The Wrongologist

There is plenty that’s wrong today:  We could speak about Libya, Japan’s nuclear meltdown or, that Eric Kantor has shorted US Treasury notes, but the Wrongologist wants to report on the House passing funding for school vouchers in the DC schools last month.  The House passed two bills; one funds the DC school voucher system for the next 5 years at $20M/year. The second allocates $7500 per student for private or parochial school tuition.  They became law because House Speaker John Boehner put his weight behind them. These D.C. Opportunity Scholarships seek to give poor kids the wherewithal to attend private school.

What happened to separation of church and state?

Thomas Jefferson first articulated the notion that we should keep distance between organized religion and the government. In a letter to the Danbury Baptist Association in 1802, he wrote that he contemplates “with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between Church & State.”

The Constitution does not explicitly prohibit the government from providing funds to religious schools, but the Founding Fathers made it clear that the government should stay on one side of the “wall of separation,” and organized religious activities should remain on the other.

So what’s wrong?

Federally funded scholarships should not be used for parochial school tuition, but that is exactly where they are going:

 

According to the Catholic Standard, in 2008, 879 of 1,700 (52%) of the D.C. students enrolled in the voucher program went to Catholic schools.  The U.S. Department of Education reported that 80 percent of the voucher students attended religious schools in 2009

Boehner’s a good Catholic, he attended Catholic schools in Cincinnati, and has raised funds for D.C.’s Catholic schools. These bills are religious subsidies, plain and simple. 

(Full disclosure:  the Wrongologist graduated from a Catholic university)

Catholic schools may provide a strong education and give poor kids a way out. The truth is that D.C.’s Catholic Church has limited financial resources; it can only finance a few schools.

So the DC Archdiocese turned seven into charter schools and now turns to Boehner for financial help.  

Follow the money….When John Boehner attended Archbishop Moeller High in Cincinnati; his parents split the cost with the local parish. When his brothers attended, Boehner helped fund them. That’s the American way, where congregations and families helped their own get a religious education.

Now he is using your money to help fund Catholic students and that’s wrong.  Also, Republicans say that our budget deficit requires that we cut funds for public education at a time when municipalities are struggling to meet the needs of their public schools. So, he’s not just going against the Constitution, he’s funding  the wrong schools.   

What’s wrong today:

Yesterday the Wrongologist said that the US and NATO had really created a No Drive Zone, not a No Fly Zone in Libya since we were providing tactical air support to the rebel forces. Despite that, I said that we should back President Obama’s play unless and until we saw mission creep that would put us in another Middle Eastern quagmire.  It took 24 hours for us to start sliding down the slippery slope: The NYT tells us today     (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/30/world/africa/30diplo.html)  that our government is considering arming the ragtag bunch of 20-somethings that we call the rebels. The administration is seriously considering this because (1) we never simply had a humanitarian objective, we wanted Gaddifi gone,  (2) air support isn’t enough to get him out of Libya and (3) the French are pressuring Obama to agree to arm the rebels.

So here’s what’s wrong: nobody in our government knows any of the following: 

• Who we are arming?
• Will arming them be conclusive in an effort to oust Gaddifi?
• What will all the guns be used for once the revolution ends?

In fact, in an unintentionally hilarious comment, Gene A. Cretz, the American ambassador to Libya, is quoted by the NYT as saying that he was impressed by the democratic instincts of the opposition leaders and that he did not believe that they were dominated by extremists. But he said that there was no way to know if they were “100 percent kosher, so to speak”. (Emphasis by the Wrongologist) He might as well question their freshness.

And the French are pressuring us?  Last week, I heard the Obama doctrine described as: “What would the French do…?” I laughed. But it is no longer a laughing matter, it is the correct description of the Obama Doctrine.

And it is so wrong.

What’s Wrong Today:

The Obama Doctrine was unveiled on TV last night.  It was a workman-like job of outlining a rationale for spending more of our debt capacity on a third simultaneous adventure in the Middle East. The Wrongologist understands the President’s rationale and agrees with our actions to date, even though our previous efforts to save Muslim lives (Bosnia, Iraq,  Afghanistan) have not given the US an improved standing in the Arab world .

 

Turning over combat operations to NATO is a distinction without a difference:  Most of the military hardware is ours and the command and control apparatus is ours too. So what do we mean when we say we are now stepping back to a limited role? I suspect we are still in the driver’s seat, making most tactical decisions on a real-time basis. And I will bet you that all the big decisions will not be made by some combo sandwich of France, Turkey and the UK.

 

So here is what’s wrong: We are not enforcing a No Fly Zone, we are enforcing a No Drive Zone:  NATO planes have not simply kept the Libyan air force grounded and its anti-aircraft capabilities suppressed (what President Obama said we signed up for).  NATO has strafed Gaddafi’s troops and knocked out  tanks and other vehicles moving on the road to Benghazi. So the No Fly Zone instantly morphed into a No Drive Zone. It isn’t hard for a No Drive Zone to extend to close air support  for rebel irregulars. It isn’t far from that to air dropping weapons and ammunition to the valiant patriots or to parachuting in a few military advisors.

 

It is far from inconceivable that if air support doesn’t force Gaddafi out (after all, this guy has killed Americans), we will ratchet up our commitment to the anti-Gaddafi forces. That might bring about more deaths in a civil war backed by our coalition than could die if Gaddafi puts down the rebellion with extreme prejudice.

 

We have seen all of this in the past, and it isn’t hard to envision that it could happen again.

 

Americans also know about protecting the quarterback:  Our guy went about the decision to engage in Libya in a risk-adverse manner:  He lined up support in the Arab-speaking world, he got most of Europe to sign on, (Germany, please call us back) and got Russia and China not to veto UN Resolution 1973. He said the right things about how this one decision does not justify the US entering other nations under a cloak of concern about massacres. So Liberals, don’t be stupid and try to take down Obama just because he promised us he would not get involved in unnecessary wars. You may think this one is unnecessary. But that is a judgment call, and your President disagrees with you.

 

Let’s say for today, that we are going to back Obama’s play unless mission creep pollutes what was said last night.