I’ve seen a lot of sad things in American politics in my lifetime — the resignation of a president who became a national disgrace after he oversaw a campaign of break-ins and cover-ups, another who circumvented the Constitution to trade arms for hostages, and yet is now hailed as national hero. And those paled to what we have seen in the last seven years — flagrant disregard for the Constitution, the launching of a "pre-emptive" war on false pretenses, and discussions about torture and other shocking abuses inside the White House inner sanctum.

But now it’s come to this: A new low that I never imagined was even possible.

President Bush went on foreign soil today, and committed what I consider an act of political treason: Comparing the candidate of the U.S. opposition party to appeasers of Nazi Germany – in the very nation that was carved out from the horrific calamity of the Holocaust. Bush’s bizarre and beyond-appropriate detour into American presidential politics took place in the middle of what should have been an occasion for joy: A speech to Israeli’s Knesset to honor that nation’s 60th birthday.

But here’s what he said:

 JERUSALEM (CNN) – In a particularly sharp blast from halfway around the world, President Bush suggested Thursday that Sen. Barack Obama and other Democrats are in favor of "appeasement" of terrorists in the same way U.S. leaders appeased Nazis in the run-up to World War II.

"Some seem to believe we should negotiate with terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along," said Bush, in what White House aides privately acknowledged was a reference to calls by Obama and other Democrats for the U.S. president to sit down for talks with leaders like Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

"We have heard this foolish delusion before," Bush said in remarks to the Israeli Knesset. "As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American Senator declared: ‘Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided.’ We have an obligation to call this what it is — the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history."

As a believer in free speech, I think Bush has a right to say what he wants, but as a President of the United States who swore to uphold the Constitution, his freedom also carries an awesome and solemn responsibility, and what this president said today is a serious breach of that high moral standard…

We are Americans…

Tomorrow, the Wall Street Journal, the Weekly Standard, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly will explain to us that what Bush said today is fine, maybe even courageous. This weekend, the Talking Heads on the Sunday T.V. shows will rally behind his speech. Fox News will join in the support. Dick Cheney will amplify on Bush’s statement. Maybe some of those West Virginia voters I saw on television tonight will get interviewed again agreeing with the President.

As the Democratic nomination contest slouches toward a close, it’s time to take stock of what I will not miss.

I will not miss seeing advertisements for T-shirts that bear the slogan "Bros before Hos." The shirts depict Barack Obama (the Bro) and Hillary Clinton (the Ho) and are widely sold on the Internet.

I will not miss walking past airport concessions selling the Hillary Nutcracker, a device in which a pantsuit-clad Clinton doll opens her legs to reveal stainless-steel thighs that, well, bust nuts. I won’t miss television and newspaper stories that make light of the novelty item.

Most of all, I will not miss the silence.

I will not miss the deafening, depressing silence of Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean or other leading Democrats, who to my knowledge (with the exception of Sen. Barbara Mikulski of Maryland) haven’t publicly uttered a word of outrage at the unrelenting, sex-based hate that has been hurled at a former first lady and two-term senator from New York. Among those holding their tongues are hundreds of Democrats for whom Clinton has campaigned and raised millions of dollars. Don Imus endured more public ire from the political class when he insulted the Rutgers University women’s basketball team.

Would the silence prevail if Obama’s likeness were put on a tap-dancing doll that was sold at airports? Would the media figures who dole out precious face time to these politicians be such pals if they’d compared Obama with a character in a blaxploitation film? And how would crude references to Obama’s sex organs play?

There are many reasons Clinton is losing the nomination contest, some having to do with her strategic mistakes, others with the groundswell for "change." But for all Clinton’s political blemishes, the darker stain that has been exposed is the hatred of women that is accepted as a part of our culture.

