Obama Experiments with Gay Rights, Decides It Just Doesn't Feel Right.

Barack Obama's presidential campaign made ambitious and unprecedented promises to the Gay Community, even if his stance on gay marriage slid toward the (regretably discriminatory) middle as his candidacy grew in viability. In the Democratic primaries, Obama insisted that full civil marriage rights should be extended to gay couples. He left the symbolic "marriage" business up to the churches who would be conducting ceremonies, thus striking a balance between the alleviation of a gap in equal rights and the upholding of freedom of religious practice if a church declined to recognize gay marriage as spiritually valid. By the end of his campaign, he openly opposed gay marriage while continuing to support civil unions.

Either way, Obama pledged to seek the repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act, a 1996 federal law explicitly defining marriage as heterosexual and allowing states to refuse recognition of gay marriage (and only gay marriage). He also took aim at the U.S. Military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy of requiring homosexuals to remain quiet about their sexuality in order to serve in the military.

Obama took office without major action on gay rights, which in turn immediately drew criticism from several in the gay community and other gay rights advocates. Still, there are perfectly logical explanations for gay rights finding its to Obama's back burner. Frankly, the economy is more important, having a far greater impact on the lives of far more people. The Obama administration has been incredibly active in attempting to stabilize the economy and, perhaps to a lesser extent, rebuilding a more refined regulatory system. This alone would be enough to give a two-term Obama presidency a legitimate legacy as a domestic specialist.

Obama has also invested himself into turning two largely failed foreign wars into one ongoing successful war and one relatively successful war in the history books, all while attempting to reboot the United States' image abroad and taking leading rolls in foreign policy issues such as the Israeli/ Palestinian conflict, Iran, North Korea, and Russia.

Perhaps coincidentally, it is worth noting that political support for the gay rights movement does not have the same timeline or sense of urgency as something like health care. Traditionally, presidents seeking health care reform have had no real choice but to pursue policy in their administrations' infancies, as the first year represented the only opportunity for enough of a mandate and enough political capital to make health care reform feasible. Interestingly, it is entirely likely that Obama will have more support for marriage equality and gay rights in the twilight of his presidency, as gay marriage continues its slow crawl of state-by-state legalization and support continues to swell in national polls.

The Obama camp's defense up to this point has been to simple: He's busy, but he'll get to it. With so much on the White House's plate, it would be difficult to begrudge Obama for releasing a statement to the effect of 'we haven't forgotten about you, but there are some other things that can't wait and we promise to take action as soon as we can.' Such a reassurance might allow gay rights advocates to accept the recent extension of some federal employee partner benefits to gay couples with guarded optimism instead of the sense that they've been thrown a bone and patronized.

But that's not what happened. Obama's Justice Department recently filed a brief supporting the Defense of Marriage act after it was challenged in court by a gay couple in California. The Obama administration filed a similar brief defending Don't Ask, Don't Tell after it too faced a legal challenge. As recently as today, there are reports that the Justice Department continues to insist that Obama plans to overturn it. Obama himself has remained conspicuously silent, neglecting even to provide noteworthy comment when the Washington D.C. city council voted in May to recognize same-sex marriages performed elsewhere in the country. Many analysts felt that D.C. taking up the issue would be enough to force Obama to weigh in, but it wasn't.

All in all, these moves are incredibly suspicious in the supposed new political age based upon elected officials earning and deserving the benefit of the doubt. Gay rights is still an incredibly divisive issue, yes, and saving it for when the health care push is complete and/or unemployment begins to shrink is certainly a reasonable political policy decision. Quietly throwing the weight of the executive branch behind upholding anti-gay laws in court is something entirely different, however, especially in the wake of Obama's campaign promises. Consequently, it is quickly becoming impossible for gay rights advocates to suspend enough disbelief to accept the Obama administration's claims of sympathy even as the White House abstains from any wide-reaching policy moves in support of equality for the LGBT community (failing even to significantly capitalize on this year's gay-marriage legalization spree in several northeastern states), and actively impedes the movement's efforts in the courtroom.

Whereas activists had been waiting for (and expecting) Obama to wade into the issue and take charge, many are now left openly wondering whether or not they have lost a powerful ally. The inconsistencies are enough to cause many to question whether or not the President has ever been their ally at all.

