World Class President

He gets Ukraine to divest itself of highly enriched uranium, making the world a little safer from terrorists who might get hold of it.

His new START treaty is widely approved by the U.S. public -- 70%, to be exact.

He gets China to agree to push sanctions on Iran. He pisses off the Iranian leadership with his new policy.

Per Russian Premier Medvedev, who has his own worries about terrorists getting powerful bombs, he's great to work with:

MEDVEDEV: He's very comfortable partner, it's very interesting to be with him. The most important thing that distinguishes him from many other people – I won't name anyone by name – he's a thinker, he thinks when he speaks. Which is already pretty good.

STEPHANOPOULOS: You had somebody in your mind, I think. (LAUGHS)

MEDVEDEV: Obviously I do have someone on my mind. I don't want to offend anyone. He's eager to listen to his partner, which is a pretty good quality for a politician. Because any politician is to a certain degree a mentor. They preach something. And the ability to listen to their partner is very important for the politician. And he is pretty deeply emerged in the subject, so he has a good knowledge of what he's talking about. There was no instance in our meetings with Mr. Obama where he wasn't well prepared for the questions. This is very good. And after all, he's simply a very pleasant man with whom it's a pleasure to deal with.

President Barack Obama: Making America healthier and the world safer.

Do you really think there's going to be somebody more qualified and suited to the job than him in two years?

Crisis America

Yes, Virginia, America is being underserved in health care. Witness the clinic in the Los Angeles sports arena that took in overflowing crowds looking for basis health services:

Remote Area Medical Foundation is a trailer-equipped service that has staged health clinics in rural parts of the United States, Mexico and South America. It brought its health camp to urban Los Angeles County on Tuesday to begin an eight-day stint that the group's officials described as its first foray into a major urban setting.

Organizers expected big crowds, in a county with high unemployment and an estimated 22% of working-age adults lacking health insurance.

On Tuesday, the turnout was so large that hundreds had to be turned away.

Meanwhile, Joan Baez, awesome fifty-year career, shows the kind and compassionate -- and successful -- way to handle protesters.

Revolutions Update

The power of nonviolent protest is that, when the world is watching it makes the violence of the oppressors a self-indictment. Dignity vs. the cowardice of state brutality, in the streets, where everyone can see. Gandhi invented it, Dr. King imported it, the Palestinians have yet to learn it, and the Iranian citizens peacefully, even silently protesting their government's blatant fascism, have somehow organized without normal electronic media enough to be using it:

What I saw today was the most elegant scene I had ever witnessed in my life. The huge number of people were marching hand in hand in full peace. Silence. Silence was everywhere. There was no slogan. No violence. Hands were up in victory sign with green ribbons. People carried placards which read: Silence. Old and young, man and woman of all social groups were marching cheerfully. This was a magnificent show of solidarity. Enghelab Street which is the widest avenue in Tehran was full of people. I was told that the march has begun in Ferdowsi Sq. and the end of the march was now in Imam Hossein Sq. to the further east of Tehran while on the other end people had already gathered in Azadi Sq.

The length of this street is about 6 kilometers. The estimate is about 2 million people [Cole: Western press reporting was up to 500,000 people]. On the way, we passed a police department and a militia (Baseej) base. In both places, the doors were closed and we could see fully-armed riot police and militia watching the people from behind the fences. Near Sharif University of Technology where the students had chased away Ahmadinejad a few days ago, Mirhossein Mousavi (the reformist elect president) and Karrubi (the other reformist candidate spoke to people for a few minutes which was received by cries of praise and applause.

I felt proud to find myself among such a huge number of passionate people who were showing the most reasonable act of protest.

Protesting like this:



There's beatings and killings and round ups and purges happening all over -- on campuses, with human rights groups, even singers. The Revolutionary Guard and Basij irregular thugs -- all the 1979 Revolution paramilitary groups -- are the fascist forces, whereas some police are having their guns taken by the government and the army is supposedly neutral. But there's also internal rifts emerging at the highest levels.

