Overheard in the White House Military Office:

We need some new photos. So let’s send a 747 up to New York City, let it swoop around the city, real low. Oh, and we’ll give it an escort of two F-16 fighters, so that nobody gets alarmed. We’ll keep the mission classified, so nobody will even know it’s happening…right?

While we’re at it, let’s shoot off a huge fireworks display from atop a few skyscrapers. That’ll be cool.

Let’s do it without telling President Obama. Keep it a surprise. I’m sure he’ll love it.

I can imagine the 747 pilot, plus the F-16 pilots, all thinking to themselves, “This is a bad, very bad idea.”

I heard this morning, while traveling to Indy and listening to CNN, that Joe Biden and his wife gave a whopping 1 percent of their income to charity. An additional press release said they not only give of their money, they give of their time. Yeah, right. Like, 9 percent of their time?

I’m going to put a percentage value on the time Pam and I give to our church, and then reduce our monetary tithe by that much. 

Or maybe no. Because, Joe, that’s not BIBLICAL.

Today, dweebs and lawyers run the world. I’m a marginal dweeb. Put me in Medieval society, and I’d be very ordinary. Not strong. Can’t make stuff. If the Vikings attacked my town, I’d be one of the villagers killed while running toward the forest, an arrow in my back. I’d be one of the nameless millions starved under Stalin or Mao. But as it is, because of what our current society values, I have a good place, and Google knows my name.

I think of the minions toiling in construction, logging, and in steel factories–able-bodied men, big, rough-hewn. In centuries past, they would be the warriors, the hunters–important people. Mountain Men. They didn’t need to be smart or articulate. They just needed to be big and fit. I look at some of the people in my church struggling to find a job, and with no education to put on a resume. Some of them might have made excellent Vikings.

Warren Buffet made this point to Barack Obama several years ago. 

After becoming a senator, Barack Obama was summoned to Omaha by Buffet. The billionaire wanted to talk about tax policy–specifically, why Washington kept cutting his taxes. He told Obama, “If there’s class warfare going on in America, then my class is winning.”

Obama writes about the visit in The Audacity of Hope.

Buffet told him he’d done some calculations. “I’ll pay a lower effective tax rate this year than my receptionist….And if the President has his way, I’ll be paying even less.”

“Effective rate” has to do with deriving most of your income from dividends and capital gains, which Bush reduced in 2003 to a mere 15% rate. Meanwhile, the receptionist was taxed at nearly twice that rate.

Since Reagan, tax policy has increasingly favored the wealthy. It’s something Jesus would condemn, but most Christians seem okay with that, since it’s a Republican policy.

“It just makes sense that those of us who’ve benefited most from the market should pay a bigger share,” Buffet said.

And then came this wonderful insight:

I happen to have a talent for allocating capital. But my ability to use that talent is completely dependent on the society I was born into. If I’d been born into a tribe of hunters, this talent of mine would be pretty worthless. I can’t run very fast. I’m not particularly strong. I’d probably end up as some wild animal’s dinner.

But I was lucky enough to be born in a time and place where society values my talent and gave me a good education to develop that talent, and set up the laws and the financial system to let me do what I love doing–and make a lot of money doing it. The least I can do is help pay for all that.

Rudy Giuliani was on Morning Joe, criticizing President Obama for not talking tough with Iran. I thought his messages have set a good tone (but what do I know?), and that seems to be what most people think. But Rudy, of course, knows better.

Years ago, when Muamar Gaddafi of Libya was in the news regularly, you would see his name spelled all kinds of ways. His name contains sounds that lack any exact English equivalent (the initial sound is like a throaty k, like the German pronunciation of Bach, and the middle sound is similar to the English th, but with the tongue pulled back further behind the teeth). So, how to spell it? News sources used all kinds of variations, such as:

• Gaddafi
• Khaddafi
• Gadhafi
• Qaddhafi
• Qaddafi
• Kaddafi
• Qadaffi
• Kazzafi
• Qathafi
• al-Quadhafi
• Quathafi
• Gheddafi
• Khadafy
• Qudhafi

That’s the short list. So Americans, entrenched in their vacuum, debated back and forth on the proper pronunciation. Then someone asked, “How does the Libyan press, when publishing in English, spell his name?” Well, they aren’t in accord, either.

• Libyan Embassy in Washington DC: Col/Muammar Elkaddfi
• Libya Online: Muammar Al-Qathafi  
• Libyan American Chamber of Commerce: Muammar Gadafi 

Then the Big Man himself settled it. Turns out said Big Man responded to a letter from some American second-graders, and he signed his name this way: Moammar El-Gadhafi. I would say that’s somewhat definitive. Though if you check Wikipedia, you’ll find that they insist on al-Gaddafi. Whatever.

My point, in a tediously roundabout way, is: how do Arabs feel about Barack Obama’s approach? Forget Rudy–he’s not the target audience (nor is anyone in America the target audience). Nor are any of the professional pundits infesting TV news. How do Obama’s messages come across to Arabs?

Queen Noor of Jordan, one of the classiest persons on the planet, came on Morning Joe after Rudy. She was asked about the same issue. Her response: it is not diplomacy to talk with aggression and confrontation. That, she said, does not work. She thought Obama’s speeches, from the inauguration on, have struck the right tone.

This is one of the problems with American news: we just have a bunch of pundits (usually WASPs) sitting around spouting semi-informed or totally uninformed opinions (but faking it well). They go from show to show discussing the Topic of the Day, as if they are authorities on everything. They aren’t. And we shouldn’t take their pronouncements so seriously.

People like Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Laura Ingraham, and Ann Coulter have no credibility with me, because you’ll never hear them say anything positive about Democrats. No matter what Democrats do, it’s wrong. And if something does go right, it did so in spite of them.

That’s just not how the world works. Democrats do good things, and Republicans do good things. And both do stupid things. There are good motives, and bad motives, on both sides. When someone can acknowledge that, they have credibility in my eyes. (That would be you, Joe Scarborough, Pat Buchanan, David Gregory, Bill Bennett, David Gergen, and even James Carville and–this pains me–Karl Rove.) When they can’t admit anything positive about The Evil Opposition, I write them off as hopelessly partisan. As cemented in a Cowboys and Indians mentality, Good Guys and Bad Guys. As seeing the world in black and white, and unable to recognize grays.

So I appreciate what Mitt Romney said the other night at a GOP fundraiser. After criticizing Obama’s budget, he said, “”I also think it’s important for us to nod to the president when he’s right. He will not always be wrong, and he’s done some things I agree with.”

He will not always be wrong. Did you hear that, Sean and Rush?

For standing up to the auto industry, Romney said, “I hope he continues to be tough and shows some backbone, because that industry is not going to make it unless we have real backbone and get those guys to fundamentally restructure all of their obligations.”

And of Geithner, “I think he’s finally getting close to the right answer.”

Hearing stuff like this, I really don’t think Romney would say, “I hope the President fails.”

Different subject: Notre Dame came under fire recently for inviting Obama to speak at Commencement, since it’s a Catholic school and Obama is pro-choice. I voted for Obama, knowing this was an area in which I disagreed with him. I’m glad the pro-life crowd is creating a ruckus here, just as a good reminder to Obama.