MSNBC’s Chuck Todd recently tried to ask Obama’s Press Secretary Robert Gibbs how the administration could honestly attempt to portray its $17 billion budget cut, which amounts to less than a half a percent of the total budget, as a serious spending reduction. Todd asked, "1/2 of one percent, how is this truly a tough decision and a tightening of the belt?" Gibbs responded by making quips about the stock price of GE (NBC’s and Chuck Todd’s parent company) and how much its revenue has dropped. Mr. Todd, unfazed, continued to press the question and received this response: "Let’s you and I walk out on the street today… let’s interview maybe a dozen people and ask them whether  they think 17 billion dollars is a lot of money." According to this statement, Mr. Gibbs thinks that the best way to deal with a problem is to approach the people with only a piece of the picture. Just go out on the street and ask people if $17 billion is a lot of money? Of course it is, but $3.4 trillion is even more. That didn’t seem to bother Mr. Gibbs when the budget under consideration. I’ve got another idea for Mr. Gibbs. Let’s go out on the street and ask someone if a half a percent is significant If that would mean that someone making $100,000 a would cut only $300 from their budget (Thanks to MSNBC for this one). So much for truth and transparency, it’s more like smoke and mirrors.   

www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_gIIp5yuoI

If there is one thing I can say about the reaction to Barack Obama’s first 60 days in office, it’s that conservative media has been trying far too hard to make mountains out of mole hills. Don’t get me wrong, I believe that it’s very important for the press to expose government waste and abuse, but the conservative news outlets keep jumping the gun.

Take the fairness doctrine for example. It had the potential to be a powerful, high profile piece of ammunition. If it had been considered, even only in committee, it would have revealed the hypocrisy of its author and any co-signers. If it had made it out of committee, it would have been political gold. Instead, the talk show pundits hammered the fairness doctrine into their audiences before any sort of legislation had even been proposed. Now that fairness doctrine is one of the issues, its supporters now know better than to introduce it. Instead, they are likely to use the FCC or an amendment to a funding bill to try to push a similar policy through in a form that is harder to recognize and harder to sensationalize.

The talk show hosts, who rode this issue into the ground now might come off as a little paranoid to those of our fellow citizens who are on the fence: “All that talk and no one even introduced the legislation? Crazy conservatives…” If these same people had allowed this bill to quietly make its way into Congress, they would have had some fantastic political firepower. How can anyone in Congress justify limiting the freedom of the press in today’s day and age? The opposition that these hosts could then have generated and actually put to good use would soon have made most of Congress uncomfortable and the bill would likely never have passed anyway.
   
There are many other examples, but I want to talk about Barack Obama’s recent “gaffe” on Leno. In case you don’t know the story, the President appeared on Leno and compared his bowling to the Special Olympics. Initially, I hoped that this might be a crushing blow to political correctness, but I was disappointed and horrified to see Fox pick up on the issue and focus on the childish issue of a double standard for conservatives and liberals when it comes to political correctness. While that point is somewhat valid, it hardly matters in our country’s struggle through trying times and Fox failed to recognize the situation as the gift it really was.

This was a perfect opportunity to crack the armor of Political Correctness. Barack Obama, an immensely popular person, made a harmless and funny joke that was slightly politically incorrect. What the conservative media should have done is congratulate Obama on moving beyond the ridiculousness of political correctness. O’Reilly and other commentators should have sent him a personal note congratulating his wisdom and good sense of humor. If a conservative made a similar comment in the future, the conservative media could easily have pointed out that Obama himself seemed to feel that political correctness was absurd and this would put politically correct busybodies in quite a quandary. Instead, they jumped all over him the same way the liberal media would jump on a conservative.

Their argument is that there is a double standard. So what?  As conservatives are so fond of saying, “are we in kindergarten?” This was a fantastic opportunity to defeat political correctness, but it was squandered in a mad scramble attempt to embarrass the President. President Obama, I offer you my humble congratulations and respect for recognizing that a joke is a joke and we, as Americans, do not have the right to be free of discomfort or insult. I say shame on the conservative media for jumping on this like a 4 year old angry that a classmate got an extra cookie. 

On March 9, 2009, President Obama overturned former President Bush’s executive order banning federal money from funding embryonic stem cell research. He cited his desire to make decisions “based on facts, not ideology.” While the pundits on both sides of the issue have criticized or lauded the move using the same tired old lines from the 90s cultural wars, few have considered the implications of divorcing science from ideology.

Today, through science, we have an undisputed power of destruction, unprecedented mobility, near omnipresence with information from around the world available at the speed of light, and, finally, the ability to change the very makeup of life itself. We stand on the brink of obtaining the ability to change ourselves at will, the power to manipulate our physical forms into whatever we desire. The question is, do we look back at the past and reject this power to preserve that which is essentially human, or do we continue without looking at the ramifications of what we are about to do?

Science, for as many questions as it can answer for us, fails us in answering this one. Whether from resentment of the past or desire for purity, many scientists shun the “arbitrary” morality of the past in favor of consistent systems derived from natural laws and scientific principle. Unfortunately, such emphasis on natural law leaves out an element that our ancestors seemed to believe was an essential part of humanity.

