Romney Blows His Chance at a "No, Ma'am" Moment

[This article also appears on Huffingtonpost.com. You can access it from my author page here.]

Mitt Romney had a chance Monday to demonstrate to the American people that he was more than an opportunistic mercenary who would say anything to win the White House. And he failed. Miserably.

Put another way, he blew his chance at a "No, ma'am" moment.

On October 10, 2008, less than a month before the presidential election, and with his standing falling in the polls in the wake of the collapse of Lehman Brothers, John McCain fielded a question at a town hall meeting in Minnesota from a woman who said, "I can't trust Obama. I have read about him and he's not, he's not uh — he's an Arab."

McCain didn't hesitate. He politely but firmly took the microphone from the woman and said, shaking his head, "No, ma'am. No, ma'am.  He's a decent family man, citizen, that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues, and that's what this campaign's all about."

McCain chose the high road. He wasn't above smearing Barack Obama's character during the campaign.  He was also willing to be dishonest about Obama's record and policy positions. But there was a line of basic decency he wouldn't cross. (I am not saying that to be Arab is to be un-American, of course. But that generalization was certainly imbedded in the statement of the woman at the town hall.)

In the heat of the battle, McCain showed his basic decency with his "No, ma'am" moment.

Romney had his chance Monday to prove his integrity. At a town hall event in Cleveland, a woman, in a question to Romney, said, "We have a president right now that is operating outside the structure of our Constitution," adding, "I do agree he should be tried for treason." How did Romney respond? Did he take this moment to say, "Wait a minute. I don't agree with the president's policies, but he clearly is not trying to overthrow the U.S. government"?

Did Romney have his "No, ma'am" moment?

No. Romney stood in silence while she made the baseless and incendiary accusation, and when she was done, he just answered her question about the balance of powers, talking about how great the Constitution is. In doing so, Romney gave the impression to the crowd that either he was not going to set the woman straight or, worse, that he endorsed the speaker's ridiculous comment. And that's reprehensible.

Yes, I know after the town hall, while greeting supporters, when asked if he agreed that Obama should be tried for treason, he said, "No, of course not." But at that point it was too little, too late. McCain didn't wait to tell reporters after the town hall that Obama wasn't an untrustworthy Arab. He set the record straight, there and then, in front of the audience.

McCain knew the difference between attacking your opponent and accusing him of looking to overthrow the American government. Romney, clearly, sees no such distinction.

We're still six months away from the election, and Romney and his supporters (armed with hundreds of billions of dollars in post-Citizens United super PAC money) will no doubt unleash a fusillade of lies and fear-mongering statements aimed at smearing the president. But what we can now surmise, this early in the campaign, is that Romney, unlike McCain, will make no attempt to set the record straight on the most inflammatory, extreme (and obviously false) statements of his supporters.

That says a lot. It shows that Romney is the say-anything-to-anyone-to-get-elected mercenary so many Americans think he is. Worse, he is the human Etch a Sketch his advisor says he is.

If Romney can't stand up to nutjobs calling the president treasonous, what can he stand up to? Seemingly not anyone or anything that might cost him a vote. And that's the last thing we need from a leader, let alone the president of the United States.

We already knew it was going to be an ugly six months ahead, filled with lies coming from Romney and his supporters. But we now know that when the most inflammatory of the lies are unleashed in Romney's presence, he won't have the integrity to simply say, "No, ma'am."

An Open Letter to Russ Feingold: Why You Have to Run for Governor

[This article also appears on Huffingtonpost.com. You can access it from my author page here.]

Dear Sen. Feingold:

As you know, the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board Friday officially certified a recall election for far-right Governor Scott Walker. This was not a close call, as the board found 900,939 valid signatures, far more than the 540,208 minimum needed to force an election.

I know you've said you won't run against Walker, but I am writing to plead with you to change your mind. I would humbly suggest that if the values you stood for in 28 years representing the people of Wisconsin--standing up for the middle class and seeking to prevent undue influence from corporations--were honest and not a campaign ploy (and I fully believe you were genuine), than running for governor in this year's recall election would be vital to protect those values, which Walker has assaulted for the last year.

I admit I fully understand why you would not want to run.

First, after 10 years in the Wisconsin State Senate and 18 years in the U.S. Senate, you have earned the opportunity to explore alternative, less-stressful ways of promoting causes you believe in, especially through heading Progressives United, which is dedicated to "stand[ing] up to the exploding corporate influence in our political system by organizing and amplifying the voices of those who believe that corporations have too much power." You have served your state and your country with distinction. It's understandable that you would like to move on.

