Tiger's Foray into the Rough

Since an especially unfortunate car accident in November, the world has learned that Tiger Woods is a serial philanderer. This tale disappoints from every angle. Take your pick. A devastated wife, a shamed family, a superstar knocked violently off his pedestal, the publicity-mongering of women whose relations with Tiger became their meal ticket, the interruption of a historic athletic career, the disproportionate media frenzy, the millions of disillusioned fans, the predictable condescension from America's moral majority, and even Tiger's sloppily covered tracks.

Considering the plethora of more pressing problems across America and around the world, Tiger's travails and trysts with cocktail waitresses and porn stars are of little interest to me. It's not just that the scandals of rich and famous people cease to surprise; even worse, we have come to expect that many more celebrities are either cheaters, philanderers, corrupt or otherwise engaged in morally questionable behavior. It's a cynical view, built over decades of watching our heroes fall from grace.

I don't really care about celebrities or their problems. They are in fact just people with an extroardinary attribute, and otherwise ordinary problems. What does bother me to a high degree is what these sordid stories tell us about the human condition.

The soiled thread that holds together a diverse array of luminaries like Bill Clinton, Kobe Bryant, David Letterman, Eliot Spitzer, and now Tiger Woods is their inability to find happiness and fulfillment from reaching the heights of money, fame, and power. These are men who performed at the top of their game to achieve goals beyond the reach of most mortals. They attained the American dream, on many occasions relying on nerves of pure steel. Most of us thought Tiger had it ALL.

Tiger is the best golfer to ever walk this earth in the long and storied history of the sport. Even so, he has the potential to get even better. He ostensibly had the ingredients for a stable social life and family life, with a beautiful wife and children and a supportive network around him. He is a highly intelligent man, raised very specifically and intensely for global success by his parents. Tiger was adored the world over as a rare athlete, a breaker of racial barriers, a champion of hip multiculturalism, style, and youth in a gray-haired, funny-pantaloons-wearing white man's game. He wielded his club to drive straight into sport's most exclusive clubhouse, and brought many green newbies with him. His influence on golf is outsized, because the way Tiger played since his professional debut was nothing short of transformational. The PGA could go on without Tiger, but it would be a shell of its former self, limping to the putting green with fewer fans, less revenue, decreased attendance and Nielsen ratings, and a broken spirit. Despite all of this, Tiger was not satisfied. He had to throw it all away for a few moments of pleasure, and the reckless danger that was no doubt part of the allure. Now his family is destroyed, his career is on the rocks, and his legacy is irrevocably tainted.

I have long thought that fame, fortune, and a successful career cannot buy happiness. To the contrary, the constant attention and pressure to maintain or increase that attention will play with a person's mind, giving them an outsized sense of worth to the rest of humanity for something such as the ability to hit a ball with a stick consistently well. Those with anything but the strongest of minds will inevitably fall prey to some form of psychological trauma from this. One common result is the delusion that normal rules do not apply to them. The opportunities for rich celebrities to succumb to various temptations outside of the "rules" such as sworn marital fidelity are ample, and more accessible than they are for the common man. Most husbands cannot count in the millions the number of women who know their name and would be willing to sleep with them. Tiger could, and he also decided to begin testing that proposition.

Nobody is talking about the saddest aspect of the Tiger Woods downfall. The real tragedy here is the insatiable nature of the human existence. If Tiger couldn't have it all and keep it, nobody ever can. His slip and fall could have been easily avoided. He could have delayed marriage until later in his life or chosen not to marry at all. Being a single young playboy golfer would have been par for the course, buns intended, a lifestyle that wouldn't have carried the same crushing weight of the world's moral judgment that cheating on a wife does. He could have sought therapy or other forms of help. He could have filed for divorce first and sowed his oats later. He could even have taken a break from golf to get himself together quietly. Best option of all, he could have kept his pants on. Instead, he chose a path of poor choices that would damage his brand.

There is an abject lesson here for those who stake so much of their life's efforts toward achieving fame and fortune: you cannot buy happiness with these things. When you have monumental proportions of fame and fortune like Tiger Woods, so much greater is the fall, and so much more fragile is the existence. Having it all is an illusion. We should stop worshiping this illusion, which continues to feed the problem. We should stop worshiping at the altars of fame and fortune themselves. Not only does it result in endless misplaced disappointments for ourselves. The facade will help lead to the destruction of the very celebrities we so cherish.

No Pain, No Gain, This is Going to Hurt, and other Medical Metaphors

We've all had that spine-chilling moment, sitting alone in the doctor's office to reflect on what will happen imminently: the door will open, the needle in that smiling orderly's hand ready to pierce the skin. For me, that moment is always filled with dread and terror, even though I'm a big boy now, and I know that the pin prick is necessary for my own well-being. Then it happens, and for a second the pain is horrific and unbearable and thoughts of fleeing the clinic in a sprint flood the brain; and then it's over, the blood sucked out of the vein or the vaccine now touring the body's bloodstream.