The two big stories thus far are the society rising up en mass and across many different demographic lines in nonviolent protest, and how new social media technology has both publicized and organized the civil movement. Per NYU Professor Clay Shirky, this is the tipping point:

What do you make of what's going on in Iran right now.
I'm always a little reticent to draw lessons from things still unfolding, but it seems pretty clear that ... this is it. The big one. This is the first revolution that has been catapulted onto a global stage and transformed by social media. I've been thinking a lot about the Chicago demonstrations of 1968 where they chanted "the whole world is watching." Really, that wasn't true then. But this time it's true ... and people throughout the world are not only listening but responding. They're engaging with individual participants, they're passing on their messages to their friends, and they're even providing detailed instructions to enable web proxies allowing Internet access that the authorities can't immediately censor. That kind of participation is reallly extraordinary.

Which services have caused the greatest impact? Blogs? Facebook? Twitter?
It's Twitter. One thing that Evan (Williams) and Biz (Stone) did absolutely right is that they made Twitter so simple and so open that it's easier to integrate and harder to control than any other tool. At the time, I'm sure it wasn't conceived as anything other than a smart engineering choice. But it's had global consequences. Twitter is shareable and open and participatory in a way that Facebook's model prevents. So far, despite a massive effort, the authorities have found no way to shut it down, and now there are literally thousands of people aorund the world who've made it their business to help keep it open.

And on the news media of yore:

There was fury on Twitter against CNN for not adequately covering the situation. Was that justified?
In a way it wasn't. I'm sure that for the majority of the country, events in Iran are not of grave interest, even if those desperate for CNN's Iran info couldn't get access to it. That push model of one message for all is an incredibly crappy way of linking supply and demand.

CNN has the same problem this decade that Time magazine had last decade. They simultaneously want to appeal to middle America and leading influencers. Reaching multiple audiences is increasingly difficult. The people who are hungry for info on events of global significance are used to instinctively switching on CNN. But they are realizing that that reflex doesn't serve them very well anymore, and that can't be good for CNN.

Lose the influentials, watch the rest erode away.

Just ask MySpace.

The Obama/Cairo Effect

Is this the first fruit of Obama's Cairo speech recasting the role of the U.S. in the Middle East as well as the responsibilities of all conflicting parties?:

BEIRUT (Reuters) - A surprise victory in Lebanon by an anti-Syrian coalition against the Iranian-backed Hezbollah and its allies should be confirmed on Monday with the release of official results of the country's parliamentary election...

...The outcome was a blow to Syria and Iran, which support Hezbollah, and welcome news for the United States, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, which backs the "March 14" bloc, named after the date of a huge rally against Syria's military presence in 2005.

Hope vs. fear, bay-bee. And is this having an effect in Iran, on the upcoming Presidential election, as well?:

Reporting from Tehran -- Powerful reformists and conservatives within Iran's elite have joined forces to wage an unprecedented behind-the-scenes campaign to unseat President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, worried that he is driving the country to the brink of collapse with populist economic policies and a confrontational stance toward the West.

The prominent figures have put their considerable efforts behind the candidacy of reformist Mir-Hossein Mousavi, who they believe has the best chance of defeating the hard-line Ahmadinejad in the presidential election Friday and charting a new course for the country.

They have used the levers of government to foil attempts by Ahmadinejad to secure funds for populist giveaways and to permit freewheeling campaigning that has benefited Mousavi. State-controlled television agreed to an unheard-of series of live debates, and the powerful Council of Guardians, which thwarted the reformist wave of the late 1990s, rejected a ballot box maneuver by the president that some saw as a prelude to attempted fraud.

Some called it a realignment of Iranian domestic politics from its longtime rift between reformists and conservatives to one that pits pragmatists on both sides against radicals such as Ahmadinejad.

"Some of the supporters of Mousavi like his ideas; others don't want Ahmadinejad," said Javad Etaat, a professor of political science and a campaigner for Mousavi. "They've decided that preserving the nation is more important than preserving the government."

