1.25.15: Loud, Local Purists

Where we should begin this week's column is with what is going on in Yemen and the Middle East, but instead we are compelled to comment about the beginning of the Republican primary season starting in Iowa with the American Freedom Summit.

We genuinely have a distaste for the fact that Republicans wrap their conferences in these patriotic names that are supposedly justify a false ‘more Americanism’ than everyone else. Prospective Republican presidential candidates were trying to out conservative one another, today’s panel noted. By that measure, it was a good decision on the part of both Jeb Bush and Mitt Romney not to attend this "Summit" in Iowa.

 

It’s ‘summits’ like these that advance a notion that we’d like to address and that is the idea of the religion of conservatism. You can't paint all Republicans with a single brush – we know this, but the base of their party is so purist and vocal that they exercise disproportionate control.  So things like this American Freedom Summit are really disappointing to Americans of all stripes. Republicans spending time trying to out-conservative one another is a waste of time.

Law professor and commentator, Hugh Hewlitt, on today’s panel, covered the summit and said that Common-Core education was talked about much more than immigration. The panel didn't discuss same-sex marriage, though it was between Chuck Todd and Mike Huckabee in their interview, and we’re sure it didn't come up a lot in Iowa this week amongst conservatives. The reason why is that immigration and same-sex marriage are viewed in large part by the majority of people in the country as civil rights issues. All people no matter what your sexual orientation or where you have come from should be treated humanely, decently, and equally.

On the other hand, the Common-Core education debate is more philosophical and political because now you're talking what information we impart to our children. Do we teach creationism or do we teach evolution, for example. Honestly, for us, this is the silliest debate we've ever heard in terms of educating our kids. Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee said that he agreed with the original intent of Common-Core, as it pertained strictly to language arts and math. He explained that when it extended beyond that, into the entire curriculum, that is where he turned away from it. 

In theory we agree with him, but we would strongly oppose something like creationism beubg taught in public schools in any state. That concept is based on a religious belief, and that religious belief should not be part of the public education system. To restate, the notion of creationism is make-believe and not based on any science. 

This is the danger of not having Common-Core education in an entire curriculum because outside of math and reading, depending on who runs the school district, ridiculous notions like the world is only 6,000 years old, which is scientifically untrue, can be introduced as if it is fact, which would be doing a disgraceful disservice to our children. This type of politics especially, conservative politics, is playing a huge role in misinforming school students in the United States.

This is the Republican debate because Jeb Bush, looking as if he is running for president, is for Common-Core education, which makes sense to achieve the goal of all American public school students to have a base knowledge in math, reading, writing, American History and geography.

Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rollins-Blake accurately described it as going against logic so that what they're saying does not stray outside of a very conservative way of thinking.  Most Republicans, again, are not like that; however most Republicans are perceived that way. And when it came to the topic of same-sex marriage, Tom Brokaw pointed out that Mr. Huckabee discussed it in purely procedural terms, and did not bring up the religious aspect of the debate. 

Conservatives, who are mostly Christian, understandably have a problem with same-sex marriage. Christian conservatives believe that marriage is between a man and woman; however, as you listen to Mr. Huckabee, he is very much about strictly following the Constitution. But the Constitution says that all men (and women of course) should all be afforded the same rights under the law. If that is the case then you cannot allow some people benefits of society while discriminating against others, benefits and rights can extend from taxes to visitation rights in the hospital to wills as they relate to marriage. 

Loud local purists, the kind that espouse a religion of pure conservatism, are no doubt damaging the Republican party by extension also damaging the United States. 

To say again, most Republicans do not want to be painted with such a brush understandably, just as most Muslims around the world do not want to be painted with the jihadist brush. 

Tom Brokaw noted that Pres. Sissi of Egypt stated in a speech recently that there is a problem with Islam, referring to the violent ideologues. This continuing turmoil in the Middle East will not cease and unless the governments of these countries can run their countries in non-theocratic ways.