But my thoughts about "the silence" have been different from Marie Cocco’s. She’s correct. The Democratic heirarchy has been quiet about the sexism and the racism that’s ridden in the background of this Primary Campaign. It’s there for sure, both things. But it hasn’t been the only silence. There’s a lot more. How about homosexuality? How about Evangelical Christians? How about Stem Cells or Abortion? How about the Military records of the Candidates [not counting McCains obvious heroism in Viet Nam]? But most of all, how about "Liberal" or "Conservative?" It’s been said openly, but compared to all the other "isms" and prejudices, it’s the one that’s been highest on the "hatred" scale on the back burner and the front burner.

I’m a white guy. It’s just the way I came into the world. So, I can’t comment on how the racist and sexist comments either feel or should be interpreted first hand. My opinion would be suspect, even by me. But I’m also a life-long actual Liberal, and it shows. So, I can say something about that side of things, fully aware that it’s a bit different because it’s a choice, not a fact of birth [privately, I claim it's in my DNA, because that's how it feels, but I can't prove it]. And so I can say something about that.

When Bush got elected, I was awed at the Liberal Hatred. By then, I’d left the embracing leftist arms of the University faculty and the world of a charity hospital and was in private practice in Metro Atlanta, part of the community of Physicians and urbanites. It was almost like some people were being generous to talk to someone like me - a Liberal. I found myself being "the Liberal friend" - introduced with "he’s a liberal, but…" It was wierd. And that went on for a while. I heard all the Talking Points on the street, and wondered where they came from. When I retired, I moved to North Georgia. It’s a wonderful place, but there’s no one running in the Democratic Primary in local elections. Like most of Appalachia [eg West Virginia], it’s a white place that has always been Republican. Oh sure, we have Democrats here. But I know almost every one of them. Interestingly, there’s nothing like the "Liberal" hatred here that I encountered in the early Bush years in Atlanta.

Back to "the silence." I’ve been glad that the Democratic heirarchy has been relatively quiet about sexism. I’ve been glad about the matter-of-fact way they’ve dealt with racism. I’ve been tickled pink that they’ve been quiet about liberalism and all the superfluous issues of the last two elections. Barack Obama has done black America proud. Hillary Clinton has been absolutely magnificent as a woman, a democrat, and a candidate. She dipped into the dark side when she got behind and it didn’t work, so she stopped. That’s politics, and she seems to be recovering. I hope that "the silence" that Marie Cocco is talking about is something else. She apparently sees it as a collusion with mysogyny. I see it as respect. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have done fine all by themselves.

I see the Democratic heirarchy as dodging being branded and villified by the Republican attack machine that’s worked so well in the past. Let the Media machine and the dirty trick underground do what they want to do. Let the racists and sexists scream at the top of their lungs. Let the preacher/politicians do their thing [if they're not afraid to show their faces]. And let people use the words "democrat" or "liberal" like curse words. It’s time for that to stop, but the way to make it stop is to ignore it.

I grew up in a world that was openly racist - the 1950’s South. That kind of hatred wasn’t just on the back burner, it was part of the government, in the State Houses, in the Court Houses, in the Police Departments. It’s still around, but it’s nothing like it was. It may be in the way people vote, or where they buy their houses, but it’s not in the halls of justice. That’s an enormous accomplishment for the southern African Americans, right thinking white southerners, and the American Dream. From my perspective, the time for forced political correctness is passing. It’s time for equality to stand the test in its own right, not by decrying its detractors.

• ^{Following the September 11, 2001 attacks, Rumsfeld led the military planning and execution of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan and the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Rumsfeld pushed hard to send as small a force as possible to both conflicts, a concept codified as the Rumsfeld Doctrine.}
• ^{Following September 11, 2001, Rumsfeld was in a meeting whose subject was the review of the Department of Defense’s Plan in the event of a war with Iraq. The plan (as it was then conceived) contemplated troop levels of up to 500,000, which Rumsfeld opined was far too many. Gordon and Trainor wrote:}

