June 2010 Archives

History sometimes has a mangled way of repeating itself. A casual observer or a visitor from another galaxy would think that we were back in the Barbarian era considering how kind and humane we often are to one another or judging by the bulging seams of our jails.

Now it is the Nazis come to revisit this thudding squarely on Turkey. In something reminiscent from 1939, a sign on a Turkish store reads "Sorry.... We do not receive dogs or Israelis."

In that case, the store must be pretty empty.

Everything old is new again,
and so, we have the Cold War redux. In the good olde days we had Soviet spies under every bed--or feared that we did. Now, we get Russians--and from the looks of Ms. Anna Chapman, she can probably be found on both sides of the bed. A classic femme fatale, party girl hiding both in plain sight and, uh, deep under covers.

The Cold War may be over--or it may be just a lull, like the time between WWI & WWII. But whatever the deeper story may turn out to be, you got to love Putin's reaction of criticizing us for arresting his spies and calling us "out of control," and hoping that it doesn't interfere with "positive gains in our relations." That is the platonic form of Chutzpah.
©2010 Jonathan Dobrer
www.Dobrer.com

Why is there neither passion nor energy to recall Mayor Antonio? I don't recall exactly. We have, by design, a weak mayoral form of government, and therefore the mayor's power derives from image and moral authority. Since Senor Antonio has forfeited the moral authority part, he is left with image.

"But," you cry, "what about the free tickets from movers and shakers in our community?" Is that not corrupt or at least presents the appearance of corruption? Well, yes. This is why we have a criminal justice system. Recall him? No! Impeach him? Maybe. Indict him? Now you're talking.

©2010 Jonathan Dobrer
www.Dobrer.com

With much media fanfare, the usual coterie of Mayor Tony loathers launched a recall petition against Mayor Tony some weeks ago. It disappeared faster than a speck of dirt in a Hurricane. Where'd it and they go? One would think that with the load of dirt that's piling up at Tony's door, they'd be going full blast. The stuff in the Mayor's dirt pile is by now well known. His obsessive penchant for grabbing at every ticket freebie in creation, then not reporting it, squandering thousands of tax dollars on globetrotting fun and game trips, smiling face photo-op management, a costly, wasteful and ultimately muddled effort at the LAUSD takeover, featherbedding jobs and plum positions to the unions even as revenues shrunk, a bungled effort to get the DWP to pay its fair share, foisting dubious tax hikes and even more dubious reasons for and use of the money on residents, mounting layoffs, service cuts, and a deficit that continues to lift faster than a runaway helium balloon.

This should be the heaven sent chance that the recall folk need to get thousands of mad as hell L.A. voters to scratch their John and Jane Hancock on a recall Mayor Tony petition. And there's absolutely no doubt that they would, IF, and this is the beguiling, puzzling IF, they could find the darn petitions. Question then is what happened to the recall Mayor Tony campaign now that thousands say its badly need it?

The 5-4 Supreme Court decision that just came down should surprise no one. It follows logically from their earlier finding that the Federal Government has no right to limit weapons commonly used for self-defense. Now they simply found that neither states nor cities could limit such weapons.

Finally, for those justices who hold that the Constitution should be read while trying to intuit the original intent of the framers, do they really contemplate that the framers would have wanted private and unregulated ownership of automatic weapons and armor-piercing ammunition? This court rationalizes its position by holding that the framers wanted ordinary citizens (meaning white males but not Native Americans) to be able to protect themselves. Thus, if it was muskets back then and it's automatic rapid-firing pistols today, then these pistols are just fine and constitutionally protected. This, of course, allows for a kind of "living Constitution" that conservatives usually do not accept. But hey, a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds. So we might be able to negotiate arms reduction treaties with Russia and China. But Los Angeles, Chicago and DC are all constitutionally (un) protected and eternal free-fire zones.
©2010Jonathan Dobrer
www.Dobrer.com

The only surprise when Sarah Palin tweeted out her message to followers likening President Obama to Hitler was that it took so long for her to make the comparison. Her tea party pals, and a rogues list of GOP and rightwing hacks, bigots, loudmouths, and spin artists took giddy delight in making the Obama to Hitler comparison even before he put a foot in the Oval Office. Fox News's Tom Sullivan was the first in the door with the Obama as Hitler lunacy in February 2008 when he played a side by side recording of Hitler and Obama's speeches.

Clear Channel's Bill Cunningham, foul mouth gab queen Ann Coulter, her male counterpart, Mike Savage, Limbaugh, Cal Thomas, and, of course, Glenn Beck quickly took up the Obama as Hitler chant. With that, the Obama as Hitler line was firmly set. The only thing missing was a mob setting to do an imitation torch light parade complete with banner, signs and posters with Obama depicted as Hitler. The mob parades were tea party rallies where Obama as Hitler agitprop paraphernalia was on full display.

Now there's Palin. In a bit of crude craft, she slyly compared Obama to Hitler by exhorting her twitter followers to read a recent column by right wing pseudo egg head writer Thomas Sowell. He pilloried Obama for arm twisting BP to set up the $20 billion escrow fund. The fund is to help repair and compensate the victims of its Gulf ruin. To Sowell Obama took another giant step toward seizing dictatorial power. There's absolutely nothing new about this crackpot charge. It's been an absolute smash favorite of fringe GOP congresspersons, tea party acolytes, Fox News and the menagerie of rightside talk show gabbers for two years. The Obama as Hitler idiocy is more than just the ancient and stock GOP tactic of smearing, slandering, name calling, character assassinating, and baiting liberal, and moderate Democrats. The tactic is used to prick primitive passions, and it allows the GOP to duck and dodge making a coherent case for its untenable and more often than not foolish positions on issues. No, the Hitler smear is coldly calculated, and strategically trotted out when Obama introduces a major piece of legislation, new policy initiative, or in his pre White House days, when his groundbreaking autobiography rocket launched him as a serious contender for the Democratic presidential nomination. The Hitler card is played even more furiously when it appears that Obama is near victory on legislation or an initiative.

The health care, and financial reform bills, and the BP escrow fund are textbook examples of that. Each of these initiatives had wide popular support, and GOP opposition to them appeared even more shrill, isolated, and vapid.

The Obama to Hitler card is also played opposite the Obama as Bolshevik analogy. This imprints the image of a power mad Obama out to turn government into an instrument of state control of industry and by extension to squash personal freedoms and liberties. The Hitler comparison imprints the image of a diabolical Obama out to snatch full dictatorial control of government.

Palin grabbed at Sowell's hit piece to jump on the Hitler bandwagon. She didn't have to explain how or why Obama's urge of BP to set up the Gulf damage fund was Hitler like. But she didn't have to explain the absurd. She knows that legions already have mindlessly swallowed the Hitler image of Obama. Expect more Obama as Hitler digs the next time the White House stands poised to score another victory.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His new book is How Obama Governed: The Year of Crisis and Challenge (Middle Passage Press).
Follow Earl Ofari Hutchinson on Twitter: http://twitter.com/earlhutchinson

Being a good progressive kind of guy,
I don't believe in American exceptionalism. I think we are just another nation (though a good nation as nations go) made up of regular people. We do not have a special right to impose our will on the world and should also humbly pay attention to what the rest of the world thinks and does.