Second, I'm sure you feel angry and betrayed by the people of Wisconsin for voting you out of office in 2010. After all, you spent three terms in the U.S. Senate standing up for the values of Wisconsin while not operating as a close-minded partisan, comfortable working with Republicans when appropriate (like McCain-Feingold) and even bucking progressives by often voting to support gun rights because you knew that such a position was consistent with the beliefs of a large number of your constituents (even if progressives like me disagreed with your stance). And your reward was not only to be rejected as part of a "wave" election in 2010, but to have the electorate choose over you a truly unimpressive, far-right ideologue who, as I wrote in October 2010, "has called Social Security a "Ponzi scheme," blamed climate change on sunspots, called dismantling Social Security and Medicare a "starting point," and is "open" to abolishing the Federal Reserve." I would be very angry if the people of my state chose a guy like that over me, and I'm sure you are, too.

Third, with the Koch brothers and others dumping millions of dollars into the state to defend Walker, you know that the Democratic nominee will find himself/herself in a tough spot of either making use of the same post-Citizens United issue-ad financing that you abhor or going into the election at a colossal financial disadvantage.

But here's the thing: Despite your valid reasons for staying out of the race, you need to change your mind and run for governor (and do so ASAP). I base this conclusion on two basic principles that should trump your valid concerns:

1. You (and maybe only you) can beat Walker. With Walker's buckets of corporate money and name recognition, along with the hesitancy some voters may have about the recall process (something I discussed in November), it is going to be a tough task to defeat him in the election. To do so will take an exceptional candidate, someone with statewide name recognition, a stellar record of service and the ability to appeal to moderate independents. And as the field is shaping up right now, you are the only person who would fit that description. Former Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk and Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett are good executives, but Falk is unknown and has what some in Wisconsin see as the stigma of being from liberal Madison, and Barrett already lost to Walker (and Walker's team has already started blaming him for raising taxes in Milwaukee and presiding over a poor economy, a strategy that worked in 2010, even though Walker himself has been at the helm as Wisconsin has lost jobs and underperformed in the economic recovery compared to the rest of the country).

Recent polls support my take on your electability. In late February, Public Policy Polling had you ahead of Walker 52 percent to 45 percent. None of the eight other potential candidates PPP polled got 50 percent or more. Falk only edged Walker, 48 percent to 47 percent, while Barrett did only slightly better, 49 percent to 46 percent (both within the margin of error).

It seems clear that you would be, by far, the candidate most likely to beat Walker, and you may, in fact, be the only candidate that can be Walker at all. You are certainly the only candidate that has a chance to win without making use of Super PAC money.

Which brings me to the second reason you have to run:

2. This recall election will determine whether Walker continues to damage the lower and middle classes in Wisconsin. As you know well, since Walker's so-called "budget repair bill" passed, gutting collective bargaining for state workers and slashing education budgets across the state (something that has had a devastating effect on Wisconsin school districts), all while cutting taxes for the wealthy, Wisconsin's economy has been in a free fall. Specifically, the state was one of only six to contract during this period, losing tens of thousands of private sector jobs, especially in manufacturing, as neighboring states have gained jobs (especially in manufacturing). The recovery seen in the rest of the country has bypassed Wisconsin.

The center of Walker's 2010 campaign was his promise to create 250,000 jobs, but, once in office, he sacrificed the economic well being of the middle class to enact a far-right-wing wish list of initiatives that had nothing to do with creating jobs, including, in addition to union busting and gutting education spending, new laws to suppress low-income and elderly voters, no-bid privatization of energy interests, and an attack on women's right to choose and access to birth control.

Wisconsin's (non-wealthy) citizens are under siege by a governor uninterested in them. The only way to stop this attack is to vote Walker out of office.

It would certainly be a defendable assertion to argue that nobody has done more than you in the last three decades to protect the Wisconsin middle class and limit the influence of corporations. So if these causes are as important to you as you've always said they are (and I fully believe you do hold these causes dear), than you have to do what is necessary to try and stop Walker, which means running against him.

I think it's pretty clear that you can do more good right now in the Wisconsin governor's mansion than you can at Progressives United. You can drive from power a governor steadfastly pushing policies that damage most Wisconsinites.

As a result, I beg you to reconsider your decision and throw your hat into the ring for the Democratic nomination to oppose Walker in the recall election.

Submitted with nothing but respect and admiration for what you have done in three decades of public service,

Mitchell Bard
Madison, Wisconsin

Karzai Asks Us to Leave (Most of) Afghanistan, and We Should Listen

[This article also appears on Huffingtonpost.com. You can access it from my author page here.]

It's starting to look like the Obama administration is moving toward a decision to get American troops out of Afghanistan at an even faster pace than the drawdowns announced in November. I hope so. At this point, we no longer have any valid interest in maintaining tens of thousands of soldiers in the country.

The New York Times reported Tuesday that the administration is considering speeding up its withdrawal timetable. Two days later, Afghan president Hamid Karzai demanded that American troops pull out of the country's villages by 2013, confining themselves to major bases. We should listen to him, only sooner.

