Tenacity?

New York Times columnist David Brooks wrote yesterday about President Obama and Afghanistan. Brooks commented that the “experts” he consulted were not concerned with the time it was taking for President Obama to decide on the General Stanley McChrystal’s request for more troops. They assumed he would make a reasoned decision. They were worried (lack [...]

Leadership

Former President Harry Truman used to like to say, “the buck stops here”. Former President George W Bush said, “I’m the decider”. One of these men will be remembered as a great President and the other will not. Taking responsibility for ones decisions and their consequences is a large part of leadership as well as [...]

You Can’t Fix The World

The optimist sees the glass as half full. Strangely, some see Afghanistan as almost ready for stability. While I would like to see it that way too, I am afraid that I see, instead, an undeveloped country locked in poverty and holding on to an absolutely useless religion. These shackles are too pervasive and will [...]

What Can Government Do?

It is probably easier to answer the negative of this question. We know Government can not write tax code that is understandable. We are told that Government can not run health care (although those receiving Medicare generally do not agree). We are advised that Government will muck up our free enterprise system if they intervene [...]

Still The Big Three

With so much going on now, what should President Obama, and for that matter, Congress, be seeing as their most important objectives. There are the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, there is the task of restarting the economy, there’s fixing the regulatory loopholes that contributed to the financial sector collapse, there is the public option, [...]

Vietnam Memorial, What’s Next?

Over the weekend, I visited Washington DC. It was a beautiful fall day and a lot of other people had the same idea as I had. In addition, there was a marathon underway and a fair number of out of towners came along to run, cheer, and sight see. Along the mall, from the Capital [...]

Finally Sense in the White House

The White House has been grappling with what its strategy should be going forward in Afghanistan. General Stanley McCrystal has submitted a request for more military personnel and is awaiting a response. The collective White House is weighing its response and for good reasons. According to Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, getting the strategy right is [...]

Lucy and the Public Option

In years recently past, this time of year was special.  Lucy would put the football down and hold it ready for Charlie Brown to kick. As he ran to kick, Lucy would pull the ball out of the way and Charlie, of course would miss and fall on his back side. Every day Lucy would [...]

Pay Cuts

The Government “Pay Czar” has been reported ready to claw back 2009 pay from executives of companies the Federal Government bailed out. Reports suggest that the top executives will experience roughly a 50% drop from 2008 level. Is this fair? Is this the Governments business? First, let’s vent. These are the leaders who were absent [...]

Marriage

Last evening at the National Constitution Center, in Philadelphia, PA, a discussion concerning the Constitutional nature of Gay and Lesbian requests for same gender marriage to place. David Boise and Keith Boykin argued “for” and Maggie Gallagher and Glenn Stanton argued against. This discussion went something like this. For: It is unclear how today’s Supreme [...]