The Larry Kane Report

How much talk there is these days and how little courage. Democrats have been pushing the Bush White House hard to come up with a plan to leave Iraq but keep a powerful presence in the Persian Gulf.

Most of them have been cruising the waters of what I call “Middleville.” Middleville is the place where the opposition complains without genuine defiance and strength. Middleville is the safe haven of following the herd without offering really gutsy reasoning, without willing to stick your neck out to make a point.
Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania and Joe Biden of Delaware are two great exceptions.

The man from Pennsylvania charged that President Bush is not the sole decider on Iraq, as the President has suggested. Yesterday, Specter said, I would suggest respectfully to the president that he is not the sole decider.” He added,  “The decider is a shared and joint responsibility.” Specter’s statement was indicative of a growing anger by members of both parties that the President, who rejected the Independent report on Iraq, is surging forward into the civil war in that country.

Joe Biden, who announces for President today, was ahead of the curve months ago by demanding a full review of our strategy in Iraq. In fact, Biden was the only Senator to suggest a division of the government in Iraq, not by geography, but by three separate entities, Sunni, Shiite, and Kurd. Biden proposed that last Spring, way before the public rage over the conduct of the war.

For sheer courage, no one gets close to Arlen Specter in the United States Senate. For insight and clarity, Joe Biden is a leader among leaders.

There is a lot of hot air in Washington these days, but the two Senators from our region are lighting up emotional fires. That is what service is all about, especially when times are tough and young Americans are dying on a controversial battlefield.

The quest

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The word is spreading through the hallways of the Congressional office buildings in Washington. Democrats may follow up the proposed resolution against a troop surge with a move to cutoff funding and prevent the President from sending an additonal 20,000 troops to Iraq.

Will this work and does Congress have the power to stop funding for additional troops? First of all, Congress would never cut off funds for existing troops. But there is precedent for the cutting off funding for additional forces and that would be the historic Congress in 1975 that forced President Ford to end the war in Vietnam. This case may be different, because the President has already announced his decision for the troop surge in Baghdad.

In any event, this may force the country into a Constitutional Crisis, pitting the legislative branch against the President.

There is one aspect of the Iraq debate that many opponents of the war have not been communicating well. Most anti-war Democrats and Republicans want our forces removed from the civil war that is now going. But many in that group of lawmakers also want U.S. forces to remain in the region.

In fact, that insistence that American forces stay in the Middle East, has not been clearly sold by the opponents of the war. It is a reality that if our troops were removed from the Middle East tinder box, there would be the potential for Iran and Syria to boldly take advantage of the situation.

In the cloud of all this controversy, this reality has been basically ignored.

So, as we stand on the precipice of an historic battle over the powers of war, the great national debate about “what happens next” after iraq, has been buried beneath the headlines of the emotions surrounding this war.

Watch for more political fireworks in the days ahead.

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People are dying at a faster rate in Iraq, both military and civilian, in these early days of 2007. While the war continues, the candidates seem to be dancing and juggling on what to do next. Once again, this past weekend, few of the candidates dared to take a chance, carefully measuring their words on the war. Only Joe Biden and Chuck Hagel seemed to really speak their mind, in this case against the war. John McCain, who is for a continued military surge, at least tells us what he feels. To the rest of the candidates, with half-cocked views on the war, I say “Where’s The Beef” in your messages, as I repeat this commentary first posted yesterday. 

The news swirls around us offering so many contradictions in a society that is filled with conflict. During my trip to the State of The Union Address, I watched as the Congress filed in, upbeat and jovial as members of the Senate and House joined in conversation on the House floor. If you just looked at the faces, chances are you thought you were at a cocktail reception, without the cocktails, because the choice selection of the night was power. When a few war veterans filed into the gallery, my thoughts turned to the war in Iraq, as it does right now on as we discover that seven more Americans died this weekend along with scores of Iraqis on both sides of the bloody civil war.

And as war rages, so does ambition. Hillary Clinton is off to Iowa where John Edwards has spent almost every weekend the last two years. Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee wants to show the nation that a man who lost a hundred pounds has the will to run a nation. The nation’s best and brightest Senator Jos Biden is running hard. Many more wait in the wings, like the underrated and potent Bill Richardson of New Mexico.