Watching a lot of macho-acting boys running around looking for a good shot on goal from the penalty box is beyond endurance. The only thing that the World Cup has going for it is that is not interrupted by commercials every 5 minutes. Yet, even this is not an unvarnished benefit. Many of us good Americans watch the Super Bowl for the commercials. They are often more interesting than the game. What the World Cup really needs are the Budweiser Clydesdales. Maybe some talking frogs. But at least Betty White!
©2010 Jonathan Dobrer
www.Dobrer.com

I've heard decent medical arguments against marijuana use. It certainly seems to impair important parts of the brain. And I personally never liked it when I tried it a few times some 25 years ago. I've also never gotten over the feeling that it makes people dumber -- both during and after.

But while it may not be in our interests to create a legally taxable pot industry in California, it's not in our interest to turn ordinary Joes into criminals when they get caught. There are some laws that need to be on the books but which don't need to be enforced with much effort. Look the other way, officer, nothing to see here.....

Legalizing mary jane is like the anti-drug commercial that ran during the height of the drug movement before disco and big hair came onto the scene. An announcer's voice says, "This is your brain" accompanied by a close up of a cracked egg. Next, the same egg heats up, fries and sizzles while the announcer says, "This is your brain on drugs."

Now why would anyone want to legalize something that fries the brain? Besides, many people's brains are already fried. They don't need anything to help them along. Earl and many others think that a dope tax could help our economy, but since our tax dollars have already been mismanaged and siphoned, who's to say that those won't also go up in smoke?

The one argument that the dear, illustrious Earl also makes is that no one will shoot anyone over something that is legal, but who's to say that that won't come to pass as well? Ever since the first club, stick of dynamite, gun was invented people have come up with some pretty inventive reasons for offing each other.

Also mj stays in the system longer than booze. With hooch, in the best case scenario at least, a person gets drunk, falls down, wakes up feeling (and possibly wishing) that he has died and either drinks a concoction made with tomato juice, tabasco sauce and a raw egg (yes, that egg appears again) or fumbles through the day. And unlike booze, it can lead to other things. But do I think that people should be jailed over it? I am not that much of a Republican. But they should do a form of community service like working with those who are disabled and never had or will have the chances or opportunities they did or being sent to clean up that oil spill that is sure to make its way around the world.

But my biggest argument against legalizing the stuff is that I don't want to be talk to anyone who is under the influence because it's hard enough to carry on a sane, intelligent conversation around here. And few things are more frustrating than having an intense conversation who is fuzzy and whose brain has gone AWOL. Aside from legalizing it for medical purposes, who would want to seek the help of a professional who had just toked up unless both are in the same state?

In the case of a lawyer, it could mean that you could wind up in jail for failing to pay a dog licensing fine. In a dentist's office, it could mean you go in for a cleaning and polishing and wind up being heavily sedated with a hole drilled all the way into your brain stem.

And those are things up with which we should not put.

mary jane mary jane mary jane (sometimes called marijuana), and the never ending debate over whether to legalize mary jane. But really when you think about it what's there really to debate. Every study, report, investigation, and stat that I've ever seen shows this.

Almost no on dies from it. No one's health is impaired by it. No one goes bonkers and blows up buildings and shoots up streets after toking on it. No one plays motor cross on the highways after toking on it. The same can't be said about the two deadliest killer drugs on the planet. That's booze and smokes. And no one that I know of has ever said that they shouldn't be legal. And while we're at it, the two killer drugs bring in millions every year for desperate, cash strapped cities and counties.

That money pays for a lot of libraries, schools, cops, firefighters, street lights, and repairs. Then there's the off the chart, bankrupting costs of warehousing thousands of prisoners in jails and prisons for essentially indulging in a harmless pastime. Legalize mary jane and be done with it.

General McChrystal strode purposefully over a very bright line and committed insubordination. In closed rooms candor between general and Commander and Chief are expected--even required. But in public it is wrong, unprofessional and destructive to question legal orders from any superior officer--and our president is the ultimate superior officer.

If McChrystal is not held accountable what can this or any American government expect when it issues unpopular policies, directives and findings?

©2010 Jonathan Dobrer
www.Dobrer.com

Dude, so we might fully legalize marijuana? Cool. You know prohibition doesn't work. Never has. Causes crime, violence and...and...I forget. But other bad stuff too. The thinnnnngg iz (whoops sorry, some Frito dust just clogged my keyboard). Yeah, the thing is we're losing too much tax money by keeping our number one cash crop in California off the books.

Is pot entirely harmless and benign? Of course not. Fighting weight all my life, I don't really need an appetite stimulant and yes it is a drug--as are all prescribed meds and alcohol. And like all other drugs, it can be abused. But when the Election Day comes, I'll vote to legalize it--if I remember.
©2010 Jonathan Dobrer
www.Dobrer.com

Two surreal things happened within the span of two days. In his televised address, President Obama again sternly warned that the nation must break its dependency on oil. He again called on Congress to pass an energy bill that would vastly expand our hunt for and use of alternative and renewable energy sources. The next day he sternly tongue lashed BP executives about the monumental damage of their spill, and demanded they cough up billions to pay the damage costs. They agreed. The tough talk generally about breaking America's oil addiction publicly played well, and BP paying the damage freight played even better. But while the president made his umpteenth pitch to break the oil addiction, a slew of Gulf Coast congresspersons and senators loudly called for Obama to lift the moratorium on off shore drilling. There's some evidence that the president may listen to their plea.

Before the BP spill Obama had approved an expansion in off shore drilling. After the BP spill, he quickly reversed gears. However, he also left the door for a resumption of drilling when he indicated that he would wait and see what his oil spill commission came up with about the spill.

The love-public loathe relation that politicians have with big oil has been the all too familiar pattern. The very moment that House committee leaders very publicly saber rattled BP's hapless CEO Tony Hayward, GOP Senate leaders very quietly moved to kill off any effort to dump the farcically low $75 million liability cap on damages big oil would have to shell out, for well, a Gulf spill. The Orwellian reason for not tampering with the cap is that it would push all but the biggest oil giants out of the business of oil exploration and drilling since smaller companies would be too scared to drill if they knew they would have to pony up tens of millions for a mishap. Big or little, the drill, baby drill crowd had to be protected at all cost.
The operative word is always cost. The much touted alternative energy sources, wind, solar, hydrogen and ethanol are too expensive, too time consuming, and often not cost effective. Even if congress was willing to do what it publicly claims it wants to do and push hard to develop these alternative sources, it won't pay what it will cost. The climate and energy legislation pushed by Obama as it now stands increases funding for R&D and demonstration of alternative sources by a paltry $2 to $4 billion. That's a fraction of the $25 to $30 billion per year experts agree it takes to achieve the technological breakthroughs needed to make clean energy cheap and scalable. Congress has further tilted the playing field against all out production and use of all alternative energy sources by taxing it. There is no tax on foreign oil imports.