America as a nation now faces such a moment. Most people agree that the health care system in America is broken, and needs a fix. Call it reform, call it whatever you want, we know it's going to hurt before we get there, and we can sense it tearing our country apart whether we do something about it, or nothing at all. Costs are spiralling out of control, 45 million + people are uninsured, and America lags behind dozens of countries on any number of healthcare indicators, including average lifespan, volume of mental disorders, children narcotized on Ritalin, and percentage of the population receiving basic health procedures. On the prevention front we are near rock-bottom in comparison to most of the Western world, binging too much on all the wrong types of food and beverage, exercising too little, and working our obese bodies too hard at largely sedentary jobs. None of this is debatable.

The system is filled with perverse incentives and features, such as patients waiting in endless lines at emergency rooms for routine care because they can't afford general practitioner visits, families dumping their money to fall below the poverty line in order to qualify for Medicaid, unnecessary medical tests administered (quite rationally) to increase profits and pre-empt lawsuits, astronomical malpractice insurance rates, and the skyrocketing malpractice awards that breed them. Insurance companies are enjoying massive profit margins while disease and pain plague the lives of the insured and uninsured. In effect, Americans spend more on healthcare per capita than anyone else, 16% of our GDP, only to get a system that lags behind many others. We are in effect getting less and spending more for it. From left to right, politicians in Washington and at the local level admit that we need a shot in the arm. As the baby boom generation prepares to retire en masse in the coming years, the issue is as important now as it has ever been.

The agreement seems to end there in our famously divided land. The system is clearly not sustainable, but we cannot seem to come to a consensus about what to do next. It should come as no surprise then that we are engaged in a political circus, as President Obama, Congress, the media, doctors, insurance companies, pharmaceuticals, and angry citizens at town hall meetings have all jumped into the fray. The exchanges have been vicious, uncivil, and filled with the types of misinformation and lies that one can expect when Washington decides to go to battle over such a critical issue and the educationally malnourished public is brought into the discussion. Make no mistake: the health care debate will affect the life (and death) of far more Americans than the Afghanistan and Iraq excursions combined. The effects will be far-reaching, involving most Americans for many decades to come.

Often lost in the milieu are the facts, the data, the straight budgetary numbers, the science, and the policies that actually matter most, if and when these things are even truly available. The dialogue is instead infused with talk of "government takeovers" and "death panels" and "socialism" and other fictional constructs designed by political demagogues to scare the living daylights out of the populace. I am now attempting to insert my own two cents on this issue, which is exceedingly complex. To preface: it's not clear what the f*** is going on as no details are even solidified yet.

Why Healthcare Reform? The concept of health care reform has simmered at the national and state level for more than half a century. It has been a pillar of the liberal platform for most of this time, at the heart of the debates about what should be provided by the government vs. the private sector. Many people, like myself believe that it is incumbent on government to provide certain basic services as a right, not a privilege, and not left to the for-profit private sector to handle. I believe this must include basic healthcare. Many others feel that funding healthcare is best left to the private sector instead.

This debate already ended long ago, if incrementally, in other spheres of public life: most do not argue against the legislation that mandates the government running public libraries. It is expected to run a police force. It should run a fire brigade. It should run public schools and universities, and mandate that all American children attend through the age of 16. It should run national, state, and city parks. It should run national defense. It should adjudicate disputes in courts of law. It should manage the waste stream. That's not to say that the private sector cannot supplement the government's work; indeed, private schools and universities, private security firms, and private libraries are all thriving in America and many receive funding, grants, and contracts from the government itself. This isn't socialism or communism. It is the common-sense approach that certain business involving the common good should not be managed by for-profit industry; and for other business, such as making clothes and other commodities, it is more efficient for the private-sector marketplace to compete for the bodies that will wear the clothes.

I get what the other side is saying: that healthcare is fine as a privatized, deregulated sector. People and businesses buy the insurance they can afford, and those who do not have it made the choice not to have it, or put themselves in the position not to get it by not making enough money. And we don't need a "government takeover" so lay off!

The Myth of Government Takeover. A closer look at our healthcare system shows that the government is already heavily involved in providing and regulating healthcare right now, and most of us take it for granted. Medicare and Medicaid insure most older people and those below the poverty line already. The Veteran's Administration (VA) system insures millions of veterans and their families, as America decided long ago that taking care of its warriors was a basic service that Uncle Sam could provide for those who put their necks on the line to keep us safe. In addition, the federal government, state governments, and most local governments have a Department of Health specifically mandated to promote public health and respond to crises, such as the potential H1N1 outbreak. Then there is the FDA which approves every new drug, the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), poison control centers, and the health-related functions at a broad range of agencies from fire department EMTs to FEMA to the White House to the Department of Agriculture to dozens of others. Again, it's hard to argue that the government shouldn't be funding AIDS and cancer research for the common good. Be careful what you ask for if you want the evil government to "lay off your healthcare."

