Leon Panetta. Worthless SecDef

I watched Leon Panetta on TV tonight.  He said that he didn't have enough intelligence to send troops in harm's way, to the Benghazi consulate.  "If you don't know what you are going up against, you cannot commit forces." he said.  On TV.
   Sorry Leon.  You had all the information you needed. You knew an American outpost was under attack in a foreign land.  America always  reinforces its men under attack.  You didn't. You don't deserve to be an American Secretary of Defense.  In fact, you don't deserve to be an American citizen.
   We had Predator drones sending real time TV back to the White House.  We have AC-130 gunships nearby.  We didn't do squat, we let our men on the ground die.
  Disgraceful.

Republican Get Together

Charlie Bass, our Republican incumbent US rep, standing for re-election, held a spaghetti dinner at the Littleton VFW hall the other night.  I went, along with a whole bunch of  other Republicans.  I've been around long enough that I knew nearly everyone in the room by name.  And I'm bad on names.  To the left, we have Charlie, saying a few appropriate words, from the podium.  Too bad the airconditioner shows up bigger than the candidate.

 Here we have Ovide Lamontagne, Republican candidate for governor of NH.  Very nice guy, also being upstaged by that air conditioner.  I estimate his chances of election as decent, not a sure thing, but decent.  His democratic opponent talks too much about tax hikes. 

Ovide shaking hands with youngest son, Jonathan.  I didn't get a photo of Ovide and a very cute little girl.

Anyhow, that's what the NH Republican establishment looks like in their native habitat.  We had nearly every important Republican in the state at this remote upcountry shindig.  We only  missed Kelly Ayotte (US Senator) and Bill O'Brien (Speaker of NH house) but we had just about everyone else.

In the old days this place would be referred to as a "smoke filled room". Nobody in this country smokes anymore, and they don't allow smoking indoors most places, so that colorful description is going out of date.  
   Anyhow a good time was had by all.

My color is Mud

Finished another round of car shopping.  Stopped at a dozen dealers over in St Johnsbury.  Each lot filled with very average looking cars, mostly painted mud color.  Mud has taken over from gray as the most popular car color.  Each one of these cars was new once, and each new car buyer opted for a mud paint job.  Taste they had, lots of taste. 
   Why is it that I see multiple stories about the end of stainless steel as America's favorite kitchen appliance finish, but I don't remember a single one on the rise of mud as America's favorite car color?

Getting things done WITHOUT using the military

   Both candidates spoke at length about the need for America to influence events overseas and in the Middle East, but without "putting boots on the ground".  Get foreign governments to do things our way but without using force.  Nice work if you can get it.  The voters approve, Americans have never supported agreements made at gunpoint.  We don't like to act the bully, we don't like getting our sons and husbands killed, and we don't like spending the necessary money.  America is not a war like country.  We don't see war as moral.
  So how do we influence events overseas?  We find individuals or groups,  politicians, newsmen, religious leaders, authors, unions, churches and political parties who support liberty, the rule of law, democracy, free market capitalism, and oppose terrorism, communism, and religious radicalism.  We offer these people and groups our support.  Money, web access, smart phones, color printers, favorable publicity in our press, intelligence, passports and visas, laptops, Xerox machines, and the myriad of useful devices that our economy produces in such abundance.  For a democratic resistance movement struggling to liberalize a repressive government, such assistance can be the vital edge that pushes them over the top.  It's generally accepted that this sort of encouragement and support to Lech Walensa's Solidarity movement  was very important in the overthrow of the  Polish communist regime.
  Of course, for this to work, it MUST remain secret.  Imagine what would happen to any American politician should it becomes known that he accepts help from the Russians, or the Chinese, or even the Saudis.  Likewise it would be the kiss of death to many overseas should it become known that they were working with the Americans.  
  Trouble is, no one overseas is willing to trust that the Americans will keep secrets secret.  They all fear that anything they share with the Americans will appear on the front pages of the New York Times in a few days.  Until we can tighten up our security and keep secret things secret, not even the best our our representatives be able to do much coordination with players overseas.  Those players fear that American leaks will cost them their lives.
   CIA is disgracefully leaky.  State isn't much better.  Until we tighten things up, we won't be able to do much influencing of anyone. 

No Knockout blows.

I watched the last Romney-Obama debate.  And watched the after debate spinners attempting to spin it their way.  Neither man made a fatal gaffe or landed a knockout blow.  Watching these things is like watching a bullfight.  You are waiting for someone to get gored. 
  Well, that didn't happen.  Romney came on as presidential, well informed, and reasonable.  He ain't gonna take us to war anywhere.  Obama did OK, defending the weak record of his administration.  He made the best of a bad situation.  The moderator, some old white haired coot from CBS news, was a lot better than the last one, Candy Crowley.  He had better questions and he didn't jump into the debate himself the way Candy did last time.  We TV viewers want to hear what the candidates have to say, we don't care what the moderator wants to say.  We don't like the moderator taking air time away from the candidates.
   I'll score this one as even-stephen.  Each man's  "base" will say (and think) their man did well.  I don't think there are many undecided voters left, so it's hard say what the effect on undecided or independents might be.  We will know in a couple of weeks. 

Car shopping

Youngest son took me car shopping today.  In the space of an afternoon we visited all four car dealers in Littleton.  Wow.  Most of ;'em started at $10k for high mileage mini cars.  We didn't find anything to fall in love with.  The best of the batch was a Kia with 93K miles on the clock.  It had a manual trans, which is a plus, but the road noise on the highway was a bit daunting. 
   Clearly more hunting is in order.

What should they talk about tomorrow night?

Tomorrow is the last Romney-Obama debate.  It's supposed to be about "foreign policy".  For a superpower with world wide interests, this is a fairly important subject.   So what should they talk about? Here is my list.
1.  Iranian nuclear program.  How bad would a nuclear Iran be?  What should we do to stop the Iranians from getting the bomb?  We have managed to crash their centrifuge computers and  their currency.  Can we go farther and destabilize the mullahs, bringing on a third Iranian revolution?  If worse comes to worse do we have the stones to do a regime change on them?
2.  China and the South China Sea.  China is claiming ownership of  some worthless rocks in the South China Sea as a way of pushing out the Philippines, the Viet Namese, the Japanese and the Koreans from oil exploration in the region.  Should we let the Chinese push our friends around? Should we tell China where to get off? 
3. How much military strength do we need to maintain the Pax Americana?  Let's talk real numbers here, numbers of Army and Marine divisions, Air Force squadrons, Navy ships. 
4.  Can we sign the outstanding free trade agreements which objections by US union have stalled?
5.  How hard do we want to bash China on currency manipulation and trade?  It wouldn't be hard to start a trade war here.  Who would get hurt worse, us or them?
6.  Do we just let the Arab Spring stew in its own juice, or do we try to restore some kind of order over there?

Wanna bet they waste the evening talking about Benghazi and who knew what and when did they know it?