5.17.15: Which Candidate Can Lead America's Rebuilding?

Just when you think you know what you're talking about, Jeb Bush comes out and has the highest profile worst week of any presidential candidate. In last week's column, discussing “Meet the Press's” ‘donor series’ featuring Sheldon Adelson, we had said that Jeb Bush seemed to be the safe bet based on what Sheldon Adelson was looking for in a candidate. But after this week, Jeb Bush may have really taken himself out of the running. We disagree with Chuck Todd when he said of Mr. Bush’s statements today that right now it is relevant but down the line not so much. We think that this will continue to be relevant throughout the entire primary season and it's definitely going to loom large in the first debate, whether Jeb Bush participates in that first one or not.

And the reason is because video exists. Megyn Kelly of Fox News asked Mr. Bush if he knew then what he knows now, would he have made the same decision as his brother, George W and gone to war. Jeb Bush, for his part, was prepared for an Iraq question but not phrased that way – we’ll give him that. He had prepared for, would you have done the same with the intelligence available at the time? We fully understand that he either misheard it or interpreted it wrong or somehow heard the question that he wanted to hear, but in our opinion, either way the answer should have been ‘no.’  The conservative-friendly answer that he should have given in the first place was ‘knowing what we know now, we would have not gone into Iraq, but four days later was plenty of time for other Republican candidates to attack him from all flanks.

With the exception of Jeb Bush, all the other candidates have Monday morning quarterbacked the Iraq War efficiently enough for Americans know where each one stands. So instead of ‘relevant now, not relevant later’ this could be the week we look back and say Jeb Bush took himself out of the running.

In the interview with Rand Paul, he didn't go as far as to say that we are better off with dictators in the Middle East, but certainly affirmed as much. Let's face it, we let the genie out of the bottle in the Middle East and the radicals killed the genie. The only thing that we agreed with Sarah Fagan today was that Rand Paul was asking the right question of Hillary Clinton, which was ‘knowing what you know now would you go into Libya?’

Getting back to Iraq for a moment, the reason that we had this Delta force operation over the weekend goes back to George W. Bush's decision to invade, as will all operations moving forward against ISIS.  We agree that the symbolism and psychological effective of this successful attack where Delta force soldiers went deep into ISIS territory, killed their chief financier, grabbed a wealth of information and captured his wife is incredibly significant… and incredibly risky. For the U.S. military to commit to such an operation, the CIA must have been convinced that knowing what this man knew was vital in defeating ISIS .If one U.S. soldier were captured the consequences of that would have escalated military involvement tenfold within a month.

Returning to presidential candidates for a moment and thinking about the foreign policy and domestic economic challenges that the United States faces, we examine the full presidential field of candidates - both Republican and Democrat. We don't see any of these individuals being able to significantly move the needle in a way that positively affects the lives of middle-class, and aspiring middle-class, Americans.

The panel today was absolutely right about Hillary Clinton in that she has not put forward a vision for where she wants to take this country. She's not out there answering questions we don't know what her ideas are. Helene Cooper she is seeing Mrs. Clinton making the same mistakes as she did in 2008, which is disturbing and has to be really discouraging for all of her supporters. That there is no alternative challenge for her is a major problem. And in terms of the Republican field, we look across the entire scope and don't see one individual that is capable of leading all of America - not just the Republican Party, but all Americans. We just don't see it.

It is beyond our comprehension that not one of these candidates has come out and unequivocally said that we need to improve the infrastructure of this country.  The United States has to reorganize its priorities and sacrifice to do this.  Since Republicans control both the House and Senate, we comprehend their wantonness to cut taxes, but there are so many tax dollars at the top of the chain that are not collected that could help this country rebuild its infrastructure.

A graphic on today's program outlined that most of the train travel in this country is done in Democratic states, making Republicans less inclined to vote for train transportation. This is ridiculous and divisive. Most train travel occurs in California and the Northeast corridor. The Northeast corridor is responsible for 1/5 of the economy - 20%. California is the eighth largest economy in the world. Yet, our leaders do not seem to understand the implication of those statistics, and the necessity of this public transportation. In these terms, they just suck.