It still comes back to supply and demand. In 2008 the United States consumed 23 percent of the world's petroleum nearly 60 percent of this was imported. But the country holds less than 2 percent of the world's oil reserves. About 40 percent of the imports came from Canada, Mexico, and Saudi Arabia, and that figure continues to climb. The naked fact is that the US is running out of oil. The amount of oil in proven U.S. reserves, reserves that the United States is fairly certain it can extract oil from in the future, plunged nearly 20 billion barrels the last thirty years. This means even if the country drilled and produced all the oil reserves it had they'd be depleted in four years.
Oil is still by any standard relatively cheap. As painful as it is to swallow, for the forseeable future, anyway, sustainable. The country consumes over 7 billion barrels of oil per year. Federal estimates are that the nation's outer continental shelf could hold more than 80 billion barrels of crude. That includes more than 10 billion barrels off California alone. If the US did not get another drop of oil from the world's land suppliers, and relied solely on the supply it got from California off shore drilling it would fill the country's energy need for twelve years. The near 100 billion of oil deposits is just in or near US coastal waters. A 2008 International Energy Agency report estimates that reachable conventional oil located in water more than a quarter-mile deep world-wide is between 160 and 300 billion barrels, with more than two-thirds of that in Brazil, Angola, Nigeria and, of course, the United States.

The BP spill ratcheted up the much needed war of words from President Obama and congress about the peril of America's incessant oil addiction, and the urgency of breaking it. Words are one thing, but the terrifying reality is that to break our oil addiction, as with any other addiction, it takes a strong will and the means to do it. So far neither one is there.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His new book is How Obama Governed: The Year of Crisis and Challenge (Middle Passage Press).
Follow Earl Ofari Hutchinson on Twitter: http://twitter.com/earlhutchinson

So BP is going to give 20 billion dollars for damages done by their oil spill. They should consider that a bargain. In shopper's terms, it's equivalent to buying something from the now defunct Filene's Basement or to a Kohl's discount pass on top of a sale.

That's because the damages are far going to outweigh the costs in the long term. Currently, the spill by the ever cavalier and irresponsible BP and CEO, Tony Hayward, have effected not only the marsh and marine life and the livelihoods of the fisherman, but they will be paid for their troubles and hopefully well.

But the 20 billion or whatever they pay is a bargain compared to its future impact. The animals that do survive will ingest the oil and pass it along the food chain, meaning us, so not only are we looking at mutated animal life, but mutated people life as well, at least more mutated than ordinary. We may be looking at more forms of cancer, things growing out of people's skin and people with red bulging eyes caused from more than a night of drinking and debauchery.

It appears that Hayward either inhaled the oil himself, had a mickey slipped into his cocktail or was hit over the head by a barge based on his reaction to those who took ill from cleaning up the spill.

"I am sure they were genuinely ill," Hayward said upon learning of the workers' illnesses, "but whether it was anything to do with dispersants and oil, whether it was food poisoning or some other reason for being ill is surely a big issue when you've got a concentration of this number of people in temporary camps, temporary accommodations."

Let's give him a Mother Teresa Humanitarian Aid Award.

The day after this writer publicly demanded in May that the Los Angeles City Ethics Commission do a full court press investigation of Mayor Tony, the Commission with much fanfare said it would. The issue is of course Mayor Tony's serial grab at every sports, entertainment, and ceremony freebie around without reporting them as gifts as required by ethics rules. Mayor Tony quickly sniffed the wind on this one and with just as much fanfare loudly said that he not only welcomed the probe but virtually begged the Commission to conduct it.

Mayor Tony, of course, vehemently insisted that he did nothing wrong, and that his entertainment trotting was simply part of his fulfilling his mayoral duties. That was weeks ago, since then nothing, nada, zilch from the Commission. There's been no word from it about the scope of the investigation, how it will be conducted, or a timetable for completion. Warning flags are flying sky high on this probe for a lot of reasons.

Start with the Commission itself, the commissioners are appointed by the mayor and the city council. In the past investigations have been conducted quietly, have dragged on for years, and then more times than not the fines levied have been light. Or the offenders have been exonerated. The public is completely left in the dark about the outcome. At best, the outcome gets a perfunctory mention in a back page blurb. There's no mention when, or even if the offending official, paid the fine. This is hardly a fearsome disincentive for public officials to play it tight to the vest in reporting gifts, expenditures, and campaign monies received.

A near textbook example of the blur in ethics commission probes and outcomes is the probe of six LAX air port officials. The officials, as with Mayor Tony, were accused of grabbing at free gifts during a New England trip and a China river cruise. The money involved didn't amount to a lot, less than $2,000 in all. But the allegation still was that they broke the rules by not fully reporting them. The trips and alleged gifts were taken in 2005. There was brief mention at the time of the probe. Then it fell totally off the public and media radar scope. It surfaced again more than four years later when city ethics investigators recommended that the officials be slapped with civil charges for breaking the firm rule that prohibit city employees from accepting more than $100 in gifts a year from a person, company or organization.

Three months later in February, 2010, and nearly five years after the probe began, the Commission abruptly dropped the probe, and tersely said that it did not publicly comment on specific investigations. The Commission simply sends a letter to the alleged offender telling why it took the action (in this case inaction) that it did. If the target of the probe chooses to voluntarily make public the reason for the inaction that's their call. If not, and that's usually the case, it ends there.

So there it is. Years pass, action or inaction, and then the likelihood of no public disclosure by the Commission on why it took no action. In the case of the six accused LAX officials, the Commission's decision not to fine them may have been the right one. There may have been no wrongdoing. But the point is that citizens won't know how and why the Commission made its decision. It's called transparency and accountability. A Commission that operates in secrecy and takes forever to decide on action or inaction is hardly a sterling example of either.

Now it's Mayor Tony's turn. He and the Commission have called him on the carpet for his sports and entertainment compulsion. The Commission owes us a speedy decision on the mayor, and it owes us a public explanation of why it made that decision. Let's keep a close eye on this and them.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. He can be heard on KPFK Radio 90.7 FM Saturdays, Noon. He is a frequent contributor to Daily News Viewpoints.

You've got to feel sorry for Kayla Wood's family. Instead of attending her graduation from kindergarten where she was supposed to sing, they are planning her funeral.

The six year-old girl was out playing with her four year-old brother last week when she became the unwitting target in a police chase involving some drug dealers.

At the hospital, her father held her hand after surgeons tried massaging her heart.

"I saw the life leave her," said her father, Matthew Woods. "I saw her eyes go from glossy to hazy, from rosy to pale. It's the worst feeling in the world. It hurts to think about it."