A silver lining may be that gay rights advocates are having no problem continuing the movement despite Obama's absence. This week, the Attorney General of Massachusetts, the first U.S. state to legalize gay marriage in 2003, sued the federal government to overturn part of the Defense of Marriage Act. Likewise, a group of servicemen and women is mobilizing a tour in opposition of Don't Ask, Don't Tell, and military leaders are now openly discussing the issue. The legal challenge to California's Proposition 8 are also far from over.

After all, the LGBT rights movement is no stranger to operating in an environment in which the Oval Office is less than supportive.

Celebrating the Tea Industry's New Hallmark Holiday With a Complete Lack of Hindsight

Happy Tax Day. This April 15th also marks the first "Tax Day Tea Party" protest directed at President Obama's budget and spending policies. The idea originated from a February 19 CNBC tirade in which Rick Santelli proposed a (ridiculously crude) "Chicago Tea Party" to protest federal intervention in the mortgage market, a suggestion which may now rank as CNBC's most productive national contribution to date. NPR currently hosts a piece on why the concept as a whole makes no real sense, but that is neither here nor there.

Almost without exception, 'tea party' advocates are arguing that there's a campaign to belittle and trivialize their cause, which is essentially true. That said, some of the damage is undoubtedly self-inflicted. Associating their supposed movement with the term 'teabagging' is quite ill-advised, and the entire tea party analogy has shaky foundations (let alone the fact that their taxes haven't actually gone up and that it's impossible to find a poll showing this self-described 'silent majority' as anything approaching a majority). Another angle, though, seems a bit more serious, and it's been interesting to take a look at the Tax Day histories of prominent conservative commentators now leading the 'tea party' charge.

Michelle Malkin had only one April 15, 2008 post that involved tax returns. It ridiculed Senator Ted Kennedy by, of all things, asserting that he doesn't pay a lot of taxes. She linked to a Wall Street Journal story about the alternative minimum tax on 4/15/2005. Her archived posts from 2006 and 2007 appear to indicate that her tax refunds were substantial enough to distract her from complaining about filing.

Glen Beck is a big tax day tea party cheerleader, but his blog had nothing at all to say on April 15, 2008 and doesn't go back any further. In fairness, he hasn't been in the limelight too long.

Laura Ingraham's blog seemed so genuinely surprised that anyone would want to know anything from the past that the pages barely loaded, and she had no old April posts about taxes.

Bill O'Reilly's April 15, 2008 blog post is written by some other person and is about Chinese geography. His archive goes back to April of 2006, and his other tax day posts were either nonexistent or unrelated to taxes.

Michael Savage's website is incomprehensible and structured like a bottom-tier British tabloid.

Rush Limbaugh's web archive only goes back four weeks. He has a newsletter, but it costs (a presumably tax-free) $35 a year.

Drudge's archiving system isn't chronological and therefore isn't worth the effort, but simply searching 'tax [year]' yielded nothing substantive and Drudge is known to have a bit of a reactionary reputation...

The takeaway message, though, is this: the current all-encompassing tax protest movement shows the symptoms of a freshly-concocted fiscal responsibility bandwagon that didn't exist until long after the Bush administration had broken the national debt clock, taken its ball, and gone home. It's strange to think of taxes and spending as fringe issues over the course of the last decade, but that is truly what they had become. The Bush Administration's embrace of neoconservative ideals prompted spending that hovered around the four trillion dollars annually mark, handily outpacing the Clinton administration's spending.

But spending wasn't the issue. Elections were won and lost primarily on wedge issues like gay rights, abortion, and immigration; all of which united Republicans and divided Democrats. Nationalism in the wake of September 11, 2001 and the run-up to the war in Iraq created a political environment that left little room for perceived indecisiveness or over-intellectualism. Firm and immediate Republican national security policy gave the party an edge well before the failings of that policy played out. At that point, it was anti-war protesters who were marginalized as overly-idealistic, naive, and holdouts of the 1960's (after all, even a decorated Vietnam veteran could lose patriotism points if he questioned the value of the conflict).

