President Obama’s speech about the Afghanistan troop surge, “for all its thoughtfulness and sporadic eloquence, was a failure at its central mission,” columnist Frank Rich wrote. “On its own terms, as both policy and rhetoric, it didn’t make the case for escalating our involvement in Afghanistan. It’s doubtful that the president’s words moved the needle of public opinion wildly in any direction for a country that has tuned out Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq alike while panicking about where the next job is coming from.”
On the other hand, former Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan wrote that “to have now a Democratic president surveying essentially the same history and data as his predecessor and coming to the same rough conclusion — we are in a real struggle with bad people, it will go a long time — was encouraging, and seemed to mark a two-party sharing of overall authority and investment. We can continue to fight over how to deal with the struggle, but we agree the struggle is real. This sounds small but is not.”
“The truth is that if Maj. Nidal Hasan, the accused killer of 13 people at Fort Hood, had entered the officers club there with a nice handbag on his arm, perhaps a Gucci tote, he would have been out of the Army by the end of the week,” columnist Richard Cohen wrote. “Since he was merely antisocial, a misfit, an incompetent psychiatrist and a likely Islamic fanatic, he was retained and promoted. This says something about America. On the subject of gays, we are a tad nuts ourselves.”
The 2010 legislative session may see another debate over how Kansas puts judges on its appellate courts, fueled by University of Kansas law professor Stephen Ware’s contention that the current nominating process is too dominated by lawyers. State Rep. Lance Kinzer, R-Olathe, plans to push for Kansas Supreme Court justices and Court of Appeals judges to be appointed by the governor and confirmed by the Kansas Senate, then to serve life terms without retention elections. Still, the case for an overhaul seems thin and partisan. And Kinzer’s contention that “the federal system is the best” is dubious, given the ideologically driven questioning by grandstanding senators, blocked nominations, filibusters and party line votes.
Good for Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., for questioning why the Obama administration is newly negotiating with and offering incentives to Sudan, a government accused of genocide by the International Criminal Court and whose president is the target of an ICC arrest warrant. Invited to participate Thursday in a House subcommittee hearing with retired Air Force Maj. Gen. Scott Gration, the U.S. special envoy to Sudan, Brownback said: “I strongly oppose any approach that provides incentives, concessions to a perpetrator of genocide. We cannot trade justice for peace. The ends do not justify the means.”