The sad, end result of the Amtrak train crash in Philadelphia is Washington voices such as House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) rhetorically asking why we would extend funding for Amtrak and Republicans accusing Democrats of politicizing the issue. This was political as soon as it happened.   

What American people are really saying is that we don’t want it to be political; we just want better, safer ways to get around and nicer trains.  

Senator Corey Booker (D-NJ) is on to the right idea.

Panel: Tom Friedman, The New York Times; David Axelrod, fmr. senior Advisor to President Obama; Helene Cooper, The New York Times; Sara Fagen, fmr. White House Political Director 

5.10.15: Behind Every Other Industrialized Nation... Almost

Given the fact that some of our Congressional leaders have openly admitted to never using email, which is to sing nothing of social media, it's not surprising that ISIS has a more effective presence and messaging when it comes to social media in its initiative to recruit followers. As Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) outlined, there are ISIS supporters in all 50 states according to the FBI, and you can imagine that most of those supporters have been contacted through social media. She also explained that it takes 30 agents to monitor and follow a single terrorist suspect. Well, we hope that they can survey of more than one person at a time because if that's not the case then the FBI is in effect greatly outnumbered.

On June first, the Patriot Act expires so this month Congress will be debating the renewal of this legislation. Obviously the key sticking point is the NSA data surveillance. The bottom line there is no matter what law is passed, what amendment is made to that part of the law, and no matter what court deems unconstitutional the NSA is still going to collect data. That's all you need to know so you as an individual must act accordingly with this knowledge and awareness.

In terms of Meet The Press's constant omnipresent topic, presidential politics, what does this mean?  This brings us to two of the program's feature series - one old, one new.  In the 'Meet The Candidate' series, Chuck Todd spoke with Carly Fiorina, fmr. CEO of Hewlett-Packard.  As we've said before many times in this column, Carly Fiorino is not qualified to be president, but we will say that she  defended herself quite well when Chuck Todd grilled her on her record as CEO of HP. As Mrs. Fiorina described it, her firing was a board room brawl... that she lost. Look at it this way - a group of business leaders looked at another business leader running a company that they have money invested in, and came to the consensus conclusion that Mrs. Fiorina was a weak link and had to go. But overall, throughout the course of the interview today, we realized that Mrs. Fiorina knows full weel she has no real shot at the presidency so really her goal is an advisory role and or potential cabinet position in the cabinet of administration provided the eventual Republican nominee becomes president.

So if not Carly Fiorina, then who will be the Republican nominee? This brings us to the new feature series introduced this week on "Meet the Press" - The Donor Series focusing on the billionaire donors that enable all kinds of candidates to put their hat in the ring for the office of the president of the United States. Apparently, we have enough of these people now with high enough profiles that it is worthy of a whole feature series, and first up is casino magnate Sheldon Adelson. It's people like this who will at the very least decide the Republican nominee for president. From Mr. Todd's description Mr. Adelson is fiscally conservative but socially liberal which would indicate that he is actually looking for a candidate that more or less resembles Bill Clinton. Nevada veteran political reporter Mark Ralston said that the billionaire's criticism of the Clintons has been muted, not like his very vocal dislike of Barack Obama.  But here's the rub, Hillary Clinton the candidate is going to run way to the left of Bill Clinton's positions as president so with that in mind there is no way Mr. Adelson wants Mrs. Clinton as president and has said as much.  Mr. Adelson spent $100 million trying to defeat Barack Obama and still was unable to do it. This time around he'll be much more careful with his money not propping up hollowed out candidates like Newt Gingrich who was as a candidate all surface and completely no substance. Chuck Todd and Mr. Ralston, who is great for this kind of perspective, threw around names like Marco Rubio and Scott Walker. But as Mr. Ralston explained, Mr. Adelson wants to see how candidates perform first. But Rubio and Walker don't quite fit the bill for Mr. Adelson so what it seems he's looking for, to use his parlance, is a safer bet... Jeb Bush.

