politicizing tragedy

I'm getting pretty disgusted with Republican efforts to make political gains as a result of the deaths of the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans in Benghazi, Libya. That evidently is the new GOP strategy.

Their logic seems to be:  President Obama must be judged a failed president because: [1] the intelligence community changed its assessment as to whether the attack was premeditated by a terrorist group; [2] State Department security officials failed to field a large, well-armed force to defeat the attack which was launched; [3] those same officials denied a request to extend the tour of a military unit providing security for the embassy in Tripoli; and [4] somehow these actions by subordinate units of the U.S. government demonstrate the broader critique that America is less safe than four years ago, that the President is a failed leader, and that he apologizes for America.

It doesn't follow. What Benghazi showed was how chaotic Libya and much of the post-Arab spring world is. And that chaos is not, as Gov. Romney seems to argue, because the Obama administration failed to side with demonstrators earlier or because the struggle is between "democracy and despotism." Moreover, the answer is not a platoon of soldiers with tanks and helicopters accompanying every U.S. diplomat, but careful assessments balancing risks and diplomatic needs. Sec. Clinton made that point well yesterday. Right now, we have the ridiculous situation where officials can't do their jobs with tight security and thus face risks that can lead to tragedy. That's a dilemma, not proof of a failed presidency.

historical revisions

I'm getting exposed to a lot of historical revisionism this week. I'm reading a book on the Cuban missile crisis that cites persuasive evidence from the secretly recorded tapes to show that most Kennedy administration officials, especially the president's brother, distorted the facts to make themselves look good to history.

I read another persuasive piece that casts doubt on James K. Polk's strategic goals, demonstrating that the most persuasive evidence was created only long after the fact.

And now, here's a piece arguing that Manhattan was not purchased from the Native Americans by the Dutch for $24. Whatever deal was made, and it's not clear what the property involved was, should be valued around $951 in today's dollars.

Who knows? At this rate, I may read that Columbus didn't really discover America....

military politics

The not surprising news today is that military personnel tend to be Republican and pro-Romney. The Military Times newspapers conduct a poll of subscribers and report results here. The respondents are probably a reasonable cross section of subscribers, but hardly of the armed forces. Only 16% of the people in uniform are officers; over 1/3 of those in the poll were in the middle officer grades. Moreover, 80% of the respondents were white and 91% male. So older white male people in uniform tend to be Republican. Hardly breaking news.

My worry is not how people in the armed forces vote, but whether they identify openly with a party and proselytize for it, and thus undercut public confidence in their ability to follow the orders of whoever is commander in chief. I don't think we are anywhere near a danger point on that score, as we were during the Clinton years, but civilian control is always a fragile thing.

sputnik anniversary

October 4 marked the 55th anniversary of the shock and awe when the Soviet Union launched the world’s first space satellite, and Americans worried that the United States was suddenly threatened by Soviet missiles.

            While U.S. concerns now seem exaggerated, the American response to the Soviet sputnik was far-reaching in its scope and in its consequences. In fact, the reaction led to U.S. leadership in space, science, education, and defense for many years to come.

            On October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union sent its 184-pound sputnik  into orbit, shocking Americans who had assumed that scientific breakthroughs were always “Made in the USA.” The United States had planned only a 3-pound, grapefruit-sized Vanguard satellite, not realizing that the world was ready to watch a space race in which both speed and size mattered.

     There was other evidence of Soviet prowess in missiles. In August and September of 1957, the USSR had two successful flights of its first intercontinental ballistic missiles [ICBMs], compared to two test failures of the American Atlas missile. Six months before, the U.S. intelligence community had concluded that the Russians would not likely have any operational ICBMs until 1961. A new National Intelligence Estimate forecast 10 operational Soviet  ICBMs by 1959, 100 by 1960 and 500 by 1962 – compared to an expected U.S. force of only 24 ICBMs  by 1960 and 65 by 1961.

     A month after the first sputnik, the Russians launched a dog into orbit in a satellite weighing more than half a ton. The very next day, President Eisenhower met with a panel of scientists and defense experts –the Gaither Committee – that he had appointed several months earlier. That group concluded that  the USSR had “probably surpassed us in ICBM development” and warned of “an increasing threat which may become critical in 1959 or early 1960.”

     This was the basis for the feared “missile gap,” which helped John F. Kennedy win the presidency in 1960.

