Every so often you see something – some small fact – that nails shut a belief that you’ve held for a while and turns it into something solid you can truly take a stand on.

I have claimed for some time – along with many others – that the cultural gap between the media class and our military class was too large, and that the media persist in their devaluing of the military because of this gap.

Via local journalism blog LA Observed, I was brought to a series of tweets by New Yorker staff writer Dan Baum, describing his firing from his staff consulting writer gig there – but also describing how he’d been hired.

Still, the New Yorker is the New Yorker, and my next question to John was, “What can I do next?”

As any writer knows, editors almost never suggest stories. Generating story ideas is the real work; researching and

Writing them is the easy part. In one of our conversations, though, John let drop a real jewel:

“We have this sense that we should be paying more attention to the military,” he said. (This was now early 2003,

as the country was getting ready for war in Iraq. “Thing is, nobody here cares about the military, and nobody here

knows anything about the military.” Well, I certainly didn’t know anything about the military but I did find it

interesting, so I piped up, “I can do that!” I wasn’t worried about my lack of experience or knowledge in the field

of arms. Tom Wolfe is right, I think, when admonishes young writers to ignore the old advice about “writing what

you know,” and instead write about what you don’t know. If you have to learn about something from scratch, he

argues, you don’t bring any lazy preconceptions. John said I was welcome to give it a try. “Think about trying a

process story,” he said, using a term I’d never heard. “It’s a New Yorker standard,” he went on. “You simply

deconstruct a process for the reader. John McPhee was the master. It makes for a simple structure.”

By that time the improvised explosive device was the weapon of choice in Iraq, and limb loss was the signature

Wound of the Iraq war. So I followed one soldier from the moment he left his job at Wal-Mart in rural Wisconsin

To join the Army to the day he returned to speak to his high school without his leg. John Bennet gave me another

Great piece of New Yorker advice: “This is the New Yorker, so you can use any narrative structure you like,” he said.

“Just know that when I get it, I’m going to take it apart and make it all chronological.” Telling a story in strict

chronological order turned out to be a fabulous discipline. It made the story easy to write, and may be why New

Yorker stories are so easy to read. Of course, the magazine does run everything through the deflavorizer, following

Samuel Johnson’s immortal advice: “Read what you have written, and when you come across a passage you think

Is particularly fine, strike it out.”

My wounded-soldier story ran as “The Casualty” and can be found here:

Next I pitched a story about what killing does to soldiers, psychologically, and how the Army is ill-equipped to deal

With the damage that killing does. That proposal can be read here:

That piece, “The Price of Valor,” won the Medill School of Journalism’s 2004 John Bartlow Martin Award, and can be read here:

Now I was three stories in to the New Yorker, but I wasn’t about to let die my relationships with other magazines.

I’ll poke around in his proposal and other documents a bit and suggest that you do as well. It’s a very rare chance to lift the hood on modern high-end journalism.

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I’ll spend some time tonight collecting amusing quotes from defense commentators who explain that guerrilla armies and nationalist forces can never be defeated (and reining in my own hubris by pointing out that history shows us that things change over time), but for now let me toss out this:

Fierce fighting was reported Sunday in Sri Lanka in what appeared to be a final battle with Tamil separatist guerrillas as the country’s president declared that the quarter-century civil war had ended.

The Sri Lankan military reported that the last of tens of thousands of trapped civilians were pouring from the combat zone after months of bloodshed and that the remnants of the guerrilla force were launching suicide attacks as troops closed in on them.

On the verge of defeat, the rebels offered to lay down their arms, saying they wanted to protect civilian lives. There was no immediate response from the government, but it has ignored rebel calls for a cease-fire in recent months.

“My government, with the total commitment of our armed forces, has in an unprecedented humanitarian operation finally defeated the L.T.T.E. militarily,” said President Mahinda Rajapaksa in reference to the rebels, who are formally called the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.