That era has ended, and the Republican party has discarded a platform that brought it success in 2004 and total failure in 2008. It's fairly obvious that the American political Right is now doing everything possible to position itself once again as the standard bearer of fiscal conservatism if nothing else, governance and public opinion consequences be damned.

The trouble is: the vast majority of today's protesting teabaggers and their teabagging pundit figureheads (they really are calling it 'teabagging') had no real issue with Bush's immense spending all those... year ago... which also came at a time when no one budgeted for bringing a decrepit financial system and aging national infrastructure up to date. Perhaps it's Obama's specific policies that illicit the outcry more so than spending as a practice, but if that were the case then images such as this one:

Courtesy: Associated Press

would likely read "don't touch my piggy bank other than to pay for foreign wars and cut taxes for the people who need it the least," or "don't touch my piggy bank to fund education and health care," or "my piggy bank is irrelevant because I'm too young to pay taxes and I should probably be in school instead of out in the rain getting mercilessly indoctrinated with my parents' political beliefs."

If it really is federal spending that is the issue here, regardless of where it comes from or what it's for, then the least the bulk of this 'movement' can do is own up to its own inconsistency. Failing to even mention acquiescence to recent astronomical and wasteful Republican spending during the Bush Administration, let alone making no attempt to reconcile that acquiescence, completely undermines the credibility of the protest and of the political position far more than any hilarious sexual innuendo ever could. To be fair, many libertarians and true fiscal conservatives have done their best to point out this inconsistency, but it remains to be seen if a great many Republicans and conservatives have any awareness of their own economic stances just one year ago. Acknowledging and learning from this disparity would do the conservative movement a great service in its current quest for legitimacy. It's not as if spending didn't count before 2009.

For the Sake of Brevity

This blog clearly hasn't gotten off the ground the way I'd hoped when I originally prayed to the sun gods for the motivation to create a decent blog.

Things will be likely be quite sparse here, although I'm still very much looking for contributors and something may yet compel me to occasionally write at-length diatribes.

In the interim, things will no doubt magically appear here from time to time. Or something.

UPDATE: Yeah. Twitter's not for me.

The Complicated Nature of Things: A Retort to Supporting the Troops

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

That Can't Be Right - Veterans' Health Insurance

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things w/ Demetri Martin

Political Humor
Jim Cramer

EDIT: For what it's worth, news outlets are now reporting that the Obama administration has dropped its plan to charge soldiers' private insurance carriers for combat-related injuries, primarily because of the protests of veterans' organizations.

Supporting the Troops

Two tidbits of news regarding Defense Department policy just nestled into the headlines. The first is that the Pentagon will pay for the families of deceased soldiers to attend the arrival of their fallen kin in Dover, DE. This comes as part of the Obama administration's plan to lift the ban on media coverage of the return of soldiers killed abroad that has stood since the first Gulf War. The second is that the Pentagon plans to cease widespread use of the Stop-Loss program that kept soldiers on duty past the end of their tours, and further compensate soldiers deployed under such a program.

It still seems somewhat baffling that those who, with so little forethought and so little competence both abroad and at home, would send soldiers to the Middle East to kill and die managed to thoroughly claim the "support our troops" terminology. Meanwhile, policy directions like this one, that lend themselves to sustainability and respect, are confronted as cowardice and defeatism. Go figure.

Some Context for the Shock and Awe Over Bailout Indiscretion

News stories suggesting that the hundreds of billions of dollars in federal bailout money are being misused or mismanaged are beginning to pile up. The consistent theme is that recipients of bailout funds are acting irresponsibly, up to the point that President Barack Obama personally labeled $18.4 billion in bonuses from Wall Street financial groups that have recently received federal bailout funds as "shameful." Other prominent examples include the $1.2 million decoration of Merrill Lynch CEO John Thain's office, executives of the Big Three arriving in Washington on private jets to request bailout money, bailout recipient Citigroup's plan to spend $50 million on its own corporate jet, and bailout recipient AIG's $440,000 resort stay for its executives, all accompanied by staunch criticism from various pundits and bureaucrats.

