Jay Bookman

In his speech this evening, President Obama is expected to announce the withdrawal of 10,000 American troops from Afghanistan by the end of the year, a step that would still leave almost 90,000 U.S. military personnel in that country.

And while that pace of withdrawal is more rapid than many military leaders would prefer, it is also much slower than public opinion demands. According to a new Pew poll, 56 percent of Americans now want our troops out of Afghanistan as soon as possible, up sharply from 40 percent just a year ago.

That rapid change of heart can be attributed to a range of factors. We’ve been in Afghanistan for almost 10 years now, with relatively little to show for it except for the death of Osama bin Laden. And with bin Laden now removed from the scene, the official rationale for staying seems much less convincing. In the Pew poll, for example, only 38 percent of Americans believed it likely that we would be able to leave behind a stable Afghan government, and …

Continue reading Obama plays it safe with Afghan withdrawal schedule »

How’s it going down on the farm?

The Associated Press reports:

The first batch of probationers started work last week at a farm owned by Dick Minor, president of the Georgia Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association. In the coming days, more farmers could join the program.

So far, the experiment at Minor’s farm is yielding mixed results. On the first two days, all the probationers quit by mid-afternoon, said Mendez, one of two crew leaders at Minor’s farm.

“Those guys out here weren’t out there 30 minutes and they got the bucket and just threw them in the air and say, ‘Bonk this, I ain’t with this, I can’t do this,’” said Jermond Powell, a 33-year-old probationer. “They just left, took off across the field walking.”

Mendez put the probationers to the test last Wednesday, assigning them to fill one truck and a Latino crew to a second truck. The Latinos picked six truckloads of cucumbers compared to one truckload and four bins for the probationers.

Just as an aside, Minor …

Continue reading So far, probationers don’t cotton to farm life »

Sgt. Major of the Marine Corps Michael P. Barrett addresses Marines in Okinawa, Japan. (U.S. Marine Corps photo)

As military veterans will tell you, the services are run not by the officers but by the senior noncoms, the E-8s and E-9s who set the tone, enforce discipline and get things done. (Right, Dad?) Even most officers, if they’re smart, will defer behind the scenes to their senior enlisted personnel.

Michael Barrett, for example, is command sergeant major of the U.S. Marine Corps, the service’s top non-commissioned officer. Judging from the photograph to the right, Barrett is a man able to grab and hold the attention of anyone within a hundred yards of his voice. And as the Wall Street Journal reports, he has a message that he’s trying to drive home to his fellow Marines:

“Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution is pretty simple,” he told a group of Marines at a base in South Korea. “It says, ‘Raise an army.’ It says absolutely nothing about race, color, creed, sexual …

Continue reading From ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell’ to ‘Don’t make me repeat this’ »

According to conservatives, the Obama stimulus package passed in early 2009 hasn’t worked, and it’s time to try something else. Every single Republican candidate for president believes that the “something else” in question ought to be tax cuts.

We all familiar with the mantra by now: Tax cuts create millions of jobs. Tax cuts boost the economy. Tax cuts increase government revenue. Tax cuts cure cancer, and if global warming were real, tax cuts could probably cure that too. All we need to do is remove government from our wallets, and the recovery would bloom.

However, there’s a serious problem with that analysis — well, more than one, really, but let’s just deal with them one at a time for the moment. You see, economists agree that the most accurate way to measure a nation’s tax burden is to look at federal revenue as a percentage of the nation’s gross domestic product. That number tells you how much of the nation’s economic output is being siphoned off to finance government …

Continue reading Cut taxes to create jobs? We’ve tried it and tried it »

In a new Gallup poll, 22 percent of Americans say they would not vote for a “generally well-qualified person for president who happened to be Mormon.”

That’s the same number since Gallup began asking the question back in 1967, when George Romney, father of Mitt, was running for president. However, as Gallup notes, 25 percent of Americans in 1959 said they wouldn’t vote for a Catholic, and one year later John Kennedy was elected president.