While the original foray into Afghanistan was justified (after 9/11), and President Obama's attempt to put things back on track after the Bush administration's incompetent handling of the war in Afghanistan (with its diversion to Iraq) was understandable, two years after the implementation of the president's new strategy, it's time to reassess why we are in Afghanistan, what we can hope to accomplish, and what our next move should be.

The original goal in attacking Afghanistan in 2002 was to topple the Taliban government, which had allowed Al Qaeda to base its terrorist operations out of the country. The 2010 Obama plan was aimed at nation building, providing an infrastructure for a civil government and an Afghan police force and army that could defend the country from the menace and religious extremism of the Taliban (thus, allowing the United States to exit Afghanistan).

In 2012, after ten years in Afghanistan (longer than the Soviets in the 1970s), it seems to me we've done all we can do there, and it's time to bring most of our troops home. None of the reasons proffered for a continued major presence make sense anymore.

Fighting terrorism. Thanks to the Obama administration's escalation of attacks on Al Qaeda, including drone attacks in both Afghanistan and Pakistan, the terrorist organization has been left leaderless, weakened and dispersed, top intelligence leaders testified to Congress in February. And the killing of Osama bin Laden was carried out not by the might of conventional army divisions, but through the specialized work of intelligence professionals and small, elite military groups (like SEAL Team Six).

Simply put, we don't need tens of thousands of American troops in Afghanistan to fight Al Qaeda and other terrorists. It's not the way the world operates in 2012. The real dangers are elsewhere. And we can address the dangers that remain there more efficiently, with only a handful of soldiers in Afghanistan.

Nation building. Possibly the most compelling argument to stay is to protect the Afghan people from the extremism of the Taliban. But report after report from Afghanistan, including two New York Times Magazine pieces roughly 20 months apart (June 2010 and February 2012), tell similar stories of the challenges facing U.S. troops in trying to build Afghan institutions to offer an alternative to the Taliban. The Taliban know they can outwait us. They know that eventually American troops will have to pull out. They have areas in which they can retreat, knowing American soldiers cannot chase after them. And they have the resolve to forge ahead. The biggest problem is that the Afghan people know this, too. They are afraid to support the Afghan government, knowing full well that the Taliban can seek retribution.

But the inability to nation build (assuming that the Afghan army and police cannot fight off the Taliban once we leave, something we won't know until we're gone) is not just about the Taliban threat. It may be time that we recognize that a majority of the Afghan people may not want to live in a Western-style free democracy.

Even if we could, somehow, remove the Taliban as a dangerous force, Afghan culture is not always in sync with Western values, especially equality for women. The country's record on rights for women, and not just acts by the Taliban, but by the government and families acting on their own and for their tribes, is abysmal. Imprisoning women for being raped, honor killings, attacks on girls for attending schools, and acid attacks are emblematic of the problem.

A culture that so freely mistreats half its population may not be ready for democracy. We can't impose our way of life on people that don't want it. And I think it's time we stop sacrificing the lives of our soldiers to try and do it. Unfortunately, there are many places in the world where governments and groups persecute portions of their populations (based on gender, sexual orientation, religion, race, tribe, etc.). We can protest, use diplomacy, employ sanctions and otherwise try to fight these abuses. But we can't send the military to all these places to try and protect those being persecuted. So the reprehensible way Afghanistan treats its women can't be the primary justification for keeping American soldiers in the country.

Protecting an ally. For what kind of government in Afghanistan are American soldiers risking (and, too often, giving) their lives? Not one that is worth their sacrifices (and that of their families). Karzai's government is corrupt, with accusations that he fixed his 2009 re-election questioning its legitimacy. And it is not as if he has been a loyal ally to the United States, as he has openly courted Iran as an ally (and taken money from the country) and surrounded himself with anti-American advisers.

At this point, it's hard to argue that the Karzai regime is one worth fighting for.

In the end, over the last two years, we as a country did everything we were capable of to give the Afghan people the chance to choose a path of democracy and equality. Whether we waited too long, or the country's ancient tribal culture and misogynic traditions were too deep and ingrained to overcome, we seemed to have reached the limit of how far we could move Afghan society away from its less free traditions. The bottom line is that staying longer is not going to make a difference.

Our goals when we invaded Afghanistan, and when President Obama reinvigorated efforts in Afghanistan in 2010, are no longer served by the continuing presence of a large number of troops in the country.

Over the last ten years, we toppled the Taliban. We built up the Afghan army and police force. We built up the country's infrastructure. We accomplished a lot (although we wasted opportunities while in Iraq, but we can't turn back the clock).

What happens next is up to the Afghan people, not us. The country's president has asked us to leave. If he doesn't want us there, we shouldn't be there. In fact, we should beat Karzai's timetable and get most of our troops out of Afghanistan as soon as is safe and practical.