Governments who managed to maintain peace under a theocracy do so by repression of their citizenry; for example as in Iran and Saudi Arabia. The major difference between the two is that you have an overwhelming majority of one denomination of Islam over another. In the case of Iran, people are predominantly Shia and in Saudi Arabia, they are predominantly Sunni. 

This brings us to Yemen, which was run by a U.S.-friendly Sunni government that has now been overthrown by Shia militant, backed by Iran. Yemen is quickly deteriorating into, as noted on today's program, is a Civil War between Shia and Sunni Muslims on the Arabian Peninsula.

White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough said the United States has to up its intelligence and continue its operations in Yemen and Syria; intelligence, by the look of what's happening on the ground, seems spotty at best. 

We found the interviewee, Ahmet, in Richard Engel’s segment, to be somewhat credible. It’s difficult to believe that he was not tortured so for survival purposes, when beating prisoners as he said, he is most probably bending the truth when he said he was forced to do it.  That doesn’t at all discount the validity of his statements describing how people in Syria and people in Europe were in frequent communication.  This is something not to be taken in any other way than with grave seriousness. Isis feels legitimized by the United States attacking it, and it would feel further legitimized by successfully committing a major attack against either a Western European country or the United States, neither of which can be allowed to happen.

In Mr. Todd’s interview, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar described these radical jihadists as insane, and not religious adherents of Islam, and as a political ideology.  We can wipe out ISIS militarily and we can militarily end these religious conflicts. However, as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar said, the dissension into hateful ideology (that has nothing to do with Islam) will continue because of the absence of one universal right – hope.

Panel: Tom Brokaw, NBC News; Stephanie Rowlings-Blake, Mayor of Baltimore; Helene Cooper, The New York Times; Hugh Hewlitt, commentator

1.18.15: Free Speech Isn't Easy

As Chuck Todd noted, we are 10 days removed from the terrorist attacks that occurred in Paris and since then Charlie Hebdo has published a new edition of its magazine; of course not surprisingly followed by mass protests in several Muslims countries around the world, and not just against the publication but also against the West.

The protests are due to Charlie Hebdo's new cover which depicts the Prophet Mohammed (a definite no-no for Muslims) saying, “All is forgiven,” and holding up a sign that says “I am Charlie,” a cover by the way that NBC and many other news organizations are not showing in its entirety. 

Protests against the magazine are obvious, but Muslims are also protesting the West because of the rallies that occurred in support of the publication. Those rallies are being wrongly interpreted as people in the West supporting the defamation of the Prophet Mohammed.  That logic is misplaced and misunderstood on such a grand scale by so many people, it is not accidental. There is no way that that happens by accident. Usually you only have to look as far as to see who profits from such conflict whether that be in monetary terms or populist terms and you'll get your answer. 

Democracies believe in free speech, and free speech isn't easy. People aren't necessarily saying that they agree with what the magazine says or represents, with the exception of it representing free speech. For those who are uncomfortable with the content of the magazine and therefore are reticent to support it, need to show a little bit more of a backbone and support it wholeheartedly (if you truly believe in free speech.)

We, at this column, do believe in free speech and we believe that Charlie Hebdo has the right to say what it wants editorially. Would we always take them seriously? Of course not.

However, given our belief in free speech we believe that you do have the right to see the cover and make your own assessment. Below is the latest cover of the publication, Charlie Hebdo:

This brings us to the interview with Charlie Hebdo editor-in-chief Gerard Biard, the main point you take from that it, and the comments from the panel that followed, is that free speech isn’t always pleasing, and again never easy. Mr. Biard explained that one of the philosophical tenets of the magazine is that religion entering into politics is wrong and should be challenged because it leads to totalitarianism. We understand what he's saying in as much as that forcing people to live by a narrow set of prescriptions doesn't allow for divergent opinion and oppresses it.  He also said that this perspective is applied to all religions and not just Islam. The very concept that he is explaining is a problem for people in many countries, and not just predominantly Islamic countries. There are many in the United States, evangelicals, that would disagree with what Mr. Biard is saying. In fact, in the United States, given that, many people disagree with the first amendment, which says that no law shall be made relevant to religion. Then there are the obvious Muslim country examples of Saudi Arabia and Iran whose governments are theocratic.

