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July 23, 2008
Affirmative Action - Two Views
I've been reading (listening to) Clarence Thomas' book: My Grandfather's Son on the recommendation of Porchlight, a friend of mine at JOM.
I have a checkered history with Thomas. I vividly remember the confirmation hearings, and my outrage that a man who "sexually harassed" an employee could be confirmed as a Supreme Court Justice.**
In the early part of the book what struck me was the similarities between what Thomas said about his experience at Yale, and what Michelle Obama said about her experiences at Princeton.
From Obama's thesis:
"My experiences at Princeton have made me far more aware of my 'blackness' than ever before," the future Mrs. Obama wrote in her thesis introduction. "I have found that at Princeton, no matter how liberal and open-minded some of my white professors and classmates try to be toward me, I sometimes feel like a visitor on campus; as if I really don't belong. Regardless of the circumstances under which I interact with whites at Princeton, it often seems as if, to them, I will always be black first and a student second."
In Clarence Thomas' book, he complains that throughout his academic and legal career, people always made the assumption that he got where was because he was black not because of his accomplishments. (He was in the top 2% of his class at Holy Cross, adequate to gain admission on his own merit.)
Michelle Obama seems to be saying that Affirmative Action did not do enough, while Thomas rues that Affirmative Action hamstrung him. What is even more interesting is that there is a decade between the two experiences. (Thomas graduated from Yale Law School in '74; Obama graduated from Princeton undergrad in '85.)
One would think, given the nature of each complaint, they would have been reversed in time.
It would be understandable that in the earlier days of Affirmative Action one would complain, ala Obama, that AA didn't do enough to integrate whites and blacks. And as the program gained steam, you might expect to hear Thomas's complaint that AA was doing too much, thus masking accomplishments.
Thomas admits that after law school his uber liberal ideology changed to that of a conservative. (He refused to go to Harvard Law School because it simply wasn't liberal enough.) The experience of not being taken seriously because of AA is responsible in part for his conversion. It would be interesting to see if Obama's experience with AA also cemented her ideology.
**FTR After reading Thomas' book I have no doubt that not only was there no sexual harassment, but the entire episode was a set-up to defeat his nomination to the Supreme Court.
July 22, 2008
The Virtue of Contrition
For seven years the democrats have been demanding that Bush "apologize" and admit he was wrong about - well about everything: WMD, Iraq, Katrina, the economy - you name it, the left demands contrition - Until now.
Capt Ed captures the irony perfectly here:
Of course, this makes sense only if a candidate has wedded himself so closely to a position that he cannot admit he got it wrong — and that describes perfectly the conundrum in which Obama finds himself on Iraq. Despite the significant improvements in Iraq, despite the stability and political reconciliation that has taken place and is still in motion, Obama cannot admit that he got this call wrong. To do so would be to admit that had Obama been in charge of the effort in 2007, America would have lost the war unnecessarily and given a gift win to terrorists and militias throughout Iraq — as well as the nation’s oil resources.Obama’s trip to Iraq put him in this vise. Politically, he cannot move away from the anti-war Left that refuses to see any progress in Iraq, especially after betraying them on FISA reform. That explains Bill Richardson’s assertion that the trip isn’t about fact-finding — because acknowledging the facts on the ground would force him into a change. Today, they’re calling the Obama foreign tour a “listening” event, but Obama isn’t listening to commanders on the ground in Iraq. He simply can’t afford to do so.
One point struck me from the Veterans for McCain event yesterday. Col. Leo Thorsness talked about John McCain’s willingness to admit he held the wrong position and to listen to advice, even offered in an adversarial manner. He admitted that he miscalculated on border security, for instance, and he also admitted that he initially made the wrong call on the last of the Bush tax cuts — changing his mind later because they obviously worked, although he still wanted spending cuts to accompany them.
I guess these days, the value of contrition, (or virtue) has become seriously overrated.
A Simple Question:
For Obama:
Yesterday you reiterated that you were right to vote against "The Surge" in Iraq.
[W]hile campaigning in July 2007 in New Hampshire, [Obama] said:"Here's what we know. The surge has not worked.
What makes you think the surge that "failed" in Iraq will now work in Afghanistan?
Freedom
What the NY Times refused to print:
n January 2007, when General David Petraeus took command in Iraq, he called the situation “hard” but not “hopeless.” Today, 18 months later, violence has fallen by up to 80% to the lowest levels in four years, and Sunni and Shiite terrorists are reeling from a string of defeats. The situation now is full of hope, but considerable hard work remains to consolidate our fragile gains.
Progress has been due primarily to an increase in the number of troops and a change in their strategy. I was an early advocate of the surge at a time when it had few supporters in Washington. Senator Barack Obama was an equally vocal opponent. “I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq is going to solve the sectarian violence there,” he said on January 10, 2007. “In fact, I think it will do the reverse.”