That’s verified by the LTTE themselves (h/t Moderate Voice):

Surrounded on all sides by the Sri Lankan Army, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), or Tamil Tigers as they are more commonly termed, have announced their surrender amidst news their leader, Velupillai Prabhakaran, is dead.

The final round in what has been a long and drawn out campaign by the militant group for an independent Tamil state in the north and east of Sri Lanka came as news surfaced that the Sri Lankan military has recovered more than 150 bodies from the last remaining LTTE stronghold.

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Obama did a neat political straddle yesterday on the issue of images of stated mistreatment of detainees by US and Coalition forces. First he’s for it and then he’s against it.

We’ll talk more about his weathervane-like characteristics some other time, but I thought I’d take a moment and think through a position that I think is defensible.

What isn’t defensible – in my mind – is either of the mainstream positions, which are really more about domestic political advantage than about really dealing with the hard, Jessup-like questions that do sometimes have to be asked and acted on. Note that at the end of Jack Nicholson’s impassioned speech, he was led off in irons.

Hiding the pictures means we’re ashamed of them, and gives license to fantasies of darker, more brutal secrets than probably are to be seen there.

Showing them is really about self – flagellation and the neat political trick of tying your political opponent to one’s back before picking up the whip.

Each of those acts is a puppet’s reaction to greater forces pulling on strings.

Let’s tie the strings in knots, and break the frame that is being hung around the images and around the events they depict. Let’s do that by hanging a larger, more powerful frame around them.

Let’s by all means release the pictures – all of them. Let’s release the pictures of the Al Qaeda torture cells in Fallujah, and of their victims. Let’s release the videos of torture and murder from jihadi websites.

Let’s not let our people off if they did wrong – but let’s please put their actions into context as we make that decision. I’ve publicly opposed torture for some time, and I think that we have a real issue with harsh treatment that scales into torture. I also think we have a real issue with people who (in the extreme) think that offering a detainee a stale Danish instead of a freshly-baked one is tantamount to getting out the blowtorch and pliers.

So let’s broaden everyone’s understanding, and see what kind of discussion emerges from that.

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So I’ve been silent on Afghanistan, Iraq, and the Middle East lately. Part of that is my newfound difficulty in picking apart my thinking about the issues and my personal feelings, as Biggest Guy gets ready to deploy to Afghanistan as an infantryman. And part of it has been my desire to let events unfold a bit as we see Obama’s initial policy steps and the world’s reaction to them.

I’m not massively anxious about BG going over there (as opposed to being massively anxious that his moms will – in their massive anxiety – do me harm); I am anxious that he do in the name of an overall policy that makes sense, is valid, achievable, and in the national interest.

And, to be honest, up until today, I haven’t heard such a policy about Afghanistan from Obama (or from much of anyone else, to be frank).

But then there was today…

Today I flew to San Francisco to have lunch with Craig Mullaney (along with a dozen or so other people),who is now (as Abu Muquama nee Andrew Exum explains – read the whole interview)

…about to be named the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Central Asia.

and is the author of ‘The Unforgiving Minute: A Soldier’s Education‘ – a book I bought the week it came out and gave to BG after reading it in an afternoon, enthralled.

So when I heard he was talking at a lunch I could attend, I booked a ticket.

Meeting him I was shocked – frankly shocked – at how young he is and seems. My mental dialog was ‘How the hell could someone so young have done so much?’ and then I thought about my kid and all the kids he serves with, and the responsibilities they bear.

And we talked. And talked. And then I asked him, point blank, the Harry Summers question: We can’t win without knowing what winning looks like. What does winning in Afghanistan look like?

And his response was so damn sensible…..here’s a paraphrase of the priorities he laid out:

1) Our primary national interest lies in making sure that Afghanistan is not used as a national staging area for Al Qaeda and other radical Salifist attacks on us and our interests. This mission has been accomplished, with the caveat that it was in part accomplished by simply shoving them over the border to Pakistan.

