Quotations on Afghanistan and nationalizing the practice of medicine . . . Afghanistan Gen. Stanley McChrystal, commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan: “I believe that the loss of stability in Afghanistan brings huge risks that transnational terrorists such as al-Qaida will operate from within Afghanistan again.“ Retired Marine John Bernard, following the death in Afghanistan of his son, Marine Lance Corporal Joshua Bernard—on the U.S. mission there: “We’ve abandoned Marines [and soldiers by denying them artillery and air support for fear of killing civilians] in this Catch-22 where we’re supposed to defend the population, but we can’t defend them because we can’t engage the enemy that is supposed to be the problem.“

An imaginary conversation . . . Obama: You’re back. Yes indeed. Happy holidays, Mr. President. Aren’t you pushing the season a little? Not any more than small retailers—in the darkening economic gloom—trying to get a jump on the season to save their bacon. So is it the economy that’s on your mind this time?

On the landscape of happenings suggesting the direction of things these days, maybe you missed . . .

• That Democrats supposedly are “vexed” (in the words of at least one headline)—vexed—that the wacky group ACORN is receiving hefty infusions of cash from Big Labor, specifically from the Service Employees International Union. The connection—apparently a stunning revelation for leftists everywhere—currently is an issue in states such as Illinois, Kansas, and Virginia.

Another in a series of imaginary conversations with Barack Obama. Actual quotations appear in quotation marks . . . Yo Mr. President. Hey. I see you’re back with more questions. Questions are my bag, Sir—they just don’t go away. Two principal areas today: the Nobel and Afghanistan. May we start with the Nobel? Sure.

Wandering among issues currently in the news . . .

• The unemployment rate hit 9.8 percent in September—the 21st consecutive month of job losses. Since the beginning of the recession in December 2007, the U.S. has erased about 7.2 million jobs, including 4.1 million lost since the beginning of this year. Those jobs may have evaporated permanently. So it’s difficult to imagine the U.S. knowing a robust economy any time soon.

‘Sfunny in this hour of Afghanistan, Iran, North Korea, and Iraq that perhaps nothing tells us quite so much about the incumbent D.C. administration as its behavior regarding Honduras. The situation is this: Three months ago the Honduran military escorted the country’s president, Manuel Zelaya, out of the country in his pajamas. After the fashion of his ideological mentor, Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, Zelaya had tried to rewrite the constitution to serve a second term—with the anticipated next step of having himself declared president for life. As The Wall Street Journal notes in an editorial:

Barack Obama has rescued the nation—verily, the world—from economic collapse. He stands on the cusp of achieving higher quality health care at lower cost—for every American. Now he ROSS
MACKENZIE
is moving to extend his magic to matters foreign. Let’s see . . .

• At his direction, his secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, is doing her best to compel the new leaders of Honduras to violate their own constitution, under which the Honduran Congress and Supreme Court have removed the Castro and Chavez acolyte who was about to impose Fidelism on the Honduran people. Secretary Clinton et al. want the deposed president restored to power—after the fashion of American practice in, for instance, Haiti.

In his “Big Two-Hearted River,“ Hemingway wrote of his autobiographical Nick Adams: He was there, in the good place. We went wheels-up for our “good place” when, in this dubious summer of our discontent, the ayatollahs and newsbunnies of video and print began gushing in orgasmic rapture about the first six months of the Bush-blaming Obama presidency and the heavenly service of a certain late Massachusetts senator. Time to get out of Dodge.

Queries on curiosities in the news . . .

• In enthusiastically supporting the kooky health care measure approved by Madame Pelosi’s House Democrats, how can the gargantuan AARP—so often cited blandly as an advocate for senior citizens—be anything but a hard-left lobby?

• Which does contemporary American culture value more—merit or celebrity?

Ever wish you could chat with the president? Here’s how a conversation might go . . . Glad to see you again. How about a beer from the first post-racialist president? Mr. President, today could we talk not about race or health care, but about taxes? Sure. They’re one of my strongest areas. And I’ve been very clear. I told the Democratic Convention a year ago that “in an economy like this, the last thing we should do is raise taxes on the middle class.“

What’s Obamamania? Domestically, it’s a heart beating hotly for throttling American industry in the name of a cleaner environment. For “energy independence” without expanded nuclear power. For a “stimulus package” (etc.) causing (in, for instance, the fiscal year ending this fall) record-setting $2 trillion annual deficits. And for the government running “reformed” banks, insurance companies, automobile manufacturers, and the nation’s health delivery system with all the efficiency of Amtrak and the Postal Service.

Space and health, seemingly disconnected, join to provide important lessons about the nation. (In violation of a longtime columnar stricture against the first-person singular—in this age of the rat-trap of me, a stricture violated in columns and blogs and on television every day before breakfast—today’s column includes some personal references.)

Ever wish you could rap with the president? Here’s your chance—an imaginary conversation in an occasional series. Quotation marks indicate actual words Barack Obama has used . . . Mr. President, thanks for the opportunity. Happy to do it. What’s on your mind? Could we start with health care? You’ve said you want a plan providing improved care for reduced cost, and extending health insurance coverage to perhaps 50 million more Americans. You also want a taxpayer-financed public option to private insurance.

Comments by knowledgeable individuals on topics near and far . . . Republican Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, on Democratic plans for socialized medicine: “We should start over. We’re headed down the wrong path.“ Author and Hoover Institution research fellow Shelby Steele: “The Sotomayor nomination commits the cardinal sin of identity politics: It seeks to elevate people more for the political currency of their gender and ethnicity than for their individual merit. (Here, too, is the ugly faithlessness in minority merit that always underlies such maneuverings.) [Barack] Obama is promising one thing and practicing another, using his interracial background to suggest an America delivered from racial corruption even as he practices a crude form of racial patronage. From America’s first black president, and a man promising the ‘new,‘ we get a Supreme Court nomination that is both unoriginal and hackneyed.“

Does it make any sense, what Sarah Palin has done? Little that is happening these days seems to make much sense, particularly regarding the Republicans. But I mean, just up and resigning as governor of Alaska? All the experts say it’s the wrong thing to do. That it sends the wrong message—giving up on the only statewide elected post she’s ever held. That it confirms she really is the ditz they have suggested since John McCain vaulted her to fame.