More of the Same from Obama

          A flurry of news items have grabbed the public’s attention since the mid-term elections.  Several deserve our consideration.

          President Obama insists on going through with an unconstitutional executive order to give de facto amnesty to five million illegals, and Republicans vow to fight him any way they can.  Some have even uttered the “I” word.  But the GOP leadership insists that impeachment is not in the cards.  Congressman Trey Gowdy gave one reason for not wanting it when he asked, “Have you met Joe Biden?”  Another congressman agreed, describing Biden as two floppy shoes short of a full clown outfit.  So much for respecting the vice-presidency.
          The president is also moving forward on his global warming agenda by, on the one hand, negotiating a deal with China on pollution control, and, on the other, pledging $3 billion of taxpayer money to help emerging nations fight climate change.  The first is a symbolic farce, and the second will get little support in Congress or among developed nations that have better things to do with their money.
          Then there’s that familiar target of Conservative pundits, ObamaCare.  Among reports of glitches in the new start-up period, we have embarrassing videos of Jonathan Gruber revealing the extreme cynicism and dishonesty of ACA architects like himself.       “Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage,” said Gruber.  “Call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever, but basically that was really, really critical to getting the thing to pass.”  In other words, let’s not tell the people the truth.  Let’s make promises we know we can’t keep (“If you like your doctor…If you like your plan…”).  The stupid people out there won’t know the difference.  What’s important is that we know what’s best for them.   
          Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi are on record praising Gruber’s brilliance, although Pelosi now claims she didn’t know the guy.  And Obama says Gruber wasn’t part of his ACA team.   Then why, we ask, did he visit the White House so many times, and what did he do for the $400,000 he was paid?
          Charles Krauthammer said it best: “But now we know what lay behind Obama’s smooth reassurances—the arrogance of an academic liberalism, so perfectly embodied in the Gruber Confession, that rules in the name of a citizenry it mocks, disdains and deliberately, contemptuously deceives.”  Amen.

 

New Battle Lines

          When Republicans put up losers like Sharon Angle, Christine O”Donnell, Richard Mourdock, and Todd Aiken in Senate races they should have won in 2010 and 2012, Democrats rubbed their hands in glee at the prospect of further destructive battles between conservative and establishment factions within the GOP.  They can now stop chortling…the Republicans have finally put their act together.  Worse, the shoe is now on the other foot.

          The blame game has already started and it is revealing a deep division among Democrats.  One side, as described by Daniel Greenfield, is “the old corrupt party of thieves and crooks…the products of political machines [who] believe in absolutely nothing [and] will say anything to get elected.”  This is the faction headed by Harry Reid whose political action committee produced some of the most despicable and disgusting ads we’ve ever seen in any election cycle.  On the other side is the radical left, progressives like President Obama who want to fundamentally transform this country.
          The smashing victory of the Republicans on November 4^th has effectively removed Harry Reid from the seat of power in the Senate.  But, judging from the president’s first news conference on November 5^th, he is not about to give an inch.  He made it clear that he intends to use his veto pen and executive orders in pursuit of his agenda.  Compromise is simply not in his vocabulary.
          It remains to be seen how a Republican-controlled Congress lacking a veto-proof majority will be able to deliver on its own agenda.  Or how both parties go about reforming their battle lines for 2016.

 

 

Another Kind of Veteran

          I have never served in the military, but others in my family have. My brother Phil fought in Vietnam in the late 60s, and two of my sons were career officers in the Navy.

The first family member to serve was my uncle Emile who enlisted in the Army in 1917.  He wanted to go to Europe with America’s Expeditionary Force in WWI, but he was diagnosed with tuberculosis during basic training at Ft. Devens and was sent home. His youngest brother, my uncle Vic, served as an Army chaplain in Burma and India during WWII. I remember the souvenirs he brought back, including an ebony elephant, a gong, and a tiger skin with a head that had marbles for eyes but real teeth.  My dad is another story.

          In 1943 Dad tried to enlist in the Navy, but was turned down because he was too old and the father of two children with a third on the way. Instead he went to work for a Goodyear plant in Woonsocket, Rhode Island, that had been recruited to do secret work for the Army. Before the war Goodyear made sneakers in that plant. Then someone came up with the idea of making inflatable rubber decoys—planes, trucks, tanks, landing craft---and deploying them in England across the English Channel from Calais to fool the Germans into thinking that the allies would invade there instead of Normandy. I believe General George Patton was temporarily assigned to this fake army to convince Germans it was real. History tells us that the plan worked when the Germans concentrated much of their defenses around Calais. 
          In this odd way my Dad did his part in WWII.  Unfortunately, when the war ended, so did the need for Goodyear’s rubber tanks. Dad, in fact, told me he had been the last one to lose his job. He literally closed the door of the plant on its last day of operations. 
          It wasn’t until 1956 that he returned to government service with the State Department in Vietnam. Even after he retired in 1975 he retained a soft spot for the military. I was sitting next to him in 1985 when my son David was admitted to the Naval Academy. I turned to look at him during the induction ceremony. He had tears of pride rolling down his cheeks.

         

Saluting a Hero

           Last month I took my grandson Matthew for a haircut in Wilmington.  While I hung around waiting for him to be sheared, an old man walked in and sat down to wait his turn.  When I noticed that he was wearing a cap identifying him as a WWII veteran, I went over and sat next to him.

          I began a conversation by telling him about a good friend of mine who had been a bombardier flying missions from England.  The old man asked, “He wasn’t the one who bombed St. Lo, was he?”  St. Lo is a town in Normandy that was turned to rubble as part of the D-Day invasion.  “Were you there?” I asked.  He replied that he had landed on Utah Beach with the Army’s 5^th Infantry Division at 6:00 a.m. on D-Day, wading ashore with water up to his neck.  He pointed to a ribbon pinned to the back of his cap.  It had five stars on it and what looked like a grain of sand.  He said proudly, only those who landed on the beach that day have one of these.”
          For the next several minutes the old veteran kept me spellbound with tales of the liberation of France (and St. Lo) and the dash across Germany.  When he paused, I chimed in with a tale of my own.  I told him that I had been a student in Belgium in the early 60s and that one day an American friend of mine and I decided to take a break from our studies to visit the great cathedrals of northern France.  Our first stop was in Amiens, which is in the northwestern part of France and not all that far from Normandy.  After checking out the cathedral we stopped at a local bar for a late afternoon beer.  We were alone in the place except for four older men seated at a table across the way.  They kept staring at us.  Finally, one of them came over to our table and asked, “Are you boys American?”  When we told him that we were, he stuck out his hand and said, “I want to thank you for what you Americans did for us in the war.”  I remember how that sent shivers up my spine.
          When I finished my story, the old veteran looked at me in the eye and said, “Many people thank me, but very few take the time to talk to me.”  He was pleased that I had.  I told him I felt privileged for having had the opportunity to meet a real hero.
          By then my grandson had gotten his G.I. haircut and came over to us.  Matthew has always been interested in the military, and when I told him that the man sitting next to me had been part of the D-Day invasion, his jaw dropped and his eyes grew big as silver dollars.  He shook hands with the veteran and thanked him.
          We celebrated the 70^th anniversary of D-Day this year.  Veterans Day celebrated this week reminds us of the debt we owe to those heroes who risked their lives for us on that day.  We should never pass up a chance to say thank you. With so few WWII veterans remaining among us, we may soon not get another.