War, what is it good for?

No truer, blunter, words... but war drives politics, even or especially in peace.

Bush 2000 got elected because we'd had enough Clinton. There were term limits, and anyway, we'd had enough (when you reach discussions of stains on a dress, that's called enough). Gore was old news. Bush, something new. So the extraordinary popularity of the Clinton adminstration managed to usher in an outsider, the then Governer Bush. At the time, Bush was not perceived as a hawk, and he had a non-interventionist foreign policy. And no boorish scandals. That's 2000. Peace politics.

By 2004, President Bush would never have been re-elected were we not in the midst of all out war. "Nascar Dads" was the media explanation for John Kerry's defeat at the time. Sure. You mean "war". Ah, the wisdom of the American people. Imagine, had Kerry been elected, and initiated some tail-between-the-legs pullout of Iraq at that time, what now? He'd of course just be faithfully following the tired Vietnam script, so typical of Democrats (the surge has since breathed into them non-quagmire ideas, or at least rhetoric).

So war, ladies and gents, war, so often determines our politics. And even today, with the election of Obama, it's still war that lurks behind the scenes, pulling still the electorate's strings. It's the economy, stupid. Sure, stupid. It's the war. When in the midst of an all-out battle, Americans stick with their leader. Change-- change of political leadership-- signals weakness under fire. That explains Bush 2004. But once we're confident that we're not in an all-out street fight with another country, we shift domestic.

And so, since Iraq has now faded from constant media coverage (another way to say, the war is all but won), we've loosened our anxious grip, and now look around for other issues. Who needs a national security president, when the war's been won? Redolent now, nonsensical still in 2004. Truth is, Sept. 11 cast a shadow over election booths for years; when, finally, the horror of that moment and the immediacy of the war on terror subsided, the--any--economic crisis could be heard. Loudly. (The Credit Crisis started in 2007, actually, and if we all were watching the economy then, it'd hardly be such shocking news now.)


All of this said, occasionally, rarely, political phenoms emerge, like Barack Obama. Obama vanquished the Clintons first, then by degrees he won us all over. Much credit directly to him. Congrats. But let's not forget: the surge actually worked. No more daily stories of carnage, Al Queda in Iraq, quagmire. Gratitude to didn't-betray-us Patraeus. And thanks to Bush, if only that he managed to clean the mess that he first made. President-elect Obama's message resonated so much more as a result. Now, assuming no major terrorist or geopolitical upheaval in the next few years forces us to mobilize once again, I'm sure that the (always fleeting) next years of peace will allow his message to continue to resonate. I do hope so. Bully for us. And the world.

Keith Olbermann

... is about as far from an objective journalist as you can find in mainstream media. If an alien, completely unbiased, would observe the press long enough to understand... I'm sure he'd (she'd, it'd) classify Olbermann and Sean Hannity together. Two non-objective people talking at us, if we care to listen.

Case in point: Olbermann's bizarre declamation of a Sept. 11 tribute during the Republican National Convention. To the extent that I understand his decidedly non-journalistic dramatism, I guess the implication he'd like us to draw is that the Republicans are wrong-headed and somehow morally stained, in a way that disqualifies them from talking about events such as Sept. 11; certainly from paying any tribute to this event during their convention. If this isn't partisan whacky from the so-called press... what is? No wonder MSNBC yanked him from journalistic duties (rumours that Tom Brokaw had some part in this). Anyway, as I said, it's Hannity, MSNBC style. For those viewers out there who treat politics like a sports contest (may my side win, no matter what!), I'm sure Olbermann delivers.

So, what gave rise to this whole just before bed tirade is my unfortunate viewing tonight of a Olbermann's latest Countdown. Consistently, conspicuously, it's always "Mr. Bush" on this episode, never "President" Bush (even if he is?). So the language is, over and over, "President-elect Obama", meeting with "Mr. Bush". Excuse me, but isn't "Mr. Bush" our current President? And, if so, isn't "President Bush" the proper nomenclature? Apparently not. But to put a happy face on things, I'm sure President-elect Obama had a fine time with this Mr. Bush fellow (I hope Mr. Bush didn't talk too long, or waste President-elect Obam's time); perhaps they discussed how Mr. Bush could some day run for high office himself.

Okay, point made. Here's the deal. I've always downgraded hard-core partisan types, on the right or left. I suspect the 2000 presidential elections debacle still rankles with Olbermann types (those partisan talking heads, I mean). But there's nothing more we can ever do than let the process--judicial, local, Supreme--take its course. President Bush was elected by this American process. And he's not therefore illegitimate, unless so too was the process itself, and its final arbiter. Perhaps there were flaws, in the details, or perhaps not. But after the Supreme Court ended our hopes or fulfilled them, what actions were left to us? A new revolution? Very American. But mostly we're not much into real revolution these days; we prefer instead to grouse endlessly. And at any rate we don't have time for it. For Mr. Olbermann, for instance, it's got to be tricky to manage much more than partisan bickering when hosting a lucrative hate-Bush segment on MSNBC. (A point not lost on me, being a Capitalist.)

