Monthly Archives: May 2014

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Dewhurst taken down

They’re still counting votes in 254 Texas counties as I write this post, but Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst has been declared a lame duck.

He’s been defeated in the bitterly fought Texas Republican runoff by state Sen. Dan Patrick, a tea party favorite, hardline conservative, former sportscaster and all-around tough cookie.

Tea Party topples Texas lt. gov.

Bring on Democratic nominee for lieutenant governor, state Sen. Leticia Van de Putte, who knows Patrick well and is figured by many observers to be the Democrats’ best chance this year to crack the GOP’s vise-grip on every statewide elected office.

As I noted in an earlier blog post, I am curiously sorry to see Dewhurst’s political career end like this. I am pretty sure he won’t run again. He’s in his mid-60s and figured to be sitting in the U.S. Senate next to John Cornyn — until he got beat in 2012 by another tea party golden boy, Ted Cruz.

Dewhurst’s defeat suggests the tea party wing of the Texas Republican Party is a lot healthier than it appears to be in many other states. Then again, the tea partiers have pulled mainstream Republicans — such as Dewhurst — so far to the right that there appears to be little difference between the two branches of the once-Grand Old Party.

Van de Putte won’t roll over in the upcoming fall campaign. She’s tough, smart and is no one’s fool. Patrick is all of those things, too. This could be on fiery campaign.

I hope it brings as much light onto the issues as it’s sure to bring heat on the two candidates.

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MH 370 data might be wrong

The cluster flip — formerly known as the search for Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 — has taken yet another bizarre turn.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/27/world/asia/mh370-is-inmarsat-right-quest-analysis/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

The data that came from a satellite, Inmarsat, might be wrong — meaning that all those ships, planes, submersibles and people might have been looking in the wrong place for a missing Boeing 777 jetliner.

Holy mackerel! Can it get any worse?

Hang on. I’m thinking it might.

At issue is the data released from Inmarsat, which transmitted to searchers the possible whereabouts of MH 370, which disappeared March 8 after taking off from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia en route to Beijing.

The flight reportedly made a sharp left turn, flew back south over the Indian Ocean and then vanished with 239 passengers and crew aboard. They’re presumed dead. The search area has been modified, re-modified and re-re-modified.

A major piece of aviation hardware has vanished and no one seems able to locate it. I understand the difficulty of finding a place at the bottom of a large ocean, which is where I believe MH 370 ended up. What is harder to understand is why the information flow from the Malaysian government has been so, um, erratic.

I’m no beginning to believe the view of some “experts” — and I use the term with caution — that the discovery of the plane might take many more months, or even years.

No surprise there, given that the supposedly high-tech data taken from supposedly sophisticated satellite equipment might have been bogus.

Meanwhile, many loved ones’ anguish continues.

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Dewhurst a goner?

It’s looking like today is going to signal the end of a once-promising political career in Texas.

I’m still trying to figure out how it got to this point.

Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst has been locked in a form of political mud wrestling with state Sen. Dan Patrick for, yes, Dewhurst’s job as presiding officer of the Texas Senate. The Republican runoff is today and it appears — from my vantage point — that Patrick is going to win this thing.

That means Dewhurst likely is finished as an elected political figure.

This leaves me with terribly mixed feelings.

For starters, I grew to respect Dewhurst immensely in all the years I’d reported and commented on his activities first as Texas land commissioner and then as lieutenant governor.

He came out of virtual nowhere to be elected as land commissioner, taking office in 1999. He hadn’t held any political office. He was a big-time political money man in Houston, where he developed his power base. He ran for lieutenant governor in 2002 and won that race too. He was re-elected twice and then ran for the U.S. Senate in 2012 for the seat being vacated by Kay Bailey Hutchison.

That’s where the trouble began. He got outmaneuvered on the right by Ted Cruz, whose extreme views forced Dewhurst to seek to outflank Cruz on the right — which was virtually impossible. Cruz won the GOP nomination, while Dewhurst went back to work as lieutenant governor.

Now he’s in another likely futile battle.

