In my last post I asked for a motivation for the terrorists who took over parts of Mumbai for 3 days. Then, on the Rachel Maddow show was the answer.
Richard Engel explained it all with maps and graphics. The idea is to draw the Pakistani army away from the Afgan border toward India which leaves vunerable the mountains where the Tailiban and others have been operating.
Rachel Maddow expressed concern the other night about whether or not putting so many Clintonites into the Obama White House was really change. She had as a guest, Malcolm Gladwell, who explained a theory I had not heard of before. Gladwell thinks that in order to get mastery of anything – playing the piano, writing, managing, etc. – one needs, on average, 10,000 hours of practice. So if we want cabinet secretaries and White House staff who can begin work immediately what choices does Obama have? He needs to turn to Democrats who worked in some capacity either in the Clinton/Gore administration or have experience on the Hill. I think we need to remember that whatever policies they carried out in the past, they will now be implementing Obama policies. Gladwell points out in the interview that the ideal would be a mix of neophytes and experienced hands. I will have to get a copy of one of his books like The Tipping Point or his newest, the Outliers.
I’m not as invested as some on the left in seeing him create immediate radical change – and I’m not certain what exactly that would mean. For me, just having a President who speaks in complete sentences is a radical change. Just having a President who can listen to various points of view and distill them into a plan of action is a change.
And we have the Clinton lesson of gays in the military as an immediate action which got Bill off on the wrong foot. To say nothing of the health care fiasco. So moving slowly is OK with me. I agree with Amy Goodman that Executive Orders can set the tone and it would be wonderful if President Obama’s first was to outlaw torture. A good message internationally as well as domestically. It is one on which even Republicans (who still deny they engaged in the practice) could agree.
Watching this segment on the VP Debate is well worth anyone’s 7 minutes. Maddow skillfully looks at the quotes Sarah Palin attibuted to others (and throws in one John McCain quote from the first Presidential debate). Maddow has found the quote from Ronald Reagan for example and puts it into context playing the actual quote. Palin’s nice speech about losing freedom with the Reagan quote turns out to be Reagan speaking against Medicaid. Did the McCain Camp really think that no one would figure it out? And the McCain quote from the first Presidential debate in which he said that Eisenhower left a note offering to resign if the invasion of Normandy failed – not true. And there is more. Check out this impressive job by Maddow. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032553/
This morning’s Boston Globe has an op-ed by Ellen Goodman reminding us that the Supreme Court, which opens for the new session on Monday is at stake in the election:
In the cold world of actuarial tables, the next president is certain to have one choice and probably more. Candidates for retirement are Stevens, the 75-year-old Ruth Ginsburg, and the homesick David Souter. That’s three of the four moderate and liberal justices on a bench that has made an art of 5-4 decisions.
You do the math. If Obama is elected, the court will stay pretty much the way it is. If McCain is elected, Katy bar the door.
McCain, who plays a maverick on TV, promised the court to the right wing. He told the women of “The View”: “I want people who interpret the Constitution of the United States the way our founding fathers envisioned for them to do so.” This prompted Whoopi Goldberg to ask if she should worry about being returned to slavery.
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2008/10/04/supreme_court_at_stake/
I’m pretty sure we don’t have to worry about a return to slavery, but we do have to worry about women’s right to choice and more executive power grabs with Supreme Court approval.
A lot of the Electoral College Maps have Obama at 264 – just 6 votes away. So he needs one more large state like Virginia or Ohio or Florida or Wisconsin – all states in which he is trending higher. On the other hand, McCain now needs all the toss-up states in order to win.
FortLeft 