Back in Philadelphia, Bob Brady, arguably the city’s greatest healer, announced for Mayor, now pitted against four other successful men. Unlike the Presidential sweepstakes, only five people are running for Mayor, so far at least. Philadelphia’s problems are serious and numerous and at least we know that the five who are running really care about the city. They have offered specifics, which is hardly the case on the national front.
Which brings me back to the huge cast of candidates seeking the Presidency. In their maze of contradictions and conflicting statements over the years, do they really care about the destiny of the nation or just about winning? Some times it is how you run that determines how you will govern. And frankly, with rare exception, I don’t see the emotions I want to see from these Presidential hopefuls. They seem more concerned about political positioning than about the victims of our current policies. I hear demands for a troop pullout, but very few demands that returning war veterans get the respect they deserve and the proper medical care from the government. In the midst of the concern of Iraq, I don’t hear too many of these candidates with any road map for IRAN, which poses a bigger threat to our security than Iraq.

As the President falters in his battlen to stay relevant, our great hopes for the future have not yet given us straight answers, preferring instead to deal in generalities that are politically safe. These include Clinton, Obama, and John Edwards who preaches populism but doesn’t say how he’s going to pay for it,
They say, in pro football, “Show me the money.”

I say to the candidates, as we enter the great national debate, “Show us your passion, deliver the truth about how you feel, and give us the real deal. The time for coyness, cheap shots and distortions is over. Americans are fed up with government that doesn’t listen and that deals in generalities.”

This is no time to be safe. Where the heck is the beef in this campaign? After all, people are dying.

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Bob Brady’s entrance into the Mayor’s race was real news this week. Then there was the fake news, further evidence of the decllining fortunes of local television news. The hype surrounding the temperature change was appropriate but to hear the forecasts of snow on Wednesday night and Thursday morning, you would think that the world as we know it was about to come to an end.

This over-hype continues to be a dangerous trend for local newscasts, whose audiences are not getting bigger, and who have major competition and serious problems, namely exaggerating and distorting reality so badly that viewers tend to lose their faith in these stations.

Let me make it clear. As a longtime veteran of the TV News wars, I never had a problem “teasing” viewers in hopes of getting them to watch the 11 o’clock news. That is all part of the arena of competition. But when you go too far by hyping weather that’s really not going to happen, you are playing a treacherous game with viewer loyalty.

All in all, Philadelphia stations are a little better than most other TV markets, but the weather scares are getting a bit much. The horrible deep freeze that we experienced today was worth alerting people to, but the unnecessary hype of the snow squalls yesterday was a joke, plain and simple.

Add to this the sense that local TV News doesn’t care about really big stories, and you have a prescription for lower audience growth in the years ahead.

Last Sunday night was a great example. I was watching Channel 6, the market leader. While the prime time show was airing, WPVI TV showed one of its graphics that promotes the 11 o’clock news. On a day when 27 Americans died in Iraq, the visual graphic said, “Duck Stuck in Fridge, Action News at 11.”

Did the duck get out?

I never watched. Like so many others, I browsed the internet to get the news of what happened in Iraq.

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I sat in the first row of the House gallery, watching the parade of Senators and Congressmen down below, knowing that the country’s fate rests in their hands and the power of the man at the podium. The President was gracious to new House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. But charm aside, this was serious business.
It was a fairly subdued House Chamber. The war hangs heavy over the government. The ruling Democrats were polite.The President seemed determined to steer the course toward domestic issues. The tax deduction for purchase of health insurance was a signal that he wants to take the lead in what could be the most important domestic issue of the next two years.

His remarks on alternative fuels were well received by both parties. It is a bipartisan issue. And reducing gas consumption by 20 percent over 10 year is a lofty goal.

What was most different about this state of the union was the muted applause on his plans for Iraq. For better or worse, new domestic programs or not, the war in Iraq remained the overriding issue in his assessment of the state of the union. He urged the Congress to give his new plan a chance, more of an appeal to the people rather than the Congress.

The State of the Union holds a tradition of giving embattled Presidents the opportunity to revive their administrations. And so it was that George W. Bush put on the proud face, defending his struggling war in Iraq and trying desperately to adopt converts to his domestic agenda. No one could argue for his call for funds for the war on terror, but you could hear a noticeable buzzing in the room when he tied the Iraqi war to the terror battle.

The newly empowered Democrats were polite, as they should be. members. Ironically, his domestic agenda might be helped along by Democrats who will want something to show for their first years in power.
IT IS AN IRONY THAT MR. BUSH NOW NEEDS THE DEMOCRATS TO SHAPE HIS LEGACY WHILE THE DEMOCRATS NEED HIM TO GET SOME OF THEIR PROGRAMS PASSED!

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