In a column titled “Ambivalent outcome”, Eugene Robinson opines “…while we were able to leave an Iraq that is held together by duct tape and baling wire, it would take monumental effort o- and a lot of luck – to be able to get Afghanistan to that condition.  Given the country’s extreme backwardness and corruption, it is inevitable that we will leave behind a mess.”

WATCHDOG: In an otherwise learned column, Robinson fails to mention the major cause for the “backwardness and corruption”: The extreme  mountainous terrain dictates local autonomy and makes it impossible for a central authority, even if it had all of the resources of the USA,  to police the country.

The Watchdog recalls his indignity at being assigned by his U. S. History professor the task of memorizing the river systems throughout the USA.  It took years for him to understand that geography is destiny!  Example:  If the Susquehanna River had been navigable, Harrisburg and likely Western Pennsylvania would be part of Maryland.

Iraq is level, enabling relative modest force to police a vast countryside.  In Afghanistan, thousands of troops can barely control a two mile perimeter.  No central power will ever control Afghanistan.  There will always be local control with, at best, a loose central confederation stationed in Kabul.

Columnist Cal Thomas claims in “Obama’s Cronkite moment” that Nobel Award winning, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, “who has enthusiastically supported the president’s redistributionist and stimulus plans, has bowed to the reality that they are not working.”  Thomas then goes on to extrapolate  “The administration is so locked into its left-wig “tax, borrow and spend” ideology that it has become like someone trapped in a cult: unable to escape and endlessly repeating the same mantra.”

 WATCHDOG:  Krugman has been saying over the past year that the administration needed a second Recovery Act, more stimuli.    Thomas would craftily lead us to believe that Krugman thinks the Recovery Act was a mistake. 

A contributor recently asked of an earlier Thomas article:  “Is this not simple deceit plus gratuitous fear mongering which amounts to demagoguery?”

There are good conservative columnists who can make a thoughtful case, not distort in order to throw raw meat to their readers.   The New Era should replace Thomas with one of them.

The editorial “’Fee for service,’ courtesy of Sturla” huffs “[State Rep. Mike Sturla] points out that 73 percent of residents, with their own police departments, pay for state police coverage for the 21 percent who don’t have their own departments (6 percent have par-time state police service)….All that Sturla is doing is asking that the remaining 27 percent pay twice, too.  That only makes a bad situation worse.”

WATCHDOG: Did the editorial writer fail to make it through grammar school math?    If 100% pay their fair share, the 73% who now are paying the entire bill will pay less in the future!   The above is just plain mean spirited, unless the writer is really that dumb.

A “For black children, daunting divides in achievement and family life” column by George Will observes “Writing in the American Interest, [Nathan]  Glazer, a sociology professor emeritus at Harvard, considers it a “paradox” that the election of Barack Obama “coincided with the almost complete disappearance from American public life of discussion of the black condition and what public policy might do to improve it.” …   (more)

WATCHDOG: This article should be required reading for all who are concerned about the well being of their fellow citizens and the future of the country.

An editorial “Measured Success” starts “Have you noticed that Republicans, critical of nearly everything President Obama has done or wants to do, have become strangely silent about one part of the president’s economic plan?  It’s the American auto industry.”

It concludes “The bailouts were never intended to work overnight, but they are working. “

WATCHDOG: A wag of the tail.  However, partisan politics combined with ignorance of economics and short sighted concerns about the national debt are averting a second stimulus package that may be essential to prevent the nation from falling into a double dip recession…or possibly even worse.

Article reports “Obama plans Israel, Palestine talks” goes on to say “Winning agreement to a least restart the direct talks makes good on an Obama campaign promise to confront the festering conflict early in his presidency…”

WATCHDOG: There are those so naive or so partisan that they cannot recognize the link between President Obama defending the right of Muslims to construct a mosque near the World Trades Center site and how his stance engenders the good will on the part of the international Muslim community that is a stepping stone towards peace in the Middle East.   Put another way,his actions and the impending talks are important steps to protecting American lives and interests.

Unlike many Americans, the President understands that the enemy is al Queda, not Muslims.

Front page headline is “Spike in layoffs stuns economy” with a sub-head “Government stimulus funds are drying up and consumers are keeping their wallets closed.” The article reports “New applications for unemployment benefits hit a nine-month high last week – a spike the suggests private employers may shed jobs this month for the first time this year.”

