YOU JUST CAN’T NEGOTIATE WITH THEM THERE IRANIS—OR CAN YOU?

In another forum several days ago I responded to another commenter’s claim that you just can’t negotiate with Iran because…you can’t negotiate with Iran. Not his precise words but essentially his reasoning was equally self-cancelling. My reply was just as brilliant in that I pointed out that…obviously…if you don’t negotiate with iran you can’t negotiate with Iran.

Of course that was in a “debate” about recent events with 47 Republican Senators embarrassing themselves with a letter to Iran’s leaders telling them that negotiating an end to their nuclear weapons program is futile because the next President will be a Republican who will bomb them back to the Stone Age anyways. Better surrender their yellow cake now and commit hari kiri.

Naturally the errant, arrant, and unrecalcitrantly tactless GOPers think of President Barack Obama as an incompetent boob and oppose every tack he takes as he tries to tack down his legacy with what would be a historic agreement stopping another nuclear weapon wanna be in its tracks.

But, then again, the GOPers on pretty much any topic think of Obama as an incompetent boob and score and scold every action or non-action as an unprecedented Presidential misstep, even if preceding Presidents set preceding precedents in proceeding as they did.

Now I see a problem with the right wing’s avowed American Idol, one Ronald W. Reagan. For it seems in their haste to waste Obama the Republicans cling to the waist of St. Ronnie as a toddler clings to her mother for protection against the actual dangers of the outside world as well as the imagined dangers of the monsters beneath her bed.

But Reagan is a convenient reference, though not deserving of the reverence accorded him by Republicans not the deference shown him by many Democrats. For you see Reagan had a philosophy, if you will, of “trust but verify” and that was in dealing with the Soviet Union that had thousands of nukes already pointed our way. Why cannot the principals negotiating with Iran (not including the Principality of Monaco) apply that same principle to any agreement reached?

What these Senate Republicans should have done to the lobbyists clamoring for them to derail these talks was to show them to the lobby and put them on a rail to be run out of town. Tar and feathers optional.

And though Reagan admonished to trust but verify, his administration early in his term neither was trustful or trustworthy nor would it verify, until pressure was exerted, that it was itself negotiating with the Iranis to supply missiles in a roundabout way so that money could be raised to assist the Contras in Nicaragua in another roundabout way such that the inevitable 11 car pileup became a highway gawker’s delight.

Oh, yeah, those same Iranis who only recently had held American hostages for 444 days and were now fighting a war with Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, Saddam having arms supplied by…The United States?

Ain’t diplomacy grand?

SLEEP NO MORE, MY BODY

I paraphrase the Stephen Foster lyrics from My Old Kentucky Home…”Weep no more, my lady”…because I am trying to ensure i am on time for my doctor’s appointment.

As an old retired person with fewer duties than a broken clock has opportunities to still be correct in one day, I maintain more irregular hours than the Gabriel Brothers chain of discount stores maintains irregular pairs of socks. One is as apt to find me at full speed in my busy day at 4 a.m. as at 4.p.m.

So I have few occasions to need to make an appearance anywhere at an appointed hour let alone at the appointed hour. Except for seeing doctors. But even at those times philosophically one is tempted to ask oneself

am I late for or on time for a medical appointment when I find myself in a waiting room at 10:00 a.m on Easter Daylight Time but I have little chance of being in the examining room until 10:00 a.m. Easter Standard Time?

Thus arises the facility of devices known to man as alarm clocks. These instruments of torture have barely escaped the Geneva Convention’s list of banned methods of inhumane treatment, though Shriners‘ conventions recognized that fact long ago and thus invented the hotel wakeup call, finding a soothing voice from the front desk was preferable to a jangly clanging penetrating the foggy cloud generated from the previous night’s revelries.

The torturous nature of alarm clocks has at least been partially acknowledged by the alarm clock manufacturing industry, if not by Dick Cheney, in the form of the snooze alarm. Or has it? Perhaps it is enhanced torture to be able to stifle an alarm by hitting the snooze button welcoming the return to the blissful Land Of Nod only to be jolted out of that state again and again until your palm is worn raw from slapping the damned monster.

