Dana Blankenhorn

Stop Being Terrorized

They caught him, OK?

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who tried to blow up a Northwest Airlines flight with a bomb he got in Yemen, did not blow up the airliner. The airliner did not blow up.

Yet, driven by the false equivalence of the mainstream media and the political hucksterism of the right-wing media, here we go again into another War On Terror alert.

Want to go overseas on business? Well the only choice will be Guantanamo Air. No carry-on bags and you can't even read a book the last hour of the flight? Give me a break.

Year of Renewal

Think of this as Volume 12, Number 52 of A-Clue.com, the online newsletter I've written since 1997. Enjoy.

---

There is a natural respiration to American politics.

A new leader wants the bad news to come out early in the term, so there is time for recovery before the next election.

This is how Ronald Reagan won re-election overwhelmingly. This is how Bill Clinton beat Bob Dole. Hard times are followed by good times.

In the present case green shoots are already apparent. The Republican opposition dismisses this and focuses on the deficit they did so much to create. But ask some Tea Party asshat whether we should have gone into Iraq or whether we should not have cut taxes eight years ago. If deficits matter, they matter. If deficits don't, they don't. To Republicans they only matter when Democrats are doing borrowing. They know the power of money and fear it when it's in the other side's hand.

The present issue is what any business does when it's in a hole. You either pull back and hope you can increase your profit margin, or you can invest anew in hopes that new profit, and bigger sales, will make the old debt look smaller.

Guess which course winning businesses take?

The Blankenhorn Christmas Letter for 2009

The year 2009 was the most turbulent Jenni and I have ever faced together. Most of it was expected, and the results have been good. But even positive change is hard.

The biggest change is Robin. I have not seen her since August.

But don't panic. This is a good thing.

She was accepted at Texas A&M Kingsville (TAMUK), which has the only program in the nation studying wild cats in their natural environment. She is taking her undergraduate degree there in hopes of joining the program as a graduate student. It's something she has talked about for over a decade – “I want to study cats in the wild or in zoos” – and she is on her way.

Not that we don't miss her. But kids grow up. They get their own ambitions, and must live their own lives. Robin is 21 now, mature in many ways and child-like in some others. She wants to help our planet and protect our ecosystems. This is her path and we all love her dearly for pursuing it.

This did leave John as an only child, of course.

The Year of Penance

Think of this as Volume 12, Number 51 of A-Clue.com, the online newsletter I've written since 1997. Enjoy.

---

I have been searching for a word these last weeks, a single word that could sum up what 2009 has meant, the close of the first decade of the 21st century.

The word that finally came to mind is penance. (I didn't know there was a Marvel character of that name, but this picture of him is interesting.)

I was born a Roman Catholic, and I'm certain the church fathers still count me, but we drifted apart long ago. My son goes to an American Baptist church -- Roger Williams baptist as opposed to John C. Calhoun baptist. Long story short I know something of sin and forgiveness.

Penance is important, but it's only the first step on a necessary journey. You're supposed to marry intent to action. You're supposed to change your behavior.

For most of this decade America was an outlaw nation. We rejected your reality and substituted our own. Many liberals, like me, had thought of George W. Bush to be an elite imposition on our politics. What we learned this year is he wasn't. His party's grassroots may have rejected his record, but they have yet to reject a single thing he stood for.

Getting better all the time

Think of this as Volume 12, Number 50 of A-Clue.com, the online newsletter I've written since 1997. Enjoy.

---

For most of my life I have lived a little ahead of the curve.

I was early to the Internet, early to warning of the dot-bomb. I am a futurist by trade and inclination. Even in my mid-50s I care little for nostalgia. I'm always looking around the next corner.

The next corner looks pretty good.

(This illustration, and the one which follows, is from The New York Times' review of A Good Day, a childrens' book by the greatly-underestimated Kevin Henkes. Got a little tiny one on your Chistmas list? Amazon is open 24-7.)