Why Now? Why is the healthcare debate raging right now like a Los Angeles area forest fire? It is because we are at a massive crossroads in history. President Obama recognizes that he is in a unique and fleeting position: a president with large majorities in both houses of Congress. Democrats have traditionally rallied around the cause, but have only had a legislative and executive majority in brief and fitful spurts of American history. The Clintons had it but failed miserably to reform healthcare before the 1994 Republican takeover of Congress. The recently departed Senator Ted Kennedy made it his life's work to expand health coverage, but did not live long enough to see it pass. He did, however, make it far enough to witness the ugly debate on the issue.

The basic sticking point is quite simple. Obama is being buffeted from both sides, walking on a tightrope pulled by opposite ends of the spectrum in a violent tug-of-war: on one side is the left wing of American life, that wants health care for all funded by a "single payer," aka the government, as exists in nearly all of the civilized world except America, and on the other we have the right wing, which wants to roll back even the government programs already in place, including Medicare and Medicaid. The two sides cannot possibly meet in the middle. The rope can be pulled in one direction or the other, but in this game Obama will fall off the rope before finding common ground somewhere in the middle. His worst-case scenario, which is still (unfathomably to me) possible, is getting no reform passed.

This has been Obama's biggest failure thus far: fueling the fiction that we can end up with real reform legislation while walking this tightrope, trying to please both sides and everyone in between, achieving an impossible bipartisan consensus that will get both Republicans and Democrats and their constituents to all sign on, all the while leaving the details to Congress. As we have all learned this year, this strategy was pure nonsense from the start, with a few qualifications. That is because Washington, and by extension, Obama's leadership has become dysfunctional. An quick examination of each major party shows why.

The Republicans. Nobody has summed up the position of Republican Congressmen, a bunch badly battered from sea to shining sea in 2006 and 2008 elections, better than Senator Jim DeMint: "If we're able to stop Obama on this, it will be his Waterloo. It will break him." Finally, someone in the Republican party elucidated what most of the Congressmen feel in their hearts: here is their chance to cripple the Obama administration and his Democratic party heading into the 2010 elections. DeMint is not wrong. Stop Obama on this signature domestic issue, and it will breathe life into the Republican party, even with their own pathetic minority status. It would be David defeating Goliath. Republicans have successfully begun their misinformation campaign, renewing cries of Palin's fictional "death panels" who would decide if Grandma lives or not, a far stretch from the real and good idea of having end-of-life counseling. There is also the manufactured outrage over the question of how many additional billions of dollars the plan may cost the American taxpayers, despite the fact that it would be mere drops in the bucket when taking into account the state and national budgets as a whole. This is all folded into the fear and hatred of immigrants and poor people, fears of higher taxes, fears of losing control over choice of doctor, fear of socialism, fear of higher premiums and copays, fear of death, fear of the government itself. Any legitimacy any of these concerns may have had are long lost in the amount of hogwash being presented, which the media is lapping up. A lot of it is gaining traction as the economy is still struggling, and people are worried about their financial positions. The media loves the drama in this fight, because it's far more interesting than the data.

Senator DeMint was right, but his rhetoric is still disgusting. He is openly thrilled to admit that to Republicans, the fight is more about politically damaging Obama than it is about moving the country forward. It should come as no surprise considering that two of the biggest leaders of the conservative base, Sarah Palin and Rush Limbaugh, care more about seeing Obama fail. They represent some of the worst aspects of America's conservatives: the ignorance, the intolerance, and the lack of empathy and goodwill towards others. The other pillar of the Republican party, the business of business, has loved to help fuel the misinformation campaign.

The Democrats. Obama's party looks as weak as ever right now. Given the chance to produce healthcare reform on a silver platter, finally given the unique opportunity to run the country, the party is now on the brink of pissing it all down the drain. How could this possibly have happened? Number one is the lack of discipline. Whatever one thinks of the Bush/Cheney agenda in the first term, the administration went after it single-mindedly and strong-armed the Republican Congress to move it along. They ignored the opposition on the issue, took controversial positions, broke laws, and ran extremely effective and aggressive PR campaigns. The Democrats, on the other hand, are a bickering lot. They sway here and there with the latest political winds, their knees buckling on every issue including healthcare despite large majorities. They are further hamstrung by political deals with the trial lawyers, which prevents tort reform, which I believe is key toward eliminating a large part of unnecessary healthcare costs. The Democrats are also in bed with the insurance companies, the pharmaceutical companies, and the AMA who read the tea leaves and decided to throw their weight, and dollars, behind the Democrats. What has it all achieved? No agreement on the "public option," or an expansion of government-run health insurance that would compete with private insurance. Waffling on the tax issues, and making sweetheart deals that benefit corporations at the expense of citizens. As the poll numbers show, the party is in big trouble heading into 2010. Waterloo comes not just for Obama, but also the Democratic Party.

Obama's Way Forward. Although the situation is dire for proponents of healthcare reform, the jig is not up yet. It's no accident why Obama has left much of the bill writing to his milquetoast colleagues in Congress. There are advantages and disadvantages to this perilous approach. The Clintons were in a very similar situation before, with a Democratic majority in 1993 and most of 1994, and their strategy was to attempt to steamroll the reform through.

