Hal O'Brien

Robert Heinlein once wrote the following definition of a gentleman: Someone who would rather be a dead lion than a live jackal. He had a character, Lazarus Long (who may have been modeled on Heinlein's friend, L. R0n Hubbard), say that he'd rather be a live lion, so he didn't qualify.

It's with that in mind that I read this piece in the New York Times, and this piece by E.J. Dionne, all about how there's a wing in the Republican party that's in a lather about the idea of Florida governor Charlie Crist running for Mel Martinez' soon-to-be-vacated seat.

Crist, who supported John McCain loudly and vigorously during the presidential campaign, is condemned by some for having the temerity to act in the best interests of his state and country by supporting Obama and the stimulus plan. You'd almost think there was a reason he'd support a candidate who spoke so often at a podium that read, "Country First." (Even if that candidate never did publicly acknowledge that every time he did so, he was supporting his opponent over himself. But it's the thought that counts.)

So they're supremely worried that someone who puts policy, morality, legality, and ethics ahead of the in-group out-group tribal dynamics of today's Republican party might... might... win an election, or something equally offensive to their delicate sensibilities.

So, now we finally have a label for these faux "conservatives," who wish to conserve nothing, and are far more radical than anything else:

The Dead Jackals.

Because that's clearly their stand: A candidate should value conformity to the tribal consensus above all else, even if that means losing elections, even if that means doing their worst for the country as a whole. Want to act to save business? Not if you're a Dead Jackal. Want to act with Christian charity and humility? Not if you're a Dead Jackal. Want to acknowledge that torture is overwhelmingly counter-productive, and serves no purpose other than to vent sadism? Not if you're a Dead Jackal.

Why? Because the tribe says so, that's why.

And so it goes...

Too cool. And very quick (30 seconds).

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Looking about on the net, and having watched MSNBC's post-debate coverage, I'm somewhat surprised there hasn't been more reaction to this incident.

To me, the defining moment of tonight's debate came when McCain plaintively asks, "Zero?" below, and then sits, from 0:46 until 1:05, absolutely gobsmacked and at sea.

To make the obvious national security point: Imagine if this was an intricate negotiation, and Vladimir Putin surprised him as much as this does.

McCain's absolutely right -- the American people are being asked to make a risky decision.

Fortunately, we can vote for Barack Obama, instead.

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A surprising opening (IMHO) that Obama gave to McCain in the debate, and McCain didn't follow up on (transcript still here):

OBAMA: "And the reason that it's a problem to go shopping state by state, you know what insurance companies will do? They will find a state -- maybe Arizona, maybe another state -- where there are no requirements for you to get cancer screenings, where there are no requirements for you to have to get pre-existing conditions, and they will all set up shop there.

That's how in banking it works. Everybody goes to Delaware, because they've got very -- pretty loose laws when it comes to things like credit cards."

For all that I'm an Obama supporter, as soon as he said that I worried about a retort from McCain that would run along the lines of:

"My friends, this is what I mean by the pervasiveness of corruption in Washington. Because Senator Obama picked as a running mate a man who helps the credit card companies in Delaware and is in their pocket, as his sponsorship of the bankruptcy bill showed."

It never happened, though.

When I mentioned this to akirlu, she was of the opinion that McCain just isn't fast enough on the uptake for that kind of give-and-take.

In one way, I'm glad for that. In another, it's painful to watch. Right now, McCain is getting lapped around the track of this campaign.

Now that I've waited for the transcript to be posted, I can bring you this:

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OLBERMANN: For more on the impact on the presidential election, let's turn now to our own Richard Wolffe, also, of course, senior White House correspondent for "Newsweek" magazine.

Richard, good evening.

RICHARD WOLFFE, MSNBC POLITICAL ANALYST: Good evening, Keith.

OLBERMANN: All right. We know Senator McCain loves gambling. So, here's a gambling metaphor-the risk that he took was that if the bailout package tanked, after he promised that he could secure its passage, that he was harkening to Washington as Batman harkens to the bat message in the sky. If it didn't work out, he'd be left holding the mess. Did the Republican nominee just lose his bet?