My respect for Dewhurst grew as I watched him work the Senate. No one could out-detail this guy when it came to the nuts and bolts of legislation. He could talk both of your ears off with legislative minutiae. Indeed, he did that to me on numerous occasions.

However, in this political climate, intimate knowledge of legislation — and an ability to work with members of both political parties — no longer is good enough to stay in public office. You need to be a quick-tongued, fire-breathing sloganeer. That’s what Ted Cruz proved to be in 2012 and what Dan Patrick has demonstrated this year.

Dewhurst has tried to fire back at Patrick — just as he tried against Cruz — but he has appeared clumsy and unsure of himself. That’s not his style.

Patrick won the March GOP primary, but didn’t get enough votes to avoid a runoff. He’s only pushed the pedal harder against the metal in the runoff.

A part of me wants Dewhurst to win, only to demonstrate that there really is value in experience and knowledge. Another part of me is disappointed in the extreme tone he has taken in this campaign to try to counter the relentless attacks by his runoff opponent.

Therein is the source of my mixed feelings about this race.

I’m afraid David Dewhurst’s time on the stage is about to end. Turn out the lights.

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Pope emerges as peace broker?

Can there be any doubt that Pope Francis I is the rock star everyone believes him to be?

The pope, in a stunning gesture to two sides in one of the world’s most contentious regions, invited them to the Vatican later this year in what has been called a “common prayer for peace.”

Who knows? A real deal that forges a permanent peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority could be next.

http://www.bostonglobe.com/news/world/2014/05/25/look-vatican-middle-east-balancing-act/6axOcIrwLCjnbWMkQSpD4L/story.html

“All of us … are obliged to make ourselves instruments and artisans of peace, especially by our prayers,” the pope said after a public Mass in Bethlehem.

The pope is touring Israel, the West Bank and Jordan on a whirlwind tour of the Holy Land. He just might get more out of this trip than anyone in the world ever imagined.

At issue are peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority that broke down when PA President Mahmoud Abbas brokered a unity government deal with Hamas, the reviled terrorist organization that vows to destroy Israel. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ended the talks, declaring that Abbas cannot seek peace while sidling next to such a notorious terrorist organization.

Now comes the Holy Father. He wants to bring both sides together for a meeting in the Vatican. Abbas and Israeli President Shimon Peres have been invited.

“The time has come to put an end to this situation which has become increasingly unacceptable,” the pope told Abbas, adding that he was “expressing my closeness to those who suffer most from this conflict.” And who might that be? Some observers believe he is referring to the Palestinians.

If ever there was a time to pray for a solution that has evaded presidents, kings, sultans, imams, rabbis and just about anyone else with a semblance of moral authority in the world, this could be it.

Let’s hope Pope Francis I can deliver some pastoral guidance that helps end a centuries-old conflict.

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Hillary is too 'centrist'?

What a strange problem to have.

Hillary Rodham Clinton likely will run for president in 2016. The right wing detests her, which is a given. Now we hear that the left wing isn’t crazy about her, although she’d be a far better alternative to whomever the Republicans likely will nominate in two years.

Hillary leaves left cold

The way I see it, the former first lady/U.S. senator/secretary of state is positioning herself in a position to actually win the White House. By my calculation, that means she’ll have to reach toward the center — which by definition means she’ll lean away from those on the far left of the Democratic Party.

Does this remind you of anything or anyone? I’m reminded a bit of her husband, the 42nd president of the United States, Bill Clinton. Do you recall the term “triangulation,” which defined the tactic of playing both extremes against each other to craft a centrist domestic and foreign policy? My trick knee suggests Mrs. Clinton might be willing to perform the same sort of balancing act.

Will the left-wing base of the party find a suitable alternative candidate? There’s talk of Sen. Elizabeth Warren or of Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont who really is a thinly veiled Democrat.

I consider it a pipe dream if those on the left think they’re going to derail the Hillary Juggernaut.

The only possible way Hillary Clinton would appease anyone on the right would be for her to switch parties and become a Republican. That’s not a sure thing, though, as some GOP folks would concoct some goofy conspiracy theory.

