Ozzie Myers in Iran

Reading about the "election" results in Iran, I can't help but marvel at the inexperience (or incompetence) of whoever was put in charge of fixing the results. Facing what was believed to be a close election, you don't report a 64-35 landslide, and certainly not before the ballots could have been counted.

A better role model would have been Mayor Richard Daley of Chicago, who in 1960 waited until the rest of Illinois had reported its results before announcing the votes from Cook County, which gave John F. Kennedy a margin of victory large enough to carry the state and the Electoral College. That shows a certain amount of subtlety.

The results from Iran remind me of south Philadelphia (and Democratic) politician Michael "Ozzie" Myers who, early in his career and before he was allowed to be elected to Congress (where he got ensnared in the "Abscam" sting and was sent to prison), was entrusted with the job of getting signatures on a nominating petition for a Democratic candidate. When the petition was challenged, it was learned that one of the "signatures" on the petition belonged to a voter who had no fingers.

Maybe after a few more years of democracy, Iran will learn how to fix an election the right way.

Is Bush Naive?

As recently as May 15, John McCain said that that Barack Obama's willingness to talk to Iran demonstrated "naiveté and inexperience and lack of judgment."

Now, it's been learned that the Bush administration is sending a representative to talk to Iran about its nuclear program.

So, is McCain going to attack President Bush as "naive" and lacking judgment? Bush is naive and inexperienced (despite seven years in office) and lacks judgment, but that's beside the point. This is an opportunity for McCain to show how "tough" and independent he really is, and it would be a shame to pass that up.

McCain could take his cue from former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton, who described the planned talks as "further evidence of the administration’s complete intellectual collapse.” And Bolton was considered a neoconservative ally of the Bush administration, having served as Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security for four years before President Bush pushed him into position of ambassador to the U.N. through an interim appointment to avoid Democratic opposition in the Senate.

The Iranian Nuclear "Threat"

In the most recent National Intelligence Estimate on Iran, the Bush administration reluctantly (and embarrassingly) admitted that the Iranian nuclear weapons program, which has been the focus of its policy towards Iraq, doesn't actually exist.

In the past, when asked about the possibility of military action against Iran, Bush has repeatedly said that "all options are on the table," and that the United States would use force against Iran if diplomacy failed.

And yet yesterday (12/4), facing questions about his own administration's assessment that Iran actually halted its nuclear weapons program in 2005, Bush repeated and confirmed his policy that "all options are on the table."

That's right, the President of the United States still holds out the possibility that we might bomb or invade a country that, according to our own intelligence agencies, (a) has no nuclear weapons, (b) is not building any nuclear weapons, and (c) has (as far as we can tell) no present intention of building any nuclear weapons, simply because that country might change its mind and start to build nuclear weapons in the future.

Is that crazy? Yes, but it is also consistent with a President who does not know how to govern or negotiate except through fear. Bush does not know how to negotiate with Iran except with threats, and Bush does not know how to lead this country without first trying to scare its citizens.