WOLFFE: Well, let us count the ways he lost it. And first of all, he didn't lose it by the sort of finger-pointing and the blame game that goes on. Completely independent of everything that Mike has just explained so well, you have McCain failing to live up to his own standards, his own measures here. He said that he would suspend his campaign and get a deal, he didn't do either. He said that he wouldn't debate until he got a deal. There was no deal but he debated anyway. He said that he wasn't going to phone it in; he was going to be fully involved. And he went to the phones. And lastly, his surrogates tried to claim credit for the deal that ultimately fell apart. So, by his own measure, McCain lost, at least, four different ways just in the last three or four days.

(No, not the magazine...)

One of the most egregious among his many blunders of fact during the debate was when Mr. McCain "corrected" Mr. Obama on a particular set of terms... while being blissfully unaware he was getting it wrong.

From the transcript:

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OBAMA: (The soldiers in The Surge) have done a brilliant job, and General Petraeus has done a brilliant job. But understand, that was a tactic designed to contain the damage of the previous four years of mismanagement of this war.

And so John likes -- John, you like to pretend like the war started in 2007. You talk about the surge. The war started in 2003, and at the time when the war started, you said it was going to be quick and easy. You said we knew where the weapons of mass destruction were. You were wrong.

You said that we were going to be greeted as liberators. You were wrong. You said that there was no history of violence between Shiite and Sunni. And you were wrong. And so my question is...

LEHRER: Senator Obama...

OBAMA: ... of judgment, of whether or not -- of whether or not -- if the question is who is best-equipped as the next president to make good decisions about how we use our military, how we make sure that we are prepared and ready for the next conflict, then I think we can take a look at our judgment.

LEHRER: I have got a lot on the plate here...

MCCAIN: I'm afraid Senator Obama doesn't understand the difference between a tactic and a strategy.

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McCain hasn't been in the active military since 1981. And he was 894th out of 899 in his Annapolis class of 1958. So perhaps it's understandable why he went astray.

But, here's what the Army currently says in field manual FM-3, Operations:

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THE STRATEGIC LEVEL

2-4. The strategic level is that level at which a nation, often as one of a group of nations, determines national and multinational security objectives and guidance and develops and uses national resources to accomplish them. Strategy is the art and science of developing and employing armed forces and other instruments of national power in a synchronized fashion to secure national or multinational objectives. The National Command Authorities (NCA) translate policy into national strategic military objectives. These national strategic objectives facilitate theater strategic planning. Military strategy, derived from policy, is the basis for all operations (see JP 3-0). (emphasis in original)

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So, strategy is the big picture stuff. "We will be victorious in Iraq to foster democracy in the Middle East," is a strategy. "We will address the threat of the Soviet Union by containing them in a cordon of surrounding allied countries," is a strategy.

Strategy answers the question, "What do you want?"

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THE OPERATIONAL LEVEL

2-5. The operational level of war is the level at which campaigns and major operations are conducted and sustained to accomplish strategic objectives within theaters or areas of operations (AOs). It links the tactical employment of forces to strategic objectives. The focus at this level is on operational art—the use of military forces to achieve strategic goals through the design, organization, integration, and conduct of theater strategies, campaigns, major operations, and battles. A campaign is a related series of military operations aimed at accomplishing a strategic or operational objective within a given time and space. A major operation is a series of tactical actions (battles, engagements, strikes) conducted by various combat forces of a single or several services, coordinated in time and place, to accomplish operational, and sometimes strategic objectives in an operational area. These actions are conducted simultaneously or sequentially under a common plan and are controlled by a single commander. Operational art determines when, where, and for what purpose major forces are employed to influence the enemy disposition before combat. It governs the deployment of those forces, their commitment to or withdrawal from battle, and the arrangement of battles and major operations to achieve operational and strategic objectives. Figure 2-1 illustrates the link between the levels of war and the plans and actions of military forces. (emphasis in original)

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Tactics, then, answers the question, "How are you going to get what you want?"

