Still Studying the Swamp

Well, I've finished the Woodward and Ricks books from my list on my The Swamp is a Mess post. They have not much changed my thinking from that post.

I will say this, though. I'm pretty hacked off at Bob Woodward. I had doubts and questions about Bush, Rumsfeld and Cheney when they first started off on their military adventures. Both the lead up to the Iraq war and the execution there gave me great pause. The conduct of the Afghan war and the poor execution on hunting down Osama made me worry about these guys. However, Woodward's first two books made me think that I was be unfair in judging the Bush team's performance. Woodward convinced me to give them a pass for at least two years.

Now in his third book, it looks like Woodward is saying - oops, I made a mistake. I guess in those first two books I just accepted the White House spin hook, line & sinker. Now, I'm really telling you the truth. Unhappily, I do suspect that he is telling the truth now, but it's a little late in coming.

In truth, I can paint several scenarios that might explain what Woodward is doing/has done in these books.

1) One theory is that he simply wrote and published his books based on what would sell the most. When Bush is up in the polls, write flattering books. When Bush is down in the polls write a negative book. I hope this is not the case, but Woodward is certainly open to this criticism.

2) He really tried to do his best and was simply duped by the spinmeisters. In that case, it makes Woodward look like a tool and fool. If he was a Bush tool the first time around, then it makes me wonder whose tool he is this time.

3) Maybe Woodward's current book is either payback from Woodward or someone else. Maybe Armitage or Powell are hacked off at the lack of loyalty Bush showed to them. Maybe Woodward is pissed that Rumsfeld or others mislead him. Maybe Tenet is using Woodward to express his frustration. Regardless, the book can be criticized for being a payback. Of course that is due mainly to the fact that Woodward is trying to either take back the first two books or atone for those mistakes.

Regardless, I'm glad Woodward wrote this book. But I'm also pretty disappointed in him for having to try to undo the damage he did in acting as an apologist for the Bush administration in his first two books about Bush at war.

Moonlight Madness

We just got in from Baylor's Moonlight Madness event - the official start of practice for men's & women's basketball. The attendance was not great, but it is Fall Break and most of the students are gone. With it being Friday night high school football areound town, very few students, and the poor results for men's basketball the past few years I guess the crowd was actually pretty good.

I can't really comment a lot on the women because we didn't see them do too much. I thought Jhasmin Player had a nice shot from 3 point range.

On the men's side, we look to be very athletic. I don't suppose we ever had three 7 footers before. Dou, Lomers & Jari are big. Lomers is really big. All the guys have been working out. The biceps, shoulders, and general upper body development on all the returning players was noticable to me. We're clearly a lot better. And to me Lomers and Thiam were the best surprises. I don't know how much Thiam will be able to play, because he is so rail thin, but he is an incredible athlete. He's 6 foot 10 inches and plays like a guard. I think Lomers will be able to contribute this year. He's a big body, moves fairly well, and had a nice looking shot. Best of all, I thought he had pretty good hands. It was great to see Bruce completely healthy. I think we have a chance to be decent this year.

Wednesday at Ferrell

I had the opportunity to see part of the Baylor volleyball team’s match against the Aggies last night. I’m sorry to say that it wasn’t pretty. I don’t claim to know much about volleyball, but a few things bothered me. First, we lost. Second, it seemed like we got blocked at the net a lot. I did get a chance to take a short tour of some of the remodeled space down under the stands. Baylor just finished an addition to the Ferrell Center and that freed up some room underneath. It’s a bit of a maze down there, but the new media room looks great. Also, I got to see the new weight room with all the gear setup. I had seen it during the open house a few weeks ago, but most of the equipment wasn’t set up at that time. It sure looks good.

ARGH!!!! Undoing equations with rounding makes my head hurt.

I've spent much of the morning and the entire afternoon working on the Freshman Scholarship Calculator for the Baylor web site. The trouble is not in calculating the actual scholarship, it is in calculating the little hint on how to improve your scholarship or how to become eleigible for a scholarship. The combination of rounding and certain obscure rules, make this way more difficult than it looks. The 2006 version of the calculator has been up for months. Right now, I'm trying to finish up the last bits on the version for the 2007 year. Maybe tomorrow will be a better day.

The Swamp Is a Mess

I've been reading quite a bit in the past few months. It has been an interesting education and I'm sure many would find fault with what I'm reading. For the first time in years I am reading current non-fiction.

