Thomas Friedman quotes Kennedy & Cronkite re Afghanistan

From Thomas Friedman in the NYT:

I’ve already explained why I oppose this escalation. But since the decision has been made — and I do not want my country to fail or the Obama presidency to sink in Afghanistan — here are some thoughts on how to reduce the chances that this ends badly. Let’s start by recalling an insight that President John F. Kennedy shared in a Sept. 2, 1963, interview with Walter Cronkite:

Cronkite: “Mr. President, the only hot war we’ve got running at the moment is, of course, the one in Vietnam, and we have our difficulties there.”

Kennedy: “I don’t think that unless a greater effort is made by the [Vietnamese] government to win popular support that the war can be won out there. In the final analysis, it is their war. They are the ones who have to win it or lose it. We can help them; we can give them equipment; we can send our men out there as advisers. But they have to win it, the people of Vietnam, against the Communists. We are prepared to continue to assist them, but I don’t think that the war can be won unless the people support the effort and, in my opinion, in the last two months, the [Vietnamese] government has gotten out of touch with the people. ...”

Cronkite: “Do you think this government still has time to regain the support of the people?”

Kennedy: “I do. With changes in policy and perhaps with personnel I think it can. If it doesn’t make those changes, the chances of winning it would not be very good.”

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Obama talks to Dem Senators for 30 minutes about health care reform - doesn't mention public option once

From Huffington Post:

As President Obama finished his speech to the Democratic caucus in the Capitol's Mansfield Room on Sunday afternoon, Joe Lieberman made his way over to Harry Reid.

The independent who still caucuses with Democrats wanted to point something out to the Majority Leader: Obama didn't mention the public option.

Lieberman was beaming as he left the room and happy to re-point it out when HuffPost asked him what Obama had said about the public health insurance option, perhaps the most contentious issue still facing Democrats as they negotiate their way toward a final health care reform bill.

He didn't mention abortion either. Read More......

Manufactured doubt: How fake science debunked real science on climate change, tobacco and more

A fascinating essay about how big business, working alongside Hill & Knowlton, among others, manufactured fake doubt about the link between tobacco and cancer, the danger of CFCs to the ozone lawyer, and now climate change. It's long, comprehensive, and very good. Read More......

TNR: Senate considering bad compromises on health care reform bill

Jacob Hacker does an excellent, quick, overview of where Health Care Reform stands in the Senate, and the various "compromises" being considered. It's pretty bad news.

In short, the new compromise proposals are anything but. They represent calls for advocates of the public plan to eat their crumbs and be happy. But a majority of Senators support the public plan. At least two--Senator Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont and Senator Burris of Illinois--have said having a real public plan in the legislation is a precondition for their support. Those who believe in the public plan—and, more important, who believe in the principle it embodies: that no American who lacks access to good insurance should be forced to buy coverage from the private plans that got us into our present mess--should stand firm in the face of these non-compromises.

This includes President Obama. He made the public plan part of his promise of change in 2008. Now he needs to put his weight and influence behind the public plan and its essential goals, rather than allow them to be gutted. This is in our nation’s interest. It is also in his and his party’s political interest. A bill that forces people to take private insurance but doesn’t create competition or a public benchmark is a prescription for unaffordable coverage, runaway costs, and political backlash. The “middle ground” is nowhere to stand if it’s going to crumble beneath you.

In the end, the only people willing to take a stand are the four or five conservative Dems who don't want even a weak public option. Liberal Senators refuse to issue the same threat, that they'll walk if they don't get their way, so no one is talking to them - the conservatives are running the show because they're the only ones willing to show some backbone and draw a line in the sand. Read More......

FCC dares to ask Verizon how they can charge certain fees

The answer is of course, obvious. Because Congress and the old FCC allowed them to do it. Despite the numerous areas of stagnation and continuation of Bush policies (Wall Street, war, etc) this is one area that is indeed showing movement in the right direction.

The FCC's letter to Verizon asks how consumers will know whether the increased fee applies to their phone, and whether it's spelled out anywhere except in the formal customer agreement.

