Monthly Archives: June 2014

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'Incomprehensible' to leave soldier behind

Secretary of State John Kerry couldn’t be more correct in validating the decision to bring Bowe Bergdahl home from his Taliban captivity.

“What I know today is what the president of the United States knows, that it would have been offensive and incomprehensible to consciously leave an American behind, no matter what, to leave an American behind in the hands of people who would torture him, cut of his head, do any number of things,” he said in an interview with CNN. “And we would consciously choose to do that? That’s the other side of this equation. I don’t think anybody would think that’s an appropriate thing to do.”

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/208598-kerry-released-gitmo-detainees-could-return-to-fight

The debate over Sgt. Bergdahl’s release is raging. I, too, have questions about it. I want to know if he deserted his post. I want to understand the circumstances surrounding his captivity.

We’ll get those answers in due course.

However, the notion that Americans might consciously leave someone behind as we wind down our war effort in Afghanistan chills me to the bone. Yet some of Bergdahl’s harshest critics have pronounced him guilty of treason — without due process — and said that a traitor should be left to rot.

It’s clear the Obama administration mishandled many aspects of this matter. It’s been a public relations nightmare.

The bottom line, though, is that an American soldier is safe.

If he did something wrong, then let the military adjudicate it.

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It's official: Texas GOP has gone mad

This idea might not be a flash for some folks, but it is to me.

The Texas Republican Party has officially flipped its wig, gone bananas, become certifiably insane by adopting a plank it its party platform that endorses the notion that gay people can be made un-gay by something called “reparative therapy.”

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/texas-gop-endorses-reparative-therapy-gays-n125471

The Texas GOP has concluded its meeting in Fort Worth. It came down hard on a lot of policy issues dealing with immigration, abortion and climate change. They disagree with Democrats on all those things. I get that.

It’s the idea, though, that gay folks can be counseled away from their orientation that simply blows my ever-loving mind.

I say this as a heterosexual male who never once — at any time in my life — decided I would prefer to be intimate with females.

And it’s that understanding of human sexuality that simply makes this Republican Party platform plank so difficult to accept.

Of all the gay people I’ve ever known or read about, never have I heard of someone choosing to be scorned, vilified, demonized, insulted, assaulted or otherwise denigrated because they choose to love someone of the same sex.

According to the Texas Republican Party, however, “reparative therapy” suggests that homosexuality is a preferred lifestyle rather than an orientation to which someone is born. The platform plank adopted by the GOP says that the party recognizes “the legitimacy and efficacy of counseling, which offers reparative therapy and treatment for those patients seeking healing and wholeness from their homosexual lifestyle.”

There you have it.

The Republican Party of Texas has slammed itself into reverse and is heading into the Dark Ages.

Amazing.

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AC honors living past presidents

One school of thought about naming buildings or academic programs after living individuals is that the institution doing the naming can get embarrassed if the honoree messes up.

I have subscribed to the notion that you need to take great care to ensure such a thing doesn’t happen if you honor someone who’s alive in such a manner.

However, Amarillo College’s decision to put two past college presidents’ names on AC facilities is far more than just the right call. It is an outstanding one.

AC President Paul Matney’s name will be honored by putting his name on the Mass Media Program at AC. Joyner, who served as president twice before Matney took office, will see his name attached to the auditorium at the college’s downtown campus. A third Amarillo College official, the late Louise Daniel, will be honored with her name being attached to the College Union Building’s third-floor meeting room at AC’s Washington Street campus. Daniel, who died in 2003, served on the AC Board of Regents and taught in Amarillo’s public school system for more than three decades.

I cannot think of three more deserving individuals to be honored in such a fashion.

As for the notion of honoring two living past presidents by putting their name on these facilities, well, we all can rest assured that neither man is going to do a single thing to sully the institution they served so honorably.

Putting living individuals’ names on buildings, rooms or academic programs sometimes comes with a bit of a risk. Not so with these fellows.

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Rain mustn't stop need to save water

All the rain that’s drenched the Texas Panhandle in recent days has filled our playas and perhaps filled residents with a false sense of security about our future.

Perish the thought.

http://www.connectamarillo.com/news/story.aspx?id=1052560#.U5RsK1JOWt9

That drought that got us all worried hasn’t dissipated. It’s still with us. Yes, we’ve erased our year-to-date rain deficit with all that moisture, but that doesn’t mean the need to conserve water is any less crucial.

