John McCain in Syria

John McCain in Syria: How Much Damage?

The Americans sent this old guy to give us the guns?

Now, meddling in foreign affairs for fun and profit is nothing new on the American scene, but Grampy's meddling supersedes even the most outlandish previous cases.  While it may be attractive to simply gloss over this latest embarrassing escapade with a jaundiced eye lubricated by some comforting political stoicism, making every effort to forget it as quickly as possible, that approach may lead us to take things too lightly.

The Senator's "visit to the war zone" is neither the innocent meandering of a man already far too long in the tooth for such things decades ago nor is it some arcane, yet rational, speck of a larger foreign policy picture.  The old war bird's fantasy of the fame and fortune from "cutting through the red tape" probably did some serious damage to our nation's long term strategy.

The Senator with ACTUAL Syrian rebels (image source)

We have to try to put ourselves in the minds of the Free Syrian Army rebels he met there.  

"If this US Senator doesn't take the US Secretary of State's efforts seriously, why should we?  Further, although John McCain met with us, what exactly does that mean?  In fact, does it mean anything?"

The domestic corporate media has been relentlessly repeating the old line from their criticism of the Libyan strategy.  Clearly, once again, the media has been ordered to plunge the American public opinion into a permanent "no exit" quandary about whom it is we're getting ready to help with our military intervention.

After all, when interpreted from the manipulative view of information challenged, isolationist nut rights, the US has "backed the wrong horse" in every interventionist military adventure since President Reagan funnelled ship loads of Sidewinder anti-aircraft missiles to the Afghan mujadiheen fighting the Soviets in 1992.  The short term policy worked out well enough, but as an historic aside -- unanticipated consequence-wise, of course -- we wound up with Osama bin Laden and the Al Qeada armed with high tech rockets which could shoot down an air liner.

Since then we've been "officially worried" about just where all those leftover missiles went after the Soviets left.

In their unending effort to sabotage and undercut the Obama Administration with every tool possible, the "mouth junk" pundits and the media have transformed that old Reagan error into an perpetual source of threat on every possible occasion since then. We are now accustomed to always hearing the same lament.  "Who are we helping?  Does anyone really know?  Are they like us?  Will they be our friends after this is done, or will they become enemies, using the weapons we gave them against us? And, do they happen to have any oil?"

In a failed media climate rife with such synthetic -- "two sides to everything, I'm afraid we'll have to leave it there" -- heavily manipulated artificialities and where network reporting credibility is already, quite deservedly, at a disastrous all time low, the predictable onslaught of the same fear grinding, overly simplified, uncertainty provoking bias is inevitable.  As US educational outcomes have plummeted, the task of cranking out mindless narcotic media propaganda has grown easier and easier.

If you break a sweat terrorizing a third grader, you're doing it wrong.

All this would be little more than "waxing philosophically" if we actually had any real reporting or real information about which Syrians are fighting Assad, but, of course, we don't.  We're "flying blind."  As usual.

This is exactly what makes Syria dangerous for us.  This is exactly what makes John McCain's bloodthirsty, maverick "foreign policy habits" such a problem.

MeanMesa is convinced that American intervention in Syria is both quite probably inevitable, quite probably necessary and also quite probably "doable." [There will be a follow up MeanMesa post of this side of the story in a few days.] There will no part of such a solution which legitimately serves personal aggrandizement such as the "temptation served" with McCain's reckless visit. There will be no part illegitimately providing more mindless "cannon fodder" for further inflaming the fickle GOP base. There will be no part resembling the comic book imaginings of the uninterested, uninformed and indulgently angry Republican Party House and Senate tea bags.

In other words, the nation will have to set aside its induced appetite for "red meat terror" and try to actually think.  The stakes are high.

While notably oily tea bag Republican opportunists in bad ties fight for imaginary advances in their now corpse-like poll ratings, the rest of the world -- including all the parties to the Syrian violence -- are up to their necks in the "real."

John McCain in Syria: The Geriatric War Starter

Oh Grampy...Not Again

McCain has been perpetually plagued by an unsettling combination of a decades old, gnawing failure to meet [the "daddy" Admiral's and the "grandaddy" Admiral's] fatherly expectations,  a thoroughly road weary claim of some sort of still unrecognized 1950's military strategic expertise and a heartbreaking, embarrassing panic with the prospect of finally being sent out to pasture with the other bald, irrelevant, aging Republican war mongers. 