Obama, a student of that debacle, understands that pretending to achieve consensus, by using the town-hall forums and allowing Congress to lead on the bills, would give the appearance of bipartisanship. As we have learned, this was never going to achieve harmony. His campaign promises of bipartisanship, the expectation of a team of rivals all working towars common goals, and the dream that we are now in a new era of hope and change were not meant to be played out as we optimists hoped for.

Obama would help his cause by defining, in much more simple terms, exactly what health care reform means. There is too much manure out there that the public and media are sifting through, to the point where health care reform as a concept has no clear meaning, and no clear goals. I believe that a nationalized health care system such as that of Canada or the United Kingdom, though they have their faults and problems, is a far superior solution for us, a no-brainer. However this would never happen in the current political climate, and Obama is right on that.

Anything less is therefore incremental. Therefore, Obama needs to define what these incremental changes are, and go after them. And he needs to circle the Democratic wagons around the reforms, and ram it through. The pretense of bipartisanship and consensus should now officially end, though it was useful tactic for the earlier part of the battle. He is giving a speech on healthcare next week, which we can only hope will be a landmark Obama speech akin to his speeches on race or the economy. I hope that it will include health insurance coverage for all. Anything else would be a loss.

Health care reform is far more complicated than all of these political angles, however we have already delved far enough for one installent. In Part 2, we will dig deeper into the nitty-gritty, technical stuff: the role of doctors (where any reform of healthcare must begin and also end), insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, HMOs, government bureaucracies, and hospitals, examining the critical role of each one. For all of these players have created different symptoms of the sick man that is American healthcare today.

Tortured Logic

Foreign policy is back in good hands again. We are witnessing a veritable sea change in the way that America deals with the rest of the world, and it is long overdue. An honest assessment of the dramatic moves being made by the new foreign policy establishment under Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton will show that America is finally on the path of responsible leadership that is becoming of our stature in the world. I have long argued that America's current position as the world's lone superpower is stable but will not last forever; however what we do during this critical period will have repercussions around the world for many decades to come. During this time it is important to portray confidence, not fear; understanding rather than "my way or the highway." The rest of the world is not inclined to be either "with us or against us" no matter what we do just because we are a superpower; they are with us if we lead by our shining example, and they will be against us if we are belligerent, unempathetic, and uncooperative.

The narrow neoconservative views of the world we live in, espoused by George W. Bush and his friends who have fallen out of power, live on today in the form of angry attack dogs who have recently come out on the airwaves en masse to decry the sea change we are witnessing. They are led by folks such as Dick Cheney and Karl Rove, who whine that America is less safe today than during their tenure, when we actually happened to lose about 3,000 American lives on 9/11 on their watch and over 5,000 more Americans and 25,000 limbs on living soldiers in theaters of wars that they initiated. In the world these people live in, most countries outside America are scary and evil and intent on destroying our way of life, and us. Neoconservatives by and large successfully prey on the minds of American citizens who do not have a good understanding of history and culture outside of America's. Their solution to survival in the frightening world that they portray is to carry big guns and point them at everybody.

I'm not one to say that Latin or Asian dictators or Al-Qaeda terrorists or Somali pirates aren't bad people; I just believe that Barack Obama understands these phenomena better than the neocon dunces do and concordantly, there are far better ways of dealing with these problems that we can now finally pursue. Let's sift through the action that's in the headlines today and compare the points of view against the reality of the world we live in. Because you aren't going to get any dose of reality from these talking heads who have fallen from power, nor from their missile-humping minions such as Sean Hannity or Bill O'Reilly.

The torture memos. Obama recently released memos describing the types of torture America committed against our prisoners under Bush. He also announced that America would no longer engage in torture. The ending of the practice of torture by our government is controversial for several reasons. Throughout history, it has been commonly practiced by the law enforcement and national security apparatus of most countries around the world. It achieves multiple purposes: (1) The extraction of sensitive information, which is why Bush enabled it in the post 9/11 world when much of America was busily peeing itself with fright. (2) As a deterrent to would-be criminals or terrorists: if you know you'll go to jail and get your skin slowly peeled off with a cheese grater, you might think twice about some nefarious act you are being asked to do. (3) It demoralizes the resistance to your government.

Let's separate the hysteria from the facts. (1) Extraction of information: Abu Zubaydah was considered to be among Osama Bin Laden's deputies, and he was caught during a dramatic shootout with the local troops in Pakistan. When you grab hold of an extremely high-level terrorist target such as this, you know he has a ton of valuable information about how Al-Qaeda operates, as well as potential future attacks. There was a choice to torture him or not torture him, and we decided to mess him up: he was water-boarded about 180 times according to the newly released memos. He was subjected to exposure to nasty insects and "stress positions" such as being forced to stand in tiny closets. If he spilled the beans, that's all well and good. However there has been no evidence presented of how torture was successfully used against Abu Zubaydah or ANYONE in the last eight years to make us safer. The Bush administration just expected us to take their word for it. Meanwhile the CIA, the armed forces, and numerous other agencies have conducted lots of studies on the effectiveness of torture to get information; the bottom line conclusion has consistently been that torture does not achieve valid results. Victims of torture often tell interrogators what they want to hear, and not the truth. There is a ton of evidence on this fact. Since people like Cheney and Rove have never chosen to read this evidence, and have also never been water-boarded, they wouldn't know that and their contention that this practice is effective is absurd. (2) Rather than acting as a deterrent, there is overwhelming evidence that our use of inhumane tactics and incarceration of detainees in Guantanamo has grown the anti-America terrorist movement, as well as anti-US government sentiment within our own nation and among the citizenry of our staunchest allies. (3) Far from breaking the spirit of terrorists, our brand of incarceration and torture has been a rallying cry for Muslims the world over, and has converted normal people into terrorists. Don't take my word for it; statistics clearly demonstrate how Islamist movements have grown exponentially since 2001.