While most people spent 2009 in the Great Recession, I managed to ride above the waves. My wife helped, but I found meaningful employment for the first time in a decade, with four blogs now owned by CBS, adding up to not only a tidy living but a fulfilling one that meets my strengths well.

My kids have both gotten better. One is in college in Texas right now, and I can hear the personal growth coming through the phone. She knows what she wants and what must be done to get it. My son starts college in January, a little more tentatively, living at home, but he is going to find his footing. And I can afford the bills.

While the Administration was pushing through its $800 billion stimulus plan I pushed through a more modest $150,000 plan. We added on to the house. It's now very energy efficient, and big enough so both my wife and I can work here without driving one another crazy. We're ready for what comes, even if that's a long, loving lifetime together, because the new bathroom is fitted with handicapped railings.

Argument Clinic

There are scientific arguments and there are political arguments.

They are different.

• Science proceeds from evidence. It often moves slowly. Minority views are respected, so long as they bring evidence to the party. Evidence is data. Without data there is no argument. Even after a consensus is reached, new evidence may still upset it. But without evidence the argument will not be re-opened.
• Politics proceeds from belief. It can move quickly. Minority views can be suppressed, and the smaller the minority the more possible this becomes. All is fair. You can argue based on anything you like. Consensus is rare, the majority rules. Well-organized minorities can beat loosely-organized majorities. Heat is often prized over light.

ClimateGate is politics. It is not science. It brings nothing new to the party, save for some wild charges based on a deliberate misreading of stolen e-mails. It alleges a grand "conspiracy" among the world's climate scientists, motivated by hope of financial gains, but even here its evidence is weak.

It is the big lie, meant to distract us from what must be done to save the lives of our grandchildren. It represents short-term values, which are powerful in politics.

The 1970 Game: Who Will Be James L. Buckley Now?

Think of this as Volume 12, Number 49 of A-Clue.com, the online newsletter I've written since 1997. Enjoy.

---

You win elections by playing offense.

This is especially true if you're the governing party. And especially if you represent a new Thesis, a new set of myths, values and assumptions you want to drive politics for decades.

In the years before a new Thesis attains power, it is so desperate for allies that it will support anyone who puts the label next to their name. Once it is in power, loyalty to the leadership and (more important) to the myths, values and assumptions of the leadership, becomes more vital.

The Nixon Thesis was sustained by this in its early years. And one of its chief instruments was James L. Buckley (right). Buckley, a lawyer and William F.'s brother, was the smiling face behind the New York Conservative Party in 1968, and with Nixon's election engineered a coup against the New York Republican leadership, the "Rockefeller Republicans."

That's Rockefeller as in Nelson. Nelson Rockefeller was part of the Eisenhower coalition, a true AntiThesis to the Roosevelt Thesis of Unity, because (like Bill Clinton a generation later) he accepted the premises of that Thesis and sought mainly to moderate it, lean against it, show it could be managed more efficiently.

As Dean would lead to Obama, so Goldwater led to Nixon. The Goldwater movement was the "Netroots" of the 1960s -- highly energized volunteers, grassroots activists with firm principles, seeking not to moderate the Roosevelt Thesis but to overthrow it (as the Netroots would help overthrow the Nixon Thesis.

Nixon approved of this. He wanted loyalty to what he was doing, and the best way to gain that was to eliminate the Rockefeller Republicans. So Buckley, who only had the Conservative line in 1968, was given a second line in 1970, and this became the instrument through which national Republicans funneled millions to defeat Rockefeller's man, Charles Goodall, and neuter Rockefeller himself.

Nixon is back and he's a Democrat

The President's speech on Afghanistan was called adult by some commentators.

Only I'm afraid it wasn't. 

That's because, like President Nixon's Silent Majority speech on Vietnam 40 years earlier, it told only half the truth. 

The President's strategy of a quick build-up, and then a quick draw-down, in Afghanistan only makes sense as part of a larger Afghanistan-Pakistan strategy.

Just as Nixon didn't tell America about his secret war in Laos or his plans for Cambodia, so President Obama did not discuss the dirty war the CIA is waging now, and will continue to wage, in Pakistan.