Author: opinionstogo

Putnam Would Welcome A Presidential Visit

Don’t count Congressman Adam Putnam among Republicans distancing themselves — literally or figuratively – from President Bush and the war in Iraq. He’s still the boyish-looking true believer in a safe, District 12 seat where the competition is as likely to be independents and write-ins as Democrats.

In a recent appearance at the Tiger Bay Club of Tampa, the three-term U.S. Representative from Bartow made it clear he wouldn’t merely welcome a campaign appearance by the president, he would be “thrilled” at the prospect. “I’d be delighted to have the president,” he underscored.

What’s more likely, however, is that the president will cherry pick a few Florida districts where he may be able to make enough of a difference to help Republicans keep their (15-seat) majority in the House. Putnam, the chairman of the Republican Policy Committee, expects the president to campaign for “one or more” Republicans among: District 9 (where Mike Bilirakis is retiring); District 13 (where Katherine Harris is running, as it were, for the U.S. Senate); and District 22 (where incumbent, South Floridian Clay Shaw could be vulnerable).

On Iraq, Putnam did concede the obvious – there have been horrendous screw-ups – but he’s more inclined to lay blame on Paul Bremer (former head of the Coalition Provisional Authority) for de-Baathification scenarios than the president for overall policy implosions. He also feels that economic development, which isn’t the military’s charge, is a critical element in stabilizing Iraq. And the requisite first step, he maintains, is getting Iraq’s parliament to allow direct foreign investment.

Other Putnam takes:

*The chances of Connecticut Democratic Sen. Joe Lieberman as an independent candidate: “He’s going to win.”

*Immigration: “I hear more about this than any other issue. The border has too long suffered from ‘benign neglect.’ But I don’t agree with the ‘Great Wall of Mexico’ approach. It would require illegal labor to get it done.”

*Passport system: “It needs work — still doesn’t include biometrics. Maybe give everybody a Visa card. They track everything down. Let Visa figure it out.”

*North Korean and Iranian tactics: “North Korea is starving, and they use the bomb for leverage. (Iranian President Mahmoud) Ahmadinejad gives a wild speech, the oil markets go up and he gets more money.”

*Europe’s peace-keeping role: “If they don’t want us to go it alone, they need to pony up.”

*Repeal (54 cents-per-gal.) tariff on ethanol from Brazil? “Yes.”

*Amenable to gay adoption? “No.”

*Mass transit: “You can’t (road) build your way out of congestion. I support regional rail. Problems don’t end at the Tampa city limits.”

Partition Iraq?

Last month Peter Galbraith, the former ambassador to Croatia, said out loud what many insiders only say in private: the U.S. may have to resign itself to the partitioning of Iraq into (pro-West) Kurdish, (Iran-dominated) Shiite and (wild card) Sunni states. With embedded enmities based on religious and tribal affiliations as well as Saddam Hussein patronage, it may be the only viable alternative to an even bloodier civil war.

“You can’t have a national unity government when there is no nation, no unity and no government,” said Galbraith.

There’s certainly no dearth of partition models and reminders that historic strife and ethnic cleansing can’t be federalized in sovereign whitewash. Cypress and Yugoslavia come readily to mind.

The tragedy in Iraq, of course, would be that 3,000 Americans died – and many more were maimed – for an end-game strategy that looked like a loser as soon as the looting began.

Ideology Vs. Religion

A retro trend that looks longingly back to the 1950s for a more secure, innocent time is again making the rounds. Countering that are those who point to an era too easily identified with Communist witch hunts, a Cold War and the threat of nuclear annihilation.

Some context.

Retrospection reinforces a rule of thumb. It’s better to oppose a secular ideology than a religion. A set of earthly tenets or Koranic cherry-pickings? Generals and uniformed soldiers representing a nation state or clerics and martyrs on a jihadi junket from Allah? ICBMs that stay in their silos or heat-seeking epistles that rally zealots to suicidal carnage?