In fact, that gap was turned in the United States’ favor by the American response to sputnik. Eisenhower adopted many of the Gaither group’s recommendations, though not their rhetoric. He accelerated U.S. missile programs as well as the effort to build a nuclear-powered submarine. He increased his next defense budget almost 4% and approved increases in the planned size of the ICBM force by 62% and a tripling of the planned intermediate range missile [IRBM] force. To guard against surprise Soviet attacks, the president ordered greater dispersal of U.S. bombers as well as the start of a limited airborne alert bomber force. He also secured NATO agreement to allow the European basing of American IRBMs.

     Eisenhower also seized upon the sputnik crisis to push for a new law, long resisted by Congress but finally adopted in 1958, strengthening the power of the Secretary of Defense and consolidating military research and development programs. One outgrowth was the creation of the Advanced Research Projects Agency [ARPA, later DARPA], which funded the basic research that subsequently led to stealth aircraft, high speed computers, and the Internet.

The president and congress also concluded that America needed to boost its brainpower as well as its military firepower. Eisenhower named the first Presidential Science Advisor and supported creation of a civilian space agency, NASA. Lawmakers supported his defense budget increases, but also tripled the funds going to the National Science Foundation.

One of the most far-reaching educational measures was the National Defense Act of 1958 [NDEA], establishing a four-year program college student loans,  science, math and foreign language teaching, and graduate student fellowships in science, engineering, and foreign area study. That program totaled almost $4.4 billion in today’s dollars. [Full disclosure: thanks to NDEA money, I was able to be the first in my family to go to college.]

In the decade after sputnik, these measures tripled the number of doctorates awarded and doubled the share of U.S. GNP devoted to basic scientific research. The success of the NDEA led to other federal programs aiding education at all levels.

Today we are richer, better educated, more technologically advanced, and better protected against a wide range of military threats thanks to the way Americans came together in a bipartisan way to respond to sputnik a half century ago.

the first debate

I don't like to use this space to promote my party preferences, but I probably should comment on the Obama-Romney debate because I used to be a pretty good college debater and even a debate coach.

I know what a winning debater looks like, and this week his name was Mitt Romney. He was fluent, well-prepared, well-organized with both general propositions and pertinent facts. He had an effective style and substance. President Obama, by contrast, had some reasonable substance, but he sure lacked the style.

I saw the contest as one between the Salesman and the Professor. And politics is mostly a sales job. [Remember my citation of Maverick's line that I consider the politician's credo: If you can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, those are pretty good odds.]

What's really surprising to me is that this really was a "debate," not just a joint news conference. Jim Lehrer invited the candidates to explain their differences with their opponent on each topic. Romney was prepared to do that; Obama was less well-prepared or at least less eager to engage combatively.

What Romney needs for the remaining two debates is more of the same, plus practice responding to a more aggressive opponent.

What Obama needs is more practice, more concentration on key arguments -- both main points and vivid examples, and recognition that appearances are important. He has to look up, not down; show eagerness to be there and to engage on the substance; and be dignified ["presidential"] but relaxed.

science news has to be newsworthy

Surprise: the only science news that makes the news is whatever is new and different.  It's the same pattern followed by the Big Lie that gets attention, while the correction comes in small print in an obscure place.

This shouldn't be surprising to anyone who followed the conventional wisdom of foods to avoid or hormone treatments to try or to avoid, only to learn much later -- never mind.  Researchers find it hard to get money or publications if they show lack of confirmation of exciting theories, much less a solid alternative theory.

There's hard evidence in a report cited by Ezra Klein and the Economist.

Read them and remember next time you see a science story.

intelligence infighting

A lot went wrong in Benghazi before and during the attacks that killed four Americans. It's a shame that so many people are trying to score partisan and bureaucratic political points before we get a lot more information and put it into perspective. The Wall Street Journal has an excellent piece describing the infighting int he intelligence community as it made initial assessments on the attacks. One unsurprising lesson is that first reports are often wrong and always incomplete. Another lesson is that the new system under a Director of National Intelligence [DNI] isn't the panacea that led to its embrace by the 9/11 commission and the Bush administration.

I think the real flaws may turn out to be at the lower rungs of the bureaucratic ladder, where the embassy was operating and a shoestring and a lot of hope and State's Diplomatic Security people weren't agile or foresighted enough to strengthen the Benghazi compound. I also think we deserve a better explanation of why U.S.personnel didn't move sooner to secure the damaged buildings and interview witnesses.

I understand but regret the politicization of the tragedy, especially on the basis of incomplete information. This is hardly a failure of presidential leadership or action.