  ^{As General Newbold outlined the plan … it was clear that Rumsfeld was growing increasingly irritated. For Rumsfeld, the plan required too many troops and supplies and took far too long to execute. It was, Rumsfeld declared, the "product of old thinking and the embodiment of everything that was wrong with the military."}

  ^{The Plan … reflected long-standing military principles about the force levels that were needed to defeat Iraq, control a population of more than 24 million, and secure a nation the size of California with porous borders. Rumsfeld’s numbers, in contrast, seemed to be pulled out of thin air. He had dismissed one of the military’s long-standing plans, and suggested his own force level without any of the generals raising a cautionary flag.}

  ^{In Rumsfeld’s final television interview as Secretary of Defense, he responded to a question by Brit Hume as to whether he pressed General Tommy Franks to lower his request for 400,000 troops for the Iraq War by stating:}

  ^{Absolutely not. That’s a mythology [sic]. This town is filled with this kind of nonsense. The people who decide the levels of forces on the ground are not the Secretary of Defense or the President. We hear recommendations but the recommendations are made by the combatant commanders and by members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and there hasn’t been a minute in the last six years when we have not had the number of troops that the combatant commanders have requested.}

The idea he’s attacking when he says "old thinking and the embodiment of everything that was wrong with the military" is a concept that says instead of using a strong ground force, you send out small mobile forces who call in air strikes when they encounter resistance. It’s a perfectly reasonable strategy if the enemy is identifiable and separated from the civilian population. Neither of those things were true in Iraq, and that was infinitely predictable. It was also something that would show quickly during combat. In practice, it has been highly ineffective in Iraq, resulting in an unacceptible level of collateral damage [mothers, children, old people, allies, innocents] with little military gain.

It reminds me of a situation I actually know something about - medical errors. It is impossible to know all of medicine. It’s impossible to even know most of medicine. So the salvation of the physician is to learn to know when you don’t know something. If you know that you don’t know, then you can find out - look it up, ask for help, all the ways one can fill the hole of not knowing. Often, mistakes are the rule. Recovering from the mistakes quickly is what saves the day. Physicians are seen as experts and often seen as arrogant, which many are. Arrogance is a wonderful defense against fear and insecurity. But the most important quality to look for in your physician is humility - a willingness to be wrong, asnd make mid-course corrections.

Where I’m headed here is obvious. The term "hubris" is often used to describe the Bush Administration [It was even a book title]. Hubris is the opposite of humility. In these examples, Rumsfeld has heard a concept that he turned into a doctrine. There’s nothing wrong with the concept, provided it’s implemented in the context in which it was developed. But, Rumsfeld is applying it as if it were a general truth. That’s what "rookies" do - grab onto some simple idea and apply it everywhere. But worse, he doesn’t listen when people in the know, e.g. veterans, try to tell him he’s wrong. And even worse, when it becomes grossly apparent that he was wrong [the Insurgency], he didn’t change courses. And even worst, in retrospect, he doesn’t even acknowledge that he was the motor that ran the boat that went aground and sank.

He could have redeemed himself at any time and come out okay, but that never happened. Examples of this particular kind of error abound in the Bush White House. Cheney, Rumsfeld, Bush, Rice, all went down the same path, arrogantly holding on to ideas that they rode straight to the bottom. In medicine, we say something like, "yeah, you were right, but the patient died" when a colleague has made a categorical error - chased and defended a wrong diagnosis to "the death."

I was doing nothing. One of the things I was doing was reviewing the implications of the United States signing a treaty about polar bears. Remember, this was not going to be a foreign affairs administration: It was about tax cuts and faith-based initiatives. I didn’t think I was going to stay very long. I’ll probably go back after a year — there’s not much to keep me occupied…

Immediately people started asking me about my issues. I was at my desk, very early in the morning, a little after nine. You get the news: the first plane hit. You’re not really sure it was a terrorist attack. But when you see the second plane hit you know this is human coordination, not random chance. Washington is evacuated, which probably hasn’t happened since 1814, which is an incredible sight — people leaving their cars in the highway and walking home. But I’m told I have to stay behind because of my work on war powers.