Geo-political conflicts aren’t always zero-sum games. But a civilizational war necessarily is.

The U.S. and the Soviets were ultimately deterred by MAD – the unthinkable prospect of Mutual Assured Destruction. We were eyeball to eyeball with a super power peer. But we were both playing by the same rules – with the ultimate stakes equally acknowledged and respected.

Those were the days.

American Theocracy?

Politicians have long been granted license to tailor a message to suit a constituency – and shore up a base. Some just abuse it more than others.

Which brings us to Katherine Harris’ latest walk on the beguiled side. In an effort to impress the Florida Baptist State Convention, she wound up inspiring anyone who loves a good, old-fashioned theocracy.

She told the Florida Baptist Union that America’s Founding Fathers never intended for this country to be “a nation of secular laws,” and if Christians (such as herself) are not elected to office, politicians (unlike herself) will “legislate sin.”

Later in the interview she debunked the merits of that quaint American concept: church-and-state separation. To separate religion and politics, explained Harris, is “wrong because God is the one who chooses our rulers.”

Oh.

Read The Minutes

Once again Beloit College has issued its annual College Mindset List that looks at the “cultural touchstones that have shaped the lives of today’s first-year (university) students.”

The implication for their elders (or at least their instructors): Don’t assume too much. For example, for the incoming class of 2010: The Soviet Union has never existed; there has always been only one Germany; Manuel Noriega has always been in jail in the U.S.; and Michael Moore has always been showing up uninvited.

Those smart enough to be in college but young enough to lack a literal frame of reference for a lot of stuff makes for a fun rite of autumn and assures Beloit some national publicity.

But it should also underscore the mandate for each well-educated generation: Read the minutes of previous meetings.

Candidate Tips

*Don’t make pre-recorded telephone calls. They’re really, really annoying.

*Don’t top your brochure bio bullets with who you married, who you sired and where you go to worship. Start with relevant experience to the job at hand.

*Endorsements can have value, but dispense with the pretentious name-dropping – especially of the deceased (i.e. Ronald Reagan).

*Have a fiscal philosophy, of course, but don’t say you’ll “never” raise taxes . At best, that’s irresponsible. More than likely, you’re lying and pandering.

* Family values used to mean something. Now they’re code words — frequently of the cheap-shot variety. Too often they say more about the attacker than the attacked. Unless your opponent is Joe Redner, leave it out.

*Don’t refer to yourself in the third person . It sounds phony. Leave that for ego-tripping, professional athletes.

First Line Of Defense

A lot has been made of lessons that can be drawn from that thwarted plot to bring down U.S.-bound planes with liquid bombs. To be sure, it should remind us of the value of profiling – including behavior — especially now that Norman Mineta has finally stepped down as Transportation Secretary and removed himself as a cabinet-level obstacle to common sense.

But the London experience also underscores an even more important security factor. The initial tip came from within the British-Pakistani community. Suspicious behavior was reported to authorities, which set in motion surveillance by M15, Britain’s domestic intelligence agency. In collaboration with Pakistan and the U.S., the Brits arrested and filed criminal charges against 11 suspects and foiled what could have been a horrendous mass murder on the order of 9/11.

In the battle of wits with terrorists, the defense necessarily plays catch-up. And the offense only has to win infrequently, if that. Intelligence is the first line of pre-emption. And it starts, frankly, in the place where Islamaniacs are incubated.

But it takes a lot more than anti-terrorism sermons or op-ed letters that condemn jihadi barbarity, as welcome as those obviously are. Even more important is the singling out of would-be Muslim menaces by those in a position to notice the salient signs of martyrdom-in-the-making.

It’s not so much ratting out your own as it is a show of solidarity with the innocent, who ultimately come in all races, nationalities and faiths.