The drug dealers who took the little girl's life must care more about their own creature comforts than about the lives of their friends or family members, and surely not about a little girl who was as consequential as a footnote to them. They are the kind of beings who make the death penalty look appealing.

I am more than likely going to send money to her memorial fund. May she rest in peace.

The Kayla Woods Memorial Fund
356A W. Colorado Boulevard
Glendale, CA 91105

While we try to bring peace and democracy a world away in
Iraq and Afghanistan, while we attempt to rein in the drug trade and rid their governments of corruption, we fail to recognize the Great War we are having with Mexico. To the extent that we notice any hostilities at all it is over immigration and the perception that we are being invaded by not Mexico but by Mexicans. This misidentifies the real war.

There are no easy fixes, but we can start by understanding our part in this tragic equation. We create the demand. We buy the drugs. We sell the arms. We are a part of the problem that is destroying Mexico and degrading our own society.
©2010 Jonathan Dobrer
www.Dobrer.com

Would Alvin Greene be the first politician to hail from the Mad Magazine School of Politics? Let's put it like this: Is the Lincoln Tunnel named for Lincoln? Is the Washington Bridge named for Washington? Enough said.

Greene's opponent in South Carolina's Democratic primary, Vic Rawl, said that he won because he was a plant, which is a charge he denies. Even if it were true, it's nothing new. Corruption and politics have been around since the Neolithic Age and go together like peanut butter and jelly, like steak and fries.

Even though the Father of our Country, George Washington, led our troops to victory in Valley Forge, some say that the perks of being president rode with him mighty fine. Thomas Jefferson, a supposedly randy fellow, fathered children who at one time would have been consigned to the back of a bus in the South. More recently, Illinois had Rod Blagojevich, who among other misdeeds conspired to get certain editors fired from the Chicago Tribune in exchange for a tax break, and LA has our own Mayor Jet Set, who with the help of the City Council, drove this city into bankruptcy despite all the red flags and warnings from City Controller, Wendy Gruel. So Greene, who is unemployed and lives with his father, couldn't do worse.

It all could be null and void, though, because he has been accused of sharing some x-rated photos with a college girl on a computer in a public place. If convicted, his victory would turn his political career to toast.

On the chance that he becomes South Carolina's next Senator, then one of two things will happen: He will either follow a long line of politicians into oblivion, or he will wind up getting indicted for something. And if he loses, he will probably make millions on his own reality show.

While undergoing the withering crossfire of some US Senators, General Petraeus grew weak, dizzy and fainted. If you believe in signs--well, you're superstitious. But if you believe in metaphors, this is a tragically apt one. Like the general our troops are strong and brave but there are some things they cannot be expected to do; there are some obstacles and challenges beyond their control.

Were I responsible for this mess, I, like General Petraeus, would seek comfort and escape in the arms of Morpheus--even in the middle of a Senate hearing. I hope the general is ok. I know our policy is not. What we want is commendable and important, but that does not mean it is possible.
©2010 Jonathan Dobrer
www.Dobrer.com

The Alvin Greene fiasco in (where else?) South Carolina is an embarrassment to a process so corrupt that you might think they were beyond embarrassment. While Earl tries to extract some redeeming social value and see it as a rejection of corruption, this is a hard case to make. All of the corruption and disillusionment that Earl covers is true. But the deeper truth is that this is a mess and perhaps a scandal.

All that being said, I would rather vote for a candidate at a loss for words than one at a loss for decency. Mr. Greene would get my vote--and he actually could. Given that the contest is in South Carolina any voting irregularities would be, well, quite regular.
©2010 Jonathan Dobrer
www.Dobrer.com

Democrats, political pundits, and much of the media have snooped, pried, pecked and nosed around trying to get the goods on Alvin Greene, and then boot him from the South Carolina US senatorial general election ballot. The right question is not who is and who put up Greene. The question is why an Alvin Greene? This shouldn't take any head scratching. Voters aren't dumb. They sniff the horrid stench of the dollar taint that's transformed American elections into a billionaire's derby. They want no part of it and stay home. Or on occasion thumb their nose at the Republican and Democratic Party's and the special interest anointed picks and vote for a political nobody such as Greene. But let's say he is a plant, and GOP dirty trick operatives funneled money to him to run, despite prodigious efforts neither has been proven. But let's just suppose. He still got the votes, lots of them, and he didn't arm them to vote for him. The votes he got cut across all racial lines (no race card here since Greene was unknown and there were no pictures on the ballot).

If South Carolina and national Democrats had been smart instead of screeching for federal investigations, ranting about a GOP plant, and threatening to void the election, they could have spun Greene from a political laughingstock, or rather the Democrat's political laughingstock, to a Don King like parody of Only in the Democratic Party could a nonentity emerge as a real people's choice. This would require imagination. And that's nowhere to be found in the tight-knit, set in stone, money and influence controlled elections. Greene is a total foreign concept to the way politics is done.

This past election hundreds of incumbents for state, local and even congressional offices ran literally against themselves. They had no opponents. Barely two out of ten eligible voters bothered going to the polls. Tens of millions more eligible voters have thrown in the towel on voting. The money taint is solely to blame. The Public Interest Research Group looked at election outcomes for incumbent, challenger, and open seat candidates for U.S. House from 1992-2006. Non-incumbent candidates needed a minimum of $700,000 to $1 million to be competitive. Less than one percent of them that failed to hit the minimum money mark won and only five percent of the underfinanced candidates won in open seat elections. Overall, 75 % of non-incumbents raised less, and in most cases, far less, than the threshold $700,000. All lost. Money in all cases made the crucial difference, not just in who wound up in the electoral win column, but who even chose to run. According to Federal Elections Commission data, major party congressional candidates who raised the most money won 90% of their primary races in 2002. Winning candidates out-raised their opponents by a margin of more than 4-to-1, with the winners raising an average of $464,000 and losers raising $99,000. The numbers haven't changed in the past decade.

The FEC data showed that less than 1 % of voting age Americans made a contribution to a candidate of $500 or more, these large donations accounted for about 90 %of itemized individual contributions received by primary candidates. More than 70 % % of contributions came at or above the $1,000 level, while less than 1 % of voting age Americans made a $1000 contribution.

President Obama's winning presidential campaign fed the notion that a candidate for a top office can win with the nickels and dimes of the small donors. Obama did a phenomenal job raising millions from small donors. But according to the nonpartisan Campaign Finance Institute slightly more than one-quarter of his contributions came from people whose total donations added up to less than $200. The rest were from the usual suspects, Wall Street, banking, and corporate PACS, wealthy donors, and labor unions, and associations.