To whit, we all get behind our President-elects after due process; President-elect Obama's case was much easier, winning the popular and electoral vote. But in a much closer and frustrating election, so too was our current President sworn in by due process. Sorry that many didn't like the outcome. It's part of American politics that, every four years, predictably about half of the voting public doesn't either. So get over it. We can disagree without disrespect. It's President Bush, Mr. Olbermann. That's America.

Michael Crichton

In memoriam. This is a strangely emotional post. First, some facts. Of his works, I've read, in order: The Andromeda Strain, Terminal Man, Travels (an autobiographical sketch). After a long period of snooty academia, returned to Next, Airframe (read while I was taking flying lessons, still my favorite), Prey, State of Fear, Timeline, and started on Disclosure (but, I have to confess, my flame had begun to die out by then...).

Years ago, after graduating college, I purchased a used motorcycle, mapped out a (rough) course of thousands of miles from Spokane, to Seattle, down to Los Angeles, and then into the Rocky Mountains. I left by myself, and was gone for a sizable portion of that summer. Weeks later I was somewhere in Colorado, on the lawn of some roadside house near Craig, reading Crichton's Travels. Alone, and lonely and happy (travelers will know this paradox well enough). Broke down, waiting on the benevolence of a stranger; parts for my motorcycle.

Mr. Crichton was with me on this journey, through so many dark nights. I read his Travels, I picked it up and smelled it and put it back in my backpack, and picked it up again. He was there in the tent pitched in deserted campgrounds or just wind-swept BLM land, where I would travel down some unmarked dirt road looking for a place to pitch a tent for the night, racing against shadows that grew darker and stitched together until I had nothing but blackness. He was there when I made it, dehydrated and alone, to Lake Havasu from Los Angeles. I read him at 9,000 feet in the Colorado Rockies, and in the plains of Wyoming, and then Yellowstone, and Montana. After weeks of being alone, I would cry at night (in a manly way, of course...), and I would read... Crichton. It's all intermingled now, inextricably, in my memories and emotions.

And so I, like so many others, had a connection to Crichton's works, in the physical sense that I took his autobiography with me on my own travels those years ago. (I took also "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance", which was lost in a poorly fastened backpack on the second day of the trip. Someone from near Wenatchee, Wa actually mailed it back to me weeks later. It's still Travels--and not by happenstance, I don't think--that captures the sentiment of my own travels.)

I had also a connection to Michael Crichton years later, which is to say recently, in a more intellectual sense: I've been stimulated by his points about technology and science in his latest novels (for instance, when he cast a scientist's scepticism on catastrophic climate change in his 2002 "State of Fear").

Michael Crichton, I don't know why you died so young. I wish it were not. We're all, of course, just suddenly gone, and in memoriam for those who knew us too. But the past memories of my adventurous self, with my copy of your Travels to comfort me, literally, under the light of a lantern, lying by myself in wilderness thousands of miles from anyone I knew, or could count on; I was comforted by your presence. I'm sorry to see you go. Good bye, Mr. Crichton. And thank you.

Fredericksburg, TX

Came out to this sleepy little town to finish my dissertation. In spite of a pit in my stomach this morning, I did manage to complete chapter four. One chapter left, partially completed.

I'm ashamed to admit it, but in the interest of full disclosure (of, I guess, my idiocy), I forgot the power cord for my laptop, and so, sitting in a bed and breakfast with about two hours of juice and that sinking feeling we all know so well... called my wife... who drove out my power cord. What a gal. In true Fredericksburg fashion I purchased her a polished rock with "soulmate" inscribed. The kids got petrified sharks teeth. Connection to central Texas? Not sure. They like sharks.

Strange, this town. I've spent some time at the local watering hole, the Fredericksburg Brewery. The staff drinks beer liberally, and talk (too much) about Texas Tech, being closer to Austin than Lubbock. There are plenty of tatoos to go around, but the accents are unmistakeably Texas, and it's not the place to discuss Obama, unless you're careful to strike a non-partisan tone. But the people are friendly, and the old timers who come in to drink a beer or two, retired from Dallas or Houston (or one, Minnesota), are suprisingly moderate, and very decent people indeed. Texas is quite a place; full of real red-blooded people, and I think mostly good people. I've been impressed by their openness.