From this definition, it's clear The Surge is a major operation. It's a series of tactical operations, with the strategic goal of keeping violence in Iraq at a manageable level while the political infrastructure is built by the Iraqis.

Tactically it's been a great success. Petraeus and his troops have executed very well.

But strategically it's been a failure. Because instead of taking advantage of the relative calm The Surge has provided them, the Iraqi political leadership has stalled in so many different ways to make Congress' performance this week the very model of effectiveness. (Thus the ghost of Garrison Keillor: "It could always be worse...")

But more than that... I'm not alone in noticing this. Jim Fallows quotes "a retired (1999) Army colonel" to the same point. Even more damningly, in some ways, was this post by Jim on McCain's personal ignorance of strategy vs. tactics:

"There has been no greater contrast between the Obama and McCain campaigns than the tactical-vs-strategic difference, with McCain demonstrating the primacy of short-term tactics and Obama sticking to a more coherent long-term strategy. And McCain's dismissive comment suggests that he still does not realize this."

And remember, folks... The military stuff is what McCain thinks he's good at.

So there's an incipient meme running around the right-wing blogosphere.

To anyone with a memory that goes back before 2001, the implications are a bit jaw-dropping for sheer irony.

Here's an example post of this foolishness, and here's a call and response from a thread I recently contributed to (expanded a bit for this post):

“Obama has recruited “truth squads” in the form of local prosecutors to silence anyone in Missouri who they think is saying something wrong about Obama.”

Well, some half-truths here.

This appears based on this report from KMOV-TV in St. Louis.

Here’s a partial transcript:

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John Mills, reporter: Russell, good evening. Prosecutors and sheriffs from across Missouri are joining something called the “Barack Obama Truth Squad.” Two high-profile prosecutors are part of the team. We met them this afternoon in the Central West. They are Jennifer Joyce of the city (and) Bob McCulloch, the St. Louis County prosecuting attorney. They will be reminding voters that Barack Obama is a Christian, who wants to cut taxes for anyone making less than $250,000 a year. They also say they plan to respond immediately to any ads and statements that might violate Missouri ethics laws.

Jennifer Joyce: We want to keep this campaign focused on issues. We don’t want people to get distracted, and Missourians don’t want to be distracted, by these divisive character attacks. So we’re here to respond to any character attacks, to set the record straight.

Bob McCulloch: Whether it is directly attributable to the campaign, or to one of the soft-money operations, if they’re not going to tell the truth, then somebody’s got to step up and say “Wait a minute, that’s not true. This is the truth.”

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So, apparently, one should only expect a response from these guys if one a) lies, b) violates Missouri ethics laws, or c) both.

It’s obvious why this would have some Republicans worried. After all, if you actually had to run a campaign where you told the truth all the time, and obeyed the law all the time, and behaved ethically all the time… Well, where’s the fun in that?

Yup. Enforcing the law and insisting on truthful and ethical behavior sure is the thin edge of the wedge. It’s a good thing the Republican party is around to put a stop to that naive nonsense. And they have so much experience at being illegal, untruthful, and unethical, too!

Experience really is the key, don’t you think? How could a president possibly serve his country if he didn’t have the experience of being investigated for illegal and unethical behavior himself? Thank god McCain has that experience.

Imagine Obama's jack-booted thugs, running through the land chanting, "Law and Order! Truth! Ethics!" It seems like only yesterday that it was Republicans being accused of that sort of thing. Thankfully, today's more-nuanced GOP has left such divisive, arbitrary foolhardiness behind, and has instead embraced the moral relativism of the 1960s hippies.

Only the moral example and steadfastness of George W. Bush could make this great day possible.

I think Obama performed very well tonight, and McCain moderately well, at best.

It didn’t help him much when he “corrected” Obama over the difference between strategy and tactics when Obama was right, and McCain was wrong. Obama’s citation of the many times McCain has had poor judgment and made the wrong call was also illuminating.

