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Gordon Cucullu- Contributor

Former Green Beret lieutenant colonel, Gordon Cucullu is now an editorialist, author and a popular speaker. Born into a military family, he lived and served for more than thirteen years in East Asia, including eight years in Korea. For his Special Forces service in Vietnam he was awarded a Bronze Star, Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry, and the Presidential Unit Commendation. After separation from the Army, he worked on Korea and East Asian affairs at both the Pentagon and Department of State as well as an executive for General Electric in Korea. His first major non-fiction work, Separated at Birth: How North Korea became the Evil Twin, is based in large part on his extensive experience in Korea and East Asia as a governmental insider and businessman. [website] [go to Cucullu index]

H & I Fire
Skirmish on the left…
[Gordon Cucullu] 12/14/04

One of the more annoying (to the enemy) operations is Harassing and Interdiction artillery fire targeted on suspected assembly areas, base camps, resupply routes and storage areas. It is a psychological as much as a physical threat to them because it keeps them nervous, off balance, and a bit paranoid. Using that analogy, let’s put H & I Fire on some tempting targets.

Alien Nation: We just got the news that former NY City Police Commissioner Bernie Kerik turned down Homeland Security primarily because he had hired a woman who might have been an illegal alien to baby-sit his children over a few-month period. Kerik may have other warts in his resume –the leftist press was digging hard, attacking him from all possible angles – but it seems likely that the affair over the nanny was the deal-breaker. Kerik has some rough edges, but his managerial and organizational skills are legend. He worked amazing things with a demoralized, despondent, almost dysfunctional New York City Police Department when he assumed the reins as Rudy Guiliani’s commissioner.

What is most irritating about this situation is that we won’t know how good – or bad – Kerik would have been in the position because of a triviality equitable to jay-walking. This entire nanny-hiring ‘scandal’ business has been permitted to persist for far too long and is costing our nation dearly in talent on both sides of the aisle. This foolishness began early in the Clinton administration in 1993 when Republicans in the Senate tossed Zoe Baird and Kimba Wood as candidates for Attorney General because of supposed illegal alien hiring incidents. While the GOP gloated about knocking out two qualified candidates the result was that they ended up with third-choice Janet Reno for eight destructive years, a classic example of the law of unintended consequences. The Democrats later responded by forcing extraordinarily well-qualified Linda Chavez to withdraw her nomination for Secretary of Labor under President Bush for similar frivolous reasons.

We need to regain perspective. The acrimony against the president has grown to such unbridled proportions that we are tossing people who are valuable assets to our nation – from both parties – for the silliest of reasons. These are things that could easily be explained and rectified. After all we ‘forgave’ Bill Clinton for perjury before a grand jury, which resulted in ultimate disbarment, a much more serious offense than any of these trivial hiring practices. Certainly the character and experience of high level governmental and judicial appointees needs to be examined, but the seriousness of so-called ‘offenses’ must be evaluated in a more balanced manner. We are squandering far too much talent by blowing these things way out of proportion.

The push for illegitimacy: News Flash! The election is still on! Now the Reverend ‘Jester’ Jackson is once more in the limelight. Jackson lusts for publicity like a vampire for blood. He will latch on to any cause, no matter how irrational, if it might halt his inexorable slide into obscurity and irrelevance. Typical for Jackson he drags the same old team of tired issues off the bench and onto the field. Racial divisiveness, victimization of blacks, denial of voting rights – the same things that he cribbed from Dr. King’s playbook in the 1960s and has never modified other than to add a dash of corporate blackmail in order to keep himself in groceries and real estate. After all, a man can’t pay for multiple households and illegitimate children’s support on chump change alone.

So now the suffering citizens of Ohio must endure more needless acrimony, bitterness and aggravation while Jackson preens, postures and pontificates. It has long been established by the Ohio Secretary of State (himself African-American, BTW) that the election results were legitimate. Every Ohio county has a bi-partisan oversight committee that certifies results. The few errors committed were caught on the spot and rectified. Moreover, it is now mathematically impossible to reverse the results. Nevertheless, the Rhyming Reverend irresponsibly exacerbates divisions that he ought to be helping heal, and continues to exploit the unfortunate people who depend on him most and look to him for leadership. For shame.

Had Enough Already? I have heard enough about ‘why the Democrats lost’ and ‘what the party needs to do to win in the future.’ We haven’t seen analysis this messy and muddled since the Oracle at Delphi pawed through sheep entrails spilled onto her altar. Even the Wall Street Journal has run a conveyor belt of op-ed pieces by Democrats moaning about everything from their candidate’s ineptitude (duh! Who nominated him if he’s such a jerk?), to Vietnam (JFK’s main running point), to Republican mean-spiritness (remember all those nasty ads comparing Kerry to Hitler?), and ‘values’ (Democrat code for ignorant, redneck, gun-toting homophobes from Jesusland who had the temerity to vote for Bush).

For my part, I wish the Democrats good luck. It would be nice to see them as a serious national party again, rather than a splinter of Hollywood, Manhattan, George Soros and wacko Internet bloggers. But if the party wishes to continue to marginalize itself and become more isolated then that is certainly its right in a free market democracy. After all nothing in the Constitution says political parties need to last forever. We’ve had other parties – Federalists, Whigs, Bull Meese (or Bull Mooses?) - come and go. If the Democrats select the fork in the road marked Extinction, that is their prerogative.

Just for goodness sake, stop blathering about it. Pick a leader (Howard Dean would be my favorite if Dennis Kucinich is unavailable), and go forward. If you wish to stare introspectively at your navels, go ahead, but the glimpse we’ve had is more than sufficient. tRO

Give those on your Christmas list a signed copy of Gordon’s book Separated at Birth: How North Korea became the Evil Twin. Readers say it’s timely, interesting, entertaining and informative.

copyright Gordon Cucullu 2004

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