Shots In The Dark

I'm off to Mexico to do some diving and, I hope, see some of these. I'll check in from time to time, but really back closer to Labor Day. Be well, everyone. And stay safe. It's a crazy world out there these days.

Here's a true story told to me by an executive friend at a Fortune 500 company. Probably a Fortune 100 company, I think.

The company, which shall remain nameless, is planning an event in Massachusetts, and organizers were discussing speakers to invite to address the attendees. Larry Summers' name came up, and though there was some question about whether he'd be too controversial, still it was thought that he would certainly make an interesting speaker.

So the idea was circulated to a larger audience within the company, including the CEO. And word came back from the top to nix the plan: Having Larry Summers speak at a company function "would not reflect well" on the company....

Thanks in large part to Cindy Sheehan, people are starting to raise the issue of why Jenna and Barbara Bush aren't serving in the military. It's a tough question, but I think it's a fair one. The President of the United States is calling on American young people to volunteer to go to war, but his own daughters, who are certainly of the appropriate age, are better known for their drunken nightclub escapades than for any acts of patriotism.

There's a precedent for prodding Bush on this question. Back in 1993, when Bill and Hillary Clinton moved to Washington, they decided to enroll Chelsea in a private, rather than public, school. Their choice; whatever. But the press asked the Clintons about that decision, and they had to defend it—publicly. (And unlike the Bush daughters now, Chelsea was a minor.)

It's pretty simple, really. The military doesn't have enough soldiers; the president believes that this is a good and right war; he has two daughters who could enlist in the military, but haven't. This doesn't add up. So here's a question I think a White House reporter should ask the president: "President Bush, if your own two daughters won't enlist, how can you expect anyone else's children to join the military?"

That, at least, is the argument made by Frank Rich in today's Times. Whatever the president may be saying, Rich argues, "the country has already made the decision for Mr. Bush. We're outta there."

I think Rich may be right: there does seem to be something fundamental that's transpired in the past week or so. Maybe it's the combination of increased mortality in Iraq (all those Ohio deaths); Cindy Sheehan's meta-protest; and a Pentagon general talking about a schedule for troop withdrawal.

And as I've noted before, Bush's rhetoric about the rationale for the war seems increasingly...dumb. And I don't use that word glibly. What I mean is that when he says we're in Iraq because it's a locus (not a word he'd use) of terrorism, we all know that it is such only because we invaded the country, and it wasn't before. When he says that we're fighting the terrorists over there so that we don't have to confront them here, in our "homeland"—God, I hate that word, what was wrong with "country"?—the hollowness of the argument is so obvious, it's almost embarrassing. Hence: dumb. Bush is trying to convince us of things that are patently untrue, and while it may have worked for some time, the rote repetition of these lines is making the president look out of touch and stupid.

This war, which never had a deep well of public support anyway, is fast losing whatever support it did have.

I recognize that this represents a political opportunity for Democrats and opponents of the war. Fair enough. But before progressives jump completely aboard the Cindy Sheehan bandwagon, we need to remember something Bill Clinton pointed out on CNN the other day: Whatever the reason for us going into Iraq, we are there now, and it's in our interest to have a successful outcome there. Democrats can't just sit back and enjoy the president's problems...they need to come up with some solutions. And just saying what a hero Cindy Sheehan is isn't enough.