There's a lot of money on the line for these candidates who want to swim in the billionaire pool. What really hurts is that we're talking about a $3 trillion election and billionaire donors when in the last segment they were discussing the inability of families to afford quality child care, that mother's do not receive paid maternity leave, which is a travesty. In a survey conducted by the Save The Children Foundation, their index showed that the United States is number 33 on a list of countries that rank good places to be a mom. (Norway was number one.) That disappointing statistic was following by the ever too familiar refrain delivered by Mr. Todd that "the United States is behind every other industrialized nation" in terms of conditions for motherhood.  "Behind every other industrialized nation" seems to be a place that the United States has solidified for itself, maybe with the one exception of wasting money on elections. 

Panel: Matt Bai, Yahoo News; Kathleen Parker, The Washington Post; Ruth Marcus, The Washington Post; Michael Steele, former RNC Chair.

5.3.15: Baltimore and a Wake Up

Could the mayor of Baltimore Stephanie Rawlings-Blake overall handled the the protests, unrest, and violence better? Of course, but it serves little if no purpose to to Monday morning quarterback her every move, if you’re not on the ground seeing it for yourself. The only exception would be her statement earlier in the week, in which she implied that she would give ‘space’ to the protesters for destructive purposes. She walked back the statement several times, including on today’s program, but that was clearly liberalism taken one step too far inasmuch it’s good to give people the right to protest and comprehending why they are angry but destroying property does no one any good. Mayor Rawlings-Blake has seen her profile in the Democratic party ascend as of late, but disappointingly (but like most all of us) she has been better when she’s in control of her message, but not so good when she has to answer questions under pressure. That aside, it’s now the imperative of the mayor to bring the city back to healing and heading in the right direction.

For always giving answers that, in fact, answer nothing ever, it was almost refreshing to hear the Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH) agree with Chuck Todd that the violence that police have committed and discrimination that they've shown toward the black community is at a crisis level because it is.

But as it was aptly noted, no one can agree on what the problem is, but the ‘problems’ are systemic. NPR's April Ryan mentioned that a holistic approach is needed to solve the many problems, and that’s true but a good start would be first respecting that black males’ lives matter and then doing everything we can to help people find employment.  We’re strong believers in the concept that having a job instills a sense of dignity in oneself.  Author Wes Moore explained that the definition of what is a family has to change suggesting a network of caring adults from parents to caretakers to teacher that take an interest in children because the structure of the family has changed so much.  

Mr. Boehner said that if the problems that exist in the inner cities or simply a matter of money, these problems would have been solved long ago. But then some one duly notes that the United States invests more money into the Middle East for reconstruction and training than it does here at home, and whole thing just makes you shake your head.  Why it is that the one thing that everyone in the middle class and below knows is that it’s simply more and more difficult to get by because wages hardly increase.  It’s time that our elected officials start allocating more resources to our own constituents instead of into places where most all Americans will never go.

Everyone is hoping that seeing Baltimore on fire for a week will signal the beginning of the end of indiscriminant police brutality and inner city uprisings – for healing and change to start.  However, we’re afraid that this is only the beginning and that Baltimore is another larger lid-shaking bubble - one that has followed Florida and Ferguson and New York and North Charleston - in an ever more disruptively boiling pot.  This is Baltimore and a wake up.

Panel: Tom Brokaw; NBC News; April Ryan, NPR; Kim Strassel; The Wall Street Journal; Wes Moore, Author

On a lighter note… Ms. Strassel said that is not unlikely that one of the individuals declaring a candidacy for president this week could remain relevant late into the primary process.  Let’s hope her assessment is incorrect for all our sakes.  Declaring a presidential run this week will be Mr. Ben Carson, a brilliant neurosurgeon who makes statements so ridiculous on a variety of topics, you’re simply not sure if he’ll just say anything extreme right wingers want to hear or if he’s really that stupid about everything… except neurosurgery.  Then there’s Carly Fiorina, fmr. CEO of Hewlett Packard and failed senatorial candidate.  Ms. Fiorina did such a good job as head of HP that they paid her $19 million to leave, and since then the company has never really recovered.  At this point, it’s been forced to split into two separate companies to survive.   Lastly, there is former Governor and FOX News talk show host Mike Huckabee, whose first order of business if elected president of the United States would be to repeal Sharia law all together.