The Alaska and Arkansas National Guard

"She's been the commander of Alaska's National Guard, who's been deployed overseas...that's foreign policy experience."Tucker Bounds, a McCain spokesman

From Poppy Bush's Acceptance Speech at the 1992 Republican Convention:
The President: My opponents say I spend too much time on foreign policy, as if it didn't matter that schoolchildren once hid under their desks in drills to prepare for nuclear war. I saw the chance to rid our children's dreams of the nuclear nightmare, and I did. Over the past 4 years, more people have breathed the fresh air of freedom than in all of human history. I saw a chance to help, and I did. These were the two defining opportunities not of a year, not of a decade, but of an entire span of human history. I seized those opportunities for our kids and our grandkids, and I make no apologies for that.

Now, the Soviet bear may be gone, but there are still wolves in the woods. We saw that when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait. The Mideast might have become a nuclear powder keg, our energy supplies held hostage. So we did what was right and what was necessary. We destroyed a threat, freed a people, and locked a tyrant in the prison of his own country.

What about the leader of the Arkansas National Guard, the man who hopes to be Commander in Chief? Well, I bit the bullet, and he bit his nails.

Audience members. U.S.A.! U.S.A.! U.S.A.!

I'm serious, that crowd reaction was written into the trancript that I found on the internets.

Geo Bush 41 is not running for his second term, McCain is running for his first. I'm sure if I looked hard enough, and reached back 16 years, I could find multiple republican flip flops. But I still think it's kind of funny that the republican party of 16 years ago did not hesitate to mock Bill Clinton's experience commanding the AR Nat'l Guard.

But the real point is that a governor is given command of his/her organized state militia (at least that's what's legally called in La) for domestic purposes. Essentially, the governor can deploy them to supplement law enforcement, do minor drug intervention, and to respond to a natural disaster. All of these situations do provide a governor with experience that could qualify them to be commander in chief. This is because the governor in these situations is acting as the civilian chief of an armed service and has authority over its uniform commanders. It's a small scale and very simplified version of the command relationship between the President and the Armed Services.

Here's how Bill Clinton Spun his experience in '92 as reported by the Boston Globe:

Appearing earlier in the day with Gore on "CBS This Morning," Clinton pointed to his role in commanding the Arkansas National Guard to argue that he has the necessary experience to be commander in chief.

"I had to command the National Guard in some very difficult positions," Clinton said in response to a viewer's question. He explained that he had called the guard out and authorized the use of force to quell a riot of Cuban refugees in 1980. "I did so to try to save lives," he said. "I didn't have any problem with doing that."

The McCain campaign is stretching the truth (by that I mean they're lying) when they claim that it is "foreign policy experience." When a governor commands his/her national guard, it has nothing to do with foreign policy. Governors don't make decisions about foreign deployments (whether they be to combat environments or on training missions),they don't deal with foreign troops or officials, and they don't have to deal with status of forces agreements. When National Guard units are mobilized for combat duty, they are federalized and the governor is removed from the chain of command.

I guess that plan B is to talk about how close Russia is to Alaska:

"We have trade missions back and forth, we do. It's very important when you consider even national security issues with Russia. As Putin rears his head and comes into the air space of the United States of America, where do they go? It's Alaska. It's just right over the border. It is from Alaska that we send those out to make sure that an eye is being kept on this very powerful nation, Russia, because they are right there, they are right next to our state."

Addendum: I wrote this post last week, before all of the GOP hand wringing (or perhaps they're just lowering expectations) came out.

Addendum Addendum: I'd like to include these quotes that ABC's "The Note" published this morning:
"It's very important when you consider even national security issues with Russia, as Putin rears his head and comes into the airspace of the United States of America -- where do they go? It's Alaska." -- Sarah Palin, to Katie Couric.

"To be very clear, there has not been any [Russian] incursion in U.S. airspace in recent years." -- Maj. Allen Herritage, spokesman for the Alaska region of the North American Aerospace Defense Command, to the AP.

"She doesn't have any role in that process. . . . The authority to launch and respond to a Russian incursion lies with the Alaska NORAD Region commander." -- Herritage, to the New York Daily News.



CDR

Hope Posters

You can pick 'em up at Dirty Coast.

I've got tons more, so if you are having an event in NOLA and want to distribute them, leave a comment on this post.

CDR

Deadlock!

Here's my prediction for the presidential election:

Obama wins every state that Kerry won except for New Hampshire. He also manages to flip Iowa, New Mexico, and Colorado to the Democratic side. That leaves the race deadlocked at 269 electoral votes each.

I think I'm on pretty solid ground here..I'm not making this prediction because I want to see the 12th amendment invoked for the first time since 1824.

CDR

Vernon Palmer

After Larry Ponoroff issued this apology, do you think Vernon is going to return his Legion of Honor to the French Government?
Having read his text book on obligations, none of this surprises me.

CDR

Scalia's interview with Parade Magazine

In a recent interview with Parade Magazine Scalia said "when a society requires such a large number of its best minds to conduct the unproductive enterprise of the law, something is wrong with the legal profession."

I wish I knew this before I started law school.