But the real revelation was watching McCain’s continued fear, and fearmongering. McCain could never manage to look Obama in the eye, scared as he was. He was hunched over, with amazingly near-hysteric body language.

Watch the footage with the sound turned low some time.

Obama, on the other hand, consistently came across as knowledgeable and resolute. Polite but unyielding.

Much more presidential — someone dealing from a position of strength, who knew and was comfortable with it. The contrast with McCain’s squirming and constant attack dog demeanor — too anxious and fearful to give any hint of accommodation, lest he be viewed somehow as “soft” — was startling.

Wesley Clark was right: “Everybody admires John McCain’s service as a fighter pilot, his courage as a prisoner of war. There’s no issue there. He’s a great man and an honorable man. But having served as a fighter pilot — and I know my experience as a company commander in Vietnam — that doesn’t prepare you to be commander in chief in terms of dealing with the national strategic issues that are involved. It may give you a feeling for what the troops are going through in the process, but it doesn’t give you the experience first hand of the national strategic issues.”

Especially when you don’t correctly know the difference between strategic and tactical. “It’s not what we don’t know that’s the problem, it’s what we know that ain’t so.”

First up, my friend Terry Karney, with his one-liner about the attacks by Palin on the term "community activist":

"Pilate was a Governor. Jesus was a community activist."

http://pecunium.livejournal.com/336002.html

(You also may want to look over Karney's postings about the free speech issues at both conventions.)

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Second, a remarkably prescient post by Brad Hicks, predicting McCain would start pushing his "reformer" line very hard -- to the extent it might be why he chose Palin (and not gender as such -- that was a bonus):

"I think that the real reason that John McCain gambled his career on Sarah Palin is that he plausibly hopes that updating his Goo-Goo credentials will make the muck-rakers in the newsrooms all over the country fall in love with him again, will remember why they (we) loved him in the first place, before he went psycho after 9/11 and before the mental deterioration became impossible to ignore. He wants us to forget the last couple of years, especially, and come back to him."

http://bradhicks.livejournal.com/411044.html

From the web site MarketWatch, run by that well known lefty rag the Wall Street Journal: "Why McCain would be a mediocre president"

I got the pointer from the blog The Reality-Based Community -- here's their summary:

"Nutting is not impressed. The subheads tell the story:

Lack of accomplishments
Shallow
No leadership
Living in the Sixties
No principles"

But, wait... there's more!

That "Shallow" section is particularly pointed:

" McCain says he doesn't understand the economy. He's demonstrated that he doesn't understand the workings of Social Security, or the political history of the Middle East. He doesn't know who our enemies are. He says he wants to reduce global warming, but then proposes ideas that would stimulate -- not reduce -- demand for fossil fuels.

McCain has done one thing well -- self promotion. Instead of working on legislation or boning up on the issues, he's been on "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" more than any other guest. He's been on the Sunday talk shows more than any other guest in the past 10 years. He's hosted "Saturday Night Live" and even announced his candidacy in 2007 on "The Late Show with David Letterman."

McCain has not articulated any lofty goals. So far, his campaign theme has mostly been "McCain: He's None of the Above."

In the primaries, he campaigned on "I'm not that robotic businessman, I'm not that sanctimonious hick, I'm not that crazy libertarian, I'm not that washed-up actor, I'm not that delusional 9/11 guy." In the general election, he's emphasized that he's not that treasonous dreamer."

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And this story seems fun:

"I've been a writer and editor at (the Phoenix) New Times for 15 years. For much of that time, I wrote about Arizona politics, which is to say that I wrote about John McCain. It's still odd to see the guy in the spotlight, because for quite a while, I was pretty much the only one covering him.

I never did fall for him in the way reporters fall for politicians, probably because he wasn't much to fall for back in the early 1990s. In those days, McCain was still rehabilitating the image he'd later sell to the national media. He was known then for cavorting in the Bahamas with Charlie Keating, rather than for fighting for campaign finance reform and limited government spending."

Read the full remarkable profile.