Same things: Is this is a war? Can we use the military in response? How can we use the military? Yes, that was a question [Can planes be scrambled to shoot down any remaining hijacked aircraft]. That was earlier: Can we use force? Can you use force in response? What kind of force? What are the standards that guide the use of force?

In fact, that’s why I junked my post. It was about Yoo’s answers to the questions, but when I finished writing it, I was left wondering more about why he was asked those various questions than how he answered. He gave them what they wanted and he’ll pay for that, but I had the distinct impression that he was a patsy for a bunch of Civilians who needed to have some place to dump responsibility for their actions. For all of their bravado, they sure were afraid to act without having a fall guy. Is this  a war? Can we respond militarily? These don’t sound like questions that needed asking to me.

Later, there’s a conclave of lawyers flying down to Cuba to decide about torturing Abu Zubaydah, al Qaeda’s number three guy who had been captured - David Addington, Alberto Gonzales, and John Haynes, counsels for the President, Vice President, and Defense Department respectively. And John Yoo is writing Torture Memos. And then there are detailed meetings of the Principals in Washington to go over the details. The Torture Bureaurocracy kept getting increasingly dense, and, best I can tell the it was populated by people who didn’t have any idea of what they were doing, or any way ro get advice that might have helped them.

Besides Colin Powell [who was apparently opposed to this non-Geneva Convention business], the only person with any military experience was Rumsfeld who had been a peacetime aviator fifty years ago who had later served in the reserves as a flight instructor. They were running interrogations and a foreign war, making things up as they went along. They didn’t trust their Intelligence Organization, so they set up their own in the Defense Department run by Douglas Feith, a man with neither Military nor Intelligence experience [or much sense].

If you didn’t see Jon Stewart interview Douglas Fieth, watch it here. If you did see Jon Stewart interview Douglas Faith, watch it here [it includes parts that didn't air]. The interview speaks for itself, but there’s one point I’d like to make about the interview.

Douglas Feith was trying to explain to Jon Stewart the President’s dilemma after 9/11. He said the usual, that after 9/11 the President had to think about more that the "law enforcement" model - punish the bad guys. He had to think about the next attack, and where it might come from ergo the other Hostile Arab States ergo Saddam Hussein. He implies the President Bush came up with this after a lot of thought. On the surface of things, that sounds reasonable. But it flies in the face of the facts. This Plan was crafted before there was a 9/11 - in fact, before Bush was even elected. You can read it right here, The Letter to President Clinton, in January 1998 from the Project for the New American Century - signed by Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz. If you want to sift through the papers of the American Enterprise Institute, you can find it in multiple writings [Laurie Mylroie, John Bolton, all of your favorites]. And you can find it in the writings of Paul O’Niell and Richard Clarke - writing about the pre-911 Bush Administration. Feith’s portrayal of Bush reaching his decision on Iraq after thoughtful debate and contemplation is ludicrous. Feith’s own boss, Donald Rumsfeld, was talking about getting Saddam Hussein on September 11th, 2001 [with my transcriptions added when it became public in early 2006]:

It also says, "Tasks Jim Haynes [DoD Legal Counsel] to talk with PW [Paul Wolfowitz] for additional support  …?… connection with UBL [Osama bin Laden]." So at 2PM on September 11th, 2001, Rumsfeld is tasking his counsel to talk to Paul Wolfowitz [signer of the 1998 PNAC Letter along with Rumsfeld] to begin to build a case against Saddam Hussein and his connections with bin Laden. And who ultimately made those connections? Douglas Feith, the very guy that’s telling Jon Stewart that the Iraq invasion was a post-911 decision made by George Bush. And then there’s the unreleased Rumsfeld September 30, 2001 Memo that apparently list a number of targets.

I knew that India was once floating in the ocean and slowly slid into Asia creating the Himilayas, but I had no idea that there was still this much seismic activity in inland Asia [bottom figure].