The blog link attached here notes that local governments continue to place water conservation at or near the top of their agendas. It ought to stay there, perhaps even when — or if — the drought ever is broken.

Amarillo officials boast of the city’s 200- or 300-year water supply. The city has purchased a lot of water rights, along with the rights obtained by the Canadian River Municipal Water Authority. Two or three centuries surely is a long way off and none of us will be around; nor will our children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, great-greats … etc. Heck, I cannot even count the number of “greats” to factor in here.

The point is that we want the region to last well beyond the foreseeable future. Without water, survival is impossible.

Agriculture production accounts for the vast majority of water use in the Panhandle. Therefore, the burden is on the producers to do what they can to save water. The rest of us who want some water to irrigate our lawns or feed our flowers and veggie gardens? We can do our part, too.

Let’s not be lulled into thinking, though, that a good bit of rain makes it all better.

It doesn’t. Not by a long shot.

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Envoy posts: political payoffs

It’s not exactly a dirty little secret, as many folks know this already … but ambassadorial appointments are more likely than not going to individuals who’ve helped presidents get elected or re-elected.

You can be sure as shootin’ on this one: President Obama’s appointment of Jane Hartley as the next U.S. ambassador to France is going to bring out the critics who’ll say they’re simply “shocked, shocked!” that the president would pick someone who so darn political.

Another Obama bundler named ambassador

That’s been the custom since the beginning of the Republic.

Hartley is a well-known “bundler” who helped the president win re-election in 2012. Bundlers are those who go around collecting large sums of money from various interest groups and then contribute that money to whatever political cause or candidate they support.

I have no clue whether she’s an expert on France or whether she even knows anything about The Bastille. She is yet another in a long line of ambassadorial appointments that fall into this category of so-called “political hack.”

The vast majority of the complaints will come, of course, from Republicans.

I shouldn’t have to remind our friends in the GOP — but I will anyway — that presidents from their party do the same thing. I’ll cite one example quite close to home.

The late Teel Bivins of Amarillo served in the Texas Senate for 15 years before President George W. Bush tapped him to become U.S. ambassador to Sweden. Did Bivins get the nod because he was an expert on preparing pickled herring? Oh no. He got it because of his own campaign grunt work raising money and speaking on behalf of President Bush during the 2000 campaign.

One of Bivins’s top Senate aides actually told me at the time the president was rewarding the senator for “15 years of service to Texas.” Sure thing.

Well, Teel Bivins’s service to Texas wasn’t the reason he was sent to Stockholm. Hartley’s service won’t matter when Hartley jets off — once the U.S. Senate confirms her — to take her post in Paris. It hardly ever is the case whenever presidents make these appointments.

These folks are rewarded for their “service,” all right. It’s all politics.

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Shocker! Cruz wins Texas GOP poll

Boy, that’s a shocker … not!

U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Tea Party, won the Texas Republican Party’s presidential straw poll.

Stop the presses!

http://www.texastribune.org/2014/06/07/cruz-runs-away-straw-poll-gop-convention/

Cruz has become the poster boy for virtually all statewide GOP office seekers this election cycle. They want his endorsement, their pictures taken with him, sound bites with Cruz saying their name, pictures of him kissing their small children … you name it, Cruz is The Man if you’re a Texas Republican.

Perhaps the real surprise of the straw poll is that Gov. Rick Perry finished fourth. Perry is now thought widely to be considering another run for the presidency in 2016. He’s a lame duck governor and he’s not going out with a whimper. He’s going out with a whoop and a holler and veiled promise to keep himself available for speaking gigs, fundraisers and other things political.

The Texas GOP gathering is wrapping in Fort Worth. Republicans have good reason to be feeling giddy. They hold every elected statewide office available. One of them, Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Judge Larry Meyers, switched to the Democratic Party this past year and is running for the state Supreme Court as such — so he doesn’t really count as a Democratic statewide officeholder.

Our state Republican infatuation with Ted Cruz, though, is fascinating to watch. The young man has hit just about every Republican hot button there is to hit.

He kind of reminds of Perry in that regard.

And think, also, of the delightful contest if both Cruz and Perry decide to run for president in two years.

I can’t wait.

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Time for economic shouting match

The economic naysayers keep winning the shouting match over the state of the economy.

I choose to listen a bit more intently to the other side, the folks who proclaim the nation’s economy is doing better than what many Americans think.

http://money.msn.com/business-news/article.aspx?feed=OBR&date=20140606&id=17680783

The latest job numbers provide reason for the positive thinkers to begin outshouting the other side.

