going to go ask her what those stickers mean.” 

“No don’t!” said everyone in the car in unison.  But he wouldn’t be deterred; he walked right up to her, ready to prove his point that I had no idea what those stickers meant.

“Hey, Sergeant, I was meaning to ask, but what do all of those bumper stickers on your car mean?”

Sergeant Deer-in-the-headlights froze and her eyes got big.  “Uh… those are uh… about people, and uh human rights…”

“Thanks.” Replied the crusty old Warrant Officer.  He turned to me and smiled all smug like.  “Told ya.”

Later I was speaking with one of the other people in her unit.  Yes, everyone knew she was gay, including the commander.  How could they not considering her bumper sticker plastered car?  But she was good at her job so everyone minded their own business.  Someone doing temporary duty at the unit, a new arrival, or some meandering crusty old Warrant Officer could have blown that at any time though.  No doubt that Sergeant thought her military career was in jeopardy the moment that Warrant started asking about her bumper stickers.  That was probably not the only time she had one of those moments.

Not surprisingly, most of the time military people are cool about that.  People know, and just don’t say anything.  Sometimes people are actually protected.  One time years ago, one of the guys in my unit was spotted by some off duty MPs kissing another dude in a downtown club.  The MPs decided to report that to my unit’s security officer, wanting the kissing bandit’s security clearance pulled and his lips and all processed out of the military.  After having to answer our security officer’s question of, “What were you doing in a gay club? (working security),” she promised she would take care of it and then promptly tossed the complaint in the garbage.

But what about “good order and discipline,” the standard answer for those who oppose openly gay people serving in the military?   For people who have never served in the military or who served in the Air Force, it’s a meaningless statement meant to hide bigotry.  But there are real issues that arise in having openly gay people serve in the military.

It certainly brings sexual harassment to a new level.  At the post where I had advanced individual training, one of the girls in the class ahead of me would leer and make comments and gestures to the girls in the common shower area.  This was relayed to me months later by someone who was subject to this almost daily display of abuse.  “Why didn’t you just complain to someone about it?”  I asked, using dreaded guy logic.  “I just didn’t know what to say.”  She replied.  Harassment is a hard charge to make when the harassed is more embarrassed about it then the harasser.  If there had been a naked guy coming into the female shower area, giving the old once over, the situation would have ended almost immediately.

And that’s part of barracks living, not college dorm living.  I spend two and a half years living in a barracks showering in a common open shower area with half a dozen other guys.  None of them were gay (that I knew of) but it would have made for an uncomfortable showering time if some of them had been openly gay.

These two lesbians walked into a bar… well actually it was their Company Commander’s office.  Taking advantage of the open door policy, they met with the commander, and rather than just explaining that they wanted chaptered (discharged based on various military regulations) out, they proceeded to make out in front of the commander.  Rather than freak out, the female commander got the message instantly.  “OK got it, you want out.  I’ll start the paperwork.  Dismissed.”  Of course the wheels of military bureaucracy turned slowly so they were not actually discharged for several months.  In the meantime, they shared a room, their own lesbian love nest in the barracks. Policy for that unit was that sex was not allowed in the barracks.  On the other hand, who else was comfortable with sharing a room with these two?  And how would you enforce it?

By the way I knew both of these gals and neither one was hot. 

Just thought I would toss that out there.

Being gay in the military is easy if, like the bumper stickered gay training Sergeant, you go home to your own place every night, and the personal is easily separated from the professional.  Not so easy is showering together and living together.  In many military situations, and I could probably say in most cases on the two major deployments we have going on right now, it’s a little more difficult.

Maintaining good order and discipline is not the worry of either the incoming President or the incoming Congress; politics is.  But at the unit level where these policies have to be enforced, I expect Commanders, Sergeants Major, and First Sergeants are going to have their hands full dealing with openly gay service people in extremely cramped conditions where privacy is a luxury.  Will it be no sex in the barracks, unless you are gay and sharing a room, or will there have to be special gay shower hours for open shower areas?  Are you being harassed if you are straight and have to share a room with a gay guy, or is the gay guy being harassed by having to share a room with a straight guy?  If two gay lovers can share a room; why not two straight ones?  Would it be better for a male gay soldier and a female gay soldier to share a room?

Having worked along side gay soldiers I would hazard that most of the time it’s a non issue.  But if I were responsible for implementing any policy for removing DADT I would prefer that it be handled the same way policies regarding female soldiers are handled, such as not be allowed to serve in low echelon combat arms units or being excluded from combat arms military occupational specialties.  That would never happen of course.  It will be all or nothing, and given the prevailing political winds, I would guess “all” over “nothing.”

It’s a lot easier for the military to handle gay military members (heh – I said handle members!) when they have an incentive to be in the closet.  It will be a lot tougher when track lighting is installed in barracks rooms. So, follow the Milblogs.  That’s where the real story will be told of how these policies will be implemented.  Only the successes or clear examples of discrimination and bigotry will be in the main stream media.  I expect some entertaining reading.