But let us discuss our present state of affairs in greater detail.

As a resident of a building that unexpectedly loses power for what is generally no more than two seconds several times a month, a digital version of one of these clocks will need to be reset upon each occasion. And this may not be the building’s fault. The phenomenon may be attributable to mischief emanating from students of West Virginia University pulling the giant plug from the giant socket that controls the electricity in the neighborhood we share as a form of celebration, much as they have burned couches and trash dumpsters and presumably bridges behind them as their shenanigans have raised the hackles of the school’s administration when these antics draw national attention.

But I digress.

I once depended on an alarm clock radio of the digital kind…or of the digical kind as my ex-wife’s  family’s former neighbor Joyce liked to pronounce the word….she also enjoyed the pork snack she termed shitlings…which, when I finally woke up upon unconsciously experiencing one of these momentary outages, would be blinking tauntingly at me as if to say “Guess what freaking time it is NOW, you sucker.”

So entered my possession a nice battery operated analog clock. You know, that’s the one that has two hands indicating, if both are straight up, that it is twelve o’clock somewhere and not that it is being placed under arrest. Purchased at one of the dollar stores, though I was charged more than one dollar for my little friend (thank you, Tony Montana) It stood by my side and buzzed its way into my psyche at the required times with its peculiar blend of annoying electronic beeping sounds. It’s a wonder it survived as long as it did having been heaved into walls so frequently.

But, alas, it announced its demise one morning when, set for 7:30 a.m.,I awoke on my own at 9:50 for a 10:00 a.m. appointment at the doctor’s office, I discovered my little ex-friend had made no sound, annoying or not, when it was required most.

My quest began for a replacement. AHA! “There is a dollar store on my planned post doctor visit route”, I thought. What a simple task. That store had no alarm clocks.

I managed to survive a couple more weeks with a failed timepiece, making every one of my 354 doctor’s visits in the interim. Until yesterday. The sun was shining bright though temperatures were cold. I ventured out to get to the grocery store but, as I approached it, there loomed a CVS Pharmacy a couple hundred yards down the road. I detoured there first, entered the CVS, asked the clerk where I could find alarm clocks, was appropriately directed, and found the mechanical creation of my dreams designed to wake me from same.

There, ensconced in what I was to discover plastic packaging built to withstand Saddam Hussein’s Weapons of Mass Destruction was a bright white happy looking analog alarm clock, its hands appearing to welcome me warmly into their figurative grasp. I gleefully accepted its beckoning, paid for it, stopped at the grocery to acquire sustenance, and headed home, safe in the knowledge I would wake in time for today’s medical adventures.

Once home I borrowed a jackhammer from the construction folks working on the building’s sidewalk and…VOILA!…a scant three hours later I had broken through the protective shield and was holding my precious cargo directly in my hand. Delicately I inserted the one AA battery necessary for operation and gently turned the requisite knobs on its back to the hour then at hand. And then turned the knob again, and again, and again.

Damn It! I’d bought a clock with erectile dysfunction. Its hour hand will not stay up. Not for four hours nor for four seconds!

Turns out I am now the Goldilocks of alarm clocks but with none of the three in my possession being “just right”

Anyone know where I can buy some Viagra for my clock?

COMMANDER IN CHIEF—OR KILLER IN CHIEF

The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States…

Thus begins Article II Section 2 of the United States Constitution. The most important principle gleaned from this language is that of civilian control over our nation’s military power. Remarkably this principle has received universal acceptance among the populace.

Respect for the military itself has wavered to some extent through the years, likely reaching a nadir during the Vietnam War. Though our government set the policy, there was no doubt the influence of military leaders was important in developing and implementing the policy of engagement in Southeast Asia that was folly unfolding before our very eyes.

