NOVEMBER 8, 2012

     The Washington Post story speaks of a small courtroom at a base in Washington state.  An Army staff sergeant named Robert Bales is charged with shooting and killing sixteen Afghan civilians last March.

     I don't know anything about the incident, but it reminds me strongly about a couple of trials I covered during Vietnam, or the massacre of unarmed civilians at a place called My Lai.  The number of civilians was unclear, but everyone agreed they were unarmed.  Men?  The lawyers would ask?  Women?  Children?  Babies?  The witnesses always said yes.  Some of the men refused to fire.  Most did not.  Lt. William Calley, the platoon commander, said, "They were all the enemy to me. They were all to be destroyed."  And they were, of course

     Calley was court martialed and convicted.  President Nixon gave him some sort of pardon and he vanished into civilian life.

     We'll have to see what happens to Sgt. Bales.  Whatever does, the stories remind us of a simple truth:  war is hell.

 

NOVEMBER 7, 2012

     Four more years?  Well, the voters said, why ever not?

     There are always some results that stand out.  One yesterday was the defeat of the Republican Senate candidate in Indiana, Richard Murdock, who said among other things that a pregnancy resulting from rape was "something God intended." The seat had been held by moderate Republican Richard Lugar, who retired.   Senator Claire McCaskell (D-MO) held onto her seat, beating Todd Akin who shared his bizarre understanding of female biology in cases of "legitimate rape."

      In a more general sense, though, the result seemed to be a rejection of a philosophy which a number of young conservatives have been pushing.  It calls for major cuts in the size of the federal government and what it spends.  Backers of this approach talk of killing "Obamacare," the president's healthcare bill.  They talk of replacing medicare with a voucher system.  No signs of great voter enthusiasm for that, though.

      In fact, of course, not much changed.  Democrat Obama is still president;  the Senate, still Democratic;  the House, still Republican.  Since passing legislation requires the approval of all three, the chances for big new legislation seem modest at best.

 

NOVEMBER 6, 2012

By this evening, or this night, we'll know.  For good or ill?  That depends, of course, on whom you ask.  "Tomorrow," Mitt Romney is quoted as saying yesterday, "we begin a better tomorrow."  That's if you voted for him and he won, of course.  Or could you argue...well, you could but he wouldn't.

President Obama campaigned, among other places, in Iowa where he scored his first big upset in 2008, beating Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, whom he then named Secretary of State.

It's a heck of a system.  I used to enjoy seeing the various parts of the country, though I never learned to love the plane.  Mrs Clinton by now must have enough free miles to vacation on Mars.

Anyway, well done all.  We'll be back tomorrow to congratulate the winner.

 

 

 

NOVEMBER 5, 2012

     The day before The Day.  Close, they all say, and maybe it is.  Exit polls will offer early hints.  If those polls--asking people after they've voted how they voted--are lopsided--Romney 58, Obama 42, say, the experts will probably call the state for Romney.  If the margin is close--two or three points, the experts will probably label it Too Close to Call until more real votes have been counted.  States' electoral votes go winner-take-all.  Whoever gets the most popular votes gets all the electoral votes.

      It matters.  Romney has come to stand for the radical wing of the Republican Party.  His running mate, Congressman Ryan, is one of its prime spokesmen.  If they win, look for proposals to dismantle Medicare, for instance, replace it with a voucher system, maybe.  Social Security might be changed as well.  Romney has promised to get rid of "Obamacare" completely.

     To do this big stuff, of course, Mitt Romney would have to win the presidency;  the GOP would have to win the House, which it controls now, and the Senate, which the Democrats do.

     Big stuff.  Whomever you choose, vote.  Please, please vote.  It matters.

    

 

 

NOVEMBER 4, 2012

Pretty close now, just a couple of days, and the American people will, as they always do, elect their leader.

The system's worked pretty well through our history;  there must be something about elected leaders.  There are the winners, of course--Washington, Lincoln, Roosevelt (Franklin) and so on.  And there are the so-so ones--John Tyler, say, or Franklin Pierce.  And there's even the unelected one--yes, we had one of those too.

