Arrogance or race baiting?

By now, Dana Milbank’s Washington Post column arguing that Obama is too presumptuous has been roundly criticized for taking quotes out of context in some places and misquoting in others.

Nonetheless, the view that Milbank’s has presented that Obama is some how arrogant has taken hold. NBC ran with a “debate” about it on the Today show this morning, McCain is running ads comparing Obama to Brittney Spears & Paris Hilton. The question is where does this criticism come from? Because he dares to express confidence in his ability to win (while noting that the road to victory will be long and difficult)? Because he met with foreign leaders & officials, after being goaded by the McCain campaign for not doing so? I seem to remember George W. Bush touting his close ties with Mexico as well, even making a campaign visit to open a cross border bridge during the 2000 campaign (see the April 25, 2000 Washington Post). Furthermore, when was the last time a presidential candidate came out and said, “well, it’s going to be a tough campaign, and I expect we will lose?”

If you listen to some of the talk, it smacks of old-fashioned race baiting. Let’s just replace “presumptuous” and “arrogant” with “uppity.” Obama is both a Democrat (making him elitist, though he is worth far, far less money than McCain, pays his taxes, and doesn’t have an annual budget for personal staff in the six figures) and an African American, meaning that he should be careful about expressing too much confidence.

Next time someone suggests Obama is arrogant, think about what that same person would say if McCain said the exact same thing, or made the same visit. What if McCain went abroad and met with foreign leaders? Would there be an uproar? Oh, that’s right, McCain did make that little speech in Canada about NAFTA. McCain has travelled to Iraq. McCain has travelled to Jordan (with Lieberman in tow). I guess he is presumptuous and arrogant as well.

Finally, vote for John McCain if you want to, but do so because you agree with his stances on the issues and believe his likely policy proposals and decisions are best for the country. Do not, however, vote for McCain because of all the bullshit about Obama that is just that: bullshit. Arrogance, elitists, etc., does not matter even if you believe it. Which candidate do you think has the better advisors, better policies, and would you expect to make the best foreign policy decisions? Vote for that candidate.

UPDATE: Damn NYT stealing my ideas! Even if they are obvious...

Fenders are good

Bicycle fenders, that is. I threw my bike in the back of the pickup this morning as my wife drove the boys to swim lessons. I hitched a ride to the pool, then rode my bike to the office. The only problem was that a downpour in the area had made the roads around the pool & the office more than a little wet. Those who cycle know how my shirt and back of my shorts looked when I got to the office -- a lovely dirt trail. Normally this isn't a problem as I typically change clothes when I get to the office, but not today.

Anyway, fenders are good.

As an aside, every area around you getting useful amounts of rain while your house misses out, sucks.

Too many variables, not enough observations

…or one thing I like about Barak Obama.

In an interview with Katie Couric last week, Obama made the mistake of giving an intelligent answer when asked about the apparent success of the surge. He notes that,

There is no doubt that the extraordinary work of our U.S. forces has contributed to a lessening of the violence, just as making sure that the Sadr militia stood down or the fact that the Sunni tribes decided to flip and work with us instead of with al-Qaeda - something that we hadn't anticipated happening. All those things have contributed to a reduction in violence.

You can add to this the fleeing of millions of Iraqi refugees, the success of ethnic cleansing in Baghdad and other areas that have lessened the need for sectarian violence, and the tacit support of Iran for Maliki’s government as evidenced by Iran’s intervention in Basra to settle violence there.

In short, Obama understands that while increased US forces may be one component of success, too much has occurred in Iraq in the past year to pin the reduction of violence (not elimination of violence) to the “surge.” Not only that, with Petraeus, the tactics used, down to where / how troops are deployed, have changed.

In science & social science, unless you can isolate your variables, you cannot definitely say what caused the dependent variable to occur. We have too many changes in Iraq to plausibly argue what the full cause of reduced violence has been.

In addition, Obama makes the better observation that even with the reduction of violence, maintaining troop levels in Iraq is extremely costly in dollar terms & military preparedness terms to the US, and the surge has not succeeded in one of its major goals – providing sufficient political space so that US troops could come home more rapidly.

