Is Gen. McChrystal Irreplaceable?

It looks like that even senior Political Pundits are confused. Here is a note to David Gergen:



David, IMHO you showed very poor judgement in your recommendation about McChrystal on AC360. Coming from a Political Dean like you was especially astonishing. You said McChrystal was the best suited , nay the only one, to prosecute the war. Every reprimand no matter how severe will fall flat in front of the American Public and ROW. Letting him stay, because of the so called indispensability, will give a message to the troops that Commander In Chief is in fact the Pussy In Chief. In these circumstances McChrystal will be a terrible team player and will be in no position to prosecute his duties effectively. If he was a technician vital to national security such lapses may be tolerated -- but given his position, firing him will be the honorable thing to do for all concerned -- and absolutely essential to establish the authority of the chain of command.



There already has been a lot of speculation on whether Stanley McChrystal will be fired by the President or retained because of his indispensability for the Afghan war. IMHO the only question is what kind of a paddle will the President use to whup his sorry ass, before he is frog-marched out of the Whitehouse on his way to a court martial.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Professional Critics Miss the Forest for the Trees

The following letter applies to all the Pundits who railed against President's Oval Office speech with characteristically narcissistic silliness:


Hi Rachel,

Your segment with Ezra Klein on the President's Oval Office address was a complete departure from your normal rational self. Your guest did not do anything to add to the situation -- his totally asinine complaint about the President not mentioning Climate Change was partially corrected by you -- but your desire to agree with everybody got the better of you. Ezra the usual wet fish - and the saboteur reporter of the Public Option was just that - a wet fish. You joined in the chorus of blaming the President of not spelling out the details and in the process completely missing the big picture and the monumental challenges that need to be tackled.

It appears to me that the whole MSNBC crowd had a smoking session led by Keith himself. I do not know if Ed and Dylan imbibed of it with you all -- we will know tomorrow. Chris as usual likes the sound of his voice so much he has difficulty hearing anything serious unless accompanied by Kabuki theater. Keith claimed that President did not aim low - he did not aim at all. Poor President with Keith's head lodged firmly where the sunlight don't shine; it was impossible for him to aim for Keith's ears.Once the fog of whatever you guys smoked, clears your head, please watch the clip again. You will discover that you missed the President's challenge completely.

Instead of amplifying the message to tell its implications for the Senate bill and a call to arms, you were looking for details that need to be developed in light of President's challenge by the serious players. Do you think President Kennedy spelled out the details of the space plan or the appropriations that will be needed etc.

This was not only bad journalism, it was also a missed opportunity to explain to the viewers the role of all the players including the general public to meet this monumental challenge. I hope that the usually brilliant MSNBC anchors will rectify this error in upcoming shows by reporting on the forest they missed yesterday.

MSNBC Trashes Obama's Address: Compared to Jimmy Carter, 'I Don't Sense Executive Command'

Progressives Are Batting .500 in 2010 Senate Races: Make It .666 by Drafting Ted Kaufman in Delaware

Based on what I saw in floor speeches and TV interviews, I like Ted a lot, even though I did not get a chance to peer into his soul. :)
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Why 200,000 Americans will die by 2014

I was wondering if under the new HCR Bill the Medicaid expansion will begin right away. The answer unfortunately turns out to be no. It begins in 2014 same as other major benefits like the Exchanges, Subsidies and Preex ban. I wonder what is the rationale? Nancy Ann Deparle - Head of the HCR Dept in Whitehouse, offered the lame excuse "infrastructure for Exchanges gets setup over the next few years". Imagine taking four years to setup an exchange which is a logical structure - possibly a Website? Lame Lame Lame. Even this lame excuse does not apply to the the delay in the beginning of Medicaid expansion where any expansion in manpower can take place gradually as more and more people enroll.

Another disingenuous excuse is that the Pay-go rules require us to save before we can spend. This is weird because the budget neutrality is supposed to be achieved not year by year - but cumulatively over the next ten years. It is becoming plausible that a budget game in being played where 10 years of revenue generation is being used to pay for 6 years of benefits, just so that President's record as "No Deficit" Obama looks good. IMHO - it is a deceit to hide the fact that subsidizing the uninsured will not cost money. The right thing to do is to recognize the cost - and stop the 45000 deaths right away.

Unfortunately if all the public (especially the Progressives) plays along in this Kabuki theater, they become complicit in the fraud perpetrated against the very disenfranchised - for whom the Administration and the Legislators have shown their concern time and again. The Public Option disappearance mystery seems to be exposed in the article, [http://tinyurl.com/KabukiOnTheHill], which says: "It's all Kabuki theater to cover up the truth that President Obama made a backroom deal with the for-profit hospital industry that the final health care bill would not include a national public option." The big difference between the two Kabuki Dramas is that PO Kabuki was done stealthily, the Kabuki around the delay is being done in plain sight, thus making all of us complicit.

What is surprising is that the fierce urgency, the President and other Leaders expressed, of stopping the tragedy of 45,000 needless deaths a year as has vanished. The strategy appears to be hurry up, pass the bill and then just sweep this issue under the rug. Unfortunately there is not a rug big enough to hide this elephant and the Dem incumbents will find it hard to explain this situation during the upcoming campaign.