At the moment I'm reading the following books:

FIASCO: The American Military Adventure in Iraq by Thomas E. Ricks
State of Denial: Bush at War, Part III by Bob Woodward (I read the first two parts when they came out several years ago.)
The Mighty and the Almighty: Reflections on America, God, and World Affairs by Madeleine Albright
The Republican Noise Machine : Right-Wing Media and How It Corrupts Democracy by David Brock

I've finished these in the past eight months:

Conservatives Without Conscience by John Dean
Worse than Watergate: The Secret Presidency of George. W. Bush by John Dean
Our Endangered Values: America's Moral Crisis by Jimmy Carter
Against All Enemies: Inside American's War on Terror by Richard A. Clarke
A Pretext for War: 9/11, Iraq, and the Abuse of America's Intelligence Agencies by James Bamford
Whose Freedom?: The Battle Over America's Most Important Idea by George Lakoff
Blinded by the Right: The Conscience of an Ex-Conservative by David Brock
Take It Back: Our Party, Our Country, Our Future by James Carville and Paul Begala
America at the Crossroads: Democracy, Power, and the Neoconservative Legacy by Francis Fukuyama
The One Percent Doctrine: Deep Inside American's Pursuit of Its Enemies Since 9/11 by Ron Suskind
American Gospel: God, the Founding Fathers, and the Making of a Nation by Jon Meacham

And I have the following waiting on the bedside table:

American Theocracy: The Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in the 21stCentury by Kevin Phillips
The Greatest Story Ever Sold: The Decline and Fall of Truth from 9/11 to Katrina by Frank Rich

So where am I after reading all this? To what profound conclusions have I come? I'm not sure I have fully arrived at conclusions, but I do have some thoughts that seem to recur.

1) America is not comfortable as the world's sole super power.

2) Many of the ideas that have been kicked around (pre-emption, unilateralism, rendition, torture) are more appropriate for a true imperium. And the citizens of the US are not truly committed to an imperial presence in the world.

3) The conservative Christian powers within the US (and I am most comfortable being identified as a Baptist - who are generally pretty conservative in the protestant world) have managed to fall into a number of traps. And in my opinion, these include a lack of hubris; a remarkable ability to forget our own history as many try to force their beliefs onto the political and social structures of our society; and a foolish alliance with political powers that have agendas and modes of operating that compromise our Christian witness.

4) It is funny to me that from the very beginning of our conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq I have generally been and continue to be intrigued by the possibility of using a US military and civil occupation/dominance to impose or develop democracy in both or either of those countries. However, I also believed that such an effort:

a) would be very difficult, because we would not be greeted as liberators;
b) needed to be run as a civil/political operation where the military was used in a very limited role (winning over the people is the objective);
c) must be explained honestly and conservatively to the US people as a 10 to 20 year commitment;
d) had to be funded in a massive way that would strip other significant federal spending programs resulting in economic and other hardships on the American people; and
e) would be contingent upon a dialogue with and overwhelming support from the people. The American people do not tolerate being misled and they do not like long entanglements.

Telling them it would be short and simple when that was not accurate was a political time bomb..... which is exploding before our very eyes.

5) The marriage of conservative social values and politics via a disaffected conservative Christian bloc was a brilliant short term political strategy for the Republican party, but was bound to fall apart. If man is fallen (and that seems pretty certain), then no organization of ambitious, powerful men (and women) is likely to avoid massive values oriented meltdowns (see Mark Foley, Jack Abramoff, etc.).

6) The Democratic party is fundamentally bereft of leadership. Personally, I like Hillary okay and Gore is okay I guess, but where is the charismatic, visionary leadership. The people of this country don't like either of those characters and the Democratic party can't seem to mount an effective campaign to convince people to like and trust them. Mostly, the party just doesn't play in Peoria.

7) So, it is time for the protests... time for the independent and 3rd party candidates... time for the satirical folk songs, web sites, radio shows, etc. It's time for a Jeffersonian revolution. And unfortunately, those oft-times lead to their own excesses.

8) Worst of all, we are at a moment in history when the collective economic progress on the planet gives us a rare moment when we could cure extreme poverty in our time. Jeffrey Sachs' The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time lays out a compelling case for ending extreme poverty, but in my opinion it requires US leadership..... And we can't lead right now, because we're going to examine our collective navel while we try to figure out who we are and what we're doing. In 2002, we had the opportunity to make a choice - compel democracy in selected countries around the world over a very very long term plan or try to cure poverty and indirectly reduce terrorist threats also requiring a very very long term plan. In my opinion, we had to choose, because we couldn't do both. Well, we chose, and we've managed to screw up the one we chose.

So, that's where I am right now. More as I continue my exploration.