The Christening of the USS New York

Down in Louisiana today, the Navy christened the USS New York. Named as a memorial to those who died on 9/11, the ship carries on its bow a shield made of steel recovered from the World Trade Center.

In previous eras, a ship named after a state would have been a battleship; according to Wikipedia this is the sixth USS New York. The first was a gondola built in 1776; the fifth was a veteran of both World Wars. This latest USS New York, however is a San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock - essentially a means of getting Marines to the battlefield. Memorializing the dead of 9/11, including those of the NYFD and NYPD, and carrying hundreds of Marines seems somehow fitting to me.

Shilling for Another Dem

So it was one thing when I was pushing Lawrence Lessig's potential Congressional bid (he's decided against running) because it was the California 12, bright blue Bay Area. Sadly we get another party hack in Congress instead.


Now I'm pushing a Democrat running in a district where he has virtually no chance. Why? Same reason as Lessig: credentials (and another reason). Mike Lumpkin is running in the California 52, a San Diego-area district that Bush won handily in both 2004 and 2000, and that current representative Duncan Hunter (perhaps better known as a presidential candidate?) has won without serious challenge for years. But it's also a district where 16% of the population are miitary veterans, and that's something Lumpkin is. Not just a veteran, however, an eight-tour veteran Navy SEAL with a master's degree in National Security and an emphasis on Low Intensity Conflict (otherwise known as counterinsurgency warfare). Sounds like a worthwhile addition to the House.

On the issues, he's a Democrat. He supports bringing the troops home (from both Iraq and Afghanistan?), but does not elaborate. Obviously this gives me pause. However, I'm also willing to let him explain himself - his issues section as a whole is still sketchy thus as a whole, I'm willing to give him time (again, not likely to win). In this he doesn't seem to differ from other Democratic candidates in the district, so his biography gives him the interest-factor edge.

There's another reason I find this campaign intriguing: the likely Republican nominee is none other than Duncan Hunter's son Duncan S. Hunter. For all my conservative, small-r tendencies, I'm no fan of hereditary politics. I'm not supporting Lumpkin, just throwing out there the fact that maybe we need to give hereditary candidates a better run for their money (ask Dan Lipinski about that one) - and maybe this just shows my Chicago roots.

I suppose I should also make mention of how I found out about the Lumpkin candidacy. To be brief, I was chasing down a rumor that a fellow named Eric Greitens was running. He isn't (at present), but he has endorsed Lumpkin. Again, Greitens is a fellow I cannot have less than the utmost respect for: he's a Navy SEAL as well, a Duke alum (bonus points), a White House Fellow (nothing like the White House Intern program, I promise) and a Truman Scholar as well as a Rhodes Scholar. In short, his resume is superhuman. If Greitens runs in the future, I'll be sure to make note of it.

Questions That Should Be Asked

A great NY Times piece today offers a slate of questions that should be asked tonight. I doubt any of them has been in the last 26 minutes or will be in the remaining 1:04.

My favorites:

1. Responding to a questionnaire from The Boston Globe on presidential power, you both criticized President Bush’s use of signing statements, with which he has asserted a constitutional right to bypass more than 1,000 sections of bills that he has signed into law. You both also said you would continue using signing statements, though in a less aggressive way.

But the American Bar Association has called for an end to this practice, and Senator John McCain says he will never issue a signing statement. Why are they wrong?

2. Both of you have said the Constitution does not allow a president to detain a citizen without charges as an enemy combatant. But President Bush won court rulings upholding the indefinite detention of two Americans as enemy combatants. Were the courts wrong? Does a president have the authority to interpret the Constitution differently from the judiciary? Would you ever use the court-approved authority to hold a citizen indefinitely as an enemy combatant?

3. Both of you have said that President Bush cannot attack Iran without first obtaining Congressional authorization for the use of military force. But two Democratic presidents, Harry Truman and Bill Clinton, ordered American forces into extended armed conflicts without Congressional authorization. Did the Korean and Kosovo wars violate the Constitution? Would an attack on Iran be legally different, and if so, how?

2. Samantha Power, one of Senator Obama’s chief foreign policy advisers, strongly criticized the United States in her book “A Problem From Hell” for failing to intervene in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda and for the three-year delay in intervening in the Bosnian war, until the 1995 Srebrenica massacre.

Saddam Hussein also committed genocide by killing thousands of Iraqi Kurds with chemical weapons in the late 1980s and massacring thousands of Shiite marsh dwellers in southern Iraq after the first gulf war. How could we have left Mr. Hussein in power? How can Senator Obama say that removing a genocidal killer was a “dumb” war?