Eternally ensconced in a political party which has yet to acknowledge a string of lost elections, the Senator continues to insist that the entire Obama Administration can be painlessly dispatched -- "out of hand" -- as nothing more than trailer park interlopers while he continues to represent the "real thing." Meanwhile, aside from his constant media companion, "Southern Belle" Lindsay Graham, Senate Republicans -- always far more interested in money than fame -- simply wish that he would quietly go away.

MeanMesa has posted about John McCain before.  He graduated 898th out of 900 from his class at Annapolis, wrecked four Navy jets during his training, was suspected of involvement in the fire aboard air craft carrier Forrestal, flew a 32 minute combat bombing sorty [For which he received 28 Navy citations -- just under one per minute.  In the Navy being "connected" helps.] over Viet Nam before he was shot down and imprisoned as a POW for 5 1/2 years.  In case you've managed to forget the painful Presidential election flop, review McCain's record here..

However, on a more serious note, the man has an unusually dangerous infatuation with the prospect being labelled a "maverick," and we're not talking Tom Cruise in Top Gun.

Gosh.  Were promises being made? (image source)

The Senator's ineffective, yet dramatic visit to the Syrian opposition casts a dismal shadow in its similarity to his "visit" with Georgian President Saakashvilli mere days prior to that little country's initiation of a disastrous military clash with the Russian Federation over Issetia.  While on these little amateur excursions into grown up land, the Senator is quite close mouthed about the details of promises made, but the rest of us "little people" get to see, later on, the wildly coincidental, yet sickeningly suspicious, mayhem which follows.

MeanMesa is afraid that Grampy has done it again.

McCain was sabre rattling at an even higher volume than usual for US military involvement in Syria immediately before and after the trip.  McCain's war mongering is still a favorite for Americans who are certain that, somehow, he defeated Obama in the 2008 election.  The old Senator can be counted on to "spice up" the otherwise moribund network talk shows and "news specials" along with the other painfully repetitive, mundane media products bellowing out of our televisions.

In fact, because the domestic media is controlled by the same corporate  interests which control the Republican Party, the Senator is exposed to so much air time that MeanMesa wonders when he has time for the little boys' room.

The grand pitch was that McCain's expertise in "handling" the Syrian rebels might have paved the way for Senate approval of the expected Administration decision to start providing arms.  However, we all know enough to assume that should the Senate ever have even a small chance to muddy such a decision, the Republican Senators will almost certainly filibuster faster than a heifer's tail shoos away a gnat.

This is a tough one for them.  The possibility of another money making war for their billionaire sponsors is tugging at their hearts from one direction while their phobic, pathological terror at participating, no matter how innocuously, in any successful policy originating with the President sends them screaming in the opposite direction.  They are still sulking over Obama's success with American involvement in Libya.

Of course, a rational American foreign policy now lays like a flayed corpse in the Senate chamber, unattended, forlorn, disgraced and pointedly avoided.  

A very loud but dwindling minority of American voters dares to presume that this nonsense can go on forever.  Their House Representatives are, at this moment, passing another one of their famous "no choice" anti-abortion bills while Syria burns.

Visit MeanMesa for more posts about Syria very soon.

The Senate Republicans After Health Care Passage

MeanMesa Asks:  
"How are the Grand Old Party Patriots (GOPPs) handling the passage of the 
Health Care Reform Bill?"

Uh, not very well, it seems.

Aside from getting every dirty shirt Attorney General from all the "down south somewhere" states to immediately file an attack of frivolous Constitutional law suits as they try to block health care for the poor, the Senate Republicans, in yet another of their  zombie-like 100% tantrums, have invoked an ancient Senate Rule to stop all work every afternoon at 2 PM.  What exactly does this mean, and what exactly are they doing?

How the Senate Usually Works

Senate business starts at noon.  Of course, Senators are in their offices earlier than than receiving campaign contributions from their, uh, friends, but activities such as the famous Senate "debates," votes and committee hearings all begin at noon.  At 2 PM, two hours later, the Senate is required to act to extend the day's working session on through the afternoon by passing a quick unanimous consent vote to keep going.

If the unanimous consent vote fails, the Senate stops for the day.  And, this "stoppage" isn't limited to the dry cereal pablum we might see on C-Span. either. It extends to everything the Senate is doing.  When the nation is stuck in two worthless wars, an economic meltdown and the mindless diplomatic crises left over from the autocracy, the Senate is, well, expected to be doing something for the American people all afternoon everyday.