You have to go back to Richard Nixon, a trouble-prone Republcan defeated by John Kennedy in 1960, but a winner in 1968 over Hubert Humphrey.  Nixon's term was troubled.  His Vice President, Spiro Agnew, turned out to be a crook and had to resign.  Nixon chose as his replacemernt the Republican leader in the House, Gerald Ford of Michigan.  The House and Senate confirmed the appointnent, as the law required, but there was no election. 

 
Things went from bad to worse for Nixon--workers for his reelection campaign breaking into Democratic headquarters and so on.  In the end, Nixon had to resign to avoid impeachment. Vice President Ford, unelected, took over and reassured the country with one memorable line:  "Our long national nightmare is over."

And it was.  Ford, most of us thought, was a pretty good president, though the country turned to a Democrat, Jimmy Carter, in 1976.

 

OCTOBER 22, 2012

    One of the lines George McGovern always used in speeches when he was the Democratic candidate for president in 1972 was, "Come home, America!"  He was protesting the war in Vietnam.  If you'd covered that war, if you'd seen all those dead young faces, you knew what he meant.  He knew; he'd been a bomber pilot in World War II.
 
     The campaign failed, of course.  His was one of the great landslide losses ever--McGovern carried just one state--Massachusetts, not his native South Dakota.  The winner, Richard Nixon, as president, withdrew the American troops from Vietnam.

     Big defeat for McGovern and the Democrats?  Yes, but it also helped change the party toward anti-poverty and civil rights programs along with opposing the war.  An influence?  Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton worked on the campaign.  So did Gary Hart and a host of others who continue in politics today.

     Food was a major issue for him.  He thought up the idea of Food for Peace and was, under President Kennedy, its first director.  He spent twelve years in the Senate and mostly worked in good causes.  

 

     His wife Eleanor, asked about the sometimes silly nicknames--prairie populist,  McGoo and the like--just laughed.

     Why not?
    

 

 

OCTOBER 17, 2012

They woke the president up for the second debate.  It made a big difference--real arguments, rhetoric that sometimes verged on anger.  It was good debate--fun, unlike the first one, in which the president seemed very passive.

And it showed, of course, that there are real differences between the parties. Democrats think the government should help its most disadvantaged citizens in areas like health and education.  Republicans think voters can and should help themselves in these areas with perhaps the aid of a tax cut.

People I know who watched the first debate mostly thought Romney won it. I haven't seen any numbers for this one, but I wouldn't be surprised if Obama won the second.  

 

And there's one more to come.  Of course none of them matters.  What does  is Election Day, in about three weeks.

I'm sure Queen Elizabeth and Prince Charles are charming, but I think these old American street brawls are more fun.

 

 

 

Editor's note:  Mr. Morton's lazy editor is totally at fault for this column's late posting.

OCTOBER 15, 2012

      Did the first Romney-Obama debate change anything?  There's been a lot of talk about how Romney won it, but a story in today's Washington Post may make you wonder.

     The headline says "GOP's zeal for Romney grows," but the poll numbers haven't changed much, suggesting that he needs not more zealous voters but simply more voters.  The new Washington Post-ABC News poll, the story says, shows 49% for Obama, 46% for Romney, adding that's "basically unmoved from...before the two candidates met in...their first debate."  The story doesn't say what the poll's margin of error is;  they are often around three percent.

     Other poll puzzles:  "…the survey portrays an electorate...deeply divided along partisan lines and locked in its views."  Two more debates are scheduled.  "Nearly two-thirds say they do not need any more information before Election Day and barely one in eight is undecided.  Even as voters overwhelmingly perceive that Romney won the first debate, the vast majority say their view of the president did not shift as a result."

    Okay.  We had a debate.  One candidate won but it didn't matter, so we're going to have two more.  I hope that makes everything perfectly clear.