A tragic disconnect

Nov. 11 was the day that the nation remembered the sacrifice of those who have served in the military.

But all the chest thumping, flag waving, parades, and solemn ceremonies were hollow when placed in the context of what was really going on.

Let’s recall some recent history that reminds us how we really treat the service men and women who have been killed or wounded in our defense. Let’s recall Walter Reed Army Hospital, Arlington National Cemetery, and the mortuary at Dover Air Force Base.

The horrendous conditions at Walter Reed Army Medical Center date back to 1999. But it was a series of articles in the Washington Post in 2007 that ignited the firestorm. There were widespread reports of neglect and incompetence brought forward by wounded soldiers and their families. The epicenter of the neglect was located in the infamous Building 18 at Walter Reed. It was a rat and cockroach infested facility that had extensive Black Mold, no heat, no water, and at which the wounded soldiers has to “pull guard duty” to maintain security at the entrance in order to cope with drug dealers. In addition, the wounded soldiers frequently had to prove that they were wounded in Iraq or Afghanistan because the Walter Reed employees could not find their records.

That was followed in 2010 with the revelations concerning Arlington National Cemetery. There were 6,600 graves that were mislabeled, bodies were lost, cremated remains were unidentified, and over $5 million dollars was spent in an unsuccessful attempt to computerize the cemetery’s burial records.

The Army’s Inspector General’s Office accused the Arlington Superintendent of failing to ensure that burials were done properly and failing to respond when the problems were discovered. At ensuing Congressional hearings Arlington’s top officials invoked 5th Amendment protection to avoid incriminating themselves.

And now we’ve got the scandal at Dover Air Force Base where the remains of the fallen in Iraq and Afghanistan come home to America. Thanks to whistleblower reports it has become clear that for years there has been gross mismanagement at the Dover mortuary. Body parts have been lost and misidentified. Families of the deceased have been misled. Troops’ remains have been cremated and the ashes have been dumped into a landfill in Virginia. And the Air Force has not fired any of the three Dover mortuary supervisors.

Terrible things like this happen in part because America is largely disengaged from the thankless and heroic effort of our armed forces. In their book, “That Used To Be Us,’’ Tom Friedman and Michael Mandelbaum report, “the military has become disconnected from mainstream America. The troops deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan and their families make up less than 1 percent of the population. The rest of us contribute nothing. 1 per cent make all the sacrifice and the other 99 per cent make no sacrifice at all.”

Don’t kid yourself; America whistled past the graveyard on Veterans Day.

Waiting for 'Dark Mare' to emerge?

Incumbent presidents are usually strongly positioned for re-election. Look at FDR, Eisenhower, LBJ, Nixon, Reagan, Clinton and Bush 43.
And history teaches us that a challenge to a sitting president from within his own party usually divides the party and dooms it to defeat in the general election. That’s what Sen. Ted Kennedy’s ill-fated challenge to President Jimmy Carter did in 1980.
Thus, it is not at all surprising that no challenge from within the Democratic Party has emerged to President Obama. And I suppose the conventional wisdom will prevail, and no such challenge will occur.
But 2012 is an unconventional year, and perhaps it’s worth thinking some unconventional thoughts. America faces enormous problems, and they are growing worse. Moreover, the American people know this, even if the political class denies it. America is in decline. That’s the heart of the message in Thomas Friedman and Michael Mandelbaum’s book, “That Used to Be Us,’’ which I have begun to write about.
Large majorities of Democrats, Republicans and independents know that the nation is not headed in the right direction.
That’s why the emerging contours of the 2012 presidential contest are unconventional. One would expect that President Obama would by now be the underdog for re-election. But, while his poll numbers are down, he still appears to have a better-than-even chance to win re-election. And this is because the GOP appears likely to nominate a candidate incapable of defeating a president who has demonstrated that he can’t do the job. There may be some who believe that Obama, or Texas Gov. Rick Perry, or former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney can get us out of the mess we’re in. But most of us don’t.
And that’s what makes 2012 an unconventional year. So here’s an alternative. For the record, it’s not one I like, but that’s no matter.
Think back to 2008. There seemed to be little doubt that Sen. Hillary Clinton had a clear path to the Democratic nomination and the White House. Surely, the upstart effort of Barack Obama posed no serious threat. But Clinton’s hubris, coupled with her strategic error of ignoring the states that held caucuses rather than primaries, put her campaign in a hole from which she could not escape.
Since then, she has ably served as secretary of state, a position that has isolated her from the economic and domestic mess that the rest of the Obama administration has served up.
You can be certain that the “Billaries,” whose political ambitions have no end, are seeing an opening here, an opening created by a president who can’t do the job and a set of Republican adversaries who can’t either.
The question for the “Billaries,” and it’s a daunting question, is how to thread the eye of this needle.
If the “Dark Mare” sticks her nose out of the barn, it will change everything.