Picture This: American Diversity

Anyone with school-age kids knows that text books aren’t what they used to be. Mom, Dad, Dick, Jane, Spot and Puff have gone the way of the Nelsons, Andersons, Cleavers and Huxtables. Not a relevant enough reflection of the demographics – and politics — of diversity.

As a result, pictures have never been more of a priority.

According to New York University professor Diane Ravitch, author of “The Language Police,” there is “more textbook space devoted to photos, illustrations and graphics than there’s ever been, but frequently they have nothing to do with the lesson.

“They’re just there for political reasons,” she recently told the Wall Street Journal, “to show diversity and meet a quota of the right number of women, minorities and the disabled.”

The WSJ cited the McGraw-Hill Company’s 2004 guidelines for elementary and high school texts: 40 per cent of people depicted should be white, 30 per cent Hispanic, 20 per cent African-American, 7 per cent Asian and 3 per cent Native American. Federal estimates indicate non-Hispanic whites made up 67.4 per cent of the U.S. population and 60 per cent of the school-age population. Close enough.

But a closer look at the McGraw-Hill guidelines yields an agenda beyond numbers. There are specific directives for ethnic and racial portrayals. Such that this is what political correctness on steroids surely looks like. One example: Asians should not be portrayed “with glasses, bowl-shaped haircuts, or as intellectuals.”

You can’t make this stuff up.

But how refreshing to have read that story about the Vietnamese couple who bought a Beef O’Brady’s in St. Petersburg. Thomas and Grace Tran were both refugees who arrived in America as kids. Now they are welcome reminders that a land of opportunity still awaits those who value education and work ethic and for whom English fluency and societal assimilation were goals – not cultural insults.

And, yes, Thomas Tran does wear glasses – but Grace doesn’t.

Red Carpet For GOPsters

Seems that all went as well as it could in the red carpet treatment of the Republican National Convention site selection team who checked out Tampa and St. Petersburg last week. The key variable: the weather. The GOPsters mostly dodged the rain bullet, let alone the hurricane missile. Nor were local media in full, cone-of-Armageddon, drumbeat mode with nothing much going on except rip tides off the coast of Guinea-Bissau.

Then behind closed doors, the RNC team was told up front about hurricane possibilities. National Weather Service meteorologist Shawn Bennett calculated the likelihood of a hurricane hitting the Tampa Bay Area in the Sept. 1-4 (2008) time frame was 2 percent. For good measure, it was less than subtly noted that the chances of that happening in New York were 1.7 percent. New York, of course, was chosen last time.

Because of hotels, Tropicana Field, the Gulf of Mexico, a vibrant downtown and visitor amenities, it was only proper that St. Petersburg share the stage — and stagecraft — with Tampa. It also helped underscore the numerous, eclectic venues available for convention attendees.

“It created in their minds all of the possibilities for their delegates,” said Karen Brand, vice president of communications for the Tampa Bay Convention and Visitors Bureau. “There were 400 official events the week of the last convention (’04 in New York). They’re interested in everything from corporate office space to museums to universities to yachts.”

One other thing: The site selection team went, as always, out of its way to avoid any direct clues that might hint of Tampa’s standing vis-a-vis the other finalists: New York, Minneapolis and Cleveland. And Jo Ann Davidson, a co-chairwoman of the Republican National Committee and head of the site selection team, reminded interested parties that for all the exuberance and hospitality, it was still a “business” decision.

Hopefully, Karl Rove will get the memo this time.

Karen Hughes: MIA

Whatever happened to Karen Hughes, the erstwhile media maven/power nanny to President Bush? With considerable fanfare, she was announced last year as the new Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs. Her charge: Burnish the U.S. image abroad, especially in the Middle East.

A year and a half removed and nothing much is going right in the Middle East. We still don’t talk to those most responsible, and America’s controversial role in Iraq has helped fuel a jihadi pep rally with a worrisome, worldwide ripple effect. And arguably all of the moral high ground generated by 9/11 has been eroded.

But imagine the PR hit if we didn’t have a Secretary of Spin?