Thomas Friedman, "From Beirut to Washington": Comparing the Tea Party With Hezbollah

Are you haunted by the past? I am.

Thirty years ago, in October 1983, Iran ordered Hezbollah, its terrorist surrogate in Lebanon, to perpetrate a series of suicide bombings in Lebanon, including the Marines Barracks Bombing, which killed 241 US servicemen. In the Behesht Zahra Martyrs' Cemetery in Teheran, a monument was erected honoring the suicide bombers.

Me? I merely guided New York Times reporters to the sites of one of these bombings, where the victims, covered with blankets and flies, had already been lined up in neat rows.

Fast forward . . .

Perhaps you recall Thomas Friedman's 1989 book "From Beirut to Jerusalem," which won the 1989 National Book Award for nonfiction. Well, in a play on words, this would-be Middle East expert today magnanimously bestows upon us a New York Times op-ed entitled "From Beirut to Washington" (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/20/opinion/sunday/from-beirut-to-washington.html), which compares Hezbollah, literally the "Party of Allah" or the "Party of God," with America's Tea Party. Friedman writes:

"The Tea Party is not a terrorist group. It has legitimate concerns about debt, jobs and Obamacare. But what was not legitimate was the line it crossed. Rather than persuading a majority of Americans that its policies were right, and winning elections to enact the changes it sought — the essence of our democratic system — the Tea Party threatened to undermine our nation’s credit rating if the Democrats would not agree to defund Obamacare. Had such strong-arm tactics worked, it would have meant that constitutionally enacted laws could be nullified if determined minorities opposed them. It would have meant Lebanon on the Potomac.

WHICH brings up one last parallel: Hezbollah started a war against Israel in 2006, without knowing how to end it. It didn’t matter whether it won or lost. All that mattered was that it 'resisted the Zionists.' Hezbollah’s tacit motto was: 'I resist, therefore I am.' Early in that 2006 war, Nasrallah boasted of Hezbollah’s 'strategic and historical victory,' by holding Israel to a draw. But, in the end, the Israeli Army dealt a devastating blow to Hezbollah’s neighborhoods and Lebanon’s infrastructure. After the smoke cleared, Nasrallah admitted that it was a mistake.

The Tea Party started this war on Obamacare with no chance of success and no idea how to end it — similarly intoxicated by a self-image of heroic 'resistance.' And just like Nasrallah, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas engaged in magical thinking, declaring that the House vote to defund Obamacare — although rejected by the Senate — was 'a remarkable victory.' But most of his Republican colleagues aren’t buying it. They see only ruin."

At least Friedman acknowledges that the Tea Party is "not a terrorist group" and "has legitimate concerns about debt, jobs and Obamacare," but the comparison with Hezbollah, an Iranian terror proxy, is still inapt.

I have little in the way of sympathy for the Tea Party, whose scorched-earth attempt to defund the US government was equivalent to unplugging a patient from life support. On the other hand, I also acknowledge that the US might well be terminally ill, and I am not alone in this diagnosis. As stated by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office in September with regard to America's financial future (http://www.cbo.gov/publication/44521) (my emphasis in red):

"Between 2009 and 2012, the federal government recorded the largest budget deficits relative to the size of the economy since 1946, causing federal debt to soar. Federal debt held by the public is now about 73 percent of the economy’s annual output, or gross domestic product (GDP). That percentage is higher than at any point in U.S. history except a brief period around World War II, and it is twice the percentage at the end of 2007. If current laws generally remained in place, federal debt held by the public would decline slightly relative to GDP over the next several years, CBO projects. After that, however, growing deficits would ultimately push debt back above its current high level. CBO projects that federal debt held by the public would reach 100 percent of GDP in 2038, 25 years from now, even without accounting for the harmful effects that growing debt would have on the economy . . . . Moreover, debt would be on an upward path relative to the size of the economy, a trend that could not be sustained indefinitely."

Or stated otherwise, the CBO is projecting a drawn-out, painful death.

Notwithstanding any PTSD - if you believe in it - that I may harbor, I remain a perpetual optimist and still believe in American exceptionalism and in the possibility an American economic renaissance. But with US national debt having just ticked over the $17 trillion mark, any sustained economic recovery will not be easy to orchestrate.

Compromise and reason will need to replace partisanship and arrogance, and more likely than not, this will not happen.