This is the debate; this is the conversation; this is not the reason to resort to violence. Another notion that comes to mind is that you have to ask, “How strong is your belief if you feel threatened by someone who disagrees with you. Sometimes, you can interpret anger as insecurity.  To not feel angry or insecure in your beliefs it takes a more evolved thinking, the deeper your understanding.

Reeling in all the esoteric discussion, we return to comment on what Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) had to say about the current state of the Middle East. Once again, he believes that the cause for all this chaos happening now is that President Obama made the wrong decision in withdrawing US forces from the country. Mr. Graham still believes that the Iraq war was the right thing to do, and given that base thinking, the prism through which he looks at the US policy in the Middle East is warped, and that’s because going into Iraq in the first place was a mistake. 

Sen. Graham explained that there should be a coalition force led by the United States on the ground in Iraq battling ISIS, training the free Syrian army, and essentially becoming directly involved in the Syrian Civil War, which does not exclude fighting the Assad government directly. What Mr. Graham is advocating for is perpetual war. Not to mention the fact that the American people want to see less military intervention instead of more.  Mr. Graham would tell you that sometimes decisions like this aren't popular but they are necessary. No, that is incorrect. We find it funny that based on Mr. Graham's foreign policy views he feels that he would be a good candidate for president, which is simply ridiculous.

And this leads us to ending this week's column on a lighter note, which is the notion of Mitt Romney running for president a third time being comical. The Wall Street Journal in an editorial asked, “if Mitt Romney is the answer, what is the question?” That says it all and the only reason for Mitt Romney to run for president, and for you to vote for him to be president, is simply to see Mitt Romney be the president. That's it; there's no other reason for him to be president aside from his simple sole desire to hold that office. There are so many reasons why he should not do it that it would be incredibly difficult to go through them all in any reasonable amount of time.  Too many reasons to count, however we would speculate that at least 47% of those reasons would be enough to persuade him not to run.

Panel: Michael Steele, fmr. RNC Chair; Robert Gibbs, fmr. Obama Administration Press Secretary; Kelly O’Donnell, NBC News; Carol Lee, The Wall Street Journal

1.11.15: 'Standing Together' Must Mean 'Working Together'

On a day like today, it's impossible not to note the significant action and significant statements, as Meet the Press rightly did. The action, of course, is the incredible million-person gathering in Paris in a show of support for all the victims of this week's tragedy, and for free speech - going on as we write this. The statement, which comes from the French government, is that they are at war with Radical Islam.

In his interview with Chuck Todd, US Atty. Gen. Eric Holder said that the United States is at war with terrorism and not Islam. Mr. Holder is a professional - he's very measured in his statements for good reason and though he mentioned radicals he purposely kept the focus on the terror aspect. We also found it very prudent of Mr. Holder not to comment on the French government's capabilities of what they could have done, what they knew and didn't know prior to this week's attacks. That's the right thing to do. As Andrea Mitchell noted later during the panel discussion, when Boston was attacked during the marathon, people rallied around the city and we didn't ask who didn't do what so that we can point blame.

To see the actions today of so many world leaders in Paris was heartening. French Pres. Françoise Hollande, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the president of the Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas, among many others standing together and walking together is what the world needed to see.

But what concerns this column, is the statement. We understand what the French government meant, but it's dangerous to simply say ‘radical Islam,’ for the fact that everyone's definition of ‘radical’ is different. Reza Aslan, the religious scholar on today’s program, defined Wahhabi-ism, the version of Islam adhered to by the Saudi royal family and hence the religion of Saudi Arabia, as radical.

By his definition that would mean that France would be at war with Saudi Arabia, but that's not the case of course. Does Mr. Aslan have a point? He does, and it is that Saudi Arabia has spent millions of dollars promoting this very conservative interpretation of Islam that manifests itself violently around the world, which is not shared by the majority of the world’s Muslim population. Yet they have the money and the resources to promote this, as Mr. Aslan had described. 

