Inflexibility

Remember just last week when Mitt Romney was ridiculed in the press last week for his anger over President Obama's remark to Russian President Dmitri Medvedev, inadvertently caught on an open microphone, that he could be "flexible" over nuclear weapons after the U.S. elections because Russia isn't considered an enemy anymore? Not so fast, buster! Other Republicans - and outgoing Independent-Democratic senator Joe Lieberman - have sided with Romney.  They still consider Russia to be a highly suspicious power, what with the aid the Russians have given Iran and their support of Syria . . . and, you know, some of the former Soviet republics and former Warsaw Pact countries (including, ironically, Poland) still don't trust them. House Speaker John Boehner angrily demanded an explanation for President Obama upon the President's return from Korea for his remarks to Medvedev. Obama has insisted that he only meant that he could negotiate over nuclear arms in better faith once election-year politics were no longer complicating the issue, and of course the Republicans are not buying that explanation. They think he wants to sell out America.

Meanwhile, psychologists who make a living writing books that try to explain why inflexible people destroy themselves will have their hands full trying to explain Keith Olbermann. The clown prince of liberal punditry was just fired from Al Gore's Current TV channel, and not because no one was watching Olbermann's "Countdown" - because no one watches anything on Current TV. Olbermann was fired for breach of contract, along with - among other things - failing to show up for work refusing to help promote the network, and also having less of a say in which shows preceded or followed his own. Geez, even Charlie Sheen never complained about what came before or after "Two and a Half Men" on CBS.

Disagreements between Olbermann and Current TV over coverage of the Iowa caucuses pretty much set the events in motion that led to Olbermann's dismissal. His own inflexibility was not the result of politics, national or office, but his own self-righteous arrogance. It has also resulted in Olbermann re-entering the job market for only a year or so after his similar prima-donna antics at MSNBC got him fired from that network, but with much fewer prospects than before.

Eliot Spitzer, late of CNN - possibly the only cable channel with lower ratings than Current's - has replaced Olbermann.

This growing inflexibility among both politicians and the media figures who cover them is why we have an insufficient health care law, why we have an ideologically charged Supreme Court, and why that same Court is likely to overturn that same law in June.

Nuclear Politics Go Ballistic

President Obama and Russian President Dmitri Medvedev signed a new and historic strategic arms reduction treaty in Prague yesterday, which seeks to begin a process toward the gradual elimination of nuclear weapons. The treaty calls for the reduction of 1,500 developed weapons, 700 deployed missiles and 800 deployed and non-deployed launchers. Furthermore, Obama has said that he is resolving not to threaten non-nuclear nations with atomic weapons as long as they have been proven to comply with international agreements involving nuclear weapons, so excluding Iran, even as he and other world leaders are trying to get Iran to stop developing a nuclear bomb.

So who on earth could be against this reasonable, balanced policy?

Oh, right. . . .

Well, the Queen of the Last Frontier came out against Obama's refusal to threaten non-nuclear states with the bomb, comparing it to letting a schoolyard bully hit you in the face without retaliating. But then she knows a thing or two about going after defenseless creatures.

It's not just Alaska's half-term governor emeritus who opposes Obama's nuclear policy, and they're not just against Obama's refusal to threaten non-nuclear countries with our arsenal. They're against the treaty itself. Many Republicans have charged that a large nuclear stockpile is not only necessary but desirable, as it's there to show other countries to think twice about messing with us. One conservative blog even compared it to male sexual prowess. "You see," an anonymous blogger wrote at AlterNet.com, "a nuclear weapon is like a large erection. George W. Bush’s foreign policy was like a large erection. Ally and adversary alike were cowed and impressed by these large erections. Obama is taking the blood out of our impressive foreign policy and system of deterrence. When it comes time to criticize a Democratic President’s foreign policy, the first thing is to accuse him of having a limp d**k."

This is the kind of stupidity that no amount of education reform can eradicate.

Commentary from these bullying high school dropouts notwithstanding, the treaty is expected to be ratified by the Senate despite a two-thirds majority required by the Constitution. Only eight Republicans are needed to join the Democratic caucus, and Senator Richard Lugar (R-IN), a leading figure on the issue of nuclear proliferation, is expected to use his influence to find enough support on his side of the aisle.

Republicans such as Olympia Snowe of Maine should support this treaty, and even Scott Brown of Massachusetts is a possibility for a "yes" vote. Don't expect John McCain of Arizona to be any help - despite his support for arms control in the past, he's facing a tough re-election campaign in his state's Republican Senate primary and may want to avoid offending the right-wing rank and file who likely oppose this treaty without having even read it.

And if McCain's old running mate should ever be President, maybe we won't have to worry about a nuclear war. Hey, she should get along with Medvedev easily - after all, their practically neighbors! ;-)