Masterpiece 6: The Peaceful Transition of Power

A friend recently attended a lecture by Vicente Fox, the former president of Mexico. When asked about corruption in Mexico or about the Mexican drug lords or some such thing, Fox pointed out that he was the first president in Mexican history who was able to stay in the country after leaving office. Fox reportedly pointed out how lucky the U.S. is to have such a history of smooth transitions of power, something that Mexico is just growing into.

Isn't that a masterpiece? We smoothly flow from Hoover to FDR, from LBJ to Nixon, from Billary to Bush, and now Bush to Obama never thinking twice how impossible that is in so much of the world.

Credit much of that to our electoral college system, some of it to a three branch system with checks and balances, and lots of it to the American culture's insistence on of the rule of law.

It's why people are still lined up all over the world to get here.

Blogger Shot in the Head

In some parts of the world writing the wrong thing on your blog can be fatal.

Muckraking blogger Magomed Yevloyev from Ingushetia, a Russian subject republic next to Chechnya, had reportedly been warned not to return home from a trip out of the country. Yet return he did only to be taken into police custody as he stepped off the plane. He showed up at the hospital 20 minutes later with a bullet in his head. A police spokesman said that the blogger had been taken into custody and, "Along the way, a shot was involuntarily fired from a policeman's gun and the bullet hit Yevloyev's head." In the temple.

Yevloyev ran a website that reported Ingushetian news including many stories uncovering government corruption. It had been shut down before for printing "extremist" views.

One more reason to be thankful we live in the U.S.

"It's a hell of a thing, killing a man. Take away all he's got and all he's ever gonna have" (Clint Eastwood as Willian Munny in Unforgiven).

Anbar Chooses Peace

Yesterday, the U.S.turned primary security operations over to the Iraqis in the western province of Al Anbar. That's the 11th province of 18. More importantly, it's the first Sunni majority province to be turned over.

"Iraqis - like countless other Muslims across the world - witnessed al Qaeda's brutality first-hand and rejected it," said President Bush in a short statement.

Like 'most anything else of such consequence, there are many factors that led to the turnover, a turnover that would have been unthinkable just two years ago--the surge, the change in American tactics, the Anbar Awakening, the death of so many insurgents. Who knows how much secret diplomacy has been going on out of sight of world press? (The Saudis, Jordanians, and Syrians all share borders with Anbar.) It's never one thing but this is certainly a good thing.

So now's a time to celebrate peace in this troubled corner of the desert.

For the life of me, I can't understand why this in not front page of every newspaper in the country. No matter, it's still cause for celebration.

Thanks, Dubya

Funny how things work sometimes.

Went to pick up #1 son at Reagan National Airport today and got there a few minutes early. Found myself cursing Johnny-Law-on-a-Segway because he ran me off the second I pulled up--no waiting in front of the airport, only picking up. Thank you terrorists.

So I did the loop and landed in the cell phone waiting area. The Dennis Miller show was on the radio and what to my wondering ears did I hear? Dennis thanking our President for it being 2505 days since 9/11 without a significant terrorist attack on American soil. In my book, that's quite an accomplishment.

So we might not like having to take our shoes off to get on a plane. Or not being able to wait in front of the terminal at Reagan National. We might not like the Patriot Act. We might not like wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. We certainly don't like the 1600th block of Pennsylvania Avenue being closed to auto traffic and the inside of the Statue of Liberty being closed to everybody.

But we are very thankful that there has not been another attack on this side of the pond. It's not by accident. And it's not nearly acknowledged enough.

Thank you, Mr. President, and all you folks out there who have had a hand in making this possible.