Though advisors had first been sent to Vietnam by Eisenhower and JFK had expanded their roll, LBJ became the President of record for that war and his legacy is largely based on it. That, in spite of huge accomplishments in civil rights, the beginnings of Medicare, and other successful domestic initiatives that are as praiseworthy as his military adventures are damnable.

Is LBJ the only President to be judged on exercising his authority as Commander in Chief? Certainly not, or I would not have a topic for this blog entry.

FDR is fondly remembered for ushering the country through the Great Depression. But that challenge almost pales in comparison to what he faced in bringing the United States into World War II, culminating in the near victory achieved at the time of his death on April 12, 1945. Failure in that endeavor would have not only detracted from his legacy, but probably would have eradicated the memory of his restoration of the economy.

So today on a lesser scale we have a President with a recent successful military excursion now added to his resume. The editorialists, bloggers and media talking heads are now debating whether the tracking and killing of Osama Bin Laden will elevate the stature of President Barack Obama sufficiently not just for his legacy but, more importantly in the short term, assure his re-election in 2012.

Why is that. Why should his popularity, his survival in the Office, depend on much on this relatively minor exercise of his Commander in Chief powers, no matter how favorable the outcome?

An odd sidelight to this discussion is that, having only a few days prior to the raid on OBL’s hideout fended off a good deal of the birther issue, new polls apparently justify the conclusion that, miraculously, that issue is a now a mere speck on Obama rather than an albatross around his neck.

But the events of last Sunday also resurrected the tale of President Jimmy Carter’s failed rescue mission of the Iranian hostages in 1980, which certainly would have resulted in the deaths of many Iranians. That failure sealed Carter’s fate in his bid for re-election.

At one time we had a President, Woodrow Wilson, who enhanced his bona fides as CIC by “keeping us out of war” and won re-election in 1916. Post WW II, however, especially post Vietnam War, the image of the President suffers unless and until he has some meaure of success militarily, i.e. kills some bad guys.

That factor is even more evident as we elect Presidents with no combat military experience themselves. Ronald Reagan served in WW II but he made propoganda films and never came face to face with either German or Japanese combatants. He loved rattling sabers against the Soviet Union but had to invade tiny Granada lest his desire and capability to go to war be questioned.

George H.W. Bush served more than honorably in that war, but when he declined to drive all the way to Baghdad to oust Saddam Hussein in the Gulf War he was derided as a wimp.

Bill Clinton was excoriated as a “draft dodger” and unworthy to be CIC but deflected some of that criticism by sending troops to Kosovo and Somalia. Because neither of those moves resulted in, or ever COULD have resulted in clear military victories, his CIC legacy is not strong.

George W. Bush is the epitome of a President who took his CIC powers to heart. After starting two wars of dubious merit he then reveled in being a “war President”, though he chose to be so , often proclaiming how much these responsibilities weighed on him, but to this day offering no regrets for the cost of lives in those conflicts.

Most pointedly he did something his dad did not—hunt down and kill Saddam Hussein. Even if the actual execution was due to Iraqi justice, Bush got de facto credit for the death. For better or for worse his legacy will be judged on those wars and the demise of Hussein

So we arrive back at our current CIC who has shown little hesitation employing our forces, from maintaining a presence in Iraq to expanding one in Afghanistan, to firing assorted missles and dropping bombs in Libya Obama already dispelled any notions he was shy about using army, navy and air force to further his policies.

But, like many of his predecessors, Obama has found that his popularity, legacy and foreign policy support gain more traction from killing than from legitimate efforts to maintain peace or from the success of any domestic policy whatsoever.

The President of the United States is Commander in Chief of our armed forces and militias every day of his term(s) in office. But it seems that this power is underappreciated and even criticized and thought unworthy of him until he puts those forces in harms way to kill the bad guys of the moment.

My desire is for my Commander in Chief, no matter who, to demonstrate his, or her, strength as such by being able to maneuver the Ship of State through troubled waters without resort to the extreme use of that power.

I shouldn’t hold my breath, should I?