A roundup of a few interesting things from the internet this week.
Great pieces by establishment conservatives George Will and Charles Krauthammer pointing out the increasingly wide gap between Obama’s rhetoric of post-partisanship and his narrowly partisan agenda.
A scathing editorial by Robert Samuelson on Obama’s phony economics agenda.
A nice tribute to one of my favorite writers, Steve Sailer, by John Derbyshire.
An interesting power point from Natick Labs that shows the Army’s dubious universal pattern was actually a poor performer in tests. The best performer looked a lot like old Rhodesian camouflage and, like the earth around us, was comprised of greens, tans, and browns. It is a minor scandal that the Army has made its soldiers appear worse in garrison and endangered them in the field with its new Army Combat Uniform. Since so many soldiers are now slogging it out like their fathers and grandfathers on Afghan hills, it’s a decision worthy of revisiting by the DoD.
South of the border, things seem to be really melting down. It’s kind of pathetic that Obama thinks we can have an unsecured border with Mexico and is considering sending in the military to stop narco-terrorists only, as if a border without controls can easily separate illegal aliens seeking work at car washes and restaurants and illegal aliens seeking work as pimps and drug dealers. Without a secure border, the un-uniformed, un-named, disorganized, and visually indistinguishable criminal element from Mexico will continue to flow into the US.
I was never terribly impressed with the GOP since Bush took the helm. Michael Steele is not helping things. More of the same is a recipe for disaster: both politically and, if we somehow manage electoral success, on policy. The gap between concerns of the rank and file–the economy, culture, immigration, national security, and moral decline–and the guilt-ridden, beltway rhetoric of the leadership is quite remarkable.
Dick Cheney said this morning that Obama’s policies make America less safe. I, of course, said Bush’s border policies made America less safe, though Obama may even be worse on this score. But so what if Cheney said this? Isn’t this what criticism of another person’s national security policy always is saying implicitly? One of the most dangerous developments in the media’s tone under Obama has been the idea that criticizing his policies–i.e., hoping they fail or saying they make us less safe–is out of bounds and unpatriotic. If we can’t criticize Obama without being called racist, and we can’t criticize his policies without being unpatriotic, what is left other than blind submission?
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“what is left other than blind submission?”
reverance and worship.
Obama makes me sorry that I rooted for him in the primaries against Hillary.
He’s always seemed like an empty-suit windbag to me. But I also thought at one time that he might be very good in one aspect of the presidency: the role of Head of State. That aspect demands poise, eloquence and dignified politeness.
Then he messed up the Gordon Brown visit.
Clearly he is out of his depth, and I wonder why anyone should be surprised by this. What were his qualifications again?
This guy Krauthammer is starting to appeal to me. I admit I’m not terribly familiar with his body of work, but the few times I’ve read or heard him he seems thoughtful enough. He seems like a second-fiddle Buckleyite and not far removed from, well, Mr. Roach.
Ok. I’ll except the (ir)religious part.
His op-ed piece, supra, reflects a sort of scientific-conservatism, if you will, which if nothing else is the type of framework that examines issues reasonably and without resorting to some kneejerk ideological bromide. I’d say he’s equipped with a set of First Principles and isn’t reluctant to advance them.
The GOP, adrift at sea, might want to steal a page from his playbook and underscore its Obama animus with substance instead of style.
The Vietnam era cammies ironed well and were good-looking as well as functional. Old-timers I knew during a brief and entirely unglamorous stint in the Marine Reserves were as careful with them as with a good suit. Otherwise, they had to wear the lumpy, bumpy heavy camo’s that supposedly made you hard to see in infrared. (You know, for when we fight all those armies out there that issue infrared goggles to everybody.) In order to maintain the infrared-blocking effect, we were advised to avoid machine-washing or use of soap.
Really, the Pentagon just needs to be eliminated.
Btw, Roach, why no word on the “l’affaire Chas Freeman”? Certainly a comment or two might have been in order since you’re offering a weekly recap, though I realize this is your dance.
Notwithstanding your point that the new ACU is a bad pattern, I also find it foolish all four services are getting new camo uniforms.
Now that BDUs are being retired each service is replacing it with their own design. This can’t help US or foreign allies in easily identifying friend from foe. Additionally, this adds to cost and creates waste in the supply chain.
At most I can see the USMC and Army having different designs if this were still the Cold War, and they had their different areas of operation. But given today’s environment, Army and USMC units operate in the same area. So they should have picked a standard design. The cut of the Army ACU, with its unique collar and pockets, is pretty good, and the USMC patterns are better. Combining the two would have probably been a better solution.
The Navy and AF should adopt the cammie uniform of the USMC or Army. All Navy corpsmen wear standard USMC uniforms when deployed, and AF personnel assigned to Army units generally wear the ACU. Outside of a few personnel who fight with the Army or USMC, the majority of Navy and AF people stay on ships or bases. Hence, no need to design a unique cammie uniform for them.
[…] has a universal camo pattern apparently much superior to the Army’s bluish ACU, a bad pattern adopted over superior competitors in tests that is probably getting soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. It should be a minor scandal […]