Perhaps most astonishingly was last month's disclosure that federal officials were failing to adequately track where the bailout money was going and how it was being spent. Today the Government Accountability Office issued a report reaffirming that not enough is being done to competently oversee the bailout. Currently the government is struggling to come up with remedies to the myriad problems that seem to sprout up on a daily basis, whether it be to cap corporate executives' salaries at $400,000, to limit the influence of lobbyists on how bailout money is handled, or to largely start from scratch.

The bailout law was bound to have its flaws for a variety of reasons (full official information on last year's bailout law, including its full text and amendments, can be found here, at the Library of Congress Website). Consider that Former President Bush, Henry Paulson, and Ben Bernanke spent months relentlessly assuring the American public that the economy was healthy. Bush went as far as to quote then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson as saying "this is far and away the strongest global economy I've seen in my business lifetime" just one month before massive bankruptcies butchered both the stock market and consumer confidence, and nine months after officials have since decided the recession officially began. It was only when those bankruptcies stole the headlines that Bush and Paulson properly acknowledged the scope of the economic problem, forced to make an about-face when Lehman Brothers collapsed and the Dow lost 500 points. The change in rhetoric was so abrupt that then-Republican presidential candidate John McCain made his infamous "the fundamentals of our economy are strong" statement the very day that Lehman Brothers went under. 

The dialogue from the administration instantly became one of frantic action; a demand for $700 billion, a number apparently drawn out of a hat at the Treasury Department, to be allocated largely at Paulson's discretion. The bailout dialogue was alarmist enough for John McCain to 'suspend' his campaign and give the economy his undivided attention, perhaps driving the final nail into the Sarah Palin-shaped coffin of his campaign. It was under these circumstances of incredible pressure from the executive branch and an incredible sense of confusion, uncertainty, and urgency among the public that the bailout bill was drafted. There was little or no time to seriously stop and think. In these conditions, perhaps one could understand why a bill on the scope of the first federal bailout would be less than perfect. 

At the time, John McCain placed the blame for the crisis primarily on predatory lending. Barack Obama went one step further and blamed it on the longstanding system set up to facilitate and reward predatory lending. These were and are simplified versions of the prominent schools of thought on the mortgage and banking industry's collapse.

It was with these perceived causes on everyone's minds that Bush, Paulson, and Bernanke promoted a plan that gave $700 billion of taxpayer money to corporate executives widely viewed as irresponsible in order to facilitate economic growth in a system widely viewed as broken. Yet the plan did not significantly address or alter the landscapes of either failed financial institutions and their leaders or a failed system, or both. The supposedly crooked executives got the money; it was poured the supposedly broken financial setup, and officials now agree that it was all done with inadequate checks and balances and inadequate oversight. Now it seems that said crooked executives have circumvented said broken system and have spent a lot of the money on themselves. These circumstances were apparently impossible even to foresee in the halls of government, let alone prevent, despite the fact that the bailout's crafters all harped about extortionate lending practices or flaws in the very fabric of the U.S. financial system.

It is with all of this in mind that much of the outrage over the current failings of the bailout seems somewhat hollow and naive, especially from President Obama, Vice President Biden, and Senator McCain. After all, each one of them voted for it.

The New IDF Legacy

The 1976 raid on Entebbe, Uganda is held up as the enduring example of Israel's ability to come together as a country and overcome odds that would otherwise seem impossible. The airport hostage rescue and gun battle in response to a hijacking is the stuff of legend; an oft-romanticized classic war story resembling a mix of James Bond and Rambo. The 'Spirit of Entebbe' became the label for what is seen as the uniquely Israeli resolve and ingenuity that made victory against seven Arab armies possible in 1948; made such complete military domination of Egypt, Syria, and Jordan possible in 1967; and what propelled Israel to overcome a massive surprise attack by Egypt and Syria in October, 1972. It is emblematic of a nation and people that can be successful anywhere in any conditions, most notably at winning wars.