The 2006 war between Hezbollah and Israel, which Nasrallah, in a rare moment of candor, acknowledged was a "mistake," indeed "dealt a devastating blow to Hezbollah’s neighborhoods and Lebanon’s infrastructure." (I also witnessed this conflict from up-close.) But compare Hezbollah with the Tea Party?

When US national debt spirals over $20 trillion, and then $25 trillion, I fear that Ted Cruz will be back to tell us, "I told you so."

Maureen Dowd, "A Mad Tea Party": How About a Mad World?

Indeed, Ted Cruz and friends are bringing the US to its knees and threatening to destroy the world economic order. But then none of this would have been possible without the inept management of America's economy by a community organizer, leading to an unsustainable national debt of just a whisker under $17 trillion, equivalent to some $148,000 per taxpayer.

Moreover, the bungled rollout of Obamacare, the president's signature legislation, has not added to the nation's confidence.

In her latest New York Times op-ed entitled "A Mad Tea Party" (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/13/opinion/sunday/dowd-a-mad-tea-party.html), Maureen Dowd writes:

"HOW awful are Ted Cruz and his Cruzettes?

With 78 percent of Americans feeling blue about the country being on the wrong track, according to a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, many consider the G.O.P.’s imperialistic unilaterists less loco than the narcissistic anarchists. As grandiose delusions go, global domination makes more sense than self-annihilation.

'If I was in the Senate now, I’d kill myself,' Chris Christie said on Friday."

Yup, Ted Cruz and friends are pretty awful, but there would be no place for them in Washington if government had not gotten so far out of control.

If he was in the Senate, Christie would kill himself? Cute. Yet his decision to separate the US Senate and gubernatorial elections is costing New Jersey $24 million (see: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/05/nyregion/christie-sets-october-special-election-for-lautenberg-seat.html?pagewanted=all), which it can hardly afford.

A "mad tea party"? In fact, it's a mad world.

[To learn more about US higher education and the future of underwater basket weaving, see: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.co.il/2013/10/frank-bruni-colleges-identity-crisis-ah.html]

Maureen Dowd, "Welcome to Ted Cruz’s Thunderdome": Dystopia in 2084? How About 2038?

In her latest New York Times op-ed entitled "Welcome to Ted Cruz’s Thunderdome" (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/06/opinion/sunday/dowd-welcome-to-ted-cruzs-thunderdome.html), Maureen Dowd paints a dystopic picture of Washington 70 years from now, destroyed by the shutdown. Drawing on imagery much akin to scenes from Will Smith's 2007 "I Am Legend," Dowd writes:

"The year is 2084, in the capital of the land formerly called North America.

The peeling columns of the Lincoln Memorial, and Abe’s majestic head, elegant hands and big feet are partially submerged in sludge. Animals that escaped from the National Zoo after zookeepers were furloughed seven decades ago migrated to the memorials, hunting for food left by tourists.

The white marble monuments are now covered in ash, Greek tragedy ruins overrun with weeds. Tea Party zombies, thrilled with the dark destruction they have wreaked on the planet, continue to maraud around the Hill, eager to chomp on humanity some more."

Describing a conversation between a "gaunt man" and a "sickly boy" concerning who was responsible for this tragedy, Dowd is quick to name the villain :

"The boy frowns. 'But Papa, didn’t the healthy Republicans realize the infected ones had lower brain functions?”

'Well, son, they knew there was something creepy about the ringleader, Ted Cruz,' the man replies. 'His face looked pinched, like a puzzle that had not been put together quite right. He was always launching into orations with a weird cadence and self-consciously throwing folksy phrases into his speeches, like ‘Let me tell ya,’ to make himself seem Texan, when he was really a Canadian.'"

Blame it all on Ted Cruz? Forgive me if I don't assign that much importance or significance to any one member of America's dysfunctional Congress.

As I have said in the past, I support universal health care, but I am also worried by America's national debt, which is now just a tad under $17 trillion, growing by the minute and unsustainable.

And as even Paul Krugman asked yesterday (see: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.co.il/2013/10/paul-krugman-reform-turns-real-welcome.html) regarding Obamacare:

"What we still don’t know, and is crucial for the program’s longer-term success, is who will sign up. Will there be enough young, healthy enrollees to provide a favorable risk pool and keep premiums relatively low?"