In the end, the left will come around, just as the right comes around whenever the Republicans seek to nominate a centrist for president.

My own view is that centrist policies speak to what Colin Powell once referred to as the vast ocean of middle-ground opinion where most Americans find themselves.

It’s also a formula for winning an election.

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Let the man practice law

Byron York, a conservative columnist and commentator for Fox News, thinks it’s somehow the public’s business that John Edwards has returned to his first passion: personal-injury law.

Big deal.

http://washingtonexaminer.com/john-edwards-chasing-ambulances-again/article/2548894

Edwards once was a U.S. senator from North Carolina. He ran for vice president on a Democratic ticket led by John Kerry. They lost in 2004 by a narrow margin; a swing of some 70,000 votes in Ohio (out of more than 5 million cast in that state) would have elected the Kerry-Edwards ticket over the George W. Bush-Dick Cheney ticket.

Then came another run for the presidency four years later, the adultery scandal, the birth of Edwards’s daughter to a woman other than his wife, his separation from Elizabeth, who then died of cancer.

Edwards’s political career is finished. That, I submit, is a very good thing.

I personally don’t care what he does with his private life or his private law practice.

In fact, I would prefer he’d disappear from public view.

If only his notable right-wing critics would just allow it.

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Texas Senate to lose a giant

Texas Tech University’s huge gain is the Texas Senate’s equally huge loss.

Republican Bob Duncan is leaving the Senate soon to become chancellor of the Tech System. He won’t disappear from the State Capitol, as my pal Enrique Rangel writes for the Amarillo Globe-News. He’ll be visiting the Capitol looking for funds to keep the myriad academic programs and extracurricular activities going at Texas Tech, which is what a university system chancellor is supposed to do.

But a legislative body that benefited greatly from Duncan’s expertise and decided lack of showmanship will be a lesser place once he takes up his new job in Lubbock.

Erica Greider, writing for Texas Monthly, took note of Duncan’s reputation recently. Here’s what she wrote:

Duncan has been a genuinely superlative senator. When we were working on last year’s Best List, we crunched the numbers, and found that he was the most honored legislator in the history of the project—it was his fifth time being named a “Best Legislator,” and he also had an honorable mention and a rookie of the year notice. Beyond that, Duncan is the kind of legislator who illustrates the reason that we spend so much time researching the Best List. He’s not particularly high profile, and he’s not at all a showman. If you had watched every minute of proceedings on the Senate floor last year, you probably wouldn’t even have noticed him. And yet if you started talking to legislators, staffers, lobbyists, and advocates, you would hear Duncan cited consistently, warmly, and across party lines as one of the most thoughtful, trustworthy, and effective people in the building. As a senator, he’s tackled serious but unglamorous issues, such as the solvency of state pension funds; he’s also provided critical, behind-the-scenes assists to colleagues of both parties. An example would be last year’s equal pay bill. His departure from the Senate will be a loss for that chamber, because he’s been a real credit to it — because of the laws he helped pass, and because of the example he set.

What’s next for Senate District 28? Voters will take part in a special election that Gov. Rick Perry will call. They’ll elect a Republican from the district, which is a given in one of the most GOP-centric Senate districts in Texas.

With Duncan’s departure, though, the Senate is losing one more voice of reason. I have no clue who’ll take his place. Rangel has suggested that state Rep. Charles Perry, R-Lubbock, is a likely candidate to succeed Duncan. I don’t know much about Perry, other than he appears to be among the cadre of conservatives who seem intent on getting things done their way … or else.

I just hope the Texas Senate doesn’t gain a show horse who’s replacing a serious work horse.

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Miserable campaign about to end

I have to agree with those who have described the Texas Republican runoff campaign as one of the most miserable in recent memory.

Heck, it might be the worst in anyone’s memory.

The lieutenant governor’s GOP runoff between incumbent David Dewhurst and state Sen. Dan Patrick has devolved into a mud fest “featuring” the release of Patrick’s medical records in an attempt to imply that the Patrick might suffer from latent emotional scars from a previous bout with depression.