Even some militants in the region are responding with tentative positivity to Obama's speech.

And why not? After all, here's the first U.S. President to have personally witnessed the effects of colonialism (read his first book, both the section where he learns about his father's downward spiral in Kenyan government work as well as his stepfather's similar trajectory after initial optimism in Indonesia). Per Andrew Sullivan on the Cairo Effect:

The Middle East is addicted to its past; Obama spoke of the need to move into the future. The Middle East is fixated on conflict and identity; Obama emphasised quotidian common interests. The Middle East loves quibbles; Obama landed slap-bang in the middle of most of them and refused to budge. And driving all of it was a critical question of tone — a measured, careful and stern message of respect and realism.

The obvious critique that this was just a set of words seems to me to miss the point. An intervention begins with words because it requires the actions of others. You don’t get an addict to go into recovery by cuffing him and throwing him into an ambulance. You talk to him and his family and speak calmly about what everyone in the room knows to be true but no one will face. So, for me, the core sentence of the speech was obvious: “It is time for us to act on what everyone knows to be true.”

Maybe everyone has been waiting for change but there's yet to be a leader who can articulate it -- until now. In Israel, post-Cairo, change no longer appears optional:

United States President Barack Obama has left Israel with no alternative but to ultimately agree to the establishment of a Palestinian state, officials in Jerusalem told Israel Radio on Saturday.

Israel will be forced to acknowledge the necessity of a future Palestinian state because there are no signs that the Obama administration will yield on this issue, a source told Israel Radio.

Government sources in Jerusalem also told Israel Radio that the quicker Israel adopts the road map for peace as the preferred diplomatic initiative, the more likely it will ward off American pressure to concede to a Palestinian state within the framework of an alternative plan that is less agreeable to Israel.

Israeli Aluf Benn, writing in the newspaper Haaretz, similarly believes rightwing Prime Minister Netanyahu will have to move quickly to get ahead of the Obama steamroller:

Benjamin Netanyahu is on the wrong side of Obama's speech, with his refusal to endorse a Palestinian state and his insistence on "natural growth" in the settlements. He might have been able to soften the blow a bit had he formed a coalition with Tzipi Livni on the basis of the two-state solution. Or if, during his White House visit, he had announced that he was embracing the road map. But that's of no importance now. Before long, Netanyahu will have to deliver a speech in response to Obama, and to declare a historic change in his ideology and policy. Until then, he'll go on hoping for a miracle that will wipe the "Cairo speech" off the agenda and make it disappear into the swirling sands of Middle East diplomacy.

Okay, let's not be Pollyanna about it. Perhaps it won't work and all good will ultimately will collapse. Just one act of violence could end it all. But if history has proven anything about progress, it is that progress requires individual vision at just the right moment, convincing leadership, and accumulative tenacity in order to succeed.

There are naysayers here and abroad. In just the comments on Sullivan's opinion piece you'll find those both internationally and from the U.S. who don't believe change in the region is possible, don't believe Obama, think it's only words and they don't matter, think the Palestinians are too commited to the destruction of Israel, think Israel is to genocidal against the Palestinians, on and on and on.

But there are also plenty of comments in support of Obama, his speech and his approach. My personal favorite:

The educated young love you Obama. We do not care what the bitter previous generation think, they will be gone soon and we will be there to continue your efforts. You are the leader we dreamt of. You inspired me to continue my career and become a barrister.

Thank you.

Kazuki, Tokyo, Japan

When is Obama's first trip to Asia?

I'm looking forward to his reception there.