The FCC is also asking the carrier about $1.99 data access fees that have appeared on the bills of customers who don't have data plans but accidentally initiate data access by hitting a button on their phones. Verizon says that as of a few months ago, it doesn't charge when a customer starts a data service then quickly turns it off.

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Sunday Talk Shows Open Thread

There's really just one topic for the guests on the shows this week: Afghanistan. Secretary of State Clinton and Secretary of Defense Gates are both doing ABC, NBC and CBS. CNN has the National Security Adviser Jim Jones. FOX has General Petraeus. Perhaps, we'll have a clearer sense of the strategy -- and the exit strategy by noon, but don't count on it.

Also, the Senate is in session again today. And, the President will be meeting with the Democratic caucus at 2 P.M.

No doubt, these august news shows will find time to discuss the only real news, meaning Tiger Woods, the White House party crashers and that young American women convicted of murder in Italy.

Full slate of guests after the post.

Here's the full lineup:

ABC's "This Week" — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton; Defense Secretary Robert Gates; Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis.

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CBS' "Face the Nation" — Clinton; Gates.

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NBC's "Meet the Press" — Clinton; Gates; Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.

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CNN's "State of the Union" — Gen. Jim Jones, national security adviser to President Barack Obama; Sens. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and Jon Kyl, R-Ariz.; former Gov. Mitt Romney, R-Mass.

"Fox News Sunday" _ Gen. David Petraeus, commander of the U.S. Central Command; Sens. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and John Cornyn, R-Texas.

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Joe Cocker, Woodstock

As much as I like the original, I love Joe Cocker's version.

Our sunny Friday has turned into a back and forth weekend, weather-wise. I managed to time the rain perfectly yesterday for my ride. When the heavy rain slowed, I jumped on my bike thinking drizzle was as good as it would get. It picked up again on my ride out to St Maur only to turn back into a bright, sunny day on my ride back. There's another break in the weather so off to the street again. Read More......

Break-in attempts at leading climate change scientist

How shocking. Who would ever guess that someone who is working on changing the environment would be the target of break-ins days before a major climate change meeting in Copenhagen? The status quo will stop at nothing to maintain the wasteful, damaging system that we're stuck with today. They didn't spend billions building such a system only to let some scientists disrupt it. The story reminds me of a prosecuting judge over here who had similar experiences during investigations into the petroleum business and banks. The Guardian:

Attempts have been made to break into the offices of one of Canada's leading climate scientists, it was revealed yesterday. The victim was Andrew Weaver, a University of Victoria scientist and a key contributor to the work of the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). In one incident, an old computer was stolen and papers were disturbed.

In addition, individuals have attempted to impersonate technicians in a bid to access data from his office, said Weaver. The attempted breaches, on top of the hacking of files from British climate researcher Phil Jones, have heightened fears that climate-change deniers are mounting a campaign to discredit the work of leading meteorologists before the start of the Copenhagen climate summit tomorrow.

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Frank Rich on Afghanistan

Frank Rich in the NYT:

Obama’s speech struck me as the sincere product of serious deliberations, an earnest attempt to apply his formidable intelligence to one of the most daunting Rubik’s Cubes of foreign policy America has ever known. But some circles of hell can’t be squared. What he’s ended up with is a too-clever-by-half pushmi-pullyu holding action that lacks both a credible exit strategy and the commitment of its two most essential partners, a legitimate Afghan government and the American people. Obama’s failure illuminated the limits of even his great powers of reason.

The state dinner crashers delineated those limits too. This was the second time in a month — after the infinitely more alarming bloodbath at Fort Hood — that a supposedly impregnable bastion of post-9/11 American security was easily breached. Yes, the crashers are laughable celebrity wannabes, but there was nothing funny about what they accomplished on Pennsylvania Avenue.

Their ruse wasn’t “reality” television — it was reality, period, with no quotation marks. It was a symbolic indication (and, luckily, only symbolic) of how unbridled irrationality harnessed to sheer will, whether ludicrous in the crashers’ case or homicidal in the instance of the Fort Hood gunman, can penetrate even our most secure fortifications. Both incidents stand as a haunting reproach to the elegant powers of logic with which Obama tried to sell his exquisitely calibrated plan to vanquish Al Qaeda and its mad brethren.

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