WATCHDOG: During its consideration, we maintained the Recovery Act of 2010 was not sufficiently directed to generating jobs within 24 months and we risk a double dip recession, if not a full scale depression.    Later we called for a second stimulus bill of equal size and better directed to generating jobs.

Concerns about adding to the deficits are misplaced.  During times of prosperity people pay taxes and, if we stay out of dumb wars such as Iraq, we will be able to pay down the debt as we did during the Clinton years.

Nothing is as wasteful as people being out of work.  Moreover, that causes a greater deficit due to transfer payments in the form of unemployment compensation and other social programs to feed and house families.

A properly directed new stimulus bill will put people back to work restoring our nations deteriorating infrastructure.    Once people have jobs and a brighter future, they will start spending again and a virtuous economic cycle  will commence.

In his column “No ‘Graceful Exit’ from Afghanistan”, Bob Herbert quotes extensively from events described in “Promise’ President Obama, Year One” by Jonathan Alter to support the contention that Obama was misled by the military to add troops, which implies he may have had other practical alternatives.

Herbert says:  “Anyone who has been paying attention knows that conditions on the ground right now are awful, so it looks as though we’re going to be there for a long, long while… This is a terrible thing to contemplate because in addition to the human toll (nearly half of all the American troop deaths in Afghanistan have occurred since Mr. Obama took office), the war is a giant roadblock in the way of efforts to deal effectively with deteriorating economic and social conditions here in the United States.”

Herbert goes on to say:  “President Obama does not buy the comparison of Afghanistan to Vietnam, and he has a point when he says that the U.S. was not attacked from Vietnam… There is no upside to President Obama’s escalation of this world-class fiasco.”

WATCHDOG: If Herbert is going to use quotations from Alter to describe how badly the war in Afghanistan is going and to imply we should withdraw our troops, he should also explain the overwhelming national security interests described by Alter as  perceived by Obama for continuing the course.

According to Alter:

“Obama was acutely conscious that protecting the country was his first responsibility and he devoted more time to confronting al Qaeda and other terrorist groups than to any other challenge in his presidency. That was the main focus of his daily National Security Sessions, his deliberations on Afghanistan and Pakistan, and, in  a longer time frame, his attention nto nuclear proliferation  and public diplomacy.” Pg. 347

“Early on, the president eliminated withdrawal as an option, in part because of a new classified study on what would happen to Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal if the Islamabad government fell to the Taliban.  The United States, he concluded, simply couldn’t do without a substantial military presence in the region.  He was never in any doubt that there was, in his words, a ‘fundamental strategic interest in making sure Afghanistan doesn’t revert to being a safe haven for al Qaeda.’”  Pg. 374.

It is clear form Alter’s book that President Obama greatest fear and primary concern is the possibility of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal falling into the hands of al Qaeda.  A nuclear device set off in an American city would not only causes tens of thousands of deaths but  change the course of the world and reduce civil liberties for a half century to come, if not longer.

Columnist Cynthia Tucker in “The US needs those babies born to illegal moms” observes “With siking birthrates and longer life spans, much of the industrialized world grows grayer every day.  Throughout Western Europe, demographers worry about a population too old to work and pay the bills…But, as several economists have noted, the United States has an advantage:  We’re still having babies.  Some of them, it turns out, are born to women without papers.  Rather than changing the law and kicking them out, we ought to be celebrating them with birthday parties…”

WATCHDOG: A wag of the tail. For a more in depth explanation of the demographic trend, visit NewsLanc’s “Careful for what you wish when it comes to controlling immigration.”

In referring to the government announcing that it will “save” $1.5 billion in census cost in large part due to public cooperation,  the Editorial “Pa. Pensions; Census; ‘Boomer’” asks:

“How can you save something that wasn’t yours in the first place?” It goes on to say: “To add insult to injury, the ‘unused money’ will remain in the U S. Treasury until Congress determines how it will be spent.”

WATCHDOG: Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary, Second Edition:  “Save:  (1) To rescue from danger… (2) To keep safe, intact, or unhurt…  (3) To keep from being lost…”

Note to New Era editor:  According to the Constitution, the legislative branch determines  how federal funds are to be used, not the executive branch.

Seems to us you coming in $1.5 below budget is neither an “insult” or an “injury” , but rather very good news. A wag of the tail for the Census Bureau!