Their high priced, top gun lobbyists and political consultants craft public policy and broker thousands of deals that shape, mold, kill, and enact laws favorable or unfavorable to their industries. Greene's GOP Senate rival Jim DeMint is a textbook example of the confluence of money and political influence. According to the Center for Responsive Politics from 2001 to 2006, he raised over $10 million from major banking, communications, transportation health, real estate, and legal firms. The payoff and expectation is direct and transparent. DeMint sits on Commerce, Science, and Transportation and Environment and Public Works, and the Special Aging committees. Greene may be the stooge that everyone thinks, but in an interview he told this writer, "You don't have $100 million. In the end, it's not about the money in the bank. It's the votes that count and the issues."
Greene proved that and the Democrats loath it, and will do everything to make sure that doesn't happen again.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His new book is How Obama Governed: The Year of Crisis and Challenge (Middle Passage Press).
Follow Earl Ofari Hutchinson on Twitter: http://twitter.com/earlhutchinson

In all my time eating at restaurants, I've never heard a patron compliment the cook on the way out. Maybe that's because it's never done at Wendy's or McDonald's.

But because the restaurant I intended to patronize was closed, I stopped next door at a Chinese restaurant named Joe's. I wouldn't have noticed it in my famished state if the hostess hadn't come out and invited me in. I was hungry and armed with a credit card, so I went in.

Everything about Joe's China Cafe in Tarzana made for a pleasurable dining experience. Instead of the standard red walls and décor, the decorator opted for bright yellow walls with an orange lantern hanging outside.

The food was sublime. I ordered a fried tofu luncheon special for $5.95, not including drink, tax and a tip, and the food dance and pirouetted in my mouth. The vegetables were cooked al dente, which is an expression I picked up somewhere, and the sauces were delectable, not too heavy nor overly spicy.

"What spices did the cook put in here?" I asked the gracious hostess as she came by to check on me.

"Ginger and garlic," she said, "but mainly garlic."

"It's very good," I said.

"Thank you," she said smiling.

I told her I would give the place a shameless plug here, and she thanked me again. The prices are reasonable as well, and you get way more than you pay for at Joe's China Cafe, so I'd give it five stars food-wise, customer service wise and ambience-wise

Joe's China Café
19221 Ventura Blvd.
Tarzana, CA 91356

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Hallelujah. The maxim, "what goes around, comes around," may be true. In at least oen case anyway. Playboy/killer, Joram Van der Sloot, can associate with his own kind because he is finally behind in the slammer where he long ago belonged.

Even the comatose know that he killed Natalie Holloway, but few would have thunk that he would up and incriminate himself again. If ever there were a poster child for the dark side of privilege, this is it. Van der Sloot, many men in the Kennedy clan and even Paris Hilton, one of the chief narcissists of LA, are examples of what can happen to money gone wild.

Had Van der Sloot left well enough alone, then he may still be tree, trailed but free. Instead, acting as if he were living under the ever-loving and self-indulgent shadow of daddy, he behaved how he usually did as if his father were here to bail him out. But the safety was rolled up when daddy died.

Charged with murder, he's going to be in a Peruvian jail. The conditions at one of those places haven't made much news until his latest date-rape murder. But they make the American jail system look like a stay at a spa. Meals are served once a day, showers are turned on one day a week for only about fifteen minutes, there is a shortage of beds and is a place an inmate will do just anything for a couple of hundred bucks or a pack of cigarettes.

That is going to be one of the shortest stays in jailhouse history for this son of privilege.

We are addicted to oil, and as with most addicts we are in denial. We know in our heads the terrible side effects--the pollution, the costs, the dangers of getting it, shipping it and dealing with some despicable "friends" to secure it. Yet, when we need that fix we fight any thing that might move us away from our dependence.

Our fix for this is to deal both with the pushers and our addiction.

©2010 Jonathan Dobrer
www.Dobrer.com

This week's Booby Prizes go to Helen Thomas and British Petroleum's CEO, Tony Hayward.

Honesty may always be the best policy except for Helen Thomas, the dethroned grand dame of the White House Press Corps. Telling the Jews that they "should get the hell out of Palestine and go back to Germany and Poland" rung down the curtain on her career. People expect that out of David Duke or a goose-stepping skinhead, but not out of a White House fixture who has been there longer than much of the furniture. Who knows? Maybe she had a slug of schnapps that led to her downfall. The truth sets many of us free. In her case, it led to her retirement.

Then there is the Merit Scout, Tony Hayward. This is where "honesty is the best policy" would have worked because it is his dishonesty that landed him in hot water. He and his cronies knew the oil well was going to rupture. How badly, they didn't know, but they knew that something was going to crack. Hayward also sold off one-third of his shares of BP stock a week before the rupture, and no one indicated he was going to buy a retirement home, either. The bailout made him the Martha Stewart of the oil world.

Neither should go gently into that goodnight nor remain unscathed. Thomas should work as a volunteer docent at the Simon Wiesenthal Center, and Hayward should be dropped into the Gulf for a little midnight swim before dining at a Louisiana Shrimp and Crawfish Festival.

Hi, y'all. This is Ross Perot, guest blogger on this week's Friendly Fire. One of our shining stars, a Miss Gail Tzipp... whatever, Saunders is indisposed now. Off trekking around at a sales at Macy's, or wherever she is, so she left it to me, Texas businessman and former presidential candidate, to fill you all in on the latest worldwide developments.

But let me fill you in on my latest developments. The wife and kids and the family are all doing fine, and I am even thinking of starting a new business venture, a travel agency, to complement all my other business ventures. Because I am a self-made man and a self-made millionaire, so it doesn't really much matter so long as I continue making a point, my fellow Americans.

First on my list of clients is one Helen Thomas. To really help set the woman straight, here are some travel destinations I'd like to book her on:

Number one is the West Bank of Jordan, AKA Palestine. The place has community like no other as people gather in the streets to set fire to tires and the like. And a hot, passionate lot they are what with their rockets, bombs and masked men running to and fro. The humus and tehina is supposed to be pretty good, though. As long as you don't try and mutter an "oy vey," which I'm sure you won't, you should manage all right

Or you could try Afghanistan at Taliban central for many of the same reasons listed above. Just bring some earplugs, though.

Your last stop would be the Museum of Tolerance in Jerusalem or in any other city. Here, you will find the end result of bigotry, racism and intolerance. And maybe if you learn what you need to in about five years if you are still here by then, then we can release you back into polite society.

Tony Hayward, the CEO of British Petroleum, have I ever got a vacation spot for you far away from merry old England right here in the states. It is right along the waterway right in the heart and bosom of the Gulf of Mexico. You could go for a little midnight swim with the misses or the mistress and dine on coated and breaded shrimp gumbo and all those other gumbos they serve to be rewarded for the fruits of your labors and for being wise enough to sell your stock right before catastrophe hits, as coincidence would have it.

As for me, I am always glad to be of public service.

Very Truly Yours,

Ross Perot

Tuesday's election was very interesting and holds much promise for an exciting--and absurd--campaign season between now and November. There are a couple of narratives to follow. The first one was wrong and that was the so-called anti-incumbent fever. Incumbents did very well--except for those who switched parties. Another narrative is the struggle between the Tea Bags and the Money Bags. This is truly a narrative worth following.