A few other tidbits:

– Democrats (27 percent) were more likely than Republicans (18 percent) to reject a Mormon candidate.

– Two-thirds of Americans said they would support a well-qualified presidential candidate who happened to be gay, compared to only 26 percent in 1978.

– Eighty-nine percent said they would support a Jewish candidate. Again, it’s interesting to track that historically. Before World War II and the terrors of the Holocaust (1937), only 46 percent would support a Jew for president. By 1958, it had risen to 62 percent, and by …

Continue reading Most voters would back Mormon or gay, but not an atheist »

NOTE: This post includes material published on this blog earlier. It is posted here as the electronic version of today’s AJC column.

The implications of an internal memo written last week by Stacey Kalberman, the state’s top ethics-enforcement official, are potentially explosive.

“I do not believe it to be a coincidence that your increased concern with the budget coincides with my staff’s preparation and delivery to you for your signature the subpoenas related to the ongoing [Gov.] Nathan Deal investigation,” Kalberman wrote to commission chairman Patrick Millsaps. “As you know, these subpoenas have been reviewed and approved for legal sufficiency by the attorney general’s office. Your stated concern is that we do not have the budget for this investigation. However, the costs have already been paid. Staff time is built into the budget, and in my opinion we have sufficient resources going forward. In addition, the FBI has offered at no cost its forensic accountant to assist …

Continue reading Ethical expectations in Georgia much too low »

Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, appearing on “Face the Nation” Sunday, offers the GOP explanation for our current economic situation:

McCONNELL: If you talk to business people and Bill Daley, the present chief of staff did recently, you find out their biggest complaint is overregulation. You know, the federal government with that stimulus money hired a quarter of a million new employees. These people are busily at work trying to regulate every aspect of American life in– in health care, financial services, through the Environmental Protection Agency, really sort of bureaucrats on steroids that are freezing up– the private– private sector and making it very difficult, Bob, for them to grow and expand. You know, you’re seen the reports that they’ve two trillion in cash. The reason they’re not investing that in hiring more people is the government has made it very expensive to expand employment.

BOB SCHIEFFER: So do you– do Republicans have any …

Continue reading On economy, McConnell sells double-whopper with cheese »

The Southern Baptist Convention, meeting in Phoenix last week, took a couple of interesting steps toward broadening its appeal and perhaps its own outlook.

First, the convention adopted a report urging the SBC, when filling leadership positions, to “give special attention to appointing individuals who represent the diversity within the convention, and particularly ethnic diversity,” a step that some might describe as affirmative action.

According to the Baptist Press, “a motion that would have struck the ethnic diversity language was defeated by a margin of 3-to-1. The Executive Committee report, delivered after a two-year study, cites the ‘need to be proactive and intentional in the inclusion of individuals from all ethnical and racial identities within Southern Baptist life’.”

SBC President Bryant Wright, of Marietta, told BP that ethnic diversity is “vitally important to the future of the church in America.”

“We have not reflected what is happening in America in both the …

Continue reading Southern Baptists embrace ‘path to legal status’ »

I don’t know which makes me more lucky — having the best father in the world, or being the dad of the two greatest kids in the world. However, I suspect that if I hadn’t had the first, I wouldn’t have had the second. You live what you see.

Happy Fathers Day, everyone.

– Jay Bookman

Continue reading Happy Fathers Day — go hug the old man »

Clarence Clemons, “The Big Man” in Springsteen’s E Street Band, suffered a major stroke this week and remains in serious condition. “Initial signs are encouraging,” Springsteen said in a press release, but at age 69 (hard to believe), it’s going to be a long way back for one of the most recognizable band members in rock and roll, musically as well as physically.

Like a lot of the music they made together, there’s something about this song that makes you want to pick up your feet and move. It’s classic Travelin’ Music, and I hope Clarence has many miles yet to travel with Bruce and the boys.

Continue reading ‘cuz all roads lead to, or away from, Jersey »