The statement rightly comes from a place of anger, frankly. And that's okay because it's anger at a double standard. The double standard that the French government that, the people of France, gave this person the right to practice whatever religion that they wanted to, gave that right to his family, and then he turns around and kills in the name of intolerance.

We fully understand the implication of using a phrase as ‘fascism’ but really what the French government have a war against is Islamo-fascism – a perverted interpretation of authority under the guise of religion.  This is exactly how ISIS is being described.  To govern by, “follow this religion and in the way that we interpreted or be punished or dead,” is not the way the vast majority of the world works.  Yet, it is what ISIS and Saudi Arabia have in common, as Mr. Aslan pointed out, but keep in mind the major difference is that the Saudis themselves, as a government, aren’t attacking the west like IRIS. Nonetheless, there lays the other double standard - that the west still does business with Saudi Arabia and looks the other way when the Saudis punish someone with 1,000 lashes because that person said something that angered a priest.  One could say that to stop the result of one double standard, you have to stop the other as well.

It’s simply a point, and we’re not trying to blow things out of proportion.  As the panel discussed, in addition to ISIS, there’s the more murderous Boko Haram in Nigeria. Also as has been noted the attackers in Paris were trained in Yemen, which has to be now considered an Al Qaeda stronghold. In the interview Mr. Holder did purposely adjust the previous statement by the administration. And that was when he said that the United States had decimated "core" Al Qaeda in place of saying “Al Qaeda” meaning all.  Either way, they are there and it needs to be confronted.

David Brooks said that commentary like what comes from Ann Coulter (in the United States) and Charlie Hebdo is “kiddie table” type of the stuff, meaning that their commentary is lowest common denominator and only meant to offend. He did note that sometimes it’s worth listening to those people, and it is good that they have a platform. This is typical David Brooks condescending commentary.  Mr. Brooks also said that a magazine like Charlie Hebdo would not exist in the United States because it would be labeled hate speech and closed down.

However, if you are publishing a satirical magazine, one that obviously has a readership, and you're trying to go about your day then all of a sudden two men with Kalashnikovs burst in and shoot 12 people in the office provoking more than one million people to rally to your cause, we would say you don't sit at the “kiddie table.”

As we said, it was good to see so many of the world's leaders standing together, but really we need to know that they're going to stand together beyond this day and work together for all of our collective interest.  Until that actually starts happening, and the hope is that today is the starting point, we’ll never stop the heinous, evil acts from reoccurring. 



Panel: David Brooks, The New York Times; Andrea Mitchell, NBC News; Rich Lowry, The National Review; Helene Cooper, The New York Times

1.4.15: The Semi-Permanent State

We’re a little behind today on our column for this week because we must have missed the memo – the one that said “Meet the Press” was starting a half an hour earlier than normal on the East Coast, the region from which this column is generated.

Our thinking heading into 2015 isn’t quite as optimistic as Senators Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Tom Barrasso's (R-WY) that they shared at the end of their joint interview. Call us a bit pensive, a little skeptical but that’s because  we have a wait and see attitude toward the 2015 Congress.

Why do we think it's can be more of the same seven abrazo gave us that indication when he said the top priority was to repeal the health care law. If that's their top priority then they're going to have a lot of symbolic votes, nothing is really going to get done, and we’ll be hanging on to nothing for another two years.

Having their sole attention on repealing health care would be a mistake, especially given this rough start that the Republican-controlled Congress is having.  Congressman Steve Scalise (R-LA),  part of the new leadership that's coming into the House at the beginning of the year, is a Louisiana politician - we would have to agree with Matt Bai from Yahoo News  - there is no way that Mr. Scalise could not have known that EURO (European-American Unity and Rights Organization) was a group founded by David Duke, and has a philosophy of white supremacy. There's no way that he could not have known that.

Senator Klobuchar actually gave Republicans very sound advice if they want to clean this up, so to speak, by going  ahead with the Voting Rights bill, immigration reform, tax reform - other things beside healthcare that would assist in endearing them a little bit more to minority communities.

