Alberto

The disheartenment caused by the continuing displays of incompetence by this White House is surpassed only by the sheer number of examples of incompetence displayed by this White House.

Alberto Gonzalez.

Charles Krauthammer says it best: Alberto must go.

He must go, not because the President can't fire U.S. Attorneys. He must go because this idiot, through sheer incompetence, has created, as Krauthammer succinctly puts it, an unnecessary scandal.

It's not a question of probity but of competence. Gonzales has allowed a scandal to be created where there was none. That is quite an achievement. He had a two-foot putt and he muffed it.

Liberals who irrationally hate W are counting down the days til he's gone. Truth be told, we Republicans are working from the same calendar.

Category: Poor Taste Humor

I just can't help myself, and I apologize to any one I offend by this post.

I just read this: "A 38-year-old English painter who was obsessed with the painter Leonardo Da Vinci killed herself after being convinced she was the intended victim of a murder plot related to the best-selling novel "The Da Vinci Code," a British paper reported."

And all I can think was: "Somebody killed themselves over the book?!? Now, if you told me somebody overdosed after watching that piece of crap Tom Hanks movie, I'd understand...."

Again, my apologies and best wishes to this poor, tortured woman's family and friends.

Bob S., RIP

It is with great sadness that I write that my friend Bob passed away earlier this week-- the memorial service was held for him in Arizona yesterday.

The following is a statement he wrote to be read at his service. I don't think he'd mind me sharing it:


Tashi Deleks

This may seem a little strange to you. Writing a letter that I would like read at my service.

I have already written Sandy and the rest of my family letters and they are personal but this letter is to all my friends. Instead of saying things about me I want the opportunity to tell you some of my thoughts.

I have had a rich and full life and much more then I ever expected. While there may have been some minor health problems basically I considered my self healthy and able to do so much. The travel, playing golf, going out and everything else associated with living was granted to me for so many years, long after I expected it would be. I had such wonderful Karma.

The richness I have enjoyed is in the many relationships with all of you. Each of you has contributed to making my life richer, better and more enjoyable.

Our lives are not made up of large dramatic moments and actions (although those do happen to us at times), but of the small ordinary routine things we do on a daily basis. Just greeting someone can be a source of joy. A smile results in a smile back and friendliness produces friendliness. We are all equal and we all have the same wants and needs and insecurities. Remember it’s not the destination that is important but the journey to get there.

The only time that is surely yours is the present; hence this is the time for you to speak the word of appreciation and sympathy, to do the generous deed, to forgive the fault of a thoughtless friend, to sacrifice yourself a little more.. Today is the day in which to express your noblest qualities of mind and heart, to do at least one worthy thing which you have long postponed, and to use your abilities for the enrichment of someone less fortunate. Today you can make your life significant and worthwhile. The present is yours to do with as you will.

I have been truly blessed with my family. 3 wonderful children, and their spouses. 7 unbelievable grandchildren (SADLY ONE HAS PASSED AWAY) and last but most important a wife who has been the inspiration of my life and whatever I managed to accomplish. Without her I would have been nothing. It took me a long time to understand that but when I did, “wow”, I truly understood how “truly blessed I was all these years. What wonderful Karma I must have had to share my life with Sandy. And my other children AND Tina, Dann and Ellen who were so important in my life.

But this is about the rest of you. Someone once wrote “live your life so that when you are born, you cry and the rest of the people rejoice and when you die, the rest of your friends cry and you rejoice. Perhaps in some small way perhaps I have done that and if so wouldn’t that be an accomplishment?

I wish you all freedom from suffering. The elimination of all bad thoughts of envy, anger, hate,
Jealousy.

I wish you all health so you can continue to do what you want.

I wish you all peace of mind and serenity

I wish you all happiness

I wish you all your dreams

I wish you increased compassion, loving kindness towards others, Sympathetic joy to everyone and the understanding of equanimity: all the things that make our lives so worth while.

As you know I have always returned once or twice every year to the monastery in Nepal. It was sort of my “Shangri-La”, the place for renewal of my beliefs and to feel at peace. Perhaps each of you have your own “Shangri-la” and if so visit it frequently for what ever peace and serenity it can offer you.

Perhaps somewhere, sometime a small memory of something I said or did will come back and that happens then I continue to live in some small way.

In my belief however our meeting whenever it happened was something that had to happen.. it was not an accident. As a Buddhist I believe in rebirth, not reincarnation and I feel that although we may never be aware of our present relationship, we will meet sometime again in the future.

It has been a long wonderful life. Thank you for being a part of it.

He will be missed; I know I will think of him often.

Dick Francis To The Rescue

I have a cold. I'm dragging. But to the rescue comes Dick Francis, and his latest novel, Under Orders.

Dick Francis, for those who don't know him or his works, was the British Willie Shoemaker, England's top jockey. He was for a time the Queen's jockey.

In the 1950's!

Upon retirement, he started writing murder-mystery novels, all of which are somehow tangentially related to horse racing. They are pleasant reads, quick and satisfying.

The remarkable thing is that he has stayed fresh and up-to-date. Often his novels contain references to cutting-edge technology. Most amazing to me, is that his cultural references are always dead-on-- his characters in today's novels don't talk and act like they did 20 years ago. That he is still writing with such clarity at 87 is astounding.

I've read every one of his 40-plus books, except, for some unknown reason, his autobiography. That's one I'm adding to my summer reading.

Treat yourself. Pick up a Dick Francis novel. It's the safest bet involving the racetrack you'll ever make.

Knee-Jerk Nonsense

As I said in my last post, my good friend at BAftertheFact makes an excellent point: In the Libby matter, we have a Republican prosecutor, appointed by a Republican Attorney General at the insistence of a Republican President, who brought charges against, and obtained a conviction of, the Chief of Staff of the Republican Vice-President.