Extraordinary Week...Again

Maybe more than usual:



Bottom lines. Calls to action:

Obama's speech was not a collection of empty rhetoric. Before the entire world, he put his signature to a bunch of checks that have deadlines for being cashed. In his talks with his aides in recent weeks, a consensus has emerged that November 2010 - the date of the next congressional elections - should be the target date for realizing the two-state solution. By then, we will know how much of an impression Obama's speech made on Iran's president. Who knows: Perhaps Iranian voters will be convinced that they have before them a U.S. president who is genuinely interested in reconciliation with Islam, and will use their upcoming election to replace their current president with a more conciliatory one. By then, we will also know whom Benjamin Netanyahu is more afraid of - the U.S. president or the chairman of the Yesha Council of settlements, Benny Begin or Tzipi Livni.

Checks to be cashed.

The Brave One

I can't think of a more courageous politician in my lifetime than President Barack Obama. If the assassination of a doctor by a rightwing extremist goaded on by Bill O'Reilly and Operation Rescue wasn't warning enough, and this guy in Utah arrested for being on a mission to do ultimate harm to our President, there's the speech in Cairo today that speaks dangerous truths we've never heard before from an American President, truths that are common knowledge but that neocons would rather never be admitted to, Kabuki-style, truths that are not well-received by either al Qaida or the Israeli settler movement.

The whole hour:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

He called for all kinds of responsibility -- for Palestinians to accept Israel, for Israel to stop with the West Bank settlements, for corrupt regional governments to reform, for women to get equal education on the region, for understanding by America of the Muslim world and an end to stereotyping of American by Islamic peoples. Enough truth to offend a lot of partisans.

A sampling of those against it:

Hezbollah, Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood, John Bolton, Hugh Hewitt, the Republican Jewish Coalition, and John Boehner all disliked the President's speech.

Okay, with enemies like that, we know he's doing something right.

As Al Giordano points out, Obama is the Anti-Politician:

Politicians, in general, are a reactive caste. They look at things as they are, and opportunistically seek out and study the cracks and weaknesses in society in order to put themselves at its helm. Most believe (and those that don’t believe, pretend) they are doing this in service of a higher ideal: right or left, liberal or conservative, progressive or religious, whatever, but because the great majority of them are essentially reacting to the same set of seemingly inexorable current events, the sum of their actions is that of constructing individual fiefdoms that look much the same no matter what ideology or flag flies over them.

And then there are the rare historical figures that appear now and then in human events to disregard those base reactive impulses with enough discipline to first develop their own idea of how things ought to be. And only after developing a detailed yet clear vision for society do they then enter the political fray. Probably the best example in the last century of such an anti-politician was Mohandas K. Gandhi, who returned home to India at the age of 46, after winning civil rights for immigrants in South Africa. He found a homeland thirsting for independence from the British Empire and its impositions. A media hero and cause celébre upon his return to Indian shores, the pro-independence advocates and parties sought Gandhi out to lead a revolution against the Crown.

Gandhi – conscious that after being away for 27 years in London and South Africa he did not know his native country well enough to lead it – instead imposed upon himself a moratorium against speaking to the press, and embarked upon a listening tour through the forgotten and impoverished regions of India in order to first understand what the real yearnings and realities of its people were. Only after he felt he had a comprehensive enough vision for what kind of better society was possible there did he enter the fray that, as history knows, won independence for the region, while showing the world a new way to fight for freedom.

Listening to the President’s remarks in Cairo this morning – billed as a speech to all the Muslims in the world – it is clear that in Barack Obama our moment in history has one such transcendent leader.

Here's ten key points from this, the biggest speech of his already remarkable career. A President who can finally talk to Palestinians. Speaking to the U.S. from Cairo as well. The first President to acknowledge that America, in 1953, sabotaged democracy in Iran when fairly elected Prime Minister Mossadegh had the temerity to nationalize the oil industry), starting the chain of blowback that led to radical Islamic revolution, U.S. hostages, today's nuclear threat.

Here's how Netanyahu watched the speech, Kabuki reactions. Here's the overwhelmingly favorable reaction from the world press, including the mainstream Islamic press.