The vast majority of these triumphs, though, have all come in conventional pitched battle between the Israel Defense Force and neighboring states. A tradition of failed attempts at overwhelming unconventional militancy and unrest with raw military force also exists, dating back no later than Israel's unsuccessful attempt to annihilate Fatah and the PLO in Jordan in 1967. Israel again failed to destroy the PLO in the 1980's in Lebanon, and failed to stamp out West Bank suicide bombers in Operation Defensive Shield in 2002. The PLO eventually faded out of existence in its traditional form after the death of Yasser Arafat in 2004. Attempts to strong arm Hamas, such as the 2004 assassination of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin and the ongoing Israeli blockade of the Gaza strip have done little to act as a deterrent and have given the Arab world a platform for which to position Israel the aggressor. Israeli restrictions on freedom of movement in the West Bank have successfully cut down on terrorist attacks against Israeli targets, but those restrictions also serve as much of the basis for enduring regional strife.

Most recently and perhaps most importantly, Israel categorically failed in its stated goals to eliminate Hezbollah and prevent rockets fired in Southern Lebanon from falling into Northern Israel in the summer of 2006. Indeed, Hezbollah maintained its rocket capability throughout war, and it still exists today. It gained regional influence among Israel's adversaries for successfully withstanding an Israeli assault and successfully penetrating Israeli defenses. It established itself as even more of a juggernaut in Lebanese politics and as an armed force. Most estimates concluded that the lion's share of casualties due to IDF bombing were Lebanese civilians, further giving Hezbollah access to international sympathy it otherwise would not have had, and further vilifying an Israeli military already under criticism for overreacting and failing to respect international humanitarian law. The folly of IDF action in Lebanon proved so pervasive that the Israeli government nearly collapsed under pressure from a public deeply entrenched in military matters and livid at the lack of preparation with which its sons, daughters, and indeed older generations were sent to war.

It is with this stigma that the Israeli military now continues an operation in the Gaza Strip that bears a strong strategic and tactical resemblance to the 2006 war. They have both been pitched as total wars aimed at nothing less than the complete elimination of militant or terrorist capabilities. They both mark extensive escalations by Israel that broadly affect Lebanese or Palestinian civilian populations. They are both premier examples of the seemingly timeless problems with attempting to defeat unconventional combat tactics and undermine militant ideologies with a traditional army and air force. 2006 seemed to shatter much of the IDF's aura of invincibility and do-no-wrong tactical approach. This war faces the same risks.

Entebbe was a masterstroke of intelligence-gathering, planning, governmental facilitation, and special forces execution. It defined Israel's response to foreign aggression and terrorism for decades as ferociously efficient, fine-tuned, and narrowly-focused. Recent offensives have begun to redefine it as erratic and destructive.

The Debate

In addressing the U.S. Army War College in Pennsylvania on Wednesday, President Bush told attendees that, "while there's room for an honest and healthy debate about the decisions I made — and there's plenty of debate — there can be no debate about the results in keeping America safe," and suggested that 'virtually no one could have predicted back then that the country would not be hit again for the rest of his presidency.'

Never mind the mental gymnastics necessary to overlook that Bush's effort to come out ahead in the debate to determine his national security and foreign policy legacy is to deny its existence; the same debate that contributed to Republican losses in both the 2006 and 2008 elections.

Never mind that using Bush's own logic regarding the lack of attacks on U.S. soil since September 11th presents all but the first 27 days of the Clinton administration as a terrorist-free paradise of sound intelligence and effective counterterrorism that didn't require protracted military occupation of foreign states; a point that also demonstrates that attacks of this nature have traditionally taken years to plan; perhaps more than seven.

Never mind the ever-present historical fact that the administration now claiming to have unequivocally kept Americans safe throughout its tenure helmed the military and the intelligence communities on September 11th, 2001 and for nearly nine months prior.

Never mind the questionable nature of Bush's statement that 'he rejected a strategy of retreat that would have had Americans hunkering down or seeking quick revenge by attacking nations that supported terrorism, but without a broad plan to address the root cause of the threat' even as officials struggle to define U.S. goals for the war and terrorist havens such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Pakistan remain on the U.S. payroll.

Never mind that the war in Iraq was based on incorrect intelligence alleging, among other things; a false connection between Saddam Hussein, Al Qaeda, and September 11th; false claims of weapons of mass destruction; and a conveniently renewed sense of anger over atrocities committed while Iraq was a U.S. ally.

Never mind that global terrorism generally increased during Bush's two terms in office, and that his policies dealt a blow to the United States' standing within the international community.