As Bruce says:

In the end, a Republican prosecutor got Republican judges to get Democratic reporters to testify against Republican politicians.

As Bruce further points out:

Just like a new Republican Secretary of Defense is forcing the generals feet to the fire in the Walter Reed scandal.

And as Bruce correctly reports, the conservative media is up in arms, as if these are the workings of the left, as if the prosecution of Libby and the Walter Reed scandal are puff-ups by the liberals to make conservatives look bad.

Such knee-jerk idiocy.

Any conservative who is whining about these things needs to just shut up.

Instead, we conservatives should be celebrating, or at least taking bows.

Why?

For years, and in several places in this blog, I have noted that Republicans, unlike Democrats, are willing to say to their own: enough is enough. Nixon didn't go because of the Democrats. He left because Goldwater said to him, it's time. Even if you haven't committed crimes, you are embarrassing the Presidency. If the GOP had stood solidly behind Nixon, he would have been impeached, but he wouldn't have been convicted.

In other words, if the GOP in 1974 had acted as immorally and as cravenly partisan as the Democrats did in 1999, Nixon would have finished his term as Clinton did.

Other examples? Packwood, gone. Barney Frank, still here. Bob Livingston, gone. Teddy Kennedy, still here. The list goes on and on.

And here are two perfect examples to make my point. What Republicans should be saying is, hey: we believe in the rule of law, and we've put our money where our mouths are. The Chief of Staff of the man you liberals claim is really running the country has been prosecuted and convicted for lying to the FBI. When we say perjury matters, we mean it. There will be no Sandy Bergers on our watch.

Trouble at Walter Reed? Forget that nobody in Congress, in either party, pointed this out. It's embarrassing; it's wrong; and we're correcting it.

We should be saying when you have any organization that has millions of employees and tens of thousands of facilities you are going to have bad people and things will go wrong. You try the best to minimize them, to identify them, to correct them and to move on.

You don't lie, cover-up and spin, spin, spin (see Travelgate, and anything that Ron Brown ever touched).

Bush should be stepping up and taking, if not credit, then at least acknowledgment for doing the right thing. He shouldn't be defended by a lot of whining that sounds like so many sour grapes, but which, more importantly, misses a great opportunity.

We should be saying: this is how adults enforce the rules.

And to anticipate comments: yes, I still want the person who leaked a CIA operatives name prosecuted-- just like I want any member of Congress who has leaked classified information to be a long-term guest at a federal facility of a kind most different than the Rayburn Building.

Kudos To Bruce!

My great and loyal, though oft-times misguided friend Bruce had a post that I thought was intriguing-- and I wasn't the only one.

Andrew Sullivan, who runs perhaps the leading liberal blog around, quoted Bruce's post at length. Sullivan called him "brilliant", an adjective with which Bruce's mother and I both agree.

Check out Sullivan, and Bruce.

Prayer Flags

Tibetan Buddhists have a tradition of flying prayer flags-- simple pieces of dyed cotton, inscribed with prayers, good thoughts, etc.. Though they can be displayed indoors, the flags are really meant to be hung outdoors. The idea is that the blessings are then taken by the wind and spread throughout the world.

I've always found that idea interesting, compelling, in a way. I like the thought that one can pray, and that those prayers can be heard, even if not aimed at God. Can prayers, or good thoughts, or thoughts of concern, really influence anything, beyond the mind and spirit of the one saying the prayer? I certainly hope so. It's a comforting belief to have, and an easy one too-- doesn't every sports fan sitting on his couch, in just the right spot, truly believe that his psychic power is somehow influencing the game?

I have owned a set of prayer flags for a while now-- just never thought about hanging them.

Bob has been a client of mine for maybe 20 years, and a friend. He is a Buddhist, and when my informal readings found me having more than a passing interest in Buddhism, I called him. Over lunch, and several games of golf, we discussed many things: meditation, Buddhist theory. Just life in general.

He moved away several years ago, and mostly we correspond now by email. We trade jokes (including ones that would make a monk blush--and some that would make a hooker blush, too, truth be told). He also sends out regular missives, some on Buddhist thought, but mostly little pieces of advice about how to deal with anger, and other hurtful emotions.

Last week he sent an email telling his friends and loved ones that he is going to die. His email was informative, it was courageous, it had a splash of humor.

It had class.

It reminded me that we are all dying, just some of us are going sooner than others. Bob is a man who is living a life full of experiences that 30 of us put together won't be able to match. I will continue to enjoy our emails, and appreciate every one I receive even more than I have.

And I have hung my prayer flags. I don't know what the Tibetan words and symbols on them mean. For me, they are prayers and best wishes for Bob, for my friends and for my loved ones. I hope the wind takes them far. I hope they bring comfort to Bob and his family.

As the Dalai Lama has said:

Any living being—no matter how long he or she lives—must eventually die. There is no other way. Once you dwell within cyclic existence, you cannot live outside of its nature. No matter how marvelous things may be, it is built into their very nature that they and you, who take joy in them, must degenerate in the end.

Not only must you die in the end, but you do not know when the end will come. If you did, you could put off preparing for the future. Even if you show signs of living to a ripe old age, you cannot say with one hundred percent certainty that today you will not die.

You must not procrastinate. Rather, you should make preparations so that even if you did die tonight, you would have no regrets. If you develop an appreciation for the uncertainty and imminence of death, your sense of the importance of using your time wisely will get stronger and stronger.

I've never met anyone in my life with a greater appreciation for life than Bob. I hope the coming months, and years, (for I am optimistic and a true believer in Bob's ability to overcome adversity) are filled with peace for Bob and his family.