That would be, "doing something" for longer than two hours each week day that the Senate is in session.

The average (rough) annual salary for a Senator is around $175,000.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Senate

What's Going On Now

The Senate Republicans, once again manifesting their creepy "to a man" lockstep, are refusing to pass the unanimous consent every day.  This can be best understood by the threat that  Grandpappy McCain spouted out the day after the health reform bill passed.  His "pissy" little snit basically said that the Republicans would do everything they could to stop all work which might help the Democrats win the midterm elections in November.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/24/gop-senators-refusing-to_n_511639.html

Now, this might sound like simply another little "burp" from the petulant children inhabiting the reactionary chairs on the Senate floor -- you know, just more politics as usual.  However, when MeanMesa looks at some of the stuff that will be "clogging up the drain" because of this maneuver, we see more than an innocent blob of our teen aged daughter's bleach-blond hair and chewing gum.

To bring home the paradox, an example will be helpful.

The Example

Senate Republicans Are Willing to Sabotage Afghanistan for Political Gains

This would be the heartbreaking story of "hearings."  Just about all the important stuff the Senate ever does begins with "hearings." Perhaps everyone can remember the famous "hearings" that Senator Baucus held while he was carefully negotiating away everything Americans wanted in the health care reform debate.

Although many of these Seante hearings would normally be going on in the afternoon sessions -- that is, committee meetings which might occur after 2 PM on a normal day before the Republicans began this scheme -- are effectively castrated by the lack of these unanimous consent votes, we can look at a specific example for an explanation of exactly why this latest reactionary move is so lethal.

One of the many hearings which have been scheduled for months was an examination of the corruption in the US policy of training Afghan police. 

Thanks to the Republican idea that everything of value either has to do with more campaign contributions or winning the next election by inflaming the information challenged voters -- almost never for the good of the people or the country -- this police training operation is mired in an abyss of worthless, crooked, no-bid contractors who are not only sucking boatloads of tax dollars out of our Treasury, but, while doing that, are also really pissing off the Afghans and not really creating many well trained Afghan policemen.

This long scheduled committee hearing was to get to the bottom of this little "stink hole."  Some Democratic Senators were convinced that this was something they could definitely improve -- beginning with this Senate Committee hearing, then going forward for a later floor vote on the corrective action to be taken.

Military commanders from around the world, State Department officials in charge of this operation, Defense Department big-wigs and other folks were scheduled to testify in this hearing.  For a moment, it looked very much like the problem was finally going to receive the attention it deserved from the Senators involved.

Ooops!  The hearing is cancelled.  It was, unhappily, scheduled for after 2PM, and, as such, fell under the "knife" of the Senate Republican tantrum.  If you, as a MeanMesa visitor find this troubling, remember that all sorts of other things have been cancelled, too!

This sort of drunken Senate rule banging is left over from a previous age.  MeanMesa has been watching the Senate do such things for decades.  Forty or fifty years ago a scandal such as this would have hardly raised an eyebrow.  During those happier times, the country was fat with prosperity, honor and determination -- the Senate would not have dared such a selfish, childish maneuver under Ike or LBJ.  But, here we are...

Read more at the following links.

from Think Progress:

http://thinkprogress.org/2010/03/23/senate-unanimous-consent/

and from True/Slant:

http://trueslant.com/johnknefel/2010/03/24/gop-wont-work-past-2-pm-because-naptime-is-important/

Talk to your neighbors, your family, your butcher, your barber -- well, you get the idea.  The neo-cons truly believe that this approach is going to lead them to a landslide victory in the midterm elections.  Do we really approve of such a ill-considered and self-serving political tactic when it both endangers the American troops which are in Afghanistan now, threatens the success of the strategy of the President and dishonors the blood our country has already invested there?

All while Senators such as Grandpa McCain, a failed war monger himself, try to claim the "higher ground" as military violence experts?

We have to make sure that doesn't happen.  Neither we nor the nation can afford for these "throwbacks" to cause even more wreckage and be rewarded for it with re-election in November.\

The time to start is NOW.