I am not so embarrassed that I'll refuse to cover the rest of the grand story of our great democracy.
©2010 Jonathan Dobrer
www.Dobrer.com

Alvin Greene is America's much needed political Rocky, tainted though he may be. The line American school kids hear the moment they set foot in a classroom is that one day you can be president. Most school kids long before they stop becoming school kids know it's just that a line, they can't and won't be president. Now enter Alvin Greene. Here's a guy with no job, no degree, no name recognition, no campaign organization, no website, and for all practical purposes no party (he never attended a Democratic Party function). And to top it off he's facing felony obscenity charges. Yet Greene gets 100,000 South Carolina voters to punch his name on the Democratic senatorial ballot.
The deep suspicion is that Greene is a GOP cropper; that is that he's a bought and paid for plant by the party to make fools of the Democrats and insure a cakewalk victory for GOP Senate incumbent Jim DeMint. Possible, it's happened before, the GOP has been accused of secretly bankrolling plants, shills, and croppers, and given the notorious cartoon antics of South Carolina politics, this can't be totally discounted. Greene had to plop down $10, 400 to get his name on the ballot. That's a lot for a working stiff to pay out of pocket, let alone for someone unemployed.

But while it's plausible to be suspicious, for a GOP dirty trickster to prop up Greene as a strawman would be too blatant. They'd be more likely to put money behind someone with some political involvement and name recognition. Money inevitably leaves a paper trail, and if the trail led back to a GOP clandestine operative, the scandal could blow the party out the water. If Democratic voters suspected hanky panky with Greene they could have easily ignored him and voted for his chief rival, Vic Rawl, a judge, who served on several state commissions, and was a four term state legislator. He was the Democratic Party favorite. But voters didn't. They overwhelmingly picked Greene.

Republicans outnumber Democrats three to one in the state, and no Democratic presidential candidate has won South Carolina since Jimmy Carter in 1976. The chance of DeMint being toppled by a Democratic, especially a Democrat such as Rawl who's just as much a party fixture, even with the fierce anti-incumbent mood was unlikely.
Greene makes even more sense with even a cursory look at the Gallup poll released a week before the June 8 primaries. It found that sixty percent of voters, and nearly 70 percent of self-described independents, said they would rather vote for a candidate who has never before served in Congress. Greene then is the perfect field of dreams for countless numbers of voters. He's the anti-candidate candidate who got on the ballot with nothing more than moxey, conviction and a vague desire to make change. Then without spending a king's ransom on the race, without the backing of an armada of telecoms companies, banks, lawyers, unions, tobacco companies and other special interests greasing their campaign wheels, and without cutting endless back room deals can actually win. The first and often the only question anyone who wants to run for office is asked is not what are your ideas and program but how much money can and did you raise? Greene is the candidate who can honestly answer not a penny. The money first and last question drives the polluted stream of American politics.

The Centre of Responsive Politics, a Washington think tank which tracks election spending, estimates that spending in the 2010 Congressional elections will total almost 4 billion. The five highest-spending Senate races were: Connecticut, $21 million. California $18 million; Nevada, where the Democratic Majority leader Harry Reid spent $17 million, and Arizona, where Republican John McCain spent $17 million. Senatorial candidates in Arkansas spent $12 million. California GOP senatorial nominee Carly Fiorina spent nearly $6 million out of her own pocket to bag the party nomination. That's just for this election. The Centre for Public Integrity found that the Republican Senate leader, Mitch McConnell, has spent nearly $50 million over the past quarter century on campaigning. One political financial watchdog group flatly branded this obscene spending legalized corruption.

The mind boggling runaway cost of elections has turned American politics into a rich person's sport, demolished any semblance of a political level playing field, and mocks the notion that voters have a Democratic choice. The Supreme Court's decision to rip away virtually all checks on corporate and labor union spending and its fresh assault on public financing (Arizona decision) will make political campaigning even more the playground of the super-rich.

Greene didn't simply beat these odds. He rewrote them. He is one antidote for those fed up with the stench of money and deal making in politics. Voters should take careful note of what Greene did in South Caroline with a felony rap hanging over him, with no name, no money, and seemingly not a prayer of a chance to win, and then does. That's what a Rocky can do, tainted though he may be.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His new book is How Obama Governed: The Year of Crisis and Challenge (Middle Passage Press).
Follow Earl Ofari Hutchinson on Twitter: http://twitter.com/earlhutchinson

H. Thomas

Lebanese Cedar (National Tree of Lebanon)

See the difference? Didn't think so.

_____________________________________________________________________

Hello, my friends and welcome, welcome. I am Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and I am the president of Iran and maybe even the world. I am taking over for a blogger named, Gail-Tz. Saunders. She is one crazy chick, as you Americans say.

She is away from her computer for now, shopping or brushing her yellowing teeth or something. I don't know exactly where she is, but this I do know. I found her credit score, and she is one major shopper. She has a shopping problem especially at stores called Nordstrom, Old Navy and the like. But it is not a problem in my native Iran because we don't have a Nordstrom or an Old Navy store here.

But I broke into crazy American girl's blog to promote a little side business I may be starting in case my other business goes bye-bye, salaam alechim and kaput, and I wind up with no place to live except my mother. So I thinking of becoming a travel agent. Not too bad, tee hee hee.

And I have even come up with a chief client one night while pondering life and watching the full moon rising over Tehran. The first one up is Helen Thomas. I like her. Helen Thomas if you are anywhere out there, I make travel package for you. Here are some places I've lined up for you.

Tehran: Don't worry about the screaming sounds coming down the street and through the alleyways. The country is really quite beautiful especially the way the sun rises and sets over one of our Fifteenth Century mosques. The sound of men chanting in prayer is quite beautiful. Even better than going to an Italian opera where someone always has smallpox or dies.

The Gulf of Mexico: Helen, you should really vacation here. Because I know you are not one of those Jewish people you wouldn't have to worry about eating shrimp gumbo, crab cakes or any other kind of gumbo. Yum and tasty, as you infidel Americans say.

The West Bank: I would like to make you our new symbol along with a tree. But because there is no national tree in Palestine, let alone many trees, I'd like to borrow the Lebanese Cedar, the tree of your lovely native Lebanon. To help them know which is which, we will mark "national tree" on one side and your name on the other. We will also paint your likeness on the front of all our ships so they won't take too much paint to repair in case they crack. Can you imagine what those infidels will think when they see your face sailing towards them? I can get back into my political being, lean out and scream out "I am king of the world! I am king of the World. I am king of the world!"

For decades Helen Thomas was the voice that called every presidential news conference to a close by saying "Thank you Mr. President." Now I want to thank Ms. Thomas for revealing to world, if the world would only pay attention, the truly vile anti-Semitism that lurks beneath the thin veneer of so much polite society.