Mr. Cheney, if fueling the terrorist movement against us is your idea of making America safe, I'll take being "less safe" any day. Thank God we have now ended it. All of this does not even touch on the fact that even the founding fathers of America considered torture to be morally reprehensible. That is why the 8th Amendment to the Constitution states "there shall be no cruel or unusual punishment." Finally, if we do it ourselves, we have no legs to stand on if Americans are captured abroad by another government or non-state actor. As McCain has said over and over, it exposes our own troops to grave danger.

The Chavez Handshake. Right-wingers across the country are up in arms that Obama would dare shake the hand of the democratically elected President of Venezuela at a conference of American states. Whether Chavez is a savory character or not, he is the leader of a nation that is close to us geographically, and is the fourth-biggest supplier of our oil and gas imports. The conference they were at resulted in a foreign policy coup: the two nations have made overtures about re-instating embassies on one another's soil. This is an excellent development for many reasons. Dialogue through diplomacy is an excellent way to achieve the common goals between any two nations. Much of the business of international relations is conducted over bottles of whiskey shared in embassy meeting rooms between friends from different countries; these meetings have resulted in treaties that have improved the lives of millions of people.

The criticism of this positive moment from the right-wing is based on a larger narrative: that Obama is going to somehow lessen America's standing in the world by opening up dialogue with leaders of rogue nations. To the contrary, Obama's confidence in America is strong enough that he is willing to speak to leaders of nations such as Cuba, Iran, and Venezuela even though their behavior has been troublesome in the past. Obama recognizes that America is immensely powerul relative to these countries and does not face any sort of serious threat from any of them. Standing in the world is not only a function of military might; it is also the product of the power of ideas. By demonstrating that he is breaking from the past, when many nations felt that America was ignoring their interests, Obama is setting the stage for further cooperation. Although we have not seen many tangible results yet, we are still in the early days of the administration. The increased warmth towards Europe, the Middle East, and Latin America will help increase trade and goodwill between America and other countries. It will also lead to the downfall of authoritarian and socialist regimes, which is good for America as well as the citizens of these nations.

Under Bush, who used the cold shoulder to deal with Latin American leaders, populist socialist movements thrived in multiple countries. That is simply not in America's interest. Although we have yet to see if Obama's administration can reverse this trend, it is always worth trying something new when old ideas have failed. I challenge anyone to look at examples in history where opening up dialoge led to a dangerous outcome. The classic example that is always brought up is European and American appeasement of Hitler during his rise. That's overdramatic and does not apply to any of today's leaders. The most dangerous among them is Kim Jong Il of North Korea. He is only a threat if he is a suicidal maniac, which appears to be up for debate. In extreme cases such as this, there is no easy answer on how to deal with them. There are simply no good answers that any scholar has for conducting relations with a suicidal maniac.

Our foreign policy must be shaped by an understanding of the forces behind rogue actors and how they gain power. This understanding will be key toward dismantling the factors that allowed these rogue leaders and the movements behind them to establish a foothold. The downfall of today's conservatives is that they never like to look in the mirror and admit that America ever screwed up. But America's actions in the past were a strong impetus that helped create many of America's worst headaches: Iran, North Korea, Cuba, Al Qaeda, and even Saddam Hussein included. On the other hand, the positive we have done for helping the world flourish far outweighs the effects of our mistakes. Admitting that we have made mistakes in the past is the first step toward correcting them. Now we can try to do some things differently, and better. We are finally on the path of creative solutions once again with the scrapping of torture and the opening up of dialogue with the rest of the world.

My interview with Osama Bin Laden

Here begins a new series of blogs that I will be publishing over time: The Three-Martini Interview Series. I will first take world figures. Then we will make things interesting with this unique blend of equal parts: I (the interviewer) will drink three martinis (or other weapons of choice), insist that the world figure (the interviewee) does the same, and then conduct interviews on extremely important topics of international concern. This is just to get some social lubrication going, and try to arrive at some profound truths that one cannot achieve during sobriety. My first interview transcript is below. I tapped Osama Bin Laden to be my first subject.

*** Disclaimer: These interviews will be strictly fictional, until such time as real important people agree to talk to me.***

NOTE: As I do not know Arabic, a fictional translator was fictionally hired by me to assist in conducting this fictional interview. If any of the answers are falsely represented here due to the translations from Arabic to English, you can blame our imaginary friend. If you are Bin Laden's lawyer, sue that guy.