An old man with a cowboy hat and cowboy shirt, Eli, I swear he teared up talking about LBJ and Lady Bird Johnson. It's still a place where decent people believe in America. It's not a bumper sticker to them, and they're not radicals with nothing good to say or nothing to offer. Go talk to them sometime.

Honeymoon over, already?

Hmm. Rhambo is not exactly a reach across the isle kind of guy. For those of us believing in the "not red and blue, but united states"... we're all crinkling our brows a little. We'll see.

Mr. President

Congrats, dude, congrats. I'm a white man who grew up in Spokane, Washington, and I recognize the special significance of your election. We're pulling for you. Let's get something done.

The Bogey Man

Liberals fulminate endlessly about the moral corruption in Big Business (Ralph Nader is far and away the most energetic and clear spokesman here); Conservatives seem endlessly wary of Big Government. There's something about the human psyche, apparently, that requires a bogey man. Concentrates the thoughts. We're best when we're in full fighting mode.

So then, reign in Big Business, says the Left, and reduce the size of Government, says the Right (the real Right). And curiously, those that would shrink the power of one, would grow the power of the other. What gives?

Lord Acton's famous refrain that "power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely" is the philosphical flame that illuminates the positions of Left and Right. But I think there's an important difference. Government is a more absolute power; people can quit jobs, and switch employers, or just opt out of working completely. But Government occupies a more intimate and comprehensive space. Acton's wisdom, while applying to all institutions that have power, ought particularly to be heeded with regard to Government. This thought I'll explain momentarily, but first let's discuss business.

The virtue (and vice) of business is to maximize profit. It's the stated objective, and well-known to all. It's out in the open and transparent. We all know this, and pretending otherwise is rediculous (recall the scene in the movie "Aviator" when Senator Owen Brewster assures everyone that President of Pan-American Airways Juan Trippe "is not interested in making a profit... he's a great American". To which Leonardo DiCaprios' Howard Hughes replies "I'm sure his stock holders will be happy to here that".)

Thus businesses rise or fall on their ability to fulfill the profit objective. When they succeed, they create jobs, employing more and more people as they grow, and they raise the standard of living in the direct, healthy sense of providing liquid cash to people in exchange for work. They're (ideally and mostly) meritocratic as well, in the sense that people with demonstrable skills and knowledge tend toward promotion, and salaries are based on responsibility (businesses give more according to responsibility, while Government takes more according to income).

Government, on the other hand, spreads an umbrella over the entirety of its citizens. You can't "quit" government, unless you expatriate. It also--and unlike business--exersizes a specifically moral activity in that it is with government that fundamental notions of fairness are given action with policy. Government, in this sense, plays more the role of a parent or family to its citizens than business ever can. Which is why Acton's caution ought to be heeded all the more: power does indeed corrupt, and absolute power (read: Government) corrupts absolutely.

To review the point: Government's relation to people tends to be comprehensive in a way that business cannot be. It tells us whether we should wear helmets when we ride bicycles, how many drinks are acceptable before driving, how much income we ought to give back for the public good (a term which is, of course, interpreted by Government itself), what we ought to eat, what the penalties for various infractions are, and on and on and on. Its natural tendency as an institution is to act in a parental manner, instructing us in various ways, shaming and prodding us into various behaviours, and slapping our wrists when we do otherwise. Much of this control is of course necessary (I'm well aware), but the present point remains. Pejorative phrases like "Nanny State" for an over reaching government are apt.

So the full point is: because of the tendency for Government to reach into every aspect of human life, this particular institution tends much more toward absolute corruption then businesses existing under the umbrella of governments can ever manage. We ought, therefore, to heed Acton's warning accordingly. We shouldn't grow Government gleefully, we should find ways to limit it.


Now, for some reason completely lost on me, many of us never get this. Liberals--and I have many Liberal friends, and they are otherwise quite intelligent--recoil instinctively at the suggestion that we ought to treat Government with caution (although I've noticed that they're much more receptive when Conservatives are in charge). They regard (Liberal) Government in almost autonomic, unquestioning fashion, as the sole, singular force for good. This is of course certainly the case in a properly circumscribed sense--I'd rather not act as my own police force during a murderous riot--but without qualification its absurd. Government is an institution that, as it grows larger, tends naturally to reduce the autonomy of its citizens. How is this good?

To conclude, Government's inertia, like all institutions with power, is always toward more power, not naturally toward the good. And because the relation between citizens and Government tends to be one of dependency (think Welfare State), its thrust as a function of its size will tend to be away from personal liberty and autonomy. It is, in this sense, a Bogey Man, although I'll admit that it's one we certainly can't do without.

In some other post, I'll weigh in on the recent 700 billion bail out, and why I think conservatives should have opposed it, with the hopes of both preserving principle and benefiting in economic practice.