The U.S. Labor Department announced Friday the economy added 217,000 jobs in May. Unemployment held steady at 6.3 percent; there used to be a time when that would be seen as “bad news,” but in this era it’s seen as an indication that more people are re-entering the job-search market, that hope is returning.

The May jobs boost comes after an April jobs increase that was even greater.

Why, then, do the goofballs who want the current administration’s economic policies to fail keep winning the argument?

My own guess is that they’re better at shouting over the opposition than, well, their opposition. Just maybe it’s time for those of us who do not share the Gloomy Gus outlook to begin shouting with a bit more fervor about the accomplishments that have occurred during the past six years.

I’ve tried to make the point on occasion from my own platform. It’s not getting much run out there. Surely there are others like myself who believe in a bit more optimistic future than the other side.

So, to whatever extent I can motivate the masses who share that view, I’m going to shout it out once more from this perch.

The U.S. economy is in recovery mode! We’ve gained back all the jobs we lost during the Great Recession of 2008-09! It ain’t perfect, but then again, when is it ever perfect?

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Ike's 'other' D-Day message

We’ve been marking the 70th anniversary of the landing at Normandy, France.

On June 6, 1944, American, British, Canadian and other Allied troops stormed ashore and began the liberation of Europe from Nazi tyranny.

It would end in victory nearly a year later when Germany would surrender, ending the European combat operations in World War II.

U.S. Army Gen. Dwight Eisenhower was the supreme commander of Allied forces that landed in France. He announced to the world the fact that the landing had occurred and that the men were marching inland.

He had another message he never had to deliver. It was brief. It was folded in his wallet. It said:

“Our landings in the Cherbourg-Havre area have failed to gain a satisfactory foothold and I have withdrawn the troops. My decision to attack at this time and place was based on the best information available. The troops, the air, and the Navy did all that bravery and devotion to duty could do. If any blame or fault attaches to the attempt it is mine alone.”

This note is worth mentioning because it embodies the finest qualities of a leader.

Gen. Eisenhower was that man.

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No goodbye for Goodhair

Come on, y’all. You didn’t really think Gov. Rick Perry was going to say “farewell” at the Texas Republican Party convention in Fort Worth, did you?

Oh, no. The man dubbed by the late columnist/humorist Molly Ivins as Gov. Goodhair said, according to the Texas Tribune, said, in effect, “See y’all later.”

You know what that means. He wants to run for president of the United States in two years.

http://www.panhandlepbs.org/news/texas-tribune/gop-convention-perry-signs-without-goodbye/

Great! Just great!

Perry did a thorough job of embarrassing himself and the state he governs in 2011 while running briefly for the 2012 GOP presidential nomination. He didn’t make it to the first contest, the Iowa caucus, before dropping out. He had that infamous “oops” moment when he couldn’t identify all the federal agencies he’d cut if he were elected president.

He performed badly in other GOP joint appearances with the other candidates.

Perry called it off, came back to Texas and resumed his day job, which he’s held longer than anyone else in Texas history.

He’s sought to rehabilitate himself, his image, his message, his demeanor … the whole thing.

Many Texans still know him — fondly and not-so-fondly — as Gov. Goodhair, thanks to Miss Molly’s timeless description.

I’ll just add this little anecdote, which I heard countless times from quite a few Texas Panhandle Republicans as Goodhair ran for president two years ago.

A lot of ’em told me they wanted Perry elected president — just so they could get him out of Texas.

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'Think of these men'

Presidents of the United States often are called upon to pay tribute to their forebears, the people who made it possible — to a large degree — for them to hold the office they occupy.

President Reagan stood on a bluff overlooking Normandy’s Omaha Beach in 1984 to salute “the boys of Pointe du Hoc,” the U.S. Army Rangers who scaled the cliffs on June 6, 1944 to assault Nazi machine gun posts while launching the greatest amphibious assault in world history.

Today, one of President Reagan’s successors, President Obama, reminded the world of the courage of those men who stormed ashore that day 70 years ago, “wave after wave” of men seeking to liberate people “they had never met.”

“When you lose hope,” he said today in commemorating that monumental day, “think of these men.”

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/208446-obama-americas-claim-written-on-d-day

Indeed, cynics everywhere should think of what those men did that day — and what they had done for years prior and what they would do for another year after that landing.

Maybe a little reflection might wash away some of that cynicism.

Those brave young men saved the world from tyranny.

What’s left to say to those who are left?

Thank you.