2) The Taliban is a tiny fraction of the population, and Al-Quieda a smaller fraction. but they are strong enough to intimidate their way to power in the small towns, and to roll that power up to regional and then notional power unless stopped. By standing up the Afghan military and police capabilities, we can offer the Afghan government the capability to repress these forces on their own.

3) None of this matters of we don’t solve the problem of Pakistan, and there is no immediately clear way to solve that problem, politically or militarily.

He certainly did not lay out all his thinking; he artfully dodged some very specific questions.

But I can say that I asked if he had a core set of policy goals he was willing to risk my son’s life for, and he did. And that those policies make sense to me.

I continue to have concerns about Afghanistan (and the wider war). From my reading, it seems that the Afghan people have some trigger point at which they unite in opposition to outsiders; one thing I believed was that our original policies were brilliant because they kept us well below the trigger point. We were one tribe among others, rather than a uniting enemy. I worry that as we scale our involvement, we won’t be.

This isn’t the “invincible Afghan army” meme – they have been defeated and conquered before.

These issues bleed over to the broader question of Iraq and our interaction with the Arab and Muslim world (I separate them because I think they present two very different problems). In 2002, I believed that we could ‘shock’ the Arab governments into moving away from the radicals they were bribing and using as proxies by invading Iraq. In 2009, I called the war ‘a strategic failure‘ – in terms of meeting the goals I set out in 2002, and I believe that today. However, the opportunity exists for a far greater failure, and we need to be thinking hard today about what it takes to avoid that and to maximize the positive outcomes available to us there and in the region.

More on that later…

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Liberal blogger roy edroso at Alicublog dings me (appropriately) for making predictions that the Democratic Party was headed for civil war – when it is today clearly in the driver’s seat while the GOP is marshalling forces for its internal conflict.

…our old warblogger friend Armed Liberal, who complained in 2004 that an authentic liberal like Jeff Jarvis (!) “gets piled on for being ‘inadequately liberal’. And that’s a pisser. First, and foremost, it once again wraps up the smug ‘I know better than you’ that the Democratic Party has become associated with — and which lots of people, including me, find amazingly offensive.” He predicted that the Taliban Democrats “are going to lose a lot of political power.”

He’s right to bust me (my predictions were wrong) …and he deserves his moment of glory.

But…he ought to savor it while he’s got it.

Because while it’s obvious that the Republicans are snapping at each other’s heels – see this post from local blog Mayor Sam:

I was talking with a friend the other day who is a high-level figure in the Republican Party here in California. I discussed with him my theory that there is a Civil War brewing inside the Party. Two election cycles of defeats have made the party meetings and discussions very rancorous. Moderates and Conservatives have been wrestling for control of the party, and in the end, only one side can win.

“It’s too late” he said, “the war is already here.”

Which all depends on where ‘here’ is:

There was an article in The Hill the other day about Rep. Jane Harman’s plight:
Tangled in wiretap, opposed by left, Harman could face tough primary

Anti-war forces and liberal bloggers have despised Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.) for years, and now they smell blood in the water.

Harman has taken plenty of heat from her left flank over the years for supporting the Iraq war and President Bush’s warrantless wiretapping program. And now that she’s in some political trouble for allegedly offering favors on a federal wiretap, her detractors might just have the ammo they need.

Already, 2006 primary opponent Marcy Winograd has opened an exploratory committee and others are also making their interest known. Plus, bloggers are talking about recruiting one of the their own to challenge Harman.

But that’s not the end of Harman’s troubles…from the same Hill post cited above:

Howie Klein, the Southern California-based author of the DownWithTyranny blog, said the new revelations could help change that.

“When Marcy ran the first time, it was a really tough road for her, because people didn’t understand,” Klein said. “Even on a really great website like Daily Kos, there were a lot of people that didn’t understand.”

Klein said a group of bloggers met earlier this year to discuss challenging Harman in a primary, weeks before the recent revelations. He said many in the blogging community would like a fellow blogger, John Amato, to challenge Harman and that Amato is considering it.

Winograd said that she would step aside for the right candidate, and that she’s taking up the mantle at least for now.

