To President Obama;

The millions of Americans who voted for you will likely sit down on Thursday and give thanks that you will be our nation's leader for the next four years. Our thanks will be added to you and your family's thanks for the same thing, I assume. We all sincerely hope you and your loved ones have a very happy Thanksgiving this year.

You will enter your second term as president with a full four years of on-the-job experience, and this too should be something America can be thankful for. If, that is, you have learned some of the lessons from your first term and make a sincere effort to change what needs to be changed in your second.

There are hopeful signs that this may indeed already be happening. The biggest lesson you should have learned from your dealings with Congress over the past four years is to not start negotiating from your compromise position. This is "Negotiation 101" -- any Union leader in the country knows this basic rule for how the negotiating game is played. If you want a trillion dollars, start by asking for three trillion dollars. Allow the other side to "talk you down" to one trillion dollars. That way you not only get what you want, you allow the other side to "save face" and claim they've gotten the better of you in the deal (since they can claim to their followers "we got Obama to cave on two trillion dollars that he wanted!"). This is basic, basic stuff but it was also the source of real weakness in your first term.

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I know I normally do this at the beginning of every month, but since it's Tuesday and since it will be an abbreviated week anyway (I may re-run columns on Thursday and Friday, just to warn everyone in advance), I thought I'd just point out something President Obama will doubtless be thankful for come Turkey Day -- his job approval ratings are up. Way up, in fact.

This should come as no real surprise, since almost every incumbent president gets such a bump from a successful re-election effort. But it certainly is notable for Obama, who has struggled since the beginning of 2010 to gain a positive job approval rating from over half the country.

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It's supposed to be turkey week, but instead I'd like to talk about the eternal game of "chicken" that our elected representatives in Washington keep playing. Because now I see not just Democrats talking about why going over the "fiscal cliff" might not be such a bad idea, but it seems Republicans are considering the matter as well. Which leaves me wondering: has everyone on the banks of the Potomac just gone stark staring crazy?

Both sides in this fight are advocating cheerfully flinging ourselves off the fiscal cliff for what is essentially the same reason -- so that their political party will gain leverage in the negotiations. With the Democrats at least it has a sort of rational logic to it, since all the "fiscal cliff" measures will take place if Congress does nothing -- therefore, Democrats think if they hold firm on their demands, then Republicans will be faced with a choice of bad or worse, knowing that the American public will likely hold them responsible either way. Republicans, on the other hand, are truly through the looking glass, and are arguing that if they wait until after the first of next year, then they'll be able to reluctantly vote for the Democrats' plan, but without breaking their pledge to Grover Norquist never to raise any taxes, ever. Because the tax rate hikes will happen automatically, they can just wait until after they happen and then vote for exactly the same result and they'll somehow still be ideologically pure.

This is flat-out insane. Or perhaps just incredibly self-serving and brutally partisan, which isn't a whole lot better. Because the world markets will react, and trust in the United States to self-govern competently will slip another big notch. In other words, there will be consequences beyond the Beltway, whether the uber-partisans want to admit it or not. But they don't seem to care -- the whole game of "chicken" is to see which side "blinks first" to avoid a perfectly-avoidable catastrophe.

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This is going to be a rather abbreviated column today. I'm struggling with massive computer problems, so even getting a short column out is going to be tough. This will probably restore some balance to the universe, as last week's post-election column was insanely long, I should mention.

But enough navel-gazing! What's in the news this week? Twinkies! No more Twinkies? Twinkie The Kid hanging up his spurs for good? Well, I can't say I'm devastated since the last time I ate a Twinkie was probably when I was a teenager, but it does seem to be what everyone's talking about so I had to at least mention it in passing, I suppose.

In politics, the media had a fun week traipsing through the underwear drawers of several high-ranking military officers. Republicans continue to obsess about the Obama administration's response to the Benghazi tragedy, while ignoring the fact that their party's leader not only reacted bizarrely to the story -- before the details were known -- but did so before the supposed Obama conspiracy even got off the ground. So what lesson are we to draw? Republicans are even faster at mis-reading a situation than Democrats? It's pretty easy to see who tried to politicize the situation first, which the American public has already realized and moved on from. Not John McCain, though, he's going to ride this pony just as far as he can (no surprise there, really).

The real news is happening behind closed doors, of course, as Congress absolutely must act before the end of the year or we're all driving over that fiscal cliff together. Or maybe it's just a "slope" -- this seems to be a new talking point from some pundits. Whichever... my money is on "nothing will actually happen until the last week in December, when a Band-Aid will be slapped over the whole thing and the can kicked as far down the road as the politicians think they can get away with." Not to mix metaphors, or anything, Sigh.

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Democrats in both the House and Senate have wasted no time in introducing bills to improve the process of voting in America, after some in Florida were forced by long lines to wait until 1:30 in the morning to vote. While these both are admirable in the goals they aim to achieve, I've got a crazier idea as to how to fix the problem than dangling federal grants in front of the states, in an effort to persuade them to modernize their voting laws and procedures -- change the presidential primary schedule so that the states with the highest percentage of voter participation in the previous election go first.

Instead of passing a law which would, in essence, bribe the states (in the same fashion as "Race To The Top" in education) to get their act together when it comes to voting, give them a positive goal to shoot for and let them figure out on their own how to turn their citizens out to vote better.

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In a way, I'm glad that David Petraeus's sex scandal is playing out across the pages and television screens of the mass media. Because one of the alternative ways it could have been handled is so much worse.