Obama Can "Bore Through" "Drill Now"

The Strategy of Chaotic Misinformation:
Manipulating Energy Problem Definitions with Contradictory Reporting

Summary:
This article describes a new policy proposal made within the Obama Campaign in response to the McCain “Drill Now” attack strategy. This proposal calls for the creation of a new, Congressionally sponsored bureaucracy to independently provide and communicate reliable information to voters on current energy, environmental and economic issues. The purpose of this new entity, proposed here as a GSE, is to eliminate contradictory or motivated assessments of problem definition; to introduce a reliable source of information and research to factually define problems; and, to make policy debates center on problem solution rather than contentious views of problem definition.

(A more complete presentation of this proposal can be seen in a larger discussion titled “Managing Global Warming Solutions.” June, 2008. This blog. )

I. Capitalizing on McCain’s “Drill Now” Attack
Converting Its Negatives to an Obama Opportunity

The McCain campaign has fabricated a dominant position by extracting all details from Obama’s willingness to compromise. Absent the conditional arguments of the bipartisan energy bill, that is, when events are expressed exclusively as a change in policy on the part of Obama, McCain has insinuated a superior “trustability,” “common sense” and “experience” position with this presentation. McCain’s advantage relies on his simplistic version. His representation of only highly edited parts of the larger matter has been accepted as highly credible.

McCain Strategy:
Separate the drilling issue from the energy legislation issue.
Characterize Obama willingness to go bipartisan as flip flop.
Suppress logical details which differentiate McCain’s position from Obama’s.

It is further energized by the complicated nature of the counter argument. Obama cannot introduce a compelling explanation to limit the McCain attack without introducing complex political and “oil” technical specifics beyond the interest/reception level of the voters influenced by the McCain strategy.

The material liability to the Obama position is a reinforcement of latent mistrust. He is trapped in a manipulated policy response cycle exaggerated by the negative connotation of “flip-flop.” There is no tactical advantage possible for Obama from this position in the response cycle.

II. McCain Exploits Existing Voter Uncertainty
He Drives Home His Advantage with an Overly Simple Proposition

The public fears being exploited, misled or humiliated by some aspect of the energy crisis. Consequently, contradictory inflammatory argument structures can mobilize opinion while constantly keeping the same opinion off balance and fearful (never confidently materialized). The result is more akin to a ping pong game than an educational effort. This is the optimum environment for those seeking to advance unexamined solutions which will sustain or improve their advantage for profits and low regulation of their activities -- or establishing negatives for Obama.

McCain Strategy:
Voters have no access to reliable information countering McCain’s “drill now.”
Voters are not prepared to take chances based on their own technical information.
Intentional effort to make new technical information consistently risky, contradictory.

One important foundation of the McCain position is to deny the public access to any credible information. Every proposition regarding the “drill now” position’s validity is presented by less than credible sources in contradiction to other less than credible sources. Media presentation of factual data is sabotaged by a preconceived (implied) suggestion that it is too complicated to understand. McCain considers this a stable (logical) asset given that voter interest or confidence in opposing views is low.

McCain’s position has been simplified to present a compelling emotional confidence. To the electorate it is understandable, even if the details remain undefined. When no one can be trusted, the simplest argument may as well be adopted. McCain correctly targeted this. The voter has no immediate incentive to attempt a more complex (accurate) understanding if none of the foundational arguments introduced to support it evoke any more confidence than the one it replaces.

McCain Strategy:
Invite voters to accept oversimplified “drill now” proposal.
Expect voters to resist the effort to investigate factual strength of “drill now” proposal.

Conflicted assertions have been groomed and perfected by the administration to create this tactical opportunity. This has succeeded. McCain anticipates no possible penetration of any factual argument into the working model hosted by a majority of voters. The inertial stability of the McCain argument is, clearly, well entrenched. It was not expected to diminish on its own. It hasn’t.

III. A Shocking Proposal to Defeat the McCain Advantage
The Obama Response Strategy:

The new fact: Public information about energy topics has been so intentionally confusing and misdirected that it is difficult to see the weakness of McCain’s “drill now” argument. The new fact is not about drilling, it is about having reliable information available for voter decisions.

The first issue is to neutralize the McCain advantage gained by simplistic presentation. The strategy to accomplish this is to embrace the argument (artificial phenomenon) put forth by the McCain Campaign. Directly address the complexity and the resulting misdirection of the McCain argument’s structure. Move away from the immediate necessity of oil drilling to the conditions which made McCain’s tactic temporarily successful. The new topic will no longer be oil drilling, it will be the lack of good information about matters such as oil drilling.