“I don’t know who else will answer the call, if not me,” she said. “People with great name recognition and track records in public office are not going to take her on.”

What’s clear is that not everybody is ready to go with Winograd again. And, in the heavily Democratic district, the Dem nominee is the likely winner. While Klein praised Winograd, other activists want to look elsewhere.

“There is a general sense that she would not be supported,” said a prominent activist focused on mounting a primary against Harman.

And the upshot, from John Amato:

I wanted to confirm to my readers that I am considering running for Jane Harman’s seat. I’ve had meetings with bloggers and activists way before this story broke and they have urged me on. I’ve also been contacted by established campaign managers who have won elections which included huge upsets in the past that have expressed a serious interest in managing my campaign. This is a very important step in the process. At this point I am considering it, but haven’t made a decision yet. I’m going to take my time before I decide, but I thought I owed it to you to confirm this report.

Sounds like a strange version of ‘Peace and Tranquility’ to me…it will actually be interesting to see if Obama campaigns for Harman or not. So far he has been an extraordinarily unifying figure for the party (and to an extent for the nation), and his position on this will be telling.

And here’s what really matters…from Pew Research:

Over the first four months of 2009, the Republican Party has continued to lose adherents. Interviews with over 7,000 respondents nationwide so far this year found fewer than a quarter (23%) of the combined total identifying themselves as Republicans. This is down from 25% in 2008, and from 30% in 2004. In total, the GOP has lost roughly a quarter of its base over the past five years.

But these Republican losses have not translated into substantial Democratic gains. So far in 2009, 35% of adults nationwide identify as Democrats, about the same as in 2008 (36%). While GOP identification has fallen seven points since 2004, the Democrats have gained only two points over that period. Instead, a growing number of Americans describe themselves as independents, 36% in 2009 compared with just 32% in 2008 and 30% in 2004.

Or, even clearer in pictures:

I don’t know a lot about the Republican Party compared to the Democratic one, but this suggests that there’s a long-term structural problem there…Andrew Breitbart has a lot to say about it, and it’s sensible. But today, what we have is a large minority of Democrats, a smaller minority of Republicans, and a larger minority of independents – some of them people who, like Jeff Jarvis felt drummed out of the Democratic Party, and who are – as I’ve been saying all along – vital to the electoral success of either party.

Imagine for a moment that Hillary had been the Democratic nominee – someone far less skilled at reaching out than Obama – how would the Democrats have done with those independents?

The reality is that political parties are the equivalent of record companies, movie studios, book publishers, and large law, accounting, and consulting firms – middlemen in an age of disintermediation. They will continue to be powerful brands, but they will not be the only powerful brands, and talent will be less and less controlled by and beholden to the intermediary. They just matter less.

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I’d been mulling the meaning and fallout from the tea parties and in a conversation with a friend, suggested that the fate of the Governator and Legislature-sponsored budget initiatives in California might be a litmus test.

If I were organizing the tea parties, I said, I’d be busting a** to defeat them, and force the issue of state budgetary incompetence.

Well, along comes a Field poll, which suggests that what I’d contemplated is really happening:

Voters strongly oppose five special election measures being sold as a budget-reform elixir for California’s burgeoning $40 billion deficit.

But voters in a new Field Poll overwhelmingly support a measure to bar legislators and state officers from getting a pay raise when there is a budget deficit.

And with heightened surliness, they’re telling Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Legislature that they’re fed up with more government spending and higher taxes.

Which kind of supports my notion, and is picked up on by Hugh Hewitt:

Forget Arlen Specter. The most important political message of this season is going to come out of California in three weeks.

…which could be true. Or not.

Because there is also opposition to the initiatives from the left. Here’s former gubernatorial candidate Phil Angelides in the LA Times:

But it’s worse than that. The measure would actually deepen California’s budget woes. It would require that money be stashed away in a rainy-day fund even though the state is already pulling in less money each year than it spends. That’s a little like telling a family facing foreclosure that they’re not putting enough money away in their 401(k) account. Even in tough budget years, it would force additional cuts of more than $1 billion — an amount equal to about one-third of the University of California system’s budget.