Michael Scherer has the clearest sense of Obama's overriding international vision, this "Obama Doctrine", and how it played out with the powerful close of the speech:

This vision, as I have touched on before, does not elevate the United States as the protector of transcendent values, but rather lowers America into the great pool of nations and peoples, where everyone operates on the same level with a God-given set of responsibilities to understand each other and work together for collective improvement. The political leader who has spent a lifetime moving between cultures envisions a world where tribal differences are trumped by common humanity and practical necessity. In some ways, it is as idealistic a vision as the ones proposed by Bush senior and junior. Time will tell if it is more successful.

It is notable that Obama ended his speech with three quotes, one from the Koran, one from the Talmud, one from the New Testament, each describing God's instructions for all people to work together and get along. Of the three, the quote from the Koran is the most eloquent. “O mankind! We have created you male and a female; and we have made you into nations and tribes so that you may know one another.” It is, in a poetic verse, an apt encapsulation of Obama's radical idea--that despite our differences we are meant to find common purpose.

So can it be done? Well, Obama is saying to the world, look at me: the son of a Kenyan and a Kansan, the Christian man with a Muslim family, the black Hawaiian teenage stoner who rose through the traditionally white Northeastern Ivy League to lead the nation's most powerful country. I've already done it. You can too.

Yes we, the world, can.

But will we?

Oscarversary

Tonight's Academy Awards ceremony marks the third-count 'em-third anniversary of Nettertainment's nightly (with few exceptions) postings. Much thanks to a long-time loyal reader for reminding me. So it is in that spirit that I can offer a few random thoughts on the night's results.

First off, I should always stick to the predictions I make back in December, before I get swayed by the late-breaking memes. Just Friday I made two big switcheroos in the office pool, picking Mickey Rourke over Sean Penn and Viola Davis over Penelope Cruz. Both of which I had right (along with the other top seven awards), but feet of clay, baby. Same thing happened the year that Alan Arkin won Best Supporting Actor for Little Miss Sunshine -- I had switched close to Oscar time thinking Eddie Murphy might pull it off.

The mistake is to think emotionally in making predictions, because the Academy is so much more geriatric than, say, even the General Electorate, that emotion is slowed down anyway. Or maybe there's a long view. But the Oscars are all about how Hollywood wants to be perceived by the world, and Mickey Rourke just ain't that, not yet. Not with a skanky blonde hairweave and half a dozen staples in his back.

Sean Penn won because Milk was nominated for both Best Picture and Best Director, and because Penn brilliantly brought to life a respected, if controversial in his time, historical figure. And, on the emotional side, Hollywood was shocked by the passage of Prop. 8 last year, and the film contains an admonishment to the equality side that they should have shown their face, not hid in the closet. So bravo to Penn and Gus Van Sant for creating the breakthrough gay biopic, and the Academy is approving the mainstreaming of gay cinema (the unabashed sensibility that's so refreshing about a movie coming from a studio), which is kind of the Academy's job.

Rourke has had plenty of opportunities to make speechs -- the Golden Globes and, more entertainingly, the BAFTA's last week and the Spirit Awards yesterday. I mean, these are classic:





And on Charlie Rose, all in all probably enough.

I have yet to see The Reader (is it like reading, maybe a "chore"?) as parodied in the opening number, but I do think Kate Winslet is winning for her other values, not just the role or the movie. It's not just her body of work but it's her work ethic, how she makes the journals and inhabits the characters, hitting different notes with every role and all of them good. When I think about her in Eternal Sunshine of the la-di-da I just smile. Yes I do.

It was the innovative presentation of the acting awards tonight that reinforced the notion of Oscar as club, elite. One imagines it won't be repeated every year -- would they end up running out of 5-a-pop presenters and have to start in with repeat appearances? But it worked as a soulful way to congratulate each nominee no matter their chances. And it made it seem like a very warm and accepting club -- once you're membership worthy.

The only real upset was that Waltz with Bashir lost not to The Class but to Departures, a Japanese pic that nobody has seen, except for 80-odd Academy members who see all five Best Foreign Picture nominees, meaning that a winner might have only 20 votes. I have no idea if the deserving film won, and maybe the two favorites split the vote, but I doubt it has successfully invented a new genre in such a timely fashion as Ari Folman.