Or stated otherwise: Are there enough healthy youngsters willing to pay more in order to subsidize the unfavorable risk pool, thereby preventing a fiscal disaster, i.e. Democratic Senator Max Baucus's "train wreck"?

Taken a step further, can payments from healthy youngsters ensure that Obamacare is fiscally neutral, i.e. a zero-sum game that does not contribute to massive rapid expansion of America's debt?
As posited by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office earlier this month with regard to America's financial future (http://www.cbo.gov/publication/44521):

"Between 2009 and 2012, the federal government recorded the largest budget deficits relative to the size of the economy since 1946, causing federal debt to soar. Federal debt held by the public is now about 73 percent of the economy’s annual output, or gross domestic product (GDP). That percentage is higher than at any point in U.S. history except a brief period around World War II, and it is twice the percentage at the end of 2007. If current laws generally remained in place, federal debt held by the public would decline slightly relative to GDP over the next several years, CBO projects. After that, however, growing deficits would ultimately push debt back above its current high level. CBO projects that federal debt held by the public would reach 100 percent of GDP in 2038, 25 years from now, even without accounting for the harmful effects that growing debt would have on the economy . . . . Moreover, debt would be on an upward path relative to the size of the economy, a trend that could not be sustained indefinitely."

Yes, unless government spending is brought under control, dystopia could come to the US some 50 years earlier than the time imagined by Dowd. But in order to bring that spending under control, people need to talk to one another, a skill that was lost in the beginning of the 21st Century, when narcissism infected the land.

Thomas Friedman, "Our Democracy Is at Stake": In Hostage Situations, You Need a Skilled Negotiator

In his latest New York Times op-ed entitled "Our Democracy Is at Stake" (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/02/opinion/friedman-our-democracy-is-at-stake.html?_r=0), Thomas Friedman would have us know that the US government shutdown is a hostage situation. Friedman writes:

"This time is different. What is at stake in this government shutdown forced by a radical Tea Party minority is nothing less than the principle upon which our democracy is based: majority rule. President Obama must not give into this hostage taking — not just because Obamacare is at stake, but because the future of how we govern ourselves is at stake.

. . . .

President Obama is not defending health care. He’s defending the health of our democracy. Every American who cherishes that should stand with him."

Okay, suppose we are dealing with a hostage situation. In such situations, in order to avoid great damage, a skilled negotiator is brought in to to reach a desired outcome, which does not endanger the hostages and cause unanticipated damage.

The health of America's democracy? As a skilled negotiator, I don't even want to go there. Given the severity of the crisis, it's irrelevant to me.

How we got into this hostage situation? Who is to blame? Again, as a skilled negotiator, I want to put this to the side. We can discuss it at a later date, when the crisis has been defused.

The two sides are unwilling to talk and the potential for damage is mounting? Let me step in and start to talk, calmly and objectively, so that egos don't get in the way of a solution.

Where to begin? Let me find where there is any meeting of the minds, no matter how small. How about the welfare of the United States? Are there even minor concessions that both sides can make?

Obama is defending the health of America's democracy? Every American should stand with him? Sorry, but these are platitudes, which will drive the two sides even further apart. To avoid a looming disaster, bring in a skilled negotiator, capable of reaching a compromise, with a history of deal making, and let him/her get to work.

Gail Collins, "Running On Empty": Swimming Pools Serve As Public Toilets

Empty? Indeed, another vacuous op-ed, and I'm being kind.

Gail Collins took several days away from the New York Times op-ed page and has just celebrated her grand return with "Running On Empty" (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/16/opinion/collins-running-on-empty.html), in which she tells us:

"Our biggest political division is the war between the empty places and the crowded places.

. . . .

The Tea Party is so Empty Places.

. . . .

Texas is so Tea Party.

. . . .

But until he dropped out of the race, varmint hunting was the dog on the roof of Romney’s 2008 campaign."

I'm wondering: If Texas is so Tea Party, is New York so Occupy Wall Street?

And once again, we have the "ingenious" segue leading up to her lame running joke concerning Romney's dog-on-the-roof story from 30 years ago. Hmmm, 30 years ago – that's about a year or two subsequent to the time when Obama was smoking weed with "The Choom Gang" (see: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/election-2012/post/the-choom-gang-president-obamas-pot-smoking-high-school-days-detailed-in-maraniss-book/2012/05/25/gJQAwFqEqU_blog.html), and a few short years prior to the time that Obama began his two-decade long relationship with the noxious Reverend Wright, but many years prior to Obama's foul smelling 2005 real estate transaction with Tony Rezko (see: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.co.il/2012/04/maureen-dowd-brutality-of-servility.html).