One more thing. If you wonder why I am using "We" and I am not an Israeli citizen, though I qualify, history has taught us that we will share a common fate. We will be judged by the triumphs and failures of our fellow Jews. We will flourish or perish together. There is no special or separate fate. With far more reality than JFK was ever a Berliner, we Jews, wherever we may live, are all Israelis. Thank you Ms. Thomas for helping the world understand.

©2010 Jonathan Dobrer
www.Dobrer.com

I'm fascinated by the debate between Jonathan and Gail, as a relatively liberal and a relatively conservative supporter, respectively, of Israel. I appreciated Jonathan's rebuttal of the notion that a Jew who criticizes Israeli policy is anti-Semitic, and I'm curious if Gail understands his point of view.

I'm also curious to hear Gail's critique of this article in The Economist about "Israel's siege mentality," notably the passages below:

For anyone who cares about Israel, this tragedy should be the starting point for deeper questions--about the blockade, about the Jewish state's increasing loneliness and the route to peace. A policy of trying to imprison the Palestinians has left their jailer strangely besieged....

Israel is caught in a vicious circle. The more its hawks think the outside world will always hate it, the more it tends to shoot opponents first and ask questions later, and the more it finds that the world is indeed full of enemies....

None other than the head of Israel's Mossad, its foreign intelligence service, declared this week that America has begun to see Israel more as a burden than an asset.

That has led to the charge by hawkish American Republicans, as well as many Israelis, that Mr Obama is bent on betraying Israel. In fact, he is motivated by a harder-nosed appreciation of the pros and cons of America's cosiness with Israel, and is thus all the keener to prod the Jewish state towards giving the Palestinians a fair deal. He has condemned the building of Jewish settlements on Palestinian territory more bluntly than his predecessors did, because he rightly thinks they make it harder to negotiate a peace deal. Mr Obama's greater sternness towards Israel is for the general good--including Israel's.

If the real issue is Israel's long-term survival and welfare as a Jewish democracy, how many schools of thought can there be on how to accomplish this....?

Earl, I have met many people that I do not like and have blogged about them with pleasure and glee. But we aren't talking about Will Rogers or any man here. We are talking about a beleaguered nation surrounded by a sea of hostile, rocket-launching terrorists who not only want one settlement, but the whole place. What they would do with it is anyone's guess since their methods of gardening and housekeeping would hardly be met with any Good Housekeeping awards. And don't give me that bit about being under Israel's thumb. If the Jews could create something out of nothing, then so could they, if they wanted to.

Israel was, always is and always will be right to defend herself and her citizens. Neither you nor I live there, so we don't know what it's like. But this I do know. On a visit there, I lived on a kibbutz near the Jordanian border and at times cowered in fear over a rocket scare and tried to be careful about my movements because the terrorists were pretty enthused even then.

Isn't defending a country and its citizens what any reasonable leader would do? Isn't that what Obama would have done? Isn't that what George Bush did? So the only reason that anyone would drag out the old double standard and call for anything else from Israel is because of that maxim that Israel bashers live by, the one about the only good Jew being a dead one.

It doesn't matter where the flotilla was or whether the flotilla was in international waters or not. It was carrying terrorists intending to do harm, and they needed to be stopped before they reached their destination, regardless of their longitude and latitude. Besides, where is the outrage when the terrorists attack people eating in a pizzeria in Tel Aviv or launch a rocket through a house? Or is it that old maxim again?

I disagree with Gail-Tzipporah's assertion: "Jewish people who come forward and criticize Israel may think that they are being open-minded, objective and fair, but they are not. They are being anti-Semitic, and they are doing untold damage that causes others to give pause and say, 'See? We were right about them. They are over the top. Even they know it.'"

Arguments and criticisms? These are mother's milk to our people.

*The current and horrifying definition of criticism that crosses the line and jumps the shark is Helen Thomas and her rant that the Jewish occupiers (not of Gaza or West Bank but meaning Israel) should leave, "get out" and "go home to Poland and Germany." Go home where were were rounded up and slaughtered in the millions. The wish for the destruction of the Jewish State is not simply a political opinion; it is anti-Semitic. Any doubt about Thomas is erased when you hear how she sneers and virtually spits the phrase, "the Jews."
©2010 Jonathan Dobrer
www.Dobrer.com

There's a difference, Earl, between wrong and botched. Israel botched the stopping of the flotilla. This is a terrible set back to Israel politically and a tragedy for those wounded and killed. Tragically, it's a victory for the Turkish Islamists who are fighting Turkey's secularist tradition and trying to move Turkey from reaching westward towards Europe to moving east deeper into the Muslim world.

Egypt also enforced a blockade against Gaza. I wonder why the activists didn't try bringing in their supplies through Egypt? This is more about a struggle for the soul of Turkey than the Gazans.

©2010 Jonathan Dobrer
www.Dobrer.com

Gail reminds me of the old Will Roger's saw, "I never met a man I didn't like". Substitute the Israeli Defense Forces kill actions for man and Gail would agree. The indisputable facts are that the IDF commandoes raid on the flotilla ship occurred in international waters, on a ship with supplies and unarmed aid workers, and destined for 1.5 million people in Gaza that have been illegally denied food and aid. Yet Gail's defend all Israeli government actions no matter how reprehensible blinders are tied so tight that she'll defend the murderous assault to the death.

The rub is that thoughtful and responsible critics in the Israeli Knesset, a legion of Israeli public officials, writers, and activists whose love of and loyalty to Israel is every bit as strong as Gail's have criticized the flotilla raid. They understand one thing. These actions do the very thing that Gail rails against and we should all fear. They whip up even greater anti-Israel hatred and by extension anti-Semitism. The flotilla raid was wrong, and though Gail would never say so, Israel should.

Sometimes it seems that if you took all the nimrods in the universe and laid them head to toe, there'd be enough to circle the globe 800 times over with a few to spare. It can be annoying in everyday life but great for blog writing because there is always lots of grist for the mill.

One of the latest to come forward is Congressman Barney Frank of Massachusetts. Apparently, he never learned that some things are better left unsaid. His recent diss of Israel over the attack on the terrorist-laden flotilla was one of them. The outcry would make people think that the Israelis had dropped a bomb over a convent of nuns, but the Israelis were merely defending themselves (again) over what would have been another terrorist attack (again). Only this time it was on a terrorist-filled aid flotilla in Gaza.

Turncoat Barney later recanted, though by then it was too late. He already wrote what he wrote and published it, and the damage is seeping around the globe like another BP oil disaster.

It's one thing when Muslims, Christians and Catholics condemn Israel. They don't know any better because they aren't in our shoes. They never had a family member killed in the Holocaust or had to flee their country because of who they are or how they practiced religion. But the damage is worse when it comes from one of our own. Some say it is a free speech issue, but lots of things are free speech issues. Acid reflux disease is a free speech issue, too, but no one goes around writing and blogging about each other's acid reflux.