Proposition 1A would squeeze spending on crucial investments in colleges and healthcare, and it would prevent the state from restoring needed programs as the economy rebounds. It also would lock confusing, complicated, autopilot budget language into the state Constitution — making it harder, not easier, to adopt common-sense budgets. With complex formulas and linear regression models cemented into law, the already daunting task of budgeting would be that much harder.

Perhaps the greatest damage of Proposition 1A is that, by once again making a false promise to the people of California, it further erodes the trust necessary to achieve the two real changes needed to solve California’s budget woes: replacing the requirement that budgets be passed by a two-thirds majority with a simple majority vote to end the tyranny of an extreme, ideological minority, and actually adopting a balanced budget that meets California’s 21st century needs.

Phil is unhappy that a minority of legislators can keep the state unions from just driving up to the state treasury…

So the question for the day is whether it’s really the Tea Party rejectionists that will drive the vote, or if matters are more complex than that. I’d start by digging into the Field Poll internals…when I get the time.

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I think this Wall Street Journal editorial (shockingly!) understates the way that management captured the auto industry during the good times and milked it dry for its own benefit (the price of which was to allow the UAW unfettered access to the other teat). But it captures something about the collapse of both the auto and financial industries which we ought to take very seriously.

For more than 40 years, a 25% tariff has kept out foreign-built pickup trucks even as a studied loophole was created in fuel-economy regulations to let the Big Three develop a lucrative, protected niche in the “passenger truck” business.

This became the long-running unwritten deal. This was Washington’s real auto policy.

For three decades, the Big Three were able to survive precisely because they skimped on quality and features in the money-losing sedans they were required under Congress’s fuel economy rules to build in high-cost UAW factories. In return, Washington compensated them with the hothouse, politically protected opportunity to profit from pickups and SUVs.

And that point – that the issue isn’t too much regulation or too little regulation, but regulation that is captured by and for the regulated – is something we ought to be damn thoughtful about as we contemplate an immense expansion of regulatory authority in this country.

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Life has been trying to wrestle with lately – I have a cool new gig which has me buried (good news: in these times, I have a cool gig), my family has each been at points where Attention Must Be Paid (good news: that is why you have a family – to pay attention to each other…), and so blogging has suffered pretty badly.

When I think about it, there’s another reason though. I just have a worse and worse taste in my mental mouth as I think about the issues that are important to me.

I read the news and blogs every day and just feel dyspeptic. I’m honestly not sure why; what I read is (to my views) a healthy mixture of good and bad news. It’s not like I see horror on every page (like some people I know).

For me, a part of it is the fact that I keep starting Really Long things and putting them aside because I don’t have the time right now to do the topics justice.

So here’s my plan; I’m going to start throwing out short bits on these interesting-to-me (and one hopes, to you), and when I can, come back and write something resembling a real argument.

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One of the early sources I looked to as I started educating myself on issues around voting was www.votersunite.com; it was a site that provided a wealth of information that helped me form my opinion that our voting processes were deeply flawed.

One of the driving forces behind that site was John Gideon, who died yesterday of meningitis.

I did not always agree with Gideon; I continue to be agnostic about some issues that he was passionate about. But I agreed – and agree – more strongly than my words can show with his core view that we voters have let the mechanics of out voting process be taken over by politicians and corporate vendors, and that we need to take it back.

People like John – amateurs who transform their passion into expertise and action – are the reason we should remain optimistic about the state of our Republic.

He will be missed, and not only by those who loved and knew him, but by the rest of us to whom he was a mentor and an example. My condolences to his family and friends. I hope that as sad as they may be, their pride in his accomplishments and character sustains them.

Godspeed.

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moar funny pictures

Note that it takes about 200 votes to appear on the LOLcat home page…so click on the image and vote, please!!

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