This week prayers may not have been answered in full, but we were all witness to the beginning of the end of a war without end. Meanwhile nowhere in the print or electronic media is there any mention of the fatal flaw of the Romney and Hunstman presidential candidacies. Finally, the G.O.Tea Party follies continue as the former proponent of the secession of Texas from the United States, Rick Perry, ponders the timing for his entry into the race.

Crying in the Chapel

Last week President Obama announced a schedule for the withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan. If the schedule stays in place over 30,000 military personnel will have left that country by the end of 2012. That will leave approximately 70,000 troops remaining and President Obama said that they will be gone by 2014.
There are many Americans who never saw the need or the logic in having over 100,000 American troops in the Graveyard of Empires.

Most Americans regardless of their initial enthusiasm for vicarious combat have grown weary with a decade of death, outpourings of cash and the indelible feeling that nothing good will come out of this adventure.

There are logical reasons for withdrawing all the troops as soon as possible. The politics and logistics of the situation won’t permit such action, however. President Obama seems to be making the best of a very bad situation, and in this case we can only hope that The Force is with him.

Do You Want to Know a Secret?

Last week Jon Huntsman, the former governor of Utah and more famously, President Obama’s first ambassador to the People’s Republic of China. Having worked for Barack Obama for 18 months, Mr. Huntsman came away convinced that he could do a better job as president than the man who appointed him.

He is entitled to his flights of fancy but what is hardly mentioned is that, for the first time in American history, two Mormons are seemingly credible candidates for the presidential nomination of a major party. Within this generation Mormons refused African Americans admission to the church because of some presumed connection to the devil.

Followers of the Mormon faith were subjected to lynching and genocidal practices in the 19th century leading to their flight to Utah where there only opposition were the inconvenient Ute tribe, which was immediately dispatched. And, it should be noted that Mormons fought something very much like a civil war against the United States before grudgingly agreeing to become a part of the United States.

And now not one, but two Mormons are running for President of the United States and there seems to be assumption that bygones are bygones and that evangelical Christians whose forebears burned Mormons will not vote for a Mormon. The United States is a polyglot nation which still accepts change at a glacial pace.

One could observe that if a black man could be elected president then so can a Mormon. I would just suggest that someone might want to look a little more closely at this historic moment as opposed to dismissing it as irrelevant.

Because it most assuredly is not.

Let’s Get Crazy. Let’s Get Nuts.

The G.O.Tea Party, for all of its proclaimed revulsion at the mere thought of Barack Obama, seems to be secretly committed to his re-election. Candidacies that are doomed at birth, like those of Ron Paul and Herman Cain and Michelle Bachmann, are touted as legitimate contenders to wrest the Oval Office from President Obama.

And now, Rick Perry, the governor of Texas and successor to George W. Bush, has indicated his possible interest in running for the Republican nomination for president. And I am sitting wondering how a responsible government official who is on the record as suggesting that Texas consider seceding from the United States (you can look it up) can be a serious candidate for president of this country.

Perhaps Governor Perry can come up with a “spin” to explain his intemperate remarks –but if he is the best that the Republican Party can come up with as a candidate Barack Obama’s biggest challenge will be overconfidence.

Have a great weekend!