And never mind the fact that leaving office without suffering another terrorist attack similar to September 11th is not the be-all and end-all definition of a triumphant security policy, let alone when Osama Bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri remain unaccounted-for.

All of that aside, what is perhaps most regrettable about Bush's claim that America and Americans are undoubtedly safer now than on September 11th is the inescapable and disheartening omission of the entire U.S. Military. As of now, roughly 4209 American soldiers have died and nearly 31,000 have been wounded in combat in Iraq alone. Around 144,000 U.S. Military personnel are currently deployed in Iraq, with around 32,000 more in an increasingly dangerous Afghanistan.

One of the enduring failures of the Iraq war's opposition was the movement's inability to thoroughly differentiate "supporting the troops" with supporting the government's foreign policy direction, allowing hawks to monopolize support for the military and paint the anti-war movement as unpatriotic and a dangerous liability to the war's morale and ultimately the war's success. Now, it seems, the administration that cornered the market on supporting the military either consciously or unintentionally left out servicemen and servicewomen in its quantification of Americans' safety.

The administration now praising its own safety record is the same administration that sent too few soldiers into Iraq to complete an ever-changing and poorly devised mission that lacked broad international legitimacy; sent them poorly equipped; sent them for inordinately long tours of duty; conducted training that facilitated psychological trauma and abuse; and periodically seemed totally unconcerned about circumstances or consequences. It also led the pentagon to craft a scorched-earth foreign policy that saw the violent destruction of two countries and a diplomatic strategy that supplemented military actions with amateurish failures on both Iraq and Afghanistan.

Regardless of one's definition of a U.S. victory in the Middle East and regardless of whether or not that milestone is achieved in the future, the debate on the safety of Americans both at home and serving in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere is far from closed. To ignore that is to show very little support for the troops.

An Appeal for Muntadhar al-Zeidi

Muntadhar al-Zeidi is the Iraqi journalist who threw both of his shoes at George W. Bush in a gesture of disrespect at a joint press conference between Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki on Sunday. He has since been placed in the custody of the Iraqi military, and is now expected to go before the Central Criminal Court of Iraq, with a possible penalty of two years in prison for insulting a foreign leader and insulting the Iraqi state. The U.S., for its part, has left the entire legal process to the Iraqi government.

At issue are the consequences of morphing this incident from an outlier political statement to an issue of criminality, and therefore branding the statement itself, whether intentionally or not, as criminal. This case is already showing itself to be, in the eyes of many in the Middle East, far more of an indictment on the broad discontentment with the state of things in Iraq than it is legal recourse against a single disruptive outburst.

Mr. al-Zeidi has become something of a spokesman for an incredibly wide range of political positions. He is being held up by those who oppose any foreign influence in Iraq or the greater Arab world, by those who view President Bush as a violent and overarching imperialist, by those who seek to undermine the fledgling Iraqi government, and perhaps by many who are simply looking for explanations regarding the loss of their loved ones or livelihoods. To bring the gavel down on al-Zeidi with any degree of severity will be viewed in many circles as prosecution against every demographic taking some degree of satisfaction from al-Zeidi's actions and harboring doubts regarding the state's intentions.

The risk is further facilitating seemingly subversive behavior supported by seemingly subversive political movements, and giving the impression that anyone can defy the state at will without fear of being held criminally accountable. The reward is signaling to those who feel that al-Zeidi represents their interests better than the Iraqi government that their grievances are legitimate and that they have a place at the table. Perhaps nothing is more important in a nation's infancy than reassuring the people of their influence. Doing so strengthens the sociopolitical mainstream and chips away at the appeal of fringe ideologies by minimizing disenfranchisement. Iraqis who feel secure in their government's sincerity and restraint have less reason to turn to violent or discriminatory opposition groups and more reason to participate in building a viable state that confronts serious cultural, economic, sectarian, etc. issues through legislation and diplomacy.