As for Slumdoggie Zillionaire, I'm all for it. The best story of all the nominated pix, well executed and full of life. The Academy, like our new President and Secretary of State, got a great opportunity to go global this year, An Inconvenient Truth-type Best Picture for our new era, migrated into the light.

Like the song says:



Jai ho.

America's Return

The old site was Sorry Everybody and had zillions of submissions from all over the U.S. -- and all over the World.

The new site is Hello Everybody and it is just kicking in, big blast fresh air. I like the folks representing America, and I especially love the wonderful support from our friend around the World.

Here's my fave so far.

Perfect Storm

Just like I believed Obama's earth-shaking speech at the end of the Democratic National Convention, his call-out for McCain to show himself like a man, caused McCain to flinch and choose Sarah Palin as his running mate that night, so we see McCain has once again "blinked" (as Gov. Palin has admittedly trained herself not to do) and surely in response to old allies admonishing him through the media (and one assumes in private) Thursday and Friday morning, he is trying to stuff the evil genie of violent ignorance back into the bottle:



I've already had one disagreement over whether McCain is doing this out of recognized decency (note he repeats the "family man" description, reminding attendees that Obama has children to protect), I do think it's a good thing, and not only for Obama's safety. McCain is protecting his reputation, the one that follows past his death into the history books -- pure, cleansing fear. Maybe he's even angling for a role in Obama's America. The other night Michelle Obama told Larry King that should her husband win the Presidency, America will still need John McCain to join in the effort of saving our country, and maybe she and her "Team of Rivals" talkin' husband mean it.

My guess is that after Tuesday night's trouncing in the debate, it is starting to sink in with McCain that he will most likely lose on November 4th. With his wife, Cindy, has he had the "what if" conversation by now?

Yet today even as McCain does the right thing, his McCain wildly rudderless campaign lurches in to smear Michelle Obama, violating McCain's claim that families were off limits. I honestly don't know if McCain approved this one, but it sure as hell stinks of campaign managing thug Steve Schmidt, who trained at the feet of Karl Rove but doesn't seem to have an ounce of his, dare I say, finesse. After all, it was Schmidt who pushed Gov. Palin onto the ticket.

You know, the same Gov. Palin who "unlawfully abused her power as governor by trying to have her former brother-in-law fired as a state trooper, the chief investigator of an Alaska legislative panel concluded Friday."

Ah, more Sunday morning fodder for the commentators on the McCain circus. It's going to be TiVo-worthy.

The perfect storm includes a late-Friday rumor that the Republican National Committee is essentially pulling out of the McCain campaign -- stranding them on funding, i.e. joint TV ad money. Seems those precious resources might be better spent trying to save a House or Senate seat here or there. Plant for the future rather than throw good money after bad.

On Friday Sen. Norm Coleman (R-MN) wouldn't even appear with McCain at a Minnesota event. He's in a mini-scandal of his own over a lobbying buying him a trip and some suits, as Democrat Al Franken finally breaks ahead of Norm in the polls. Sweet revenge for the "accidental" death of Paul Wellstone?

A perfect storm is when the McCain campaign suddenly realizes it has to fight for West Virginia (5 electoral votes). Or (no joke!) Georgia (15 electoral votes).

That's right, you have a conventional wisdom developing that Obama could do well enough to beat McCain maybe 359 to 179 in the Electoral College, a major landslide. But I'm going to go further:

Barack Obama (D) 440
John McCain (R) 98

FDR/Herbert Hoover territory. You read it here first. The economic collapse, the endless Iraq War, the absolute failure of the Republican Party, it's all a perfect storm, to be sure, but it's not just anybody at the top of the Democratic ticket and the core reason for this landslide will be the once-in-a-lifetime leadership qualities of Barack Obama.

After all, he not only predicted the error of the Iraq War and the pending mortgage crisis, he predicted the very smear they would use against him, down to the exact wording:



Hurry, November.