Now, I'm not normally a prude when it comes to sex scandals. In fact, I believe that America is still struggling to escape its own Puritan past, even after centuries. Politicians and high-ranking government officials in other countries treat mistresses and other sexual peccadilloes differently. If politicians and the public really don't care who is sleeping with whom, then there's no scandal and no possible means of blackmail -- which is the real heart of the problem, in many ways.

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I heard a profound statement once, circa about 1987, that perfectly showed how circular logic can sometimes happen in the real world. Or maybe a closed loop of "art imitates life imitates art." The statement was: "When people design 'futuristic'-looking things -- such as architecture, for instance -- they all tend to wind up looking the same. This is because we all watched the same science-fiction movies as kids." As I said, circular logic: movie-makers dream up "the future," then when we get to the future, we find it looks the same because we all remember what the future's "supposed to look like."

This is a roundabout way of introducing this column, by pointing out that we all saw the same Cheech and Chong movies, growing up. Which is doubtlessly why the governor of Colorado felt it was appropriate to send out the following as a response to the voters of his state approving marijuana legalization:

The voters have spoken and we have to respect their will. This will be a complicated process, but we intend to follow through. That said, federal law still says marijuana is an illegal drug so don't break out the Cheetos or gold fish too quickly.

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[Program Note: Yesterday was Veterans' Day, or (as it was originally called) Armistice Day. The following column was actually written for Memorial Day, but it tells the story of the forgotten nature of the World War I veterans who died in northern France almost a century ago, so I thought it would be appropriate to re-run on the day originally set aside to honor the end to the "War To End All Wars," at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. Just ignore the references to "Memorial Day" in the following, and it stands as a good reminder of one of the most brutal wars in all history. Normal columns will resume tomorrow.]

Originally published as "Memorial Day Thoughts," May 25, 2008

There is an American flag flying in front of my house today. I am not right-wing, I am not pro-war, I am not making a political statement of any kind by flying Old Glory. I was brought up to respect and honor the flag, but not to treat it as a sacred object. "Sacred" is in the realm of religion. The flag is not a religious item, therefore "sacred" is a word which just cannot apply. But while I do honor the flag, and the soldiers who fought under it for our country, I am appalled that it has become a politicized object, as if it belonged to only one political party. It does not. It belongs to all of us. It belongs to soldiers and pacifists. It belongs to those for whom America can do no wrong, and it belongs to those who only see the bad in what America does in the world. It belongs to an 18-year old leftist, voting in his first election ever, and it belongs to a cranky old right-winger who has voted since the Great Depression. It belongs to Democrats, and yes, to Republicans.

Never forget that -- the flag belongs to all of us, and many display it for many reasons, so don't just automatically make an assumption about anyone who chooses to fly it in front of their house, or for that matter, someone who doesn't always wear a flag pin on his lapel. Patriotism is an intensely personal thing, and it manifests itself differently in different people.

Now that I've got that off my chest, I'm going to cut this column short today, because while the true meaning of this holiday does not escape me, the barbecue still beckons. Ahem.

And after such a rousing, red-white-and-blue intro, I'm going to spend my time here in praise of the French (whose flag, it should be noted, is also red-white-and-blue). If anyone's got a problem with that, I suggest you stop reading now.

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Well, that was certainly a fun week, wasn't it?

Let's see... more Democrats in the House, more Democrats in the Senate, President Obama in the White House for a second term, Joe "You Lie!" Wilson was defeated, Allen West has likely been defeated, and Alan Grayson fought his way back to a House seat again. Oh, and I called every single state correctly on the day before the presidential election, too. So, all in all, a pretty good week!

But rather than getting all schadenfreude-y towards Republicans (although it is amusing to see the finger-pointing and recriminations on their side this week, I do have to admit), I'm going to be magnanimous in today's column. Instead of offering up advice to Democrats, this week I am going to offer up some excellent political advice to Republicans. Someone please forward this to Republican Party Headquarters, with the subject line: "How to save the Republican Party."

No, seriously. All kidding aside. I've got the winning issue that -- if Republicans were to jump on it right at this very moment, and get out in front and show some leadership -- could revitalize their entire party, save them from the brink of demographic extinction, and enormously boost their chances to win future national elections.

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[Program Note: I am taking today off and instead had to dig out a column from five years ago, because of one election result not many are paying attention to. Actually, I will be taking tomorrow off, but I'm spending today writing up the Friday Talking Points column, which will not only appear on schedule, but will actually appear tomorrow much earlier in the day than normal. But today I thought would be a good day to take a look back to five years ago, and a meandering prediction I made which, again, nobody really seems to be noticing in the media right now. I'll have much more to say on this subject tomorrow, and in the days to come. Because the American voters in Puerto Rico have just approved moving towards becoming one of the United States of America. This hasn't happened in two generations worth of history, it bears pointing out, but the media hasn't woken up to what it is going to mean yet. So, as background to what I'll be saying tomorrow, here's what I had to say five years ago.]

Originally Published June 17, 2007

In the midst of the immigration debate raging in both houses of Congress, an old chestnut has been revived by Republicans: declaring English the national language. The issue polls extremely high with the general public, and Republicans even passed an amendment in the Senate earlier this month by a vote of 64-33, which means a bunch of Democrats (17 of them) voted for it as well. A similar amendment is part of the debate in the House. My question to these lingual purists is: what happens if Puerto Rico becomes the 51st state of the Union?

This is one of those back-burner issues that comes up for a vote now and again (in Puerto Rico), but then "never actually happens" -- so Americans feel free to ignore it as a whole. Or, I should say, "Americans outside of Puerto Rico," since all Puerto Ricans are already American citizens. But every referendum that happens, the percentage voting for statehood gets larger and larger. While it shouldn't be seen as an inevitability, it should indeed be seen as a strong possibility. Say, within the next ten years or so.

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