Obama Strategy:
Acknowledge that the McCain argument seems reasonable.
Embrace voter uncertainty about whether or not “drill now” is a right answer.
Explain that such decisions are too important to be made without good information.
Portray McCain’s position as exploiting the information vacuum.
Propose a new system which will provide reliable information to voters.
Walk away from “drill now” toward “Let’s learn the facts.”

The drilling issue will be overwhelmed by the new issue. Obama drives it home. “We are flying blind.” There is no credible source of information concerning such topics because all present sources are willing to manipulate factual or scientific data to their own interests. For the voter it is reasonable to doubt almost any proposition concerning this issue. The possible financial benefits to those who have schemed to place themselves in positions to speak to this matter have entirely overshadowed any interest in presenting facts useful for accurate public opinions (Profit, not education, reliability or honesty.).

Obama Strategy:
The profits made possible by this deception are immense.
The deception is made possible by a constant, intentional flood of misinformation.
The U.S. consumers are being exploited by suspect information management.
Voters are not informed enough to make a choice in their own interests.

Obama’s new idea: Establish a GSE organization, removed from government or corporate influence, which is responsible to provide voters with credible research on all energy and environmental matters.

We are getting ready to spend a huge amount of American consumer money and American taxpayer money to confront this challenge. We still have no reliable source for information. In fact, the most reliable information we presently have is that the available information is not reliable. This is the situation which made McCain’s strategy success possible. McCain’s move is directly opposed to Obama’s Respect, Empower, Include principle. Obama’s idea relies on open, reliable and credible information empowering voters able to express their informed self-interest.

Obama’s Strategy:
This proposal will provide a coherent information platform for policy.
Voters agree on the facts of the challenge.
No one gets to inject spurious facts to gain an advantage.

Obama’s proposal will allow policy debates (like “drill now”) to center on active response solutions rather than on contradictory problem definitions.

Obama’s Proposal for a New GSE:
10 preliminary concepts

1. Call the GSE the Environment Institute (or something more appealing).
2. Problem definitions will be presented to the public based on scientific and economic facts.
3. Proposed solutions can be scientifically evaluated.
4. Evaluations can be communicated to the public to increase public confidence.
5. Scientific findings from energy, environmental and economic sources can be centralized.
6. Research can become coordinated and coherent, no longer motivated by:

• desire to manipulate public opinion;
• efforts to impose incorrect solutions;
• opportunism, players seeking public authority or notoriety;
• ambitions to inject unreasonable solutions based on possible profit;
• legislation passed with dishonest motives or lack of transparency.

7. Inflammatory political tactics (like “drill now”) will become much less effective or attractive.
8. Voters will become more confident:

• that the nature of a problem is really known; or,
• that the problem is being scientifically studied, credibly researched.

9. The Institute may gain authority about international energy, environment and economy issues.
10. The Institute’s first responsibility will be to provide factual information to U.S. voters.

Everything about this proposal is well suited for the Obama Campaign. It provides an opportunity to expose the information manipulation the other side obviously considers valuable. It offers a material example of Obama’s alternative to the Republican strategy of extracting simplistic information to drive attack missions. It denies the Republicans the benefit of making inflammatory or fearful conclusions based on misinformation.

It is “high road” but, at the same time, it is more aggressive. Resistance or criticism to it can be immediately countered with “Do you fear public access to factual information?”

The criticism that it represents another “big government” or “Democratic party spending” proposal can be countered with a comparison of relative expense:

• the expense of making huge policy errors concerning energy or environment issues ($)
• vs.
• the expense required to perform reliable research and investigation to make good decisions ($)

This policy proposal need not materialize prior to the November election. If it is proposed as an Obama Campaign “talking point,” its appeal to the voters may well prove quite advantageous and spontaneous. The voters are already suspicious that they are being manipulated by intentional management of confusing or contradictory information reaching them through the media.

It enjoys the additional value of not being in the campaign “response cycle.” It is innovative, courageous and consistent with the “change” concept.

The energy situation has been carefully steered away from issues of environmental concern. McCain’s “drill now” strategy has overshadowed the memory of the Santa Barbara spill to place policy priorities on oil production, no matter the risk. Consumer fear about gasoline has become entirely focused on supply issues. This proposal will reenergize the environmental component of Obama supporters after their issue has been by “side lined” by McCain’s inflammatory oil positions.