Now Senator Obama has been forced to acknowledge that “our troops have performed brilliantly in lowering the level of violence.” But he still denies that any political progress has resulted.
Perhaps he is unaware that the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad has recently certified that, as one news article put it, “Iraq has met all but three of 18 original benchmarks set by Congress last year to measure security, political and economic progress.” Even more heartening has been progress that’s not measured by the benchmarks. More than 90,000 Iraqis, many of them Sunnis who once fought against the government, have signed up as Sons of Iraq to fight against the terrorists. Nor do they measure Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki’s new-found willingness to crack down on Shiite extremists in Basra and Sadr City—actions that have done much to dispel suspicions of sectarianism.
The success of the surge has not changed Senator Obama’s determination to pull out all of our combat troops. All that has changed is his rationale. In a New York Times op-ed and a speech this week, he offered his “plan for Iraq” in advance of his first “fact finding” trip to that country in more than three years. It consisted of the same old proposal to pull all of our troops out within 16 months. In 2007 he wanted to withdraw because he thought the war was lost. If we had taken his advice, it would have been. Now he wants to withdraw because he thinks Iraqis no longer need our assistance.
To make this point, he mangles the evidence. He makes it sound as if Prime Minister Maliki has endorsed the Obama timetable, when all he has said is that he would like a plan for the eventual withdrawal of U.S. troops at some unspecified point in the future.
Senator Obama is also misleading on the Iraqi military’s readiness. The Iraqi Army will be equipped and trained by the middle of next year, but this does not, as Senator Obama suggests, mean that they will then be ready to secure their country without a good deal of help. The Iraqi Air Force, for one, still lags behind, and no modern army can operate without air cover. The Iraqis are also still learning how to conduct planning, logistics, command and control, communications, and other complicated functions needed to support frontline troops.
No one favors a permanent U.S. presence, as Senator Obama charges. A partial withdrawal has already occurred with the departure of five “surge” brigades, and more withdrawals can take place as the security situation improves. As we draw down in Iraq, we can beef up our presence on other battlefields, such as Afghanistan, without fear of leaving a failed state behind. I have said that I expect to welcome home most of our troops from Iraq by the end of my first term in office, in 2013.
But I have also said that any draw-downs must be based on a realistic assessment of conditions on the ground, not on an artificial timetable crafted for domestic political reasons. This is the crux of my disagreement with Senator Obama.
Senator Obama has said that he would consult our commanders on the ground and Iraqi leaders, but he did no such thing before releasing his “plan for Iraq.” Perhaps that’s because he doesn’t want to hear what they have to say. During the course of eight visits to Iraq, I have heard many times from our troops what Major General Jeffrey Hammond, commander of coalition forces in Baghdad, recently said: that leaving based on a timetable would be “very dangerous.”
The danger is that extremists supported by Al Qaeda and Iran could stage a comeback, as they have in the past when we’ve had too few troops in Iraq. Senator Obama seems to have learned nothing from recent history. I find it ironic that he is emulating the worst mistake of the Bush administration by waving the “Mission Accomplished” banner prematurely.
I am also dismayed that he never talks about winning the war—only of ending it. But if we don’t win the war, our enemies will. A triumph for the terrorists would be a disaster for us. That is something I will not allow to happen as president. Instead I will continue implementing a proven counterinsurgency strategy not only in Iraq but also in Afghanistan with the goal of creating stable, secure, self-sustaining democratic allies.
Senator McCain is the presumptive Republican presidential nominee.
July 17, 2008
Anyone else see a Pattern?
We learned last week that Congressman Charlie Rangel (D - NY) leases 4 rent controlled apartments in Harlem at below market rate.Mr. Rangel said last week that he never considered that he was getting a special deal from the Olnick Organization, even as he acknowledged that he had for years been allowed to lease four rent-stabilized units at Lenox Terrace at about half the market rate.
A month ago we found out that Senators Chris Dodd (D-CT) and Kent Conrad (D-ND) are FRIENDS OF ANGELO which entitles them to special rates on their mortgages.
When asked about the favoritism, Senator Dodd was shocked: He called the
suggestion of impropriety "outrageous he and his wife "did not seek or expect any favorable treatment."
Earlier this month we learned that presidential candidate Barack Obama and his wife got a sweetheart deal on their "super super jumbo" $1.32 million mortgage from Chicago's Northern Trust, saving more than $300 a month.
Senator Obama not only denies that he knew about the special deal, he denies that it was special at all.
We sure are electing dumb to people to office these days. If they can't even identify a "special deal" for themselves, how can they determine what's good for the rest of us?