Science without the moral and ethical guidance of history’s collective human experience ceases to serve humanity and, instead, only serves to continue its own existence. This is not to say by any means that science should be abandoned, rather this suggest that science and humanities must be equals. It has a tremendous potential, but without the guidance of human experience, it pursues avenues of research that are perhaps the very antithesis of what we see as human traits.

Cloning illustrates this point very well. There’s nothing scientifically wrong with reproductive cloning. What scientific fact precludes citizens’ ability to choose to recreate a deceased child if they so choose? Furthermore, there is no scientific reason to avoid cloning for organ harvesting. Consider the possibilities. You commission a clone of yourself and, before it is brought to term, you harvest the organs and mature them individually for future organ replacements. Many individuals find the idea of cloning for organs repugnant, but the important question, however, is why do find such a technique so repulsive? Scientifically, the idea is sound. It is an expedient method of crafting perfect, replacement organs. It might violate scientific codes of ethics, but aren’t those ideologically based as well?

The simple and obvious answer is that ideology stays our hand. Fundamentally, science is neither ethical nor unethical. It makes no judgments beyond whether data was obtained in a manner that ensures repeatability and a sound application of the scientific method. Any further judgments are inherently ideological restrictions and wholly subjective. The President, contrary to his rhetoric, has kept ideological restrictions in place, as many people would have been horrified by their removal.  The claim that ideology can be removed from science is ridiculous at best and deeply disturbing at worst. We must realize that science, as a study, does not share our horror; everything is fair game unless we, as humans, declare otherwise. If we wish to be served by science, ideology must regulate scientific study.

We as humans, should not only be able to restrict science, but we should feel obligated to ensure that it does not disrespect the sanctity of human life under the guise of serving us. When so many people feel so strong about this issue, it is indeed wrong to force them to fund it through mandatory taxes, especially when there are promising alternatives. Whereas President Bush’s executive order was intended to allow people to choose for themselves whether to fund such controversial research, President Obama’s decision is nothing more than an attempt to force his own ideology upon the entire nation under the guise of doing the very opposite.

On Tuesday, President Barack Obama ordered an additional 17,000 U.S. troops into Afghanistan. I applaud him for sticking to his campaign promise despite the negative reaction this is generating among his most radical supporters. As a candidate, President Obama promised to remove troops from Iraq and ramp up efforts in Afghanistan, which he considered the battlefield where our troops were truly needed. At the time, I was not particular happy with Obama and his supporters because of their attempts to undermine the war effort in Iraq. President Obama had argued against the surge and continued to insist that the surge was too costly and ineffective even after its implementation accompanied a massive drop in violence. Could it have been a coincidence? Let’s be honest with ourselves… NO.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yAt6SoZbkE

He has been remarkably less critical of the plan as of late. No doubt this change occurred when he realized that the surge had changed the game enough that he could accelerate the withdrawal from Iraq thereby meeting a campaign promise without the dishonor of defeat. Bush may have gotten us into the mess in the first place, but we’re not being honest with ourselves if we don’t acknowledge that he did a tremendous job in bringing it nearly to a peaceful conclusion. If we want to learn from both our mistakes and our successes, we have to objectively evaluate what worked and what didn’t, even if it does not agree with our particular world view.

Moving on from Iraq, I want to congratulate the President for his bold action in Afghanistan. He is quite right when he says that we need to win in Afghanistan:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wuATs_PdK4

Besides the implications of a resurgent Taliban to Afghanistan and our world image, we must consider the bigger picture. Don’t forget, the Taliban have a tremendous power base in Pakistan and, should they manage to regain Afghanistan, will control a significant piece of the middle east which borders Pakistan and Iran. The inevitable captured U.S. military hardware alone would make them quite a force.

I can already hear you, "so they have better guns, big deal." While you’re correct that weapons don’t make much of a difference, consider what type of warfare the Taliban excel at: infiltrating borders and guerrilla warfare. Now give this powerful guerrilla force the revenue of an entire country of Heroin exports, lots of surplus military hardware, and the manpower of a terrified population. Situation doesn’t look so simple anymore, does it? Now, consider what would happen if the Taliban, now in control of Afghanistan, use their power and shared borders to further destabilize Pakistan and obtain nuclear weapons…

Sadly, ending a war is not a simple black and white decision. While it might seem best to simply withdraw, it would have tremendously negative implications for our national security. Even more importantly, we do not have access to the intelligence that the president does. At least on this issue , we cannot insist that we know better. We need to see this fight through to a stable conclusion and kudos to Obama for committing to it despite his supporters rising chorus of dissatisfaction.

Hail to the chief!

Madas

www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8hMJVXt09E

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi: "Every month that we do not pass this stimulus package, 500 MILLION American’s lose their jobs…"
This was probably just a simple mix up… but why was it not covered on the news? It’s time for equal standards and accountability. If you want us to spend over a trillion dollars, Madam Speaker, than you had best have your facts straight. With convenient quotables like this… I don’t think you’ll ever have any credibility.