CDR

The press does its job.

I want to thank WVUE for this segment last night.

Rarely if ever does a news organization so thou roughly dissect and refute a political ad, and my hat goes off to the local fox affiliate.

CDR

Enough?

"I don't care what they say about me. But I love this country too much to let them take over another election with lies and phony outrage and Swift boat politics. Enough is enough."

I couldn't agree more with what Obama said today.

Unfortunately, John McCain and the republicans aren't going to disengage just because Barack Obama called them on it. They won't disengage because this is the only way they know how to operate. And incidentally, voters have repeatedly rewarded them for their behavior. As much as we decry the state of our politics, we allow politicians to act the way they do because we like it. Admit it, you took glee when John McCain didn't know how many houses he owns.

The last eight years have taught us a lot about the republican party, but the one lesson we should never forget is that they have no shame. If they think something is working, they will stick with it, no matter how dishonest it is.

So what's the answer?

I think we need to hit them hard. There is plenty of stuff out there. We need to go at it- eye for eye, tooth for tooth. With 54 days to go, we can't "change" the game- we have to play it and we have to win it.

To paraphrase Gov Stanton, Abe Lincoln had to be a whore before he could appeal to the "better angels of our nature."

CDR

It's ok, they were for it before they were against it....

How can the same shit birds who brought us the last four years keep a straight face? In 2004, it was a cardinal sin for an elected official to ever change his mind, even over the course of a lengthy career. The less than subtle implication was that "flip flopping" was a sign of political opportunism and evidence that one put his political career before his country. You can read about McCain's mass pandering in other places, but I want to point out the biggest flip and/or flop of '08. It came in Sarah Palin's acceptance speech last week, when she said:

"I suspended the state fuel tax and championed reform to end the abuses of earmark spending by Congress."
"I told the Congress 'thanks, but no thanks,' for that Bridge to Nowhere. If our state wanted a bridge, we'd build it ourselves."

I guess she was literally telling the truth, because she first said "thanks" when it was popular to do so and then said "no thanks" to the bridge when it became unpopular (if someone has made this joke already, then I give them full credit). What I don't get is that the McCain campaign had to know about her record on this issue and they still put it in the speech. I wish this was getting a little more coverage.

I'd like to nominate Jon Stewart for the Presidential Medal of Freedom for this piece. He really made "an especially meritorious contribution to the...national interests of the United States, world peace, cultural or other significant public or private endeavors."

CDR

Gustav

I just returned from my Hurricane sponsored vacation to Florida and here are a few thoughts:

1) Contraflow- I have no idea who makes decisions regarding contraflow, but shutting down traffic on I-10 East was a major fuck-up. The storm was tracking west and many reasonable people chose to flee to the East. My co-pilot, Sophie, was able to navigate us onto a Mississippi state highway through Kiln and back to I-10 East, but many people were less fortunate and spent 12 hours or more on I-59. We listened to countless people call into WWL (whose signal almost reaches Tallahassee) to complain about the Mississippi Highway patrol not letting anyone with Louisiana plates off the Interstate.

2) Text Messages- The city of New Orleans text message service is a complete disaster. I signed up for it last year under the promise that it would send me up to date info in case of a "weather event." I got almost 50 text messages telling me about the impending storm. On the day Gustav made landfall, I got two messages every hour telling me that a "hurricane warning was in effect for Orleans Parish." Duh. But I didn't get a single message fron the city telling me the one thing I wanted to know: when can residents come back to New Orleans. Tulane also has a text messaging system which sent me three messages, all containing very useful and relevant info. Kudos Scott Cowen, Booh Ray Nagin.

3) Bobby- Repubs in La talk about Bobby Jindal the same way that Dems across the country talk about Barack Obama- they treat him like the second coming. And I'll give him high marks for his performance during Gustav. I couldn't help but chuckle over the fact that all of the plans for this storm were made in the wake of Katrina, under the watchful eye of KBB. Nevertheless, he executed it well. One of the key improvements is Jindal's ability to communicate. He didn't approach the cameras in a stupor and completely muddle through his multiple press conferences. Despite all of the debate over "executive experience," about half of political leadership is being able to communicate effectively with the public and Bobby has got that down.

4) Crab- If you're ever in Naples, Boca Raton, Dallas, or Houston, I recommend you eat at Trulucks. We had the Butter Poached Norwegian King Crab and it was amazing. It also has a kid's menu that is reasonably priced (unlike the adult menu).

5) It's better to leave late. We left at 4:20 on sunday and encountered very little traffic until we got to the Admiral Benbow Lodge in Chattahoochee, FL. By the way, the Admiral Benbow Lodge accepts pets and a night's stay costs about as much as a tank of gas.

6) Midsummer Mardi Gras has been postponed. However, a die hard group of about 20 folks participated in an unsanctioned parade from the Maple Leaf to Snake and Jake's to Bruno's and back to the Maple Leaf. It was preceded by a BBQ at my house where people brought over their perishables and threw them on the grill as opposed to throwing them out before the storm.

7) Ike- I'm going to keep the windows boarded up until Ike shows his hand. When is Hurricane Tina going to form?

CDR