Jewish people who come forward and criticize Israel may think that they are being open-minded, objective and fair, but they are not. They are being anti-Semitic, and they are doing untold damage that causes others to give pause and say, "See? We were right about them. They are over the top. Even they know it."

And it tips the scales more against us than everything else combined.

For some time, I've suspected that the politically gifted and eloquent Barack Obama will indeed become a two-term president -- just not in consecutive terms.

The GOP has decided they prefer helping him to fail than helping the country to thrive. I'm sure the Dems prefer GOP failure to national prosperity. That's the dysfunction of our system, and it saddens me that too many of our suckers, I mean voters, are too dense to pick up on this.

The GOP will pull Obama down, as our nation suffers. Then they will reclaim the White House, and maybe Congress, and a vengeful Democratic party will then subvert GOP efforts to deal with the deficit, foreign threats, global competitiveness, and everything else.

Meanwhile, Obama will travel the world, develop an "I told you so" message, and pummel the GOP incumbent in 2016. Then, the GOP will mobilize to impeach him once and for all. America may go down the toilet as a failed democratic experiment, but we'll at least be entertained and titillated on a nightly basis -- and that's all that counts.

Neil Postman was right.....

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell minced no words in a talk with ABC News. Powell said President Obama should muscle BP aside and move in with "decisive force." The general had one thing in mind, and that's a military type response to and seizure of the operation. Powell thinks and talks like a hard-nosed military man. So his demand for a military solution to the BP spill is understandable. Powell didn't say how the government, let alone the military, could cap the runaway well and insure that it stayed capped. But Powell and the wave of media pundits, politicians, and much of the public still shout at Obama to impose a total government takeover of the operation. The shout is futile and wrongheaded. The Obama BP critics shout it at him in part out of ignorance at what the government can do, and in part to beat up on him.

When a hazardous substance poses a major threat to the health and well-being of US citizens, the president can invoke provisions of the Clean Water Act and the Oil Pollution Act to take full charge. But the BP spill is in international waters and technically federal law doesn't apply to that. Even if the government makes the compelling legal case that the BP spill poses a grave enough threat for government agencies, the military, or both to step in then what? Every credible military expert that's weighed in on what the military can do if it were called on to take over the cap and control of an errant off shore drill operation has said that it would be totally lost. Its deep sea technical capability and undersea imager technology is too limited, and untested in this kind of complex, intricate, and uncharted operation. The bitter pill every scientist, engineer, and technician that's weighed in on the spill said the public must swallow is that BP created the problem, and despite its flop so far in fixing it, it has the technology and expertise to do the job. The military and government agencies can take over containment, cleanup and construction. But the government has dispatched more than 20,000 responders, dozens of ships, and floating operation stations that are doing those functions.

Government agencies can bar any company that engages in fraudulent, reckless or criminal conduct from doing any business in the form of contracts, land leases, drilling rights, or loans with the government. Given BP's well documented nose thumb at safety rules that have cost dozens of lives and maimed and injured many others, the pile of lawsuits, settlements and massive civil fines against it, and the red faced lies and half truths its officials have told regulators and investigators about its operations, a solid case could be made that the government can and should bar BP from government business.

But there are problems with this. BP is the largest oil and gas producer in the Gulf of Mexico and operates some 22,000 oil and gas wells across the country, it is a top supplier of fuel to the military, and employs thousands in its operations, and subsidiaries. The disbarment process would take at least a year, and either BP, the military, or incredible as it sounds, another government agency can claim in court that disbarment would pose a monumental national security risk to the country. This is not academic speculation. In times past when BP came under fire for legal and environmental malfeasance, these were the concerns raised, and the talk of disbarment quickly fizzled. Then there's the clamor for indictments and jail. Attorney General Eric Holder says he'll look seriously at criminal charges against BP. But it would take months, even years, to build a case that BP executives willfully intended to commit the violations. That's a near insurmountable high legal bar. The best that can he hoped for are hefty civil penalties, fines and settlements. That's been the case in the past with Exxon and BP and the oil giants didn't miss a beat. They were back to business as usual.

The BP spill is not solely about what Obama can or should do. The catastrophe is a political grenade Palin, the GOP, tea party activists, and the pack of rightside talk jocks have eagerly tossed at Obama to tar him as a weak, ineffectual leader, and grab more seats from the Democrats in the November elections. When the first drop oozed out of the well, if Obama had declared a national security emergency, sent in the troops, and clamped the cuffs on BP CEOs, the Obama bashers would have screamed dictator, heavy handed government interference, and socialist takeover. When that didn't happen, they dredged up the phony Katrina-Bush bungle comparison and reamed him for being cautious, vacillating, and sending out mixed signals.

The BP spill is the perfect storm of political one-upmanship and environmental catastrophe. This insures that the shout for Obama to do what he can't do with BP will get even louder, and that's muscle BP aside.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His new book is How Obama Governed: The Year of Crisis and Challenge (Middle Passage Press).
Follow Earl Ofari Hutchinson on Twitter: http://twitter.com/earlhutchinson

A wolf in sheep's clothing is still a wolf in sheep's clothing and a Turkish aid flotilla with terrorists is still a Turkish aid flotilla with terrorists. Of course Israel was right to invade the flotilla and x out the terrorists and arrest many others. What else were they supposed to do? Invite them to play shuffleboard? Have falafel and fries? That wouldn't have been a very prurient thing to do.

And that's because Israel's security comes first like it would in any other country. If the Palestinians hopped on a New York ferry, then Obama would be right to order the troops to close in on them. If they were floating around the Thames, then the English would be right to do the same.

And it would be a back page story, a mere blip on the computer screen. But this is Israel and the Jews we are dealing with here, so the playing field is not leveled nor even. Few express indignation when it is the Palestinians that attack the Israelis because that gets justified. The Israelis are the aggressors, they say. They are the occupier. It is an apartheid state. And people who don't know any better and are fearful and buy it.

The truth is that the Palestinians live in squalor because they choose to. And because they are adept at making babies and bombs and blaming the world for their problems. But no one ever sees the kindness that the Israelis have shown the Palestinians and the fact that Israel has allowed some aid to come in, which is something that the Palestinians would never do in return. And it's too bad, too because the Mideast could be such a powerhouse instead of a powder keg.

I don't know how George W. would have handled this, but I doubt he would have called for an investigation like Obama did or bemoan the self-inflicted squalor that the Palestinians live in, like Bill and Hillary Clinton.

The headline read that "Israel is expected to expel all activists," (read terrorists) now. They should count themselves lucky to be treated so nicely.

Israel was faced with a lose-lose-lose situation. Naturally, Israel lost. There were no good choices regarding the handling of the flotilla that was trying to run the blockade.

We need to do everything possible to prevent the ultimate lose-lose situation from occurring where Israel has to choose survival or destruction. Israel will not go gentle.

©2010 Jonathan Dobrer
www.Dobrer.com