My weekend with the boys

My wife had a conference this weekend, leaving me and the boys alone. Here is a brief photo collage of our weekend, including a bit of hiking, tree climbing and the boys' first attempt at fishing (Nolan is really good at casting).

Here we go:


An old trail at a local park.


Nolan hiking.


Stewart (bottom of stairs) and Nolan climbing stairs..


Nolan climbing a tree.


Fishing.

Rider Down!

So the colleague referred to in the previous post took a tumble on the trail yesterday. Bike is ok; his elbow is broken. He doesn't know how severe it is yet, but it is definitely broken.

I was riding behind him when it happened. I know it wasn't my fault, but I feel really guilty nonetheless given that I have encouraged his cycling, showed him the route, and was with him. As his wife was at work, my wife I took him to the hospital (and I had lunch with him afterwards).

The non-cycling related component of the blog: as we were walking to his apartment after the accident (we walked about 1.5 miles back to his place), we were discussing the potential expense of the accident as his new work insurance hasn't kicked in, and he only has catastrophic coverage. It is really depressing to me that we were making decisions on whether or not to go to the doctor at least in part based on the cost associated with it. This whole thing will probably end up costing him several thousand dollars even with his catastrophic policy. Of course, for some, the temptation is to ignore the bill from the ER. That drives up the cost for others, which leads more folks down the path of wanting to not pay their bill, and so on. It really just sucks.

Proselytizing

So I have a new coworker who asked my help in picking out a bike and in finding the best route to work.

Obstacle one was that with the model year changeover, the bike shop was out of the bike he really wanted – the base Kona Dew. He stepped up to the Kona Dew Deluxe. I have to say, I really like the Dews, in spite of the silly name. The Deluxe really is a nice commuting bike; another friend bought the base Dew and is really happy with it as well.

Anyway, I have met him to ride in to work a few days now, and must say what a pleasure it is to see someone else joining the ranks of bicycle commuters.

Even better is that on the way to work, we have a choice of two routes: a shorter one that includes a relatively short but very steep climb, and a longer less steep route. First day up the shorter route, he had to walk up towards the end. Same yesterday (I wasn’t with him then). Today, he rode all the way up. Though it seems strange, seeing him conquer the obstacle made me quite happy for him and, for that matter, makes me hope he really sticks with it for a while.

Anyway, it is nice to seem someone else joining the bicycle ranks & getting started bicycle commuting.

Musing on Iran

So Iran is testing missiles capable of reaching Israel (though they have doctored photos). Of course, both McCain and Obama have criticized Iran for doing so, as has the US government, though Obama did reiterate the need for diplomacy. This incident is only one of many that have made the Iran / US relationship difficult of late. Not only does the US still suspect Iran of having a nuclear weapons program (despite last fall’s NIE), but now Israel has carried out a military exercise that could be a demonstration that it could hit Iran. All sides seemed to be engaged in an effort to prove to the others that they will not back down in the face of threats. Of course, not backing down in the face of threats is, itself, seen as threatening, necessitating more threats. The US believes Iran is threatening because of actions like the missile test and the lack of disclosure on missile test, so we get tough-sounding rhetoric from Bush & Cheney to go with clandestine military action. Israel announces that it will not accept a nuclear Iran, and demonstrates its military prowess. Then we have Iran testing long-range missiles and noting that they have military abilities of their own.

What is missing in all of this saber rattling is any one side carrying out policy based on the notion that if I am threatened by the other side, then they may also be threatened by me. Yes, the US seems threatened by some of the rhetoric and actions out of Iran. Yes, Iran has the capacity to harm Israel. But the US and Israel also have the capacity to harm Iran and may already be doing so. How do we get countries to step back from the brink of this security dilemma? All this posturing reminds one of a playground brawl where no party to the dispute was willing to back down.

Sadly, if Steve Clemons’ observations from last summer, and Seymour Hersh’s recent revelations prove true, the US may be engaged in another war by December. Why? Because they won’t respond to our threats the way we would like, and we won’t respond the way they would like. And failure to respond to threats with threats is weak. Why can’t we all just take a deep breath and step back for a moment?