This event is a litmus test for Iraq's inclusiveness in a fiercely divisive region. It is an indicator of the Iraqi government's legitimacy as a representative democracy and as a responsible practitioner of its own constitutional limits. The relatively dubious Iraqi court system is now at center stage, with a high-profile opportunity to strike a balance affirming both the need to respect the international community and also to preserve free expression. Whatever the decision, it needs to be made with al-Zeidi as an active participant. It must not foster the notion that he is a political prisoner who has been silenced, victimized, and destined to exist as a tool for those seeking to derail the already slender hopes for peace and progress. To make an example of al-Zeidi as a criminal is to potentially alienate millions in order to atone for an insult. In contrast, to make an example of his actions as a manifestation of free speech in the context of a young nation trying to come together offers at least the hope of continued open discussion and reconciliation.

Perhaps al-Zeidi's situation will not serve as a jumping-off point for a greater Iraqi free speech movement, and perhaps it won't reassure Iraqis that their government views their qualms with how the region has changed in the last six years as valid. If nothing else, the responsible treatment of al-Zeidi by the Iraqi courts may keep these events from becoming another ideological weapon in the arsenal of the region's militants.

Iraq has to choose whether or not it wants facilitate a stable sociopolitical climate by locking up challengers. This is a chance for Iraq to declare itself a nation that is receptive to and respectful of political diversity and dissent.

Potential Candidates for Obama's Illinois Senate Vacancy

Ozzie Guillen - Sure every new policy direction would involve hitting people in the face with baseballs. Sure every press release and interview would involve copious amounts of profanity and all manner of personal insults about nationality and sexual orientation. Still, things would get done... probably even somewhat legally. Plus he already lives there.

Alan Keyes - Perhaps making the argument that children raised by homosexual couples will inevitably participate in incest contributed to Alan Keyes' razor-thin 70 to 27 loss to Barack Obama in the 2004 Illinois Senate race. Still, assuming Keyes maintains the Illinois residency he set up after running four years ago, he has one powerful ally: demographics. Keyes can revive the little-discussed but oft-employed practice of replacing one non-white or female (sometimes both, but what are the odds?) government official with another of the same race or gender who otherwise exhibits seemingly no reason for consideration. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't.

Stephen Colbert - Because if it's left up to an internet vote he'll win by 260% anyway.

Henry Paulson - Because he can draw from at least one $350 billion account to cut Blagojevich a check for the position. Plus he's out of a job in a month and a half and the unemployment rate really can't stand to go up much further.

The Dallas Cowboys - Because they all have a funny habit of making their way into the electoral process. And they suck at football.

Whichever Federal Judge or Federal Prosecutor takes the Blagojevich case - Because that's really the sensible option.

I'd say it's even money that the job somehow ends up going to Ted Stevens.

Illinois Governor Arrested for Conspiracy to Become Secretary of Health and Human Services

Just over two and a half years after Illinois governor George Ryan managed to get himself sent to geriatric prison, it's sitting governor Rod "The Serbian Obama" Blagojevich's turn to continue the remarkably consistent tradition of Illinois politicians' criminal trials. He didn't manage to offset illegally distributing trucker licenses to unqualified drivers who end up killing innocent people on one end of the spectrum with putting a stay on capital punishment on the other end, like Ryan. Blagojevich is charged for simply auctioning off Obama's now-vacant Senate seat, apparently providing the FBI with some choice quotes in the process. My favorite is the always simple: "I just want to make money." If he's convicted he should be made to run Chrysler. He gets punished with a job only a crazy person could want, and Chrysler gets motivated. Everyone else gets to sleep soundly knowing that nobody will ever again design a car this ugly:

Now that's criminal.

To be fair, though, Chicago corruption has had its bonuses. Not only does it facilitate beating hippies and anarchists, but it also gave us the Bluesmobile's authentic journey through the Daley Center lobby.

Also, Politico's current headline is "What's Wrong With Illinois?" The state of the Great Lakes region as a whole does raise some questions. I doubt it's any one thing, but I do have a theory or two.

Big Three See Potential for Growth in Emerging Depressing War-Torn Markets

More than 160 US, NATO vehicles burned in Pakistan

















Courtesy: Associated Press

Got to replace them all with something, right? I say fire those truck plants back up and start churning out more cannon fodder for the Khyber Pass. It's on par with any idea I've heard so far, although it lacks the pizazz of General Motors' new strategy: straightforwardly admitting that they're terrible at their jobs.