Peace Talk

So Egypt has brokered a tentative truce between Israel and Hamas regarding Gaza. Who knows if it will hold but it is, as always, long overdue. The skinny:

• The truce takes effect at 6 a.m. Thursday (11 p.m. EDT Wednesday).

• All Gaza-Israel violence stops. After three days, Israel eases its blockade on Gaza, allowing more vital supplies in.

• A week later, Israel further eases restrictions at cargo crossings.

• In the final stage, talks are conducted about opening the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt and a prisoner exchange to free Cpl. Gilad Schalit, held by Hamas-affiliated groups for two years.

Freeing the 21-year old Schalit is a very big deal, captured at 19 and held since then. Jimmy Carter, among others, helped mediate. This has been an open wound for the Israeli people for two years, the first Israeli soldier captured by Palestinian militants since 1994.

Meanwhile, the worst negotiator in America accuses a British journalist of slandering America when he brings up Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib and illegal rendition in an interview.

Wait, is that guy still President?

Secret Mission?

The rock & roll Primary has taken over the front page of every newspaper and the top of all cable news shows this past week, while the Cheney/Bush Administration has either stumbled into or attempted to fabricate a "provocation" from Iran in the very waters we are jamming with battleships right next to their country.

It turns out the sparking radio threat was likely not made by Iranian gunships. It appears no confrontation actually happened.

At the same time, El Presidente Bush is over in Israel, engaged in the kind of "shoot the moon" Mideast peace strategy his team actually belittled his predecessor, President Bill Clinton, for attempting in his last year of office. Credit where credit is due, El Presidente is actually somewhat bold in what he's saying he wants to see happen, I believe the first U.S. President to use the term "occupation" for Israel's control of the West Bank.

On the other hand, I don't believe for a second that Cheney et al don't want to bomb the hell out of Iran and leave the next President dug in with whatever they've wrought.

So with that in mind, is there maybe the possibility that Bush is in Israel not only for his peace plan, but to coordinate at the highest levels for an attack on Iran to follow...maybe under cover of the February 5th "Super Tuesday" Primary hoopla?

It'll shame me to say it if I have to, but you'll have read it here first.

Rice Party

I'll laud any U.S. Presidential efforts towards peace between Israeli and Palestinian factions in the Middle East, even Mister Bush's. And it's certainly better than nothing that he's got the Israeli Prime Minister and the head of the once vilified PLO agreeing to negotiate. However, like most sentient followers of Bushie behavior, I'll believe it when I see it that he's going to "devote himself to ending the six-decade conflict in the 14 months he has left in office."

Sure, he could use a Hail Mary Pass on his legacy. But he's going to have to do more than, as Keith Olbermann explained tonight, show up for a couple of hours for a photo op, mispronounce the names of the two men leading their peoples in negotiations, and not be able to say what his actual involvement is in "devoting himself" thus far.

President Bill Clinton, as some may remember, actually led the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations during the twilight of his term. This time it's really Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's show, and one imagines she's hoping to make this her place in the history books, rather than failing to prevent the 9/11 attacks as National Security Advisor even though the memo was staring her in the face, lying to Congress, and enabling the Presidents Cheney and Bush to misdirect our war against al-Qaeda by invading Iraq and allowing the destruction of that country from the inside.

There is, of course, the question of a negotiation without including Hamas, which actually won the last democratic election in the Palestinian territories. 49 countries involved but no seat for them -- undoubtedly the Administration is hoping to marginalize them enough that they don't win any more elections over there.

All that being said, I can only hope that some sort of effective peace comes out of this. With various parts of the globe regionalizing economic power, it will hopefully be in the best interest of the regional Mideast countries to come together, somehow, someday.

With or without Mister Bush's direct help.

Saint Al

Hear, hear:

OSLO, Oct. 12 — Former Vice President Al Gore, who emerged from his loss in the muddled 2000 presidential election to devote himself to his passion as an environmental crusader, was awarded the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday, sharing it with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a United Nations network of scientists.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee praised both “for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change.”

