Pat Lang's endorsements

FWIW I run a blog that is all about foreign policy, military affairs and my other various interests.  I generally do not endorse candidates but the choices in the coming national and local elections are so stark that it would seem cowardly to stand aside and await an outcome.  I recommend the following choices for president, congress and in the city of Alexandria:

For president and VP of the United States - Barack Obama and Joseph Biden.  The US economy is recovering slowly from the disasters inflicted on it by the profligate actions of the Bush Administration and the Congress on both sides of the aisle.  GDP is rising, unemployment is falling, employment is rising, the stock market is doing well.  Profits are high in corporate America.  What is needed now is the patience needed to let the recovery continue.  What is NOT needed is an administration intent on renewed de-regulation of the financial industry, a de-regulation that could only lead to further "looting" of the economy by the Gordon Gecko crowd.  In foreign affairs, another Obama Administration is a lesser evil for me.  Like Romney, Obama appears to subordinate the interests of the US to those of Israel, but at least he has shown the courage to "push back" against Zionist demands for effective operational control of US forces in an attack against Iran.  Neo-Wilsonian influence is strong in the Obama foreign policy apparatus.  An ideologically driven sponsorship of revolution in the Islamic World regardless of the identity of the revolutionaries is only acceptable because it is not as bad as the probable domination of a Romney policy by the neocons who surround him.  Is Romney really interested in foreign affairs?  It is probably true that he is not and that he is shamming interest in pursuit of the only thing he seems to want - the presidency as a life prize with which to feed his CEO ego. 

For US senator in Virginia - Timothy Kaine.  I simply cannot stand Allen. 

For member of the House of Representatives from the 8th district of Virginia - James Moran.  I do not wish to see the extreme right further strengthen its grip on the House. 

For mayor of Alexandria - Andrew Macdonald.  The present mayor has shown himself to be an agent of massive commercial re-development rather than a defender of the city's historic character and quality of life.  For that reason I recommend his opponent.

For city council in Alexandria - Alicia Hughes, Robert Wood, and Frank Fannon.  I decline to recommend a full slate.

pl 

Comments

[twv]

A little disappointed, but not at all surprised.
Methinks that you have spent way too many years outside of America - that is, inside the Capital beltway.

[turcopolier]

twv

I understand that you are committed to de-regulation of everything but do you really find Romney more acceptable than BHO. If so, then why? pl

[trooper]

I'm voting for Mitt-he's more alpha.
Should be close!

[turcopolier]

trooper

I worked for various alphas in business and government. For them its all about them, not you. pl

[Abu Sinan]

Good choices Sir. It is a sad state of affairs that we are often forced to hold our noses when we vote for the ones that stink a little bit less than the rest.

[Ramojus]

As a native son of Chicago, IL; the home of President Obama; I second your endorsement for President of the United States Colonel Lang.

I believe the pendulum that swung from FDR to Reagan is starting to swing back the other way...

... Hopefully

[Jackie]

Mitt's not more alpha, he's more d@#$ish. As in, a big one! Unlike twv and trooper, I appreciate your choices.

[agin' cajun]

Can you imagine the amount of crap that would hit the fan if a Catholic Bishop ran for the nation's highest office? Or a high profile Rabbi? Mitt is not "just a Mormon" he was a Bishop within the Church structure. On top of that, his family is Royal Blood within the LDS. Early during the Primary season something astounding happened. Conservative Catholic Rick Santorum was invited to a Texas Protestant confab of the "Who's Who" in the Fundamentalist movement. At this shindig the High Holy Men "laid hands on" Mr. Santorum and prayed for him. At that point I knew something big was up. The significance of that act escaped most people. The Catholics here can correct me if I err, but Rick allowing that act could be considered Heresy within the Catholic Church. On the other side, several of the High Holy who participated had previously referred to the Catholic Church as the "Whore of Babylon" of worse. WTF? Now you have the Protestant Fundies,Conservative Catholics supporting a Mormon Bishop for President? I will not bore anyone with further speculation on my part. I'll allow you to ponder for yourself. For over thirty years I have boiled my political choice down to one simple statement.The Republican Party of my younger days is dead.

Find me a Howard Baker Sr. or an Everet Dirkson? Neither one of those statesman would be allowed in today's Party of Lincoln.

Today's Republican Party should relabel itself the Theocracy Party. Just my two cents. In closing I would encourage every citizen to read Jefferson. He and other "Founders" are rolling in their graves.

I long for a third party, until then I will vote against Theocracy, without apologies.

[Mike Martin, Yorktown, VA]

Agree completely, Pat. If I might add my own endorsement of Adam Cook down here in the Virginia 1st Congressional District.

[optimax]

I held my nose and voted for the muslim. Can't understand why people want to return to the Bush years...on steroids.We have vote by mail and find it convenient.

[r whitman]

I have lived under 13 Presidents of the USA so far. On a personal note it makes little difference to me who wins. Neither will change my life. I feel that the country will have a much more peaceable foreign policy stance under BHO. Domestic policy will be screwed up under either one.

[Will Reks]

I will be voting for Gary Johnson or Jill Stein. Both have significant differences but they represent a clear break from the neo-liberalism and movement conservatism that has severely damaged this country. I do prefer the President to his opponent and it's not even close.

[charlie]

I'd agree with the R controlling any more of the house, but Moran sticks in my throat the most. Kaine next, Obama last.

[Medicine Man]

Insofar as I can judge, I think this is a pretty pragmatic set of endorsements.

Whatever the outcome, I hope your country's fortunes continue to improve in the next four years.

[FB Ali]

Since I cannot vote, I can only express an opinion. From the point of view of the Rest-of-the-World, Obama would be the lesser evil. Romney would be a disaster.