MJ: The first question on my mind, and President Obama's mind, and everyone's mind, is this: are you dead or alive?

OBL: That is quite a deep and philosophical question.

MJ: You can give me a philosophical answer. That's allowed. Anything goes.

OBL: Thank you. Okay. According to Islam, and most infidel world religions, life is transitional. However, the soul lives on. So in either scenario, according to your small minded constructs, I am very much alive. If I'm dead, my name alone inspires millions to do the work that I started.

MJ: Okay, another housekeeping matter then. I've had three martinis. And, uh, you don't drink alcohol right? That kind of ruins the premise of these interviews but I respect your right not to drink. Can you meet me halfway somewhere here to follow the spirit of my plans?

OBL: (smiles) I've chosen to share a battery of three hookahs- middle eastern water pipes- with you instead.

MJ: (belching) Great! What flavors shall we share?

OBL: Strawberry, apple, and peach, in that order.

MJ: Beautiful. (a masked gunman-slash-attendant sets a water pipe in between us)

OBL: (taking the first drag on the strawberry flavored tobacco) It is strange talking to you. An American whose parents are from the great Hindu land of India; you chose to live amongst white infidels in miniskirts and pay taxes to the Great Satan. This is after you spent four years in my beautiful home country, Saudi Arabia while growing up. So confused you must be.

MJ: I take umbrage with that. Just because we bailed out AIG and other big companies that didn't deserve it... that doesn't make us Satan. That smells good, by the way.

OBL: Yes, strawberry is my favorite. Your entire system is corrupt.

MJ: It's better than any other system out there! America in my opinion represents the best system of government in the world, the best way for the largest ratio of citizens to achieve prosperity through merit and hard work.

OBL: Your country is a far-reaching empire that has shoved American Idol and Britney Spears down the throats of innocents around the world. It's undefendable.

MJ: Yeah but you guys live in caves and don't allow women to show their faces. I think that's chauvinistic. All countries have their faults, Osama.

OBL: At least we're not tempted.

MJ: So you're admitting that in your ideal world, your men simply have no control over themselves? That a state of utter domination over women where they are not allowed to show their faces in public is the only way to repress mens' inner temptation?

OBL: Quite the opposite. We have full control.

MJ: OK, moving on. We're never going to see eye to eye on this one. (takes a drag of strawberry) Damn, this is tasty.

OBL: Yes this strawberry tobacco was purchased from my friend's farm.

MJ: This one is very important to me. I live in and work for New York City, and I had just moved here when 9/11 happened. It affected many who are close to me. Why did you do it?

OBL: I guess you didn't see my Youtube video? Here's the URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KiKyWJRRjnU

To wit: "The events of September 11 are but a reaction to the continuous injustice and oppression being practiced against our sons in Palestine and Iraq and in Somalia and Southern Sudan and in other places like Kashmir and Assam."

MJ: Wait a second, wait a second, wait a second. Your guys killed 3,000 innocents on 9/11 in New York, at the Pentagon, and the plane that crashed in Shanksville, PA! Including Muslims! What did any of them do? Many of them have never even heard of Assam.

OBL: I knew that would get your goat. You're Indian and you know where Assam and Kashmir are. You know what's happened to my people there at the hands of the Indian government. They weren't innocents; and like you, they were part of the system and deserved to die.

MJ: (gulping, looks at the masked attendant, and takes another drag) I don't understand a philosophy that condones the killing of innocents. This isn't what I stand for, or what America stands for. Those places you brought up are war zones, with organized militaries fighting other organized militaries, with inadvertent civilian casualties. There cannot be a moral equivalence.

OBL: I laid it all out on my video. Watch it!

MJ: So your justification for 9/11 is the story of the wolf and the lamb.

OBL: Yes, the wolf and the lamb! The wolf (America) accuses the lamb (Middle Eastern Muslims) of dirtying its water the year before. The lamb replies that it was not born in the year before so that's not possible!

MJ: I'm following-

OBL: Then the wolf said, "it must have been your mother" and ate the lamb.

MJ: I guess that's messed up.

OBL: Then the lamb's mother, in passion for its dead offspring, butts its leg against the wolf.

MJ: Okay-

OBL: Then the wolf dares calls the poor mother a terrorist even though the wolf wasn't really hurt. And the rest of the world chimes in like parrots in agreement! Where were they when the wolf ate the lamb?

MJ: I'm trying to make sense of this man, I really am. I'm a bit intoxicated but let me try and understand what you're saying. Killing 3,000 innocents on 9/11 was a poor mother sheep's kick against the wolf who ate her son? YOU are the poor mother?

OBL: Exactly! (motions his attendant to replace the hookah; MJ shivers)

MJ: Again, we are never going to see eye to eye on this. You had other means of peaceful protest at your disposal. You didn't have to kill so many innocents.

OBL: It was the only way to make my point.

MJ: Weren't you seeking power by creating a global Caliphate? With you at the helm?