The prize is a vindication for Mr. Gore, whose cautionary film about the consequences of climate change, “An Inconvenient Truth,” won the 2007 Academy Award for best documentary, even as conservatives in the United States denounced it as alarmist and exaggerated.

“I will accept this award on behalf of all the people that have been working so long and so hard to try to get the message out about this planetary emergency,” Mr. Gore said Friday in Palo Alto, Calif., standing with his wife, Tipper, and four members of the United Nations climate panel. “I’m going back to work right now,” he said.

Good stuff, and it's nice that the headlines from his statement are all in the vein of, "Gore: Back to work on environment" and "Gore says prize must spur action."

The environment is the frontline of peace, as virtually all wars arise from a scarcity of one kind or another. There's political thought that the Iraq War is as much about water rights -- the Tigris and the Euphrates -- as it is about oil. As the world population expands, global destruction means water scarcity. And, of course, with oil being the most immediate prize in the conflict, we're fighting for the right to continue emitting massive amounts of carbon dioxide, essentially for the right to continue poisoning ourselves as we collapse the polar ice masses.

As for our acting President, Mr. Bush is damned to be fending off heartbroken mothers who despair that their husbands and sons have died for nothing:

Another person who criticized Bush to his face was Elaine Johnson of Orangeburg, South Carolina. Her son, Army specialist Darius Jennings, died with 15 others when their Chinook helicopter was shot down near Fallujah, Iraq, on Nov. 2, 2003.

In her meeting later that month, she says, she repeatedly pressed Bush for a rationale for the war. She says he failed to deliver a satisfactory answer.

"Miss Jones, you sound a little hostile,'" Bush said, according to Jones, who was an industrial quality inspector.

"Of course I feel hostile. My only son was killed and I can't get an answer," Jones, 44, says she replied.

Bush moved on to a different cluster of family members in the large meeting room at Fort Carson in Colorado. As Bush departed, Jones says, she tried again.

"Could you tell me what is the mission?" she called out. Bush didn't respond.

Couldn't respond. How can he tell her that her son died for his Oedipus Complex butrussed by the greed of his cronies.

Look, at some point we all have to face reality. The Supreme Court blocked any chance Gore might have had to secure the Presidency and we'll never get those critical eight years back. If, like me, you believe there's a reasonable chance 9/11 would have been foiled had Gore taken office (Bush eliminated the daily intelligence briefings Clinton had instituted and didn't listen to Richard Clarke et al; Gore certainly wouldn't have been that stupid), then America would never have gotten a lesson maybe it needed about the true difference with the Republican Party, Ralph Nader's assessment notwithstanding.

I don't think Gore is going to run. I'm not even sure it'd be a good idea if he decided to in time for New Hampshire. I've grown convinced by clear, bold, even refreshing appearances like this that Hilary Clinton is prepared to lead this country, and I'm not sure who else besides Al Gore really is. Whether I'd ultimately prefer her leadership or another prepared citizen, I can't say for sure yet. But at this point only Al could knock her off the Democratic pedestal and I'm not longer certain he'd be a lock. And I think all the Republicans are underestimating her and their peril, just as Dems underestimated the candidate and electoral team of George W. Bush. And they're starting to realize it -- the way they run against her in their debates, you can smell the fear.

So bravo, Al, and here's hoping you can stay above the fetid fray and somehow effectively lead our planet -- maybe starting with your influence on a new Democratic President -- through this turning point in our planetary history. Even if you succeed, there will be other times, decades or centuries ahead, where we again forget our way and new saviors will be required.

But for now it is your ball. Who else in history has ever won as Oscar (okay, the statuette didn't actually go to him), an Emmy (sure, shared) and a Nobel Peace Prize in one year?

Answer: No one else but Al Gore.

Now, Al, for the love of all that is holy, do whatever it is you have to do to finish the job.