The big elephant in the room for Republicans right now – what they cannot mention - is that the economy is picking up and it's doing well and it will probably continue through 2015. This is something that gives us reason to be semi-optimistic about the coming year. The problem we have is our semi-permanent state of trepidation because we don't know what Congress is going to do next that would upset that trend. 

Another key aspect of the Republicans’ agenda is going to be energy, and central to that policy is the Keystone pipeline. Our feeling right now is that we don't really need the Keystone pipeline. It is said that it'll create 42,000 jobs, which is a lot of jobs, but those jobs will be temporary and over the years it will net out to be about 21,000 jobs. Is it worth it for the potential environmental damage that the pipeline can do? Probably not because the job argument isn't a very solid one.  If the United States is to perpetually profiting from the pipeline, in a big way, then we could understand doing it. But, as it stands, the pipeline is going to be used by Canada to ship its oil to the Gulf to be picked up and then sold to the rest of the world, not the United States. That's not really a great deal for the U.S., however it will bear the cost of any damage done to the drinking water or our soil. This column does not consist of gooey environmentalists, however on this point practicality and long-term potential damage are two key aspects that need to be considered. We just don't think the pipeline is the priority that Republicans say it is. The only question is  - will the United States get a long-term positive from this pipeline, and to that we would have to say, “no.”

And speaking of “semi-permanent," there's the United States finding itself in a semi-permanent state of war. We've been in Afghanistan over 13 years and Iraq over 11 years. We still have 11,000 troops in Afghanistan and 3,000 now back Iraq.  One of today's guests Lieut. Gen. Daniel Bolger (ret.), appearing on today’s program, wrote a column about why the United States has lost the war. He said that right now we are in a salvage and damage control mode in both Afghanistan and Iraq. We were never clear to begin with what the definition of "winning" was. Is winning defined as building democracies in these nations that we've invaded? That is setting the bar very high for the definition of "win."

With regard to Iraq, we can't help but think of the strategy that the United States employed with Japan in 1945. The United States bombed Japan into complete and utter destruction and then we built that country, a country in which then became a democracy that we were friends partners and deep allies with ever since. Was that our hope for Iraq?  With Japan, it was a strategy that worked. However in Iraq, the weakness of different groups of people coming together to form a stable government simply doesn't exist in Iraq. Then you factor in rogue elements like ISIS, Iran, and oil dictatorships like Qatar, the goal that the United States has set for that region to have flourishing democracies in that region is a long shot.

With regard to Afghanistan and Iraq there are things to be salvaged. Whatever the government is in Iraq salvaging the situation means that there would not be an extremist government in power that limited human rights. With regard to Afghanistan salvaging means not having the Taliban take control of the country again. 

As far as damage control, we are frankly beyond the point of reconciliation there. The damage that has been caused by the United States's invasion of Iraq specifically is irreparable. The only real influence that the United States hats in Iraq is through the military. Culturally and economically, Iran exerts much more influence over the Iraq he government. In short, as we've said many times in this column, the invasion of Iraq was folly because it was motivated by greed.

These aren't full-scale wars anymore but we are in a state of semi-permanent war. The United States continues to fire missiles and drop bombs on our enemies even though we are winding down military operations in both these countries.

Given this state, there is reason to carry some optimism about the United States's foreign policy. As we've seen Pres. Barack Obama once our troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan. And we also know that Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) once the United States to move in a direction in which we intervene militarily in every conflict around the globe. Then there is former Sen. Jim Webb (D-VA) who was a Republican and is now a Democrat, probably running for president, who also doesn't want to see the United States on a perpetual war footing. So the glimmer of optimism is in the fact that there is bipartisan support for the US to adjust its military interventionist policy.

We've always said that when it comes to US foreign policy our congressional leaders should speak with one voice. With the state of things as they are a little bipartisan cooperation in this regard would go a long way.

Here's to everyone having a great 2015.

Panel: John Stanton, BuzzFeed Media; Andrea Mitchell, NBC News; Helene Cooper, The New York Times; Matt Bai, Yahoo News