OBL: Yes, and we're going to succeed. And if I am dead now, or if I die in the process, other sons of Islam will grab the prick.

MJ: Grab the prick? (OBL and the translator talk animatedly for 20 seconds)

Translator: Sir. He meant to say "baton." Sorry, that didn't translate well.

MJ: The mother sheep wants to rule the world? It doesn't make sense, man. Anyway most Muslims are smarter than that anyway, they won't let your small minority hijack their entire religion and culture. I agree with Barack Obama: your ideas are morally bankrupt. True Islamic clerics themselves would say so.

OBL: We'll see who's right about that in the future.

MJ: Let me understand you. Why couldn't you achieve change through organized, peaceful means with the resources you had at your disposal?

OBL: I'm not like your heros Gandhi or King. I don't have the time or the patience for that.

MJ: You killed Muslims!

OBL: As you know, those Muslims who disagree with me on the 9/11 issue are not true Muslims at all. In fact, they are as bad as the infidels.

MJ: I doubt that the prophet Mohammad would have agreed with you. You think Mohammad's followers who disagreed with you, including the custodians of Mecca and Medina who exiled you, are wrong?

OBL: Yes. They are just as bad as the Western infidels; therefore they also deserve to die.

MJ: But don't you know that history is against you? That most of the civilized world is against you? Now that Bush is out of power, objective people will start hating your Al Qaeda movement more than they hate America. You'll get wiped out.

OBL: What a way to go. 72 virgins await me and my men who die for this cause.

MJ: That's quite a gamble to take; you have no evidence that your boys will get that in the afterlife. It's sick thinking.

OBL: So let's assume 100,000 civilians died in the American-led invasion of Iraq that you paid for with your tax dollars. That's okay? Compared to my mere 3,000 body count?

MJ: It's not okay; but they were collateral in an armed conflict. Saddam himself killed more of his own people. And for the record, I was against the Iraq invasion.

OBL: I had no love for Saddam. I begged the Saudi royal family to let me at him.

MJ: We can agree that guy was a prick.

OBL: Yes, he was quite a baton.

MJ: See, I knew we'd find something in common! (pulling on the pipe) I like this apple flavor.

OBL: You really think peaceful protests will solve the suffering of the Palestinian people?

MJ: Yes, if it was organized around the principles of democracy instead of terrorism.

OBL: You do not agree that Israel's agenda is one of oppression?

MJ: It's not their agenda. But terrorism puts those who seek draconian measures into power in the name of security. I believe in Israel's right to exist.

OBL: We can never agree on this then.

MJ: What's wrong with Arab peoples and Israel living side by side in harmony?

OBL: It can never happen.

MJ: I disagree. People of different backgrounds around the world live peacefully next to each other. America is the best example of that.

OBL: Even you oppressed the black population for centuries, built your agrarian economy on their backs.

MJ: We made some mistakes. Now we have a black president; we're on our way to improving that situation. America has progressed over time, we've had our civil rights movement, the sexual revolution, different forms of enlightenment of sorts. You've never had that.

OBL: We don't need it. We're fine the way we are. (signals attendant for third, and last hookah)

MJ: To me that shows a lack of education about the world, a lack of intellectual curiosity; a form of Islam that says even within your religion your way is right and everyone else's is wrong.

OBL: Exactly.

MJ: I'm starting to realize there is no point in talking to you about these things. You're not flexible in your thinking. I can try to understand your point of view but you'll never try to understand mine.

OBL: I'm just older and wiser than you. I know the way the world works and you don't.

MJ: Moving on. What do you think is going to happen in the Iranian elections coming up?

OBL: Shi'ites are a waste of my time.

MJ: So even though they're Muslim- you don't feel any connection to their issues?

OBL: They're right to want to wipe Israel off the map. And not much else.

MJ: Okay. We're obviously done talking politics. Let's talk about Abha, the town where I lived.

OBL: Beautiful city.

MJ: I agree. Among the most beautiful I've ever seen-

OBL: Great weather.

MJ: Yes, year round. Amazing mountain vistas. The most beautiful parks in the world.

OBL: The baboons.

MJ: Yes, the baboons who roamed the parks as if they owned them.

OBL: It's too bad you didn't join the good side, able young man like yourself.

MJ: I'm on the good side. I guess we don't have anything else to talk about.

OBL: No, we don't. Goodbye. I hope your hangover isn't too bad.

MJ: Goodbye. (escorted out of the cave at gunpoint. Takes an ornate hookah pipe as a souvenir in his flowing Arabian robe when the armed guards aren't looking- a small act of defiance in this crazy world)

The State of the Republi-can't Party

A part of me derives great pleasure to witness the pathetic state of today's Republican party and its American conservative movement in general. After all, the Chicken-Hawk cabal of George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, John Ashcroft, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, and their minions achieved a nearly irreversible degree of damage to the state of the nation, both at home and abroad. The unlikely victory of Barack Obama was entirely thanks to this dark period of the last 8 years. The sound defeat of the party at many levels of government in 2008 restored my faith in the American citizenry's ability to elect the right people into power at least when backed into a corner. The mess we have inherited is so bad that it could take many years to restore America's standing in the world. For these reasons I was happy to say goodbye, and good riddance when large sections of the White House and Congress packed up their bags and left, hopefully to retire for good.