The attorney general’s runoff between Dan Branch and Ken Paxton has become a contest over which guy is more crooked than the other one.

The Railroad Commission race between Ryan Sitton and Wayne Christian has brought forth allegations that one of the candidates, Christian, is a closet greenie who’s unfriendly to the state’s oil and gas industry.

http://www.texastribune.org/2014/05/25/texas-conservative-candidates-ride-out-hard-hits/

The Republican Party is at war with itself. It’s the Establishment vs. the Tea Party. The Establishment has been winning statewide battles around the country. I’m not sure the civil war is playing out quite that way in Texas, where the establishment wing of the GOP has become just as conservative as the tea party wing. Watching these people trying to outflank each other on the right is akin to watching someone walking a tightrope over a bottomless abyss.

It hasn’t been much fun to watch.

I’m ready for it all to end, which it will when the ballots are counted Tuesday night.

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Silver lining in VA scandal?

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You know, there might be a glimmer peeking through the dark cloud covering the Department of Veterans Affairs.

It well might be that the still-growing scandal over veterans’ health care can remind Americans of why on Monday we celebrate Memorial Day and Veterans Day, which we’ll commemorate this coming November.

It is to honor the heroes who have died in battle and to put the needs of ailing veterans at the top of our national priority list.

The editorial link from my hometown newspaper, The Oregonian, spells it out quite nicely.

http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2014/05/put_veterans_first_this_memori.html

Memorial Day has become a time for backyard barbecues, trips to the park with the kids, watching sports on TV or heading to the stadium to see it in person. That’s all fine.

It’s also a time for reflection. Shouldn’t we take time to reflect on those who aren’t here to enjoy these activities because they, well, died in defense of our country?

As for the VA scandal, the revelations that have come to light should enlighten us about the struggles many of our veterans encounter as they seek medical care.

The president of the United States has made a solemn vow to get to the root of what happened at the Phoenix VA hospital where an estimated 40 vets died awaiting health care. Let’s hope he finds those answers and then acts decisively and promptly to correct what has gone so horribly wrong for far too long.

What can the rest of us do? Just keep our veterans — particularly those who are ailing and who depend on the VA to care for them — in our thoughts and prayers.

And be sure to offer a word of thanks.

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Obama got Syria 'right'

Once in a blue moon, politicians get praise from the most unlikely of sources.

Such as when an Israeli prime minister known for his hawkish views relating to anything involving highly hostile neighbors heaps praise on you for not using military force in a crisis.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — the hawk’s hawk — said President Obama was right to back away from his “red line” threat to use force against Syria when it became known that the Syrian government had used poison gas on its citizens.

http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-05-22/netanyahu-says-obama-got-syria-right

In an expansive interview with Bloomberg News, Netanyahu said President Obama offered “the one ray of light in a very dark region” when he backed off the threat of force. What happened next, of course, was when the Russians brokered a deal to get the Syrians to turn over their stockpile of chemical weapons.

“We are concerned that they may not have declared all of their capacity. But what has been removed has been removed. We’re talking about 90 percent. We appreciate the effort that has been made and the results that have been achieved,” Netanyahu told Bloomberg’s Jeffrey Goldberg.

Goldberg makes it clear in the interview that Netanyahu and Obama haven’t yet healed the deep rifts between the men, who he writes have a “famously contentious relationship.”

It’s intriguing, though, to hear Netanyahu offer words of encouragement for the use of diplomacy over military action, which is the course sought by Obama in trying to find a path to peace in the Middle East.

Indeed, when someone with Netanyahu’s experience battling next-door enemies who swear to eradicate his country speaks of the virtues of diplomacy, there ought to be lessons learned by other critics who have far less skin in this game. I refer, of course, to Obama’s critics at home who continue to harp on the need to employ “the military option” to solve foreign crises.

The Israeli leader has many issues yet to settle with the United States. For example, Netanyahu wants to continue building Israeli settlements on land taken during the 1967 Six-Day War, something the United States opposes.

However, the cause for diplomacy has chalked up an important ally who has an up-close stake in finding peace in one of the world’s most violent regions.