But what is habitual weed smoking, prolonged association with a hatemonger pastor, or a questionable business deal with a convicted felon relative to dog-on-the-roof? After all, Romney is a . . . whisper when you say it . . . Republican.

With a New York Times bully pulpit from which she can pronounce upon the slaughter of innocents in Syria, new advances in medicine, or the pain of crushing unemployment throughout the US, Gail chooses each week to go where no man or woman has ever gone before to test the envelope of dog-on-the-roof.

Well, as long as we're talking about the worldliness of people living in "crowded places" such as New York, I wish to raise a new issue much in keeping with the Gail Collins's school of opinion pieces. As reported in a recent article entitled "Swimming Pools Are Public Toilet Bowls for Many: Survey" (http://shine.yahoo.com/healthy-living/swimming-pools-public-toilet-bowls-many-survey-193700688.html) appearing in Yahoo! Shine:

"If you're taking a refreshing dip in a pool with four other people, odds are one of you is urinating. This is not gross-out myth, but cold, depressing fact from a recent survey conducted by the Water Quality & Health Council, a scientific research group sponsored by the American Chemistry Council.

The survey, conducted in April, asked nearly 1,000 adults whether they urinate in pools. One in five bravely admitted their mistakes. And those are the ones who admitted it."

Ah yes, the advantages of living with Gail in sophisticated crowded places! Pardon me if I avoid the community swimming pool this summer and find some other way to beat the heat.

David Brooks, "The Great Restoration": Untelegenically, Americans Repair Their Economic Values

In yet another thoughtful New York Times opinion piece, "The Great Restoration" (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/18/opinion/the-great-restoration.html?_r=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss), David Brooks informs us that notwithstanding the media attention being given to the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street movements, most of America is seeking to repair its economic values. Brooks writes:

"While the cameras surround the flamboyant fringes, the rest of the country is on a different mission. Quietly and untelegenically, Americans are trying to repair their economic values.

. . . .

The first norm is that you shouldn’t spend more than you take in. After an explosion of debt over the past few decades, Americans are now reacting strongly against the debt culture.

. . . .

Second, Americans are trying to re-establish the link between effort and reward.

. . . .

The third norm is that loyalty matters. A few years ago there was a celebration of Free Agent Nation. But now most people, even most young people, would rather work long-term for one company than move around in search of freedom and opportunity."

Sickened by the extremism of both the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street movements (the latter enthusiastically endorsed by New York Times columnists Kristof and Krugman), I find it gratifying to be informed by Brooks of this noiseless retrenchment of American values.

Forty years ago, I was contemptuous of President Nixon's reference to a "silent majority" and joined marches in the streets of Chicago in opposition to a senseless war in Vietnam. Today, I oppose American involvement in a senseless engagement in Afghanistan, but would like to believe that there indeed exists a "silent majority" which has come to acknowledge the inanity of this costly, prolonged conflict.

However, the Brooks op-ed is not so much about war, but rather about economics, and the resilience of Americans. It is a hopeful column, and I pray that Brooks is right. When, where and how will his theory be put to the test?

America today is governed by a telegenic president, who, by his own acknowledgement, has failed to improve the way in which Americans live during the course of his first term. "Change we can believe in" has crashed and burned.

Nevertheless, Obama is amassing a huge war chest to gain re-election. Although Obama failed to create jobs at Solyndra, in recent months he has opened campaign offices in 15 states, hired hundreds of staffers, and already spent $87 million to remain in the White House (see: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/17/us/politics/big-cash-edge-powers-obama-in-drive-for-2012-election.html?_r=1&hp).

Will Americans provide the telegenic president with a second term, notwithstanding his economic and foreign policy failures? Obviously, the answer will in large part be determined by whether the Republicans are able to field a more reasonable candidate. Nevertheless, 2012 should prove something of an acid test for the Brooks sociological theory.

Partially deafened by prolonged proximity to artillery and rifle fire, I've grown to appreciate the virtues of quietude and hope David is correct in his assessment of predominant mainstream American values.