Another side of me recognizes that a failed Republican party is bad for the country. I want to see the party come back, stronger than before led by politicians who have something to positive to offer the country. We are a nation of checks and balances, and Washington functions best as a cauldron of competing ideas, especially in times of enormous crisis like today. The Democratic party cannot have a monopoly on power and in fact is not capable of maintaining it anyway. The necessary political equilibrium can only be achieved with a healthy intellectual ferment on both sides of the aisle. Unfortunately, the Republican brand is currently an irrelevant horror show with the same tired old ideas at the forefront since the 1960's. The country has changed immensely and is in real danger of passing the Republicans by, especially when the party has lost sight of what its core values are supposed to be. That is why disillusioned red-blooded conservatives such as Newt Gingrich have made noises about starting a third political party.

What went wrong in the party of Reagan? 2008 was a watershed year which will be remembered by liberals and conservatives alike as the turning point when Republicans completely lost their way. There are plenty of reasons why.

Leadership, anyone? It will take mighty human beings to challenge the phenomenon of Barack Obama. Despite all the criticism (and my documented bromance aside) Obama is a powerhouse of a politician who ran circles against all Democratic and Republican comers that already had clout and name recognition and millions of dollars while Barry O was still drinking in his college dormitory. Critics also lose sight of the fact that by 2012 the economy WILL have improved on his watch, as will the situation in Iraq and Afghanistan, for the simple reason that these problems cannot get any worse mathematically. We have already spiralled to rock-bottom. Guess who is going to get the credit for getting us out of it? The Republicans are in serious danger of being completely irrelevant to this recovery, which could set them back a decade. So let's get started on the Rogue's Gallery.

Michael Steele - The Republican party is so behind the times and reactionary that they cannot seem to put forward their token minority or women candidates for office until they realize how popular the Democratic one is. Every one of these conservative tokens has been in haplessly over their heads. Barack Obama running for an Illinois Senate in 2004? Let's get a Reagan old salt, Alan Keyes, who's not even from Illinois, to run against him! Hillary Clinton got 18 million primary votes? Let's dispatch Sarah Palin to mop up those disenfrachised women! The Democrats got a black guy elected? Let's make our own leading black politician the new face of the Republican party as the RNC Chairman! There is too long a list of mistakes made by Steele to note here. Let me just hazard a guess that his concept of enlisting hip-hop music to garner black voters is as tone-deaf as Washington ideas come. That's saying a great deal. The RNC is utterly rudderless.

Sarah Palin. Thank you, Sarah; for not reading about the same issues that you are running on as a Vice Presidential candidate. For not knowing how to run a competent PAC. For not knowing that cities are part of the "real America" too. For blaming your foibles on the media. For running as a "maverick" when your political strategies are culled from a tired Republican playbook. I hope that you run in 2012; you are obviously a front-runner in your party and Charlie, you do fire 'em up, Charlie.

Dick Cheney. Please go away, sir. Go back to the (Jackson) Hole in Wyoming you came from and enjoy retirement. How DARE you emerge during a fledgling administration that was legitimately elected and say that it is making America less safe by dismantling policies that have threatened our security? When your incompetence allowed 9/11 to happen; when you failed to secure victory in Iraq and Afghanistan; and when you have helped lower our standing in the world by running your own shadow government that steamrolled the appointed government apparatus? When your Chief of Staff was indicted for outing a CIA official? Your words are not only in bad taste, they are downright dangerous. You had your chance to protect America, and you failed. Be a man and let your legacy speak for itself.

The pundits. I am struck by the dearth of good ideas coming out of conservative so-called intellectuals and other right-wing media figures these days. Histrionic cries of how we are turning socialist, about taxes being too high, about how we're spending too much on domestic programs and not enough on defense, how abortion and stem cell research and gay marriage are ruining our society, and whining about Obama's warmth towards Europe would carry more weight if they mattered in today's society. Evidence is piling up that the world has moved on since these issues were actually relevant. Obama is an attractive target for this gang, but there are no good alternatives being offered that I can see. It is very telling to listen to figures such as Karl Rove, Rush Limbaugh, Charles Krauthammer, or John Bolton with their righteous anger. They are understandably angry that their side has lost, but if they are to lead the intellectual ferment of the Republicans, God save the party.

So what's needed? I believe that you need a new generation of smart young people to take control of the ship who grew up sometime after the 60's and care about things that matter to conservatism's core: most importantly, real and sensible conservative fiscal policy as opposed to the lip service paid throughout the 2000's. This will be the most important role of the new Republican party; everything else on the RNC platform appears to be either indistinguishable from the left, or bankrupt. If you know of any impressive Repblican leaders, I'd love to hear about them. Because I don't see this new leadership ANYWHERE on the horizon. And I'm desperate to find it. It's unfortunate that the party will have to go digging in Barack Obama's scraps