An H-Bomb Love Sonnet: Part II

How to Quit Worrying and Love the Bomb
Part Two: H-Bombs as a Response to a Rotten Economy - A Bargain at Twice the Price! 24

It is no secret that the engine which makes it possible for a great state to fight wars, legitimate or not, is always its inherent wealth. With enough money we can create a military might suitable for any imaginable capability. The last Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Bill was for $108 Billion. What if we couldn’t borrow the cash to make such an appropriation?

If that were to be the case, we would have to determine just how essential such a war actually was to our national interests. Perhaps we could sell Alaska back to those recently prosperous Russians for enough money to continue our fight for another year! Is Iraq that essential to our national interests?

What is happening to our economy might very well turn out to be no more than a semiserious recession. On the other hand, there is a suspicious odor about this particular “collapse,” “correction” or “adjustment.” It might easily turn out to be a bit more severe than our memories of generally painless “stagflation,” “inflation” or “recessions” in the past.

No problem. We can rest assured that our Chinese bankers will be happy to reconfigure our debt payments, restructure our interest or, at least, give us a break until things improve a little. Those Chinese are famous for that sort of compassionate lending laxity. Maybe they would like to buy Alaska! A great idea, especially if they can be convinced to pay for it with something other than our dollars.

The financial burden of a great military, especially one with an appetite for irrelevant and expensive assets, is, simply enough, that it costs a lot of money. Unhappily, we have been “hollowing” out all the equity of our economy and turning it over to our billionaires in a brave act of unbridled capitalism (best termed national socialism). We have to suspect that these stalwart American billionaires might be a little reluctant when it comes to financing our extravagant and illogical military should an actual threat to national security arise.

Here we should consider a comparison to the Roman model during the times of that empire. The division of wealth was almost total. The rich, noble families held immense assets (Africa, Spain, Gaul) as a standing form of incentive to assure their loyalty to Caesar. Unlike today when such fortunes must be shielded from the public eye by apologies and deceptions, those Roman folks considered them to be strategic assets!

The compensation was very great for these noble families. They could and did finance their own armies and successfully pursued all sorts of expeditions to enlarge the empire. Of course, the looting involved in such military victories also enhanced their wealth, and to some extent, the wealth of the common Roman. Looking over all the territory, slaves and plunder, they would inevitably say “See, everybody wins!”

Our situation is a little different. First, we can rest assured that no matter how grave the insult to our physical country, these billionaires will continue to do just swell. Their view of our current economy is that profits will be handled capitalistically (15% capital gains tax) and losses will be handled socialistically (Bear Sterns bailout).

However, we must, here, recall that our expensive military is paid for by taxes on “earned income” while the wealth of the billionaires is generated by “unearned income.” Not only is the source stream of these separate types of tax revenues different, the destination of the tax money collected may as well also be considered separate.

As a consequence of this, we might experience a fiscal necessity to start lowering the expense, and hence the military capacity, of our armed forces. This is not to say that we would cease the purchase of all sorts of expensive, irrelevant equipment right away (a precipitous withdrawal). That sort of picky shopping might reduce some of our billionaires to the drudgery of the “earned income” category.

What such a change in policy would suggest is that we would have a continuously smaller and less potent military. Fewer tax dollars means fewer soldiers (but probably not fewer wars).

Here we come, once more, to the H-bombs. Oh yes, we wasted five trillion on stars wars, but we finally paid for those old ICBMs from the 1960’s! We now own them, free and clear! They are like roads and bridges and dams. Of course, the billionaires enjoy the nebulous advantage of the security they provide along with the rest of us “earned income” types, but they don’t own them.

Are the ICBMs really the right weapon to fight “The Global War on Terrorism?” Well, probably not, but they are a weapon we can afford, especially since they are already paid for, and Lord knows, we have plenty of them. And, “You have to go to war with the weapons you have, not the weapons you want.”

Get it?

The Telephone Call

Blog doc 20 Afternoons with John

It’s three o’clock in the afternoon in the White House.

The telephone rings.

President McCain is taking his nap.

The Chief of Staff rushes through the halls toward the phone, frantically trying to answer before it rings again. He takes a message.

The President can get a bit cranky if he is disturbed in the afternoon.

After all, remember what happened to Paraguay.