I am glad Col Lang makes the same choices from the point of view of the United States.

Slightly off-topic: TIME has an article by David von Drehle on Lincoln. If it's an accurate representation, he was quite an extraordinary person!

[SteveB]

I've described the choice in similar terms and told many people that I voted for the lesser of two evils (BO). The best you can say about that is that you get less evil.

[turcopolier]

FB Ali

Freeman, RE Lee's greatest biographer said that after many years of talking to him across a figurative campfire he had come to love him. I spent a lot years with Lincoln while writing my trilogy. Claude Devereux came to love him and I, at least, think well of him as a man. His greatness of spirit and generosity (most of the time) are hard to resist. Against that there is the idolatry of people like von Drahle and Sandburg who think he was born without the stain of original sin. Sidney Blumenthal is writing what I think will be the greatet of all Lincoln biographies. In it will be revealed the hidden truth that Lincoln was in fact a career lifelong professional politician. He was actually the first major career Amercan politician. His beliefs were essentially nationalist and centralizing. The neocons and extreme nationalists on the left and right worship him for that. C. Matthews and Paul Wolfowitz would be examples. He was not in love with African-Americans. In the middle of 1862 he was still telling their leaders that they would never be the equal of whites and that they should "go home" to Africa when liberated. His nationalist vision cost the US 700,000 dead and many more wounded. This is the equivalent of 7 million in proportion to today's population. All that was done to subjugate states whose policy was that they wanted to be left alone. God did not make the United States for some special purpose of his own. Men made it, among them my forefathers, for purposes of their convenience. You Canadians would not kill and destroy this for nationalist reasons. Why would you revere Lincoln? pl

[Grimgrin]

Anglophone Canadians may just be naturally inclined towards the preservation of federal unions. I should probably ask the next Quebecois I meet how Lincoln is viewed there though.

It may also be that the amount of American culture that filters north means we absorb the ideas embedded in them with regards to American history more than most of us would care to admit.

[MRW]

Good choices. The worse presidents in recent history have been ex-state governors. They think they can go to DC and run the country like a state or "a business." Look at Reagan, Clinton and Bush Jr.

Reagan started the deregulation of every institution which was not fully understood by him but by those who got him to do it. Clinton brought in free trade that didn't protect the US economy and passed Glass-Steagall and the untethering of derivatives to any oversight. Bush completed the job. The worse man for the job is a state governor, especially someone who is proud of his business skills. The Presidency requires macroeconomic smarts, which state governors never touch in their tenure. Obama's problem is that he listened to Geithner and Summers.

The US federal government is not a business or household. You don't run the federal government like one. Romney is a civic moron who wants the presidency as a prize and would precipitate another, and worse, September 2008 through ignorance.
http://www.modernmoneyandpublicpurpose.com/seminar-2.html

[Alba Etie]

Col Lang
I was convinced to vote for President Obama after he hired General Dempsey . I must admit at one point I was certain we would aid & abet the illegal War that the Likudniks wanted to start with the Persians.
The fact that you, General Powell and Mayor Bloomberg also agree BHO deserves another term underscores why we need to support the Democrats .
Do you have an opinion on the climate change debate - Col Lang now that we have seen Super Storm Sandy ?

[Clifford Kiracofe]

Yes indeed, the Neocons...The Lincoln cult among Neocons is linked to the Straussian influence. (Leo Strauss). One major promoter of the Straussian Lincoln cult is Prof. Harry Jaffa for whom see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_V._Jaffa

What is going on? Very simple, the Straussian method is to select famous folks to hide behind and then to "interpret" them to their own ends.

What ends? They use Lincoln as a cover to promote the concepts of Carl Schmitt, the legal theoretician of the national socialist regime in Germany. Strauss was among his start students. Being Jewish, Strauss chose to move out of Germany in the thirties and aided by Schmitt move upwards in the UK and then came to the US.

For Carl Schmitt and his concepts see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Schmitt

Lincoln suspended habius corpus, Schmitt promoted fascism...thus promote Lincoln when you really mean Schmitt.

And yes, a vote for Romney is clearly a vote to return to the Neocon domination of foreign policy during the W Bush era. Romney made absolutely no sincere effort to return to a more moderate Republican position whether Ike-ish or even Bob Taft-ish. Instead he surrounded himself with Neocons. Ryan is a product of the Neocons when it comes to foreign policy and the Austrian school in economics.

[Clifford Kiracofe]

Yes, and the destruction of the Republican Party is well laid out in:

Kevin Phillips, American Theocracy (NY: Viking,2006). Phillips, a conservative Republican, disapproves of the Theocon-Neocon takeover. I get into this issue in my own book: Dark Crusade (London: IB Tauris, 2009).

[William R. Cumming]

IMO the best politician, career or otherwise, wins the Presidency. The unexpected challenges of the next four years will be shocking not just to our citizenry and residency but to our political system. Weathering that storm so to speak in the face of the almost total ignorance of Romney about our federal system, history, and Constitutional norms seems to make BHO the better candidate. But eventually he could well be standing in the dock as a War Criminal for his drone war activities.

If we [US} are exceptional then what exactly do we stand for in the current world scene? I leave to others to answer!

[The beaver]

Colonel

Usually I don't comment on other countries elections (though I want to know and learn about everything) but, just on the foreign policy issues, I would like to see Obama as POTUS( to use FB Ali qualifier- lesser of the two evils) in lieu of Romney. So good choice Colonel and hopefully Mitch McConnell can eat his words.

[Lars]

Good choices and pragmatic ones. For me it came down to character and I found Mr. Romney lacking in that regard. Then it is a matter of war or peace and due to that character problem, I do not trust Mr. Romney to stand up to his neocon advisers. I have seen what they are capable of.